Wie Leila Hormozi ihr Denken auf Erfolg trainierte

0:00Anytime you have somebody who's really good at something, they also usually have a pretty strong deficit on the other side. And it's like to wish their deficit away is to wish away their strength. Right. And so, I think for the two of us, we've accepted each other's deficits and almost find them endearing. Mhm. And what So, what is your deficit? I am not the most flexible person. You know, sometimes I can't help but, you know, Alex say books a meeting and I'm like, "Well, why would you put that meeting there? Because if this meeting is right before it, then you're going to need to do this and 15 minutes in between." And he's like, "Oh my god, woman, can you stop?"

0:30Yeah. And Alex is very his, you know, downside or, you know, the the deficit is that he tends to always uh he tends to think he's right more than not. I'm Leila Hormozi, CEO of acquisition.com and you're on Behind the Brand with Brian Elliott. Everyone, I'm Brian. Welcome to another episode of the show. Leila, thanks for having us back to your world headquarters. I appreciate it. Yeah. The uh Hormozi Nation uh world What What are we calling this? The executive boardroom? Yeah, the executive boardroom in a place that is unknown and we will not speak of.

1:09It's undisclosed. We're in a secret location. Um I usually ask my guests, "How did you get this job?" Interesting. Um well, not by going to school. Um I started with really no experience. So, actually got into I went to school for exercise science, um which proved to be pretty useless. Um you know, learned a lot about human physiology, but didn't learn a lot about business. And then quickly I knew that I wanted to uh leave my hometown. So, I lived in Portage, Michigan, pretty small town. Um I moved out to California because I was a big like Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn. They all said, "Move to California. That's where all the successful people are." So, I was like, "Of course I need to go to California."

1:55Um so, I packed up my little Prius. I drove out there. Uh, I got like an apartment which ended up being like in the ghetto, which is why I could afford it. Um, and I went and I mapped out in walking distance where the closest gym would be. And that was because I had a degree in exercise science. Again, useless, but not for this. Um, so I figured I can get a job at any one of these gyms that I can walk to. So, I went and I applied. I got a a job offer at I think all of them. Um, Which you did.

2:21And then I picked uh 24-Hour Fitness actually because it was the quickest one that I could make money at. And I had like $5,000. I just moved out there. My rent was like 1,200 a month. And I was like, I need to make money immediately because that's just rent, right? I have to eat and all that. Yeah, put a time stamp on this. So, what year are we talking about here? I I want to say this was like 2013. Maybe. Okay.

2:442013. So, we are we're basically uh six five six years into or coming out of the recession '08. Things are getting better progressively. Um, it's all about Facebook and Instagram at that point in terms of social. Snapchat is starting to become a thing. Yeah, it was a thing. It was a thing.

3:08Um, what else is happening in 2014? Uh, where in the country where in California did you move? Uh, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach area. Okay. Yeah. I know it well. Those are my stomping grounds. Yeah, you know the 24-Hour Fitness in the triangle there? In the triangle square? Yeah. You're kidding me. Yeah, that was it. Okay. Yeah. That's a hot spot. It is a I didn't know that. Uh, the first time I walked in, I kid you not, and this does not happen there all the time, but I'll never forget, you know, coming from Michigan, it's like people working out at the gym, sweatpants, hoodies, whatever. I'll never forget there's a woman sports bra with little shorts and high heels walking on the incline on the treadmill.

3:43Mhm. And that just like set the tone for the next chapter of my life. That kind of says everything. Yeah. Yeah, so for people who don't know Southern California, I mean, there's little pocket communities, right? And like you said Costa Mesa, but that's really kind of old Costa Mesa, new Newport Beach or old Newport Beach kind of right around on PCH kind of by Hoag Hospital, if you know the place. Triangle Square was uh a super cool new development back in the late '90s and it kind of fizzled out cuz they had a big huge Nike Town there and that was like the cool thing. It was and it was big retail shopping, but it kind of failed. But oddly enough, that 24-Hour Fitness, which is a tiny little hole in the wall, I know exactly where it is. The parking is terrible. It's super crowded.

4:26So, when I was single, we used to call the people who went there, uh they had a very high degree of talent. Which meant they're very attractive. There's just only attractive people coming out of there. Remarkable. Like, where are these people coming from? Yeah, it was weird. Weird, right? Yeah. But like that was a spot. Yeah, cuz especially coming from Michigan, it was like what was a 10 in Michigan is like a like a four. Newport Beach. Okay, it's a weird It was interesting. Yeah, a lot of beautiful people there. Okay.

4:55Okay, so luck or maybe fate that you ended up being pulled into that place. Right. Um so I got pulled into there. Um quickly learned that, you know, I needed to understand marketing and sales because they basically handed you a clipboard. They're like, go get 15 referrals and then come back. And that was like your job interview. And I was like I didn't know that was supposed to be hard or or not or what. They were like, go ask people. And I was like, sure, whatever. What do I have to lose? I just moved all the way out here. Were you saying upselling like training and um No, this was like we we didn't have the job yet. They just said, take this clipboard, go get the phone number, go get referrals from the people that are already at the gym Oh, I see. or whatever. Go to Whole Foods across the street for new sign-ups.

5:35Um which and I remember I did that and I got I think I want to say like I got short of the goal. I got like 12 or something like that. And uh while I was doing it, I just remembered two girls sitting on the sidewalk in the entrance way under the parking garage crying holding the clipboards and I was like what's wrong and they were like I'm not going to ask strangers for their phone number. Okay. thinking to myself girl I got to eat you know like I'll ask a stranger for their phone number. So I think it was really out of um I want to say like desperation or you know desire to succeed like I just moved out there that I was able to quickly learn the skill of sales first um and then marketing to actually have a sustainable career in the fitness industry.

6:16Yeah. So do you think let's go back in the chronology a little bit to young Layla. Did you know uh what you wanted to be when you were thinking about growing up like what what did you aspire to be when you were much younger like elementary school or even early on do you have signals? Uh I wanted to be a veterinarian or an actress so neither. Okay so say more like veterinarian what's I loved animals so I think growing up I had like 20.

6:43I had like I think at one point we had like I don't even know how many cats like 10 cats like two dogs I had two lizards I had like three hamsters a guinea pig two crabs like I mean it was literally like a zoo. My grand dad was a parasitologist and so he had wild animals he'd keep in the house like he would have an alligator in the backyard. He had a raccoon this is also Louisiana so you have to keep that in mind. No judgment here. Right right. Raccoons are adorable. They are cute until they bite you. They're a little hands and yeah they're scratchy.

7:12Um and then so that's why I liked animals and then on the other side I think uh I just liked entertainment like I liked making people laugh I liked making jokes I liked seeing people smile so like only child? No youngest. Okay so that maybe is a indicator of where that might have come from. No no pop psychology here but that's common in in the in the baby of the family yeah. They want attention.

7:38Yeah they have to fight for it you know from older siblings. How many siblings do you have? A one. So you have one older sister. Sister, okay. How how many years apart are you? Six. Okay, that's a pretty good little distance though. It's not like you're competing. Interesting. Yeah, I know, not really. I'm I'm a I'm a firstborn. Okay. So that's there's a lot about firstborns, too. They're more independent, you know, step into a parenting role, all that kind of stuff. I'm interested I'm interested in psychology, so I study a lot of this. I don't know how much of it's accurate, but it's yeah, nonetheless.

8:11I don't know either. Okay, so um but did you get signals then? So you wanted to maybe be in front of the camera and you like to making people laugh? Um which is sort of like little glimpses of maybe customer service-y kind of like sales-y kind of um skills because you've got to be able to help people out, take good care of them, make sure that they are having their needs met, that kind of thing.

8:38Maybe. Um you know, I think like what I wanted to be when I was a kid versus I think like that was all when I was younger, like if I really think about it. Um and then after my parents separated, I think everything kind of changed. Like my personality changed, my dynamic, because they were very much like helicopter-y parents. Um and then it turned into like the opposite. And then me learning how to take care of myself at a young age, and I think learning how to be resourceful uh to a degree.

9:06Yeah, relatable. That happened to me, too. My My mom was married um three times before I was 16. So yeah, you you have to kind of be the responsible adult in the room. Yeah, exactly. And and I've listened to a few of your things, hearing a little bit about you accidentally or just falling into trouble a little bit. Yeah, so 18. So that makes sense. Okay, so you're out here, you're on your own, you got to make things happen, it's sink or swim.

9:34You basically, you know, hustle your way to the sales. You It's do or die. Yeah. Um where did you go from there? Um I decided to try and take all the clients I had and bring them to a private facility. So, it's kind of like the traditional like you see nowadays like the trainer takes people from the gym and they go to different gym. Um because I felt like I didn't have enough autonomy and I finally understood what was next. Like they tried to get me to be a manager, they wanted me to move up and I was like, I don't want to do any of this. And I was like, managing people sounds awful. Um little do I know.

10:05And I wanted to understand marketing. That was the biggest piece is like, you know, right at that point working at a gym like that, you're going out, you're going to Whole Foods, you're going to, you know, across the street, you're asking people for their friends' phone numbers to get leads. It's like door knocking. Exactly. It is 100%. And so I was like, this is hard. I want to understand At that point, Facebook was taking off and I was like, I want to understand Facebook marketing. And so I had heard about this gym that was in Southern California that was apparently the owner was just like a phenomenal leader. He was fantastic, he understood exercise, he also understood marketing and sales.

10:36And so I felt like I could learn a lot there. And so I took my clients, I went there, and I agreed to like teach group cleaning training classes there while I also brought my clientele. Um and the goal was I wanted to learn marketing and I wanted to also have a little bit more autonomy in terms of like my time cuz it's 24 hours, it's a little different. Um and so I did that um but I quickly learned that it was not any easier there cuz they they didn't use Facebook and I was kind of like, this would be we should try it, you know. And I think at that point they weren't quite they were newer, they weren't quite ready for it, they were already growing organically.

11:10And so there to get clients like we would route out the neighborhood of businesses and we would go to the businesses like myself and another trainer for example. And we would bring baskets of whatever I would make like protein cookies and things like that with like little things that said like free pass and we'd give them to the businesses. Yeah. And so it was honestly just more of the same. Yeah. was the same kind of like door knocking, you know, getting leads type thing. Yeah. Can I Can I ask you a quick question cuz it's on my mind?

11:37Yeah. Um marketing versus branding. So, a lot of people talk about marketing, you know, I want to do marketing. In your mind, what's the difference between marketing and branding? I think when I think of marketing, I think of the efforts to acquire customers or attention. And I think of brand, I think of what you're known for. So, it's almost like brand is dictated by the person receiving the you know, material. And I think marketing is like the act of attempting to do that. So, it's like marketing in a way creates brand, whether for the good or bad. I think that I would have cosigned that. Yeah. And cuz I think that um advertising is a function of marketing.

12:17Yeah. And as Alex would say, advertising is to make known. Um and, you know, part of the marketing activities is to whether you're canvassing the street, the neighborhood, handing out um protein goodies, um or, you know, hitting people up in the aisles of Whole Foods, you're making something known. Known. Yeah. And you're doing marketing activities. Yeah. And then people form an opinion uh based on how they interact with you, and that becomes your brand. Mhm. Yeah, I would agree. The brand sits in the hearts and the minds of other people.

12:46Yes. I mean, you can you can walk the talk, and if it's aligned, that's ideal. Yeah. Right? If you say you you know, if you are who you say you are, then that else is aligned. But sometimes it's not, and that's where you run into trouble. Yeah, I think that most more often than not that way. Okay. So, um you wanted to learn marketing. It wasn't happening at this gym cuz they were either old school or they just weren't into it. Then what happened? So, then I was competing at that point in terms of in bikini competitions, which were like just starting at that time.

13:16The division had just uh opened. Okay. And this is for people who don't know this category. Yeah. This is not like um something you do at the beach. This is like fitness competitions. It's Yeah, it's a fitness competition. You know, it's a technically a sector of bodybuilding. However, it's the lowest for women. So, it's it's more of a like a beauty {slash} fitness competition if anything. Yeah. Um so, I was competing in those. I had a coach that was online and I was working with her. And she said, you know, I know you're doing all this stuff, but like why don't What if we partnered? And I was like, "Wow." She was making a very good income online. Thought to myself, like if I could make that, I would be like that would be amazing. What were you making at the time, by the way? Ish.

13:57When I was at 24-Hour Fitness, I was making more. Like I think I was making maybe like something like $8,000 a month. I think per month cuz that's what I thought it was. Yeah. Uh and then I think when I went to this new spot, I was making like $5,000 cuz I like cut my prices, people had to move. I started taking their teaching their group classes. I wasn't like taking as much time to sell and have my own clients because I But I knew I was like, I wanted to learn. So. And you were you were in your 20s at that time? Yeah, I think I was 22. Okay. So, 22 making six figures I would almost six figures, right? Like just under 100. Not bad.

14:28Yeah. No, no, it was not at all. In the beginning, I mean, like and but you have to understand like I I was there for 14 months before I left. So, it was like short and sweet and, you know, that was it. Okay. But um And you uh were you in relationships? Uh were you were you just focused on work? No, I was not in relationships. Um The context behind that question is um I know a lot of people who are watching this, they feel like they've got to choose between you know, what are they There's like three choices like, you know, you can have friends, you can have relationships, you can have a successful business, you know, whatever. Choose one of those, choose two of those and not all of them. Was that your mindset or were you even thinking that way?

15:10I think that I you know, I had been in a pretty low spot prior to maybe like the two years prior to moving there. So, I had been drugs, alcohol, I I getting arrested all the time. Yeah. Um You're messing your life up. Yeah, and I felt like at that point, I was like, I just need to work on myself because at this point, anyone that's going to date me is not anyone I want to date. And so, when I moved out to California, I was like, I'm trying to better myself so that when I do want to date somebody, it's actually somebody I would like to date as well. Yeah. So, that was kind of my focus at that point.

15:42Um Well, they say that you end up being with the person that, you know, is your equal in some ways or you compromise, but Yeah. Yeah, so if you're trying to become someone, you know, you're thinking of this aspirational partner. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I wanted someone who was ambitious, career-oriented, they had their own life. So, it wasn't like a dependency thing. Yeah. Um So, I uh she this online woman that was training me, basically, helping me with the bikini competitions, she proposed that. So, on the weekends, I started helping build almost like a an online portal, which back in the day was very novel to have an online portal with training information, all these things in there.

16:20And that was what I did on the weekends and during the weekdays, I was training my clients and teaching classes. Mhm. So, hustling and just working. I Yeah, yeah, I didn't do anything but work. Um and I didn't really have any friends because I just moved there. Um And most people drank or something, I was trying not to, so it was like, you know, I didn't really want to be around it at that point. And and maybe we'll just give a little bit of the back story. I mean, you basically turned your life around. I mean, you have said and shared pictures on I've seen them on Instagram where, you know, you were this kid who was not in shape and then you grew into this young woman who realized her potential and wanted to be something different and completely turned things around 180°.

16:59Yeah, I It's not like you were always doing these, you know, No. competitions and you, you know, born with perfect genetics. God, no. It was none of that. No, no, no. I was like like transformation. Yeah, I was like nerdy kid, chunky, fat, not the best like never bad at school, but never the best. Like I was just like mediocre, I guess. Um And then I think it was hitting that low when I let myself get to you know, just incredibly overweight, drinking all the time, partying all the time, doing drugs, you know, not surrounding myself with people that I wanted to be, you know, that were conducive to anything productive in my life.

17:35Um and I'm really grateful for it because I don't, you know, I think when I think motivation is created by lack. And so it's like the more you lack something, the more you feel motivated, right? That's like if if somebody is just eating and they're not hungry, right? There's no motivation to eat because they're already full. Right. Um and I think I was I had so much lack in my life because of all the things I had done to myself that that's what created the fuel to turn everything around. Yeah. Um and go so far in the other direction. You know what I mean? It wasn't like oh, I'm going to go like a few steps and like, you know, just lose weight. It's like I'm going to lose weight, I'm going to compete in these competitions, I'm going to build an insane career. Like I just had so much motivation to go so much farther. So it almost felt like a slingshot. Yeah. Isn't it interesting though that the momentum goes both ways?

18:17So like when you are starting to slack off or maybe not eat right or neglect exercise or start to indulge in something you shouldn't, it just gets easier and easier and easier to do that and then all of a sudden you're at rock bottom. Mhm. But then the opposite's true. You start like you quit all that stuff and you're like, "Well, you know, I'm doing all this working out, I now need to eat right. That doesn't make sense." And then, "Well, I need to do this instead. I need to, you know, it's just it That momentum goes both ways. Mhm. For better or for worse.

18:46I think it's almost confidence, right? It's like you do one thing and then you believe you have the confidence to do the next thing. It's like, "Well, if I can work out, I can also eat a little bit better. And I can also make these better And I think the same goes in the opposite direction. Oh, I'm a piece of [ __ ] I didn't eat right yesterday. Might as well not go to the gym." That's just, yeah. Yeah. 100%. So I was at this weird inflection point where I was like, you know, I've known for a long time since I was like 15 that I want to start my own business. I didn't know what it looked like. I knew it was something in fitness. Um I'm kind of just like I felt like I was like my eyes were closed and I was feeling around. I was like, "Okay, is it am I going to start a gym? Is that what I'm going to do?" Like now I understand how to fill a gym, how to have clients, all these things. Like I could do that or I can partner with her and do this online business.

19:28And I was at that inflection point when I met this guy on the internet um named Alex. Okay, 2015-ish. Yeah. Okay. Um or maybe 2016, one of those. So, met him. Uh it was a random Bumble date. So, it was it was on Bumble. I'd been going on dates for 18 months. So, you have to understand. All right, so help me and I I don't understand Bumble because I I met my wife early Okay. and I didn't have to use Bumble or any other but so explain how Bumble works. I mean, I sort of know, but like explain it for people.

20:01So, you get on the app and it's basically like for a for a woman, this is when I was on it by the way. It's been like 8 years, so I hope they've progressed. Um you know, basically you come on and it says you've got it'll a screen pops up with a picture of a guy, says like his name, his age, and location. And it's, you know, swipe left or right depending if you don't like him or like him. Yeah, so Bumble's the woman's choice, right? Yes, and the the difference between Bumble and Tinder is that Tinder, guys can message a woman if even if the woman doesn't like them, right? Which means like on Tinder I had like hundreds of people. It's disgusting, right? And it's all like it's gross. Yeah. Uh Bumble, unless I also like the guy, they can't message me. And then I have to actually initiate the message. Yeah, so it's like double opt-in. Yeah, exactly. Just feels safer for women. 100% and that was what I was looking for. So, I felt like, "Okay, I don't feel like that scummy of guys are going to be on Bumble." You know what I mean? Right. So, what did he look like?

20:51I mean, was he the full-bearded uh king that he is now or was he like the no chest What What was he like? He was like no chest hair, Young baby young baby face. Uh I remember the picture was him standing in a pool like shirtless with sunglasses on. Okay. it said under his profile was something to the extent of like own four gyms business and like bourbon or something like that.

21:16Okay. And I Still kind of a player move. Totally. But I was like, okay, he's really cute. And then business, he owns four businesses and he says he likes business. I was like, I love it. Like it's he put that first which was said something, right? Motivated, ambitious. Yeah. And he had lots of pictures of himself lifting weights and that was kind of my profile, too. So I was like, okay, he likes working out. He likes we have common interests. Mhm. So I swiped on him messaged him probably said something very awkward.

21:43I'm not very like good at the I'm like, hey, what's up? Like I don't I don't know. Um and he quickly was like, let's get off this app. Can I call you? And I was like, okay, yeah, absolutely. Cuz I what I hated was when the guy takes so long. You're on the app and he's like asking you questions on the app and you're like, are you going to freaking ask me out on a date? Yeah, well, he's probably vetting, right? Like looking for red flags and vetting all the I guess so, but I'm just like it's just it's just kind of like a feels like a waste of time, right? For me at least it was like I have 30 minutes on my lunch every day where I'm like swiping and talking to them and then besides that it's it. So I was just like, let's go. Um and he called me. I was like, sure, here's my number. Calls me and he was like, I figured that we could just get our first date out of the way on the phone.

22:21And I was like, yeah, let's do it. And he literally asked me and I asked him like all the questions you would ask on a first date. Like parents, do you want to have kids, what do you see for your future, what do you like to do? Like all that stuff. Are you guys about the same age? Uh he's uh two years older than me. Okay, so about the same age. Yeah. Mhm. Two years older for a guy is about your age. Yeah. Uh two to five years older. Yeah, exactly. Well, he felt like it was enough of an age gap. Um so, you know, we had that conversation and then he's like, do you want to meet for a froyo tomorrow? So he was in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach area, too? Yeah.

22:56Okay. Yeah. Um and I said, sure. And then tomorrow came and I remember wanting to not go. So I like texted him and I was like I'm sick I can't go. And he called me and he was like you're not sick. And I was like what? He's like you don't sound sick. I'm like no I really I feel awful and he was like I don't care it's fro yo you'll be fine. And I was like wow okay. Yes. And I was so used to being the assertive one and I'm like no I don't want to go on a date or I do. I was just like it was almost refreshing to have somebody who is like Called your bluff.

23:26Yeah called my bluff. I was like hmm okay. So you're type A. Yeah. And he's type A. Yes. And so you respected that As a type A. Yeah. Yeah. Um So I go we end up meeting for fro yo and I'll never forget like I I was there first and he was like I'm going to be a few minutes late and I was like great. Uh good first impression right because I'm very timely. I get there like 10 minutes early. Oh okay. And he comes he walks in from behind sits down and he's like you want to go get some fro yo? That was like the first thing. I was like Yeah. No smile nothing.

23:58And I'm like remember we go in we're in line. I just kept thinking to myself like does this guy even like me? I'm like did I say something wrong with him? I'm like I I make sure my pictures are not overly inflated so that in person I look just as good. Like what is this? And we go in there we get the fro yo we come back we sit down. Turns out later when I was 18 I got my whole back tattooed. And when he walked up he saw the tattoo. And he told me later he's like I saw that tattoo and I thought to myself Oh no.

24:26Red flag. Red flag yeah. Um Can you talk about what it is? It's wings. Okay. Giant angel wings on my back. I mean kind of metaphoric. That's kind of cool though. It was yeah. I mean What does it mean? Uh she flies with her own wings. So it was like when I was 18 like Honestly nothing really. It doesn't mean anything to me anymore. So I could kind of see like the independence or the That's what it was supposed to Yeah you're taking flight leaving the nest you know becoming an adult. But it was really probably not the best idea. So, it's fine. It was in a period of low judgment. So, yeah. So, um you know, we grab FroYo, we start talking.

25:05And I think what was so great was just it was finally like I was having a conversation that I was somebody who I felt like I shared the same reality with them. Your intellectual equal. Correct. It was like we're talking on the same playing field. I didn't feel like in many of the conversations either I felt like the guy was like, "Can you shut the [ __ ] up and just be cute?" Or I felt like I was much more uh ambitious than the guy. Yeah. Um so, it felt like those were what I was getting and this was not that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was very interested. Um we ended up walking for like 4 hours together. Um and that was really our first date was just we talked and walked for like 4 hours.

25:43Um and it was so odd because like at the end of it, cuz we talked about business most of the time. Like sales, marketing, gyms, cuz that's what we were both doing. Mhm. Um by the end of it he was like, "I really like you and I'm really interested. And I also think you should work for me." You You were in a Alex Hormozi interview. Job interview. Yeah. And I was like, "What?" And I just remember I was like, "What are you talking about?" He was like, "No, no, no, I it's it's fine. It's fine. I just, you know, I felt like even if this doesn't work out, you Yeah. Although, it's funny now, getting to know him a little bit better, just the short time we spent together in the last couple interviews, um ti- efficiency is a thing, right? So, he was he was like killing two birds with one stone. Mhm. He was, you know, uh dating you as a prospect, but also job interviewing and you know, all these He was dating He likes to make sure that people have high utility.

26:29Yeah, but just the efficiency of it all, it just is so Alex, okay? I'm with you so far. This is great. So, you know, um I'm like, "Eh, dude, I just met you. Like I have things going on. Like I have my own stuff going on. I don't really and I don't want like another job, so no." Um he's like, "All right, all right, all right, it's fine." I mean, it's pretty gutsy on the first date. Everything about the first date was pretty gutsy, so I mean Yeah.

26:55Yeah, that's pretty bold. Yeah. Just to throw it out there. He is bold. Um And so, you know, we went on more dates. Um And it was like, you know, the best way I can describe it is just like I didn't want to stop talking to him. I was like, even if we don't end up dating, I just want to like hang out with this guy. Like, I just really like him. Like, he's interesting. Yeah, we have a lot of stuff in common. We have a lot of the same perspectives. We have a lot of same viewpoints. We both are really interested in the same things and learning the same things.

27:20Um and it was like very clear that both of us were ambitious and had our own lives, if that makes sense. Mhm. Um And so, I want to say about 3 weeks in, we'd been dating, and he kind of just kept poking it. He was like, we should just work together. Like, I want to start this business, and he kept saying, he was like, I want to start this business, but like, if it's just me, that's not a business, and it doesn't work. But like, if you're here, and you have the skill set that works, like, then it's a business, and we know it actually works, and I don't want to do it alone. And I was like, I don't know, man. Mhm. And um then it was about a week later, he went and the idea was essentially like, because he was so talented at opening up these gyms, or skilled at opening up these gyms and filling them up so quickly, he was like, we could go do that, and like, you have an equally, you know, you're equally skilled at sales. I can sell. Like, we could both go out to locations, basically fill up people's gyms for them, and they would pay us. And he was using Facebook, which you wanted to use, but no one else would.

28:17using Facebook, and he showed me how to use it, and he showed me all that, and I was really interested. I was like, He was like the guru, probably. I mean, I was just what was mind-blowing to me was like, how hard I would work for 20 names and phone numbers, and then I would have to call them and work the lead and all that. And I was like, you can just get 20 in a day from $5? Like, this is insane. And I was just like, this is crazy. This makes my life so much easier. And so, actually, he did come and to the gym I worked at, and he was like, I can set it up. And I was like, please. And so, he came and he set it up, and they turned it off the next day.

28:46Oh, jeez. So, I got one of the founders to agree and then the other one was like, "No, no, no. Turn it off. Like, we don't want to do that." And I remember I was like, "Uh." And that was kind of what sealed the deal in the sense of I was like, "Man, I really want to learn this. And like, it can it can really help this gym. And we can get so many more customers so much faster. Like, why would we not do this?" And that kind of then like start sewing seeds of doubt in my path there. Yeah. The tipping point for the others. Right. So, then I'm like, you know, talking to him and I'm, you know, I really think I can just do this online thing with this girl. And trust me, to this day, she's amazing.

29:16She was great. But he's like, he looked at me and he was like, "Why?" He's like, "I can just tell you're the person that does all the work and then other people take credit for it." And I was like, Ding, ding, ding. I mean, who doesn't want to hear that, right? Yeah. Um But it was true, right? Yeah. I mean, I was doing a ton of work for free, not really doing like there's nothing monetizing. Um just out of like, you know, I wanted to I didn't know much. I wasn't experienced. So, it's like that was I was there to learn.

29:40Yeah. I I want to just underscore just something that I'm pulling out, which is I mean, there's false modesty. Like, oh, you know, oh, no, no, no. I'm not this or that. But like, when you really are good and you're like and you know you're the best, I mean, you don't want to brag about it, but there's no shame in owning that, right? There's no shame in leaning into that and be like, "Hell yeah, I'm the best." I tend to be uh insecure over uh inflated of my skills. So, I just I do default to that. And I think that's something that he pointed out from like day one. He's like, "You underestimate how good you are." Yes. And um it's still like weird to say that out loud, honestly. Well, of course, cuz you have humility and you're a good person.

30:23You have integrity. But like, the message I want people if they're struggling with this and sometimes it goes as far as this imposter syndrome, right? They really they really are great at what they do, but like they feel like they don't belong or they have no business doing that because no one, you know, gave them a license to do or gave them permission or Yeah. them this. But like, if you're really good and you know it and you know by the the fruit that it bears, then own it and it there's you know, nothing to be ashamed of. Yeah.

30:50No, I mean, I don't disagree with that. I think a lot of people like at that point, I had no context to know if I was good. Does that make any sense? Like what I was doing, it was like there was nobody It was such a new concept in terms of like building anything online. And also like in terms of say you know, actually I'll be honest, it was a little bit of doubt because I was one of the best sales persons. I was like, "Oh, it must be luck." No, no, no. You had signals and you had results and those speak for themselves. That's that's my point.

31:18Yeah. I get what you're saying. And I I'm a big signal person cuz and I speak from you know, regret a little bit cuz sometimes I've missed signals in my life that I haven't listened to my intuition, my gut and I think all of us if we really listen to that intuition, we know what we should be doing or what we should not be doing and as we listen and and you know, are prepared to recognize those single signals when they come, it can help us make good choices. Yeah. Whether that's business investing, starting or stopping a business, starting or stopping a relationship, you know, signals are really important.

31:54Yeah. Well, I didn't um I don't think I knew how to read any of that at that point in time. I was just trying and I was honestly, I think stress sometimes blinds you because I'd moved out there. I didn't know anybody. I was just trying to make enough money to live out there and I didn't want to fail and so I was just so focused on the task at hand. I didn't really think about any of that. Like in pure execution mode, not much thought to it.

32:18Um but you know, I I expressed to Alex that I was like, I think it makes more sense to do this with her and he kind of said that to me. And I was like "But I feel like she like she wants what I want." He was like, "What's that?" And I was like, "I just want to help people. Like I truly genuinely have always just wanted to make people's lives better." Mhm. That's your veterinarian roots. You just want to You're a caregiver. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like Emery said this. He was like, "What if you could do that and make more money?"

32:46Yeah. Lightbulb moment. Lightbulb moment. And it really was for me. I was like, "Wow, I am really That is all it is. Like, I'm so focused on helping people that I actually am preventing myself from making more money." And then, you know, of course, the solution that he's proposing is that, you know, come do this with me. Yeah. So, there's some bias, but also another lesson that I'm extracting from you right now, which is another good one, is this idea of the false dichotomy or false choice. And And you fell into that trap like I have, too, which is it's either this or it's that. But guess what? You can help people and make money. Ta-da! Like, there's It's It's a false choice. And often times, you can have both or several. It's not one or the other. Okay?

33:27And I had a lot of assumptions that I think were rooted in, you know, like my upbringing, where I like just what was social like What were you socialized to believe? And I think that I was still in that mode. Like, I was coming out of it, but not fully. Yeah. And there's your Tony Robbins, right? These self-limiting beliefs and the scarcity mindset stuff that we've all been talking about recently. Yeah, and I think I assumed My assumption that was so false was that it was going to take a very long time to get as good as I want to get. And I think that that was where I underestimated if I was my full focus and I was just obsessed with the thing at hand that I could get really good, really quickly. Mhm. And so, that was what I realized because, you know, then essentially what I did was I decided to do it with him. You know, he was like, "I want to start this company I'll gym launch. Like, I want you to do it with me."

34:18And so, that was probably the choice that changed everything because I left all my clients. I cut my roster. I I think I converted some to like online clients cuz I was like, I you know, I got to have something coming in cuz what if this doesn't work? Okay. Um and then left my apartment, got rid of my lease and everything and flew out to Baltimore, Maryland to launch a gym with Alex. And the deal was that I was going to sit with him at the first one and watch what he did and like learn everything. And then the second one I would do on my own and then we would split ways and go and do it on our own.

34:56Divide and conquer. Divide and conquer, yeah. Um and I don't think I could have anticipated what would have happened from that point on. You know what I mean? Like I was like, I remember making the decision, I was like, no matter what, I will learn so much whether it doesn't work or works, like it's worth the experience alone. Yeah. Did you have money in the bank? Like did you have a safety net, cushion? Like Like a couple thousand dollars, yeah. So you you're living hand to mouth.

35:21Again, it's pretty gutsy move. You know, you're in your early 20s. Yeah, but the thing is I'm like, what's the worst case? Like I end up back at my dad's house. Okay, so you feel like that's you had, you know Like that would be awful in my mind, but I'm like, I will not go hungry. I have friends, I have family, I have some money and I have the ability to make money. So I was like, I can just go get a job at a gym again. It's not a big deal. Yeah. Can I ask you this too? Um compared to back then you're significantly further ahead now.

35:52Mhm. Is it harder to start something new now um because in theory you have farther to fall or is it easier because you have all these resources you know, a significant amount of money in the bank? Easier or harder today than it was back then? It's easier because I don't care nearly as much as I cared back then. Mhm. And what does that mean? I was so concerned with how humiliating it would be to fail.

36:19This is This makes no sense, right? But I was like, my family, high school friends, college, if I failed, they're all going to see. Yeah, cuz you announced I'm going to do my thing. Yeah. And I think that I'm just now to a point where I don't care so much if I fail, because I also trust myself enough to get back up. And I also know that I am graceful in my failures. And so I think I have that trust in myself.

36:49Um versus before I didn't have that. Do you think how much what percentage of that anxiety was manufactured by you, and how much of it was reality? Like if you had failed, and you'd come back tail between your legs, whatever, and you had to be like, I need to live with you, Dad. What what percentage did you make up in your head to be scary versus the actual reality of it? I mean, I think that the reason I was able to make the jump is I identified that all of it was made up in my head. Yeah. That's my point. It's like Yeah. I I mean, I still do that today.

37:22It happens a lot. Yeah, I catch myself. Exactly. And I think it took me longer to kind of work through that back then. And now I think I'm just much faster, which is like, well, that's not a good reason just cuz you think you might feel a certain way. You're scared of a feeling, you know, or judgment. They call it fortune telling, right? You know, no one knows the future, yeah, but you try to fortune tell or forecast the future. I mean, maybe something bad's going to happen, but most likely it will not, right? And that's where a lot of this, you know, angst or fear, you know, kind of stifles us. I think it's also just more bad things have happened, and I've dealt with them.

37:56And I I don't even tell myself like it might not happen. I'm like, it could definitely happen. Okay. But you can also deal with it. Yeah, I mean, that's that's about having calluses, right? That's like, you know, going through hell and back several times and be like, okay, I've been burnt, but now I got I'm I'm torch proof now. I'm good. And I think it's also like looking at it in terms of if the worst thing happens, it's not going to make me worse. If anything, I've used every other instance in my life to make me better, so why would this be any different? I'm like, "Wow, think of all the skills I'll I'll gain if I have to go through that."

38:28Yeah. So, I think I look at it more like that is I I kind of trick myself and like, "That would be such an opportunity to become a better person if it does happen." Not that I want it to, but Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's a tremendous tremendous mind shift power. I mean, that's that's powerful. If you're able when you're able to do that. Yeah. I don't I mean, I think it takes training over time because it's like the first voice that comes in is like, "That would be awful and terrible. We don't we want to avoid that at all costs." And I think I've just gotten like quicker at combating it with, "No, that would be a great opportunity for you. Yeah, what a good challenge. That would really help you become who you're trying to become."

39:01Yeah. And so, it just gets the two voices like the the space between the two get shorter and shorter over time. But it used to be like it might be like first one and then it's like days and then it's like a day and then it's like hours and then it's like an hour and then it's like 30, 40 and then it's like 1 minute and then it's like 10 seconds. Yeah, and so again, you know, for extracting lessons um if you're in a hurry to get through or get over what you're going through, sometimes it just it's a process of you know, that you need that experience.

39:35You need to try trial and error. You need to try and fail or get up again. You need to learn and it just takes time. You You have to earn that. You can't just, you know, wish that whatever you're going through is over. You have to, you know, go through experience and then then you have learned from it, but you can only do that by being on the other side of it. Yeah. I think any kind of change is a it's a process not an event, right? So, it takes time. I just say that because uh we're talking with people of all kinds of different experience, you know, and ages too and it seems like the younger people I talk to they they want things more immediate. Of course, I did too when I was young, but it's like All right, so you're 18, you want to be the VP. Okay, cool.

40:18Um okay, let's let's go through this process first. I mean, if you've got the chops right now, by all means, you know, step into that spot. It's not about age. It's about, you know, whether you've got the skills. Um but it's like sometimes you just have to pay the dues. You have to learn the lessons in order to get to the mindset that where you are now. I would agree. Okay, so you're in Baltimore. Um what happened?

40:45Well, the first day that I was supposed to watch Alex and like that was like my first training day. It was going to be like, all right, let's train for 2 weeks and then you can try something. Um we had like all these sales appointments booked and he was going to teach me like, here's how I pitch people and like what we do for these gyms or whatever. It's different offer. And he got a phone call from a friend. He's like, I really got to take this. And I was like, the guy's coming in 10 minutes. And he was like, I think you've got this. Oh.

41:11And I remember he just left. Did he set you up? Was it delivered? No, he said it wasn't. Oh. Um he's like, I just knew you would figure it out. Hm. Yeah, he's like the master delegator. Um that's what I like to tell him. Okay. So, I remember there were eight people coming in back-to-back. The first one that come came in, you have to understand, we're selling in this gym that has no equipment, nothing, boarded up windows. Yeah. for a gym that's going to open.

41:36You got to be freaking out. out. First guy that walks in, cop. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to jail. Yeah. I know this isn't illegal, but then I'm like thinking to myself, like, maybe this guy is scamming me this whole time. This guy from Bumble, like, maybe I'm getting screwed. Like, he laughed. Like, now there's a cop here. Like, who knows? The cop didn't buy, but everybody else did. And he came back hours later. I'm like, I still don't know what this phone call was. And I think he set you up. Yeah, probably.

42:02not set up, but just like he had so much confidence. Okay, so uh fun fact about me. So, I have this skill, too, where I am not that great at anything, but I can see the talent and skill in other people. Mhm. And so if I'm sort of projecting that on Alex, too, like it's so if that's his mindset, he already knew that you could do it, and maybe you were lacking the confidence, and he just wanted to give you that little nudge. Yeah. And like forced you to do it. Yeah, he's great at that. I think that's probably what happened.

42:28Yeah. Um and so then from that day on we we just split everything. It was like, "Okay, people are coming in, we're going to split the appointments, split the work, whatever." Um and that was the first gym we launched together. It was in Baltimore, Maryland. And then we split up, and it was like I went to a different gym, he went to a gym, and we started launching gyms. And it worked well when it was us. Um you know, we made a lot of money off the gyms. They got a ton of clients.

42:55Um but we were exhausted. Um and it was a ton of upfront investment to pay for their marketing, uh the hotels, the flights, the everything that we had to do, right? their business. 100%. Yeah. And so at that point we were like, "We need to get people to do this, and we need to centrally operate it." And so we're like, "Where do we find employees?" You know, and at this point, you know, we're like traveling around the country. We don't really have like a home or anything. And I was like, "Oh, my I keep in touch with all my friends from college. They're all like the top sales people at MLMs. I should call them."

43:31So I call them, and I'm like, "Listen now, this is how much money I'm making. This is how much money you could make." You know, I'm selling them on the opportunity. Yeah. I get five of my friends from college to quit their jobs and agree to uh it was going to be January 1st flying out to launch five gyms, each of them on a different location. But it was kind of a sure thing in your mind, right? In my mind, yeah. I was like, "This is great. Like we've got this." Yeah, I know. On repeat, yeah. It was going.

43:56And we started building out, you know, training materials for them, schedules, you know, management systems, all that kind of stuff. And it was about a week before the launch that we went to go see my parents and for Christmas. And Alex shows up I remember I had a dentist appointment. And this the first time he met them? Uh-huh. Okay. So new guy New guy bring him my parents have always been like Layla does whatever Layla wants. Like she's always making weird decisions, right? And so I'm like this guy's coming back to me is when I've been quit everything find my job whatever and they're like okay and my dad's very accepting so he's like that's what you want sweetie. I just want you to be happy.

44:36be happy. Yeah. Um and so we come there and I remember I was like listen you have to go hang out with my parents while I go to the dentist we'll meet you we're going to do a movie. It's like Christmas Eve. And he shows up to the movie and my dad comes up to me and he's like Layla he's like this guy is so stressed and I was like why is he so stressed? And he was like I don't know he's like you should ask him what's wrong with him. And I like walked up to Alex and I was like you look awful why are you sweating? We're like sitting here and um He was like the bank processor shut us down.

45:06I was like And I was like well that's not good. Yeah. What what did that mean to the business? It meant that we could not take money. And my friends had all just quit their jobs and four days later are supposed to be flying out and we're supposed to be fronting hotel flights and marketing expenses. Mhm. And I'm like oh that's not good. So then we have to sit through this two-hour movie and I remember taking Alex's pulse and it was like it was like 120 and I was like oh my god.

45:33He's just sitting there resting heartbeat at 120. stressed. Yeah. And I think I think you know when you're going through these things it's like you become whatever you need to to help the other person at times so it's like I I could remain optimistic and neutral during those times. Yes. Even though I was obviously not I mean I just asked all in my mind that's absolute horror is like I just got people to quit their jobs and I might not be able to do it. Yeah. But you became the yin and the yang you became that other side. Yeah.

45:58Okay that's pretty cool. Yeah and So you know we're sitting we go back to my parents' house. We're in this room and we're like, "What should we do?" And we're like, "Well, there's the credit card from all the gyms that you had, and it's got like a $100,000 limit." I remember Alex like took out the card and he was like, "We've got to use it." And I was like, "Yeah, there's really no choice." And uh Okay, wait. Pause. A $100,000 credit limit on a credit card?

46:25Yeah, per month. Cuz he'd had so many gyms. Gold or was this like Okay. actually an Amex Gold. Um it was because he had at that point, when he had left, he had five gyms that he was putting all the expenses on this card. So, over years had upped the limit. Okay, I got you now. Yeah. So, a that's a decent credit limit, yeah. 100%? Um and I remember he's like, "We we can use the card. We can put it all on here. So, we just have to make sure we make it back." And I was like, "You have 30 days to do it."

46:50Who's got 30 days to make it back? Yeah. And Yeah. And I remember that moment he was like, "Listen, I'm a sinking ship." He's like, "You know, we've been trying to make this work for like a year." He's At that point, he had gotten um he'd gotten into a head head-on DUI. He had uh had one of his partners who he partnered with without telling me when I had quit my job for on one location had then stolen all our money. Um and so we'd gone through all these different things that were happening.

47:17And it was just like kind of a mess. You're getting a glimpse that maybe his judgment is slightly distorted uh in terms of like picking business partners. Yeah, I think that the tough part for him is that he's very optimistic. Yeah. his strength, and it's also when you don't have somebody there that you can trust to balance you, it can it's that's hard, you know? And just like me, without somebody who's very optimistic, that can be hard to pursue new opportunities. Yeah. And, you know, for those who didn't see Alex's interview with me before, he talks about his relationship with his dad and the sort of family pressures and and he was, you know, fighting his demons, too. Mhm. Like like maybe like you had of [ __ ] going on, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, he did. And he used to tell me that all the time. He's like, "I got a lot of [ __ ] going on." I'm like, "Yeah, but he you know, he always kept saying he's like, "I'm just like a sinking ship.

48:04I've got nothing going right now. Like this is a such a mess." And I always thought to myself like I can take care of myself. So like if this doesn't work, that's fine. I'm not going to be crushed. And I think it's worth the experience and worth trying. Did that brutal honesty though make you trust him more? Cuz he wasn't fronting at all. He's just like, "Listen, uh this is all, you know, kind This is all very bad." Um I mean he wasn't like faking it. Yeah. I mean there was no faking it at that point, right? Like I'm buying groceries. Like we have nothing. Like I mean yes, I trusted him more, but I think the trust was more so built through both of us going through what we had there that far together and not neither person like yielding to the pressure, if that makes sense. Yeah, you didn't bail. Yeah. Neither of us bailed.

48:49Yeah. Um And I said, you know, he's like you know, do you want to if you want out, this is the time. And I was like Yeah. you know, and I think in a few such words I was like, "No. Like I'm in it. Like let's do it. Like I think we can do it. Like I really do." And I think a lot of it came from at that point I may not have had confidence in myself at that point time, but I had confidence in him. For some reason. And it was this weird thing where like he tells me he's like, "I had so much He's like, "I had confidence in you." And I had confidence in him. And it was like we were like borrowing it from each other. It's projecting it. Um you're bolstering each other up. Well, when he told me the story, I was blown away what you said.

49:29Do you remember what you said when he said, "Can you uh can you share that?" Cuz I think it I think it's really, really important. You know, um W- One is greater than zero. Two is greater than one. When you have two people who are united, you know, in purpose, in effort, I mean that that's everything. That's that's how you get to you know, where you're trying to go. Yeah.

49:56Yeah, he you know, he said I'm a sinking ship. Here's your out. Like if I were you, I would leave. Like there's you've got nothing good here. Like I have no money. This isn't going to work. And you know, I obviously don't have my [ __ ] together. And I was like if it comes to it, I would sleep with you under a bridge. And I think I don't think that he had the intention at that point in his life to understand how much how loyal I was already and how much I did believe in him. And so I think it was just like I was like, you idiot. I'm not going anywhere. You know what I mean? Like that was what I was thinking to myself.

50:32I'm like, come on. I was like, I've like I love this guy. I believe in him. I believe in us. And I I told him in that moment. I said, I just see It's like so weird to think about. I was like, I just see the future. Like I see what we could be. And I was like, we can be so powerful together. And he was like, how do you even And I was like, I just know. I remember saying this. I was like, we're so stressed right now. We've got so much going on. And like you don't We can't We only see it. But when we see the glimpses of each other that are like who we who we could be one day when we don't have all of this stuff going on. I was like, it's so good that it's worth holding out. See, you've got the gift, too. That's a skill to be able to look past what's happening right in front of you and extrapolate that and and make a forecast. So you must be an extremely good judge of character. I'm extremely good judge of people. Yes. I will say that's the one thing I feel confident in my skill. That's That's a gift.

51:28Not everyone has that. Um And I think if you have that in a partner, you know, romantic partner, business partner. I mean, that's That's everything, Layla. It's like And it's I can't speak from a woman's perspective, but from a man's point of view, if my partner says that to me, it's like nothing else matters. I can conquer the world. I will, you know, crawl across a mile of glass to get to the desk. I like if you say that to me, it's like let's [ __ ] go. Yeah.

51:59Yeah. I think um you know, from that point on basically it was 6 months of we made it work and we're able to pay off the MX, but what happened eventually was I so I would like manage the back end for everything um still cuz we didn't really have any employees besides sales people. So it was like all the billing, all the customer service, like all that stuff. I had like different burner phones for every location of a gym.

52:26And I remember one day uh one of the gym locations like I get a bunch of calls from customers. And this girl called me and she's like, "Leila." She's like I was Jeff just stood up on a chair and said, "I need you to go get a refund and and get the [ __ ] out of my gym." Mhm. And I was like, "What?" She's like, "Hey, he just told us all the like charge back and refund." And I was like Mutiny. Yeah. So then I went I logged in the bank account and it was just like minus 500 charge back, minus 500 charge.

52:57And I was like, "Oh god." And so I went to Alex and I was like "Dude, we can't keep doing this." Yeah. He was like, "What is it?" And I showed him. We have a mole. Oh and he was just like he was I could just tell he was like seriously like after all of this, after all this trying, like this isn't working? Yeah. And went into I think full panic mode um and he was like, "We need to do something different." And I was like, "I don't disagree. Like if we do more of this what which what did continue to happen was like then another guy does the same thing. And what they realize is, "Oh, I'll tell them to refund and then go go and they can pay me half what they paid you."

53:33Yeah, I mean you identified a vulnerability. Yeah. And someone was exploiting it. Exactly. And then it continued to get exploited. So what we were worried that was going to happen did. And so, then what was happening was we were just collecting enough from the next month's launches to pay for the refunds from the prior month. Yeah. It's a downward spiral. Downward spiral. And so, we're like, "Okay, we can't do any more launches, but we're going to owe $180,000 in refunds. What the do we do to make that much money?"

54:02And Alex, obviously, you know, he's been investing in his marketing skill set this whole time. Um he's like, "I He's like, I think what we need to do is you become the face of the company. We're going to build a weight loss company. You're going to be the face cuz you've lost all this weight. You still have your online clients, right?" I was like, "Yeah." He was like, "So, we'll just scale that, and I will create the funnel, and I'll do the marketing in the back end. I'll be like the back end top marketing guy, and you just be the front end face, and you make the the coaching program." Yeah. And I was like, It makes me think about how you divide and conquer now. So, like, is Alex still the marketing and advertising is he the growth and outreach guy? And if so, then what is Leila's role? I mean, you're the glue that seems to hold it all together, but like you seem to be buttoned up, organized, uh analytical, uh being able to vet good ideas or not good ideas. Talk about those strengths.

54:58How do you divide those? I think it's taken us a while to get to the point where we are because in the beginning it was like the times that I'm talking to you about. It's actually weird to talk about because you know, he was two and a half years ahead of me in terms of career-wise. He had more skills than I did. So, there was I had less skills than him at that point in time. And I think that as we got into business together, we split what the responsibilities were, and it was first and foremost, Alex handles marketing, and Leila handles everything else.

55:27And I had a skill deficit at that point cuz I didn't know how to do anything. And so, I had to learn. And then it took me a little bit of time to get to the point where then I think we we evened out, and now we've been able to grow together in those skill sets equally. Mhm. So, are you doing as much strategy uh or are you doing more of it or less of it now? Because the you know the Strategy? Like for the business? Yeah, so like we're we're talking about marketing. I mean, before marketing comes the strategy. It's like what are we going to do, right?

55:55Yeah. So, in terms of the strategy of the business, typically it's I have a few strategies that I find appealing, and Alex has a lot, and then we try to meet in the middle, right? Where it's like I typically have very like simple I like simple businesses, and like low complexity. Give me an example. acquisition.com Okay, but like more granular. Like what is an example of of that's not acquisition.com that's a simple business? Is it like owning a uh storage unit facility?

56:27No, it could be owning a storage unit facility. It could be owning um you know, uh a few hair salons. It could be anything that's very straightforward. It doesn't seem like it's complicated. It doesn't have You don't need any genius skill sets to make it work. Yeah. I mean, like in the food business, you have a certain the clock is ticking against the food cuz it goes bad and it spoils. You have there's a lot of loss. Right? Um Uh I'd say like anything that's boring.

56:54It's like people hear it and it's like not sexy. It's not exciting, right? Brick-and-mortar businesses for the most part. Oh, is that what you like? Yeah. I like those. Um Laundromats? Yeah, like I mean, like sure, that's a little small in terms of like revenue, but um but those I find appealing because I think to win those, you win by having a better team. Yeah. Sidebar. Have you ever thought about the efficiencies of some of these boring businesses? Like uh it triggered my brain for a second to think about laundromat. I have uh washing washing machine and dryer at my house now. Um I'm at that stage in my life.

57:27But at one point, I had to use laundromats, and it just seemed like such a waste of time. Wouldn't it be cool to have like a gym and a laundromat put together or like a movie theater and a laundry You ever thought about these things? Uh, you know, I heard what they're coming out with is something similar but a little different, which is like a facility where, you know how you like you've got the dentists you have to go into once a year, you've got the doctor you've got to go visit. They're building like places where you basically have like all of those in one building and in one day you go Oh. So it's kind of similar different concept though. Yeah, I have an idea guys. So I have a lot of my brain thinks this way. It's like we need to make this better, more efficient, you know.

58:00Yeah, no I agree. Um, so I think in terms of how we do things now, Alex and I always it it's Wait, so he doesn't like boring businesses or he does? Cuz boring is another word for boring is like stable, low maintenance, low risk. I think that his natural proclivities towards more exciting businesses, but with in his mind it's something that's low risk because he is skilled in the area that would be the risk. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's he talked about information arbitrage all the time and maybe he just knows everything about that and so therefore it's easy. So give us an example of something that excites him or lights him up that maybe it's not that easy. Um, yeah, so he had the idea for a business where you essentially attached to the back of every YouTuber and you create their back end. So you all these YouTube people, you know, all these people on YouTube, I'm on YouTube.

58:51They have they're great at marketing but they have no monetization vehicle behind them. And so he had the idea of basically building monetization vehicles for all these people and then taking a piece of the company for that. Hmm. Creating a funnel for them for other opportunities. Right, which to a lot of people that would look like hard because it's like creating a monetization or mouse trap and getting like monetizing correctly is usually what most people get wrong. For him, like he's very skilled there so he's like that looks easy. Yeah, I got this, yeah. But did you kibosh it or Yeah, I don't like that.

59:18Yeah. I think it's yucky cuz I look at it like this, which is the the likelihood that the YouTuber would be dissatisfied with the way that we want to monetize is so high. The likelihood that could we coerce them into saying yes, I will create this as my back end because they respect Alex and look up to him. Yes, we could get them to say yes one time. Yeah. Could we get them to continuously be loyal and push the product? Probably not if they don't absolutely love it and it wasn't theirs. This is a SaaS product we're talking about probably, right? It could be anything. Could be like a portal, could be selling information, could be a course they built.

59:51Okay. I mean could be SaaS. Could be product like Araxells, a PitiPie, you know, it could be anything. Um but it's basically like a way to monetize their following. Yeah. But you think the risk of customer satisfaction is high. Or or it's probably the probability is low and therefore you think it's a bad idea. Yes, because I think of most things in the business in terms of like reputation because I think reputation is the end all be all of a business.

1:00:21Now we're back to brand. I love it. Yeah, so it's it's how can we build a business in which way in a way where when we do business with the customers or the partners or whomever it is that it builds the brand doesn't detract from the brand. Yeah, they become your champion, your advocates. Yeah, and I think the more complicated the business and the more that you do on behalf for somebody else, the more you leave margin of error where they could their expectations could be mismatched and they could not like what you've given them. Like the more a done for a business is done for you and especially a customized done for you business, I mean those businesses for the most part, it's like the reason Jim Launch was successful is because we did a lot for them, but it was for the same kind of business over and over again. So we got really good at doing it for a certain kind of business. The reason that a custom done for you agency is so often going to fail is because you're doing a large amount of work on someone else's behalf for their business and it's custom to them and so you're not an expert at it. Mhm. And so I don't like those. I don't want to play a game where I think I'm going to fail. I think that there's enough complexity in business as is. Like, to scale a business is hard. Let's not make it any harder by picking something that's inherently by nature of the product already hard. At least that's the way I see it.

1:01:33Yeah, I just want to go back to this um this partnership that you guys have that's so dynamic and seems to be so uh working so well. Uh and just point out some subtle things again, which is you kind of burst his bubble. You shot down his idea. But, he has enough respect in you to trust your judgment. And so, he probably I mean, does he give pushback? And you like, are you guys like um wrestling metaphorically about different ideas?

1:02:00And then, is it like you have to have a unanimous uh decision for it to go forward? Or is it like, "Okay, Alex, I'll let you try that, but I don't love it I don't love it." No, it's very much we beat ideas up together Right. before we were to pursue something. So, This is what I'm getting at is this mutual respect for each other's judgment and skill set. Yeah, oh, absolutely. I think but how we communicate that has been the last 7 years of of learning. Yeah. Which is typically um I think it it's learning to respect one other's strengths and not try to change one another because I think you know, we were talking about this the other day with each other is like anytime you have somebody who's really good at something, they also usually have a pretty strong deficit on the other side.

1:02:46And it's like to wish their deficit away is to wish away their strength. Right. And so, I think for the two of us, we've accepted each other's deficits and almost find them endearing. Mhm. And what So, what is your deficit? I am not the most flexible person. Okay, so once you get into an idea, you you dig your heels in and that's that's the way it should be. Flexible in terms of how I like to do things. Like, I like to in work, I'm extremely efficient, extremely organized. Like, I think of the most effective and efficient way to do things at all points in time.

1:03:18Yeah. And I also am very strategic in terms of how's this going to move me forward to what I want and is it going to get in the way of the main thing, right? I get that cuz I'm married to someone like that. Right. thinks like an algorithm. Yeah. Why didn't you turn down that street? It's like 30 seconds faster. 100%. It's ridiculous that you're going straight. Right. And so it's like, you know, sometimes I can't help but, you know, Alex say books a meeting and I'm like, "Well, why would you put that meeting there? Because if this meeting is right before it, then you're going to need to do this in 15 minutes in between." And he's like, "Oh my god, woman, can you stop?"

1:03:45Are you good at puzzles? Mhm, I don't like puzzles. Okay. You might be good at puzzles. Maybe. Um I get it though. And Alex is very, his, you know, downside or you know, the the deficit is that he tends to always uh he tends to think he's right more than not. Mhm. And so overconfidence or um is he is he sort of like um overconfident like uh assuming things are going to go well or how is that? Yeah, but it's worked out more than it hasn't.

1:04:18Over optimistic. Yeah. Yeah. I think and the thing that we've talked about is both of us those those tendencies we have serve us more than they don't because if they didn't, then we would change. But him, his overconfidence has led him to more success than it has not, right? Because constantly doubting yourself, I mean, like that's probably not going to be very helpful. Yeah. Again, knowing a little bit about his past, I I feel like that's a survival mechanism. I mean, both of you maybe are acting that way, but Sure. it serves him well, it serves you well. Yeah, and I think I think that because we have you know, I'd say like complementary uh strengths and and weaknesses, that that's why together we make such a good team. Mhm. And because we don't try to change one another. You know what I mean? Like it's like I we can laugh at each other's tendencies and talk about them openly and not fight about it. Yeah.

1:05:11Well, and also at the end of the day when you have consensus or you respect the other person's opinion, I think where people get in trouble, especially if they're in like a business partnership or a romantic relationship, and you concede and you're like, "Well, I think it's a terrible idea, but go ahead." And then when it actually fails, there's the I told you so, the resentment starts kicking in. And and that's where you start to, you know, have this wedge being driven between you. Yeah. And you're divided, you're not united. Yeah, we we have done that one time enough to learn that we should not do that again.

1:05:43Yeah, that's it's really hard. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, in terms of coming up, like deciding the strategy and the vision of the business, we do that together. And then, you know, we kind of divide our Alex focuses all on the marketing. Like that's his creative genius. Like obviously, I think everyone knows that's what he's known for. Um and then I focus on the the running of the company, the scaling. And so, traditionally, like we're both founders.

1:06:11If you looked at it from an org chart standpoint, like we don't name ourselves this, but he would be CMO, I would be CEO. Mhm. If you look from like a traditional standpoint. Yeah. Um I just feel like that's a very limiting on both ends cuz there's so much crossover and it's not like neither of us know anything about the other person. I mean, obviously, if you work with each other all day, like you could pick up things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, this series is called Behind the Brand. We talked a lot about brands. We did a little bit. Uh what is the Leila Hormozi brand? Or maybe should we say what's the Hormozi brand? Cuz is it now, you know, is it complete or is there a Leila brand and Alex brand like Yeah.

1:06:48Maybe break it down. Um I think that uh obviously, we have our brand together because like when Alex and I met, like we we have so many similarities that I think we just had when we met that it's kind it's it's weird cuz most people don't have that, I think. Um so, there is like our brand together as a couple that we put out there as business people, what whatever you want to call it.

1:07:13How do you describe it? Forceful. Okay. I don't know. Powerful. Um I would say powerful. I think another word would be we want to represent excellence or greatness. Um candorous. Character, high integrity. It's what I think of.

1:07:39Um I can't help but notice that you are always pretty well dressed and he is in uh jean shorts and uh flannels. Do you have any say on like, you know, the look of his brand or is that is that the brand? That's him. Yeah. That's just him. Uh yeah. The nose strip, the breathable strips, the the whole thing. It's I mean, that's part of why I love him so much is like when I met him, he just like never has given a [ __ ] about what anybody else thinks. Yeah, including me. Which I like, you know, um Yeah. I like that kind of confidence because you can't help but start to be a little bit more like that yourself when you're around somebody like that. So so it's not deliberate. That's just what is in his drawer and what he feels comfortable in.

1:08:22Alex doesn't want to think about what he's wearing every day and so he finds I mean, he'll buy 40 pairs of shorts to pick the one that fits the exact perfect way that fits his phone perfectly in the pocket, that has the right kind of draw drawstring, that can also be worn to swim and you don't need to wash every day. And we're back to the efficiency thing. Remember I told you like he thinks about efficiency dating you and interviewing for the job. Okay. Yeah. And I think I tend to be very efficient in the workplace, but when it comes to out of work, like I I still like very like girly. Like I like shopping and I like clothes and I like dressing nicely. Um and now if I see that in you because you're the sales person, you know, and and how you look matters in the eyes of the potential client. And so maybe that's baked in there a little bit like the professionalism or the Yeah, I mean I think it just it matters to me, you know, like I think I like to take care of myself and I don't um all the things that though they take time I guess I've decided they matter to me enough to take my time. Yeah. Um and I just like it. So.

1:09:28You've come uh you've come a ways from where you were. What is something right now that you need that you don't have business-wise? In terms of skills? No. Um I mean I I feel like you guys are constantly casting in the net. I feel like that's what your whole marketing activity is about. You starting the podcast, your When did you start your audio podcast?

1:10:02Um a month and a a month ago? What's it called so people can find it? Uh build. Okay. Build with Leila Hormozi. So correct me if I'm wrong, but all of these efforts to put out content to um drop wisdom all of this is an an effort to bring people back in cast this net out to catch potential acquisition.com companies. companies, right?

1:10:28So I guess what I'm asking is you're casting nets, right? To continue to to fill, you know, the the buckets. But like what is something you guys don't have business asset-wise or um or otherwise that you wish you had. I mean all all along with it seems like you've been filling up. I mean we were talking off camera about your media team. You know, it started probably with one person, Caleb, right? And then Caleb started building in team and now you've got 8, 10, and now that's going to scale up to however big you want to go.

1:11:01That was something you didn't have before the you know you now have. Along those lines, what's Let's look forward a little bit. What's something you need? Um I think very soon we're going to need legal on our team. Uh just because of uh we are you know, we've been taking we were taking smaller pieces of companies and then bigger and then now it's um you know, still minority. Uh however, some of them we're taking up to 50%.

1:11:31Yeah, I was going to say small is that 5 to 20 points or In the beginning it was like 10 to 20 and now the standard minimum would be 25. Um but more often than not, you know, 33 and then more as of recently 49 to 51. Hm, okay. Depending on the business and even of some of our already you know, investments that we've been invested in for the last couple years uh further investing into those businesses because maybe the founder wants to cash out. Maybe, you know, we are we have confidence in the business.

1:12:01We've now put a team in place there and we feel confident in the business enough to, you know, invest further into it. So So is that because you want more control to be able to um manage your investment and your your liability and all that? It's it's kind of two sides to it. So if we have a good business and it's going well and we have a good partnership and that person after 2 years of working with us is like, "I want my payday." Right? Like they need to take some chips off the table.

1:12:28Who's better to invest in it further than us? We already know the business. I mean, there's no better investment for us than to further invest in that business. Um I also get the sense though that as you get into this business and you realize that it's a good business, you're almost a kind of like, "Just get out of our way because we can do it better." Goes back to that confidence. And it's not bragging. It's not arrogance. This is what I'll tell you though is that this is all done everything that we do with these businesses is through influence not authority.

1:12:57It is 100% because they respect Alex and I. However, sometimes we don't pick well. And when you don't pick well and somebody maybe disagrees with all of your decisions then in those cases yeah, I would like to have more authority to make sure the business doesn't go under or you know something to that extent. Yeah, cuz you're taking our money down with you. Right, but in most cases that's not the case. It's just that if we're going to the amount of resources that we've built at acquisition.com is more than any private equity firm I know of. The private equity firm that bought our last company doesn't do as much as we do for companies. And so I actually feel like I have built a company that is suitable to take more percentage of them and to take more control. Yeah. And we're over skilled for the amount for the percent of investment we're taking in some of the companies or did in the past. And so it almost just feels like um we're matching better this time. You know, we're taking a bigger percentage because we have the infrastructure to do so and we provide the value. Yeah. We've been talking around it a little bit. So what exactly are you doing for these companies? What So what do you bring to the table? It's a little bit different with every company um because obviously we've been growing and so it kind of changes along the way. Yeah. Um I would say that it's a a few different levels of assistance. So the biggest is like there's who what and how, right? So who is we recruit their leadership team. So we have an in-house recruiting function and so we recruit all of the leadership for all of our portfolio companies. Wow. Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah, and that's because that's what I that's what I love. I love recruiting. I love getting the right people. Like that's my thing.

1:14:33Yeah, I was going to say that's probably all you, right? I well, I have my director of people cuz I was doing and you can't do that and run the company. Yeah, but you you probably have them come in, have their palms up and then you like hold their wrists and you probably get a vibe check and you're like, okay. Yeah, I do a lot of I like interviewing. So, like I like interviewing to put leaders in and and we do that. Um Are you seeing um more female leadership in place or is it uh male or is it pretty equally skewed or what? What are you seeing?

1:15:00it's always been equally skewed in my businesses because it's me and Alex. So, I think You want to make sure that there's equality. Yeah, it's been unintentional. It's just always um I've just never it just it's you know, sometimes I think I'm going to get a female candidate, it's male candidate. Sometimes I think I'm going to get a male candidate, it's female candidate. So, I just I've just never aimed for that. It's just always happened. I think it's actually more that we attract both.

1:15:27You know, if it was a male-led organization and there was no other female C-level, you know, person on the team, more men would apply. I know a lot of women apply to work at our company because I'm the CEO. Yeah, I was going to say. Alex is also figurehead. So, you get equal. Yeah, I was going to say. I mean, you're both alphas, right? It's a little bit intimidating. Um And so, if you're an alpha female, that's going to be just fine because you you you're going to have mutual respect. But I you know, if you look at Alex's face and brand, it's very alpha and very, you know, big beard. Yeah. T- tank top, you know, that that's a certain kind of stuff. It's a certain aura. Yeah.

1:16:03Yeah. But to know that you guys are united like this, I think it it works because yeah, I mean, if you know what really goes on, there's that yin and yang. There's that, you know, I get it. Okay. Yeah. Well, there's the who. Then there's the what, which is we help we essentially will only invest in businesses where we see that their strategy is off. So, we see that Oh, it's already broken. Well, it's either it's not broken. It's It's It's 10% away. And we happen to know which which direction to take it from that 10% or it's a company that could benefit from our network in the portfolio or our brand. Okay. So, Give me an example.

1:16:46three examples, right? Um first one strategy is off um you know, we may find a business that for example, um one of our businesses, the guy was teaching people how to open photography studios and they were able to open these photography studios for you know, very little money down, maybe $10,000, $15,000 and they were able to make in their first year hundreds of thousands of dollars, like $250,000 on average.

1:17:10And he's selling this for like $2,000 to people online as like an almost like an information, like a business opportunity. Mhm. And we're like, we should turn that into a licensing business. Yeah. And so, you know, we that was one of our first businesses, we turned it into a licensing business. They now have um about 40 some locations um that are uh it it's uh basically operated by the licensees and it's worth I can I can tell you cuz it was audited, it was worth like over 60 million now.

1:17:42So, taking a business that was just selling information for $2,000, you know, it's the same skill set and then we can take it and put it into a better opportunity vehicle. Yeah, you built a ratchet. So, it's like I mean, they are forever but they're grateful that we own a percent of business, like they're happy to have us there. They don't they don't want it back. couldn't have got there without you. Right. And and so, the thing that Alex and I are very disciplined in is like we're not going to take on a business where we don't think that we can provide outsized value. Right. That's just not our brand.

1:18:12So, that you know, uh saying how I want 51% it's not an unfair, you're not like grinding them, you're saying We would take 51% of a business that we also knew that if we talked about it on our channels, it would blow the business up. Right. And they could handle it because it's not a service business, it might be an e-commerce business, it might be a SaaS business and they could handle the inflow. Yeah. We might take advantage of a business that um it's a sales organization and they recruit sales people and fill and fill companies with sales teams, right?

1:18:40Okay, well so hold pause. Um I'm not I'm not hearing maybe I'm missing it. I'm not hearing you selling via your channels. I'm not hearing you like pitching stuff. I mean, you're giving. You're dropping wisdom. You're giving giving giving giving giving. So how are you how are you promoting these companies through your channels? What does that mean? We haven't yet. Okay. So what Alex and I agreed upon is that we would not promote a business that one we didn't own 50% of.

1:19:12Two, we didn't absolutely believe in the product. And three, the business would not wouldn't be able to sustain the inflow. Because we know based on our metrics of impressions and how many people we do it would break. Uh so what does that look like when you eventually do it? Is it like this episode is brought to you by the photography studio license blah blah blah or is it like I think it's more one is we we thought about doing basically cuz at some point we're going to be doing essentially like a mix of the Shark Tank and Profit type show where we feature businesses. Um and we break them down, redo their strategy, kind of things like that. Just to show people cuz it'd be interesting. I think it would be interesting. Yeah. You know that I've uh I helped build Kevin O'Leary's YouTube channel.

1:19:56Oh, I think you mentioned that when I met you the first time. Yes, so I got to sit in on many many many many episodes of the show and see that behind the scenes. So you guys are thinking about doing Mhm. Like to show people what it looks like or just like behind the scenes. Okay. people. Um I think that's a great idea. Yeah, and it would be fun. So that's partially why we need the studio and the office and all those things. Uh Okay. So This is new. I like it. It's it's been there. It's just it you know it takes time. Well, I haven't heard about it. So this is this is new to me. So There you go. Amazing. Okay. Um and then you know one one side is we can feature the businesses there and show how the whole business works, explain everything. So smart. And they can decide if they want like we're never going to try and like sell something. Um and the other one is just that we could bring them on and interview them as guests. Like it's very none of it is in a sales-y manner because the thing is is that I think you know nowadays if somebody wants to buy something and they see a company on a show, they go to Google, they Google it and if they want to buy it, they do.

1:20:58Right. And if we are going to even have someone on any of our channels, it's because we believe in the company and we know they're a good company and we would like to maintain that by being very selective of who we bring on. Yeah, now that you said the vision for it, I completely get it. Yeah. And I think it is an an incredible idea. Yeah, so that's what it looks like. Um the third piece to what we do with the companies is the how, which is we have a team of subject matter experts, marketing, sales, CRO, HR, finance.

1:21:28Yeah. So once we determine the strategy for what do we need to change about in general the company? Like what's the company want to become? Let's talk about the three-year, the one-year, the this-year. And then okay. Cool. Then it's like how do I do that? And often times they have a skill deficit and they don't have the people on the team yet. You know, we're going to recruit them but it takes time. We don't want to break them by adding seven people at once. Yeah. So we have you know subject matter experts or consultants that come in and they'll work on projects with the founders in the company or with their leadership team to make sure that the strategy gets implemented correctly. So it's as needed implementation help.

1:22:09Um and that's not typically something that um much PE or conglomerates cuz we're more of like a conglomerate not PE. Um but it's not something that you typically see and it's something that we feel is important to acquisition.com because the reason people want to work with us is because we help them. You know, a lot of people cuz we're giving them money, right? But I mean Honestly, you're just you taking a page from the Shark Tank playbook. I mean, this is what this is what the sharks are doing.

1:22:38You know this, right? No, I don't know. This is what they're doing. the show. I don't know what they do after. This is what they're doing. And uh and you know, I've seen behind the scenes too and I've sat next to the attorney who's negotiating the deals after they've already said, you know, we you know, you got the deal. They go back um and they talk about it with the business owner and say, "Listen, I know that we just agreed to this, but like um if you give us 51% of your company, you're going to be out of business in 3 years. So, let's restructure the deal to make it more fair for you because we don't want to be you know, we don't want to take over what you're doing. We want to help support you and augment and you know, lend you media support or you can borrow our being famous or whatever. So, they'll they'll often restructure a deal so that it's Yeah, so it's more fair. Um you know, there are times when they are greedy or you know, um very sharp with their negotiation like, you know, Kevin always wants a royalty, blah blah blah. Um but he'll lend out money to at a certain percentage, but yeah.

1:23:39You're you're you're playing by that same playbook. I think it's very smart. Mhm. It's what we like doing. Yeah. I I enjoy it. Rob Dyrdek's doing that. Do you know Rob? Um He's a former MTV guy. His name is so familiar. He's a skateboarder. He was on that MTV show Ridiculousness. I'm so bad with names. Uh he had a show Rob and Big back in the Okay, I've heard of that. Yeah. Okay.

1:24:04That's fun. Yeah, he's in Beverly Hills doing that same thing. So, anyway, um smart. I get it now. I totally I see the vision. Cool. Yeah, that's it. So good. And so we just want to do that with as many good companies as possible. All this is super valuable and fascinating just to see a little bit I mean that's what the show is about really is to pull back the curtain behind the curtain right and reveal you know the people who are really doing it yeah right and how they do it and why they do it and kind of get in your brain a little bit about the process.

1:24:36It totally crystallized for me when you said that you're planning to do this cuz I was thinking how are you I mean I know how like um Kendall Jenner will or or um you know someone famous will promote with their brand they'll do a brand deal or they'll create their own line and then use their fame to promote it but that's not what we're talking about here. Mhm. Yeah it's a totally different avenue. Yeah. Okay. We'll see if it works. Um final parting words for um founders CEOs advice go.

1:25:11Talent is strategy. Like I thoroughly believe that I just made a video on this earlier. Um people don't beat their competitors by being smarter with their strategy. In fact only one out of three strategies that a company sets out to do are actually executed and the difference between the ones who are at 1/3 versus those that can raise that to 78% is people. And so I've talked about it for years and I think it it's often said like oh it's the soft stuff and it's less that matters less than the marketing and the strategy and the all that it doesn't though. It is the most important thing and I think first and foremost companies that scale are companies where the founders care.

1:25:52And I think that can be felt through an organization. If you care about the people if you prioritize them if you take care of them if you do right by them if you actually you know enroll people and and you know if you bring people in and genuinely show concern for what they think what they feel and their opinions then I think you're golden and I think it we're coming to a a day and age where compensation and benefits is no longer you know everyone can compete there. You know what I mean? Uh And it's not what people are interested in especially this up and coming generation. They're not interested in that as much as they are learning, autonomy, um you know, culture like those are the things that are yeah, impact. Um and so I think like in all the time that I've been doing this like it just always comes back around to the same thing and I think that as the CEO of a company and for everyone out there that's listening that has a company like we are the ones that get to choose you know, how people in our company behave and what we teach them and how we run things and I don't know. I just I the reason I like having a business and the reason that I do what I do is because I genuinely want to create a place where people want to come to work every day. They want to like what they do.

1:27:01They love their job cuz I've had jobs I hate and it was the worst. And I want to help other founders do that too. And I can tell you out of the hundreds of businesses and thousands of businesses that I've looked at the insides and done due diligence on the businesses that will win are the ones where people actually genuinely give a [ __ ] Um and it makes a big difference and the ones that don't eventually implode. So I just don't think you can manufacture that.

1:27:30I mean we were just sitting back you know chopping it up reminiscing about the good old days and all that. You know, tracking my roots where I came from and where I'm going. But like I say man always said it. It's not about the destination.

1:27:57It's all about the journey. Ain't nothing changed but the weather. The angel carrying it hanging from the rearview. Your dreams in the past ain't nowhere near you. Backseat drivers got nothing but two cents. Shotgun riders two buyers they all liars. I should get an A for effort I'm too tired but I'm never giving up that's why I'm kind of admired. Role model like it or not I got to play it. Sugar coated rhymes sometimes but still say it. Said I was quitting at 40 it's just a fib I'm still a kid that's wiping the food off of my bib. You ever wanted something so bad that you could taste it? Crying over every opportunity wasted. Good and bad news which one you want first? Either way you pick the bad still hurt you the worst. Never got to bask in the fruits of the labor and I never got the cash from that dude from the label. I'm just thinking back.

1:28:51Can we go way back? Way back. Way back. Can we go way back? Way back. Way back. It's time to go way back. Way back. Way back. Way back. You see in retrospect I would have did it the same. In hindsight I'm the only one to blame. I ain't picky I'm just real specific. I want nothing less than terrific. I know y'all get it. I'm aggressive so our styles is clashing. Killer instinct I play with passion. I'd rather be hated for being one of the realest than get a lot of love for these overrated appearance. I can stand on skill alone but I'm a package deal. I can write the whole song acapella for real. I got my head in the cloud with a pun intended. I don't need to see nobody I don't want no visitors. Introverted I just flirt with the music. Small circles how I choose it. Stay away from squares they the one that look like a L7. I've been doing this since I was 11 and the [ __ ] gets real.

1:29:54Can we go way back? Way back. Way back. Can we go way back? Way back. Way back. It's time to go way back, way back, way back, way back. Pure pandemonium when I'm in the building. Grown man flow, I ain't got time for the children. Now you can boo me, jump off, I'm winning. I still laying it on, shout out to the women.

1:30:21Watch you was cool, they was acting wild, walking leave drunk, it was packed for hours. Belligerent students, man the [ __ ] got messy. Remind me of my first show I did at the Red Sea. Ain't had no DJ, just a tape deck. Opened up for Sun of Star Child, I love that. Met this cat named Larry, he was with the Avengers. Show me how to make moves and walk with the winners. Soon went to the pen, and never seen him again. But I did a couple shows with his friends. Lumberjack, Brown Clown, so-and-so, and dude with the orange pants. 10 years later now I'm rocking the orange pants.

1:30:54But they Jabou's though, you know. Fresh to death. Always and forever. Don't get it twisted. Number one listed. Nitro with the nice flow. Get it. Take a picture baby, it'll last longer. All in your In retrospect. Just thinking back.

1:31:20To the time when it was all good. The golden era.