How to Catch Up In Life (Using Logic)
AAlex Hormozi
Small Business/StartupsAdvertising/MarketingAdult EducationCredit/Debt/Loans
Transcript
00:00:00If you're ambitious but not sure what to do,
00:00:02I wanna share six principles, really just actions,
00:00:04that have helped me get to where I want.
00:00:06These are the same six things that allowed me
00:00:07to go from having only 1,000 bucks to my name
00:00:09and sleeping on a gym floor to now having a portfolio
00:00:11of companies that last year did north of 250 million a year.
00:00:14And the reason I'm making this video is because
00:00:15I'm on a mission to get the next generation of men and women
00:00:19to make their first $100,000,
00:00:20and there's a lot of reasons for that,
00:00:22but I think that if you can participate in the economy,
00:00:24you will believe in capitalism,
00:00:25and I think that will set up the next generation
00:00:27for much bigger and better things.
00:00:28So let's just start with principle number one,
00:00:30which is build capacity.
00:00:32And so what to do when you're not sure what to do
00:00:35is you build capacity.
00:00:36So for example, if you don't know what you're gonna do
00:00:38tomorrow, you should go and bet on time today
00:00:41when you're not sure what you're gonna do.
00:00:42Still, it might as well be rested.
00:00:44That's building capacity.
00:00:45You can get in shape when you don't have dates lined up,
00:00:48like you don't have one lined up,
00:00:49but it can help you when the opportunity strikes.
00:00:52You can save money when you're not sure
00:00:54where you're going to invest,
00:00:55because at least you'll have the money
00:00:56so that when the investment comes,
00:00:58you'll have the opportunity to take action.
00:00:59And so the thing about opportunities
00:01:01is that they present themselves to everyone
00:01:02and only people with capacity can both recognize
00:01:05and capitalize on them.
00:01:06So don't be in the bleachers when the fat pitch comes.
00:01:09You wanna be at the plate,
00:01:10you wanna have already practiced your swing,
00:01:12and you wanna be ready to go.
00:01:14And I'll give you a case study
00:01:15that actually can drive this point home.
00:01:16So there was a study they did at Princeton grad school,
00:01:19it was called like the Good Samaritan study,
00:01:21where they had seminary students
00:01:22who saw themselves as moral people, right?
00:01:24They were studying to become priests.
00:01:26And they asked them to write a paper
00:01:29on being a good Samaritan and then to present it, all right?
00:01:34And so what was interesting about this is that in the study,
00:01:37they separated them into three groups.
00:01:39And so on the way to give the presentation,
00:01:41there was this very narrow hallway into the auditorium.
00:01:44And in the narrow hallway,
00:01:45they put someone who had fallen and clearly needed help.
00:01:48Group one was people who were 10 minutes late,
00:01:51group two was people who were on time,
00:01:53and group three was people who are early, all right?
00:01:56Now, guess what correlation,
00:01:59how people rated themselves in their essay
00:02:02had to do with the likelihood
00:02:03that they would stop and help the person.
00:02:05You're right, fucking zero, all right?
00:02:09You know what did have the highest correlation
00:02:11with the likelihood that they stopped and helped the person?
00:02:13How late they were.
00:02:14And so, and let me tell you how big of a difference it was.
00:02:17The difference between the people who were 10 minutes early
00:02:19and 10 minutes late was a six X difference
00:02:22in who stopped to actually help the person.
00:02:24And the reason I see this as so important is that right now,
00:02:26there are opportunities that come to you right now
00:02:29that you cannot even recognize
00:02:31because you do not have capacity to do anything about it.
00:02:34And so here's some of the ways
00:02:35that I recommend building capacity,
00:02:37starting with number two, money.
00:02:40So if you don't know what to invest in, save money.
00:02:43Money buys time and time buys optionality.
00:02:46And so let's go tactical.
00:02:47So how do I go about actually saving money?
00:02:49So I'm gonna walk through each category very quickly.
00:02:51So food, that means you just don't eat out for anything.
00:02:53It's very straightforward.
00:02:54If you're hungry, you deal with it, right?
00:02:56You only buy from discount grocery stores.
00:02:57It's not that hard.
00:02:58Clothing, whatever you have right now is all you need
00:03:01for the next two years, zero exceptions, right?
00:03:04Reuse what you have, trade or at the very worst,
00:03:06you can go to Goodwill, all right?
00:03:08From a housing perspective, live as cheaply as you can,
00:03:10ideally with your own family or worst case,
00:03:12with another family that's also trying to save money.
00:03:16And if you're like younger and you're like,
00:03:17none of us have families and that's fine,
00:03:19then all six of you bunk up in one place,
00:03:21split bedrooms if you have to.
00:03:23And that's what ultimately in the early part of my career,
00:03:25it was like three or 400 bucks a month
00:03:27for me to just keep the lights on.
00:03:28Not hard when you're splitting one bedroom
00:03:29in a six bedroom house.
00:03:30Now, all of this stuff,
00:03:32we have the last cost for just time costs.
00:03:34So think about your time like a financial asset.
00:03:36Stop doom scrolling and wasting the two to four hour window
00:03:39you have outside of work.
00:03:40So you're five to 9 a.m. and then you're 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
00:03:44Those eight hours a day,
00:03:45those are the hours where you're gonna have to get ahead
00:03:47because you have to basically live for today
00:03:50to pay for today,
00:03:51but you have to plan and prepare for tomorrow,
00:03:53which is what those other eight hours are for.
00:03:55Number three on this stack here
00:03:57is add skills and practice them.
00:03:59And the second part is just as important as the first.
00:04:02So now you've got some money, right?
00:04:04It should be saved up.
00:04:05Where do you spend that money?
00:04:06So I recommend spending all excess cash on acquiring skills
00:04:10until you have so much that you can't possibly spend
00:04:13on any more skills.
00:04:15So increase your capacity to earn,
00:04:17which increases the value
00:04:18of your highest cash producing asset.
00:04:19You know what that is?
00:04:20You, right?
00:04:21And what's relevant today is that skills are inflation proof.
00:04:25Whether we're trading in Bitcoin or seashells in the future,
00:04:28if you've got value to give, people will exchange for it.
00:04:31So if you're ever worried about all this technology,
00:04:32what am I gonna do?
00:04:33The only thing and the only logical step you can do
00:04:36is double down on skills and make yourself more valuable.
00:04:38Now, understand that learning will never hurt you, all right?
00:04:42It's always additive.
00:04:43And even in things that are bad,
00:04:45and listen, I paid for all that stuff that I just said,
00:04:47and not all of it was good.
00:04:49The thing is, is that I believe that winners win
00:04:51no matter what.
00:04:52And so how can you have something that's bad
00:04:54and then you think that you get better from it?
00:04:57Well, if I learn all the things not to do, then I learned.
00:05:00And if it changes my behavior in a way
00:05:01that makes me more likely to succeed, then I got better.
00:05:04And so if you look at the world that way,
00:05:06then everything serves you rather than you serving it.
00:05:09And so I'll give you a basic analogy
00:05:10from a skills perspective, from a stacking angle.
00:05:12I like this example 'cause a lot of people know who he is.
00:05:14But Jay-Z is a rapper, right?
00:05:15And now he's a businessman.
00:05:17I mean, a businessman, little, if you know, you know.
00:05:21Anyways, in the beginning, maybe he had rhythm, right?
00:05:25Maybe that was what he was naturally born with
00:05:26or inclined with, right?
00:05:28And then he learned how to rap.
00:05:32And then he learned how to write lyrics.
00:05:35And then he learned how to market.
00:05:38Or he probably learned how to sell first.
00:05:40And then he learned how to market.
00:05:42And with each of these, he became more and more successful.
00:05:46And then he learned how to get other artists
00:05:49and market them.
00:05:50So he learned how to make a label.
00:05:52And then he learned how to get Beyonce.
00:05:57But you could see here how with each of these skills,
00:05:59that person who has all of these skills,
00:06:01somebody who just has rhythm, not that valuable.
00:06:03Someone who can just rap,
00:06:05a little bit more value than someone who has rhythm.
00:06:06Someone who can rap and write lyrics, more valuable.
00:06:09Someone who can do that and then sell.
00:06:10They can sell their way into getting shows.
00:06:12They can sell people on the street.
00:06:14All of a sudden they can sell their CDs.
00:06:15They can, CDs, Jesus.
00:06:16They can sell.
00:06:17And so he has this,
00:06:18which makes all of these other things more valuable.
00:06:20And then he learned how to promote,
00:06:22which made all of these other skills more valuable.
00:06:23'Cause now he's not just selling out one or two small venues.
00:06:26He can promote and go national.
00:06:29But then there's still limited the amount
00:06:30that he can do here.
00:06:31So that's when he starts recruiting other people
00:06:33to his labels, to his brands.
00:06:35And this is what continues to stack skills.
00:06:37I'll give you a financial example of this.
00:06:39Maybe in the beginning you're somebody who's really good
00:06:40at math.
00:06:41Okay, being good at math is not that valuable of a skill.
00:06:44Then all of a sudden you're like, okay, well,
00:06:45I'll learn how to do bookkeeping.
00:06:46All right, well, that's more valuable than just math.
00:06:49But you need math in order to have bookkeeping.
00:06:51And then you learn how accounting works.
00:06:53Okay, and then you learn how taxes work.
00:06:55And all of a sudden you can start saving a business money.
00:06:57Now, do you need to know math in order to do taxes?
00:06:59Yes.
00:07:00Do you understand how accounting works in order to do taxes?
00:07:02Yes, right?
00:07:03All of these things stack.
00:07:04Now let's say that you start learning about insurance
00:07:07and then you start learning about M&A, right?
00:07:09All of these things, you still need to know math,
00:07:11but these one taken together
00:07:13become significantly more valuable as a person.
00:07:15About your second grade math teacher as an idiot,
00:07:17as soon as you learn calculus,
00:07:19you needed arithmetic in order to learn calculus.
00:07:21And so wherever you're at in this journey right now,
00:07:23it's not like, oh my God, why can't I do this?
00:07:25It's like, you still have to move through the steps.
00:07:27Now, how fast you do that
00:07:28depends on how quickly you change your behavior.
00:07:30And so hopefully this video at least nudges you
00:07:32in that direction, start changing what you do.
00:07:34So the fourth example of kind of building capacity
00:07:37before you know what to do
00:07:38is to build an audience without a product, right?
00:07:40So what does that mean?
00:07:41So you don't need a product to start.
00:07:43You need attention because attention gives you leverage.
00:07:46And so if you have a group of people
00:07:49who know, like, and trust you,
00:07:50even when you don't have a product,
00:07:51you're basically building potential energy, right?
00:07:53If you were the number one most followed person
00:07:55on the planet, the day you start whatever you start,
00:07:58it's going to be a smashing,
00:08:00probably a hundred million dollar success.
00:08:01Literally, if you were the most known person on the planet
00:08:04and you charged any amount of money for anything,
00:08:07you could then make,
00:08:08basically you pretty much be set for life.
00:08:10All right.
00:08:11And so from the building of a quote audience
00:08:13is you just talk about the things that you're doing.
00:08:15'Cause right now you're like, well, I don't have any proof.
00:08:17Of course you don't have proof.
00:08:18You haven't done anything yet.
00:08:19But what you can do is do work and document the work you do.
00:08:23And so what you want to do is like,
00:08:24either you have epic proof or epic effort.
00:08:27In the fitness world, there's people who are like,
00:08:28okay, I'm six months out from my first fitness competition.
00:08:32It doesn't matter where you start.
00:08:33If you do something epic,
00:08:34document all the volume of work you do along the way
00:08:36and people will follow you.
00:08:38Now, a version of this,
00:08:39like the next step here would be build a wait list.
00:08:42So this is kind of step five.
00:08:43So in other words, before you build the thing,
00:08:46build the list of people who want the thing.
00:08:49So a person who pays with their time now
00:08:52is more likely to pay with their money later.
00:08:53And this is what an audience does.
00:08:55You provide value them with your time.
00:08:57They pay back with their time.
00:08:58They say they're willing to wait for the thing.
00:09:01All of these things are indicators that they're likely
00:09:04or more likely to make a purchase with you.
00:09:07So number six is you can build capacity
00:09:11by building your network potential by meeting people.
00:09:13So think about two people,
00:09:14one person who stays in and watches Netflix
00:09:17or somebody who goes out to a coffee shop
00:09:20or someone who goes to the gym.
00:09:22In either of those scenarios,
00:09:23your luck surface area expands.
00:09:26You're more likely for sure in each of those scenarios.
00:09:28And if you do this every single day,
00:09:30you continue to expand that luck exposure.
00:09:32And so if you wanna be successful in something, in anything,
00:09:35spend time with the people who are already doing it
00:09:37because the fastest way to change your life
00:09:39is to change the people who are around you
00:09:41who affect your life.
00:09:42And so being willing to move to where the opportunity is
00:09:46is one of the biggest kind of hacks out there.
00:09:48I think Chamath talked about this in a video,
00:09:50but like if you wanna be in finance,
00:09:52you gotta be in New York, right?
00:09:53If you wanna be in film,
00:09:55it's like you probably gotta be in Hollywood.
00:09:57If you wanna be in politics, you gotta be in DC.
00:10:00Now, if you don't wanna be
00:10:01in those kind of like more traditional paths,
00:10:02there's a lot more places that you could be,
00:10:04but the idea is like there are hubs.
00:10:06And if you wanna get into a space,
00:10:08the best way to do it is get to the hub.
00:10:09And so if you're not sure what to do right now,
00:10:12you should know exactly what to do,
00:10:14which is that you build capacity
00:10:16and you wait for the pitches that you can swing at to come.
00:10:19And so maybe you're getting ball after ball after ball,
00:10:21but what do you do to make sure
00:10:22that when the fat pitch comes, you're ready?
00:10:24It's like you practice your swing.
00:10:26You start doing your sprints so that like,
00:10:28you can actually get around the basis faster, right?
00:10:30You start working on coordination drills.
00:10:32You start working on your hip, your power.
00:10:33You start going to the gym, right?
00:10:35Like all of these things would be things
00:10:36that when that pitch comes,
00:10:37you'll maximize the likelihood
00:10:38that you smashed it out of the park.
00:10:39But so many of you are waiting for this fat pitch
00:10:41to then begin and getting lapped by people
00:10:43who already were prepared.
00:10:44And so the key word here,
00:10:46in order to build capacity, you build by preparing.