“I Was Afraid Of Everything” – How Alex Hormozi Changed His Life
CChris Williamson
Mental HealthAdult EducationParenting
Transcript
00:00:00It's crazy that we think we can change our thinking environment whilst keeping our external
00:00:04environment the exact same. And we're going to just continue to use, I don't know what type of
00:00:12effort we think it is that we're applying to our own brain whilst experiencing the same cues and
00:00:17stimulus, but hoping that our thinking is going to adapt. You have to change to change. And it
00:00:25sounds so like, does that sound like a trite truism or whatever? Like cliche. Yeah. If nothing has
00:00:31changed, nothing will change. And so you have to be like, something has to be the catalyst. And you
00:00:36were the only, like either you get in a car accident, your girlfriend breaks up with you. You
00:00:40can use the negative, at least like if you are not happy with your life and then something bad happens
00:00:45to you, be grateful for it in the moment because it means that you, a change, a chaos variable has
00:00:50entered the building. And that means that you have the ability for a short period of time before
00:00:54equilibrium gets reestablished that you can change shit without the same consequences because all
00:00:58of your loops got, got muddled. And so like, those are the periods of time where you can go through
00:01:02tremendous change because you're like, well, fuck it. Everything that I thought to be true isn't.
00:01:07So what else, uh, that I think was false, but isn't, and then you can start moving towards it.
00:01:12Came across this line from beauty of sass. It is an unwritten rule of life that after every
00:01:17prolonged period of hardship and uncertainty, there is going to be a period where you achieve quantum
00:01:22leaps across multiple areas of your life. The only requirement is that you do not give up on
00:01:26failure and success are on the same road. It's just that failure is an earlier exit.
00:01:42What's that one about, uh, whatever you do, don't be the guy who gives up at the exact moment when you
00:01:47should be fighting with everything you have. You'll make it through either way, but there's only one way
00:01:52you'll look back and be proud of yourself. This is the meta frame of the story that we one day tell.
00:01:59Like we tell stories of who, of what type of person we are all day long when we're confronted with
00:02:04different decisions, what type of person am I? And I would like to be known to myself as a fighter
00:02:12is that I'm willing to fight for what I want and for what I believe in. And I think that,
00:02:19um, that is why I think I would want to have courage to be the one thing that is transferred.
00:02:23Hmm. And I think it's because I'm going to go back to that season because I think it's relevant.
00:02:30Like I, I was a really good student at Vanderbilt. I was vice president of the powerlifting team.
00:02:41I was president of the fraternity that I was in. I had a three, eight, I think GPA. Um, and I graduated in three years,
00:02:47but I was so afraid of not getting a job that I took the first job that I was offered
00:02:53from the first person, which was an introduction my dad had from a patient of his. And to be clear,
00:02:59so we were like, Oh, it was a, it was an epitism. It wasn't a great job,
00:03:02but I was so afraid that I would be jobless that I just took that job. And I only say this to say that
00:03:09like, like you can change your stars. Like I was not the type of person who, who does the types of
00:03:22things that I do now then. And I, I, I retell those stories. I don't talk about, talk about them as much
00:03:35because, um, honestly, I blocked most of them out because I was in so much pain during that period
00:03:40of my life. And the reason that I'm willing to keep making content and write books and all that stuff,
00:03:46um, is because I know that there is a, another person who is going through a similar chapter
00:03:53and worried if they are sane or if it is only them and it is not. And so like,
00:04:00you can't compare yourself to people who are different chapters. You just have to believe
00:04:07that you can change incrementally one behavior at a time over an extended period of time and that those
00:04:13changes will aggregate, that they will stack up. Um, because like, we don't know what the last chapter
00:04:20is going to look like. We only know what the next page does and we get to write that today. And
00:04:25like, I was, I was so driven by fear. I was so, I was so afraid of everything, um,
00:04:36during that chapter. And so it was like other people's opinions. What if I fail? What if this
00:04:41doesn't work out? What if people make fun of me? Like I had all this, this fear around it. And like,
00:04:46the emotionality that I have now towards it is because of the, the, a mix of, of pity and pride
00:04:56that I have for that young man, the young Alex that was going through that, because
00:05:03I'm proud that I made, made it through that. But I also pity the amount of pain that I was going
00:05:08through, um, to, to, to make that jump. And so I don't, I don't know who's listening, but like
00:05:20fear can be useful if you know that you were driven by fear to some degree. And in some ways,
00:05:26it's almost shameful to say it because it was the reason that, that the word that I never want to have
00:05:32used described for me is cowardly is because I behaved like a coward. I was afraid of everything.
00:05:38I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of my dad's judgment. I was afraid of, of everything. And I,
00:05:45the, the flip that made it for me was just using that fear against something bigger was that I was
00:05:52more afraid of not, of, of looking back on my life and never having tried. And I knew that that would be
00:06:00so empty and I would be so filled with regret and that I knew that I would beat myself up over it
00:06:06every single day as I got older, that that existence was, was more terrifying to me than the practical
00:06:17consequences of me taking a step where I would fail. And it sounds, it's very easy for me to say now
00:06:24to you or anyone who's listening, like, of course, the downside is not that big. You'll just sleep on a
00:06:28friend's couch, whatever. But at the time for me, it was everything. And it was all of the status
00:06:35that I had spent all of my time trying to accumulate. I was president of this, president of that. I'd done
00:06:39all the good grades. I had a good job on paper. Um, and so whatever fuel you have, whether it's anger,
00:06:47whether it's shame, whether it's fear, even if you have all of them, like if you know you have them,
00:06:55try and put them behind you to, to get you to run away from it. If it's right now, it's in front of
00:07:02you and it's, it's preventing you from taking the next step. And so it's like, if you can just put it
00:07:06behind you so that you're running away from this, this future, it's like run harder away from the future
00:07:12that your current path is taking you towards that you're afraid of than the short-term path
00:07:18that running away from it is going to run you into. It's like, you either have to be, you know, uh,
00:07:23it's like, um, I'm taking some liberties here. Um, it's like, you can either fear the whip of the,
00:07:32the person behind you or the enemy in front of you. And the direction you face is the one that you fear,
00:07:37the, the least. And so if you know that there's an enemy in front of you and a whip behind you,
00:07:43it's like, you just need to in the short-term increase the pain of the one that you want least.
00:07:49Have you seen succession?
00:07:51Uh, the first season.
00:07:53Okay. So I don't watch it because it's too real for me.
00:07:56So it's, it keeps me up and like, I get, I get too like amped when I watch it because I like it,
00:08:01but I'm like, I can't do this before bed. So I need like vampires and like,
00:08:07yeah, in the final season, Tom is having a conversation with his wife and he says,
00:08:16I wonder if the pain that I would feel without you
00:08:22would be less than the pain that I feel by being with you.
00:08:30And that seems to be what you're talking about here.
00:08:32It's a hundred percent that.
00:08:33And I, you, you talk in retrospect about that period, about what that guy went through.
00:08:37It doesn't sound like pity to me. It sounds like grief.
00:08:41It sounds much closer to grief. Like somebody
00:08:44nearly died or did die or suffered a lot and didn't deserve it.
00:08:47Oh, I think that person totally died.
00:08:50Like the, I don't want to say the man I was, the boy that I was totally died.
00:08:53And I think, I mean, the hardest, the hardest loss that I had to take was the,
00:08:58the boy that I was in my father's eyes, that was living up to his expectations,
00:09:02which is all that I wanted.
00:09:04And so sacrificing that.
00:09:07And it took years and my dad and I are cool. We're great.
00:09:10But like for, for a season, that's what I, I had to sacrifice that person.
00:09:15And it was, all I had wanted was to make him happy.
00:09:18And so, and again, no fault of his own, but that is all I want.
00:09:23And so it's like, I had a tree, I had achieved the dreams that I had as a younger man.
00:09:27And in so doing, it had become my nightmare.
00:09:30And that's why the third point that, that you read about, no one is coming to save you.
00:09:37Everything is your fault.
00:09:38And you have to sacrifice who you are for who you want to become.
00:09:42I think it's so real for me is that you do.
00:09:45And like, like someone's dreams will die.
00:09:48It is yours or theirs.
00:09:50So you just want to make sure that the person who is dreaming for you has bigger
00:09:54dreams for life than you do.
00:09:56And sometimes well-intentioned people, because they want to be practical and they want to be
00:10:01realistic, have smaller dreams for you than you do.
00:10:05And if they have smaller dreams, then you should listen to you and not them.
00:10:10Obviously your dad built a story about what success looks like.
00:10:14Yeah.
00:10:14And you rejected it slowly, but loudly.
00:10:20Now that you're about to have a child, what story are you going to tell that kid?
00:10:25Of that period or?
00:10:26No, this story about what success looks like.
00:10:30Like how certain are you that the story that you tell your son isn't just a new version of the same
00:10:37cage that you had to break out of?
00:10:38It's something that I think a lot about.
00:10:43Um, how do I, you know, the, the child is going to be born into, by the time he has memory, he will be the son of a billionaire.
00:10:53And that's, that's, that's a lot.
00:10:56Um, and in some ways I like, don't wish that on anyone, but I'm, and yet I'm bringing someone into that.
00:11:05Um, which has its own thought circles I won't get into.
00:11:10Um, but I am going to focus him to the degree that I can influence his behavior, um, on.
00:11:23On being courageous.
00:11:26On leaving nothing on the field.
00:11:29I will care endlessly about his effort and very little about the outcomes.
00:11:38Assuming he controlled the controllables and I will hold an incredibly high standard.
00:11:47And it is because I respect him and believe in him and that he has the potential to achieve it.
00:11:54And what's been very difficult for me, cause I haven't, I haven't fully defined this.
00:11:58And maybe I will by the time he's born or by the time he's a little older is, is I've had trouble
00:12:02trying to define what a successful parent looks like and what a successful child look like.
00:12:08Because if we decide, if we define a successful parent by the output of the child,
00:12:13there's a whole hell of a lot of people that have had pretty tough parents that have turned out really
00:12:16good.
00:12:17But then does that mean that the parents are good or bad?
00:12:19I don't know.
00:12:20Um, and the successful child is the successful child that he is happy.
00:12:26I tend to reject that, that definition overall.
00:12:30Is it that he has purpose?
00:12:31I would probably prefer that.
00:12:33Cause I think happiness can be fleeting.
00:12:35Purpose tends to stick a little longer.
00:12:37Um, but at the very end of the day, I think,
00:12:41um, character, which I still just define as just huge sets of behaviors.
00:12:44Um, I want him to be brave and I want him to try his ass off.
00:12:55And if he does that, well, no matter what, he will be good enough for me.
00:13:00But, uh, I will just more so make the commitment that given all the resources that I have, both
00:13:06mental and, and financial, um, I will do the best I can with what I have, um, to give him the maximum
00:13:13possibility of achieving what he wants.
00:13:15Did you know your gut controls your energy, your recovery, how well you absorb everything
00:13:19that you eat?
00:13:20And the one nutrient that keeps it all running properly is fiber.
00:13:24Well, it turns out that 95% of Americans don't get enough of it,
00:13:27which is why I'm such a huge fan of Momentus' Fiber Plus.
00:13:31Most fiber supplements are a one trick pony.
00:13:34One type of fiber solving, one part of the problem.
00:13:36Fiber Plus is a three in one formula built to tackle digestion, gut barrier strength,
00:13:40and blood sugar stability all at once.
00:13:43I use this every single day.
00:13:44It is kind of hard to get enough fiber just through food alone.
00:13:48And best of all, Momentus offers a 30 day money back guarantee.
00:13:51So you can buy it, try it every single day for 29 days.
00:13:54And if you don't love it, they will just give you your money back.
00:13:56Plus, they ship internationally.
00:13:58Right now, you can get up to 35% off your first subscription
00:14:01and that 30 day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below
00:14:04or heading to livemomentus.com/modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom
00:14:10at checkout.
00:14:11Congratulations, you made it to the end of a clip.
00:14:13And the full length episode is available right here.
00:14:18Go on.