Embracing the Hardships of Success | Ep 706

This episode explores the inherent difficulties of entrepreneurship and provides insights on overcoming loneliness and challenges while pursuing success.

1. Entrepreneurship is inherently challenging and often isolating, but this can be mitigated by actively seeking and engaging with supportive communities.
2. Success can lead to loneliness as personal and professional landscapes evolve, necessitating new strategies for connection and support.
3. The importance of resilience and accepting the ongoing challenges of entrepreneurship as part of the journey towards success.
4. Strategic networking and positioning oneself in environments conducive to business growth are crucial.
5. Personal growth and the development of relationships are integral to sustaining long-term success in entrepreneurship.

1: The Challenges of Entrepreneurship

Alex discusses the relentless challenges faced by entrepreneurs, emphasizing the need for resilience and a proactive approach to overcoming obstacles. He uses vivid metaphors to describe the entrepreneurial journey. Alex Hormozi: "Entrepreneurship fucking sucks a lot of the time."

2: Overcoming Loneliness in Success

The episode explores how success can lead to loneliness and the strategies to counteract this, including moving to entrepreneur-friendly locations and joining relevant online communities. Alex Hormozi: "Just straight up, like you just need to get around people who are doing the same thing as you."

3: Building and Maintaining Relationships

Alex advises on how to maintain relationships amid the demands of growing a business, highlighting the importance of having friends who understand and support your entrepreneurial journey. Alex Hormozi: "And they're not going to hold it against me."

1. Join Entrepreneurial Communities: Actively seek out and participate in communities both online and locally that align with your business interests.
2. Evaluate Personal Relationships: Focus on cultivating relationships with individuals who support and understand the entrepreneurial lifestyle.
3. Consider Relocation: If feasible, move to an area with a higher concentration of entrepreneurs and business-focused resources.
4. Embrace Challenges: View challenges as opportunities for growth rather than obstacles.
5. Network Strategically: Engage in networking activities that align with your business goals, including online forums and local meetups.

(Disclaimer: This interview was recorded over a livestream. We apologize in advance for the quality of the audio.)

"the only time that you truly have no hardship is if you're not growing.” Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) answers questions from his audience and discusses the realities of entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of resilience amidst consistent challenges. He offers insights into customer acquisition strategies, the value of a strong network for growing businesses, and underscores the necessity of enduring hardships for success. He also shares valuable lessons for entrepreneurs about personal growth, overcoming obstacles, and the continuous learning process inherent in entrepreneurship.

Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.

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Alex Hormozi
Entrepreneurship fucking sucks a lot of the time. Most of the day to day of entrepreneurship is just getting kicked in the nuts every single day for years on end with an occasional glimmer of hope followed by a swift kick in the nuts. And the price that we are willing to pay for the thing that we want, and that's the thing is like, we have the choice. It's voluntary. We chose to become entrepreneurs.

We chose to start businesses. And with that choice comes consequences.

Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more per customer, and how to keep them longer and the many failures and less we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. All right. Kevin the man, the myth legend. Black tank looks nice.

What's up? I don't think it's bad. That's a copy over here.

I've got good lighting. You're good. All right, so my question is basically I've been an online fitness coach for last like three years now. And like, you guys since I'm like the first ten came on, but three years ago in like twenty five k a month. Congrats.

Kevin
I kind of felt like I got lonelier the more successful it got. Even though I do have pretty big fits out, over 1 million followers. You said you got lonelier, you still got lonelier. Yeah. Okay.

Across like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram itself. Like it just maybe you went through something like that or maybe you have it that sense. I was wondering like maybe how you got over that cell phone because I feel like that's kind of holding me back. I want to make sure that I want to clearly understand your question. So you're saying that being lonely is the thing that is holding you back?

Well, it was more like lifestyle changes. Obviously you're going to lose the conversation is a lot different. Just like especially from going in person and being a full time in person online talk with that. Just like only kind of along different aspects. Yeah, you just have to join a community, man.

Alex Hormozi
Just straight up, like you just need to get around people who are doing the same thing as you. And so that might mean physically moving to a different area because right now I'm assuming online pays your bills. So if online pays your bills then you can literally be anywhere in the world. And so if you where you live right now until. Right I'm clients moved to Kelowna.

Kevin
It's more like Venice town again. Okay. Like, yeah, I guess when I go out there, I feel like that'd be big help to you. I would do that, and I would also join a bunch of online communities of people who are, like, trying to make money in the fitness space, because you'll find a ton of other people who are doing the same thing as you, that are on the path, that are ahead of you, that are the same as you, that are behind you. And you, you can get a little bit of some fulfillment from helping out some of the people behind you, but you can also get help from the people ahead of you because you show that you'll.

Alex Hormozi
You'll execute and you'll do what they say and you'll grow. But this is the nice news is that this problem is super solved. Like, you just got to get around people and you got to be willing to be rejected. I mean, it's just like fitness sales. It's just like friend sales.

That's the same thing. You just go. You go. You go on a bunch of dates. They're just friend dates.

You know, go hang out, go get a lift in. I mean, it's fitness. So, like, just go ask a bunch of people to get a lift in, and you'll see who's cool and you'll see who isn't. Worst case scenario, you get a workout. Yeah.

Kevin
Have you ever kind of experienced that? I got a level, though. Of course. Of course. Like, as long as you keep growing, this is not going to stop.

Alex Hormozi
You're going to find new friends, and if you keep growing, you'll pass them, and then you'll find new friends that are above them, and you'll pass them and you'll just keep going. And so it just depends on how, like, what you see the role of friends as in your life. And so, you know, for me, I just want. My requirement for friends isn't necessarily that they make the same or more money than me at all, is do they make me better? Do they make me better?

Do they have my best intentions in heart? Just already two incredibly difficult things to pass, but if someone passes both those things, then they are a friend. And so I would just use that as a limits test. Like, is this person making me better and do they have my best, you know, incentive at heart? Yeah.

Kevin
And how is making friends? And I guess now, because obviously you're a higher level and things are different with social status and all that. So do you kind of have the same standards now or kind of. What is. Dude, it's harder for me than it is for you.

Alex Hormozi
No, for real. It is. But the thing is, is that most of my closest friends don't live here like, don't live in the same physical area that I do. Most of the closest friends that I have live all over, and so I see most of my friends once or twice a year, and that's it. And I work in the meantime.

The thing is, is that, like, the higher up you go here, like, and I'll just tell you something, like, from my level, whatever you want to call that, all the friends I have, everyone, completely, like, there are zero social obligations for anything. Like, none. And if I don't respond to a text for three days, there is zero drama. It's not even acknowledged. It's just we know that busy people understand that busy people are doing shit.

And so if everyone you have, everyone who's in your world understands that you're trying to take this hill, then if they're truly your friend, then they want you to take the hill more than they want you to respond to their text or come out with them for the weekend. Like, I just got invited to a seven day thing that with a couple friend that Leila and I both really, really adore, but we'll probably not be able to do it because we have so much stuff that we're doing at that same time. And I really want to go, but I also really want to do this other stuff. And I know that I will feel worse about myself if I don't have this other stuff done. And so we're going to say that I can't go and that's going to be it.

And they're not going to hold it against me. And so until you find friends who are 100% aligned with you, achieving your goals, who are making you better and want you to hit your goals, then you just keep looking. But the thing is, like, everybody goes through the period that you're at. I think I wrote a tweet about this, but, like, there is this lonely period that always happens when you start growing, because it happens is that you're too big for the old friend group, but you're not quite big enough for the group that you want to get into, right? So you kind of have this path in the middle where you just kind of, like, keep trudging along, but like, every single person who's accomplished anything material has been in your exact same shoes.

And you just keep going and you keep going, you keep networking. You enter, you go into the communities, you see the people who are adding value to those communities, and you message them. You find the givers, because givers recognize givers almost immediately. You can see the people who are always giving more above and beyond, and you can understand they get the game. And so in that first meeting, if they're like, let me see if I can do this for you.

Let me take care of this for you. Let me help you in this way, rather than like, hey, could you help me with this, like, wrong person. But if you just start by giving to a whole bunch of people who are where you want to be, you'll get more back. Even if nine out of ten don't give you anything back. That was very helpful over there, especially.

Kevin
I mean, with the community side moving, definitely helps just giving to those groups. And those are the kind of people. Especially, like, yeah, dude, if you give out a lot publicly, the people who message you privately will be people who recognize what you were providing. And so, like, be loud. Provide shitloads of value.

Alex Hormozi
People will message you and then be like, hey, let's hop on a zoom. Let's grab a zoom lunch, whatever. And so, like, you can have a ton of friend dates or whatever that you meet people and see if they have game. And if they have game, then you keep in touch, because you're making them better, too. Yeah, you also said that pretty much all your friends kind of around the world.

Kevin
I know it's a little different. So, yeah, I feel like you almost lose a little bit of that personal touch. Then, of course, it's just a trade. It's a trade. So, like, if you're willing to make the trade, then, I mean, like, I'll put it this way.

Alex Hormozi
If that were the price that you had to pay to live the life that you want to live, would you pay it that you just have friends that you meet up with once a month, then that's just the price tag. And those are the Nikes. You can pay the 500 or not, but that's the price tag. I appreciate everything. You bet, brother.

Kevin
Kill the content game.

Alex Hormozi
Moz Nation real quick. If you are a business owner that has a big old business and wants to get to a much bigger business into 5100 million dollars plus, we would love to talk to you. And if you like that or would like to hear more about it, go to acquisition.com. You can apply anywhere on the page and talk to one of our team and see if we can help you get there.

What's up, Celeste? What's up, Alex? Hey, thank you so much for having me on here. I'll get right into my question. So, after doing full time entrepreneurship for three years.

Correct. And, you know, raising a family, I got four small children, all under the age of five, I found myself in a very hard position where I had to go back to a nine to five. I'm at my nine to five right now. I won't tell anybody. So now I'm, like.

Kevin
I'm, like, in a place that, like, I would say entrepreneurship is, like you said, it's hard, and I know what hard feels like, but after discussing it with my wife, like, I felt like this was, like, the right decision after getting myself into business debt and other things like that, and, yeah, I never have a paycheck to live on, you know? Yeah. So how do I get back into entrepreneurship? Like, I'm just running my stuff on the side. So, yeah.

For example, right when I was laid off three years ago, I was doing taxes and I was doing a bookkeeping. I worked my way up, starting to offer accounting services, and then I leveled up and I started, look, going after higher leverage, like, now, I started doing CFO services, and I went through that valley of despair thing, and that's probably why I'm at where I'm at right now. Okay. Just being completely honest and did. You're fine, man.

Alex Hormozi
You're good. No, I said you're good, man. I appreciate you being candid and upfront about it because otherwise this wouldn't be very valuable. Because you tell me a bunch of fake information, I'll give you a response to fake information. It wouldn't matter for either of us.

So thank you for being honest. That being said, you're not. Honestly, you're in a pretty good spot, and I'll tell you why. So you have a valuable skillset that will always be in demand because a lot of people don't want to do money stuff. So people don't do budgets, people don't do bookkeeping.

People don't do CFO work. People want to do financials, projections, forecasts. No one wants to do any of that stuff. And you do, and you're good at it. So presumably you're good at because you keep doing it.

Right. I'll just. I'll leave it at that. I'm going to assume that for the sake of our call. Right.

So, one, I think it was wise that you got a job because you have a wife, you have four kids. I think that was a smart noggin move. Okay. Now, that being said, there's going to be a conversation that you probably have to have with your wife because your nights and weekends either are going to have to go to family or they're going to have to go to the new thing. And so I think that you need to have a candid conversation with her and say, listen, my prime.

And I'm going to. I'm putting words in your mouth here. So this is. If I were in your shoes, I would say, as a man, my primary drive is to provide. And right now, I feel like I'm failing you.

And I want to lead our children by example so that when they are 20 or 30 and they're thinking about making that jump, I can speak to it, because I wasn't afraid to take the risk again. Because in gymnastics, as soon as you fall off the pommel horse, even if you twist or break your ankle, you. You know what they do? They try and get you right back on the horse again. And they do that because if you don't and you take enough time off, you start developing these fears around getting back on.

You never get on again. And so they want you to get back on the horse. And right now, I think you got bucked by the entrepreneurial horse. And that's okay. It happens.

It's part of the game, right? Like, it's the. The scene in Rocky 17 or whatever fucking rocky it is, where he's like, it's not about how hard you can hit it, but it's about hard. You can get hit and keep going forward, right? And so you got hit.

Everybody gets hit. Everyone fucking loses all the time. I lost everything twice before this time, right? And so, like, you've lost everything once. You still owe me one.

You can tell your wife I said that. And so let's get into tactics, all right? So right now, in my opinion, the issue that you miss is you didn't know how to advertise, you didn't know how to promote, and so you have the service. You just got to let people know about it. And so you were full time as an entrepreneur, but you probably weren't spending 4 hours a day promoting.

That's what you need to do. So nights and weekends for you is you log out of work, go home, kiss the dog, high five the kids, and then you spend 4 hours promoting. And promoting is you make content, you reach out to people, or you run ads, and given your financial situation, it's going to be making content and reaching out to people. That's it. Literally, if that's what you're.

You start your timer 4 hours, you make content, you reach out to people, and you do that for four straight hours every day. You do that, you're going to have more business in the next six months than you know what to do with. That's it. That's all you have to do. Like, you're.

The thing is, you're in a good spot because you have the skill that there's already demand. Like, I don't have to test your idea. You're trying to provide bookkeeping services. It's a commoditized service. Like, if you do a good job, you're on time, you are responsive, you deliver things on the first of the month, people will want to do business with you, and they'll stay with you.

And so you just got to let people know about it faster because I'm guessing that your rate was based on referrals. You had one or two customers, maybe three, and by the time you get one new referral every two or three months, one would drop, and you stayed there until eventually you couldn't. So you just need to increase your sales velocity, which means you got to let more people know about it, and you got to learn how to sell because it was just you, right? Did you have any employees? No, I had a virtual assistant every tax season.

Kevin
But, yeah, mainly just me. Yeah. Then you have the easiest business in the world because 100% of the revenue is profit. It's just you for now. And so you can absolutely get yourself to 1020 accounting clients.

Alex Hormozi
And you're going to be working like a dog at this point, but you'll be making way more than you are now. And then you'll have new problems because then your wife's like, I don't see you anymore. You're like, yeah, but now we're making three times of money, and I will find a way to use the money to buy back some time. And you can do that, but, like, you already have the hard shit done. You're, like, six months away.

Seriously. Like, I don't normally say that. Like, you're six months away. You gotta. You gotta reach out to, let's call it, 10,000 people.

You reach out to 10,000 people, you'll have the business you want. Even if you suck. You have the business. You want to reach out to 10,000 people and just ask them if they need help with that thing, because I'm telling you right now, as a business owner, dude, the amount of crappy accountants and bookkeepers that are out there outnumber the good ones 100 to one. Like, no one's stoked about their bookkeeper.

It's not hard. And, like, think about it. Those guys suffer. The same issue that you have is they don't know how to promote themselves. They're not business people, they're bean counters.

And so, like, you've been in bean counter mode and you got to get in promoter mode, especially as a, as a solo entrepreneur. It's all promotion in the beginning. So would you suggest just mainly cold outreach or should I try to do content or just go straight cold? You can do both. I mean, do one post a day.

One post a day, see who interacts with it, so who likes it, who comments on it. You can message all those people and then you can reach out as well. But the thing is with your profession, finding someone who has an adjacent audience. So if someone who's an HR company or recruiting company. Right.

Like, if you can figure out a way to just work with them, they already have a whole engine of people coming in and just see if you can just get off the backside and give them a kickback just for intros. Like, that's a super productive way of leveraging the amount of reach outs. Like you can just reach out to 10,000 business owners and you'll get your nut, but you could probably reach out to a thousand b, two b businesses and see if you can structure a partnership with them that they can refer you business and you refer it back to them. Either of those would work, but yes, content and outreach and real talk. The content is probably not in the beginning where you're going to get the majority of your business.

I just want to just prepare you for that. But the reason that you're going to be making the content in the beginning is that, so when you do reach out, people will go to your page and they will consume your content and then they will decide to respond based on the quality. So think about that stuff as lead nurture more than lead gen in the beginning. Over time, you'll get better at it, it'll start generating business, but it might take you a year or two. Like, it takes time to get good at that.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Alex. I just want to say thank you so much because like the past three years, I just listened to the game podcast all the time. And that's honestly what's got me through everything. Oh, good, man.

Kevin
It just honors me and it makes, it makes me so happy, like, as a father and as, as, like a aspiring entrepreneur to meet you and everything that you do. Like, you've inspired me and that's the reason why I took the jump in the beginning. So I appreciate you. Well, I appreciate you for taking the jump, and I will ask you to trust me one more time. Which is that 4 hours a day.

Alex Hormozi
Have the conversation with your wife. 10,000 reach outs, and let me know in six months. All right. Let Celeste take his 10,000 reach outs. That's it.

Like, on the other side of 10,000 reach outs is you making the money that you want to make and having the skill of promotion and sales. That's it. Just tick them off. 100 every day. Rule of 100.

There you go. Life is hard. Believing it should be easy makes it harder, man. It was doctor, CEO, ghostwriter. I feel so bad right now, but you had this issue, which was that you said you wanted to have a thousand books to sell, and you basically made an equation that was, if I don't get x, I will be unhappy.

And so I think the first one I heard this was from naval, but he said, desire is making a contract to be unhappy until you get what you want. And so it's like signing a contract by saying, life should be easy, and every moment it isn't easy, I will be unhappy. That makes it more difficult than just being willing to weather the harder times. And so when I do get down on myself, because I do, too, I actually had a pretty sad day. I woke up this morning, and I actually messaged Layla.

I was like, I'm really sad today. I was like, I don't know why. I was like, I'm just giving you a heads up. I try and think, what expectations, spoken or unspoken, am I making of the universe that I feel is unfulfilled? And is that expectation reasonable?

And more often than not, I can identify what the expectation is. And once you pull it out and look at it, you think about how ridiculous it is. Like, the expectation that I have of the universe is that I should be able to sell a thousand books because I deserve it. And by the way, deserving is the exact opposite of gratitude. So I want to publicly state wholeheartedly that I am hardcore against anyone thinking they deserve anything.

So people are like, get what you deserve, ask what you want, blah, blah. You don't deserve anything. You can get things for what you do, but you don't deserve them, because if you do get things when you believe you deserve them, then you will not be grateful for them. You will expect them. And then it takes something that otherwise would have been amazing and nullifies it.

It's like spitting on a gift. And so I try to take this perspective of I deserve nothing, and I'm grateful for everything. And obviously, that's very hard, because life is about creating predictions and trying to meet those predictions. But as much as I can be aware of the times where I feel more anxious or more sad or more angry or more upset or frustrated, it usually comes down to what expectation am I demanding from life that is unreasonable. And realistically, it's almost always just any expectation that I have of life that does not care.

And so that perspective, and I share that one because, like, entrepreneurship fucking sucks a lot of the time. Most of the day to day of entrepreneurship is just getting kicked in the nuts every single day for years on end, with an occasional glimmer of hope followed by a swift kick in the nuts. And so, like, one, you have to have pain tolerance, but that makes it sound super alpha and whatever, because I don't really think it's pain tolerance. I think it's reframing pain as reality and something to be expected. And the price that we are willing to pay for the thing that we want, and that's the thing, is, like, we have the choice.

It's voluntary. We chose to become entrepreneurs. We chose to start businesses. And with that choice comes consequences. And one of those consequences is forever feeling uncertain and always dealing with pain.

I don't think entrepreneurship sucks less the higher up you go. I think you just get so used to it. I mean, I'll tell you a story. Like, I remember the first time I had legal concerns. An employee said that wrongful termination or whatever, right?

And I would like, you know, I was anxiety, what if they're going to end the business? What's going to happen now? But then I got the second one and my third one and my fifth one. And at this point, like, Elon Musk is always engaged in 100 ongoing lawsuits at all times. If you have shit, people will try to take it from you.

It is how it works. And so if you have never had a legal concern, it means you have never had anything worth taking. And so it's not that you are failing. It is a sign that you are on the right path. Like, you don't have hardship if you're not moving forward.

Like, the only time that you truly have no hardship is if you're not growing. Like, nothing says stagnation like a comfortable entrepreneur. And so the fact that you're in pain means that you are growing, which is why they call them growing pains, like, and that is voluntary because we chose to become better. And part of that becoming better means breaking the old self that you had into a thousand pieces and feeling every single crack that has to happen and then watching the new fresh skin come underneath of it. Stronger and thicker than before.