All language subtitles for [English (auto-generated)] 26 Lessons From 2025 [DownSub.com]

My companies did over $250 million in

revenue last year. I broke a Guinness

World Record for the fastest selling

non-fiction book of all time. I did $106

million in sales in under three days. My

mother also died last year.

And I want to compress everything that I

learned this last year into this video

for you. For 8 years, I've had the habit

of texting myself lessons as they came

up so I wouldn't forget them. And every

year, I make one video like this. And

every year, it is my most listened to

podcast that I have. And so this is 2025

lessons and failures. The first is that

fear exists in the fig. And so if you're

afraid to take the risk, write it down

in excruciating detail what you're

actually afraid of having happen. Like

really step by step what happens next

when you fail. You'll often find it's

not that bad when you spell it out

because it only exists when it's hazy,

not when it's crisp. Because when you

actually play it out, okay, maybe you do

go back home. And what does going back

home really mean? It means that you go

back in your old room or maybe you sleep

on a couch or maybe you sleep on a

friend's couch. And so besides the rules

that you believe other people have on

your life that you think you're

breaking, that is all made up cuz they

don't really care that much because no

one really cares that much about anyone

besides themselves. It's all make

believe. And I think that when you get

as specific as humanly possible, but

like I don't want to I don't want to

post this content. What? because you're

afraid that some unnamed account or some

named account will write words on a

screen that will read that you'll read

that will make your your feelings go

away. Like that's that is what will stop

you from achieving your goal. Having a

stranger tell you to [ __ ] off because

you reached out is is the reason. That's

it. Like you're like I didn't achieve my

goals because I was afraid that somebody

I don't know would tell me that I suck.

When you say it like that, you're like

[ __ ] Now let's say a different version.

I didn't achieve my potential. I never

pursued any of my goals because someone

I know, I was afraid that they would say

that they didn't approve of my behavior

anymore. Maybe you shouldn't a care what

they think or b have them in your life.

And so when I decided to launch this

book, $100 million Money Models, the

goal was to do $100 million in the

weekend. And I made that goal public

within the company so everybody knew.

And one of the people on my team said,

"Well, what if we don't hit it?" And I

remember almost being like disgusted.

Like that was like my my physical

reaction to to when that person said

that. And I remember just looking at him

and I was like, "Dare greatly,

motherfucker." Like what's the point?

Like if we if we [ __ ] up, we die trying.

You know what I mean? Like so what? But

like we're going to still fight like

hell to try and make it happen. And so

the fact that he asked that really just

made me think like what does he think

I'm afraid of? If I if I said, "Hey

guys, we're gonna hit we're gonna try

and hit 100 million." We hit 80 or we

hit 70, whatever. I'm like, "Okay,

boohoo. We made a bunch of money. We got

a ton of people books in their hands

that can help them. What are we going to

do? We'll try again next year." Like,

well, what what if people don't take you

seriously? I don't think people are

going to not take me seriously because

people will take you as serious as you

take yourself. And if you are serious

about your goals and your commitment to

those goals, people can visibly observe.

There is no one that will fault you for

daring greatly. Period. And anyone who

does doesn't matter. And one of my

favorite quotes, like man, it's probably

like a top 10 quote for me all time,

which I have a lot of quotes, is from

Marcus Aurelius. He said, "What are you

so afraid of losing when nothing in this

world belongs to you?" And so it's like

we're here on borrowed time to acquire

borrowed assets and borrowed resources

and at the end of the game, you're just

going to push your chips to the middle

and somebody else is going to take your

chair. That's it. Out of coins. And so

it's like we're just we're just in the

game. Like we're just here. We're we're

renting. We're leasers, right? None of

this is permanent. And so the idea that

we'd fear some permanent outcome from an

impermanent existence, the longer I've

been in the game, the more disgusted I

am by that feeling and by someone

questioning that. And so I share that

with you because when that when that uh

young man said that to me, it was just a

great reminder of like we ended up

hitting the 100 million. We did 106. But

like you have to you have to you have to

believe on some level that you can hit

it. And you also have to believe even

more that you will die trying. And I

think that your commitment has to be to

the effort that you're willing to put

forth. And completely divorced of the

outcome. I believed that we could hit it

because all the math made sense.

But could I ultimately control whether

ads got delivered or you know an account

gets shut down or or you know the the

internet doesn't work or there's a storm

that day and all the power gener of

course there are things that could

happen. So in no way I just want to make

sure that I put 100% effort on all the

things that I can control and then after

that you roll the [ __ ] dice and you

stack as many chips as you can in your

favor. And then after that you let the

cards fall where they will. And so that

was a very big reminder for me this year

was that like nothing great was ever

accomplished by someone who was afraid

to try because of what they thought

other people would think or say about

them. So that was number one. The second

one is that I feel like the longer that

I've been in this game, the more I feel

like mental toughness matters more than

motivation. And so mental toughness

comes down to four things which

obviously when my mother died I had to

think through like how am I going to

respond to this obviously negative event

in my life and that she died all of a

sudden no one thought it was going to

happen it was just very fast which in

some ways I can be very grateful for

right she didn't have like a long

suffering period and so there are four

things that I think happen when any

negative event occurs something against

your preferences something bad is that

the first level is how much bad stuff

can happen before you force it to change

the way you live. The second component

is okay something rattles you enough

that you start you change the way you

behave. Once you change the way you

behave basically how upset do you get?

How low do you go? Somebody who's more

mentally tough would take longer to get

upset and then if they do get do get

upset they do snap. They only change

their behavior a tiny bit. That's it.

So, they're not like, "Oh, I'm going to

go start taking heroin and I'm going to

go cheat on my wife and I'm going to go,

you know, drive drunk." They're like, "I

might have some ice cream tonight."

Right? And then once they're on that

negative path, the next level of our

element of mental toughness is how fast

do you come back, which is resiliency.

How fast do you rebound back to where

you were? Are you somebody who, you

know, someone says a cross word to you,

old school cross, right? bet something

mean to you and then you let it bother

you for a week, you let it bother you

for two weeks, a month before you

rebound. Even if it was a small thing

and a small change of behavior, if you

have low resiliency, it just takes you a

long time to get to baseline. And then

the fourth element is when you do

rebound, how much do you rebound? Do you

just rebound below where you were? Did

it per by the way, that's a traumatic

event. It permanently changed you your

behavior. Do you get back to baseline?

So it didn't permanently change you. Was

not traumatic. or you go above baseline.

You adapt. You're better than you were

before the bad thing happened. Which, by

the way, also traumatizes you. Because

for those of you who hear this all over

social media, translate the word trauma

into a permanent change in behavior from

an aversive bad stimulus thing that

happened. So trauma means that you just

change. You permanently change the way

you act when something bad happens. Is

there a world where you can change how

you act permanently? Where you behave

better than you did before? Yeah. Many

of you, many humans, not the current

generation, let's say a generation or

two back, were traumatized by your

parents many times. Sometimes with a

belt, sometimes with a hanger, sometimes

with a spoon, sometimes with a hand,

sometimes with a shoe or a slipper,

sometimes at your head. Who knows? The

point is is that you did something, you

got smacked, and then you permanently

stopped doing that. They traumatized

you. Was trauma bad in that situation?

No. It's only bad if it permanently

changes your behavior in a way that is

against the type of person that you want

to be or the types of behaviors that you

prefer to to act in or do. And so when I

thought about those things and I was

forced this year to like actually define

like what is mental toughness? People

throw this out a lot. like how can I

measure this? And then if I can measure

it, then it means that I can improve it.

And so when someone says, "Hey man,

toughen up or get mentally tougher."

Now, at least you have four variables

that you can think of in your mind. I

want to take longer for something to

change the way I act. If it does change

the way I act, I want it to change it as

little as possible. And if I notice that

my behavior has changed, I want to

rebound as quickly as I can. As soon as

I notice that it changes, and then not

only that, I want to be better for it,

not worse. And then that's what happens.

And the shift that occurs is that life

starts happening for you, not to you.

You become the victor of your

circumstances rather than the victim.

You become the person who's in the

driver's seat. And the reason that so

many people are aversive to that concept

is because it is so much easier to cast

blame outwards. Right? Your power

follows the direction of where you point

blame. So if you say, "I'm this way

because my mom didn't hug me enough. I'm

this way because my dad didn't hug me

enough." Then guess who actually has

complete control over your life? Them or

your perception of them. But if you

said, "I am this way because I am not

resilient enough. I was not adaptive

enough. I was not I didn't have enough

tolerance to be able to handle that

level of stress." Well, then guess what

you can now do? You can do something

about it because you admitted at least

you were in charge. You were the one in

control or you have some control, some

influence over the outcome of how you

act. And so defining this was really

helpful for me. Obviously going through

my mother's my mother's death and

accident and thinking like what kind of

man do I want to be? How do I want to

show up to my family? How do I want to

be there for everyone else who's going

to be at this, you know, at this

funeral, extended family, the people

from my mom's church who are going to be

there? Like how do I want to present

myself? And to be clear, I'm not saying

that you that you shouldn't suffer, that

you shouldn't mourn. I think that people

mourn in 100% unique ways that are

entirely of their own. And for anybody

to say that you somehow think someone

should mourn the way you think they

should mourn, [ __ ] you. Real talk.

People can mourn however they want to

mourn. And your choices in those harder

times can serve as evidence of the type

of person that you want to be. So that

when hard times come again, you can look

back and say, "I know I can get through

this because I got through that." And

then it becomes the stack of undeniable

proof that you're not just saying you

are this way. You can prove that you are

this way. And it's not that you do this

to the external world because the

external world doesn't give [ __ ] and

they're not taking track anyways. But

it's for you because you're the one with

the tally marks. You're the one who's

got the scars to show for it. You're the

one who gets to say, "I know I can get

through this because I have been through

worse." And what's really interesting

that I'll share is that the younger you

are in my opinion, the harder life is

because you have the same hard things

that occur to you. 10 out of 10 bad

thing is a 10 out of 10 bad thing. Maybe

your 10 out of 10 is different than

somebody else's, but everyone has a

maxed out pain scale. The difference is

that when you're younger, you don't have

the tools to protect yourself. You don't

have the tools to respond, and you don't

know how to make sense of the world yet.

And so no matter what you go through now

as an adult, I always think to myself,

there is something for sure that I went

through when I was younger that was

harder than this. And every time I look

for it, I find it. And it reminds me

that one, this two shall pass. And two,

I'm still [ __ ] here. And so this year

had a lot of hardship, not just my my

mother's death, but it served as a

reminder of the things that I can put in

my backpack on my checklist of things

that I can say I have also survived

this. So the third thing that I wrote

down for myself was record-breaking

outcomes take record-breaking work. And

so when I was kind of in the in the

thick of preparing for the book launch,

this launch, the Guinness World

Record-breaking launch, right, the guy

who owned the record before that, Prince

Harry, had almost doubled the guy who

ran who owned the record before that,

which is President Obama. All right, so

Obama was at 800 something thousand.

Prince Harry was at 1.4 million. And I'm

thinking these guys have tremendous

resources at their advantage and they

wanted to have a, you know, tons of book

sales and show, you know, show that they

had lots of people who love them and all

that stuff. And I was like, how am I

going to try and outsell these monarchs

literally, right? And it's like, well,

what are the things that are

controllable is the work that we put

into it. And I was like, well, I don't

know how Hard Prince Harry works. I have

no idea. I've never met him. But I was

like, I know that I can work four years

on something without anyone knowing

about it before revealing it. And I

think about it a lot like the Olympics.

So people will train for four years to

have 10 seconds where the world sees

them. And what's interesting is that

people see those 10 seconds and assume,

okay, 10 seconds when they ran, maybe

it's, you know, a hundred times that for

how much they worked. It's just not

really fathomable for somebody who

doesn't even know how to work long and

hard to think about how much effort that

really takes. And so when I was in the

thick of it, I just kept thinking to

myself like, man, this is so much work.

And then I thought to myself like, yeah,

no one has ever done this before. So, no

one has ever done this before. Of

course, it will take that much work. Did

I expect to do something that no one had

ever done before with a level of effort

that had been repeated many, many times?

Of course not. The amount of times I had

to doublech checkck every single email

flow from every single potential

combination. It was 400 pages of copy.

There was more copy written just in the

emails than words in the book. And then

every single VSSL, so video sales

letter, I had six of them. Every single

one of them painstakingly crafted where

I have to say, I got to get it shorter.

I got to get it shorter. But I have to

stuff more in here. I got to get it

shorter. How can I put more visuals? How

can I put more narrative in it? How can

I How can I minimize the downside? going

to express more of the of the upside

potential of this particular thing. And

then as I was creating the slides,

right, for for the webinar, I wrote out

every single word first and then went

through multiple passes of editing. And

then after editing the actual words,

every single word that was said was

prepared. And then those words had to

get on the slides. How many? 1,700

slides. How much AI was used in the

making of those slides? Zero. Me.

Because as of right now, there's nothing

that makes slides like me as of yet.

Maybe there will be. Currently it

doesn't not the style I like. And so I'm

there pasting these things. I was like,

"Holy [ __ ] this and then I was like,

"Okay, well, I also have to have a

visual on every single slide." I did use

AI for the visuals, but I had to go

through that and you're like, you're

like 300 slides in and you're like, "Oh

my god, this was 2 days." And you're

like, "I have I have another four I have

another 1,400 slides to make." And

that's just for the that's just for the

webinar. That's just for the first part

of day one. And then I've got I've got

the prep that I have to do for every one

of the interviews. And then I got to

talk to every one of those guys and tell

them what I'm going to say and then make

sure I can steer the conversation way

that's interesting to the audience and

then also still promotes the book and

the other stuff. And so with each of

these things and even when I when I when

I had the the playbooks, right, when I

explained those, I practiced being able

to walk, say the slide, and position the

props at the same time. You think, oh,

well, that that just looked normal. It

was like I had to do it 50 times, a

hundred times so that I knew that when

the the screen would come on, I would

pull I would reverse order. So I'd put

the the letter in my pocket. I'd take my

hat from underneath my arm. I'd pull it

back up. And then I would say, "Business

owners, money makers, ballers, can't

remember what it was. I made this for

you." And then I transition to the

second part. Right? And so at every

single one of these points, I had to

practice all of it over and over again.

And I was just like I just kept

thinking. I was like, "No one will do

this." I was like, "No one will do

this." And the reality is that you will

not get credit for the work you do. You

We have this desire, at least I do,

maybe on some level, that I want someone

to stand next to me when I'm working and

just be like, "Great job. Great job

today, Alex. You worked super hard." No,

you don't get that. Like, you have to be

that person. And so it comes down to and

I and I say this a lot but it's because

it's like it's what gets me through this

is I always ask myself I'm like what

kind of man do I want to be? And so when

I'm in that I'm like am I the man who

will cut the corner? And I'm like no I'm

going to [ __ ] do it right. And it's

like right get back to it. That's it.

There's no parade. There's no applause.

There's no confetti. It's like the work

needs doing and it's either me or

somebody else. And this was a a project

of love. I was like, this is something

that I had wor I mean the first all

three of my books were actually written

at once. So you you want to talk about a

long-term plan. I began writing these

four plus years ago and it was one Mondo

book and then I thought wouldn't it be

amazing if I could culminate the $100

million series with $100 million launch

but each of the three books had to had

to represent what the concept of the

book was about. And so I have had this

waiting for four years before I could

share it. And so I think like I like

telling yourself in your mind the story

that you're going to be able to someday

tell when you're going through the rocky

cut scene allows you to take the licks

that you're going to take during that

period where no one is watching because

the winning always happens when you're

alone. People only get to see it when

you when you when you demonstrate it.

But the demonstration, the 10-second

race, the one fight, the me getting on

stage and doing the presentation, that

is a microcosm of what it actually

takes. And it is one of those

unfortunate things that no one will ever

be able to observe it because the amount

of time it would take to observe it

would be the amount of time it took to

do it. Unless someone else is going to

wait for four years just to see that,

you just have to guess. And so, no one

will ever know how hard you worked and

no one will ever care. And so you have

to create another game or another story

that allows you to succeed even when no

one else cares. Which is why you have to

be the one who who cheers for you when

no one else is watching. Just know that

no one will understand. And that's okay

because you know and you're the only

person whose respect you need to earn.

And you're also the hardest person's

respect to earn because you know when

you're bullshitting you. And so this is

also me talking to the winners right

now. you being the best one in your

state, the best one in your high school,

the best one in your in your in your

company, in your division, in your

department. That's a low bar. I can't

remember where this quote is, but I

think I think Leonard Vinc Da Vinci said

this actually. I think he said something

to the degree of like the curse of the

winner is not that he he aims too high

and misses, but that he shoots too low

and he achieves his go his goal. And I

think that you can't have your own

respect if you know that you left some

in the tank. Which is why going bigger

and asking yourself, am I capable of

this? Is the only way that you can ever

truly see? And you can only do that if

you're willing to fail. Hey, and real

quick, I spent 200 hours this year just

making this one project for you, which

is the $und00 million scaling road map.

And I broke up the stages of business

into 10 stages. And you can identify

where you're at by simply just putting

in your business information. You go to

acquisition.com/roadmap

and it'll spit out this custom report

that tells you what the constraints are

at that current level and what you need

to do to graduate and get to the next

level. This is our gift to you

absolutely free. On the thank you page,

you can book a call with our team and

we'd love to help you uh figure that out

and ideally get past it. So number four,

you have to take care of people who work

in your company's personal life so that

they can succeed in their professional

life. So, I'll tell you what how this

manifests in reality. The biggest one is

if someone's spouse or significant other

is not a fan or supportive of the job or

the work that they have, they will never

achieve their potential. And it's it's

sad. It's unfortunate, but and it may be

controversial for some of you, but I

have yet to see it. If you have a spouse

or a significant other, somebody you

live with, someone who's like your other

person, and they're they're not like

even if they're neutral, you will not

achieve your potential. Honestly, I

don't even think close, not even close

to your potential because I think at

least I'll just speak for men, being

good on the home front allows you to

have full access to your brain so that

you can go after the hunt. Right? If

you're worried about what's happening at

home because you know that when you come

back there's going to be bitching and

moaning or like, "Why are you working?"

Oh, it's just it's always another

another tough season. It's always going

to be it's always going to be busy. If

you have that in the back of your mind

or in your ear, it's like you start

pulling your punches. You start cutting

out early. You start you start avoiding

taking on the bigger projects to take

the slightly smaller project. You don't

set the bigger goal because you know the

effort that it's going to take to hit

it. And so you just say, "Well, this is

an adequate goal." And I want to be

clear, nothing wrong with that if you

don't want to see how far you can go.

And not everyone does, and that's fine.

But when I think about the people in

this organization, I have taken more and

more attention to making sure that their

personal lives are supportive, their

environment is conducive to them doing

the best work they possibly can because

I want people to be able to do their

life's work at acquisition.com. I want

like think about the record I just

talked about. When someone is 85 years

old and looking back on their life,

there are very few moments that you

actually remember, right? Like you don't

remember the vast majority of life. you

just a couple moments that spit out and

like when you get I'm sure when you're

much older you might only remember like

one moment from a year. Think how crazy

that is, right? And so I got to say

truthfully to the team when you're

looking back on this part of your life,

you will be able to say that you made

history and there's not that many days

that you get to do that. And so making

history though only happens when you've

got every single thing aligned and luck.

And so to think to be arrogant enough to

believe that you're going to overcome

your your conditions that you've set up

for yourself and you've got somebody

who's not supportive versus somebody who

does, good luck. But that was just it

was a it was a big it was a big lesson

for me and that I'm paying attention to

that from a team perspective of who's

got supportive uh environments at home,

who's got supportive spouses, and is

there ways that I can help them get the

support of their spouse so that I can

unlock their discretionary effort

towards the goal. And I will say that

making sure that if you do have super

hard workers in your team, hard workers

will run themselves into the ground when

the goal is big enough. And so they will

usually look to you to see when to rest.

And so you have to be willing to be

like, "Take the day, dude. Take the

weekend, unplug." And then usually, I've

just seen, this is me personally saying

this, I think that when they see it from

above or see it from the person who

they're quote rolling into or

responsible for, getting managed by,

getting led by, they can actually unplug

for a couple days cuz they're like,

"Hey, he asked me to chill out. I'm

going to chill out, right?" And I think

that it's it's your responsibility to

have a gauge on where people are getting

close to cracking and and doullling

those out. Number five, think for

yourself or the world will think for

you. So this is one I thought a lot

about which is to be unique you need to

have high agency. And so agency is

essentially being able to reason for

yourself from the things that you can

observe or have observed. And so at the

lowest levels it's being able to say

that you like a person, a show, a movie

that most people don't like. It's

thinking for yourself. Most people, and

here's where it gets really interesting,

most people pick their identities off

the shelf, right? They come they come

with pre-anned beliefs. They have a set

of apparel that they wear. That's that's

the fashion of this guy. Oh, I'm a

hipster, which means I have to have

gauges. I have to have one of those

beanie hats. That's a small thing. I

wear black combat boots, you know, black

things with a chain, whatever. Cuz I'm a

hipster. And all my beliefs are going to

be what hipsters believe. And or I'm a

I'm a redneck. And so I'm going to have

flannel and I'm going to wear a trucker

hat and I'm going to have jeans and I'm

going to have super conservative views

on X, Y, and Z and whatever. I'm going

to live in the country and I want a

ranch. All right, there's nothing wrong

with doing that. It's just that most of

the time when you pick your belief set

and you pick your personality off the

shelf, the reason that you do that is

because you didn't actually reason for

yourself. Meaning there's probably not a

100% of hipster world views that you

agree with. There's not a 100% of

redneck worldviews that you believe with

if if you believe in that that if that's

you, right? And so if you actively think

about all the components of your life,

which is like what shoes will I wear?

Why do I pick these shoes? What makes a

good shoe for me? Why do I wear these

shorts? What makes a good short for me?

Why do I wear this shirt? As silly as

that may sound, you choose every single

component of your life. And you either

choose to live it by default or live it

deliberately. And the people that are

interesting typically have multiple

components that they reason for

themselves that get put into one box.

And so then when people see them, they

double take because they're like, "Wait

a second. These pieces don't go

together." And what does that do? It

makes you interested. And so let's say

that you have the body of a meatthead

and you dress like a redneck, but you

quote ancient philosophers and you're

also extraordinarily wealthy. That's

weird, right? That's odd. And so if

that's you, then you will probably

attract attention. And so a lot of

people want to live a unique life, but

they take all their decisions from

pre-anned boxes off the shelf, out of

the box. And so I think that asking

yourself, what do I want? And does this

thing help me get it? Are the questions

that begin to lead down the path of

agency? Because if you approach every

component of your life with that lens,

you'll often find that the things that

you took off the shelf don't. the

politics you you vote for, the people

that you the the the sports teams that

you root for, all of this stuff that

you've built your life around, not at

all. And so having high agency is higher

cost in the short term because you

actually have to make these decisions

and also suffer the rejection of

decisions that other people who might

all dress like hipster not agree with

because you didn't take the same belief

out of the box or off the shelf as they

did. But it's lower cost long-term

because you don't find yourself 10 years

down the road wondering how you got

here. How did I marry this person? How

did I start this business? Why am I

dressed this way? Do I even care about

this stuff? Why do I vote like that? You

got here because you never questioned

your decisions and just went with the

flow. You went with what everyone else

was doing. But everyone else is unhappy,

mediocre, overweight, in debt, and

divorced. Why would you be like them?

And so the only way out is by turning in

words and saying, "What do I want? And

does this thing help me get it?" And if

the conclusion that you come to is

different than everyone else's, great,

because you don't want to be like them.

So you should hope to find discrepancies

between what you decide and what other

people decide because it means you have

begun the path of thinking for yourself.

Maybe you like a movie that your friends

don't like. Instead of saying, "Oh, I

mean, it's okay." Don't hold back. Be

like, "I think it's a great movie."

They're like, "Well, you're an idiot."

You're like, "Okay, I like that show.

That show's trash. Okay, don't watch it.

Like, that's it, right? Oh, why do you

wear such lame shoes? Why do you wear

jean shorts, Alex? Why did you wear the

little sandals for two years that I wore

that were really weird because at the

time that those shoes served what I

wanted. I wanted cuz I was at the beach

a lot cuz Leila and I were traveling and

so I was like, I want something to go to

the gym. I want something to go to the

pool. I want something to go to the

beach. I want something that can climb.

I want something to go to a restaurant.

That's why I was close to close to

shoes. It gets me everything I want.

Great. Alex, it doesn't look cool to

who? Who does that look not cool to?

Girls, I'm married. I don't give a [ __ ]

Who does that not look cool to? GUYS,

WHY DO I CARE WHAT THEY THINK, RIGHT? I

I don't even know how to say it any

different. Like, why would I care about

any of that? They're not walking in my

shoes. Quite literally, these are

comfortable. And if you don't like them,

wear whatever shoes you want, right? And

so I think that when and this actually

has a tie into marketing which I think

is important which is like if you want

to make content you want to you want to

build a brand of some kind the brand has

to get built from the bottom up. You

have to reason from that perspective.

What do I want? Does this help me get

it? And when you think that way you'll

actually be able to build a unique brand

because no one will have the same exact

life experience as you. And when you do

that is what creates the unique

combination and you'll be able to defend

why you believe what you believe.

Because if you cannot explain why you

believe what you believe you believe

what someone else told you to believe.

and you never questioned it. Number six,

a hard conversation up front can save

you millions of dollars and years of

life. So Rockefeller said this, which is

a friendship founded on business is

better than a business founded on

friendship. So the big thing here is I

used to say I used to hear people say I

only can do business with people via

handshake. And people that I just met

when I was really young were like oh if

we have to draw a contract I don't want

to do a deal. And I was pressured into

doing handshake deals when I was younger

with people that were quote more

experienced because I didn't want to

seem, you know, disintegrous or

unintent, right? A dishonest person. Oh,

I need a contract. And then I just

realized they were complete scoundrels

and full of [ __ ] And so then I went the

other extreme, which was like everything

has to be in contracts, which I think by

and large would serve you really well

for anybody who's starting out your

first 10 years in business. If you do 10

years of business with someone, you will

be able to get to the point where you

can have handshake agreements. But you

do not extend trust to someone who has

not earned it. And I think that there's

different levels of this. If an employee

comes to the business, of course, like

you you have to extend trust, right? But

if we're talking a business partnership,

well then like we should have a track

record here. We should have a a large

data set of behavior that I can look at

in different circumstances where I know

that you will behave in this way. And so

for me, trust is believing that the

person will act in ways that are that

are similar to the way they have

continued to act in the past, right?

They are consistent. And I want to be

real with you for a second. So I said

this year was a tough year. I had eight

lawsuits this year, right? And most of

them were at the very beginning of the

year and I dealt with almost all of

them. And here's the part that people

won't tell you. All my lawsuits have

been with people who were friends of

mine or friendly. And if you're like,

"Huh? Well, I can't believe that he

would get in arguments over his friend.

What do you think divorces are? Right?

Like, we humans think that we're somehow

immune of like, "No, I'm really cool

with this guy. We're best friends. I

don't think we're ever going to get an

argument." Okay. Well, consider this.

People who sleep with each other for

extended periods of time make life

commitments to each other half the time

end it. So, if you think the most

important relationship in your life

where you're sharing everything with

this person, you're committing to

forever, half the time it ends, maybe,

just maybe, write down a [ __ ]

contract. And the reason that I I

honestly had a lot of these lawsuits is

because, and the thing is is it takes

years for these things to come due,

right? Like you have a business thing

that was 6 years ago and then the thing

finally really starts to make money and

then you have a conflict, right? And so,

you have to deal with all the

uncomfortable stuff upfront. And I just

so strongly encouraged you to like those

contracts. I avoided hard conversations

and was like, "Ah, we'll figure it out

when it gets to that." And we both

didn't want to talk about those things.

We didn't want to we didn't want to mess

up the friendship. It's like, bro, if

you think you can't have a hard

conversation when there's no money on

the line, just just assume that you will

be in a lawsuit for many years. Just

assume it. And if you're not willing to

have that hard conversation up front and

you willingly will go into having

multiple years of lawsuits on the back

end, then you deserve it, right? And

it's so avoidable and it's likely that

it's not going to work out because one

or both of you can't have hard

conversations, which is required for

success. And so I unfortunately have the

scars for this one. The contracts that

I've done in the last couple years are

significantly better than the ones that

I did six, seven years ago, but those

are the ones that are coming due now.

And so the time that you should have

great agreements was 20 years ago. The

second best time is today. So just start

with the frame of like, hey, I want

everything in in writing just so we have

no misunderstanding so there's no

unspoken expectations because the last

thing in the world that I would want is

that I would disappoint you because you

expect me to do something that I was

unwilling to do or that I didn't know

you wanted me to do. And so you can

approach from that perspective and then

you have to say, "Hey, what happens if

you don't want to be a partner with me

anymore? What happens if I don't want to

be a partner with you anymore? What

happens if you die? What happens if I

die?" Right? Right? What happens if we

disagree on where we're going to put the

money? Right? What happens if we

disagree if we're going to sell? These

are all things you have to talk about.

And so, you either do it now when

there's low stakes or you do it at the

end when you both have high stakes. And

I can promise you it's much better when

there's low stakes. So, there's a really

cool concept. I think Shiron said this

and I really like it. He said, you can

you can see what level of friend you

have by the things that you talk about

with them. So, he had five levels of

friends. I really love this. And I would

use this as a litmus test for thinking

through the quality of the friendships

that you have in your life. The lowest

level of friend is someone that you can

only talk about the past with. Oh, the

good times we used to have. Oh, remember

high school past, right? The next level

friend is somebody who just talk about

other people with. Oh, how's so and so

doing? How's Let's talk about that

person. Let's talk about that person.

Aka kind of gossiping. But that's what

it is. Level two. Level three friend is

someone that you can talk about ideas

with. Oh, wouldn't it be cool if Oh,

isn't it amazing? You can dream, right?

ideas, concepts. The fourth level of

friend is how you can tr somebody you

can do stuff with, you can talk those

ideas and actually execute, you can take

action, you can do things together, etc.

Fourth, and then fifth is friends that

you can make, lose, and spend money

with. And I believe that because for

whatever reason, money is just one of

those subjects that I think it just

shows how I mean, it shows how someone

behaves around a reinforcer and what

someone values. It just kind of cuts

through the crap of everything. And so

like Shiron for example is our

president. Shiron and I have done deals

together for like five plus years and we

really started almost as to use the

Rockefeller quote like we are a

friendship founded on business and it

has worked out great compared to most of

the businesses I founded on friendship.

And so we've just done lots and lots of

deals together. We've had ups, we've had

downs. We've made big calls and I just

have seen him in all the ups and downs

of those years and he's seen me and

we've been like let's do more stuff

together because it's so rare. And so at

this point, could I have a handshake

agreement with Chiron? Yes, totally. And

we do have them on lots of different

deals. On the really big stuff, we still

write it out. Why? Just so we're on this

literally the same page. And so I was

just reminded of that this year, and it

would be I'd be remiss to not say what I

learned from the eight lawsuits that I

got in this year. Those are my big

takeaways is that know what level of

friend you're with. Make sure that you

put everything in writing, and you want

to frontload the discomfort. Number

seven, do more than what is required. So

I said this was a legal year and so part

of this was looking into compliance and

other things that are kind of risks for

any business as you get over a certain

size because the bigger you are the

bigger the target that's on your back

and so if you wish for success you also

wish for the pains that come with

success and as much as many people want

to say like ah champagne problems or

rich people problems they are problems

nonetheless and I promise you they are

still painful and so I would say you

want to go above and beyond. So what's

interesting is you also want to become

educated right ignorance is not defense

real if you don't know a law exists it

does not exclude you from the

consequences of it and so in realizing

that you have to be proactive in

learning the laws of everything that

applies to you which is there are a lot

of them and now with AI they can

summarize some of these things but like

I almost I got like a a law degree this

year on public private I just had a lot

of law that I had to go through and what

I will say is that as much as people

might you know poo poo it I think buying

By and large, most laws are written with

one, good intent, and two, when you

really follow the letter of the law, it

kind of makes sense. And so, I want to

crush everyone and play by the rules.

And so, once you know the rules, then

you can you can almost play with more

freedom because you just know where to

avoid, right? Or what to what to

basically you have to know what the

rules are. I don't want to say so you

can bend them or break them because

obviously that's we're talking about

law. So, just leave it there. But you

got to know the rules of the game that

you're playing and the law as far as

we're talking about business. Those are

the rules of the game. And so, how can

we get into the game and try and win? We

don't even know the rules we're playing

by. And so, that would say that to me it

was like a a big thing that happened

this year that I would encourage you to

just look at the laws that apply to your

specific business or industry or

partnerships and be very well acquainted

with them to the same degree. Also,

rereading the contracts that you have in

like your employment agreements, your

partnership agreements. It's just good

to know like what what what tools do I

have at my disposal right now and what

expectations are do I do other people

have of me that I'm unaware of and that

was hugely enlightening and also that

has just allowed me to sleep so much

better and knowing these things has

allowed me to take what would otherwise

be very stressful I mean imagine eight

lawsuits a lot of lawsuits right

something that would have otherwise been

very stressful and say okay I understand

the variables we will take these actions

I don't need to have any more cycles on

this next thing cuz that's where the

lawyer the lawyer stuff will eat up your

bandwidth It eats up your shower time.

It eats up your dinner time. It eats up

when you're staring out the window, when

you're driving in the car. That's the

cost of being in legal battles. But if

you can minimize the cost of that by

saying, "I understand where the conflict

is, and I know what steps I'm going to

take and I have documentation to provide

these things, you can you can actually

circumvent the vast majority of the pain

and suffering that goes along with,

which gives you a significant strategic

advantage when you're in extended

conflicts." All right, so next one. This

one is probably a little bit more around

my current stage of life, but this is um

I mean that's what this is about. Right

now, I'm shifting the way that I'm doing

work, which is pretty significant. And

so, I will first put the disclaimer out

there that you want to model the rise,

not the you know the the the peak part.

So, to use an example that people can

understand, you're not like, "Oh, I want

to get rich, so I should fly private."

Don't fly private to get rich. It's

something that people do once they are

rich, right? If you want to get tall,

don't play basketball. It's just that

tall people play basketball. Very big

difference. All right? And so this is

the first year in my life where I hit I

hit my financial goals. Acquisition.com

crushed it. Portfolio companies crushed

it. Launch crushed it. Like we did

really well this year. This was the

biggest financial year that I've had in

my career, including the years I've had

exits. And in light of that, I actually

feel for the first time in my life that

I have enough. And I know that sounds

ridiculous to some people. How could

this now be the enough number? But I

would say that I have always had bigger

goals than most people. But I also feel

like I know when enough is enough for

me. They just happen to be bigger than

most people's goals. I do not have a

permanently moving goal coast goalpost.

Like for example, I tend to be a little

bit more muscular than most people are.

But I got to a point where I was at 245

and I was like, "This is a bit much.

This is pretty big. I don't need to do

more than this." Now, some people are

like, "Oh, he's got to get bigger.

Always got to get bigger. I don't have

that." I was like, "There, this is

enough. This is I'm more muscular than

most people even want to be, but I am

muscular enough. And so to the same

degree, I probably have bigger financial

goals than most people have, but I have

finally achieved the things that I

wanted to. Now, what am I going to do

with the business? It's not like I'm

going to end them. It's just that the

way that I'm playing the game is

changing. And so, I'm I'm relaying this,

so this may seem like flashing news, but

I am now shifting to planning my

personal life first and allowing

business to fill in the cracks. And I

have such strong reinforcement cycles of

having worked for so long, so many hours

that I just I have to unlearn how to

work all the hours of the day. I wish I

could say it's discipline and all that

stuff. It's like I've been rewarded and

reinforced for doing this for so long,

but it really is less effort for me to

work all day than it is to stop working.

And so that's kind of the the path that

I'm in right now. And when I observe the

people who are going from you know a

billion to 10 billion or 10 billion and

beyond you get past a point where you

will be compensated for the quality of

your judgment not the quantity of your

work. And so I feel like for the first

time my life I have crossed that

threshold for me is that there there is

significantly higher leverage in my

ability to pick and make correct bets.

And if that becomes the highest leverage

work that I have, then I have to

reorient my life in a way that maximizes

the quality of my decision-m which means

that I probably will travel more. Why

would traveling help the quality of my

decision-making? Well, I'll gain more

perspectives, more filters, more

positions to consider a decision

through. I will probably see more people

than I have seen in the past because

their perspectives will also help color

and shade in the edges, give more

dimension to the decisions that I'm

trying to make. Me, I'll probably try

and I'm trying to prioritize sleep a

little bit more. Now, I've I've never

not prioritized sleep. I just like I

sleep until I can and then I work,

right? But I will probably be more

proactive in doing some of those sleep

hygiene things that are a little bit of

a pain in the ass that can get you that

10% or 20% more. I'm going to be doing

that now. I will probably have more time

that I will unplug on the weekend so

that I can let my mind wander so that I

can think of kind of out of the box

ideas. And this happened just recently,

like two weeks ago. I I had my EA team,

they've they've changed my schedule a

little bit so that there's even more

free time than there was before, which

there was already a lot of free time.

But free time for me does not mean that

nothing's happening. It just means

there's nothing planned. And so because

I had two days like back toback, I

believe having an empty schedule allows

me to do that which matters most. And I

believe that the time of the CEO or the

time of the founder is the most valuable

asset or resource in the business. And

so why would I not want the best

allocator of the most expensive asset to

be me? And so that's how that's how they

have blocked for me so that I maximize

my free time. Now in that free time, put

together a deal that will make us more

than we probably did in entire revenue

this year. And I did it in basically one

day with six and a half hours on the

phone calling different people just

because I had slept well. I had the high

I had the lowest resting heart rate I

ever had. And I had the best like sleep

score I gotten in it was a record in my

entire life. It was the best. Well, the

score would only go to 100, but like my

resting heart rate and my HRV were the

highest and lowest respectively they'd

ever been. And I was like, I feel like I

can see color today. And that quality of

decision-m at this point is the best

strategic decision for me. And so in

some ways, maybe I still have the same

objectives and I'm now just orienting my

life to now do the next version of what

success looks like or what I have to

change in order to become the person who

can lead this company to where where I

think it can be to help the most people.

And so that is what you will see kind of

going forward. And I have not I have

been in the stage that I was at from how

I worked for the last 14 years. So this

is a pretty significant change for me.

But I will be putting my I'll be

planning my life first and then business

will fill in the cracks. So really

powerful frame that I've been thinking

about a lot has been what do you want to

have happen and what increases the

chances of that happening. So here's the

next lesson. Two frames for

reconsidering the hard decisions and

conversations that you have to have. So

let's say someone does something that

you don't want them to do. They say

something bad, something happens, right?

something that I you have an innate

reaction which is that typically it's

something called it's a it's a

countermeasure right so if someone

punishes you in some way you want to

counter punch them back you want to

counter control you want to punish them

so that you want to punish them even

more so that they dare not punish you

right but when we think about these two

questions which is what I want to have

happen what do I want to have happen and

number two what increases the odds of

that happening often times your initial

reaction to what you want to do is

almost antithetical to what you want to

occur and what increases the chances of

that happening. And so, for example, if

someone says something bad to me online,

I might have the immediate desire to go

punish them publicly, right? What do I

want to have happen? I would like this

person to move on with their lives and

forget that I exist. That would be what

I would want to have happen, right?

Realistically, what increases the odds

of that happening? Does me interacting

with them, reinforcing the fact that

they said that increase those odds? No.

I increase the likelihood that that

person hates me even more and does even

more to try and damage me. So that would

make my problem worse, not better. And

so that is just a two-step decision

frame that I continue to use more and

more and more, especially with

interpersonal relationships. Hey, this

employee is doing a bad job. I want to

yell at them. What do I want to have

happen? I want them to do a good job. Do

I think yelling at them will increase

the likelihood of that happening? No. I

think they'll have more anxiety and

they'll probably decrease their

performance. Okay, so that's not going

to work. What do I want to have happen?

Okay. Can I reward or publicly give them

status for the one thing they've done

well so that they can see some positive

loop and then maybe they will do more of

that thing? That probably does increase

those odds. So, I'll do that instead

even though I want to punish them for

being a [ __ ] right? And so, what's

interesting is that when I ask myself

those questions, the thing that

increases the odds of me getting what I

ultimately want rarely is what I want to

do or at least is rarely my initial gut

reaction. And when I look at how most

people live their lives, they live their

lives from gut reaction to gut reaction

to gut reaction and then

counterreaction. And they're just

responsive. All they're doing is just

like they're like seaweed in the ocean.

They're just moving and they have no

direction. They're just constantly going

back and forth, right? And they're never

getting what they want. And they think

that life is chaotic. But when you

actually ask yourself those questions,

you typically can guess, no, I don't

think that's actually going to increase

the likelihood that happens. I think

that person is going to hate me more if

I do that. Right? Then why will you do

it? Right? And so often times when you

have those when you use those two

razors, one of the most common things

that comes up and it's now become an

inside joke for for me and some of my

friends is doing nothing at all is often

the most productive thing to do in those

situations. And so it has now taken on

this inside joke of the heavyweight

champion of the world, which is that

there's all these different potential

actions and the heavyweight champion of

the world is do nothing. And that one

almost always wins because what should I

probably do? Keep doing what I'm doing.

keep on my business, focus on my

marriage, focus on doing good work, and

ignore the rest. And what's interesting

is that it is physically efficient but

emotionally painful. And so that is one

of the I would say one of the one of the

the artifacts that I've collected this

year. So number 10, more better, new.

Now, this isn't going to be a new

concept for anyone who's listening to my

stuff, but I will have a slightly

different take on this. New is

incredibly risky. And so this is the

best analogy that I've I I visualized

this year that I'm probably going to

take with me for the rest of my life,

which is I want you to imagine here we

go. Actually, look at this. If I have

these these candies, all right, and I

throw them all over the place. If I keep

doing this, how likely is it that all of

them are going to end up in the exact

position, separated by color and stacked

together? Very unlikely. I would have to

hit refresh and keep doing that many

many times until eventually all of these

are lined up, stacked up on on each

other super nicely in a way that's

organized. Right? This would take a lot

like could it happen? Of course it

could. It is statistically possible. Is

it likely? No. And so when you think

about this, this is six pieces of candy,

right? There are variables within your

business that create the business that

works, right? And so when you have your

business and it is stacked, it is

working, it is generating revenue, the

likelihood that you changing one of

these variables makes the building or

makes the stack or the business better

goes down. And the taller the stack is,

the more evolved your business is, the

more bricks in that building have been

properly placed. And so the higher the

likelihood the next move is the wrong

move if it's something different. So

I'll give you a marketing version of

this. If you have something called a

control and you have a variant when you

run a split test, AB split test. If you

have a control that you've run 36 split

tests on and it has won 36 of those, it

is the number one control. The

likelihood that you changing that

resulting in an improvement is low. And

so if you think about your business as

it currently stands is there's many

different ways to align these variables.

Almost all of them are not profitable

businesses. You happen to have one that

actually works. And so if you have that

then the highest risk adjusted move that

you can make is that you do more of the

thing that already works. I will keep

doing more bricks in this order because

that has worked before. Right? You might

try and do better which is a tiny

variation off of what you're currently

doing. But something truly new rarely

works. And so and it also usually takes

the most resources. And so for us, if

we're going to do something new, I give

myself one new thing a year. One. So

what was the one new thing this year? It

was the book launch. That was this year.

Next year, you'll find out what it is,

right? But I get one. And it's because I

know what the tremendous drain of

resources is. One big thing, one new

thing. And so I would say that the

bigger the companies that we have, the

more resources we have, the fewer new

things we're doing. Because when you

when nothing works, you want to hit

refresh as many times as you can. You

want to do lots of new [ __ ] cuz

nothing's working. But as soon as

something works, then you start to have

direction. You want to have less and

less deviation from that, unless you

really believe there's an existential

risk that would require you to change

everything, which is significantly less

likely than you really think it is. In

fact, I would say many business owners

will destroy their businesses in reality

for problems that they have manufactured

artificially. Problems that have not

even yet occurred because they are

afraid of them happening when in reality

when that problem happens, it's not

going to happen overnight. And you're

going to have some some some heads up

probably. And for those of you who are

old enough to have businesses during co

so if you had business at least for at

least for five years, right, or six

years, you know that you'll survive.

you'll adapt just like you always have.

And so do not try and change the

business to solve problems that do not

exist because there is more than enough

problems that absolutely do exist today

that you should be solving. And so going

back to more and this has been something

that's been just I feel like I've got

another layer of paint on the more

better new is that often times the

highest return question is why can't I

do more of the thing that's working?

Now, there's usually a much deeper,

harder problem that you have to solve

once you do the easy moores, but there's

always a way to do more than you

currently are. And it's just that once

you realize that the level of difficulty

of what it takes to do the next more is

harder than doing something better or

new. So, instead of you bucking up and

and and saying, "I'm going to focus on

this very hard problem," you then

distract yourself with reasonable

problems that no one will blame you for

solving. Because the biggest risk to the

business is not like a stupid decision

because those are unlikely to actually

occur. The real risk to your business is

the second, third, and fourth most

profitable things that you could do

rather than the most valuable thing that

you can do. This was a very important

lesson for me this year. And so when you

get clear on what the harder question is

that you need to ask of why can't I do

more and now it's getting hard for me to

do it. Then we have to remove every

distraction that you have that makes you

think about anything besides solving

that problem. That's it. And sometimes

the answer to that hard problem isn't a

one week, a 4 week or 4 month solution.

Sometimes you realize that your culture

is [ __ ] and you have to fix the

culture and that's going to take you 18

months. And when you're 6 months into

it, things will feel worse than they did

when you started. But it doesn't make it

any less of the correct decision for the

business. It just means that your

reinforcing event or the reward for the

work that you're going to have is far in

the future. And it doesn't mean that 6

months in you should now change course

because it hasn't started working yet

because you knew when you started and

you realized that this was the true

constraint of the business that this was

going to be a long and painful road

ahead of you. And so you do not want to

then solve try and come up with a new

solution when the first solution never

had time to bear fruit because sometimes

the most productive thing you can do in

the business is give time time. Let the

solution actually work. This has been a

very hard lesson for me many times as an

entrepreneur and I just want to pass it

to you because many of you guys have

many half-built bridges. You you had a

way to get across but you knew it would

take four months but one month in you

were still suffering. You thought well

maybe I'll do this but it's like you

never let the first bridge get finished.

And so in a real way for me, I realized

that I needed to build a brand. I've had

I'll give you two examples of this. So

one early days of gym launch, Leila and

I realized that we had an entire tier of

directors that were not competent

enough. And so over the next 12 months,

we had to turn 11 out of 11 directors.

Very painful. And when you turn

directors, what do you think you also

have to do? Sometimes you have to turn

the teams underneath because they had a

low bar. And so they brought in a lot of

low bar people. There was obviously some

good people they brought into, but like

very very painful process. Kind of

killed morale for that whole year. But

we knew that we weren't going to be able

to grow the business because the level

of skill of that team was not sufficient

and we our bar was too low and

unfortunately we can't fire ourselves

and so we had to do the next natural

thing. That was very painful. 6 months

into that culture is worse and we

haven't turned the whole leadership

team. Was it the wrong course of action?

No. Should we change course? No. But it

means that you have to learn to suffer

because sometimes the correct growth is

the most painful path because the

highest leverage move often is the

hardest problem that you're not choosing

to allocate attention towards solving.

In a more recent one, I was at 30 to 40

million a year for 3 years for gym

launch. And the big aha that I had was

that I needed to build a brand and that

took years. And so when I went into it,

I was like this I will have to keep

doing this for many years before I'm

going to bear any fruit from this. And

my income when I made that call went

down for the first two years by a lot.

And so I think you have to be willing to

stomach that period of time or you will

never be able to do the real solutions

that are really going to move the needle

because most business owners will do the

second, third, fourth thing, the

incremental improvements rather than the

order of magnitude changes that

typically take order of magnitudes in

terms of time and effort. So number 11,

it's okay to just make money. So hear me

out. There's something that I like to

call the third marshmallow fallacy. And

so it goes like this. So many of you

guys have probably heard about the

research study of like, okay, we they

videotaped kids and they said, we'll put

one marshmallow in front of you and then

if you wait, you know, whatever, 10

minutes, we'll give you a second

marshmallow. And the kids that wait, you

know, 10 minutes, they're more

successful in life because it's, you

know, proxy for your ability to delay

gratification. Okay. What's interesting

about that is that people then assume

that delaying gratification is always

the best course of action. And this is

why this is a very interesting lesson.

If you delay gratification indefinitely,

then you will work your entire life for

nothing because you have delayed

gratification and then you will die.

Said differently, if you were the ant

that always saves up your money for the

winter and you keep saving and keep

saving, keep saving and then you die,

you have a big stack of crumbs that you

will never have done anything with. And

so the question is no longer like once

you have learned to delay gratification.

So this will be me talking a little bit

more to the winners in the room. Once

you have learned to delay gratification,

you then have to learn the even harder

task of the appropriate time to accept

gratification. Real. So this is

incredibly difficult especially for

winners because in the earlier part of

your career you be you get reinforced

you get rewarded for delaying

gratification. And often times it is

there is a dose relationship as in the

longer you delay the bigger the outcome.

So you just continue to learn to delay

more and more and more. But there is a

time where it comes to reap because you

cannot sew forever. And so I was having

a conversation with a friend of mine who

was like, "Hey, I don't want to do this

thing because it's not going to add

enterprise value." But the amount of

money that we were talking about for

this particular deal was like hundreds

of millions of dollars. And I wasn't

even that confident that the the other

thing was going to happen and it would

be like 10 years in the future from now.

And so we need to allow some risk

adjustment for outcomes to make their

way into the decision. If you can get

paid today versus getting paid in 5

years, there is a value to that money

because you have five more years of

being able to use those resources to

acquire more resources. And so I would

say that something that has shifted in

me particularly was that it's okay to

make money. Like you can also just make

money for the sake of making money. And

I think that's fine. And I'll say this

differently, which is like in a business

perspective, let's say that you have a

service based business or you have a

software business, whatever. And you

don't want to sell your own time

one-on-one. Totally okay. And you you

don't want to do it because you do not

want to get any revenue that doesn't

have a high multiple. Okay, that's fine.

Well, let me tell you the story. So,

when I started my first gym, I had one

personal training client who paid me in

cash every month. He paid me about

$4,000 a month in cash for personal

training. I did it was like 90 minutes a

day, 5 days a week. So, it was a lot of

personal training. But that guy giving

me that cash every single month, even

though it was not scalable, it was not

something that I could sell someday.

That money paid for me to eat, right?

And it allowed me to delay gratification

on the rest of the business. But

somebody who would be a purist of like,

well, you shouldn't you should eat even

more [ __ ] you should, you know, you

should suffer even more during that

period of time would have said you

shouldn't have taken that distraction.

You should have just worked even more in

the business. But I just I don't I don't

think that's true. And so I I say this

only to the winners. If you're somebody

who's never learned to grat delay

gratification, you've never learned to

save up for the winner, you can't you

still overspend your income, ignore this

entirely. But for those of you who are

the savers, who do always live under me

of your means, who are willing to delay

thing one year, 5 years, 10 years, you

have to then also be able to make the

decision when do I ask, when do I reap?

And I'll give you one more example and

then I'll move to the next point, which

is this is super common in content

creators, and I think this is why I

ended up writing this. I've seen a

number of creators, I remember I had a

conversation with a guy who who said,

"Hey, I have this Twitter following that

I've built over the last however many

years." And I said, "Okay." And he said,

"I would like to better monetize my

following." And I said, "All right.

Well, how many times do you like do you

do you like what CTAs do you have? Do

you you know what do you what do you

tell them to do?" And he's like, "Oh,

nothing. I never want to sacrifice the

goodwill I have with my audience." And I

was like, "Okay, why did you build this

brand to begin with?" He said, "Well, I

wanted to make money." And I said,

"Okay, how do you expect to make money

if you never ask for it?" Because he had

been taught, I have to delay. I have to

delay. And to be fair, of course you

have to delay. But at some point you

have to make the decision now is the

time. And to be clear, it doesn't mean

that like now he has to ask every single

day. It just means we have to begin the

process of reaping. And so for you

forever seers, and I put myself in that

bucket of always wanting to under under

spend and and always delay to the

future, there is a line that you need to

be able to draw for yourself for today's

the day. I will begin reaping now. And I

think that is it is a it is a entirely

personal question because it's also

fundamentally answering the question how

much do I invest versus how much do I

consume. I think the answer to that

question is entirely individual but I

think most of us can agree that invest

forever consume nothing is probably not

the way and consume everything invest

nothing is also probably not the way and

so it's somewhere in the middle where

you will have to pick what's right for

you but it is in the middle somewhere

which means you will have to consume at

some point you will have to reap and you

need to know that it is okay you might

also die and so you know there's that

too lesson 12 this is a small tactical

one just a great reminder for me from uh

from business which is the book launch.

Clear beats clever in all things, right?

You will need to repeat yourself until

you die. No one cares. No one is

listening. And so I had so many people

were like asking like what was the the

secret behind the launch. It's like I

made 5,000 ads that pretty much said the

same thing. Like that was it. And still

most people didn't attend the launch,

right, of the book. And we still broke

the records and and and and did all the

sales and donated all the book. We did

all that stuff. And still the vast

majority of the people that I have in my

audience, one, didn't even find out

about it. and two even if they did find

out about it didn't come didn't even

register and the few that registered

still most of them didn't come so like

you have to think about this in terms of

percentages if I if I have a 100 people

who register for something less than

half will show up if I have a thousand

people who find out of something on an

ad less than 2% of them will even click

right so you you're you're dealing with

such small percentages that the idea

that you want to be clever in any way is

ridiculous and I would say that the

longer I've been in business the more I

I emphasize clarity over cleverness I

take I I emphasize simplicity over

complexity. How do I make this as simple

and as clear as humanly possible? And I

think that is that effort of continuing

to learn to compress what you're saying

and get it simpler and simpler. And that

is where it becomes elegant and that is

where it becomes effective. And I would

say like that that is just a great it

was a lesson that I was reminded of. I

had a friend of mine we were talking we

were jamming back and forth. He had a

massive campaign for his company. He

spent a day out here with me and we were

going through everything and his team

had this had this really complex

marketing structure. He's a phenomenal

marketer. And uh he's like, you know,

Alex, what do you think? And I was like,

I think instead of having 10 things

you're selling, I think you should have

one thing and give 10 reasons for it.

And he was like, yeah, I agree. And so

he simplified everything down to one big

benefit and 10 reasons for that thing

and had the highest converting campaign

he had ever done uh in the history of

his company. And he has a very

successful company and it's been very

big. He's done it for a very long time.

And after the day, he came up to me and

was like, he's like, "Listen, I wanted I

wanted to bring He's like, "My team has

heard me say this so many times. They

needed somebody from the outside to say

it." He's like, "And I didn't want."

He's like, "You got to be the bearer of

bad news instead of me." And so, but

like just just as a little moniker that

you can remember for yourself in terms

of writing copy, in terms of making

sales pitches, in terms of writing

emails, making content, whatever it is,

one big idea with 10 reasons rather than

10 big idea with reason, one reason

each. I'll leave it at that. Which this

segus naturally in to lesson 13, which

is this year the offer is still king,

just like it was last year, just like it

was the year before that. The offer

still matters more than everything. And

so we um have begun the process of

donating um a lot of the books from the

launch and we basically made the offer

pretty simple. One of the variations

that we've test, we're testing a bunch

of different variations, but one of the

variations was like, hey, just pay for

the shipping of three books and you'll

get all three books and uh just pay for

the shipping of them. And so, right now,

I actually lose money, like literally

lose money on that, even with the books

being prepaid. And still, and what's

what's crazy though is that the metrics

that I've seen from that offer in that

funnel are better than any that I've

ever seen in my entire career in

marketing. And the reason I find that to

be so interesting is that like we we

whip that together so quickly and it's

working because it's the offer stupid.

Like how do you make an offer so good

people feel stupid saying no? It's in

the [ __ ] sub headline, right? And so

I'll give you a couple more tidbits that

I've I've kind of like gathered together

for myself. The reason we're able to

break the record is because the bundle

for donating 200 books were so strong

and so compelling which I spent two

years building. The next thing is that

whenever you have components of an offer

or bonuses that you're going to include

in any kind of offer, any service, any

anything, right? Each bonus should be

worth more than the entire value of the

thing you sell. I believe that most

buyers are single issue buyers, like

singleisssue voters, is that they keep

listening until they have that one

light, that one key, that one unlock,

that one reason why that say that was

worth it. And so if you ever try and put

an offer together where you think, oh,

the aggregate of these things is worth

more, you have already lost. And if the

bonus itself is complex enough that you

have to explain it, delete it. Because

the most expensive part about you

explaining different components of the

offer is the mental real estate it takes

up to actually explain it. And so if

something is worth saying, make sure

that it's worth saying. And when you

also build offers in this way, it forces

you to think even more about how can I

make this more compelling? How can I

make it simpler? How can I make it more

compelling? And each one of them has to

has to carry their weight. And by doing

that, you'll create a more operationally

efficient business. Number one, and your

offer, I like to use this as my kind of

um my like razor for making a good offer

is that the offer should be textable.

Can I text to someone? And then them

say, "Yeah, I'm in." And that's just a

great way like you you've got this much

screen and that many words to to say the

essence of the entire offer and if you

can't fit it there, it needs to be

better or it's too long. And so that has

just been really valuable for me. And

I've had that I've had that reinforced

this year several times. Obviously, we

had the the the offer at the launch. We

we're donating the books on the back

end, but even within the portfolio

companies, I mean, the reason I think

that the offers book will always outsell

the other books in general. I think

money models out selling now cuz it's

new, but like I think long longterm

offers while it sell is because like if

you nail the offer in a lot of ways,

nothing else matters. It's just getting

it right is so hard. But there's nothing

that you can do that can make your

business have a have a bigger step

change in your business's revenue and

profit than really making the offer

better. And it's like again, I think on

some level people have an understanding

of like what things cost. And the reason

that I think that book bundle works so

well was because they know it cost me

they know I'm losing money. Like people

can they know that three hardbacks cost

more than $15. They know that. And so

shipped, right? Like even one $15 is a

crazy deal. Three is absurd, right? And

so they know that. And so it's like

people assume that like I think Ogulvie

said this. He said people think they're,

you know, the the prospect is an idiot,

but she's your wife. And it's like we we

we talk to these amorphous masses, but

it's like they're real people who are

intelligent who can make decisions and

they know when something smells off and

they know when something is a good deal.

And so like you can only do so much

dressing up with the copy and the words

and the persuasive elements because at

the end of the day, you should be able

to make the pitch by just stating the

offer and shutting the [ __ ] up and

pointing to how to pay and people should

buy. The rest of it is just is dressing,

right? It's just tweaks. It's just

improvements. But the biggest

improvement overall is going to be what

the thing you sell is. So sometimes we

need to be reminded more than we need to

be taught. And this year was a a

wonderful reminder for me of like can

like it's the offer stupid like make it

better. A nice little reminder for me

for how to make ads work. So this is a

little bit more tactical artifact. Right

now it's about volume of different

creative. We did you know a,000 or 2,000

ads I think before we even started. I

think it was 3,000 by the time the

launch happened. I can't remember. It

was in the thousands. and the way that

advertising is moving in general, it's

going to be about hyperpersonalization.

So with AI, you can create way more

permutations much faster. And so I think

we're going to have personalization at

scale and that's 2026. That's I mean

right now it's end of 25, but like I'm

just calling this right now. I've

already seen crazy returns that we're

seeing in the portfolio with this across

all the companies. Like this is the

future. like you need you need to be

able to create lots of creative and

what's more important is you need to be

able to create the machine that

consistently self proliferates the

creative. So it's like how do I get the

customers to make creative that gets us

more customers then make more creative.

That's the that's the process you want

to install in the business rather think

oh I have to just keep building the

team. I mean, there's elements of that

for sure, but this is like it was a

great lesson for me this year and what

I'm taking into next year is like we

have to build the self-licking ice cream

cone and hyperpersonalization is going

to be I mean I mean I'm saying 2026 but

I don't think I don't think it's going

to go back. So I think that's going to

be the future. So less 15 side quests

can make the main quest. So what do I

mean by that? So, if you were a very

like I hate even using this term, but

like visionary founder, if you're

somebody who like has lots of big ideas,

big dreams, you're always like thinking

shiny objects, you have a little bit of

ADD, little touch of the of the ad,

right? Sometimes you have to find things

for yourself to keep distracted to not

break your main business. And because

sometimes, especially the bigger your

business gets, when you're smaller,

literally ignore this advice. But if

you're bigger, it just takes like it

might take a year for a big initiative

to happen because it's it's turning the

Titanic versus turning a rowboat, right?

And so I have found it useful for me

like the books for me are obviously

they're I find a way to make them

additive to my overall, you know,

business acquisition.com, but they take

time from me, but that time I think

gives me thinking space and also allows

my team to just continue to get better

without me like blowing things up. And

so I tend to prefer large change from a

emotional level, from a logical level, I

prefer, you know, incremental, etc. But

it's like how can I how can I have these

how can I scratch my new itch? Well, I

have to do things that don't drain, this

is the key, that cannot drain resources

from the main thing. The side quest only

helps if it allows the main quest to

succeed even more, not if it distracts

from the main quest or pulls any

resources from it. And so for me,

writing books is that thing. For you, it

might be something else. But I think

I've I've grown more and more okay with

the idea that like some things will take

time within the business and me having

something to do in the meantime can

actually increase the likelihood that

those things succeed and in some ways

it's a way of passing the time while

things are painful and uncomfortable. So

the next one which was a great lesson

for me this year was um delegation is

the price of scaling loss of control

right and so I believe that the the the

spiritual path of entrepreneurship is a

consistent relinquishing of control and

so we were employees at some time likely

for many people and then you stop doing

that and then you decide to start a

business and you typically do that

because you want to quote have freedom

and so then you say I will have complete

control but in order to have true

freedom you actually can have no control

you have to accept that's true freedom

Right? And so at every level, in the

very beginning, you do everything and

then you say, "I'm going to have

somebody who helps you with this." So

you give a little control and then the

next level it's like, "Okay, well the

doing I've I've delegated, but the

management, no one can manage like I can

manage." And then you give the

management away. And you're like, "Okay,

well no one can direct or lead like I

can lead." Then eventually you give the

leadership away. And then it's like,

"Well, no one can think of the vision of

the future like I can." And then

eventually maybe there is somebody Steve

Jobs wasn't able to be replaced, but

many of us aren't Steve Jobs and are

replaceable. And so delegation is the

price of scaling, losing that control.

And so hardworking people, and this is

what's really interesting about this,

hardworking people have a hard time

coming up with non-h hardworking

solutions. And so this has been

particularly difficult for me because

like I I will look at problems and say,

"Oh, I wonder if I can outwork this

problem." When Bill Gates talked about

this saying, "It's really good to have

lazy executives because they will try

and think of non high energy ways to

solve problems." And so the hard worker

won't feel like delegating because they

want to feel useful. And it's incredibly

difficult. But if you draw the line, you

have to say that you will not do

anything in order for it to scale

because otherwise you will absolutely be

the limiter of your own growth. And I

don't think we are as special as we

think we are. And so you might kind of

just have to give up some profit in the

short term, but you'll make more in the

long term. And so this has been kind of

like a thingy process for me, which is

at this point the razor I have is if it

requires me, it doesn't work. That's how

I think about it now. And so I use the

term internally from my head and Leila

and I talked about this scale zero. Like

we have to scale me down to zero so we

can scale it up to infinity. Otherwise I

will always be the limiter. And so this

is kind of just like a a a great

reminder or artifact that I've gotten

from the year is scale zero. And I've

been reminded this at at at this level

now is that nothing can rely on me

because the business is just too big.

The other little little tidbit I'll I'll

add in there as well is if you're at

equilibrium within your business, that

means that like your supply and your

demand are fixed. Like I can't I can't

take in more customers because my

supplies like I my team can't handle it,

but I also don't have more demand,

right? So it's like what do you do when

you're at equilibrium? When I was in my

earlier part of my career, I would have

said increase demand and then force the

team to, you know, pull from the cracks

and then with the ex extra cash flow,

you'll be able to afford, you know, the

the next person you need to hire. That

was what I would have said probably the

first 10 years of my career, 12 years of

my career. And I would say that I have

flipped that thinking probably this

year, which is that I would say increase

supply. And I'll explain why. When

you're at equilibrium, whatever your

next step is, you're going to have to

bear a cost. And the cost will either be

your reputation or your profit. And so

if I increase demand, the cost of that

increase will be my reputation because

my team will probably not be able to

deliver at the same quality they

otherwise would have because they are

overextended. If I increase supply

first, then the bandwidth of my team

will improve and in the short term they

will have to train this new person up

which will be a cost in the business. So

I'm going to almost have a double cost.

They have to train this person up and I

have to bear the cost of the person to

begin as well. But once that's done, I

will have dramatically increased the

capacity of the business which will then

give bandwidth back which will then

allow us to push to fill up the demand

side. And so the reason that we were

even able to do the book launch this

year, we actually originally were going

to do it in February, couldn't do it

because we didn't have the bandwidth and

then were able to do it in August

because 90 days prior we hired four

directors and leaders in the business

which expanded the capacity of the

business so that we could do the launch.

So that was the that was just some of

the lessons of this year from that. So

next one was just real estate in

general. So I you know Sean and I have

done a lot of real estate deals together

for the last 5 years. I would say we

will buy a few hundred million in real

estate this year. I'll get the exact

number probably in a future video

because we have a couple deals pending

as the as the year ends. But what was

very interesting is that I have a much

better understanding of the tax uh laws

around it. So this was a big W for us. I

haven't talked about real estate in

general despite having done a lot of

deals over the last 5 years with Chiron

because I didn't feel like I had the

credibility. And so I will probably and

Shiron will probably as well next year

will probably talk more about ACQRE. So,

ACQ Real Estate because we have now

gathered a significant amount of

resources there that I think you guys

would probably like that and I certainly

have enjoyed it because it was something

that I felt like was a deficiency in my

skill set in terms of investing that I

wanted to rectify. And so, I've talked

about it in many, you know, many years

ago. I've talked about in some videos of

like very tiny deals that I did, $50,000

deals that, you know, didn't work out as

well. And I was like, I don't know what

I'm doing. And so, that is when I

basically enlisted help and I got people

who were more experienced and I did what

I always do and just try to learn from

them. And it has been incredibly

enlightening and I very much understand

the appeal of it now. And so it was a it

was a huge deal, huge W for us this year

and look and I think will be a

compounding vehicle for us in the

future. I mean this is a a lessons video

for the year for me and so I'm grateful

that we we took all the steps that we

did this year in order to do it. Next

one. Best ROI in business. All right,

pay attention to this one. Best ROI is

still talent. So the cost and return on

talent. So let me get deep on this. you

have how much does it cost you to get

the talent and then how much will that

talent make you and so I had a dentist

who came and was like hey I have the

specialy dentist they're really hard to

find blah blah blah and I say okay well

how much does a dentist make you in

gross profit per year and at his

facility he made $700,000 in gross

profit per year per special dentist I

was like okay that's gross profit I said

okay fine and I said so if you just had

and I think he was doing $4 or $5

million a year in profit something like

that and I said okay so what's the

problem he said well I can't find any of

these dentists? And I said, okay, well,

how much money are you spending, you

know, with on recruiting or marketing?

And he was like, I don't know, like 2500

bucks. And I was like, okay, so let's

hear me out. I said, if I had an

investment that that I said would cash

flow $700,000 a year, what would you be

willing to to pay one time to buy into

that investment? He was like, I mean, if

I knew it was going to be 700 grand a

year, I mean, 700. And I was like,

"Right, so you should be more than happy

to spend 50, right, on a head hunter or

150 on a head hunter to go this get this

level of talent." And if you and he

needed four to hit his next goal, which

he had, which is like to double the

business or something. And so I said,

"All right, let me ask you this." I

think he had 4.6 million I think was his

profit. I said, "This year, if instead

of making 4.6 6 million in profit. You

made 4 million and then you got you

spent the 600 to get four guys at 150

each for head hunter to go get that

talent and maybe have relocation

bonuses, whatever. Would that be worth

it? And he was like, "Well, when you say

it like that," I'm like, "Right." And so

I still to this day believe that

especially in the age of AI where every

star employee who can use technology

gets even more leverage, the return on

talent is is even better than it's ever

been. And so when you see Meta paying

these hundred million dollar bonuses and

stuff for these single individuals,

you're like, they're crazy. Or they know

something we don't know, which is that

they might still get a billion or two

billion or five billion in value from

this one person if they can unlock it.

And so I think about this from two

angles, like a micro and a macro

perspective. So on a micro level, when

you bring someone in, you get time back.

It's work that you don't have to do that

you now get back. Phenomenal. On the

macro level, the higher the level of

talent, the more it's impossible for you

to have their lifetime of experience. I

can't live an AI coder's last 20 years,

right? Or last 10 years. I can't go do

that. So, all I can do is spend money to

go buy that lifetime of experience and

then apply it into my business. And so,

fundamentally, the the bigger the

business gets, the more it's about

assembling the talent that then builds

the business than it is about building

the business. And your rate of business

growth will be limited by your ability

to learn because no one will come work

for you who is better than you. And let

me put my caveat on this. No one will

work for you who is better than you at

everything. For sure, many people work

for me who are better than me at their

specific functions. But they know that I

have depth in some things that my depth

is as good or better than their depth in

their specific thing. And so excellence

attracts excellence. And so if you want

more A players, you need to become an

even deeper A player. Because at the at

at the most simple level, if you had the

five best teammates in the entire world,

you would have one of the most valuable

businesses in the entire world. That

would be that would be reality. Elon's

superstar skill is that he's so good at

engineering that he can attract the best

engineers and as a result, he can build

the best engineering based companies.

That's his secret. And so he's not

actually running six different

companies. I mean, he obviously makes

his key decisions in those areas, but a

huge amount of decisions, I would argue

the vast majority of the decisions

physically couldn't be made by one man

because of the size of all six of the

companies. And so, the only way that's

accomplished is by having such a strong

brand by being so good at what you do

that the best in the world want to work

for you. The problem is that you're not

the best in the world. And so, they

don't want to work for you, which means,

as always, we are the problem. We are

the limiter of the business. next set of

lessons for me from this year. So, A

players will make you rich, but here's

the downside or the hard part about A

player culture. A players cost more per

headcount, but not not in actuality. So,

let me give you an example. If you had

five eights and five sixes on a team,

what really happens is that the sixes

pull down the eights, and now you just

have a bunch of six sevens. Anyways, the

smart move is to fire all five sixes,

and what happens is your eights become

nines, and you never needed the sixes to

begin with. And that is something that

I've seen over and over and over again.

I had a team of 14 sales guys at one

point and we had a cancerous there was a

one guy was stealing some other guys

knew about it. It was bad. And so we

ended up cutting I think from 14 to six.

And those six guys closed more deals

than the 14 real. I've also had to do

this on the on the media. I mean I've

had to do this in a lot of different

teams over the years where I have to

just massively take an axe because

culture runs a muck. There's a bad

leader. they lower those standards and

then you got eights with sixes and then

the eights start acting like sixes too.

But then when you get all the bad ones

out then all of a sudden these eights

rise to the occasion and they're like we

just only want to play with A players

because A players will self-manage but

everyone has to be an A player otherwise

they'll say oh that's accepted and

either they'll lower the bar or they'll

leave. And one of the difficulties of

this is that your definition of an A

player will change as you get better.

what I thought was an A player when I

was in, you know, when I owned a gym was

somebody who was making $50,000 a year.

And I was like, "This is the [ __ ] This

guy is the man. This is a player." And

then I had my first $75,000 year play,

then my first $100,000 year, and then

first 200, and my first 400, then my

first million, then first multi-million.

And at each level, I'm like, I didn't

even know they made people like this.

Right? And so, your definition of what

good looks like will always be better.

And this is a quote from Shiron. He

said, "The best talent is always in the

future." And so, we always want to make

room. We want to build a business that

has a vision that's big enough that

their big dreams can also fit inside of

it. And I'll just say on a tactical

level, I I this has just almost become

my razor. I have yet to find an A player

that I don't immediately know as an A

player within the first 14 days. It just

hasn't happened. And so I I think what's

really happening for me now is that like

my tolerance for not A players has just

gone down. I just I can just say like

I'm sure they're okay and I'm sure we

could give them time and I'm sure they

could become a seven and so what? it's

they're not going to be an A. Why

bother? And that that is a hard culture

to enforce because people don't want to

let other people go. Hey, this person

just changed their jobs, etc. And some

people might say, "Oh, you're not giving

them a chance." I want to be clear here.

It depends on the level of who you're

hiring. If you're hiring very low low

wage employees, um, and the training is

really fast, that can be different than

maybe somebody who has to ramp up. There

are elements of this, but you can still

see leading indicators in terms of

character and work ethic almost

immediately. And those are the reasons

that most people get fired, not because

of kind of the day-to-day skill stuff,

which leads us to the next one, which is

money attracts talent. Culture keeps

talent. And so, hear me out. You need to

be able to pay enough that a players

will will ride the ride, right? You must

be this tall to ride this ride. But

whether they'll want to keep riding the

ride will depend on how good the ride

is, right? And so financial incentives

are absolutely important for attracting

them, but in my opinion, not very

important at all for getting the most

out of them. The non-financial

incentives will become significantly

stronger than the financial ones because

the financial ones are too infrequent.

So if we think about how behavior works,

behavior is reinforced in the moment.

Latency beats intensity every day and

twice on Sunday. The reason that that

one drug is more addictive than another

is purely based on how quickly you feel

good after you take it. That is how

addiction works. Why are inhalants so

addictive? Because you it's immediately

in your bloodstream. Why is Facebook or

these social media things so addictive?

Because the red light happens

immediately. It's not because a red

light is inherently this crazy thing.

And to the same degree, nicotine is not

a super strong drug, but it's immediate.

That's why it's so addictive. And so if

we think about addiction as a way of

changing behavior, then we think, how

can I get someone addicted to the right

behaviors in my business? And the way

that that addiction would happen is you

have to have reinforcers within the way

the business works that happen in real

time. And are any of those financial?

No. And so we have to be this high to

ride this ride. You have to have you

have to pay well enough that A-level

people are there, but you still might

not get true A-level performance unless

you have an A culture. And so when you

have a team of A's, they will

self-manage and they will continue to

reinforce each other for being A's. And

if you've ever been on a winning team,

it's more fun than being paid well. And

on a losing team, if you have to ask

somebody when they're in the Super Bowl,

how much do you have to pay to try hard

to win this game? No one. They would do

it for free because winners want to win

more than they want to make money. And

that's what makes them winners. Money is

what will get them in the door, but

winning is what keeps them there. So

next little tactical lesson,

decentralization wins. So we are we are

big advocates of decentralization. I

would say that we've taken this as a as

a Warren Buffett, you know, a feather

out of his his hat. I believe that

people need to stay focused shared

resources, split resources. And so our

goal, especially in terms of how we're

running the company, is that as fast as

possible, we want to allow functions to

be self-sustaining and ideally from day

one, right? And if not, we need to look

at that investment from holdco.

Something that has to get paid back as

fast as possible so they can become

independent. And so this is a little bit

more of an operational thing. But the

way that I think about this is like kind

of like revenue lines. So I do not like

centralization. I want I want

independent leaders who own their own

P&Ls so that they can stay completely

focused on making that thing win. And

the times in my career where I have

quote gotten distracted has actually

been I distracted my own team from

winning because I told I took resources

from here and said oh we're going to

also pursue this opportunity but I

didn't increase infrastructure. And so I

think this is honestly like this will

this is one of the big reasons why I

finally feel like I figured out how do

we go from a few hundred million to a

billion a year in sales. Like this is

like this is for the more advanced

business owners. This is the big unlock

is that you have to think of business of

businesses. You have to think a team of

teams, right? And so it's not like, oh,

Amazon is this one business. Amazon has

many revenue lines and they function as

basically just many businesses under the

brand of Amazon. They have the same

culture. They have the same ideals. They

strive for the same ultimate outcome and

they're aligned in that way, but the

actual doingness of AWS versus the

logistics business versus the private

label business of Amazon, all of those

are very different. And so each of them

has CEOs in their own right. And so

Acquisition.com now we have two two

revenue lines outside or three revenue

lines outside of outside of the

portfolio. And I guess that's not even

true. There's more than that. Well, each

of them to that point each of them has

their own presidents and leadership

team. And so that is the big mistake

that I kept trying to make is I kept

thinking I had to make this business

bigger when in reality like humans can

only manage so many humans, right? And

so things eventually split off and

become their own units of business. And

it's very difficult for a CFO of a

holding company to know how much

frontline customer service person needs

to spend at this particular company.

They're too far away. And so that's why

I don't like centralization if you're

building a very large business. And I

would say that with with with the this

the exception of software from a shared

services perspective because basically

the operations of that scale, you know,

better than just about any other kind of

business. But the way that revenue lines

are are imagined within the software

world is basically feature sets. And so

you have a team that's in charge of

these features and it's kind of like a

director, a CEO of this feature, a CEO

of this feature. So it still more or

less works the same way even if the

revenue is consolidated with one

membership or something like that. But

if you have a service business,

typically the revenue will not be

consolidating that way. You'll have

different lines of of services and

different pricing associated with that,

different sales teams, different

marketing, but it's still brand will

still be the same, but the leaders and

what they're selling and how they

deliver will be different. And so that

is a huge unlock for me. And it is like

I feel like we're finally I mean we've

been doing this now, but this is me kind

distilling down that crystal so that

future me can be like what was I

thinking right then? That's what I was

thinking. And that I think was the the

big um the big W. I'll give you a couple

tidbits on the leaders to do that. You

need leaders who can who can drive the

revenue lines and are incentivized on

bottom line. And if they need you, they

don't deserve the incentive. If they

need you to drive the revenue, then they

are not the driver. You are still the

driver. If you really want to build

something big, you have to be able to

find people who are exceptional,

compensate them well, and get out of

their way. Now, you've heard people say

that. I've heard people say that, and I

I I want to say this in a way that

somehow I can like make it real because

it's real for me now. It's the the thing

that I was missing was the was a pattern

recognition on what high quality talent

looks like. That was what I was missing.

If that person actually here's a

different way to think about it. Here's

a good one. If you have a $100 million

business, you might have one or two

founders or three founders who have nine

figure founder, you know, skill sets.

But the people who are going to run

within that is the next tier of people

are all call it eight figure or

multi-figure entrepreneurs. And so in

order to create the $und00 million

business, you might have two $25 million

entrepreneurs and then and then five $10

million entrepreneurs who run the next

tier. And then underneath of them,

you've got many sevenfigure

entrepreneurs, right? And so it's almost

like the aggregate of the the aggregate

revenue in the business is the added up

potential of all the skill of all the

players within it. And that was just a

bit like if if you don't think that your

head of sales could go do sales and like

if your if your person in marketing

couldn't start a marketing agency, then

they're probably not that good at

marketing, right? And so that's that's

kind of the thinking process is like if

none of the people that you have could

go do it on their own, then you probably

don't have good enough people. And

that's the thing because you have this

fear of like, oh, what if I if I bring

somebody in who can do it on their own,

they'll just steal my stuff. It's like

or if you don't bring them in, you will

literally do it for the rest of your

life. We have to create the vision and

the opportunities that are big enough

and this is where the design this is

your job. How to create the

opportunities are such that it still

makes more sense for the person to work

here because they can have uncapped

earnings. So there's a difference

between like somebody needs to own the

whole business, which the biggest

business in the world, no one owns the

whole business. Well, I mean to my

knowledge, right? The biggest I'm

thinking like okay, publicly traded,

whatever. I'm sure there's some secret

Arabian oil factory that I don't know

about, right, that one guy owns. But

like for the vast majority of

businesses, many people own them, right?

But what's more key is that someone has

unlimited earning capacity. And I think

that's the key. That's how you can get

the A players. And if they are true A's,

they'll [ __ ] light up because the

thing is is it makes sense because the

return on effort is higher because of

the aggregate infrastructure that has

already been built from the brand

recognition, from uh the reputation,

from the the delivery mechanisms that

you might have in place. that person

it's like they're like I don't even want

like let me just let me cook let me

crush what I'm really good at and be

able to do that at a higher level than I

could do if I did it on my own because I

couldn't even use my whole superpower to

the greatest degree that I can because I

would get bottlenecked much lower along

the line doing something else that I

don't want to do. So huge unlock for me

and for the bigger business owners that

part was probably the most valable for

you. Lesson 22. So I'm 0 for 12 on

executive assistance but I'm hoping to

be one for 13. Maybe should be lucky

number 13. I I had my first kind of like

world class EA and so I will just do my

very best to describe it. I'm early so

I'm almost I'm almost hesitant to make

this because I'm like this is like oh

I'm in love and and then you're like

you're like how's that girlfriend of

yours? It's like oh you broke up you

know whatever it's terrible. So take

this with a gigantic grain of salt but I

I do think that this one work out and

I'll and I'll tell you why. She's a

psychopath and I think I had normal

people and I'm not normal. And so I

needed I needed a psychopath and I

realized that the number one thing that

I mean I we've said this in the

interviews but I still I still wasn't I

had never actually experienced on the

other side. I knew it in theory but I

hadn't experienced it which is speed

over everything. I needed someone who

will always respond to me within 60

seconds no matter when I message and I

will go for hours and hours and hours

with nothing and then the moment I

message you I need full resources full

attention because in that moment you are

my constraint and I needed someone who

had more competence general horsepower.

So I will say this for for all of you

guys who are who are founders who who

who you know have schedules and whatnot.

One, I think you should be the one who

manages your time. In terms of who's

doing the blocking and tackling, that's

separate. I think you can outsource

that. But who makes decisions on your

time? If your time is your most valuable

resource, why would you want anyone but

the person who's the best allocator of

resources, aka you, to be the person

who's who's choosing how that time gets

spent. So thing number one. Two, I think

speed above everything. Now, also above

everything is general intelligence. And

I think this is something that I I did

not I did not appreciate. I did not

screen for as much and it was a mistake

and I found this by accident. My current

is very intelligent. And so as a result

I trust her decision-m to a much higher

degree and I feel like my ability to

actually give true tasks that I do that

come up that require horsepower. I can

actually give them and be like just do a

first draft and I can get 80% of that

done and then I can tweak rather than

having to just truly do everything to

Novo. So the next piece that I think has

been really helpful is whether you are a

maker or manager, plan your time

accordingly and live and die by that.

I've had some of the most productive

weeks of my life by finally for the

first time in so long. I actually feel

like I'm ahead, which I've I haven't

felt that in such a long time where I'm

I'm actually proactively time blocking

my time. That's all the free time that I

have, but blocking it for what project

is being worked on each of these time

slots. and she's keeping track of all my

ongoing projects and knowing what loops

of like, hey, when are you going to

close the loop on this? When are you

going to Hey, by the way, this this

followed up. And so, I'm sharing this so

that for those of you who are like, man,

I really need executive assistant. Pay

more than you expect, look for someone

who's more intelligent and say speed is

non-negotiable and have them watch the

maker manager video because I think that

will give a huge amount of context to

how you work your life. And so, for me,

that that was a huge a huge learning for

this year. Next one is if there's ever a

problem in an organization or a

department or a line of revenue, look at

the leader. And here's the here's the

rule. The leader is always the problem.

Not sometimes. The leader is always the

problem. So if a function is mediocre,

it's because the leader is mediocre.

Period. Full stop. No questions. So it's

either the leader and the team or just

the leader. But it's never just the

team. So, if the leader is mediocre and

then they brought in mediocre people,

it's the leader and the team. If the

leader is mediocre and you've got a

great team, the leader will turn the

great team into a mediocre team. And so,

I had a conversation with a business

owner the other day and he had four

locations. Two of them were doing well,

two of them were doing poorly. I asked a

zillion questions to finally get the the

the the fun fact, which is that he had

somebody in the company who was running

them, who was a longtime friend, and

also, we'll just say an addict. I'll

just say that. and every day was coming

up to work messed up, inebriated,

whatever you want to say. And he was

asking me for tactical business advice

when I was like, there is no tactical

business advice. There is nothing that

will matter because every no one will

listen to somebody who they're like,

well, why don't you show up to work

sober? Why don't we start there, right?

No one will respect. Imagine that guy

coming in and being like, hey guys,

let's pick up the pace. What? Like what

are we talking about? And so it's like

all these questions about like pricing

and sales. Dude, none of this matters

until we fix the leader problem, right?

But the thing is is that's obviously an

extreme example, but it happens at every

level. If your your media team's not

working well, the leader, if the if if

your sales team isn't good, the leader,

the question is after you pull the

leader out, is the team also screwed?

Got a 50/50 shot there. If they had a

low bar and brought in low bar people,

that sucks. Now, if you have, now it's

like, well, what happens if you had a

bad team and you put a good leader in

place? Have you ever seen a good coach

turn around a bad team? Pretty sure

there's a ton of movies about it. Yes.

If you have a great leader, they can

turn a great they can turn a mediocre

team into a great team. So I I think I

spent too much time early on my career

trying to find pinpoint problems.

Straight up there's a problem with a

function leader the issue. Just solves

it. This is so much faster. So there's a

razor for you. Lesson 24. In the world

of AI, your brand is your mode. All

right. Now this is not going to be news

to some of you and for some of you this

hopefully hopefully it's news to none of

you. Um, but if it is news, welcome to

2026. So if if if that's the case,

because services and and and products

can become increasingly commoditized and

listed goals and content, things like

that are are easy to reproduce, how can

you build a brand, right? So branding,

the act of it is who and what you

associate with that is what will matter.

And so in a world of AI, you have to be

thinking about this. And so if you're a

local business, for example, your brand

will be mostly word of mouth and the

reviews about you online. That's what

the reality is. But just about every

other business, it's that plus all of

the content that you're making publicly,

right? And so this is just the the the

most to the point version of this that I

can give you, which is as always, give

away the secrets, sell the

implementation. People do not want to do

the work for whatever it is that you're

showing. Whether you're showing them how

to fix toilets, they'll just call you to

do their plumbing. If you're telling

them how to fix relationships, they're

still going to call you to help them fix

their relationship. If you tell them how

to fix their business, they'll call you

to help them fix their business. Right?

People do not want to do the work or

they don't want to do it alone. Key,

myself included. I will always pay to go

faster and decrease risk so they don't

have to do backtracks. Like I get the

DIY. I will consume something and be

like, "This person clearly knows what

they're talking about. I will pay to go

faster and I will pay to have you take

this generic thing, make sure it's

applied to my business so that it's

right because I don't want to pay the

tax of ignorance." And so if you know

this to be true, then the question is if

I want to build a brand in 2026, I want

to think about what are the curated

associations that I want to make that

will reinforce the position that I want

to have in my prospect's minds. What

things do they like that I want them to

think of me when they think of that? And

so that's what we want to do. So what do

you think we're going to do? I'm going

to do a lot more business fixing next

year and I have to build a lot more

infrastructure in order to do that. But

it's going to be demonstration of skill,

right? What's something that very few

people can do in your market that you

can demonstrate better than anyone else?

Do that. Do as much of it as you

possibly can. Do it until your eyes

bleed because the market won't even know

you exist by the time you're getting

tired of it. So on the on the the talk

track of brand, brand has to be

constantly reinforced. So you need to

keep pushing the envelope to stay

relevant. Something is only a big deal

if you make it one. No one knew about

the launch. No one. I have almost 20

million or 17 I don't even know what it

is. Between 16 17 between 16 and 20 I

haven't checked in a while. 16 and 20

million followers or subscribers across

all different channels or whatever. The

vast majority of people did not know

about the launch. Didn't even know about

it. And I tried really really hard. And

in order to stay relevant, you still

have to keep going bigger and bigger.

Like why would I do the launch? It's

like well I got to like it's like just

because like Chris Bumpstead when he won

the first Olympia, it doesn't mean he's

done. It's like we got to win the

Olympia again. You got to maintain the

title. You gota It's like that's why

it's defending the title, right? So, you

have to continue to and I think this is

what's lost in some people's like it's

like, man, the climbing the climb is so

tough. It's like, no, man, holding the

tops way harder than climbing it, right?

And there's always levels to the game.

And so, it's like once you once you get

your title, whatever your title is for

you, it's like you have to keep taking

on new title bouts to keep defending the

belt. And maybe the stages keep getting

bigger, right? In business that like the

stages can only keep getting bigger.

I'll tell you a failure that I had

around the launch. I think on the PR

front, I had planned for a big PR kind

of blastoff on the back end of that and

basically that that fell flat. Not

basically the the PR firm that I had I

didn't have really any attention to put

towards it and I saw it as it was a

miss. It was a miss. Like how many

articles did you see about some like

some internet person doubling the world

record? Not that many. and that like

that would totally have been fixable if

I had just had queued up a bunch of PR

and I just I just didn't. So that was a

miss. That was a miss for me. We'll do

better next time. Next one. The greatest

risk to the business is that you don't

feel like doing it anymore. This is

super real. So the reason that people

like most businesses don't actually run

out of money. The founder runs out of

will. And so like you have to you have

to get you have to have the frame shift

to it has to be worth suffering for. And

I do think that making money is a

component of it. Like I had somebody the

other day who was like, "Hey, I'm

thinking about switching this business."

And that's how most businesses die,

right? The entrepreneur just switches

and says, "It's not worth it for me

anymore." I said, "If this thing made 10

times the money, would you keep doing

it?" And they're like, "Hell yeah." I'm

like, "Would you look at this other

business?" They're like, "No." I'm like,

"Well, then dude, let's just fix the

business." Right? So, making more money

can help, but I will say kind of like

the electroshock therapy. If it made 10

times the money, it will help in the

short term, but not forever because

plateaus are often the ones that stay in

it the longest. So, what do I mean by

that? Like they it's like the shrinking

and the growing are the ones that are I

think the most painful. The plateaus,

people can just stay in them for years

because it's just like not painful

enough to quit, but still very painful.

So the ones that grow fast are in lots

of pain and eventually they don't need

the money anymore at all. And so those

are very like if you've grown a lot and

made a lot of money really quickly, you

then stop wanting to be in all the pain

that this tremendous growth provides you

because you're like I don't need to do

this anymore. And so on the flip side,

the ones who are shrinking or are very

volatile deal with the most pain

obviously. So you have the same

volatility and pain of the of the growth

guy except you also aren't making money.

So that is the most pain that you will

be in business. And so what we're

solving for as entrepreneurs is

something worth doing, right? Having

something and I think that the most

powerful thing that has helped me is

having something outside of yourself

that the business acts as a vehicle that

you drive towards. And so some of so for

some people that's like some societal

impact that you want to make. That's

some problem that you want to solve. For

me it's the person that I want to

become. But like that's very easy to say

and I've heard many people say it. Their

actions don't align with that. So

whatever that thing is for you and it

might not be that you want to become

this person, but whatever that thing is

for you, it's like it has to be real

because and you have to you have to fix

the business to allow you to to achieve

that thing because once you make all the

money that you want to make, you have to

have another reason to do it. And so

that is why entrepreneurs not wanting to

do it is the greatest risk to the

business. And I think that like I have

to always keep that front of mind like

the thing that will like I have to be

willing at this point for

acquisition.com to do some things that I

just want to do even if it's not in the

business's best interest because it's in

my best interest and if it's in my best

interest I will keep doing the This.