"You have to like your goals more than you like your friends." In this episode, Alex (@AlexHormozi) talks about the "lonely chapter" - the awkward, transitional period where you don't really fit in with your old social circle as you adjust to the demands of starting a new business. It's not something to fear, it's something to expect and go through anyways.
Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned and will learn on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.
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Sometimes you have to like your goals more than you like your friends. And every person who wants to do something in their life or has done something with their lives is going through the exact same chapter that you're going through right now. And it's the lonely chapter. It's the chapter where you don't fit in with your old friends, but you don't have the achievements yet to fit in with a new group of friends. And you're doing all the stuff, right? The fruit tutorials, you're watching these videos and you're reading everything you can get your hands on. And you're trying to set up whatever your podcast is or your content thing, right? And you're going through it and you're thinking to yourself, like, is this even worth it? Because you're not seeing any signs of success. But the sign of success is the hate that you get along the way. It is the leading indicator. And what you can't do is bend the knee to their hate and try and fit back in and conform because it's comfortable and it's warm. It's like the scene in the Matrix when Trinity opens the door, the very beginning in the first Matrix, when Neo is about to take the red pill and he wants to get out of the car. And Trinity says, you've been down that road, Neo. You know that road and you know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be. And then he closes the door and he gets back in and he goes, they go to take the red pill. So right now, this moment that you're going through is Trinity opening the door and saying, you could go back, you could go party, you could go to the nightclubs, you could say that this was just a hobby. You could downplay what you're doing. Like, I'm just trying it out. Oh yeah, I'm not really that into it. It's just like just something I found, right? But then as you're saying, you feel like a fake 'cause you're lying to yourself, you're lying to them about what your real intentions are. And in that moment, when you're trying to think about having that conversation, you'll remember exactly why you left, why it is that road and you know exactly where it ends and that's not where you want to be. And the thing is is that your goals will stick with you longer than these relationships. Your goals will serve you more than these relationships. And this is the stuff that no one will tell you. I can tell you personally, I don't talk to one friend that I have from middle school and high school, right? I talk to one person, two people from college. And it's not like we talk all the time. I talk to him every six months or so. And so I say this because although these relationships feel like they're incredibly important in your life right now, they will disappear. The majority of these friendships are based on convenience. You're only friends of them 'cause they lived in your dorm. They lived in your neighborhood. They went into English class with you. But as soon as your conditions change, you change where you're at. All, many of them will fade away because you'll develop new skills. You'll develop new context. You'll meet new people who are up-skilled from them. And then you'll compare them to these people and you'll be like, man, these are better friends. These are people who are more aligned with my goals. They're trying to grow. When I want to work all day Saturday, they're like, cool, I'll work with you. Rather than being like, dude, we're going on a pontoon boat. They're like, where are you going to be? And you have to accept that as the price. And the thing is it's like, it's only if you want that, like if you want to live a life that is the same as everyone else's, then you can do what everyone else does. The only issue is when you want to do what everyone else does but get what none of them have. If you want to be exceptional, by definition, you will be the exception. You will not be normal. You will be unlike the others. And so it makes sense that you would be in the outgroup and it hurts as a human being because you want to be in the in-group. It's part of our DNA. Shame is a real thing. And we don't want to feel that because in the natural world, if you're outside of the group, you have a much lower likelihood of living and procreating. So it's strong in our DNA to be in group. But the thing is is that you're actually not in-group or out of group, you're transitioning. You're between groups. And so in that lonely chapter, that's where you can do a disproportionate amount of work because you have no distractions. So you listen to the podcast, you read the tweets, you watch the videos, you consume the content because you know deep down, I can do more than this. And you begin to see the person that you could be and realize how far you need to go to get there. But despite how far away it seems, your goals, the best version of you, you look back down the dead end road and you know that's not where you want to be. And so you keep going and realize that there's no turning back. Once you see the promised land, once you see what you could become, you can't go back. And if you're not sure who your real friends are, one, ask, is it more likely or less likely that I hit my goals with this person in my life? Just think about it. Like if this person is in my life, is it more likely that my goals? Then remove them. Because it's better to have friends who force you to grow than ones who accept you as you are. Because the biggest risk to your future isn't your future competition or your rivals. It's the distraction that you insist on keeping in your life rather than doing the things you know you should be doing but aren't. Think about it like this. Imagine a competitor that you'd never want to go against. Focused, persistent, always learning, always improving, relentless, says no to everything, but that which makes them stronger. You know what he looks like? You know how he acts? You know who he associates with? Great, that's future you. Now become him. You have to kill your current self for your new self to have room to grow. And so it's this constant appraisal of your skills and activities and saying which of these makes me stronger? Which of these makes it more likely for me to hit my goal? And I just want to give you that frame 'cause that like that single frame of is this person being in my life make it more likely or less likely to hit my goal. Is this activity or this behavior that I do make it more or less likely to hit my goal? And I consistently just ask that question over and over and over again. And that is because for me, I do love my goals more than I love my friend. Because my goals will be with me long after they are. And so if you think about your relationship with your goals and you put it on the same pedestal or higher than your relationship with your friends, you're going to lose one of the relationships. And the question is which one is the one that's gonna serve you more in the long term? That's a decision for you. But for me, I can tell you personally achieving my goals has served me more than any one person has. And because achieving your goals is a generalized thing, it can open all doors to new relationships. And so you do have to burn sometimes what you have in order to have what you want. If you wanna impress poor people, outspend them. If you wanna impress rich people, outwork them. And I can tell you this being in the position that I'm at because I have tons of young men who work for me. And I mean, they hear all the content that I make and they know that. And so if you lease a Ferrari for $5,000 a month or whatever, I know you're not rich. And every rich person isn't impressed by that because we know what it costs. You only impress poor people. And if you do it really early in your career, every rich person's like, man, you should be reinvesting that to get way fucking bigger. Now, if you're like an aficionado and you wanna have lots of cars. And that's like, again, that's different. It depends on the reason you're doing it. It's like, you shouldn't be cooking your own food unless you love cooking. But if you don't love cooking, then you should outsource that shit as fast as possible so that you can get your time back. It's understanding the context of this, which of course this will be taking out a context. But hopefully you watching or listening to this, can at least get it. Layla and I both collectively started buying nicer things. So living in nicer places, having nicer cars. I bought my home, which was a nice house in Austin. I think it cost me $1.7 million. I bought it in cash and I bought it off one month paycheck. And so I wanna put that in context to like, was it a ball and house totally? It was sick. I was super happy to be there. But where I lived before that cost me $1,200 a month. And so you're like, wait, one point said, right, we spend money, but by percentage, the amount of money we spend is inconsequential. If you wanna buy the toys and you wanna buy that stuff, I'd say sure, understand one. Whatever you spend, you're taking away from the future. Now there is always a point you have to balance between consumption and investment. If you never spend anything, you live your entire life and you end up with a big pot of money and you didn't enjoy any moment of that. I don't think that's the way to do it. But I do think there's a ratio there. And I think that ratio depends on you as an individual. I tend to always over index on investment because I wanna become a really great version of me. And I think that's going to cost money and it's gonna cost time. And I like to be ready for those opportunities because the opportunities get bigger and have more zeroes next to them. And there's no masterminds you get to at a certain level. You just do a deal with someone. And if for me to pony up for the deal, I'd be like, hey, you gotta write a check for 10 million. I'm like, all right, I gotta have that ready for just like on the sidelines waiting for opportunities, right? And so the idea is being on the defensive so that you can be on the offensive. It's living far below your lifestyle so that you can more heavily invest in the growth of the business. And so your lifestyle is your competitor's opportunity. There's you and other version of you. There's Bizarro you, right? And Bizarro you wants to live this great lifestyle and has the Ferrari and the nicer place and whatever. But when an opportunity comes along, Bizarro doesn't have any savings because he's trying to show face, right? But the thing is is everyone who's trying to show face for hates him anyways 'cause it looks like he's bragging. But also they know how much he makes relatively and they're like, God, he's gotta be spending his whole paycheck, he looks irresponsible. There's zero advantage to being accurately judged. If you are strong, you want to appear weak. You want to have more money than people expect you to have. And so for me, when we did buy the Bentley, which I bought because I got, I'll be honest, I got pressured into it, they're like, dude, come on, you make all this money, buy something nice for yourself. And I was like, I guess people buy nice cars so I bought a car, I bought a Bentley. And I returned it six months later. And I lost 20 grand on it. And I was like, this is just a complete waste of everything. Like, I just don't care at all about this. 'Cause you only need three things to win. You can write this down. The balls to start, the brains to learn and the heart to never quit. And the good news is you already have all three, you're just not using them. Because fundamentally, if you found somebody and they started and they continued to get better and they never stopped, they would win. Just think about it from fundamental basics. Like if I said, okay, think of a person who only did one thing. And all they did to get their entire life too is doing that one thing and getting better and better at that thing. And they did it for 50 years. Do you think that person would not be incredibly successful? Of course they would be. Then why aren't you doing it? The problem is it's never been easier to start a business. It's also never been easier to do nothing at all.
