In a candid conversation, Alex Hormosi delves into the entrepreneurial psyche, addressing the transition from fear-driven action to faith-based decisions. He reflects on his own journey, noting how fear and anger initially propelled him, and how over six years, he gradually incorporated enjoyment into his work ethic. Hormosi emphasizes the importance of reducing liabilities to make strategic decisions and recounts his early struggles, including sleeping on a gym floor to avoid dual rent costs. He candidly shares his fear of failure and the extreme lengths he would have gone to avoid returning home defeated. Hormosi discusses the psychological concept of the Solomon paradox, suggesting that individuals give better advice to others than they take themselves, and introduces the Solomon Project, a self-coaching technique involving dialogue with one's future self. He also touches on the pitfalls of success, how it can lead to alienation, and the power of documenting one's journey, especially during low points, as they become pivotal narratives upon reflection. Hormosi concludes by challenging listeners to define their input-output equation for success and to exponentially increase their input to achieve their goals, highlighting the importance of leveraging resources and gradually relinquishing control for business growth.
"Fear and anger are what drove me to take action. Like, I didn't have a lot of faith, I had a lot of anger, and that's what I had. And so that's what I used."
This quote explains that the speaker was primarily driven by negative emotions, rather than faith or confidence, when they started their entrepreneurial journey.
"I just do the things that I enjoy and that I've been rewarded for doing in the past."
The speaker indicates a shift in their motivation from negative emotions to doing what they find rewarding and enjoyable.
"You decrease your liabilities. You decrease all of the things that stress you out."
Here, the speaker suggests that reducing financial stressors can help entrepreneurs make better decisions and adopt a longer-term perspective.
"I slept at the gym. And I remember I would read the Instagram motivation manifesto when it was just like, stock images of girls that were like, chase your dreams, whatever, and I'd be like."
The speaker reflects on the contrast between the motivational messages on social media and the harsh reality of their own entrepreneurial sacrifices.
"The rocky cutscene lasts 30 seconds in the movie and lasts five years in your life."
This quote highlights the discrepancy between the brief, glorified depiction of struggle in media and the prolonged, gritty reality of entrepreneurship.
"I didn't know if I was going to win, but I did know I wasn't going to stop."
This quote encapsulates the speaker's mindset of unwavering persistence despite the uncertainty of success.
"For me, I wasn't in an extreme scenario like that. But it felt that way because to me, the idea of going home a failure might as well have been death."
The speaker compares their fear of failure to the extreme conditions of slavery, emphasizing the intensity of their drive to succeed.
"I will fabricate other people talking shit about me who aren't even thinking about."
The speaker admits to inventing adversaries as a psychological tactic to motivate themselves.
"You don't fall in love with things unless you're good. And you only get good at things if you suck first."
This quote challenges the common advice to pursue passion, suggesting that proficiency and passion are the results of perseverance through initial failure.
"I think brain meds are like, we have no idea what's going on in the brain."
The speaker suggests that the current approach to mental health medication might be seen as naive or reckless by future generations.
"Shock therapy of, like, 50 years ago. We're like, I can't believe we did that. Or like, lobotomies, you know what I mean? I can't believe we used to do that."
This quote reflects a sense of disbelief and criticism towards historical mental health treatments that are now considered crude or inappropriate.
"And so it's kind of like workers comp. Charlie Munger talks about this, but it's like, it is absolutely wrong that someone should work and get injured on the job and not be compensated by the company that they were doing work rightfully so, for."
This quote highlights the ethical necessity of compensating employees for workplace injuries while also recognizing the systemic challenges of implementing fair compensation practices.
"Should we print more money or should we reel things back? Well, short term, this one's better. That's what we'll do."
This quote illustrates the common preference for short-term solutions, such as printing more money, despite potential long-term consequences.
"I've never been in it ever. I've just never gotten involved because I try to play games that I have variables that I have control over."
The speaker expresses a preference for engaging in activities where they have control and can influence the outcome, avoiding areas like politics where this is less feasible.
"It takes weeks to be informed about what buttons you're pressing."
This quote emphasizes the speaker's belief that making informed decisions, such as voting, requires significant time and effort to understand the issues at hand.
"I get stopped in the street every day from multiple people being like, dude, I read your book. I quit my job, and I'm doing a million dollars a year."
The speaker takes pride in the positive impact their work has had on others, suggesting that their contributions have enabled others to achieve success.
"Not on any time horizon that I associate with the current identity that I have."
This quote indicates the speaker's lack of interest in pursuing a future in politics, as it does not align with their current identity or goals.
"The only ask that I can ever have of you guys is that you help me spread the word so we can help more entrepreneurs make more money, feed their families make better products and have better experiences for their employees and customers."
The speaker requests audience support in sharing the podcast to extend its positive impact on entrepreneurs.
"The reason that it's a paradox is that he gave exceptional advice to everyone else, but his actual life was in ruins."
This quote explains the core of the Solomon Paradox, highlighting the contrast between the quality of advice given to others and the state of one's own life.
"And so they've studied this with relationships. They'll have somebody in a weird romantic relationship, tough setup. And they'll whitewash the names and say, hey, there's a lady. And she's getting beat by her husband once a month, and it's happened for four years. And this time, she says that her husband says that it's not going to happen again. What do you think that woman should do?"
The quote illustrates how the Solomon Paradox is studied, using anonymized scenarios to reveal how people advise others differently than they would act themselves.
"And so one of the issues that I've had with therapists and performance coaches and things like that is that I would say maybe I've spent like, five, maybe 10 hours in total in a setting like that. I'm not very good at it. And it's because I usually feel like I'm spending the majority of my time trying to give them enough context in order to give me advice."
This quote highlights the speaker's dissatisfaction with traditional therapy due to the inefficiency of providing sufficient personal context.
"And so sometimes it's really hard to hold yourself accountable. And so I'm just asking my 85 year old self to hold me accountable to what I say I want, right?"
The quote underscores the challenge of self-accountability and introduces the speaker's unique approach to addressing it by consulting an imagined future self.
"And so I have a recurring calendar meetup with myself for an hour on Mondays. It's the first thing I do, and I have a back and forth dialogue with 85 year old me."
This quote describes the practical setup of the Solomon Project, illustrating the speaker's commitment to self-reflection and self-guidance through scheduled dialogues with their future self.
"The biggest regret I have is not documenting the failures. It's like not documenting the low points, because everyone wants to document the success story. But the only way you have a success story is if you show where you came from."
The speaker expresses regret for not capturing the challenges faced, emphasizing the importance of documenting the full journey, not just the successes, to provide context and learning opportunities.
"And so what I've tried to do with how we've oriented our life is that I give myself local benefit and global benefit. So I get fast feedback loops for documenting what we do now. And so we document everything."
This quote reflects the speaker's current practice of documenting life experiences for both immediate and long-term benefits, highlighting the value of feedback loops in reinforcing the habit of documentation.
"What makes the human experience in its entirety the human experience is the highs and the lows." "Embracing the totality of the experience can give you gratitude for what feels locally like a low point." "These will be the stories you tell."
These quotes highlight the importance of accepting both positive and negative experiences as integral parts of life, and how they contribute to the stories that define us.
"How cool is it that I get to live this part of the human experience?" "You can't skip weather." "That rocky cutscene is five years, not 30 seconds."
These quotes illustrate a mindset that values the experience of adversity and the recognition that overcoming challenges is a prolonged process, not a brief moment as often depicted in media.
"Everyone believes in the American dream until it comes true." "People root for you on your way up because you remind them of their dreams, and they try to tear you down once you're there because you remind them that they gave up on them."
These quotes reflect on the paradox of support, where initial encouragement can shift to envy or criticism as one achieves their goals, reminding others of their own abandoned dreams.
"If you want to become a different person, then change your environment, because the environment you have is reinforcing the person you used to be."
This quote emphasizes the importance of environment in personal development and the potential benefits of leaving one's comfort zone to grow.
"Define the input output equation that gets you closer to where you want to go, and then ten x the input." "The thing that you unlock in the game of entrepreneurship is leverage."
These quotes challenge listeners to identify the actions that will lead them to their goals and to massively increase their efforts in those areas. They also introduce the concept of leverage as a key to success in entrepreneurship.