Leila Hormozi: From Minimum Wage Employee to $100M Net Worth By 29

Leila Hormozi

What I really thought about was: *when does it end?* You know, like at eight arrests, at ten arrests, at £300, at £350. I just really thought about that, and I was like, "What does my life look like in three years, in four years, in five years if I keep doing this?" That terrified me enough to **immediately change literally everything**.

Shaan Puri

Okay, **Leila**—welcome to the show. It's exciting to see you here. We've had Alex on a couple of times, and I don't know, you guys are pretty kick-ass. You're like one of the few business, *power-couple* celebrity couples out there in the public. Did you ever think you would be doing that? Like, did you ever think, "Oh, I'll be the kind of guru/influencer-y person who's going to be out there giving advice, giving frameworks, or trying to be helpful to people"? Is that something you saw yourself doing?

Leila Hormozi

Not in the beginning, because I think I just really enjoyed running the company. Then, once I realized that after a certain point the impact I wanted to have would require that I learn that skill — and that it would be transferable to what I did day to day as well — that was when I was like, "Okay, I think this is important for me to learn." What I realized is I can be as good at running a business as I am, but if I'm not as good at running it as I am at talking about it, then it doesn't really matter. If I can't **communicate my abilities**, that in itself is a **limiter** for me teaching my team and transferring that scale to somebody else, whether it be an audience, my team, a friend, or whatever it might be.

Shaan Puri

I feel like when I hear you talk, it's like—okay, you've really got a super strong sense of how you like to operate. It's like you've got it together in a system that works for you. That comes through experience; it comes through trial and error. But let's rewind before you had all that and let you tell your story a little bit, because there are going to be people listening who don't know your full story. I don't know your full story, to be honest. I love this one tweet that I came across in the research: **"You can't skip the struggle if you want the story."** I want to use that: *you can't skip the struggle if you want the story.* So, in telling your story, let's start with the struggle. Can you start where you didn't have it all together? You weren't this sort of *business terminator*—you were struggling, you were trying to figure it out. Can you start there?

Leila Hormozi

Yeah, I would say that, ever since I was a teenager, I always wanted to get into **entrepreneurship**. Mostly because of my father — he was a tenured professor. He did everything by the book and, honestly, he was miserable. I really just felt like that wasn't the way to go. I just didn't know what the way was, and I got lost along the way. So much so that, when I was 19, I had been arrested six times. I was drinking and doing drugs. I was **230 pounds**; my life was going nowhere and I was flunking out of college. That was when I really turned my life around — learning how to live my life in accordance with my goals and values rather than my feelings. That was what taught me a lot of **discipline**. I ended up losing almost **100 pounds**. I moved across the country by myself, from **Michigan** to **California**, because I wanted to pursue a career in **fitness**. I had to finish school for **exercise science** — useless, but nonetheless I had to finish it.

Shaan Puri

So you just said—you just said a thing that, again, a movie would have taken 60 minutes to show, and you did it in 60 seconds. I want to zoom in. You were like: "I'm £230, I'm drinking, I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm basically single, broke, and out of shape." Right? That's kind of the start. Then you said, "So then I decided I'm going to start living life in terms of my goals." And then you did. You lost £100. Alright—hold on. I've been there before. I know there's something that happens in between those. If it were so easy to just live in accordance with my goals, I probably would have been doing it earlier. There must have been some *wake-up call*—a moment, some kind of tough conversation with yourself—where you decided to start making a shift. **What was that moment?**

Leila Hormozi

There were two moments. The first one — which was like, *"Okay, I want to stop being a fat ass"* — happened when I was at a party. It was my friend's birthday party in college. She invited people who had been our friends in high school, and I thought, "Oh gosh, that's embarrassing, because I'm pretty overweight now." I hoped nobody would say anything, but nobody's going to say anything because that's really rude. At the party, everyone was drinking. I was walking past a couple of guys I went to high school with, heading to the bathroom, when I heard a guy say, "What a shame."

Shaan Puri

and

Leila Hormozi

I was like, "I was like, 'What?'" He was really drunk, and I was like, "What's a shame?" He said, "Man... you know, it really sucks, because you were really pretty, but you're just really fat now."

Sam Parr

oh

Leila Hormozi

and I remember in that no but here's the thing in that

Shaan Puri

moment name yeah

Leila Hormozi

Yes. In that moment I was like... my internal voice actually was like, *"he's right."* I hated that what he said was true. It was then I realized I didn't want somebody to be able to say that about me anymore. Avoiding the situation—avoiding real life—wasn't cutting it. I remember going home and, in pure rage, writing a Facebook post: "You won't see me anymore. I'm going dark. Expect not to hear from me." I really was just like, I can't keep overeating. I can't keep not taking care of myself. I had basically stopped working out, started eating like shit, and drank all the time. If you do all those things at once, you just continue to gain weight. That was the moment that did it for me, because my response was, *"I agree with him."* It wasn't, "I'm mad at him" or anything. He told the truth. I think if you don't want people to say bad stuff about you, then change. I'd rather change the situation than try to avoid people.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, you typed up the Facebook message. You said, "I'm going dark." Did you have a plan, or did you just have the fuel at that time?

Leila Hormozi

I just had the fuel, I mean... The funny thing is, I remember my plan was this: **"Just eat half of what you're eating."** Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Parr

is that the worst plan

Leila Hormozi

it it really wasn't and so like I actually would just take what I was eating and I would just eat half and and that worked for me and it it I lost about £60 that way and so you know the other 40 then I got into macros and lifting and all that stuff and that's really when like that took me on like where I've probably been since then the second moment was the 6th time that I was arrested so I had been out at college you know drinking blacked out I wake up I am in my my bedroom at my parents' house so like my childhood bedroom and I was like oh my god I don't know what happened and I rolled over and I was in bed like pounding headache feel like shit and there's a a ticket for my rest on the bedside and I was like fuck k so they took me back to my parents' house I don't remember a thing and then I'm like I need to go downstairs to exit the house and so I was I just remember I grabbed the ticket and I put on clothes and I walked down the stairs and I see my dad sitting on the couch with my stepmom and I was like okay like I'm ready he's just he's gonna just rip into me and I sat down and I was just expecting him to just eviscerate my character and instead of eviscerating my character I remember he looked at me and he was like listen I'm not gonna try and control you or tell you what to do or tell you that you'd change your life I just wanna tell you I'm just I'm really worried because if you keep doing this I think you're just gonna end up killing yourself and it was weird but in that moment when he said that it was like I think when you're young you feel invincible right like you drink you feel like nothing will happen you drink and drive you feel like nothing will happen you do drugs you feel like nothing would happen and it was like in that moment I recognized that he was right and that I'm no different from all these other people who have gone down this path I could actually end up really hurting myself and I think the second to that was I felt so terrible that I made someone who loves me so much and has invested so much and only made my life better feel so shitty by who I was being and so you know I left and I was like I can't keep doing any of this you know like yeah being fat and working on all that but like I can't keep drinking like this I can't keep doing drugs drugs

Shaan Puri

like this

Leila Hormozi

**This is not the life I want.** I remember what I really thought about was: when does it end? You know, like at eight arrests, at ten arrests, at £300, at £350—what kind of drugs do you stop at? I just really thought about that. I was like, what does my life look like in three years, in four years, in five years if I keep doing this? That terrified me enough to immediately change literally everything. This is a process I still haven't figured out how to quite explain, but in that moment the fear of remaining the same was so much greater than any fear I had of change that I changed the next day. I threw out all my alcohol. I decided I was moving out of the house I was in—I lived with six people. I said, "I'm not drinking. I'm not doing drugs. I'm going to work out. I'm going to eat healthy." [unclear phrase: "medias 2nd job"] So I got a second job. I'm going to school. I've got two jobs because I was like...

Sam Parr

I can't I need to fill my

Shaan Puri

time with something

Leila Hormozi

You know, I joined a gym and I started, in my spare time, reading and watching YouTube videos about self-development. I just said, "I can't be that person anymore." I was so fed up with everything. In that moment, the pain was so high that it made it fairly easy to change immediately, because I finally understood that I was so uncomfortable as is. I could remain uncomfortable in the situation I was in, or I could be uncomfortable changing. *Only one of those is productive*, right? And only one of those turned my life into something I'm actually proud of. Those were the two moments that really caused me to change my life.

Sam Parr

Alright. So when I ran my company, *The Hustle*, I think we had something like 2,000,000 subscribers, and we made money through advertising. We didn't actually make that much money per person reading the newsletter because advertising, in general, is kind of a crappy business model. I remember sitting down and thinking, "What are all the different ways that I can make money off The Hustle that aren't advertising?" To make sure you don't make this mistake, Sean, me, and the HubSpot team went and looked at a bunch of different ways to monetize a business. We put it all together in a really cool document where we lay it all out along with our research. We very appropriately called it the *Business Monetization Playbook*. Go to the description of this episode and you'll see a link to that Business Monetization Playbook. It's completely free — you just click the link and you can see it.

Shaan Puri

So, have you ever heard of the **Dickens Method**? Mm-mm — it's basically exactly what you just described. If you ever go to a **Tony Robbins** event — one of his big events — on one of the days he does this. The Dickens Method is a technique where you vividly imagine... you time-travel to the future. You're like, "Okay, let's *play it forward* a year. Let's play it forward five years." I'm still doing it — I keep doing it; I do more of it, in fact, because I'm increasing whatever the bad habit or decision or thing I'm doing is. You play it forward and then ask: how does that affect you? How does that affect the people you love? He gets you to go there. When I did it at this event, I wasn't really going through much at the time, so I was like, "I don't know what this exercise is for." But around me, there were literally people screaming. It was honestly a very uncomfortable moment, but people were really feeling something. If you play it forward — if you vividly imagine what the future looks like five, ten, fifteen years later and how that affects all the people around you — it creates this emotional charge. It makes the pain of not changing outweigh the pain of change, just like you described.

Sam Parr

Yeah. Which, by the way, I've talked about that in this pod. I had a similar run rate—I had about three arrests in three months. I also weighed 230 pounds, and I was a disgusting person. I loved booze and substances. I had a similar issue: after one arrest you're like, *"What the fuck, man? What the fuck?"* I didn't live with my parents at the time, but I lived with my dog. He shit all over himself one day because I got arrested and I was in jail for 24 hours. I thought, "Oh my God—I'm letting him down." It was like—it's so funny—everything changed at that moment. So you and I—we are the same.

Leila Hormozi

we had no idea

Sam Parr

Yeah, we're similar. And then, what age were you when you moved to California? What age were you when you met Alex?

Leila Hormozi

yeah I was 20 almost 23 when I met him

Shaan Puri

wait wait describe the first date

Sam Parr

well they're they're buds first right weren't you guys buddies first

Leila Hormozi

we we were buddies but we were dating I don't know how to describe this

Shaan Puri

there's a term for that

Sam Parr

yeah no

Leila Hormozi

but not not actually

Shaan Puri

let me

Leila Hormozi

I'll put it like this — that's not what I mean. We met on **Bumble** and went on our first date. He asked me to go to fro-yo. He was like, "Listen, it's *low commitment*, so if we're weird we can leave." I was like, "Good, because I've been on some *bad fucking dates* lately, man." So we meet at the fro-yo. He comes up; he's not very friendly. I just remember the first thing — he was not smiling — and I was like, "What's wrong with this guy?" We get in line and he's still not smiling. I'm cracking a joke or two and thinking, "This guy's tough." Come to find out later the reason he wasn't smiling is because I have a full back piece — my whole back is tattooed with angel wings. It's traumatic and embarrassing, but it's because I got it when I was 18, high, and drunk. He saw that and was like, "Oh man, one of these girls." Apparently he was judging me the entire time for that tattoo.

Sam Parr

you and max holloway yeah don't judge a book

Shaan Puri

by its cover don't judge a girl by her back alright that's that's that's lesson

Leila Hormozi

too painful to get undone at this. And so you know we ended up staying down for froyo and honestly you know once he had a few bites and I think got blood sugar in his system because if you know alex you know his blood sugar is attached to how much food he's eating and so I think once he ate he was like hi and I was like oh okay you're a nice person let's go and we actually just started talking about business really picture this right like I had moved out there I was only focused on my career I didn't have friends I didn't have a boyfriend I had gone on dates but I did not find anybody I'd like so it was really just me and my work and I was trying to figure out like what do I need to do next because I was doing online and in person training and then I met him and he actually had the same story so he had moved out from baltimore maryland to pursue fitness opened up a few gyms and was trying to figure out what he was gonna do next as his next step didn't really have a lot of friends and obviously didn't have a a girlfriend and so we didn't really have anything else to talk about and so we ended up actually like eating froyo and then we went on like a 4 hour walk and we talked about work the entire time and I remember leaving the date because you know it's froyo so it was like 3 pm he had a dinner at like 7 and so he actually asked me he's like will you come to the grocery store and get stuff for this dinner barbecue thing I have and I was like sure and we just talking the whole time still about business and once we got done I got in my car and I was like that's the weirdest date I've ever been on like it wasn't even like a date we didn't talk about anything romantic at all we just literally talked about work but like all I know is I wanna keep talking to that guy and I went back and I told my roommate I was like I'm just so interested like he's the first person I feel like I've had an intellectual conversation with since I've moved here you know because most of the time when I'd go out on dates with people it's like they had zero ambition they had no idea what they wanna do with their lives and it was california so that's like a little bit more of the culture they also just didn't really like the fact that I was as ambitious and working as much as I was and so to meet somebody who actually saw that as a pro had the same things in common and wanted to talk about them it was like the most enjoyable date I'd been on and then I think he called me the next day and was like hey do you wanna like work together and I was like sure sounds fun so I went over to his house and I like brought all my stuff my laptop and everything we start working and that just like slowly kept happening over time and you know maybe yeah

Shaan Puri

Yeah, and then in one meeting we just... yeah, I had a **board meeting**.</FormattedResponse>

Leila Hormozi

For sure — we kissed in a meeting. No, I mean, it was just that we had shared interests. I didn't know when I met him that he was also Persian. Then I found out, “Oh — both of our fathers are from Iran.” We had that in common. We had both moved out there on our own. We just had a lot in common that I was not expecting. Because of that, for the first time in so long I had somebody who saw reality the same way I did and who didn't want to make me into somebody I wasn't. I've gone on so many dates where guys say, “You seem really great, but you're kind of weird,” or “You're a little obsessive.” I was like, “Yeah, I know, but I don't really want to change that about myself.” Or they'd complain that I worked so much — I like working, so I don't want to apologize for that. **He was the first person I met who saw all those things as pros** that everyone else had seen as cons. Not only that, but I think I saw the same in him with a lot of things people complained about. So, about a month in he said, “I feel like you should not start this online thing or do this in person.” I was basically like: do I open up my own gym, or do I partner with this woman who wanted me to be her business partner online? She already had a successful business. So, four weeks in I said, *“Screw it — there's nothing to lose.”* I decided to go do this with him, to start this business, because I was 23. If it didn't work, I'd just go back to what I was doing, but I would regret it if I didn't take this chance to see if it could work.

Sam Parr

and the thing that you're just talking about that's his gym launch

Leila Hormozi

**Gym Launch.** Yeah — the first, you know, year and a half was literally just: he'd be at a gym, I'd be at a gym. Different locations, different states, and we'd be filling them up. We'd call each other every night and be like, "Here's what I'm doing, here's what you're doing," just sharing best practices. That was the first year of dating, which was... we were living out of Extended Stays, in different states, trying to launch these gyms. You know, I'm 23, walking into some dude's gym being like, "I'm gonna fill up your gym," and they're like, "What is going on?" So the first year of our relationship was the *eating shit* phase of business — but doing it together.

Shaan Puri

oh what do you mean by the eating shit phase of business

Leila Hormozi

You know, it's just like when you start anything: when you have no skills, you're trying to accumulate all the skills at once. You don't know what you're doing, you have no clarity, and so you're just **throwing shit at a wall**. You're probably not taking care of yourself the best you can because you're so focused on just trying to make this thing work. You're kind of in *survival mode* because, you know, at that point we had no money as well — we'd pretty much burned through all the money. Then his business partner got access to the bank account where we'd been putting all the money from these gyms and stole the money. I mean, it was just, like, thing after thing. </FormattedResponse>

Sam Parr

weren't you guys like living at your parents' home as well

Leila Hormozi

So we've lived a couple of different places. But then, at one point, we moved back to my parents' house for two months. At another time, we actually lived with one of the clients from one of the gyms, which was *actually more fun*.

Shaan Puri

Your dad's like, "You know, I thought I was disappointed before, but now—actually somehow—this is worse." So, you guys... I wanted to ask you this about **Gym Launch**. Alex has come on the pod and told the story about how it went from figuring things out to the business partner stealing the money, and then it scaled. If you want to listen to that, there's an episode we did with him. I've seen this a couple times: sometimes you get a business to work, you "crack a nut," and it scales in a way that sort of breaks your brain. You may never see that again. I think you guys did something like in year 1 or year 2 it went from zero to something in the range of *$15,000,000* by year 2—something like *$24,000,000*. I don't know if that's run rate or realized revenue, but *realized revenue*. That's an insane curve. What's the summary of why that worked like that? Because that's not normal. Could I go do that same business today? For example, if you started from scratch today—if the next Alex and Leila were out there and they wanted to do Gym Launch today—could they go and do the same model? Is that problem still there? Is the model still great, where you're getting upfront cash from these gyms for that quick-turnaround service? Or is it saturated now and there's too much competition? Maybe the ad rates have changed. There are always these moments in time where businesses can succeed, and then 10 years later you couldn't start that same business. If there's a new version of that business that those same people could go start, could somebody as talented as you guys start Gym Launch again today and have the same level of success, in your opinion?

Leila Hormozi

No. And why is that? Because the market has completely changed. I mean, think about **COVID-19** — that completely changed the nature of fitness. **Ozempic** has changed fitness. I think the future of fitness looks completely different than boutique gyms. I mean, I know what they're doing in the background in the labs, which is that people are going to be able to soon take a pill and control their appetite. Why do you want to go to the gym every day if you could just be skinny? Lots of girls don't give a shit.

Shaan Puri

so what does the future fitness look like

Leila Hormozi

Well, I mean, lifting weights is a great long-term way to sustain your body weight and to prevent you from getting fat. But as a short-term intervention, **food** is always ideal. That’s going to have more of an effect in the short term. *Long-term*: muscle mass. *Short-term*: food. I think what you're going to see is a lot more people continuing to lean into what they always have as humans do — the short-term things that work, which is **eat less**. You can do that with a pill. There happen to be pills coming out. I think a lot of people are probably deterred away from things like *Ozempic* because it's a shot. The moment they have a pill that can say, "I only need to have 25% of my normal appetite today," well... Think about the cost and effort of the gym, especially for females: you have to get up, put on your outfit, maybe some mascara, you have to look okay, you have to drive there, you have to go there, you have to do things that feel hard, and then you have to leave. Or you could just take a pill, not be hungry, and not eat — so you don't have to work out to worry about food. All of those things have changed. A lot of companies in the fitness and health space have been affected. I can say that because we have other companies in the portfolio that are in that space, and I also talk to a ton that are. It has definitely changed the nature of that landscape.

Sam Parr

You guys — you know, Alex did something kind of interesting. I think he said that you bought him a $50,000 consult with Grant Cardone or something like that, right before the sale of Jib Launch, and he published that, which was pretty wild. He was like, "Here's how much cash we have; we're thinking about selling." I think there was even a part 2 and a part 3 after the sale. So it was pretty cool to see that it was all public. **What did you guys — and what 3 parts — what did you do with the money once you sold?** Did you have a plan on where to invest it, or did you just let it sit there? **Second, did you have a 10- or 20-year plan on where you wanted to go,** or was it more like, "I don't know what we're gonna do — let's figure it out"? </FormattedResponse>

Leila Hormozi

Yeah, yeah. The idea with the money was: we can put it in stocks in the short term. We had some real estate deals. We have one person we do real estate with specifically that we put some of the money in, and then the rest of it was for **Acquisition.com**. It's like, how do we get our first few deals? We're going to use this as the nest egg to invest in those deals. Part two to that is we knew we wanted a **headquarters**. The headquarters was obviously—it's almost 40,000 square feet—it's quite expensive, so that was a big investment as well. So most of the money has gone into the first few deals plus the headquarters. The rest of the money we put in real estate deals that have done really well for us. And then I would say the remainder: stocks. We have an "oh shit" fund and things like that too. But most of the time we want to be investing in how we're going to use the money to grow **Acquisition.com** faster. That's really what we think about with the cash.

Sam Parr

did you have the idea of that before you even sold gym launch

Leila Hormozi

the day after we sold we started acquisition.com

Sam Parr

that's crazy

Shaan Puri

"Yep. And what was the *genesis* of that idea? I'm sure there were many conversations, but do you remember, kind of, what—what would you call the *origin*?"

Leila Hormozi

Really, it actually started with: "What am I best in the world at? What is Alex best in the world at?" Right — that's one piece. The second piece is: "What is the ideal day-to-day for Alex to sustain, so that he knows he is not going to want to quit because of the work he's doing or the people he's doing it with?" Same for Layla. So it's like **do things you like with people you like** — that's how you sustain performance, in my opinion. So then: what does that look like for each of us? And then: what is a business where there's room in the market that we can capitalize on with both of our skills when we build? Alex is constantly thinking of ideas; he's always like, "What about this? What about..." And I'm like, "No, no, no, no."

Sam Parr

what were what were some of those ideas

Leila Hormozi

well I mean there was like we could go direct to consumer for example you know we thought about you know the fact that he's so good at generating demand and I can build a big team that's really like well positioned for a direct to consumer business whether it be in beverages whether it be in food or whether it be in you know some kind of like commerce that was an idea another idea that we had was essentially like an actual like health business so like building a platform for you know people who wanted to lose weight or get in shape using some kind of technology integrating an ai and then everything we know about how to actually help people you know lose weight but then we saw you know ozempic coming down I'm really fucked up and so those were 2 like strong front runners I would say and they were things that I could get passionate about but then acquisition.com was the one that I just kept coming back to because I was like you know the reason that I wanted to sell gym launch was I just asked myself do I wanna be in the fitness industry for the next 10 years and the answer was no I was like I'm and I understand that I would probably get better returns on my time staying in the fitness industry because I know it so well right we're already a market leader we know everything we've come up in this I've been doing it since I was however whatever age it's been over a decade now so has he we have a a competitive advantage here but I was like I don't wanna be in here this the rest of my life and the reasons for it to be honest with you are just like the networking into the fitness industry felt less appealing to me than the networking in private equity for example and the people that I would be competing with and I think that who you compete with or who you compare yourself to right is like that sets the tone for who you wish to become in many ways like if I get in the room with whatever you can just say jeff bezos or elon musk or whatever and I have a company that I aspire to have like theirs like I'm gonna compare myself to them versus when I met some of the people had some of the biggest fitness businesses they were not though I could compare myself to them and yes they had done better by many measures they were not necessarily people I aspire to be like and so I just wanted to be in a different industry to get around different people and to acquire different skills that I didn't think I was gonna get staying there and so when we looked at acquisition.com I was really like what kind of person do I wanna be and then what kind of business will allow me to become that person and then what kind of people do I need to have on my team to build that type of business and so I think a lot of it actually like circles back you know alex you're talking about this last night to like who do I wanna be and the business is just a vehicle for personal growth in many ways and so for both of us I think that we are better entrepreneurs and better people for building acquisition.com and I think that some people choose businesses that make them worse not better and this one is definitely one that I think helps maximize our skills but also gets us to be better people you know alex has shared publicly many times like he was like when we first started acquisition.com he kept saying like I really wanna be more patient and you must be patient for this business to work and so because he wants the business to work more than anything right then he will learn to be more patient by as a as a byproduct of that and for me in order for acquisition.com to work and not just work work but like really fucking work like win and be number 1 I have to learn how to make content and be public facing and be a better communicator overall and so it's not that every day I wake up excited to do that but it's that I want to win and I know that in order to win I have to learn these skills and so it forces me to learn those things in order to achieve my goals

Sam Parr

that's pretty badass I yeah that makes a ton of sense

Shaan Puri

Everything you said makes sense and is very aligned with how I view life. I always say it's a *vehicle* — a means to have the type of life you want and become the type of person you want. Then you think, okay, if this is a vehicle, who's getting in? Who do I want on this road trip with me? That's your co‑founders, your partners, your investors. Who are the people I want in this car because we might get lost somewhere along the way? I've really got to think that through. I think it's very important to have that mindset, because people often treat the vehicle as the end itself — and obviously it's not. You see that because people do one vehicle and then they need the next. Why does Jeff Bezos need to start his rocket company? Why did he buy The Washington Post? Why do people keep doing these things? Because the business itself is just—it's like a piece of workout equipment. It's like seeing the bench press: it's there for me to get the workout, to get the gains. It's there to provide some resistance so I can get what I want out of life. I have a question for you about Acquisition.com. You said you've seen, what, a thousand businesses. I was talking to you before we started recording about businesses that surprise you because they're just kind of *kick‑ass* — maybe a business in a category you hadn't heard of, or a business people might overlook or underrate. You don't have to name names, but I'd love for you to describe a kick‑ass business you've seen along the way at Acquisition.com, whether it's one you guys bought or not.

Leila Hormozi

Yeah. I will say this: **more businesses suck than you would think.** What I learned in starting—no, seriously—in starting *Acquisition.com* was just the amount of bad businesses there are.

Sam Parr

what's the profile of bad and good or like what's like what's the threshold

Leila Hormozi

I think **product–market fit** is not binary; it exists on a scale. It's not a simple yes or no. There can be poor or weak product–market fit — weak founders, low margins, low potential.

Sam Parr

you say weak with so much disgust I love it

Shaan Puri

yeah I just need that clip I did that's my alarm clock when I wake up say we go

Leila Hormozi

I—because it's like, I'm like, "Let me fucking help you," but I can't if you're just fucking weak. It frustrates me because I'm about *tough love*, and this isn't going to work. I would say that what's been more surprising than the good businesses I've seen is the number of businesses that make me think, "Wow—it's shocking this is still here," or, "I can't believe this person actually started this thing." There's been a lot more of that. In terms of businesses that are really cool and have inspired me in different ways, it's people who can take something traditional and innovate it. For example, instead of publishing books the way we have been, let's learn how to use **AI** to publish books and automate the entire process. That's a really cool business I've seen play out. Looking at School [the business called "School," which people know we publicly associate with], I have a lot of admiration for it. If you look at all the stats and metrics for that business, it's mind-blowing. They've been able to take this element of community that people only really feel in person and bring it online to such a degree that now people are also doing it offline and on. It's been really cool to see the network effect through that business. And then more traditional businesses—like bakeries that make cookies—have integrated tools like **AI** and technology to learn what type of cookie profile a person is likely to want and to integrate that kind of technology into traditional operations.

Shaan Puri

Do bakeries that use **AI**... is that a thing? Do we do that? Does that make it better, really?

Leila Hormozi

I think that is all perception. I think *value for the customer*, in many ways, is perceived. If you feel like this cookie is custom to you because of the technology they have — and they're able to make it right there for you — then people will pay a lot more money for it. That's for sure. I mean, I would. Clearly it works for them, so I think those have been some of the cool businesses.

Shaan Puri

What about this *workshop* stuff? I started seeing ads for these workshops, and I think you guys have probably done—just doing some napkin math—something like **$10,000,000** of workshop revenue. That was a little bit surprising to me, because I was like, "Why are they doing this? There's a lot of time for..."

Sam Parr

"The math thing... or maybe you said this: I think 1,800 people have gone through an **Acquisition.com** workshop, and I think on your website it's **$5,000**."

Shaan Puri

To go—way? I know a couple of people who have gone and they said it was great. So, yeah—I'm not saying it in a bad way. Well, I guess what I'm saying is I was surprised you guys are doing it. I was like, "Oh, no—this is actually great." You know, alignment, right? They like to teach its deal flow at a proprietary level and then, you know, it's a win‑win. Other people should get some value out of this. They come in; they get to focus on their business. **What I wanted to ask you about is: what's the number one recurring problem you see?** Because now you've seen 1,800 founders come in and they paid a bunch of money to come to the workshop because they had a problem. What's the common problem you see, and what's the solution that you think would help most of these businesses?

Leila Hormozi

**The number one problem that I see is _not technical_, and it's not even a practical problem.** It's more of an *emotional problem*, which is that I think founders fall on one of two spectrums. On one side, they're incredibly impatient. Because of that, they never wait long enough to see if any strategy will work. They just change it, so they don't even give it a shot to see if it'll play out — they changed too soon. On the other side, you have founders who are too tolerant. They basically want to be liked at all costs, and they don't make good decisions for their business because of that. So, I actually don't think that any of the problems that I see are technical problems.

Sam Parr

Is there a way to put, like, a **benchmark**? For example: are you talking about—should a lot of people be waiting a year to get results, or do they expect results in weeks when they should be reacting in quarters? Is there a...

Leila Hormozi

Yeah. I think a lot of people think that waiting a quarter is a long time, and that's probably the issue. They think, "Oh, well I waited three months," so I'm like, *try waiting eighteen months*. You know, I have things I'm doing at **acquisition.com** that you might ask about — the workshops. I'm like, "Alright, well if you see what’s gonna come out in the next four months, which I've been working on for the last twelve months, you'll see why it all makes sense." But a lot of people, I think, one: don't have the ability to wait that long; and two: don't even know how to build something that takes that long.

Sam Parr

Your husband seems like a stereotypical person who lacks patience. You said that he *"I want to be more patient"* — so I assume that means he didn't have patience. Has he been able to go with the flow — like, *"Look, we're planning 18–36 months out and that's what we're working on, so you're not going to see [results now]"*? Because I know when I'm working on something I'm like, *"Why won't I see results immediately? We're investing all this money and all this time and we don't have fucking results. Why aren't you out launching an MVP? You're talking to potential customers — don't tell me about it."* You know what I mean? That's how I feel, and I think that's probably why I understand how he feels.

Leila Hormozi

yeah I think something I've gotten a lot better at is showing him progress so because I this is what I've realized which is just patience is just figuring out what to do in the meantime the reason I can be more patient is because I'm fucking busy doing all the shit to make the thing happen right but if you're not the one in there having the meetings hiring the people recruiting the stuff putting the tech in place then it feels like it takes a long time and so because he sits more on the like demand gen side and doesn't have the whole team rolling into him he doesn't get that reinforcement on a daily basis of seeing that progress and so I look at myself as like my job is to tell him all of all those things that are happening to show him look at all the shit that we're doing and where it's gonna end up and how close we are and it might actually happen faster than we thought and so I think that a lot of the times people feel impatient because one they're not seeing progress because maybe they're removed from what's actually occurring I think that the second thing is you know I always look at it as for him and for anybody if he's not you know in the day to day operating making the plan happen then he's working on something for the future you know he's writing books he's making content he's you know oftentimes when we have really big problems in the business maybe we'll have 2 or 3 at the same time it'll be like okay you know I know that these teams don't report to you but I'm over here solving this problem how about you solve this problem and then you know we're gonna communicate about these things and so it's like I also think he can do special projects that's something that like you do in the meantime you know I think from a traditional standpoint I think what's really good about him in many ways is that he's impatient with things and so because of that I'll I'll say this okay I think it's good to be patient it's also good to be impatient with things it just like which one and so I think what I love about his impatience at times is that he's able to isolate it to the way that people do things why does it take this long to do a video why does it take this long to talk to a customer why does it take this long to build a department and he questions things that other people just accept as fact because somebody else and some book said that's how you do business and I love that he questions those things and is impatient about how inefficient things in business can be I think that's fantastic

Shaan Puri

Naval has the best quote on this. He said, "**Impatient with actions, patient with results.**" "**Impatient on the inputs, patient with the outputs**" is the sort of unstoppable formula.

Leila Hormozi

A 100% — it's an advantage because I am patient with results. I can also be too patient sometimes with the action, and so I have learned from him. I think we do a good job learning from each other. I think that he's learned from my *patience with results*. I've learned from his *impatience with inputs or actions*, and that's benefited the business a lot.

Shaan Puri

We gotta ask you. We used to say we have seven female listeners, and I think as the podcast has grown there's now tens out there. I'm sure you get a lot of women who look up to you and who ask you for advice. So, here's the mic: **If there's a female entrepreneur watching this, what's your message to her?**

Leila Hormozi

You might think that because you're female, things are less fair, that people will treat you differently, or that business is harder — and there are things you're going to have to overcome. While all those things might be true in certain circumstances and at certain times, and some are irrefutably true, the question to ask yourself is: **is this useful?** A lot of people come to me and say, "Isn't it hard to do business because, like, you're a woman and you're married to Alex? Do people take you seriously?" I'm like, "I don't know — is that a useful thought? If it's not, then why the fuck would I focus on it?" So I just completely abolish any of this "female entrepreneur — what's it like" stuff. I've made one video about it because I wanted people to understand: yes, there are differences; there are also advantages. You can either focus on what sucks and what's worse, or you can focus on maximizing your strengths, taking advantage of the advantages, and choosing to focus on shit that's useful. You know what I mean? Like, we can all.

Leila Hormozi

To reasons as to why people treat us differently, we can also just be better. I'll tell you this, which is a joke between me and Alex: so many people have tried to break us up, and the key line is always, "Leila, you know he's suppressing you because he's, you know, Alex." I always have this *internal dialogue*: "And that is why you will not win." People see powerful people as having an ability to suppress you. When I look at people who are powerful, I ask, *what can I learn from them to be better*, so that when I'm in a room people would not say that about me. They would not say, "Oh, you're being suppressed." What do I have to learn to be a person who is more powerful? I think a lot of women throw around these terms and do these things, but you can either look at it as a disadvantage or as something to be an advantage to you. I think I've had to accumulate more skills that some men would not have to, because I've had to learn to be better at things to be taken seriously in certain ways. I've also had to accumulate emotional skills that I wouldn't have had to otherwise. I think those are all pros. If I have more challenge, I also get the opportunity to acquire more skills. So I don't look at it like a bad thing — I look at it, if anything, like a good thing. Any thoughts that arise that are not useful, I do not focus on.

Sam Parr

**"You're the shit** — perfect answer. You're fantastic. You guys are an interesting couple. Typically, my wife and I are fairly different in a lot of ways, but you two are very similar in your intensity and in your ability to come up with *interesting* ideas and theories about why the world is the way it is and how you're going to react to that. Most relationships, I don't think, are like that. It's so funny — you both are highly intense in great ways. It's just fascinating."

Shaan Puri

my my best I'm gonna

Leila Hormozi

make that my new profile highly intense

Shaan Puri

yeah well linkedin endorsed you on that

Sam Parr

yeah

Shaan Puri

My best compliment to you guys is this: I think what's really admirable about your relationship is that you both have a very high desire to *self-improve*. It takes me back to one of my favorite quotes about relationships: > "I'll take care of me for you, and you take care of you for me." Whereas I think most people approach relationships the opposite way — "You're supposed to take care of me and I'm supposed to take care of you," and then "You're never doing enough for me" and "I'm never doing enough for you." I think it's really great. You guys are an **A+ example** of two people who say, "I'm going to self-improve in all the ways that I can," and that's what makes me a great partner for you.

Leila Hormozi

Yeah, and I think, honestly, I just wish for everyone who listens to this to take that into their **business relationships** and into their **personal relationships**, because I think it applies to both.

Shaan Puri

alright well thanks for coming on I appreciate you

Leila Hormozi

thank you guys

Sam Parr

that's the episode