5 Books that Turned Me Into a $100M CEO (In my 20’s)

Summary

• I always ask people questions and practice curiosity over judgment in social situations, as it makes people feel heard and valued. This approach has been beneficial in both my personal and professional life.
• Encouragement works better than criticism for motivating others. I've found that giving people the confidence they need can inspire them to improve and take action.
• Our circumstances do not dictate our feelings; it's our thoughts about those circumstances that do. This realization helped me to cope better with anxiety and stress by changing my perspective.
• Being comfortable with worst-case scenarios, such as the possibility of failure, can paradoxically empower us to take risks and pursue our goals with less fear.
• Self-awareness is key to managing oneself effectively. Understanding your own learning preferences, strengths, and weaknesses is crucial to success and attracting top talent.
• Rich people don't trade time for money; instead, they invest in becoming more valuable and use money to buy time. This insight encouraged me to invest in my education and skill set.
• Don't work for money, especially in your 20s; collect experiences and skills instead. This mindset shift led me to take jobs that offered learning opportunities over immediate financial gain.
• Fear of losing money can lead to poor financial decisions. I've learned not to fear losses but to accept them as part of the journey to success.
• Understanding that social media is a powerful tool for businesses helped me pivot my strategy and invest more time in learning about various platforms.
• Documenting rather than creating for social media allows you to share genuine experiences and expertise, leading to more authentic engagement.
• Applying the lessons from books into actionable habits is essential for them to be useful, which is why I focus on turning insights into my daily practices.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest practicing curiosity over judgment by asking people questions in conversations. When you meet someone new, focus on being curious about their story rather than talking about yourself. This will make people feel heard and interested in connecting with you.

Encouraging others works better than criticizing. If someone isn’t doing well, try giving them confidence. This can inspire them to believe in themselves and do better. Next time you want to help someone, use encouragement instead of criticism.

Remember, your thoughts about your situation shape how you feel, not the situation itself. Change how you think about things to manage anxiety and stress better.

Get comfortable with worst-case scenarios, like failure. When you accept the possibility of failure, you take risks with less fear. This can help you go after your goals more confidently.

Understand yourself to manage yourself well. Know your learning style, strengths, and weaknesses. This self-awareness will not only lead to personal success but will also attract great people to work with you.

Don't trade time for money. Instead, invest time in making yourself more valuable. Learn new skills and knowledge to buy time in the future. Collect experiences and skills rather than just money, especially in your 20s. These will be more valuable in the long run.

Losing money is part of the journey. Don't let the fear of loss control your decisions. Be prepared to accept losses as they come and keep moving forward.

Social media is important for business. Invest time in understanding different platforms and use them to share your knowledge and experiences.

Document your experiences on social media instead of creating content. Share what you're already doing and what you’re good at.

Finally, turn insights from books into personal habits. Apply what you learn to make them work in your life. It's not just about reading; it's about doing.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"Curiosity over judgment"

– Leila Hormozi

"Encouragement is always gonna work better than criticism"

– Leila Hormozi

"Our circumstances do not dictate how we feel about ourselves"

– Leila Hormozi

"Winners and losers have no different of circumstances, they just have different meanings they ascribe to those circumstances"

– Leila Hormozi

"Rich people don't trade time for money, they use money to get more time"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

about is actually the five books that helped me change my mindset when i was in my 20s most books that i read i think are garbage and probably could be summarized in like one to two pages or just not read altogether if you're in your 20s and you're looking to build something big break your beliefs take on more of a mindset of people of success these help me upon my journey and i hope they help you too so the first book is probably not a surprise to you it's how to win friends and influence people however there's two takeaways that i had from that book that have drastically changed and kind of altered and even built kind of the philosophy of how i run my teams and so the first piece from that book is that you always want to be asking people questions alex likes to joke when we go out to dinner with people or we meet someone new people always like to tell me their life story and they always want to talk to me and i said the reason for that is because i only just ask questions i always like to think curiosity over judgment when you meet someone new act curious don't act judgmental this has served me in hiring people talking to clients and into social situations in general and i realized when i read that in the book i was like oh my gosh every time i meet someone i just talk to them about myself and when people do that to me i really never want to talk to them again if you're trying to make friends with people you're trying to get people to like you everyone wants to talk about themselves they don't necessarily want to listen to somebody else who they just met now the second takeaway that i have from how to win friends and influence people is that encouragement is always gonna work better than criticism if an employee's not doing a good job i'm not gonna constantly be beating them down about how bad they're doing because here's the thing they're probably beating themselves down their own head if you want to get someone to take action they need to borrow your belief and take that belief upon themselves until they have that belief upon themselves organically and so the next time that you're trying to help someone change their behavior think about how you could get that message across with encouragement rather than criticism and i can almost guarantee you it will work better for you the second book that changed my perspective in my early 20s was man's search for meaning there are two things i really got from this book our circumstances do not dictate how we feel about ourselves our thoughts about our circumstances and the meaning we give our circumstances are what dictate the outcomes that we get the book basically talks about the holocaust and people that survived during it and i actually had the privilege to meet two people that survived the holocaust when i worked at a retreat center that i mentioned in one of my other videos when i was reading that book i had just moved to california i was living by myself i didn't know anybody and i just felt terrible most of the time the anxiety was not due to my circumstances the anxiety was due to the fact that i was making them mean something reading that book kind of allowed me to stop judging myself for those things and i think that the moment you release that judgment upon yourself and you say i'll make this situation mean whatever i want to mean not what other people think it should mean for me winners and losers have no different of circumstances they just have different meanings they ascribe to those circumstances the second piece that i love from that book is he talks about facing death the only way to survive is to be okay with dying being okay with worst case scenario being willing to feel the feelings that come with worst case scenario if you can rationalize death and how you'd be okay with it you can walk backwards you can rationalize be okay with failing out of public speech being okay with failing at business being okay with you know failing at getting a promotion at your job i think there's a lot of hype around positive thinking but i think that negative thinking and negative visual legislation is just equally as powerful as positive the third book that i read in my 20s that was incredibly helpful for me was managing oneself by peter drucker and the reason this book was so good is it taught me one fundamental principle building a business and having success is not about how well you do with the circumstances with others but it starts with yourself and the thing is is that you can't manage yourself if you don't know yourself and so if you look at the trend throughout the entire book what's really interesting he's constantly giving you questions to ask yourself because most of us don't take the time to think how do i like to learn do i like audio do i like visual do i like written how do i consume best am i really good at the things i'm doing now or am i really good at other things that are not being applied to the situation i'm in what am i really bad at are those actually things that i'm bad at are they just beliefs i hold that i'm bad at these things i really have realized in building businesses and building now this is the fourth business i've built is that's all about how i manage myself the first time i ever built a business it felt terrible because i didn't understand my strengths i didn't understand my weaknesses the best talent isn't likely going to want to work for someone who's not super self-aware because self-awareness is just understanding yourself it's knowing yourself being able to predict yourself and if you can do that for yourself it's much easier to build a business around you and a life that you want the fourth book that changed my mindset was one that i read actually in the break room when i was a personal trainer at a big globo gym and it was rich dad poor dad and that book taught me three things the first one is that rich people don't trade time for money they use money to get more time and i remember sitting there and i was like in this lounge of this global gym and i was like crap i'm literally trading my time for money right now like i actually have to train sessions to make money the first thing i ever did in my 20s at that point was i was like the one way i can buy back more time is if i level up my skill set the way i can do that is by buying courses and buying books if i became more valuable i would then be able to create more value which is money and then be able to take that money and then buy my time the second thing that it taught me is that you don't want to work for money and i mentioned this in one of my other videos when i talked about the key experiences i had my 20s when you're in your 20s you don't need to worry about making a ton of money worry about collecting experiences and skills and that was actually what prompted me to then go and work at a smaller gym where i was taking a big pay cut so i could learn from somebody who actually owned their own business i can make money later right now i need to invest myself i need to become a more valuable person so i can be a person of value that can make money later on now the third thing that it taught me was that the people that do the worse with money and have the least money are controlled by fear of money typically fear of losing money has served me so well because i don't have a fear of losing money i've lost hundreds of thousands i've lost millions of dollars and i don't feel that bad about it i'm not scared of it that's for sure does it piss me off sometimes definitely but i'm not scared of it people that make the worst decisions alone are so scared of losing it and i think this actually goes back to man's search for meaning which is you have to confront that fear and you have to learn to be okay with that fear i believe that if i want to get to a billion dollars i'm gonna lose a hundred million dollars if you want to get to a hundred thousand you're gonna lose ten thousand if you wanna get to ten thousand you're gonna lose a thousand and if you can confront that you can be okay with it you can understand that's normal that's the price you pay for success you're gonna have way more success if you have that mindset around money the last book that i read in my early 20s was crushing it and actually when i went to go work this small gym the owner had me read this in my spare time it was like an hour a day and i had never heard of garyvee i had never consumed any of his stuff and i started reading this book and it was all about social media one it taught me that social media was where everything was going and so that actually caused me to go more all in on understanding the platform studying them understanding that businesses should be on them the second thing the book taught me and this is what i think a lot of people don't understand documenting not creating document when i say that i mean look at your calendar look what you're doing every day look at the interactions you're having that is what you should be talking about and the reason that i think he says that is because that's what you know well that's what you're an expert at you're an expert at the things that you're doing all the time i think that a lot of people lose that and they get a disconnect they're like just document just document and then they like fake their lives and they do things they would normally do and then they go out of character and they talk about things they don't really know because they're like well i need to i need to do things i need to document what he means is document what you're already doing because that's what you're good at now that i'm going in on making more content i can take that principle from that book and apply it to say i'm only going to talk about the things i know best maybe this is hot this is trending and these things are cool over there but like that's not what i'm an expert in so i'm gonna stay in my little world of what i'm really good at i'm gonna do that and that's what i'm gonna make content on you'd be surprised how far it'll take you books aren't actually useful if you don't do anything about them i do have another video on the habits that i had in my early 20s that helped me take these things and put them into action go ahead and click this link and it'll take you to that video and let me know what you think about in the comments