99% of Success Depends on This Person

Summary

• David McLen's Harvard study reveals that 99% of your success is dictated by your reference group, especially your romantic partner.
• Choosing the right partner changed my life; together, Alex and I built four businesses and amassed over $500 million in wealth in nine years.
• The wrong partner can create insecurity and fear, preventing you from taking necessary risks for growth.
• Shared goals are crucial; conflicting goals between partners can lead to resentment and hinder success.
• A partner who supports and benefits from your goals can propel you forward, whereas one who feels punished by your goals may try to sabotage them.
• I've observed friends whose dreams and potential were crushed by unsupportive partners, underscoring the importance of the right relationship for achieving success.
• It's essential to evaluate whether your partner supplements or detracts from your goals and life vision.
• Love should be about helping each other become the best versions of yourselves, not suppressing dreams for the sake of relationship stability.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing a few key strategies to ensure you’re surrounded by the right reference group, especially when it comes to romantic partners. This doesn’t require money, just reflection and conversation.

First, take time to evaluate your current relationship. Does your partner support your goals, or do they create insecurity and fear? If they support you, that’s amazing – keep cultivating that support. If not, have a candid conversation about your dreams and the support you need. Explain that their encouragement plays a crucial role in your success.

Next, ensure that your goals align. Have an open discussion about where both of you see yourselves in the future. Make sure your career aspirations and personal goals do not conflict. If they do, figure out ways to adjust them so that you both benefit from each other’s successes. For example, if your partner is anxious about you traveling for work, find ways they can join you on trips or participate in significant parts of your work.

Another valuable step is to create an environment where both of your goals benefit each other. Think creatively about how your achievements can enhance your partner’s life and vice versa. If you’re starting a new project, involve them in a meaningful way so they feel part of the journey, rather than sidelined by it.

Lastly, challenge yourselves to support each other's growth consistently. Share wins, encourage new ideas, and be each other’s cheerleaders. If you both work towards making each other the best versions of yourselves, you are likely to achieve far greater success together.

Implement these strategies to build a supportive environment that propels both of you towards your ultimate goals.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi>>>

"Getting into the right relationship absolutely changed my life 9 years ago"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you change your reference group you'll change your life"

– Leila Hormozi

"The first way in which picking the wrong person can derail you from your goals is if achieving success for yourself creates insecurity and fear in your partner"

– Leila Hormozi

"Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably not as smart as you just being honest"

– Leila Hormozi

"If your goals feel like they punish your partner, your partner will try to take you away from them and try to deter you from achieving them"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

99% of your success depends on this one thing so David mclen a professor at Harvard Business did a study and he found out the Staggering truth about success in life that what dictates that 99% of your success is what he calls a reference group so most people can agree on this but they're often blind to the number one person who it is they spend the most time with and that is your spouse your partner your boyfriend or girlfriend the person that you are romantically engaged with getting into the right relationship absolutely changed my life 9 years ago prior to that relationship I had spent my time with people who did not elevate my reference group and so if I looked at those people those people suppressed me they brought me down they kept me in a box and so once I chose the right person my life exploded we've built four businesses together amassed hundreds of millions in wealth and run a portfolio together worth over $500 million not to mention really freaking like our lives lots of people look at the friends they spent time with the people they network with the people they're talking to on social media their co-workers their boss their mentors but what they skip past is that one person that they're closest to if you change your reference group you'll change your life but the brutal truth is this starts with who you decide to share your life with so if you pick somebody to be in your reference group which the person who takes up the most of that reference group by proportion of time in your life is often your spouse your partner your romantic other if you're picking that person the question is are they helping helping you get to your goals faster or are they slowing you down because the idea of this reference group is that you surround yourself with people who have similar goals to you and so because of that you accelerate each other what I've seen time and time again and honestly it comes across my desk more often than I could ever talk about is that people pick the wrong person the one thing that I took very seriously in my life was who I decided to commit to who I decided to spend the most amount of time with which is my husband and my business partner and so what I want to share with you are three ways where I see picking the wrong person can completely derail you from your goals and I want to tell you how to fix it the first way in which picking the wrong person can derail you from your goals is if achieving success for yourself creates insecurity and fear in your partner okay so I want to give you an example of this I have two friends they happen to be married right and that friend um she has been in a certain business for I want to say about 10 years now and she was like you know what I want to Branch out and I want to do something new and you know I knew because she hasn't been content for like for like probably 5 years now as I'm talking to her about this I was like well you know what does Sam think and she was like well Sam is super nervous Sam thinks I should probably just stick with what I've been doing he thinks it's probably a bad idea I said well did you share with him like you know what you're doing now is not not what you want to do with the rest of of your life here's all the things that you've been studying here's all the things you want to do and she was like well yeah but he's just scared and so you know he keeps reminding me I provide majority of the income to the household if I take this risk it could really derail the family kept going on and on about it right and so what I watched happened over the last two years was this woman tried to make a transition in which honestly it was the right transition the opportunity vehicle that she was in in terms of a business was very small she recognized that which I think is smart and so so she said I want a bigger opportunity vehicle and then what happened was that her partner kept telling her how nervous he was how scared he was so she tried to make the change but her partner said I would love if you just kept the other business during this time because when I talked to her I was like listen sell the business start over from scratch take the money put it into this new thing that you know is a way bigger opportunity and you have way more upside and it's way more aligned with what you want to do with your life and she has Big Dreams and of course her partner said if you do that I can't stay there's too much instability and so what she did is she kept her business and in about 18 months she realized she couldn't do both and so what did she do she shut down the new one that was actually very successful but she just could not sustain doing both and then she just kept doing what she didn't want to do and when I talked her about it I said like why are you doing this to yourself she said well you know Sam was really upset and he felt like this was the right call for our family and in that moment I just remember feeling so sad because I watched This Woman's huge dreams get crushed by this person who was just honestly more insecure than her less confident than her and just not on the same page and that's when I realized I was like wow you know people ask me all the time how did you find a partner who's so supportive and doesn't get insecure with all your big dreams and I'm like wow like it makes a big difference and I don't think I realized it until I've seen instances like this because when I met Alex for example it was the opposite I met him and he asked me what are your dreams what are your goals like where do you want to go and when I described to him where I wanted to go he pushed me to go even bigger and that was when I was like this is who I want to spend my life with I want someone who raises me up who creates even bigger vision for myself than I thought I could ever have not somebody who suppresses me who plants SE of doubt in my mind here's the thing you guys if you're watching this you probably already know being pessimistic and negative is easy that is where our brains default to to be optimistic and hopeful is a skill and so anyone who tells you otherwise is probably not as smart as you just being honest and so what you have to be careful is that sometimes what I see so often is people like Sam and Jill where they don't realize that all their friends are rooting for them they you know shoot I was her friend right and I'm helping her step by step what she needs to do with her business but he's not rooting for her so what happens that every friend every Mentor that she had right when she got the right mentors she had the right friends but then when she came home every single night she got spoken to words of Doubt words of fear and so what ended up happening because he spent the most time with her out of anybody in her life he ultimately shaped her decision more than anybody that's why you have to be so careful that when you're picking somebody to be your partner right are they speaking doubt or are they speaking hope onto your dreams and I think so many people find somebody and what they don't realize is that they think oh well I have all these other people who are so supportive and it's natural you know they're just they're just warning me of what could happen you know they're just trying to look out for me trying to look out for you like anybody can tell you what could go wrong but you want somebody who supports you encourages you into doing it right because what if you had somebody who encouraged you so much that it was almost impossible to fail most people think oh you need somebody that can you know you know slap reality back onto your face well at the same time there's plenty of people that can do that they don't need to be in your closest group of friends right especially if you have big dreams for yourself I had another friend and she was dating a guy when she was dating that guy she started her own business and when she started her own business I was constantly encouraging her and telling her what I thought would look would be awesome to put out there in terms of like content and brand and all these things and she would call me and be like you know I was going to going to put that out but then he said this and he and it was like the entire time she was trying to build this thing when she was so scared and so terrified and so anxious already and then she's telling me that this boyfriend she has is telling her oh I think that's a bad idea you know if you post that you look like a if you post that you look dumb if you post this you look arrogant he had something bad to say about every single thing she was trying to post I'm like just let the girl put it out there she's never had a business before and so what ended up happening I watched her confidence degrade over time and so instead of feeling empowered that she was going after her dreams she felt wildly fearful and insecure and you know what the funny thing is is that a lot of people don't see this they don't see that the one person who's closest to them is a very large influence over how they feel when they're trying to accomplish this big and a lot of times I can tell you if you feel really bad about trying to accomplish it you probably don't have the support that you need there is another study done where they talk about your willingness to take on hard challenges and it actually shows that people who have a supportive spouse a spouse who speaks positively to them a healthy relationship are 90% more likely to take on hard challenges why is that because it doesn't feel so hard when you have undying support from somebody but if you have somebody nagging you and telling you why you're wrong and why you're bad all the time you feel pretty shitty and people who feel shitty don't accomplish as much it ends up being this perpetuating cycle where you keep failing that enforces what they've been saying which is like I knew you're going to fail and you fail again and it's this whole cycle in this instance if you're with somebody who's just continuing to speak out and be insecure sometimes you have to take a step back and ask yourself does this person want what I want in life and this is the one instance in which if somebody is truly that scared and that insecure of your dreams and what that means to them then it might mean that you guys don't have the same mission in life you don't have the same vision and you need to reconsider who you are with the second scenario in which your partner can deter you from your goals is when you have separate goals that actually conflict with each other rather than benefit each other this leads to resentment I'll give you a few examples so you can understand what I mean I had a friend and she had a very successful business her business was doing like legitimately 75 million a year like she was killing it and her husband actually joined her in the business and so he had a corporate job and in the beginning he actually made more money than her then she started her business it ended up blowing up being wildly successful he quit his job to join her in the business what ended up happening was the business was growing and she had brought him in almost as her right hand so she was the CEO he was the COO was that what was needed from him to be the operator was not something he ended up being actually willing to do and so what happened was that he actually wanted to be the same position as her he wanted to be the CEO but he wasn't willing to say that and he also wasn't willing to leave the business and so what happened is this created a lot of resentment because she was asking him to do things that were very appropriate for his role like saying like hey you're going to own that right and I'm going to own this and and then he would be like no I'm not going to do that I don't want to do that and so what I saw happen was she had this business that had grown five years in a row and when this conflict started to happen with her and her husband suddenly it plateaued and the reason it plateaued is because they they no longer had shared values and a shared Mission his mission was no longer to be the operator that made the business work it actually changed he actually said you know what I want to do something for myself I don't want to take your vision and bring it to life it had a lot of Downstream repercussions where the team didn't feel good the team actually ended up resenting him because he wasn't meeting with them he wasn't having one-on ones he wasn't giving them Direction like all the things an operator would do and he went to her and he said he's like you know what I just realized that I don't want to work this hard to make money and she was like okay so what do you want to do and he was like honestly I just want to be a stay at home Dad and she was like okay well I don't really want to have any more kids what do you do and the thing is is that they didn't have these conversations in the beginning they didn't talk about where they wanted to go this thing just blew up and then he just like started doing stuff along the way and what happened was it created this resentment between them where he resented the business because it took her away from him it took him away from wanting to be a dad that just stayed at home with the kids and so what she realized was like this was never going to work because they no longer had shared goals in fact his goals went this way her her goals went this way and there was no way to achieve them together in fact they conflicted with each other right and they had resentment towards each other he almost had resentment of the business while she had the resentment of him another scenario where this has happened is I had somebody in my last company gym launch and I wanted that person to move to be close to Alex and I because that person specifically had a job that required them to be with us and so this person only had a girlfriend at the time and every time he would fly out because he flew out frequently to help us do work this girlfriend would be very upset and so he would have to step out and he'd be out for like an hour and we're like we're at a dinner and he would leave and like talk to the girlfriend for an hour and I was like what on Earth is going on and you know I knew the guy had really big dreams for himself that's why he joined the company that was why he was essentially like a right hand to the both of us and what ended up happening was that you know he said he's like hey guys like I don't I don't know if I can come out here that much and I I certainly don't know if I can move and I was like well why is that and he was like well you know my girlfriend doesn't want to and I was like okay do you want to he was like well yes I was like because at the end of the day what a lot of people do is they say I'm going to put my spouse before myself if you put your spouse before yourself you literally set yourself up for resentment right you set yourself up for resentment and you are now conflicting with your own goals you're literally positioning somebody to interfere with your goals because you're saying that you and me taking care of you cuz reason we need to take care of grown people is now more important than me achieving my potential as a human at the end of the day I had the conversation with him I said you have one of two choices right now your goals conflict which is she wants to stay here even though there's really no reason it's just out of fear right it's like lots of people fear of moving fear of relocation like fear of not knowing how to make friends it's really a skill deficit and so she's she's over here and she wants to stay here your goals want to take you here so either you break up because your goals conflict or you find a way that you your goals can benefit each other I'll give you an example of this I have a friend and he travels a lot for work and his business requires a ton of travel and so what did he do to make it easy he told his girlfriend whenever I go I'm going to take you with me what I'm going to do is I'm going to say no to the dinners I'm going to say no to all the stuff that people do at night at work and I'm just going to go take you out so what ended up happening is that at first his girlfriend hated the fact that he traveled all the time but then he started bringing her with him she got to meet his co-workers she was like oh they're pretty cool and then she got to go out to these fancy dinners he used to take her out he even bought her a nice dress and took her to like one of the nicest restaurants in New York and then what ended up happening over time suddenly she became more supportive of his goals now why did she become more supportive of his goals she like suddenly had this realization like oh my gosh and I should support him no it's not that at all he found out how she could benefit from his goals and so what a lot of people don't take the time to do is think about how your goals can benefit each other so a lot of people see me and Alex and our relationship and they think gosh it's got to be so hard to work together I'm like hard to work together I'm like it feels like it' be much harder the opposite way why because we literally when Alex gets closer to achieving his goals it helps me get closer to achieving my goals when I get closer to achieving my goals it helps Alex get closer to achieving his goals when I increase the value of the business increase the value of the team improve something it benefits him when he improves the value of the business the value of the team improves something it benefits me and so we have this circular system where anytime either of us get closer to achieving our goals or making something better for ourselves it actually benefits the other person and so this is how you fix this if your spouse or your partner doesn't support you you need to create an environment where your goals don't just benefit you they benefit them I'll give you another example I have a friend and he has an events company and that events company he has to travel right this is a common theme uh has to travel a lot because they do the events four times a year and so you know his wife is always like man these events like they take you away for like a whole week it's four times a year really sucks like me and the kids miss you and so you know what he did I thought this is the most creative thing ever he had his wife run a simultaneous event during his where she hosted the event attendees wives and kids so he created dual events so then you know what happened is that his wife got her own project got her own autonomy and had all this influence over all these women and children and she got to throw her own event and now every time he throws one he has her throw this other one which not only makes his business money because it's extra tickets and extra things that people pay for it also benefits her gives her a sense of autonomy gives her something to work on and it makes her feel like she's also benefiting the household and so what did he do he created an environment where his goals benefited her and now her goals of being closer to him benefit him the thing is is that a lot of people have different goals and they have goals that will conflict with each other and they don't pull the trigger to say you know what sometimes love is not enough right I'll give you an example of this so I actually had a long relationship like multi-year relationship when I was younger and that person I was 20 actually really wanted to get married and have kids and I remember having the conversations and I was like oh for some reason I had always thought I wouldn't get married until I was like 30 and I didn't picture myself having kids until I was like 30 and so the thought of doing this now I was like no no no I have so much I want to do first like I I want to get my career off the ground I have all these goals I want to achieve this feels way too soon and he was like but I want to have a family in the next 3 years what did that mean it's not that I didn't love this person I love this person very much it's that I realized I said to this person I can't give you what you want our goals literally conflict and it's a non-negotiable for me and it's a non-negotiable for you and so you know what happened we broke up and guess what we both found other people who helped us achieve our goals he found a girl who wanted to just have a family immediately and that's what they did and then I found somebody who wanted to blast off both of our careers at the same time and that's exactly what we did a lot of times what you realize is like I know we're talking about reference groups here but at the same time when you're looking at who is in that reference group right a lot of times what what we do is we just grandfather people in because they're familiar to us we marry the guy because we've dated him for 5 years we marry the girl because we've dated her for five years we stay with the person because of sunk cost but we don't ask ourselves is this the person that's going to help me achieve my goals is this the person that's going to help me have the life I want and I just want people to take a little bit more time and really think about that because guys I have seen countless business Partnerships businesses entrepreneurs and dream dreams get killed because they pick the wrong person it's not that this person is toxic it's not that this person is bad it's that they literally interfere with your goals that's it there's nothing wrong with their goals they are just opposite of yours and so that means that it's harder to achieve yours the last way that your partner can detract you from your goals is if your goals feel like they punish your partner your partner will try to take you away from them and try to deter you from achieving them so I'll give you an example I had a woman who worked for me and she had worked at all these companies before that sucked and so because of that you know she was treated kind of bad she never really like found a friend group like nothing like that and so you know her her husband also had jobs like that and so they would just come home every night and they would they had a ton of hobbies they did together they had a lot of stuff they would do with their kids so she joined our company and she was like wow this is the first time that I'm like I love where I work and like I love the people and you know we were like cool we're going to go out to dinners we're going to do this stuff and like we had all these activities that we were going to do right all these things that we did outside of work because people wanted to put their discretionary effort into it and you know what that did is it took her away from her husband and so what happened when she got this job was that it was great for her but what did it do for him is all he got left with was a loss he had less time with his wife she may come home and be happier but she doesn't come home as much she doesn't come home as early he doesn't see her as much he's like oh yeah he doesn't like when like you know he's kind of like I think he's jealous of the job and all the stuff and I was like and that doesn't sound good and so what ended up happening over time is that he basically gave her an ultimatum he was like this job is taking too much of your heads space this job is not good for you he started speaking into her that somehow that was bad to like where you worked and I you not she quit and it was like the most heartbreaking thing I ever saw because this woman had so much potential and listen there's nothing wrong with staying home with the kids that was not what she wanted for herself and that's what she went back to doing and she still messages me to this day and talks about how she wish she still worked there and it's like the hardest thing for me to see because I'm like this person who you've let into your life and has so much influence over you literally did what an enemy would do like somebody who hates you would do that like yes let me just take away you know the thing that you do for 8 to 10 hours a day let me just take it away from you the thing that you finally found that you love that's taking you 40 years to find think about that a lot of people have this where they get a job they start a business they get a promotion and that creates problems in the home because it maybe it takes away their attention it takes away their time it takes away their energy from their partner and if that partner is not autonomous they don't have their own thing going on or they're not full on board with supporting those dreams then that person's going to try and stop you it's just laws of behavior I have another friend and that friend got a new job it was her dream job and really great she's in investment baking and so like making a ton of money on one of the top firms and so two things happened when she got that job one she started making more money than her husband two she started flying around a lot so she wasn't home as much and so what I watched happen over the next 12 months was one of the hard hardest things to watch because what I started noticing is every time we would be texting or talking I felt like she was exuding anxiety and so I'd ask her I'm like everything good with the job like I know it's a lot of work and travel but like this is what you wanted right and she was like oh yeah it's totally fine like it's it's it's great I I love it it's amazing and she kept saying that and kind of avoiding like okay but why do you sound like an anxious ball of like like you're exuding phenetic energy and so finally it was about 5 months into having that new job and she was like it's just this job has completely wrecked my marriage and I was like how did it wreck your marriage like you're so much happier like you you seem like you actually love what you're doing she's like I do this is my dream and I want to start my own firm and I want to do all these things she's like but you know Chris back at home she's like he's just so resentful she's like he hates that I'm traveling he hates that I make more money than him Chris wasn't motivated by the fact that she was making more money he wasn't excited that his wife was killing it and he wasn't excited that she was achieving his her dreams all he was focusing on was all the things that was taking away from him and so what I told her is I said the only thing I know is that you have to figure out a way for this to benefit him as well and if you try that it doesn't work maybe it's not meant to be and so she tried where she took him on the trips with her right so she would be traveling she literally at one point like went to Japan and then she went to New York and this is like over the span of maybe four weeks took him with her all he did the entire time was put her down talk down to her talk about how the job sucked talk about the hours were too long oh the hotel here sucks it's grungy it's this I don't like Japan I I mean like anything and everything you can think of I don't know how you do this I don't know why you like this job so much I said to her I was like listen like you've had these dreams since before you met him and like these dreams it's part of you it's not like they're your dreams it's like this is you and your potential that you want to unleash and she was like I know you know you're right you're right but and behold what I watched happen over the next year is that he just spoke so much negativity over her and she was so scared of losing the relationship that she gave up the job and she just went back to what she was doing before locally didn't travel much made way less money took a step back in her career and then said you know what I I was I was wrong like this is what we're supposed to do instead like this is better for our marriage and I would just I would like to just give give a little response to that which is like is is it better for your marriage to suppress your dreams is it better for your marriage to un to not tap into your potential is it better for your life to remain with somebody who truly doesn't who makes it harder for you to achieve your dreams rather than easier at the end of the day I make this video because I see so many people that message me and they say this is what's going on with my girlfriend my boyfriend my spouse and I want you to understand how freaking important it is to pick the right person this is the person that you spend the most time with over your entire lifespan if you pick the wrong person how do you think that affects your goals and honestly I would beg you look at some of the most successful people they either had nobody next to them or an incredibly supportive person next to them there was no in between and there was certainly not somebody trying to drag them down and so what you have to understand is the reason this is so important it's not because it's your spouse it's because this is the person you spend the most time time with and a lot of people what they do is they redo their friend groups they redo where they work they redo who their Mentor is and who they look up to and they forget to look at the one person that they come home to every night that they talk to all day and who they build a true life with so what I would give you as food for thought is to think through these three points and ask yourself is the person I'm with interfering with my goals this is the concept that I would give you of Love is that what if love is what you're willing to do to help somebody become the best version of themselves what are you willing to sacrifice for them to become that person and for them to do it back for you