How society fools the poor with “work/life balance”

Summary

• My wife and I have successfully built six multi-eight-figure companies in the past five years, with our current group of companies generating roughly $85 million annually.
• We run Acquisition.com and actively work on the business, finding joy and purpose in the process of building and creating.
• I believe that work-life balance is based on individual preference; if work brings more joy than rest, then it makes sense to work.
• On my own birthday, I chose to work because that is what brings me satisfaction, despite societal expectations of taking time off for celebrations.
• In 2021, I took a step back from active work, which led to a miserable year because spending the money I made didn't bring fulfillment. The real joy came from engaging in the work itself.
• I view work as a means to create options for myself rather than a step to eventually not work. Having the freedom to choose to work is the real luxury.
• Building something with my significant other adds a level of shared respect and understanding that is hard to replicate in other relationship dynamics.
• I have observed that successful relationships can often be categorized as either partnerships in business or a cheerleader-and-quarterback dynamic.
• I found more satisfaction in the work-together model, as it comes with mutual understanding of the demands of entrepreneurship.
• It is important to create enough space within a working relationship to maintain a level of individuality and excitement.
• Compromising in marriage is a belief, not a fact. A shared mission, mutual respect, supporting each other's goals, and adequate personal space can lead to a happy and productive partnership without the need to compromise.
• The happiest couples tend to have their own careers or ventures. They respect one another's independence while sharing common goals and walking parallel paths.
• It's essential to correct for overfamiliarity by creating space so that each partner can grow individually and bring new experiences and discussions to the relationship.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting with what you enjoy. If you love your work, it's okay to choose it over rest or celebrations. It’s about what makes you happy. For example, on my birthday, working was what I wanted. That’s the kind of joy I'm talking about.

A good way of doing this is by focusing on work-life balance that fits you. Maybe like me, work is a passion and not just a job. If so, work more. If it ever feels like too much, you can change it. Remember, the goal is to create options for yourself.

Now, if you work with your partner, it's important to treat it like a team effort. Understand each other and the work you do. This builds respect and trust.

To have a strong relationship without compromise, work towards a shared mission. Support each other's goals and give each other space to grow. This way, you both can be independent and still walk together on the same path.

It's also essential to correct for overfamiliarity. Create personal space so that you both can have new experiences. This keeps your relationship fresh and exciting.

Working with your significant other can bring a deeper connection. But, be sure to keep that individual excitement alive. Have separate activities and work in different spaces sometimes.

In the end, the happiest couples are those with their own careers or ventures, common goals, and mutual respect. They don't have to compromise because their relationship is built on supporting and valuing each other's independence.

So, find your balance. Work if you love it, create a strong partnership with your significant other, and keep building your options. This is the path to finding satisfaction and joy in your life and work.

Quotes by Alex Hormozi

"You have one life and they are your terms and no one else's"

– Alex Hormozi

"I work to create options not to not work"

– Alex Hormozi

"Compromise is a belief statement"

– Alex Hormozi

"I don't believe that marriage is compromise"

– Alex Hormozi

"The happiest couples are actually couples that have both have careers that are not necessarily together"

– Alex Hormozi

Full Transcript

my wife and i have built six multi-eight-figure companies in the last five years our current portfolio does about 85 million a year we run acquisition.com and i was interviewed recently for a segment on a two-hour long podcast and the segment that i want to show you is a really cool clip that we just talked about what it was like to literally build these companies together being married and the balance between work life and marriage all right so um like i said enjoy and i'll see you guys on the other side i mean a lot of people used to get on me about like you need more work-life balance like blah blah blah and it's just like i just like you have one life and they are your terms and no one else's terms and we optimize typically for the things that we enjoy doing and like if you have more stimulus from working than you do from not working then like work and then if you feel like at some point you have traded off something that you don't want to trade off for then you can adjust that's what i've always felt i enjoy working like what was it my mom so we have like a wedding to go to on the day after my birthday yeah so we were talking about you know we have to fly up on my birthday she's like oh we could do this on your birthday this is like no i just want to work she's like no but it's your birthday you shouldn't have to work and i was like i want to work yeah that's all i want to do i just want to work even uh santa monica my birthday i was like the only thing i want to do today is work that was it just wanted to work i mean everybody wants to they're like man do something do do something you love and you'll never work another day in your life but like it's just because everyone has this really poor definition of work but like if if you have accomplished that which obviously you have you're just living yeah and like what you do in life so i'll i'll rewind something really quickly which is like 2021 i did nothing i owned all the companies pounded out a lot of cash flow and i did nothing and it was a very miserable year for me because i tried to spend the money that i was making and i couldn't like it was just not even really a possibility and so like i got into a place of like why why am i even doing this like what's the point like i'll never even be able to spend this money that i have like why have i been doing all this stuff and in starting acquisition.com we're at least making that the sole focus now again and being able to build all the infrastructure you know hire the teams and all the stuff that we're doing on that side of the business like i have so much joy getting back into the game because i feel like i've been kind of like in a super high leverage position for like an extended period of time that i exited the business because i thought that was what the next natural step was supposed to be which is like you go from ceo to owning it as shareholder or board of directors whatever and that is very much what happened but i realized that for me at least it's like i work to create options not to not work and so a lot of people like they work really hard to not have to work later it's like no no it's like i work to have the option to work and so i can choose to work and that choice is the freedom that i have and so like if i'm choosing with the optionality that i have to work then that is exactly what i want to do just being on the other side of it of like going to the like there's literally no way i can spend this money for the rest of my life mountaintop like the only thing that i wanted to do was the thing that got me here which is like i love working and so it's the thing that i find meaningful and i think that maybe you shift direction in terms of like maybe some of the stuff that you create like maybe there's some things that you create that are for youtube versus like for gram and i just think that it just slowly optimizes to only doing things for gram which a lot of times still ends up being that but like you get there backwards yeah it's like if you made it purely for you then you might be able to make a video after that that's like i walked 300 miles and i didn't film anything and this is what i learned like that would probably be a really valuable video because you probably would have some interesting insights like i didn't film either of the grant cardone videos and then just made videos about the calls of like my takeaways and they were still really great videos interesting okay so my only thought to that is like you are in a very unique position because you run this business with your wife and and stuff like that and i think that marriage plays a big part in my life yeah and i think marriage is a compromise and so my my wife doesn't like it when i work as much and her i guess her her like love language is what quality time or whatever and i think graham his girlfriend macy is similar and i think that there's a compromise there where yes graham if all he wants to do is work that's great and he can work and work and work but i think that marriage a successful marriage is truly a compromise and if if it turns out that you know like like you're really good i have like so many thoughts right now yeah it's stimulating conversation and i think yeah and i think everybody's in a unique position because you know definitely like there's you you could say well you know i'm gonna grind away now so that you know i i don't have to work in the future we could spend time together or you can kind of balance and live in the now and live in the future but i think everybody's kind of in a unique position but i think that that part of your life is is is always going to be a compromise to some sort of extent so i think it's a belief that you choose to define it that way yeah i'm okay yeah i'm okay compromise is a belief statement like that's not a statement of fact that is a belief and so like i don't believe that marriage is compromised tell us your experience with that because i have uh because i'm sure we all have different experiences mine in the beginning was that i did find that there was a compromise because macy came from the mindset like you know five or six pm comes around uh you're done with work yeah and you're free and my mind works 24 7. uh i tried that and i woke up really early i'd wake up at like 5 a.m so i could be done by 5 p.m and the night and i that worked for actually quite a while because i actually found it was so productive in those morning hours that i could be done by five and be like oh wow this is great but over a long time trying to figure out like a like a balance i found myself i wasn't myself like i i was really i felt anxious i was just like uptight i was um like about what part like no because because i couldn't work during the hours that i wanted to work like sometimes just you just have this there's days where it's just like no no i'm so focused and i got it like you have that concentration you just have to continue and so having that freedom for me if i don't have that i just wasn't myself and i was miserable yeah what i'm going to say and i i have very strong views um and they are not common um but i also think that i don't want to live a common life and so that i cannot have common views so just like as a as a big disclaimer to that like i've only seen two dynamics that work in relationships over like an extended period of time one is kind of the like we're in it together and the other is like the you know cheerleader and quarterback cheering you on but the thing is is like i can tell i can speak a lot to the you know we're in the game together um for me i know personally like i had two very long relationships that were two liter dynamics and to me i could not imagine living life that way having now lived what i live now because like there's a certain amount of shared respect that you never get with somebody who does not know what it's like to be in the battlefield or in the arena and if i'm like i need to work for the next three days and like write five book chapters like there's not a discussion it's like of course do your thing there's no like there's no like i can't believe you're like uh and to the flip side in the cheerleader dynamic a cheerleader who's really rooting for the team doesn't ask the quarterback to come out when the game's on the line and so i think that a lot of people are running in what they consider to be cheerleader dynamics but they are inverted dynamics they're actually sabotaging the game i think that it's like in that dynamic it's harder in my opinion to do the cheerleader quarterback because you have to have a very aligned mission and goals of like the relationship it's easier to do that in the dynamic that you're working together because it's so clearly stated with the mission the goals of like this is where i want to go and this is how i want to get there and like you want to come with me and then you're very much operating on this shared sense of reality and it also becomes difficult for entrepreneurs in my opinion now like i mean i'm sure you've seen plenty people get divorces that they get older and whatnot is that like if you're like all right this will be interesting so typically when people become attracted so esther perel if you've heard of her she's really interesting like relationship person she's like one of the top ted talks on it there's i think it's called mating captivity is her book but in the beginning you have kind of this mystery because you don't know each other and that's what creates like the excitement right and as you get to know each other over time you swing like from uh mystery to familiarity right you get a little bit more security get to know each other better and it feels like more and more amazing and so what you do is you just keep trying to do that right but what's up happening is you over correct and then you become siblings and then it's like ah well that's not good and so it's not a problem to be solved but a a dichotomy to be managed right in terms of like how much space do you create versus how much familiarity what happens when people like entrepreneurs specifically like have their business and they have the wife they spend more time in the beginning and all of a sudden they don't spend as much time together and then they grow apart because they're also exposed to different stimuli right and so you adapt to the stimuli that you have then you grow apart on the flip side if you're in my scenario where we're like doing the same thing together the downside of this one these couples make five times more money than any of the other versions that i just said but the uh you can become too familiar and then you just become siblings so for us we actually create more space so it's like we try to work on separate sides of the house we don't attend the same meetings so like at the end of the day we can sit down at dinner like how was your day and you can tell me something rather than me saying like oh i was there i know right yeah and so the happiest couples are actually couples that have oh both have careers that are not necessarily together so on average these couples are the ones that because they have a shared goal in terms of this is what we want to do they have shared values in terms of how they want to get there and they respect one another and they respect each other's goals and then they walk kind of in parallel so you've got the like i'm working the entrepreneur and you've got the stay-at-home wife there's many times everyone's seen that one go wrong there's the like we're both working together in it where so these people have to uh correct for trying to create more familiarity these ones have to create more space so you have the space to be missed and then these ones tend to be in the middle already and so they just kind of like have to keep walking and so for me it was actually just interesting seeing the the different dynamics and like how we had to correct in the beginning like we were wait we spent all day every day together and the business was small so it was like she was there and i was here and we worked out together and we ate together and we did that for like two years and i was like you know maybe i'll sit on different meetings than you yeah but like seeing the level of like commitment and loyalty that you get from that and i don't know so i want a little bit of a tangent there but i i have strong beliefs around around that and i think that you don't have to compromise anything if you don't want to