I married for money…
Summary
- The most crucial decision in increasing net worth isn't the business you start, industry, market, or pricing, but who you marry.
- Your spouse can either grind against you or support you—this affects your personal and business life significantly.
- You cannot change your partner into someone like my wife, Leila; instead, focus on appreciating who they already are.
- When I met Leila on a 15-minute froyo date, our connection was more intellectual than romantic; this non-romantic start led us to develop our relationship logically and in business first.
- We realized our combined strengths in sales could significantly impact our business, so Leila joined me in gym launches, which led to our rapid business growth.
- Division of roles was key to scaling our business; delegating 80% of tasks to Leila and focusing the rest on me improved our operations and growth.
- In business, having a partner aligns with either a "cheerleader" or "fullback" role; cheerleaders support from the sidelines, while fullbacks are directly involved in the business, trading off roles as needed.
- Managing the dichotomy in relationships between closeness/familiarity and distance/intrigue is crucial; too much of either can lead to problems such as becoming mere roommates or feeling disconnected.
- Leila and I actively create space between us, like having separate offices, to maintain intrigue and avoid becoming too familiar, which is essential for attraction.
- Relationships must balance shared reality with individual growth, ensuring both partners grow in the same direction to avoid becoming strangers over time.
- Our relationship prioritization in 2020, despite business setbacks, greatly improved our marriage by focusing on removing barriers and expressing shared discontent, which fostered a more truthful and collaborative environment.
- Love can be logically developed through actions, even if romantic love isn't present at the start; Leila and I cultivated love over time rather than relying on instant romance.
- If you're in a relationship, identify if your partner is a cheerleader or fullback, assess your need for closeness or space, and remember that love can be created and is not solely based on emotion.
- Making a logical marriage choice for partnership in business and life can be one of the best decisions for personal and financial success.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest focusing on your relationship if you're looking to grow your business or personal life. The person you choose as your partner plays a huge role. Here are some steps you can follow:
Appreciate Your Partner: Don't try to change who they are. Instead, find out what's special about them and appreciate those qualities.
Work Together: If your spouse can join you in your business, great! If not, ensure they're cheering you on. Either way, working in harmony is key.
Divide Roles: If your partner is involved in the business, decide who does what. Having clear roles can make things run much smoother.
Manage Distance and Closeness: Spend time apart to maintain intrigue but also work on being close enough that you don't grow apart.
Have Separate Spaces: Even if it's just different offices or time alone, it helps keep the relationship fresh.
Grow Together: Make sure you're both heading in the same direction with your personal growth.
Prioritize Your Relationship: In tough times, work on your relationship just as hard as you work on your business.
Create Love Through Actions: Understand that love can be built over time with thoughtful actions, not just instant romance.
So, if your partner is in your business, figure if they are a cheerleader or a fullback. Create the right balance of closeness and space. Remember, choosing a partner who complements you in life and business can make a massive difference.
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"The single most important decision that you have in increasing your net worth is who you marry"
– Alex Hormozi
"You don't change who you marry, you're not going to change"
– Alex Hormozi
"I knew if someone could sell, I knew we could make a lot of money together"
– Alex Hormozi
"It's my point is that if they're not doing one of these two things, they are detracting from what you ultimately want to do"
– Alex Hormozi
"We married for logic, we married for business reasons, and it was one of the best decisions business-wise that I have ever made"
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
the single most important decision that you have in increasing your net worth do you guys know what it is it is not the business that you start it is not uh the industry even that you are in that's important it is not the market you serve it is not your pricing it is not your legion strategy it is one thing it is who you marry the reason that i think this is one of the most important decisions you make in your life is because that person will either be constantly grating at you or that person will be supporting you and i think the vast majority of marriages either fall in the grading category or the neutral category the number one question that i get related to this is how do i get my wife and this is more for the fellas but for ladies just reverse the genders how do i get my wife to be like layla how do i get her to like business and the simple answer is you don't because you don't change who you marry right you're not they're not going to change right and so what i wanted to do is kind of explain to you how this came to be for us and i think that we have a lot of counter-intuitive or contrarian views on marriage and love and i think that we have a very very good marriage and it has worked really well and so i'll share some of the things that have been different for us than most people so when i met layla we actually went on a date and it was a 15 minute day because i tried to get her to do uh froyo because i said it was low commitment and if either of us was weird we could dip out really quickly and so she agreed and so we went to froyo and uh and you know within a little bit we we hit it off but not in the way that you would normally expect like there was not any there was really no romantic anything there was no chemistry i wasn't like man i think this girl is amazing i was just like very interested in her um and i thought she was smart and i thought she liked the same stuff as me so i was like this is cool like she's interesting we ended up walking and talking for like four hours but we didn't have any like romantic chemistry at all and even like on our second or third date layla was like i don't really get any vibes from you like romantically at all i was like okay cool but over time obviously uh we worked on that but in that first couple dates uh she was in fitness and she was like one of the top salesmen at 24 hour fitness at the time and i had a and i and i was in fitness too and i had you know a few gyms at the time and so i said gosh you got to stop working for them you should work for me because i knew if someone could sell i knew we could make a lot of money together and so i pitched her on the idea of quitting her job and coming to work for me which of course she said no because she just met me from the internet but anyways i i did end up saying hey i'm gonna do this thing called gym launch and she was like okay i don't care i just met you and i was like it's gonna be it's gonna be something and so i went and um i flew and did the first three gym launches this is when we used to fly out and i did like gym turnarounds and we did i did three of those and i came back she picked from the airport we talked on the phone every night and i had not taken her on a date up to this point so now it's been like two or three months at this point that we'd been quote dating i had actually taken her out anywhere it was always like hey if you just wanna like hang out with me i'm gonna be working all day and it was that was kind of like we spent every day together but it was just like i just enjoyed being around each other and so we did this right uh we i came back she picked me at the airport and she was like you better take me on a date i was like okay okay one thing first right uh you gotta help me process these contracts and she was like ah fine we went i poured us both a drink and i taught her how to process the contracts and then within an hour we'd process a hundred thousand dollars in sales and she looked at me she was like what do you do again and i was like ah now you're interested and she was like is it legal i was like yeah it's legal and she was like okay i'm in at that point she actually left her her roster of personal training clients and joined me in launching the gyms and so we very much started our relationship in business together and then learned the love and romance side i think the business side i think she said this too it became natural to both of us we we naturally worked well together and i think there's no coincidence that my business has exploded once i met layla because she really was the yin to my yang when it came to everything that we had to do and this is important for anybody who has a partner in business the the thing that got us from four or five hundred thousand dollars a month to making millions a month was understanding the division of roles and so i you know she was really naturally good at sales uh and so was i and so we were both kind of like just you know tag teaming and that was cool in the beginning because everyone was kind of doing everything but at some point we needed to divide up responsibilities and so we went to a mentor we drew everything on the board of what we needed to do and there's this huge thing of just tasks and activities that we're doing every single day every single week and so he took this big marker and he drew a lot you know big circle around like 80 percent of it and he was like all right all this goes to layla and the stuff that was just marketing sales and product he was like this is alex's and i was like oh this is a great deal right and the thing is is that layla being as growth-oriented as she is basically i remember because she kept telling herself she was like i'm not going to be the reason this business fails and so she just learned all of this stuff i mean i think that's one of the big reasons that that we were able to massively explode after that because we had an amazing operator who could basically fulfill on the promises and and handle the the flow that i could generate and so we started working together and then it became kind of weird because you know the business was growing really quickly and some of the employees were like so you guys are just like dating we're like yeah and they're like they start to get worried because like what if you guys break up you know and we were like oh we broke up we'd still do the business together but it got to a point where i was like you know this is this is getting to we need to make a decision about this relationship and so i actually came to layla and i had a true proposition all right like a proposal in the in the truest sense of the word and so i said what do you what would you say um if we got married i was like i think it makes a lot of sense and she was like i mean i i would say yes and i was like all right i was like well here's my reasoning and so i broke down the reason i was like we're both young i was like we both have persian backgrounds we're both so we have the same cultural things like we get that that side of ourselves we both like fitness you like business we work together all right i was like i feel like this could this makes sense like we should do this and so she agreed and so we went we got in the car and we went and uh i was like i guess we gotta get you a ring and so he got in the car got her a ring came back 45 minutes later he was like well shoot i guess we gotta get a church thing organized and so we called up a pastor and i was like you free wednesday night and he was like yeah i think it was like a sunday um and he was like are you sure like this is fast and we're like yeah we're sure so we went to the back to church and got married uh that wednesday night so we were engaged for like less than a week and um that was it we actually told our parents after uh we got married so no one knew uh we just we got married and then told everyone afterwards it was pretty cool and it's been interesting though because our the business always came easy and the romance and the relationship was the part that we had to work at um the love side of the relationship because we just we mesh so naturally on the business side and so i say this to say for everyone who continues to ask the question how do i make my wife like layla i think that you're not going to do that i think laila is layla right and i think that your wife is your wife or your partner is your partner right and so you have to figure out what that yin and yang relationship is going to be and if that person is not in the business it is leilani is both of our beliefs that there are really only two roles that that person can play in your life they can either be and i got this from garyvee but i 100 agree with it um you they can either be a cheerleader or they can be a fullback all right so the cheerleader is the person who's on the sideline who's cheering you on to win the game right because at the end of the day the cheerleader who actually wants the team to win would never ask the quarterback to come out of the game when the game is on the line all right and you know the difference because if when the game is on the line that cheerleader is asking you to throw in the towel asking you to to hang your locker you know put stuff up in the locker room and leave the game with that per with them then that's not a cheerleader that's neither right and that's my point is that if they're not doing one of these two things they are detracting from what you ultimately want to do and there's nothing wrong with a spouse who's not in the business that's totally fine and it's a decision and that's okay right but you still need to be supportive all right so the question are you going to be supportive in that you are covering the other aspects of your life together and the role that that cheerleader plays is that when you are not at work it helps you detach from works you gain distance gain perspective you can realize that there are other things that are important in life which ultimately will actually make you a better business person because if business is the only thing you have right then all of your chips are always on it which makes you more emotional and erratic and makes you make worse decisions so if you realize it gives you context and perspective which is why whenever you have a death of someone who's close to you the gift of that death is the perspective that it gives us right and so that is the role that that cheerleader has is they give you perspective and context to the importance or relative importance of business in your life right but they are supportive because they understand that it is for the team right the other role is the role is the dynamic that layla and i have which is the full back uh roll which is that one person is block blocking while the other person carries the ball down the down the field and we're rotating right one person blocks the other person carries one person blocks one person carries and that has been the role um that we have had is that we're both on the field together and so um each of those has different pros and cons right uh and we we were big believers are big followers of esther perel who's a relationship expert and i think this was such a i'm going to share this with you because i think it's so valuable as americans or many of us in the western world we want to solve problems when in reality many times there are dichotomies that must be managed but cannot be solved i'll give you a business example how do you solve micromanaging versus uh you know abdication or delegation right how do you how do you solve that you don't solve it it is a dichotomy that must be managed and relationships as we see them have the same dichotomy between closeness and familiarity and distance and intrigue all right and so what happens is in the beginning of most relationships because you are so distant and you have some similarities if you take some steps towards closeness the relationship improves right you get to know the person better you start to trust them more and you're like this is awesome but what happens is that if you continue down that path you become brother and sister and you just become roommates because you live together you're so familiar there's no variety and there's no mystery there's no intrigue right and believe me as layla and i we work together we live together we're in the same house we work out at the same jet like we spend all of our time so what we have to do is we actively create space and so i think what's important is to figure out where you are on this dichotomy and figure out what action or where you need to lean towards in your tendencies in the relationship to find the middle ground and obviously it's going to sway it's like a pendulum but you try and keep it in the middle and so for us like i said because we're in business together we actually have to actively create space so we have different offices they're on opposite sides of the house we try not to be on the same meetings and things like that because at the end of the day if i want to say hey would you do today actually don't answer i was on every meeting with you there's no space everything is familiar and familiarity though comforting is not attractive right and so which is why you know like it's like joke the joke is like it's like a brother or sister right like you live together but like it's like right because you're so familiar right you know everything about that person now the flip side is a complete stranger there's all the mystery but there's no trust right and so to have the long-term relationship it is our belief that you have to manage both of those things and so the flip side is a lot of people get married right and one person works and one person doesn't work and that's okay but what happens is they start to grow apart and because they're not sharing the same reality they go further further apart until the person feels like a stranger to them right and you've probably heard that from people right and so if you're in one of those relationships then the goal should always be how can we share our experience how can we create a shared reality how can we grow together and make sure we are growing in the same direction because the entrepreneurial stimulus that you're going to get from business is going to change you it is going to force you to adapt and by extension grow and the stimulus that your partner is going through is going to force them to adapt and grow and the goal is how can we align that growth so it's in the same direction so that we look at each other 15 years from now we don't think who did i marry right and the person you might have changed and so might have they but i think that in order to maintain the relationship it's maintaining the the middle ground of that dichotomy and so for us our process around this is uh is we always create space to be missed um and i think that some of you who have maybe had a spouse or somebody who you spent a lot of time with if you actually go travel somewhere and then come back it's almost like your relation in my opinion i feel like my experience has been it's been better and so it's like you're like miss the person and i think that we need to create more space to be missed especially if you work with your spouse and so for us the relationship has been very much a love logically format we both share the belief that you can create love through actions and so we did not have the romantic love we learned it we actually i you know i i would not say that i was in love with layla when we got married real talk i was not in love with layla when we got married i loved her as a person um and i thought that the decision made sense but we were not in love and it took us i would say it took us until i'd say it took us until 2020 uh december of 2019 we kind of came to a head and we both said that we didn't want to keep living our lives this way so we had you know we were just making i mean a lot of money and we still do but like our lives are very different now right and it was all because the the money that we made for both of us was out of scarcity and lack right we were so fear driven that we were going to lose the thing that we made and so just so you know as you're as you're building your business in the beginning you fear being poor as you kind of transition in the middle you fear losing the status that the the money has gotten you right and so the fears change over time but anyways we've gotten to this point and i think we had made 30 million dollars in profit in the last 24 months um and we both were like i don't want to keep living this way and so that was when we decided going into 2020 that we were going to like prioritize our marriage and so what's interesting is that in 2020 despite the fact that our businesses got hit because of covert and went on we have a lot of brick and mortar uh based businesses uh our marriage probably like tripled that year in terms of how much better it is now et cetera and it was because we actively spent a lot of time um making sure that there was no space between us from uh from uh not in the way that i met earlier but that there were not things between us i think she uses the the catchment for that like whatever sits between you on the couch that you gotta make sure there's nothing there and so i think that there were some things that i you know i had held on to that i had resented and i think there were some things that she had done too or whatever i mean minor stuff but stuff that grows and i think even the fact that we were unhappy in working and making as much money as we were was growing was grading at both of us because we we both saw each other working so hard we were like well i don't want to be the one who's not working hard and so we both felt like we'd be letting the other person down and so i think we're even saying hey i'm not really happy with how life is going for us was actually really valuable because then it was like oh you feel that way too i feel that way and then all of a sudden it was like this whole thing diffused and it was this big fear that we had that if we voiced that we weren't happy with how something was going the other person would be like well i am happy right that wasn't the case at all and so by even just admitting that we had a shared reality it allowed us uh to move forward with a with a a perspective of like truth and integrity first and so not integrity in terms of line but truth and radical candor about about where we're at emotionally in the moment we've we really tried to keep that and it's been it's served us very well and so if you have a spouse who's in your business i think figuring out whether the person is a cheerleader or a full-back is an important step right and then adjusting whether you're trying to get closer or trying to get farther away from that person and create space if you need it or create closeness if you need it to manage that dichotomy uh is important and then finally uh understanding that at least for us love was something that we were able to create rather than something that we got had to marry for and so we married for logic we married for business reasons and i honestly it was one of the best decisions if not the best decision business-wise that i have ever made in my entire life and so um if you are in that situation then those are just a handful of perspectives i'll share more um as more come to me but i thought that it would be valuable since a lot of people continue to ask me about what is the working dynamic like between layla and i um and hopefully this video does a little bit uh to put some context to it so mozy nation i love you as always uh my name is zach my name's acquisition.com my name's alex from mozilla acquisition.com we do 85 million a year if you enjoyed this hit the subscribe button and i will see you guys in the next video keep being awesome bye
