I turn down $100,000 every single day…it hurts but it’s worth it..
Summary
- Focus on the core products or services that generate the majority of revenue to avoid stretching yourself too thin; this follows the Pareto Principle where 80% of revenue often comes from 20% of offerings.
- Avoid distractions that seem like easy money but ultimately divert attention from the main goals of your business, akin to the "woman in the red dress" from The Matrix movie.
- Having a strategy means learning when to say 'no' to opportunities that do not align with your business's long-term objectives.
- Recognize when you've hit a limitation in your business due to your beliefs, skills, or character traits, and focus on overcoming these rather than shifting to an easier challenge.
- Simplifying your business by doing fewer things can lead to more effective scaling because "simple scales, fancy fails."
- Resist the allure of new ventures until your current business can grow without your constant involvement of more than five hours a week for six months.
- When you've achieved consistent growth and can step back from the day-to-day operations, you can consider focusing on diversifying your portfolio or acquiring other businesses.
- Transition from self-employed to business owner by assembling teams to pursue new opportunities rather than starting and running new businesses yourself.
- Making the right decisions doesn't necessarily require a lot of time but does require discipline and strong character traits, illustrated by the practices of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
- Allow your business to run without meddling too much once it's established, and ensure everything is done in the proper sequence before attempting new ventures.
- Focus on long-term strategies, patient growth, and making decisions that may be simple but require going against short-term desires for the benefit of future success.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest starting with the Pareto Principle and focusing on your primary products or services. Here's the thing: not everything you sell brings in real money. Find out what does, maybe that 20%, and pour your energy into that. This way, you won't spread yourself too thin. Here's a simple rule to remember: if it makes money, it makes sense. Stick with that, and don't chase after every little thing that might turn a profit.
Next, make a strong habit of saying 'no.' I know it's tough, but not every opportunity matches your long-term goals. If it isn't in line with your bigger picture, turn it down. Strategy isn't just about chasing money; it's about picking the right paths for growth.
Take a look at your business. Is there something that's not working because you think it's too difficult, or is it just a limit in your own thinking, skills, or who you are as a person? Pinpoint these limits and work on them, but don't just jump to something new because it seems easier.
Remember this phrase: simple scales, fancy fails. If your business is too complicated, it's harder to grow. Keep it as simple as possible. And another thing, don't rush into starting new projects. Make sure your current business can grow with less than five hours a week from you, for six months, before diving into another venture.
Let's also talk about transitioning from working in your business to working on it. Build a team that can handle things, so you can step back and look at new opportunities without messing with the day-to-day runnings.
Finally, be patient. Growth that's slow and steady might not be super exciting, but it's how you build a solid, successful business in the long run. Stick to that, and you'll have success without being fancy about it. Just focus on what's been proven to work, again and again. That's the way to win big.
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"Simple scales, fancy fails"
– Alex Hormozi
"Strategy is learning when to say no"
– Alex Hormozi
"If you just repeat successful actions, if you have aggressive patience, if you do the boring work and you let it compound…you'll be unreasonably successful"
– Alex Hormozi
"Common success is not because it's complex, it's because it's hard"
– Alex Hormozi
"Confront the hard work and the hard work a lot of times is simple work"
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
literally everyone listened to this this is the number one mistake that i see entrepreneurs make that i made growing up so please do not do this because it is incredibly painful and it takes so long to get out of so please do not do this so i was talking to entrepreneur and i said you have three businesses and you've got three different product lines in each of those businesses and i'll bet you right now that eighty percent of your revenue comes from just twenty percent of that stuff prettis principle nothing nothing crazy here and he looked at all of his numbers he was like yeah i guess this is really the main thing and i was like why did you do all these other things he said well seemed like a good idea at the time and it just felt like there was just extra money sitting there on the table that we should just grab here's what's crazy the extra money that's sitting there on the table is the money that distracts you from the main game i like to use this principle called the women in the red dress so if you've seen the matrix right which is my favorite movie of all time morpheus is explaining to neo that uh anybody in the matrix could be an agent right so there's a woman in the red dress who walks by and then all of a sudden he turns back around and it's an agent right and i like to use that analogy because the woman in the red dress is the distractions that we use the easy money that's sitting there on the sideline so i had a conversation with an entrepreneur um in the digital marketing space doing about five four five million a year and he said i think i want to do general business coaching because i've got all these people who are asking me for general business coaching and i was like why on earth would you do that he's like well i mean they're just they're asking i'm just turning money down and i was like that's the point that is the point of a strategy a strategy is learning when to say no and so i said hold on for a second before you do this right you have your business right now and because it's hard for you to grow it you're going to choose to distract yourself from something that's going to give you an easy win which gives you that nice dopamine hit literally everyone listen to this this is the number one mistake that i see entrepreneurs make that i made growing up so please do not do this because it is incredibly painful and it takes so long to get out of so please do not do this all right what they do is that the thing they have becomes hard because they reach a limitation either on their beliefs their skills or their character traits and so as a result of that limitation on the ladder that they've built for themselves with beliefs on one side character each other to the other and skills just the middle runs that they have to grab because you have to have all three in order to grab the next wrong right they have those those those aspects and they hit a level and what they do is they see another ladder next to them that has some rungs already built because they have those things and they just jump onto that ladder but then they climb and then they reach another pinnacle that's still not above their first ladders limit right of skills character traits and beliefs and so what happens is they make this jump and so i was going back to this entrepreneur and i was like hey man so could you imagine a world how easy would it be for you if you just eliminated everything in your business and all you do is grow this one thing i said how easy would that be and he was like dude that would be easy as hell it's like you know 80 of my time is dealing with all these other things and the operational drag and complexity around you know these other teams and blah blah blah i was like right so why don't you do that and so when i come into most businesses most of the times i get the entrepreneur to do less i get the business to do fewer things because simple you can write this down write this down simple scales fancy fails you can use that you can take it to the bank uncormozy all right mosey nation that's one of our one of our one of our tenants all right simple scales fancy fails and if you got a fancy business i'll tell you the richest guys in the world have simple ass businesses and they have the character traits to see that woman in the red dress walk by and say not today nancy not today i'm good you're not going to you're not going to seduce me today into into some quick money that's going to take me away from the long term goal that's what strategy is it's learning to say no it's learning to say no because you know that your marriage in the long term is going to get you higher returns than the short term quick fix right and that's a character trait that you have to develop and here's what's crazy the higher up in business you go the higher up that ladder that you climb the sexier the woman in the red dress looks like the sexier the seduction appears the sexier the temptation appears because right now if someone were to come to me and say let's say uh or let's just say that you're making a million dollars a year all right in your business let's say you're netting 250 whatever all right just as a hypothetical example if someone came to you right now and said dude i can help you make an extra thousand dollars a month you'd be like i'm good no thanks right but if someone came to you and said hey man i can help you make an extra fifty thousand dollars a month you might be tempted by that right or maybe an extra an extra hundred thousand you might be tempted by that right but the reality is that it's just a woman in the red dress it's agent smith is hiding pretending to be this this thing that's going to give you the short-term win when in reality all it's going to do is distract you from the long-term success that you're trying to have because if you just match the market and you just do the one thing over and over again if you just repeat successful actions if you have aggressive patients if you do the boring work and you let it compound and you let compounding happen for you and with you instead of against you and you use time as an asset instead of a liability instead of being in a rush all the time you actually use patience as a as a lever on your success use time as an asset that works for you instead of against you and if you if you can do those things you'll be unreasonably successful but it's because you took decisions you made decisions you had character traits that were unreasonable and un uncommon right uncommon success is not because it's complex it's because it's hard and it's hard not because it's complicated it's hard because it's so simple no one does it we let our humanity in our irrationality and our need for immediate short-term wins get in the way of what our long-term strategy is and i'll say this again strategy is knowing what you say no to not what you say yes to if you think about who you serve who your avatar is what you help them do you get a lot more strength in knowing what you don't do you have to turn money down you know much money i turn down every day like i literally get a dm i probably get two dms a day saying hey man um i'll pay you 10 grand for an hour of time i'm just like dude i just don't it's just not i can't like i can't say yes that's just distracting to me to to do what i'm trying to do and the thing is is that that woman in the red dress the higher up you become the more sexy she becomes and one of the biggest i mean the mistakes i've made i made many of these mistakes i think i started my second business too early i started prestige labs or supplement company too early and i think i suffered for that it took i think it basically flatlined our growth for two years because of that and it took me to care to develop all these other character traits that i had to do instead to learn how to actually i went from running one business to running two businesses and i'll just give you this quick tidbit if you're listening to this you might be thinking well alex how do you have these women in the red dress because you now have you know six seven whatever we have a lot in our portfolio now how do you reconcile that well now for me the portfolio is the one thing my portfolio is the one thing and that is the that's kind of the overarching thing for me now is that i did this out of sequence and so don't make please don't make the mistake you can do whatever you want but like for me this is a mistake i made is that if you're running a business and here's how you define running a business if the business does not grow without you spending less than five hours a week on it for six straight months and you never have to jump back in that is when you are you have transitioned from ceo to owner all right and right now fyi if it means if you have if you don't have to do anything you're not part of the fulfillment right but you're still ceo if you're still ceo every business needs a ceo right every business needs somebody who's driving the business if you're just not involved in the quote day-to-day you still 100 have a job it's just not time oriented but you still 100 have a job but what you need is to make sure that you get your attention back and the way to get your attention back is to let someone else have the intention of running the business which is making sure that you can then move up and then you can make your net worth your portfolio your assets the one thing right and so anywho all of us have a woman in the red dress right that 5 million entrepreneur all of us have that quick win that we want to have because we have some level of demand that's there but you have to say no at least that's my my two cents that's been my experience you have to say no until you get to the point where even when you start that new thing right starting a new thing you're not starting a new thing you're assembling the team that's going to pursue this opportunity on your behalf think about like to think about the language behind that you're not going to go start another business you're going to go assemble a team that's going to pursue that opportunity because you think it's worth pursuing think about that way right or you acquire a business or a percentage of a business and then you help assist that team grow and pursue that opportunity that is how owners speak versus ceos right that is how you go from self-employed to owner and most of us um especially you know younger entrepreneurs and i'm not saying i say younger not in terms of age i just say in terms of experience they're still self-employed you're ceo but you're still self-employed right and i think that if you can make that and you can swallow your pride about saying like oh i have this business and you just realized that um then you'll you'll you'll be much more successful so let's go back to the very beginning to wrap this puppy up if you have lots of little things in your business and you have one big thing that's really the majority of your your income if you cut out all of these other things and make your business so simple it would be unreasonable or unreasonable for you not to be successful if you do that then you probably will be successful because it would be unreasonable for you not to but the thing is it's hard not because it's complicated but because it forces us to go against our human nature and i think if you can think about things like that like charlie munger and warren buffett like they don't spend that much time working right they spend their time making good decisions which doesn't take that much time it just takes a lot of intelligent or sorry a lot of good discipline and character traits right and so if you look at what they do if i think about that like just because something is simple doesn't mean it's not the right call simple scales fancy fails and i'll leave you with that i can tell you right now we make more money like we make a lot of money right now and we really don't do a ton and it's because i had to change my beliefs about like we we we do these things because we have these interpersonal needs we have these character traits we have these deficiencies that we we choose to fill with our business and our activities because we don't want to be alone with our thoughts but if you can let your business just continue to run and not go in and mess things up because you've gotten to that point you've put you know a ceo in place you will be best served and so anyways stop being so fancy simple scales fancy fails and if you're not at that point then be okay with not being at that point don't be too good to run your own business don't feel like oh i have to do what alex is doing because everything has to be done in sequence until you until you know how to get to owner you shouldn't try and do that yet so you'll be successful so anyways um i hope you enjoyed this uh confront the hard work and the hard work a lot of times is simple work it's simple decisions that we have to make don't take the quick wins think long aggressive patience macro perspective and i think that i think that will all ultimately be the better for it at least these journals these little vlogs are for me to to write down the principles that that have made uh given us disproportionate returns and i hope to share them with you mozi nation keeping awesome catch you next video bye