We married for business…the TRUTH about what happened next..

Summary

• I've been receiving inquiries regarding my views on being an alpha or powerful woman in a relationship, so I wanted to address this with my husband Alex.
• Our relationship is built on what works for us, and there's no right or wrong way to have a relationship; different dynamics work for different people.
• It took self-reflection to realize that I previously dated more passive men out of a desire for control, which is an illusion and can lead to resentment.
• In my relationship with Alex, it was initially uncomfortable due to his strong personality, but I learned to value a partner who challenges me and inspires me.
• Power in a relationship is non-binary and exists on a continuum; having a more powerful partner can help maintain a healthy balance of masculine and feminine energies.
• Relationships should be grounded in respect and trust. For example, Alex and I shared bank accounts shortly after meeting, demonstrating our immediate trust.
• A power couple dynamic requires that both individuals are powerful in their own right.
• Decisions in a relationship can be divided based on each person's interests and strengths; not all decisions need to involve both parties equally.
• Our marriage functions similarly to our business, with clear divisions of decision-making responsibilities and a guiding principle of full agreement before proceeding with major decisions.
• Maintaining clear professional boundaries at work is vital when working with a spouse to ensure comfort and professionalism in the work environment.
• Maintaining a united front publicly sustains mutual respect within a working team, especially when working with a spouse.
• A strong relationship can help develop personal skills that benefit other areas of life, such as leadership in business.
• It's important to find a partner who shares the same vision and ambitions, which makes for a more fulfilling and aligned relationship.
• Being a powerful couple or a power couple doesn't preclude maintaining domestic roles and gestures of care, which I enjoy as part of the relationship's personal dynamic.
• A successful relationship contains both rational and emotional elements, providing a sturdy foundation for the relationship through various seasons of life.
• People's characteristics can converge in a relationship, leading to a more unified approach in both business and personal interactions.
• Delegating roles in a relationship is not about dependency; it's about efficiency and capitalizing on each person's strengths to achieve more together.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest looking at your relationships, both personal and professional, with a fresh perspective. Think about the qualities you truly value in a partner or team member. Look for people who not only inspire you but also align with your vision and ambition.

A good way of doing things is to try and balance your strengths and weaknesses with those of your partners. When you're working together, focusing on what each person does best can make you more efficient and successful.

It's important to have trust and respect as the foundation of any relationship, especially if you share financial responsibilities or make important life decisions together. Sharing a bank account like Alex and I did, for example, showed our trust in each other right away.

If you work with your partner or spouse, make sure you keep your work life and home life separate. At work, treat each other with the same professionalism you would any other colleague.

Remember that power in a relationship isn't just about dominating; it's about complementing each other's strengths. It's also okay to maintain traditional roles and gestures of affection at home if that's what makes you happy.

Finally, communication is key. Be honest and open with each other, especially when it comes to making decisions. If there's no agreement, wait until you both see eye to eye. This helps maintain a united front and respect, especially in front of your colleagues or team.

If the relationship is bringing out the best in both of you and helping you grow as individuals, then you're probably heading in the right direction. Keep building on that trust, respect, and shared vision!

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"There's always things that work, what we're talking about is what works for us"

– Leila Hormozi

"I made this post basically saying that an alpha female needs an alpha male"

– Leila Hormozi

"Look for what you want a partner out of not fear or desperation but out of inspiration"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you want to be a quote power couple then both people must have power"

– Leila Hormozi

"If we both don't agree, we don't move forward"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

is laila hormozy co-seo of acquisition.com and in this video today i actually want to share something a little bit different normally it's business tactics business advice etc but i've got a lot of questions lately about a post i made about you know being a alpha or a powerful woman in a relationship and so i actually want to bring my husband alex and business partner on this episode to really talk about like our relationship why we chose the relationship we have today with each other why we do things that we do and just our like opinions and beliefs on things and disclaimer for this video is like i really truly don't believe there's a right or wrong i have friends who have completely opposite relationships to us and it works really well for them this is just what works for us and we get a lot of questions about it and so we wanted to share and so with that being said let me know what you think in the comments and if alex and i should do more videos together what's up guys so like i said in the description um really this video today is about the post i made the other day about alpha females and alpha men and having a power couple dynamic and so um i wanted to bring alex to the video today because uh there was a lot of comments from men and a lot of comments from women and i kind of wanted to have both of us express our sides and our viewpoints and so just as a disclaimer like this video is made for people who are asking us you know like how do you achieve the relationship that you guys have and they're looking for something like that and so like i'm not pooh-poohing people who have maybe a more traditional setup in their marriage or maybe you are like a really powerful woman that's dating a more passive guy like i'm not saying that that's wrong or that i think it's bad or it doesn't work like there's always things that work what we're talking about is what works for us and so these are our opinions these are our viewpoints and our beliefs and you don't need to defend your marriage to us if it's contrary to these we don't care we don't care what you do or how you run your marriage and so um we believe you if it works um that being said i kind of wanted to share my my kind of background and my story and then let alex kind of share his which is just i made this post basically saying that an alpha female needs an alpha male and like you know i wasn't really even paying attention like terminology or anything like that or language i was doing it i was just like this is just what i like a gut like came out of my mouth and it caused a lot of controversy because i think it it violates a lot of people's beliefs about what a marriage should look like and i think that there's a lot more nuance to it than i made in a you know 30 second videos i kind of want to extrapolate it out here with alex i i stated in a post i made that i actually used to date men guys whatever who were more passive than me and so they were actually more beta than me and i stated that it took me i want to say up until i was like 22 to realize that i was dating men like that not because i was more attracted to them and because they had the qualities i wanted a partner and all these things but because i was doing it out of fear and it's a really common thing for women to do is that you seek a man who is more passive or more beta because you seek to control them and so it's like if you can put someone in a box and someone listens to you and does what you say all the time and they don't go outside the realm of who you label them it's much easier to feel safe in a relationship and so it took me a lot of like self-reflection and really hard looks in the mirror to realize that that was why i was dating people like that and so what i was sharing is that like when i first met alex i was actually super uncomfortable in the relationship like probably the first like year year and a half because like there's no there's no containing alex in a box there's no he is who he is and he's he's changing his identity all the time and the thing is is that if you want someone who's more powerful they're going to be a bat right but it's not going to feel as secure as safe especially for women and so i put that out there because i'm like i actually just want to help women who are maybe they're frustrated with the relationships they're in they're not happy they're not understanding why they're not achieving what they want and my plea to you is that look for what you want a partner out of not fear or desperation but out of inspiration it's like what inspires you what you admire about people rather than making these decisions of who you date out of fear because you're scared about not being able to control this person and the control is all an illusion anyways because typically those men end up being resentful of those women who try to control them so it just backfires on you in the end um and i've seen that happen and i've i've experienced in relationships myself but i've just not seen it i think that if you could just consider this other viewpoint it would be more useful i think an interesting part of the discussion is also like getting into what alpha even means right i think i think as as far as we're using it we're thinking it as a placeholder for the word power and power is non-binary in that it exists on a continuum so you have you know not like powerful or not powerful but how powerful are you and i think that within trying to keep a masculine and feminine dynamic within a relationship if you have a woman that is more powerful it is our belief that having a guy who is even more powerful maintains that masculine and feminine dynamic and this is not us poo-pooing like if you have a marriage and you feel like you were the more powerful one in that marriage good for you fantastic we're happy for you you don't need to feel insecure and and defend it you know i mean but we bring this up because you know for me i had a different kind of like the flip side is my story and so for me i always i dated i dated girls that i i would say i had love for but i did not respect and i think that that ended up being a continuous issue and i honestly didn't know that another way existed and so that's why we're making the video is that like we both went for a very long time not really imagining that another dynamic existed and for me i pretty much just steamrolled every woman that i was with you know and i would talk to them after we'd be out of a relationship and they're like oh my god my life's so much better now i feel like i was just like completely being not submissive but uh stifled yeah suppressed in our relationship and i was like well that sounds terrible and it's not something i do like it's not something that i'm like actively surprising people but i think a lot of times just like if someone it you know is expansive in nature then some people will kind of shrink away etc and so for me layla was the first girl that i had a relationship where it was really built on respect first like i met her and immediately asked her to work for me and said hey even if our relationship doesn't work like i really want to work together because i respected her skill set and i respected her mind and i respected her ability to make decisions and i respected her viewpoint on the world and the values that she was ascribing and we had immediate trust within the first two weeks i gave layla all my bank accounts um and asked her to start collecting cash for my businesses for me um i'm the gold digger yeah right cube queue gold you're the gold digger she'll steal everything comments yeah yeah nice saying i have never had a relationship that was founded in respect and i think that if you want to be a quote power couple then most both people must have power right like if you want to be a power couple both people must have power now you might not want that in which case awesome do whatever you want you know what i mean but i think that in order for that to happen that would be a requisite of a power couple that both people are powerful and i think another kind of interesting one is that people always like to have people like to label things right because it makes them feel better but it doesn't make the labeling actually correct or right it just makes it easier for you to process the information and so you can think of power in terms of silos as well which is layla probably makes more decisions in our relationship than i do i just don't like the vast majority like i don't have any dog in the fight in terms of where we go to dinner like i just there's just a much smaller select handful of things that i care about and they're probably some things in your relationship that you care about more and some things that they care about more and so for us it's a natural delegation of like well she cares about all these things more than i do so why would i i don't i don't care so do whatever you want some people see that as some people could could frame that as oh alex doesn't have the power in that sure okay like whatever you want that is just me describing it as it currently is on the flip side if we have a major decision we'll both make it and if there's a decision that more falls in my camp you know what i mean then i'll make it right and i think that's by the nature of like i'm more tactical like execution based and you're more big picture big vision based and so i think like you only give a [ __ ] about the decisions that are going to affect the big you know like macro of our lives yeah you don't give a [ __ ] i'm like where do you want to go dinner and you're like i'd literally rather jump off this balcony yeah and i think that's and that's we actually run the marriage very similar to how we run the business in terms of it it functions that way which is what what what are the big moves we're gonna make what are the big rock decisions and then like i will think a long time about that and then kind of like this is what i'm thinking are you in alignment yes and if we're not in alignment then one of our one of our biggest rules that's been so useful for us is like if we both don't agree we don't move forward and that would go with anything and it's not and you know earlier on in the relationship and this is something that i learned i think i tried to if i didn't get agreement i would just overpower and i try not to do that anymore um and it's been much better yeah and i think like that's something that's a point to this which is like when we say power couple and i was saying you know alpha female alpha male it's like if alex is with a woman who is not a powerful woman or is much more submissive he and this is the same with like a team surrounding alex he will just steamroll them completely and then they say i'm suppressed and you're you know overpowering me and you're a narcissist and all this crap right so it's like you almost around anyone that's as powerful as alex you have to have a voice of your own and i see that with like the people we hire and the teams we have too like if someone's not smart hard-working and powerful on their own like they can't they won't survive around you they'll just end up quitting or or something yeah and like you know we use the words powerful mostly because like these are things that people have described us as and we're just relaying this back because we get we get probably i want to say like a third of the questions we get in general are like about our marriage dynamic and we don't talk about it much at all and it's not because we haven't done private stuff it's just that we we just we both run different schedules we do stuff on different timetables so we decided to get together to make this video but like maintaining the the masculine feminine dynamic i think another interesting point is that there's boxes for that and so if we're both in the business we're both probably in a more masculine dynamic when we're in the workspace and i'm really just treating layla as though she were coo you know because she is and so if we were not married how would that relationship look and that's pretty much how the relationship is within the business like we have conflict you know around key decisions things i usually want to go faster she tends to want to go slower i tend to be more trusting she tends to be less trusting and that's kind of getting in balance and i think that we also have as we've got grown to trust one another more and more i've actually think that we've we've polarized a little bit believe it or not because i think if layla got hit by a bus tomorrow or i got hit by a bus tomorrow we would probably come towards the middle right i would probably become a little bit more conservative a little bit less risk taking a little bit less trusting and should become a little bit more trusting more is taking etc because she'd have to compensate for the fact that i'm not there to push the envelope and so we've kind of we take those roles in those dynamics in our marriage because we just continue to increase the trust that the other person is going to represent and hang their balance right um and then ultimately make the best decisions i mean we've even said if i didn't exist layla wouldn't have started the businesses and if she didn't exist i would have i would have too many right and so it's really having that balance that allows us to you know to make the best decisions um and i think that's why this the dynamic works really well but that's the business side on the on the relational side we we kind of like we take you know like we take hats off so it's like okay hey i need to and lately even said she's like i need a husband alex right now it's like okay got it like let me like step into that for a second and then i can recalibrate i think that's taken us years to learn you know a lot of the reasons that we see like couples that come to us and they're you know working the business together and they're like i just don't know if we should because it's really hard we can't you know like it's really hard for us to transition through it it's just a muscle you have to keep flexing until you get it right and like now for us i feel like it's super easy to go from work to home it's almost like everything about us changes so like something we talk about is like if people see us like in public in our own like dynamic outside of work they'd be like what like who are these people because it's just like so different than how we act like on camera and at work because we also never want to bring our relationship stuff to work like i don't want to make people feel uncomfortable i don't want to make people feel like they can't talk to me about alex because we're married i don't want people to feel like they can't talk to alex about me because we're married and so it's like it's better to keep it professional in the workplace as much as you can when you're married because i think it just it just makes for a more comfortable environment and that's always you know typically in like a married couple that's running a business one of the main concerns they're like well how do you guys handle conflict how what's your dynamic like and like if people see dysfunction in the workplace between two married people no good talent is gonna take you seriously yeah that being said i think that having united front from it's almost like parenting you know what i mean like within the company and this is not to say that the people in the company are children that's not the point um i meant more so that having united front especially if you're married is important right and so you know if you have a cfcoo dynamic in in the relationship making sure that you kind of come to the table on the same terms is important and if we do disagree on something we'll never outwardly or say rather publicly like smash the other person if we disagree it'd be more like a direct message like hey let's you know circle back on that um and then we'll recalibrate and then we'll you know re-come in front of the the team right and so have making sure that we also both mutually respect one another publicly is important because if i disrespect leila or undermine laila on the call she'll lose respect to the team and i will too because they'll be like man that was out of line right and the same is you know true and reverse one thing that you said that i wanted to piggyback on was i think we've been able to switch back and forth between like the the business and the marriage dynamic because we've just gotten better at kind of transitioning with like the cues of reading each other's body language and understanding even like the tone of voice that we talk to one another in when we're in the marriage dynamic versus the business dynamic is different and like we usually we can almost seamlessly pick up on it now but before that we literally had to be like hey i need like or she would say like i need i need husband alex like i don't need business alex right now i'm gonna be like all right my bad sorry i mean just like you know be nicer um you know obviously this isn't for everybody like not everyone wants to work together not everyone wants to build something with their spouse like i i think just like a couple of the reasons for myself and i know alex has some too is like why all the relationships that both of us had prior to this were totally different than what we have now and so i think for us like we like talking about and sharing with people and people like hearing about i think because it's like it's it works better for us than the prior relationships and i think like the main thing that if i could like put it into words just like it's a shared reality which is like the most important things to me in life are also the most important things to alex in life and before like the people that i would date it's just like their ambitions were so small and their vision was so small that it felt like i wasn't inspired by them you know i wasn't intellectually stimulated when i was talking to them and i was like i just don't believe that because i am a more like i don't know alpha woman whatever you want to call it whatever the terminology is like i don't believe that i need to settle for a man who's more passive or more beta i believe that i could just find someone who in proportion to my alpha or what power whatever you want to call it is so much more and it was like the moment i met alex you guys have heard the video where i've talked about like the list i made of what i wanted a man i met him and i was like this is everything and it made me super uncomfortable at first but like it ends up being so much better in the long run you know because i think in those relationships where where there's not power the the other side of that is like there may be more comfort more security more ability to you know i guess feel good in the short term i think it i got bored like i got bored i felt like it was a detractor from the other things in my life we weren't walking the same path towards the same end goal it was like we were walking separate paths holding hands tugging each other back and forth and that was just something i didn't want to do for the rest of my life i wanted to be with somebody who i felt like we inspired each other we poured into each other and we helped each other achieve what we wanted in life and so that was that's my reason for it at least yeah i have um and i'll throw my two cents in there so i was actually engaged at one point uh before i met layla and i would say that that relationship they had big vision but it was a different vision for what they wanted their life to look like and it was constantly a source of conflict because i was like i'm doing this like this is like i i'm not going to sacrifice what i want and i'm not going to like you know i was i was in my 20 i was like i'm in my 20s like i'm not compromising my goals and nor should she have you know what i mean and i think that that ended up basically them sacrificing was you know the short-term solution which was not a solution and then obviously we decided to part ways and it was for that reason and so i think that it's not only having someone who has ambition but has an ambition that is the same as yours right and your ambition might be to have the most amazing [ __ ] family on planet earth awesome so this isn't just like a business thing this is just aligned mission aligned values where do we want to go how do we want to get there and so for us it was so for me it was so rare to find a girl that wanted to do what i wanted to do and wanted to get there the same way honestly once i saw those two things i was like we'll figure out everything else on the way and that's kind of how we you know that's kind of how we did it well it's the same as you know hiring people and like finding people for your team like if you want to attract really great talent like you want them to be on board with the same mission the same vision you have you have to have a vision that's so big and encompassing that they can fit theirs within it and it's almost the same when you find a partner it's like do we fit in each other's vision and so it's like that vision could be a family that vision could be starting a charity together that vision could be so many things but it's just like do we fit each other's vision i think that was really obvious when we first met like we had all the same interests we had the same values and we saw the world the same way and we were both like let's do this and do it together yeah i mean and this is me just talking to the guys at least like most of my audience yeah right excluding the 4.9 percent of my audience that's female so talking to the guys like it's a different dynamic um because it's far more common to find especially if you are more alpha guy and most entrepreneurs tend to be a little bit more assertive a little bit more dominant by by nature because you're more risk-taking because you're in business right it's really easy to find women who just like fall in line right it's just it's very easy to do that there's a line of them and there's and hey if that's what you want there's nothing wrong with it that's like there's nothing wrong with whatever you want but if you continue to have those relationships and feel like something is missing then this is why we're making this video is that maybe there is something else that's out there and so for me i just saw that layla was was just made of steel and i knew that where i wanted to go and where i wanted to go in my life was going to be rarefied air and i knew that i was not going to stop trying even if i never got there i would knew i was not going to stop trying and i wanted someone who could hang with me i think that in some of the high pressure situations that layla and i have been in i think many of the people that i had had in my past would have crumbled or would have been doing the opposite which is just like trying to get me on the sidelines this is trying to get me to quit trying to say hey you know maybe you should take it easy maybe maybe you shouldn't work so much maybe you should x y and z you know we should do this instead and and um rather than you know when you get knocked down someone's like is standing on the side of the ring being like get the [ __ ] back up let's go and that's what i wanted you know what i mean and i didn't know that i just we stumbled into this and layla had this you know layla won like 100 dates and with like her big list and would just like look at the guy be like no you're not the list and then like move a song i i did not have that you know what i mean so i i kind of lucked into it because layla was probably like my 20th date uh on like apps and i was like okay cool done this is great um so i didn't expect that but now that i now that i have this experience and we get questions about it all the time which is why we're making the video it just works really well um and i can say that me observing our relationship from the outside is like we're just partners like through and through with everything just all the way and that kind of ride or die mentality permeates through every aspect and it's bait it's a foundation of respect and i think what's interesting about this because i was talking to trevor one of our good friends is that if you if you're if your relationship makes rational sense on paper right if it makes sense on paper in terms of what you want to do and who you're looking for when the moments that your emotions fade because that does happen at times in season life gets hard etc you have your rational reasons for staying together when the entire relationship is founded on emotions then when the emotions fade and wane which all emotions do in time they wax and they lean then what are you left with not a lot and that's why i think so many people break up right and so that rational foundation that foundation of respect and loyalty and shared mission and shared values is the bedrock upon which we build the emotional side of the relationship which comes and goes like any relationship you don't mean like there's waxing and waiting and i would say that what has happened is if you have the ups and downs the midline of the ups and downs continues to rise over time as we get better at relationshiping with one another yeah and something i just wanted to say to like i saw a lot of comments on you know the post that i made and and you kind of mentioned it is like you know the the difference in the women that you dated but i think that a lot of men think like oh well you know in this relationship like what if i want a woman who like cooks and cleans and like does i do all of that so like obviously i pay people to do some of the stuff but like make one like something i've never stopped doing is like i make alex's lunch every day and like i'm never gonna stop doing that because like i like feeling feminine not at work but in home and so like i've learned to do both it's like i like to have that balance of that masculine feminine energy i maintain that and i think that that's something that we've done really well with but i think it's a common misconception is like okay well if i'm this career-oriented ambitious woman i'm not going to want to do anything nice for my man i'm like no that's not at all like i'm still going to put his way his laundry i'm going to bring him water bring him snacks make him food cook for him like do nice things for him you know because that's what i want in my marriage and just because you know you work with somebody what you see when they're working together it's not always what's going on behind closed doors yeah we have like honestly we have a wildly different personal relationship than we do kind of public relationship like it's much more it's much more like cutesy and like whimsical and fun and light i mean and for me like i have to i have to ratchet down my aggression levels like a lot when i like i had to learn that because like i can be very harsh and very cold and very cutting and so i had to like learn how to just like tone it way down and then kind of like i had to learn how to just be nicer and be kinder and it's it's it's done wonders for me i think all set like my personal life with layla has helped me be a better leader in the business because it used to be all fire and brimstone and it's taken a decade you know what i mean of managing people and working to not have to be that way and that's me reeling in um and kind of finding more balance yeah and i think on the on the other side of that working with alex has helped me find more fire and brimstone and so if you look at like the evolution of us and you watch like old videos or interviews and things like that i think you could probably see how we were more of those and we've now learned from each other and i think that's something that i like is that i can learn from alex and he inspires me in so many ways i've just never had that before yeah it's kind of interesting because i was thinking about it so it's like on on one side i think we represent different decision polls and we are more comfortable in being more polar because the other person exists to balance us but when it comes to interpersonal like traits and whatnot uh i think that people grow you know like we've grown we've grown closer together in that and in being more similar in that way which i think is actually kind of nice for business because then we became we become more unified and people can kind of deal with us similarly yeah yeah so i think that was it any other trigger-worthy stuff that we had in our comments anything we can possibly i'm sure now people are gonna say oh that's codependency because you know if you guys each have these you know conflicting traits you're not one whole person i'm like i just don't actually don't believe at all i think when we both met we were completely whole people and it's just that you know like when you bring on you say you're running a team and you know you're doing everything in the beginning and then you bring on someone who they're amazing at sales am i going to keep doing sales just because that'll make me a more like well-versed leader no i'm going to let that person do sales because that's all they do and they're better at it so i think it's also the same with you know if you want to build something together you know they're it's okay to rely on each other for a certain thing and i think that like a lot of stuff nowadays with like the word codependency and all that going out there i think it's kind of fufu [ __ ] because like yes you don't want to rely on someone to the point that like if they don't do something for you you're incapable of doing it themselves but if you choose to let them decide if you choose to let them do something i think that that's really helpful i mean we're co-dependent on other humans to live so like you know what i mean like who makes your food who's the one who's doing the farming and hunting for us so that we can like you know i mean understanding the point of delegating you know different different decision silos is part of having a relationship where you can both accomplish more like if we both are doing all the same things then one of us isn't required and so we can just double the ground that we can cover if we delineate roles which we do inside the marriage as well as we do inside the business and they're different you know within each of those dynamics it's one of the things you're responsible for what are things i'm responsible for you know and we and we roll accordingly yep yeah so you know at the end of the day i just wanted a woman that like if i hit her she would hit me back and that was uh [ __ ] seems like a really good place to uh to stop to end this in this video domestic violence yeah nation love you guys uh and uh yeah we'll see you next time bye