Why PRETENDING to be RICH will make you POOR..
Summary
- Don't "fake it till you make it"; it can compromise your self-respect and integrity.
- Having conviction in what you sell starts with being honest with yourself.
- Entrepreneurship is a personal development journey; your businesses reflect your internal growth.
- Live frugally and invest wisely; wealth is about having more in the bank, not showing it off with expensive items.
- Align your actions with your values, not what you think the world expects of you.
- Work through self-doubt by improving skills and gaining confidence through experience.
- Honesty resonates with people and helps build loyal relationships with customers and employees.
- Don't purchase expensive items you can't comfortably afford; wealth is a ratio, not just a number.
- Build your personal and public persona based on genuine achievements, not pretense.
- Telling the truth about your journey, including failures, gains respect and trust from others.
- Remember that wealth is achievable for most by living below their means and saving diligently.
Video
How To Take Action
A good way to start growing your business with honesty is to live by this simple truth: wealth is built not by how much you earn, but by how much you save. You can do this by creating a budget where you spend less than what you earn. This could mean living in a more modest home or skipping on expensive luxury items, even if you can afford them once. Remember, real wealth is having money in the bank and investing it wisely, not just showing it off.
When you face self-doubt, double down on improving your skills instead of pretending to be something you're not. The better you get at your craft, the more confident you become and the less you'll feel like an impostor. This is how you build genuine confidence and why telling the truth about where you are in your journey helps you gain more respect and trust from others.
Also, make sure your actions reflect your true values. Don't buy things just to impress others. Align everything you do with what you believe in. If you start feeling pressured to look more successful than you are, remember that honesty resonates with people. By being real about your achievements and your failures, you will build stronger and more loyal relationships with customers and employees.
Lastly, don't get caught up in the numbers game. Wealth is not just a number but a ratio. Live below your means and save consistently. If there's a purchase that would stretch your finances, think twice before making it. If you can't buy it twice comfortably, then you probably shouldn't buy it at all.
Stay true to yourself, stay disciplined with your finances, and keep improving your skills every day. This is how you build a strong foundation for both your business and personal growth.
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"You must outwork your self doubt"
– Alex Hormozi
"Honesty is one of the most compelling and convicting things for persuading people"
– Alex Hormozi
"Wealth is a ratio, not a number"
– Alex Hormozi
"You want to be rich, not look rich"
– Alex Hormozi
"The hardest person's respect to earn is your own"
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
hi alex i have a business mentor who is telling me that i should fake it until i make it it sounds contrary to what you say on your youtube channel and i don't know who to trust and so i wanted to hear your explanation for why you don't believe in that concept what's up everybody mozy nation rocking and rolling my name is alex muzzy if you're new to the channel um and we have a portfolio of companies that does about 85 million dollars a year all right i make this channel because a lot of people are broke and i don't want you to be one of them so welcome to mozzie nation all right so to hit on this question right should i fake it till i make it um this is something that is really close to home for me uh because i uh it drives me absolutely bonkers and so i'll tell you a quick story um and then and we can go from there to illustrate the point so uh this is probably five years ago maybe six years ago somewhere in there um i was showing up to our first event of our licensees all right so we only had 28 licenses at the time and this is the first event all right and as a side note if you're curious why i have a mustache this story will explain it to you so i was so nervous the night before that i for for the two-day event that we were going to have to provide value and all that kind of stuff um that i had this big beard and so i shaved it off and i was doing you know wolverine then mutton chops then gunslinger and then all the way i had i left down to a porn stash and i look outside the bathroom and i look at layla i was like hey baby um and she cracked up and she was like please don't do that i looked back in the mirror and i cracked up and i was like you know what i'm doing it i'm rocking the stash because i was so nervous and so stressed about this day tomorrow that i wanted to give myself a reason to not just not take myself so seriously right because i was like you know what worst case scenario i'm gonna die and no one's gonna remember who i am anyways so anyways i show up the next day and i pull up right as we're pulling up to the hotel which is where the event is right and uh we're pulling up in a prius that has a dent in the side and a crack in the windshield and one of licensees comes up to me and uh and she says and as she's walking at the same time and sees that so she stops and walks over and um she says hey uh i thought you were supposed to be rich and you can imagine the terror right because this is the you know impostor syndrome that i'm dealing with the night before right now mind you at this point i already had six gyms we sold them and then i'd already done 30 plus turnarounds right so like i was very good at the thing that we're talking about right but i still have this i still remember the the shock but what i said next is the reason that i have always been transparent with my numbers when we do well when we not do well in terms of how we do our lifestyle et cetera all right and so at the time i was a cash millionaire so a million dollars in my bank account right and i hadn't even started investing stuff yet so side note i think making sure you have the right sequence is important but a million dollars saved up in my bank account after taxes at this moment and when she said this i just remember thinking i was like oh my god am i a fraud and then the reality of my situation not the fakeness of my situation was what came forth to hold me strong in that moment and i said you should see my bank account not my car and i was like i'm all i was like you want to be rich not not look rich right she was like yeah and i was like well that's what i'm here to show you how to do and then the rest the event was awesome and then all the people two weeks later all the dudes had stashes without me saying anything so i think they liked it and then that is what gave birth to the stash which you know has still still been pervasive in many of the marketing things that we've done all right but here's the reason that i'm i'm i'm actually against the fake it so you make it the first is that you in the mirror at night know that you're a fraud i mean and that's the biggest thing at the end of the day if you've heard anything that i've ever talked about is that you have to have conviction in what you sell right and the the thing at the very most that you are selling is you are selling yourself to yourself and if you are lying to everyone else about how successful you are then you're trying you're you're cheating you're you're you're deceiving yourself and that kind of integrity is very hard to recapture because the hardest person's respect to earn is your own in my opinion right once you have your own respect everyone else's respect comes pretty easily because they know that you respect you and so i know this is deep stuff but like at the end of the day like entrepreneurship is is a journey of beliefs right it's a journey about building your character and about acquiring skills and the businesses are only a reflection or a manifestation of the internal changes that we've had or experienced as entrepreneurs which is why i think entrepreneurship is the single greatest personal development path you can possibly go on here's some other reasons why i think this is stupid and mind you at the time when i had a million dollars my bank account laila and i were living together on twelve hundred dollars a month of rent and about four hundred dollars ish a month in food so 100 bucks a week in food 1200 a month in rent and that's what we were living on and we were taking home at the time three or four hundred thousand a month all right so just for context i'm just and i i've never had a really expensive watch the only really expensive thing that i've purchased uh that was a waste was a bentley which i actually already sold and gave it away i'm sure i could come up with some sexy youtube headline for that but we just gave it back because i didn't need it and i didn't want it it felt like a waste and it felt contrary to who i am and what i believe it right at the end of the day if you decide what your values are first and you live your life in accordance with those values rather than what you think the world wants you to do then you will be able to stand steadfast and strong in the face of adversity with full knowledge of who you are and i think that the strength of that cannot be understated i've said this quote many times in our communities and on this channel which is you must outwork yourself doubt right if you feel like you are not confident then you must outwork the things that you were insecure about if you're like man i'm selling these services and i don't show i'm not sure if i'm not good at them then do more of them and don't pretend honesty is one of the most compelling and convicting things for persuading people right saying what you are good at and what you are not good at truthfully will win you far more followers and fans and and loyal customers and loyal employees than pretending because the end of the day they can feel that you are disingenuous because they know that is hollow they know that the inside you do not believe the words that are coming out of your mouth and that is how people speak without conviction and they cannot sway others because they have not swayed themselves because they have lost their own respect and so i am not the believer in buying the ferrari when you can't afford it i am not the believer in in affording the home and paying for the home that you cannot afford because you want to pretend like this is the lifestyle that you want to be around if you go under the guise of networking you can still go to those places without buying a four million dollar house when you you're barely making you know a few hundred thousand dollars a year it doesn't make sense i like jay-z's quote around this which is if you can't buy something twice don't buy it once i really like that and so this is one of the most common questions i get for newer entrepreneurs because they think that they have to they have to they have to pose on instagram in order to get to get wealthy and what it does is it conflates sequence jeff bezos is famous because of what he did not because he became famous as jeff bezos and then used his following to build something elon musk is famous for what he's accomplished not for being elon musk and then creating something as a result right let the actions be the thing that gives you the fame rather than yourself right at least that is that is alex's two cents in my viewpoint on the world and i think most of those mozi nation you guys uh share that belief with me and for those of you who are new to this channel um you're gonna get more of this type of stuff uh and none of the fake it till you make it nonsense that is a sure way to be broke and i will tell you this as a last thing the amount of people who in 2008 when everything crashed who were faking it until they quote made it just faked it until they lost it all because they lost what little amount that they had because they were so overextended but i can tell you that just about everyone can become wealthy if you choose to live on lower on less than you make right and that is a ratio wealth is a ratio not a number all right and so anywho uh if you are having struggles with this question i would posit i would i would beg of you that you build your own respect first that you're honest with yourself first and if you always maintain the integrity of hey last year we we got smashed right this year we'll do a little bit better and two years from now when you do even better than that you can be truthful and people will believe you but if you always are telling a story about how you're always doing so well a everyone will hate you b no one cares and c you will know that you are full of it and at the end of the day i think that is the only thing that we're going to keep with us and when we die everyone's going to forget about us anyways so you might as well at least enjoy yourself while you're alive so anyways keep being awesome mosey nation if you enjoyed this subscribe if you did lots of love either way keeping awesome i'll catch you next videos bye
