2:14:57Jack Neel · Interview
I Made $2M With One Video
How a 20-year-old's single 7.9-million-view Instagram reel turned into a $700K/month agency — and the research system behind it.
July 22nd 2025The argument in one line.
The fastest way to $100K is not a scalable business but a one-person arbitrage: find a local business with an offer that works, go get its customers, keep the cash, and let the business deliver.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You have zero capital, no audience, and no connections, and you want a concrete first dollar rather than another mindset lecture.
- You run a service business and keep stalling on setup tasks like forming an LLC instead of finding someone to pay you.
- You already have a small audience or platform and are leaving money on the table by not selling your own offer on it.
- You want to understand how a top operator thinks about AI as leverage, data as a moat, and decision-making as the thing no machine can replace yet.
- You are wrestling with the tension between keeping your options open and actually committing to one path.
SKIP IF…
- You are looking for a passive or fully scalable business model — the $100K playbook here is deliberately unscalable and labor-heavy in the short term.
- You want tactical step-by-step software walkthroughs; this is strategy and mental models, not screen-share tutorials.
- You are uncomfortable with blunt, free-market, no-excuses framing — the tone is direct and occasionally crude.
The full version, fast.
Hormozi argues making your first $100K is a different game than building a scalable company: instead of maximizing efficiency, you maximize cash from each customer by doing unscalable things. His proven move is an affiliate arbitrage — approach a local business, agree to bring it customers for a cut of the sale while it delivers and keeps the customer for life, then run cheap phone-shot ads to a landing page and call the leads yourself. Around that core he stacks principles: AI gives leverage but a human still has to take the risk and make the call, proprietary data is the only durable moat, most businesses fail because the founder quits or never starts, and growing up means trading options away by committing to one path.
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Create a free account →Who's talking.
00:00hostJack Neel
00:00guestAlex Hormozi
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 05:45
01 · Becoming a dad
Hormozi on nature vs. nurture, teaching by modeling, and naming courage as the one trait he most wants his child to have.
05:45 – 07:45
02 · What to teach a child
Defining a successful parent vs. a successful child, and why he'd rather raise a useful kid than a merely happy one.
07:45 – 10:25
03 · Why money feels harder in 2026
Barriers to entry have collapsed, which democratized access but made the game more fierce — the fundamentals (supply, demand, scarcity) are unchanged.
10:25 – 13:40
04 · The world in 10 years
Ask what stays the same, not what changes: humans still want stakes, reality, story, and narrative even as AI floods supply.
13:40 – 17:30
05 · Why AI can't replicate reality
Stakes and proof are the human moat; education on high-stakes topics still needs a credible human behind it.
17:30 – 21:40
06 · Zero to $100K in a month
The core playbook: affiliate arbitrage for a local business with a proven offer, phone-shot ads, a landing page, and calling your own leads.
21:40 – 27:25
07 · The easiest offer right now
Pick B2B or B2C, sell a free AI audit that saves a business money for a cut of the savings, and stop waiting for the perfect business to pick.
27:25 – 28:40
08 · Ad break
Jack runs a meta sponsor read — 'an ad about an ad' — pitching his own audience to advertisers via jackneel.com/sponsor.
28:40 – 31:35
09 · Why data businesses win
AI needs a data layer; documenting processes and recording interactions turns a business into proprietary training data.
31:35 – 35:17
10 · Why most businesses fail
They don't — the founder quits, and most never start; a service business can always collapse back to one person doing the work.
35:17 – 37:00
11 · The book launch nobody talks about
He added 70,000 Skool communities in a weekend by giving everything away and routing readers to a 90-day free trial.
37:00 – 39:59
12 · Breaking TikTok Shop
Doing $350K/week in book sales exposed a refund-payout glitch; he quit because protecting his reputation for paying debts mattered more.
39:59 – 48:26
13 · The downside of becoming a billionaire
The bar-raising pattern that builds wealth can manufacture chronic dissatisfaction; on meeting heroes and living in reality vs. a dream world.
48:26 – 50:20
14 · Happiest vs. proudest moments
He rejects the premise; it all hinges on how you define a successful parent and a successful child.
50:20 – 57:40
15 · Shame, guilt, and innovation
Guilt is breaking your own rules, shame is breaking others'; shame polices social behavior but kills innovation, where you must tolerate disagreement.
57:40 – 1:00:40
16 · What he added and deleted
Fully incorporated AI into content, tripling output at the same headcount; deletion is really automation of tasks he used to do himself.
1:00:40 – 1:07:28
17 · How AI changed hiring
AI proficiency is now a baseline tool like email or Excel; a human still has to take the risk and make the call.
1:07:28 – 1:15:27
18 · What can't be optimized
Training is the one thing he keeps undocumented for pure presence; daily inconveniences remain and he reframes them as gifts of time.
1:15:27 – 1:20:36
19 · Respect, love, and partnership
Respect is letting someone keep their function; support is minimizing someone's likelihood of failure; a marriage is two guardrails and one shared outcome.
1:20:36 – 1:27:38
20 · Why money is not real
Money is just a unit of measurement for value; the whole truth, told six layers down, is the rarest and most compelling marketing.
1:27:38 – 1:38:59
21 · A message to 85-year-old Alex
Goals only matter if they change your day-to-day; growing up is making commitments — trading options away — because you can't have it all.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- The fastest path to $100K is the opposite of the path to $10M — early on you maximize cash per customer, not scalability.
- Hormozi made $100K in 30 days after losing everything by becoming a one-person affiliate for a local gym's weight-loss offer.
- The whole $100K model is seven steps: a proven offer, phone-shot ads, a landing page, a lead sheet, calling leads, presenting the offer, taking the cash while the business delivers.
- A no-skill AI offer that works today: audit a business for free, find $100K in savings, and take 20-33% of the savings you prove.
- Most businesses don't fail — the founder quits, and most founders never actually start because messing around on a computer feels like work.
- A service business can almost never truly die because you can always collapse it back down to one person doing the thing for money.
- Courage is the gateway trait: without it every other skill is neutered because you're too afraid to act.
- No AI gives you more leverage than a single good decision, and old men who don't use AI still out-earn kids who do.
- You can't have AI without a data layer first, so documenting your processes is how you turn your business into proprietary training data.
- Find opportunity in supply-demand mismatches: aging-population plays like med spas and senior insurance have more demand than supply.
- 99% of money is made copying businesses that already exist; truly novel inventions are the expensive, capital-raising exception.
- Hormozi sold $350K of books a week through TikTok Shop and stopped because a payout glitch threatened his reputation for paying debts.
- Shame is breaking other people's rules; guilt is breaking your own — useful socially, but deadly in the world of innovation.
- The rarest thing in marketing is the whole truth told six layers down, and it is the most compelling message you can run.
- Options are like money: they only have value when spent, so dying with a giant stack of unused options means you wasted your life.
The first $100K is an arbitrage, not a startup
WHAT TO LEARN
Your first six figures comes from doing unscalable things to maximize cash per customer, not from chasing the efficient, scalable business you'll build later.
- Separate the goal: the moves that get you to $100K are different from the moves that get you to $10M, so stop optimizing for scale before you have any cash.
- Run the affiliate arbitrage: find a local business with an offer you know converts, agree to bring it customers for a cut, and let it deliver while you keep the cash.
- Execute the seven steps literally — proven offer, phone-shot ad, landing page, lead sheet, call the leads, present the offer, take the money — and accept that it requires working like a maniac.
- Sell a free-to-start AI audit if you have no offer: promise a business at least $100K in savings and take 20-33% of what you actually prove you saved.
- Stop waiting to pick the perfect business; your first business is a stepping stone, and the skills you learn transfer to a far better bet later.
- Treat courage as the prerequisite skill, because most people fail before they start by mistaking research and setup tasks for real work.
- Use AI as leverage but never outsource the decision or the risk — a single good call still beats any model, and a human has to be accountable.
- Build a data layer by documenting your processes and recording your interactions, since proprietary data is the only durable moat in an AI economy.
- Hunt for supply-demand mismatches in aging or boring markets — senior insurance, med spas, laundromats — instead of trying to invent something net-new.
- Tell the whole truth six layers down in your marketing, because the unflinching version of your story is the rarest and most compelling offer you can make.
- Commit by spending your options the way you'd spend money, because keeping every door open forever leaves you with the one outcome nobody wants: nothing.
Terms worth knowing.
- Affiliate arbitrage offer
- Acting as a one-person sales arm for an existing business: you find and close its customers, keep a percentage of each sale, and the business delivers the service and keeps the customer long-term.
- Optimize vs. maximize
- Hormozi's distinction: optimizing means getting the most output for the least input, while maximizing means extracting as much as possible regardless of efficiency. Early-stage businesses should maximize cash per customer.
- Data layer
- The documented inputs, outputs, and step-by-step processes of a business. It exists before any AI can be useful because models need proprietary data to produce an edge over off-the-shelf tools.
- Supply-demand mismatch
- A market where far more people want something than there are providers of it. Hormozi uses it to spot opportunities like med spas or senior insurance that are underserved relative to demand.
- Focus is subtraction
- The idea that focus comes from eliminating everything that isn't the core money-making activity, since commitment is the elimination of alternatives.
- Shame vs. guilt
- Guilt is the feeling of breaking your own rules; shame is the feeling of breaking other people's rules. Knowing which one you feel reveals whose rulebook you're living by.
Things they pointed at.
35:17book$100M Money Models (Alex Hormozi's book)
37:00productTikTok Shop
33:00toolLegalZoom
1:07:50bookArthur Brooks (two mountains / fluid vs. crystallized intelligence)
Lines you could clip.
00:16
“Courage is kind of the gateway trait to all other traits. If you have no courage, the other traits become neutered because you can't do anything with them.”
07:45
“The game's the same, just more fierce. The fundamentals are still the same — supply and demand, scarcity. It's just the variables around them that change.”
17:30
“The fastest way to get to $100K is not the fastest way to get to a million or ten million. That's the big misconception with the question.”
18:00
“When I lost everything, I made $100K the first month after — I went to a local business, sold their offer, kept the cash, and they delivered.”
22:20
“You've got two feet and two hands — you can knock on a door. You've got two thumbs — you can text people. There's a hundred ways. Just gotta let people know you exist.”
24:40
“Learn how to do stuff, and then do it for somebody else who doesn't want to learn how to do stuff. That's it.”
33:00
“The vast majority of business owners fail before they start, because they never start to begin with.”
1:01:40
“No AI will give you more leverage than making a good decision. A decision can still have more leverage than AI.”
1:20:50
“You don't make money — you earn money by giving value. Money is just how we balance accounts.”
1:28:20
“Options are like money: the only time they have value is when they're spent. The part of growing up is making commitments — eliminating alternatives.”
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 07:45denseParenting, courage, and defining success
07:45 – 17:30denseThe 2026 economy and the future of work
17:30 – 27:25denseThe zero-to-$100K playbook and easiest offers
28:40 – 39:59denseData, AI leverage, and why businesses fail
39:59 – 57:40steadyWealth, dissatisfaction, and reality
57:40 – 1:07:28steadyAI in hiring and content operations
1:15:27 – 1:20:36steadyRelationships, respect, and partnership
1:20:36 – 1:27:38denseMoney as measurement and the whole-truth principle
1:27:38 – 1:38:59denseCommitment, trade-offs, and legacy
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00:01So you're gonna be a dad? I'm going to be a father, hopefully. Everything works out.
00:05Yeah. Tell me about it. To be honest, haven't really given it a tremendous amount of thought.
00:13I kind of deal with things as they enter my queue. Leila is the one who gets she her life is changing significantly more than mine is in the short term.
00:22Think once the baby comes, I'll I'll adjust when it comes.
00:29Yeah. I mean, new information, new priorities. I I I'm really not that worried about it.
00:36I mean, I think big picture, there's been what, 100,000,000,000 humans? 85% of humans have a child by the time they're 45 or after 40 whatever.
00:47By by the time they've finished their ability to have children, it's like eighty five percent. So it's not something that's like really that rare of a thing. And so I think I'll deal with it the best I can.
00:59And you know, my dad gave me a pretty good example of what being present looks like and so I'll take as much as I can from that.
01:08You're kind of known as the guy who optimizes everything.
01:12I would say maximizes. Maximizes. Optimizes get the most for the least.
01:17Maximizes get as much as they possibly can. With a kid, what are the inputs
01:23you can actually control as a dad? And what's the output or outputs that you've already accepted is out of your hands?
01:34Well, I think the question is a nature nurture question, which is, okay, you know, how much of it is going to be genetic? And I don't know.
01:40I think most of science is fifty fifty, half genetic, half is, you know, your upbringing, etcetera. So then we get into the question to how does a child learn and how does behavior get shaped, which, you know, the primary ways are gonna be modeling, like me doing something and getting good outcomes in front of the child.
01:55And the second would be teaching the child directly, which I would say is through demonstration role playing, practicing, training, repetitions. And that can be from like, say please, say thank you, all the way to learning more complex skills, you know, over time.
02:10I mean, I like teaching. And so I look forward to teaching the child the things that I know and what it will teach me about things that I don't know.
02:21I guess in a different way, like how do you decide, like these are the things I'm going to teach, these are the things that are unimportant, like what's a framework for thinking about that?
02:36Because you always talk about like, well this is what I would do, or like this is what I would do in my own life.
02:44So like when you have a child, it kind of creates this different dynamic when you're You have responsibilities in some way, but you also want to allow a kid to have freedom, you know?
02:56I think a lot of people derive you to, you know, purpose from utility, and so I would want the child of as many skills as possible so that it could navigate the most diverse number of conditions it's exposed to. So there's a lot of I mean, life presents a lot of different variables.
03:11And so it's like if I can prepare it for those variables, so it makes choices that are aligned with getting what it would want, then I see that as a w. I mean, I think the the hard part like there's two things that I've I would say that I've I've struggled more with defining, which is one is what is the is the measure of parenting?
03:31How do you know if a parent is good? And so I'll give an example of both extremes. So it's like there's many stories of entrepreneurs and others who had terrible upbringings and then succeeded.
03:42And so do we say that those parents were good if it created the outcome that was good if we judge it by its outputs? Kind of interesting. Like, would Michael Jackson have become Michael Jackson if he didn't have that upbringing?
03:54I don't know. I don't if he knows. I don't know we can ever know.
03:57And so I think that's an interesting one. And the other is what we define as a successful child.
04:05I would say that modern society defines success mostly as happiness. They like to do what makes you happy. I just want my kid to be happy, things like that.
04:16I'm not sure if I'm a 100% sold on that because I think that when you have somebody who tries to optimize or maximize happiness, it's a very selfish worldview.
04:26And I think that when it's one of those things that if you seek it, you never find it. It only happens as a consequence of other things you do. At least that's been my experience.
04:34And so, I mean, I've I've talked, you know, plenty of times about this, but like I I have gotten more fulfillment out of being useful than I have out of trying to be happy.
04:43And I and having it happen as a consequence of like helping other people has helped me more than me trying to help myself. And so I think you know, a lot of things we gain by giving up. It's like in a lot of religious texts, it's like you gain your , giving it away.
05:02And I think those are like those two questions, how do we define a successful parent and how do we define a successful child, I think are the hardest things to define.
05:13Because once you define those, then the rest of the actions are fairly straightforward. And I think that getting alignment on that is probably the hard part. And again, it's like, can you have a parent that has an unsuccessful child that did everything perfectly as a parent?
05:24I don't know. We don't have any perfect And so the I would say what I have settled on is I will do the best I can with the resources that I have available to me to equip the child with as many skills, life skills as I possibly can so that it can succeed in the most diverse set of environments.
05:48What's the one skill you hope your kid has before they turn 18? Courage.
05:56I mean, I think it's kind of the the the the gateway trait to all other traits.
06:08And also, if you have no courage, the other traits become neutered because you can't do anything with them because you're too afraid. And so I think teaching the child to act and do the right thing or act in accordance with its values despite short term consequences that could be aversive or bad or painful would be what I think would be the hallmark thing of I mean, it's very hard to look at somebody who is courageous and not like, I see that as a pinnacle trait.
06:41I would be proud of a child if they always did what they believed was right in each circumstances despite what other people thought, despite their short term consequences.
06:52And I think that that core trait is something that generalizes to basically every domain, like how do you learn something? You have to have courage.
07:00You have to be okay with failing. You have to be okay with being wrong. You have to be okay with being made fun of.
07:06All of those things are come from courage. And so I think that's probably why I would put it at the core. Is Leila excited?
07:13Yeah. Of course. Leila's thrilled.
07:15Leila's I'm I'm very happy and excited and I would say Leila's even more happy and excited. And I think part of that is because she has an actual human inside of her and I do not.
07:25And so I think she she thinks about it more often than I do because it reminds her that it exists. Whereas I, you know, just like you have your phone buzzing in your pocket, don't have something kicking your stomach.
07:36And so like it I'm I'm very always I'm very aware of my phone existing. I'm less aware of the, you know, the baby existing. And so I think that's just partially just the logistics of it.
07:46No. She's stoked though.
07:48Now, the world your child will be born into is very different than the one you grew up in. The value of college degrees has changed, jobs are being eaten by AI, and young people are lonelier than ever.
08:05Mechanically speaking, what's changed in the system that makes it challenging in a different way for young people to make money today?
08:18Well, today versus when my child is an adult, I would say we're are different situations.
08:24I would say for today, it's never been easier to make money because we have these tools that are giving tremendous leverage to people who have work ethic and skill.
08:34And so barriers to entry are getting completely flattened, which is amazing. It's democratized access, but what it's really done is also just made it more competitive. And so one of my favorite lines in the wire is Cuddy, who's was a hitman, comes out of, you know, prison after fifteen or twenty years.
08:48He's an older guy, doesn't know what to do, goes back into the game. He then is told to, like, go do a hit with some other guy, and it goes, you know, the wrong way or or and they're sitting in the back of the car, and he says, man, he's like, the game's changed.
09:03And Slim Charles looks at him and says, no, man. He's like, the game hasn't changed. Game's the same, just more fierce.
09:09And so I see that in a lot of ways, just the way that the economy, the way that business, the market has hasn't changed. The fundamentals are still gonna be the same.
09:17It's supply and demand. Scarcity is still gonna drive behavior. It's just that the variables around the core fundamentals will change.
09:25And so that's why I think like adaptability is a core thing to learn, which I just see that as like being able to change behavior quickly when new conditions arise. And so today, a lot of money can be made digitally without nearly the amount of labor as before and you can run it a lot more efficiently, which I think just there are more people entering entrepreneurship than ever before, which I see as largely a good thing because the most efficient organizations are single single person run.
09:51Like, you just think like, there's so much waste in large organizations because of coordination of people. And so, you know, like a perfect world of efficiency would be that every single person has a business that requires someone else, that everyone have their own freedom, everyone, you know, delivers, you know, valuable services to other people.
10:06That's awesome. I think there's a world of more and more of that that will happen. In a world where, you know, humans have no no inherent value from a quote utility perspective that a robot, you know, cannot do, I think that we'll do what we've always done.
10:23Like, we'll figure out something else.
10:25You said eighteen years from now, it'll be radically different. Mhmm.
10:30If you had to guess, like, oh, I What might that look like? I have no idea. I think my guess is is it would be the same as me making up a reality.
10:38And I don't think I don't think there's too many variables. I mean, let alone like it's like trying to predict like what stocks can go up tomorrow.
10:44There's so many things that are that can happen between now and then.
10:50And there's also some things that I don't think are necessarily going to change. Like, for example, like, what are it's I think basis is a question which I like thinking a lot about, which is rather than saying, like, what is going to change? I think it's it's more valuable for someone today to ask what is going stay the same.
11:03And so I think that humans will still fall in love. I think that humans will still value stakes. To give you a simple example, like if MrBeast makes a video and he's, you know, puts $5,000,000 in the middle of an island and invites 10 influencers to go compete for it, Those influencers can't be AI influencers.
11:22They can't be fake. And if that $5,000,000 isn't actually $5,000,000 and you just have cartoons competing for fake money, I don't think anyone cares.
11:31And there's also some things that people want to see humans do. So like we have cranes, we still want to watch who can lift the most weight. We still have you know, robo chess that can beat any chess player on earth and chess has never been more popular.
11:43And so we will still be attracted to human things, drama, story, narrative stakes, things like that, that I think that humans want to see how humans are reacting to those things. So I don't think that's going to change.
11:53I think humans are going eat. I think they're going to sleep. They're going to to you're going have shelter.
11:57All of these things I think will will remain relatively unchanged.
12:02Will there also be AI entertainment? Absolutely. Will there be our first Star Wars epic?
12:07I mean, we're seeing it. I think you've probably been attuned to this, have been three big box office hits that are like 100,000,000 plus movies that have come out from just like YouTubers. And that necessarily isn't all AI, but it will be.
12:20Like, these tiny tiny teams being able to generate huge blockbuster, quite literally, outcomes. And so it's like, again, it's just gonna have I think Nabal said this, but it was technology democratizes consumption and consolidates production.
12:35So if you get for the best in the world, you get to do it for everyone. And so AI will will YouTubeify a lot of things.
12:46So what I mean by that is when mobile phones had videos, video making used to be a luxury thing.
12:53And then everyone was able to make a video. And then YouTube gave everyone a platform to post those videos on. And so it's like, oh, everyone can vibe code.
13:01It's like, well, yeah, but everyone can make videos, but not everyone's mister beast. And so just like always, like, it will still have like we'll when there's more supply, we will index on quality.
13:11And so what are the human things that are the non replaceable things, which I think are stakes? I think it's narrative. I think it's reality.
13:18And reality creates the stakes for any of this type of stuff. That's why reality TV is still a thing because we know it's real, you know you know, to the degree that it's real people, right?
13:29And there's some sort of money or whatever that's on the line, people still watch.
13:35But yeah, I think there's there's a world where there's a robot that cuts your lawn for sure. Right.
13:40That's something I was thinking about was this idea of, like, reality TV for some reason has the highest moat in the next ten years as far as content. Because it just seems as though AI is able to amalgamize education type content so well and like documentary type content so well.
13:58Like, do you have any thoughts on that specifically that the info business content creation is gonna be limited?
14:04I think it assumes that people didn't already have infinite access information. People already have that. So I think that when people buy if like, pure information, yeah, tough.
14:18I think everything that comes around that, again, that's stakes. Like, people people know to like you just recently lost weight, right?
14:27So people know they need to whether you know anything about fitness, you know you need to stop eating shit and move more. Okay.
14:34Great. Your version of eating shit and moving more will be different. But fundamentally, you have an idea that you do that.
14:40People still don't do it. Why? Because they don't have enough stakes, they don't have enough motivation around it.
14:44And so like there'll still be plenty of IRL and I would say human based interventions that will still work to drive those stakes and drive that motivation for people.
14:55You said the richest you ever felt in your life was when you and Leila hit your first 100,000.
15:00Mhmm.
15:01I you've since talked about a goal that you have where you want to help a 100,000 young men make a $100,000.
15:09I think it's small. I think it we'll do a lot more than that, but yeah. You might have already done that.
15:16I'm being real. The difficulty is how do you measure it? Right?
15:20If I were to give a meal to every person, I give a meal, you check a name off, that's it. Right?
15:25You can ship them out and it's done. If I have to teach someone to do something, and then have to have them make money, and then have a way to know that they've reached past this point, like, when I announced that I've gotten so many DMs with people like, dude, I'm one of those people.
15:37I made a million dollars because you. I made $10,000,000 because of you. I'm one of those people.
15:41Oh, appreciate it, man. Awesome. Thanks, man.
15:44Glad to hear that.
15:47That's cool, man. Like, I mean, school is 27,000,000 users, so a 100,000 is like a rounding error. I think we'll do a lot more than that.
15:56I have a lot of other things in the works too that are that will come by the end of this year that'll make that more evident. But I mean, I meant what I said. I I think that in order to change the world, you have to start with changing a generation.
16:11I don't think old generations change, so you have to start younger. And I think that the best system we have right now is capitalism.
16:19It is flawed. It is just the best flawed system we have. And so in order to get people to buy into something, you need them to be reinforced by it.
16:26So they have to have a good outcome as a result of it. And so I think all you have to do is look at every other country that has not had the system and look at their outcomes over a longer period of time to be like, okay, well, that system doesn't work.
16:36And to think that it somehow is gonna like, this time it'll be different is ridiculous. It's like the, you know, the abusive the abusive husband and the and the wife and then, know, he hits her and he says, I'm sorry, it'll be different next time. It's like, no, man.
16:46That's the pattern. And so we don't need to like wait for a dictator to take over to to know that that's how it's going to end. And so I'm a big believer in free markets and I'm willing to deal with the downside consequences of free markets because I see them as superior problems to the downsides of communism, socialism, and dictatorship, which are not necessarily all the same, but often.
17:09I like that a lot. I mean, if money exists, it would make sense to me at least that capitalism is the best system.
17:16What is capitalism? It is a system that allocates capital most efficiently. So it would make sense that it is the best at generating it.
17:26I know this is something you've probably been asked before, but things are so different now. If you had to go from zero to a $100,000 in the next three months, how would you do it?
17:36Maybe if you could break it down for me in five steps. Sure.
17:43So 100,000 total, or 100,000 a month, or 10,000 a month? 100,000 total
17:49in three months. No employees, just you.
17:53But it's not me though, right? It's my skills, but not me. Yeah.
17:57Okay. That makes sense. Right.
18:01I don't can't post content. And no I network, and I have no connections, and I have no any of that. Don't have my phone with me.
18:06You can use Claude.
18:11I I So when you are starting out, you want every customer to be worth it.
18:17And so I think one of the mistakes that happens when people are earlier is they don't sell expensive enough stuff. And so like, if it's very hard for you to get a customer, then you better make sure that customer is worth it.
18:30Which means instead of thinking about scalability, we think about how basically potential money made from every person is what you want to maximize.
18:40And so that means that potential value created has to be maximized, which means that we might do unscalable things in the short term in order to generate cash flow. And so I'll give you an analogy and then I'll give you the steps, but or not an analogy, a story.
18:51But when I when I started my first gym, I did personal training with one client, and that client came ninety minutes a day, five days a week, which is a super, like, a super client. And I ended up making, I think it was like 4 or $5,000 a month in total from that one client.
19:06And that client and that model of me just doing one on one like that obviously doesn't scale. But I was running my gym, the business, all around that.
19:15In the gym, would just take the cash and basically reinvest in more equipment or I'd spend more on ads to get more people in, whatever it was, but like, I lived on the $5,000 a month that I was getting from the personal training client.
19:27And so the fastest way to go to a 100,000 is not the fastest way to get to a million or 10,000,000. And so this is the big misconception with the question.
19:35And so like, if I wanted to get to a $100,000, I would go to a business and say and the thing is is like, I have already done this because I've already lost my money before and had to go do this. So I this is what I did.
19:46I went to a local business and I said, what are the packages you have? And then I said, what's the cheapest that you're willing to do deliver those packages for? And I said, okay, if I go get you customers and I sell it, can I keep this percentage of what I sell if I go get them and I sell them, and then you get the customer for life after that?
20:07And as soon as I had some businesses that said yes, I then got them customers, and I kept the money, and then they delivered the services and got customers for free.
20:16And so when I lost everything, made a $100,000 the first month after I lost everything. And so within the example, it's like I did that in thirty days.
20:25And so you can absolutely do that, it's just that you have to work like a maniac. And fundamentally, it was I had an offer that worked, that I knew worked for a specific local business, which was the gym.
20:37So I knew I could run a weight loss challenge, and I knew I could spend money on the ads, and I didn't have to spend a lot because, you know, if you can get 10 to one, you spend a $100, you have a thousand, and then after you have a thousand, you spend 10, now you're you spend one, you make 10, and you're good to go. Right?
20:52And so that was so then I would get limited by the facility's ability to handle customers, so I would try and find the most empty facilities because I knew I could sell them till they were full usually within three weeks.
21:02And so that is literally what I did. So step by step, I had an offer, number one. Number two, I had ads that I could record with my phone.
21:12Step three, I posted those ads and pushed them to a landing page. Step four, the landing page, this is at the time, just went to a Google Sheet.
21:21Step six, I called the leads on the Google Sheet to make sure that they got scheduled, and then I think about step seven, I would meet with those leads, and I would present the offer that I advertised to them, and then I would get them to give me money for that offer, and then I let the business handle the delivery of the services and I kept the cash.
21:39It's the easiest business that you could run, it's one person, it's functionally an affiliate business.
21:44If you were gonna think of the easiest offer right now,
21:48what might it be? I mean
21:52because I think a lot about winner's effect and how people I like to give people, I don't know, those tactful gems, even though they're not useful long term, because long term is just the fundamentals, but to establish some type of winners effect.
22:08Well, the nature of the offer is gonna have to be some So one is you have to decide whether your b to b or b to c. Right?
22:14So am I gonna sell to consumers, are you gonna sell to businesses? Right? If I had no knowledge of anything, and I just knew just basic AI stuff, it's not that difficult to go into a normal business and say, hey, can I observe your business for free and come with an AI plan that saves you at least a $100,000, and would you be willing to give me a third of the savings or 20% of the savings that I get you if I could demonstrate that it will save that amount of money?
22:43Most businesses would say yes. And this is like, it's nothing upfront. I just need these commitments.
22:49Like, I don't I don't think like, and then someone might say, okay. Well, how do I get in touch with those businesses?
22:55You've got two feet and two hands you can knock on a fucking door. Like, you have a phone with, you know, where you've got two thumbs. You can text people.
23:01You can DM them. You can call them. You can email them.
23:04Like, you can post content about it. Like, there's a 100 ways. Just gotta let people know about it.
23:07And the thing is is like, is that an in demand service right now? Yes. And so the issue is more that people just don't have any skills.
23:13Like, if you have skills, making money is not that hard. You do something for somebody else that they don't know how to do. So that means you need to learn how to do shit.
23:18So learn how to do stuff, and then do it for somebody else who doesn't want to learn how to do stuff. Which really just comes down to like, you have to be willing to work. What's
23:27the one thing people waste most of their time on that doesn't actually make them money?
23:32I mean everything that is not the work. Like I have one plaque on my wall that says . Like everything that is not the thing is a distraction.
23:43So if we define commitment as the elimination of alternative, people are not committed. And so the most focused person in the world, most focused video game player in the world would not eat, would not sleep, would not drink water, and they would only play video games, and anything that is not video games would then be less focused.
23:57So if you drink water, you're less focused than the guy that plays a 100%. Now, is that sustainable? No.
24:03But for the period of time that person was playing, that person would be the more focused person. And so there are a very small number of activities that generate money, and most of everything else is just noise.
24:15Like, you have to let people know that you exist. You have to make them an offer that solves a specific problem in exchange for money.
24:25You have to get agreement from them, and you have to exchange money for services, and then you have to deliver that product or service to them. Like, it's it's I don't even like, I don't know what else there is.
24:34Like, I don't know how it gets that complicated. Like, that's it. And people get I think I think really what it is is like people get paralyzed by trying to pick perfectly.
24:44They try think like, I want to have the perfect business. Well, like, unless you're Bezos or Zuck who actually started their first business and are still in their first business as a gazillion dollar company, the vast majority of entrepreneurs that I know, your first business is not your last business.
25:01It is your first stepping stone. And so I just try to get people to concentrate on get a stranger to give you money to do something or force something that you make for them. That's it.
25:13Like that's that's all of business. It's literally just accepting money from a stranger. So he's like, you need a way to process money, you need an LLC if you want to use credit cards, you could do it for cash and not have any of that shit.
25:23Like I actually, I struggle with the question because I'm like, what part are we missing here? And I think it's because there's so many people saying a lot of words that they don't understand and confusing a large percentage of people. It's like, you have to start with a morning routine.
25:35It's like, bro, you don't need to do any of that. You need to let somebody know that you can do something for them and ask them if they want you to do it for them for money and then do it.
25:46I don't really have a like It sounds about right. Mean, product is for me.
25:52Think about I think about with my business because I know it's not the typical business, but I think people focus on similar things.
26:00Like with my business, I sell to advertisers, And a majority of my time is spent on building the product to sell to them in a way, which is the content, and building like, oh, this is the data, this is the data, this is the data, here it is, and we spend so little time on selling because it's so important to present the good data.
26:21So how do you go about selling it? Let's do this. How do you go about selling it right now?
26:26Reach out to every single person at the company I want to sell to, set up a call with them,
26:35show them the data. You run ads on your podcast. Right?
26:38You don't do any ads, but how do make money right now? Just add it? Oh, you meant I I thought you meant like a advertise like advertising the podcast.
26:45Yeah. Yeah. We do a bunch of ads.
26:46Yeah. Can I give you a little trick? Run an ad for yourself.
26:52After this, say, hey, by the way, if you are enjoying this podcast and you would like your business and an offer to towards whatever product and service you have, I have this available.
27:04We get this many views per month and this is our demo. Reach out to me here. We'd love to connect.
27:12Fair play. You sell media. Use it.
27:14You already have it. Right. You have something that's free.
27:16You don't have to spend money on ads. You can literally just advertise on your own platform. Right.
27:21Yeah. Can have a podcast from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 from that one.
27:25What else we got?
27:28Hey, really quick. I'm going to take some of Alex's advice here. And if you're someone that happens to have a company, I have a really dumb idea for you.
27:36So instead of you explaining to me what a KPI is and writing me a creative brief and trying to hope that I somehow convert, I'm just simply going to make you money. Now I'm not gonna read you all my stats.
27:48That's insulting. Like, how many viewers and listeners we have? That's all at jackneil.com backslash sponsor.
27:54I'll wait.
27:57Disgusting. Right? In a good way.
28:00Now here's the offer. You give me the product, I put it in front of the most engaged audience of young men on the internet and you make a bunch of money. But the downside is there isn't one.
28:12I'm really good at this. Like if you haven't noticed, I dressed up for an ad about an ad. This is my wife's tank top and the sharpie on my nose is going straight into my brain.
28:24All of this was for you. So again, if you want an influencer that'll make the ad for you or do the ad exactly how you want, knows what a KPI or an LTV to CAC ratio is, just go to jackmail.com backslash sponsor and contact me there.
28:37You can also hit the first link in the description. But anyway, guys, back to the podcast.
28:43Why is it so important to build a data centric business in the age of AI?
28:47Well, you can't have AI without a data layer first because like AI is trained off of data. And so if you want to have a unique mode in some way to a business and not be obviously, like, the frontier models are all trained on all of the free available information. And so in order to have any kind of edge on those models, you need to have proprietary information.
29:04You have to have datasets that they don't have access to or that they don't have, like, call it clones or similar data sets. Because if you have a unique data set but it creates the same outcomes as a different data set that is not the same as yours, it actually does not have the same edge. And so you need to have unique data.
29:19That's if you wanted to have some sort of AI, you know, call it product as as a thing that you would sell. If you want just to use AI within the business, which I think is 95 or 99% of businesses out there, It's more in order to have let me zoom out.
29:35If I wanted to have an employee come in, right, and do a job, I would have to train the employee on that job. In order to train the employee, I would have to document steps to doing the right behaviors. The documentation of those steps and the the when done right, it looks like this, that is all data.
29:52And so the more documentation you have around the processes you have in the business, which is what are the inputs, one of the outputs, and what is the basically process step by step that takes inputs and turns into outputs.
30:02And how do we know output is good versus bad, which fundamentally is just reinforcement training, which works for humans and works for machines. We need to have that so that we can get the most out of the tools.
30:14That is all. Like, it's just so that you can get more out of the AI versus having a generic out of the box AI. We have a this is how Jack likes to run the AI.
30:24Do you record yourself, like all the time?
30:28Not all the time. I would say that I record myself. I mean, I don't record myself.
30:33I have a team that records me technically.
30:37And yeah, when I do stuff, I I record it. I I was just thinking like every single meeting, every single conversation I have with people, just documented data Yeah. Turned into the model.
30:47I think that
30:48so if you think about like the digital world and the real world as two different places. So if you have a Zoom call, emails, everything that's digital is almost already pretty recorded.
30:58So your email's already recorded, your Slack message is already recorded. The only thing you have to add is for your meetings, your Zoom meetings, those get recorded and transcribed. If you do that, especially if you're a remote business, almost all your interactions are already recorded.
31:08So that's not that difficult to have access to. When you have an IRL business, you have to have more effort that goes into the recording. That being said, think a lot of times the data can be a little bit richer.
31:19But yeah, so I would say that when when if I'm interacting with customers, then it is recorded.
31:27If I'm interacting with my team, it is recorded. If I'm not doing either of those things, I'm hanging out, not with a camera on.
31:35What's the real reason most businesses die?
31:40I think it depends on how we define businesses dying.
31:45Because most businesses die because the entrepreneur quits. Because if an entrepreneur doesn't quit, then it's very common for businesses to evolve and change models and change structures and change pricing. I can't remember, but it's know, there's a number of examples of like, I wanna say it was like Mitsubishi or Samsung.
32:03It might be Samsung, like, started as something completely different from, like, electronics. But it started there and it just has continued to evolve. And so I think it depends on how we define businesses dying.
32:14If we say, like, this is bankrupt, it really it like, it's it's more like I I would almost I'd rather almost have, when do like, why do entrepreneurs quit is almost the question because, like, businesses come and go, products come and go, the market changes, technology changes, like, it's normal for those things to occur.
32:30But if it's more like if the question is like, why would someone start and not succeed? Most of the time, they don't persist. And their definition of starting is what most people who are, you know, successful entrepreneurs will be like, didn't even start.
32:43You know what mean? Like, I I had a this is a couple years ago, but I was I had a dinner with a friend of mine's kids, and they were all college aged.
32:54And they said they liked entrepreneurship, and so, you know, I I razzed them a little bit. And they were like, okay, you know, I'm gonna where I'm gonna start this business. And I was like, awesome, man.
33:03And so I think six months later, I saw him again because I was hanging out with Simprin. And I was like, hey, how's the business going?
33:09And they were like, oh, you know, I'm I'm just working on getting the, you know, the LLC set up. And when I heard that, I was like, what? Like, the LLC?
33:18I was like, that's like thirty minutes, man. Tops. Like, go online, go on legal Zoom, go on whatever the hell you want, like, it's all automated.
33:26And then, like, take the LLC, start a bank account, like, okay. Now what? Like, that's Saturday.
33:32What else did you do for the last six months? Nothing. And so it's like the vast majority of business owners fail before they start because they never start to begin with, which is why I think courage is such an important thing.
33:43Like, you have to start. And a lot of times it's like a lot of newer entrepreneurs convince themselves they did more work than they really did because they sat in front of a computer and messed around. But like, did you figure out something to sell?
33:57Did you let people know about it? Did you ask them for money to do it? Where do you fail there?
34:07Like, and if you have a service business, which is 78% of The US at least, you can always collapse service business down to just the person who started it. And so there's no reason for a service business to ever really fail.
34:19Because your main thing is headcount. That's gonna be your main cost. You might have some capital expenses for equipment, maybe.
34:25Right? But the vast majority is person doing thing for other person. Okay.
34:29So like, can collapse all that down. Like, if you if you if you got in trouble, it could still be you doing shit for money. So did that business die?
34:36Might downsize, but it might not die. It dies if you stop. On the physical product side, you might have hard costs in order to sell something.
34:44That one is where like the core economics of the thing matter a lot. And so it's like we have to sell it for not just a profit, but enough profit to fund the rest of the business and growth.
34:54And that's where pricing can become obviously really important and brand and distribution, things like that. But that's a little bit further down the road and that's not really why most people fail. Right.
35:03Most people just give up because you know what, to be honest, like, I I don't even know that many people who have failed at business. Realistically, I don't.
35:11I know people who've changed businesses many times over the years, but like, maybe you don't really give up. Most people just don't start.
35:17On
35:21August sixteenth last year, you launched your book, 100,000,000 Dollar Money Models, which teaches various systems people can use to build 9 figure businesses.
35:31Not 9 figure businesses, I never promised that. To build. No.
35:36To build a business. Right. Yeah.
35:39What's the smartest thing you did when you launched your book that almost no one talked about?
35:44We added 70,000 users to school in the weekend.
35:53How? See? No one talked about.
35:55Pretty chill.
35:58I gave a bunch of all my stuff away and also showed how to use money models in school because a lot of people who follow my stuff do have businesses, but also there's plenty of people who don't have business and wanna start a business.
36:11And so school provides a very easy platform for you to get started in business. Like, can accept payments in thirty seconds, and you don't have to, like, even go through the LLC stuff at all, and it processes the payments for you.
36:22So, like, you could literally just, like, start one about whatever the whatever you like, whatever you're passionate about, and then invite other people. Like, you'd invite them to a party. It's just online.
36:30And you have a bouncer at the door, which is a checkout page that collects cash. It's very simple. And so I just put all the stuff from the books, applied it to that specific business and said anyone can get for free for ninety days, try it out if you like it, and keep it for $9 a month.
36:44And that has all the software you need to run an entire business with nothing else. And so 70,000 people grabbed that.
36:5470,000 users like consumers or like people No, people starting communities. People starting communities.
36:59Yeah.
37:02This is a rumor. But did you break TikTok shop?
37:05I heard this internally. So we so basically, TikTok shop had a feature in how it did payouts that miscommunicated when a refund occurred.
37:21And so we had there was I think there was an influencer. I mean, was obviously, it was happening across all accounts, but I'm just somebody that people can attack.
37:31There was an influencer that I think had had made like $47 in total sales, something like that. And the sale that she had had, which was of the book, somebody had refunded it or something like that.
37:42And the she got a deduction from her which, by the way, this is all TikTok.
37:49Like, I didn't build TikTok shop. I used it just like everyone else does. But she had a deduction in, I think, commissions, or she didn't get paid a commission because she she basically had a a debt on her account, which is like, okay.
38:02We paid you 17, but you owe us 17, and this next commission that was gonna go out goes against this debt or whatever. There's some reconciliation that happened.
38:10But the way that TikTok communicated it to her was Alex is not paying your $17 commission. And so then she made a video saying that Alex is trying to, you know, take money from you or whatever.
38:22But now, what they did do though is that this went all the way to the top of TikTok. That instant?
38:28Yeah. And they they corrected the the mistake. So they actually changed it so that it was clear that, like, this what like, this deduction occurred because a customer, not the business, refunded, and that is what's being held against the commission.
38:42It's interesting. Yeah.
38:45That Yeah. So I don't know if I broke TikTok shop, but the volume that we did exposed a flaw that they were able to fix.
38:53How
38:54much volume did you do?
38:57When I had it, I stopped doing it after that because I was like, it's just not worth it for me. But I think we were doing like 300 and doing like 350,000 a week the last week, I think, in just book sales.
39:08But no, it was just it was one of those where like, it's not worth my reputation to have anyone think that I would not like, I always pay my debts. Like, it is something that I like, I will always fucking pay my debts.
39:21I do not want to owe anyone anything. It's very like, I just it's just it's so core to who I am. I hated that.
39:32I like, in my offers book, I talk about this, but I had $23,000 in my account.
39:38I had a salesperson who did a $100,000 in sales. I owed them 20%. I paid, it was like 22,000 something like that, out of my account when I had 23 before I received the $100,000 that ended up almost all getting removed.
39:52Because I I never want someone to think that I I do not I do not keep my commitments. What's the biggest downside of building yourself into the type of person who can become a billionaire?
40:06I think it's very common that the pattern of behavior that creates financial success can create life dissatisfaction.
40:17Because the what you're looking for when you are building a business is what's wrong.
40:25How can I how could this be better? How can I fix it? And so it's a constant raising of the bar so that the business can grow.
40:34But when you do it that way, it often creates this constant sense of deprivation of never achieving what you wanted to achieve because by the time you do, you realize you could have done better. And so I have a guy on my team who suffers from this, and we joke that like, hey, you know, if you go do this thing, if if it's great, you should have gone harder.
40:54And if it's not great, well, there's all the reasons you messed up. And so there's basically, like, no good outcome. But I think that that's that's just a big part of it.
41:03And I think it's learning when to use that pattern of behavior and when not to. And so it's like what conditions is this pattern useful and what conditions is it hurtful.
41:17It's just hard.
41:20Do you think you should ever meet your heroes?
41:25Why would you not want to meet your heroes?
41:28Dissatisfaction, like you have an expectation of what someone is. So would the question be, would I rather live in a dream world than reality?
41:40Yes. No.
41:45I live here and more information about reality will always help me better understand reality, which is where I live. I can understand I mean, is fundamentally the question of the matrix, which is, I mean, my favorite movie.
41:58You know, Cypher decides to unplug and wants to go back to the dream world. I think it's very difficult to know that there is reality and decide or opt out.
42:07I think I think some people do though. They like and I also put no moral judgment on that. If if you want to keep living in a dream world, go for it.
42:16It's just not for me, it has not been what has proven useful. Like if you live in a dream world, were constantly surprised because your model for predicting how reality will work is flawed.
42:29You feel as though there's like an opposite of that? Because I think a lot of people live in this optimistic dream world, like, I'm the best.
42:37I'm a 10 out of 10. I'm gonna make a million dollars. But there's also people that are like, never enough, never gonna be rich, it's never like going to hit.
42:47Like, are there two sides of the same coin, and there's reality in the middle, and you constantly try to adjust to that? I think it's more, what do you want to have happen?
42:54And then what actions do you need to take in order to make that happen? If you saying you live in a dream world makes it more likely that you take actions that align with what you want to have happen, then do that.
43:04If you living in what you call base reality, these are super vague terms, but if that's what, you know, we say, I wanna understand truth so that by understanding that, I will take better steps towards getting what I want, then you should do that.
43:18But I mean, at the end of the day, the only thing that will matter is what actions you take and whether those actions have high likelihood of getting what you want. I think that they are less likely to get what you want if you do not have a model of the world that is accurate.
43:31Would you want to win the lottery? Really interesting question. I I do have the answer to that.
43:39So I bought a Powerball ticket when I was twenty twenty.
43:46And I remember I bought it with my, like, you know, college girlfriend at the time, And it was it hit over 1,000,000,000 at the time when a billion dollars used to mean something. And I remember when the drawing was going to happen and then I felt this incredible feeling of dread of like, oh my god, what if I win?
44:03I don't want to win. Because the thought that I had was if I win this billion dollars, I will never have been able to prove to myself that I could do it.
44:13And that was truly horrifying for me because it would literally be opting out of the one thing that I really wanted to do, which is to prove to myself that I could do it. Which I know, zillion people will make their comment about how that's ridiculous and I understand, but like, you live your life, I'll live mine.
44:31Know, I want to do things my way. And I think it's the same it's the same as and this is I mean, actually the question that you ask is really really timely for me because for my child, they're going to have been born into winning the lottery.
44:50And it's something that I'm acutely aware of. And I'm thinking would say like that is actually where the majority of my thinking has gone in relation to parenting, which is what you started with this with, which is like, how do I how do I give them the opportunity to feel as though, hey, they have earned their place when they already are born into just such extreme material, you know, situation success.
45:27And so that's something that I think I'm thinking a lot about. How am I going to manage this? Are we also going to change our lifestyle so that they have a more realistic world?
45:36Because I think that also a large degree of like why people who are born into wealth, I don't don't succeed as much as because their view of reality is actually not accurate. And so, like, the vast majority of millionaires are self made, not inherited. And I think it's because they have a better view of base reality.
45:53If you're born into wealth, think the world is different than it is. And so you act as though the entire world is like you and it is not. And so I think it's like people who have traversed worlds have the most accurate view.
46:03They see heaven and hell together as one thing and they're like, okay, these are the different conditions that exist and I need to be able to navigate all of them. And so that's what I'm I'd say like what I'm thinking a little bit about and also you know, if I have a son, trying to make sure that he doesn't feel like he has to beat me to be worthy and making sure that he would know that I am proud of his effort above all.
46:33And that be to be fair, means I'll still have super fucking high standards for effort, but that is how he wins in my eyes and shows courage and so is persistence and consistency and things like that.
46:46Those are the things that I'm thinking about right now. But to loop around to the original question, that is why I don't want to win the lottery.
46:55And it's also I think a bit of a worldview question because if we see life as the path we take and who we become along that path, then it's like saying, would you like to have a video game and as soon as you open the game it says you won.
47:14That would be a bad game. And so it's like saying, do you not want to play anymore? That being said, in my current condition, if I were to win the lottery, I already have the credibility that I can build things and I know how to make money and all that stuff.
47:29And so it would really just act like a, you know, just a a lump sum, you know, call it loan that I don't have to pay back from the universe for me to just like move, you know, five years forward, which would be nice, which I'm totally fine with.
47:43But at that moment, when I didn't have it and I didn't have the proof, I didn't want it. Now, so anyone wants to hand me a billion dollars to walk into in cash, totally good with it.
47:52But but it was just because it serves it serves a different objective now, and it doesn't prevent me from walking the path that I have to walk to get here.
48:02Because a person who wins the lottery, who has nothing, is very unlikely to have the skills. Like, there there's a magic card that I have, it's my favorite magic card of all time, it's called burning wish.
48:11It said . And so like just getting a billion dollars, that's why whatever it is, 80% or whatever of lottery winners have lost all the money by the time, by five years or something. It's because like it's just potential.
48:24But if you don't have the skill to wield it, it's nothing.
48:28I wanna touch back on something you said a moment ago. You grew up with a dad that pushed you hard.
48:36You said the moment your dad was proudest of you was when you were your saddest. Yeah.
48:44How do you make sure your child's happiest moments are also your proudest ones? I would say that I would I would reject the premise just because it assumes that that must happen or should happen, and I don't necessarily subscribe to that.
48:59But because this is what I said at the beginning, all of this hinges on what do we define a successful parent as, and what do we define a successful child as. If a successful parent means that they have a happy child, then that is one definition.
49:13If you have if a successful parent is a useful child that contributes to society, that is another definition. Those are not mutually exclusive, but can be. And so I think it all under like, that's why I'm saying, like, that is what I'm that is what I'm thinking the most about right now.
49:26So how do I define success in each of these roles? Because I think once that's clear, at least clear for me, and people would people for sure disagree on whatever I come on because they'll they'll have their own permutation, which I would say, by all means, live your life, then I'll try and optimize towards that.
49:45I would say that the vast majority of like, when you have, you know, a happy parent and a sad child, it is typically because it's focused on outcomes, not behavior. Like, how could these things be mismatched?
49:58Right? If it's I want the kid to work as hard as possible to achieve their goals, in what condition would the kid be happy that I would not be proud?
50:11Right.
50:13You said, sometimes I think shame was invented by people who have to prevent people who have not from taking action. Do you think shame is an illusion?
50:26I would say shame is a feeling that people experience. And in order to know that shame has occurred, I would say that you broke other people's rules.
50:37So guilt is when you break your own rules. Shame is when you break other people's rules. You can feel guilt and shame if you break your own and other people's rules.
50:44You can feel just guilt. The things that you do on your own that you're feel guilty about, but you don't feel ashamed.
50:54On the flip side, like, basically, the things that you do on your own, you are ashamed of, but you don't feel guilty about.
51:04So if I was just like, the things you do on your own.
51:10If other people were to find out about them, you might feel weird about it. Right?
51:14That weirdness is the shame. But if the fact that you do them means that you don't have any issues with it, you just know other people have issues with it.
51:21And so it's just navigating basically what whose rules am I listening to? And so it's a great signal to know whose rulebook am I following for my life?
51:37Who benefits from someone feeling shame? Oh, I mean, it's a status thing most of the time.
51:44So like if so shame has uses. Is not bad.
51:50It's like shame is like if someone does something fucked up and it hurts lots of people, they should feel ashamed. And so it's a very powerful punishment mechanism that we as a group of humans do to get other humans to act in a pro social way.
52:03Like, we shame them. And it feels so bad because back in the day, you getting ostracized from the group meant that you could die.
52:12And so it was a big point, like, you know, don't don't do shit you're not supposed to do according to our rules.
52:18And if you don't listen to our rules, you will know that you didn't listen. We will shame you. We will ostracize you.
52:23We will ignore you. We will say bad things to you, about you, and you will no longer have access to the resources that we have. So I think shame absolutely has a purpose.
52:32The difficulty people have now is that like the stakes are different. It's not about life and death, but it still feels the same.
52:40If someone woke up tomorrow with no shame, how would their life change?
52:45Well, I think that they would do a lot of stuff that so I think there's a reason that a lot of really successful entrepreneurs have, you know, call it touched by the tism or a hint of Asperger's or whatever you want to call it.
52:57It's like they have less they have less social feedback loops. And what that allows them to do is just think purely from first principles rather than reasoning through other people's judgments. And so if you're like, I don't know if this is a good idea, I'm going ask 10 people, getting 10 people to agree is a great way to a, stay normal, and b, do nothing.
53:14And so you have to have to be willing if you want an outsized outcome, have to be willing to do things the vast majority of people disagree Now, Larry Ellison said this, I think it's it's very good, which is if you do what other people disagree with, either they are right, which is the vast majority of the time, and you're wrong, or they are wrong and you're right.
53:35And in those instances, if you base businesses around them, you make tremendous amounts of money. It's when you see something that other people don't see. And the way to do that is to be willing to accept it in the short term, people disagree with you.
53:46And so that is where I would say shame does not pay off in the world of innovation. But in the world of social construct and behaving, I think shame is a very good thing.
53:57That's fascinating. It's not good or bad. It's just it's under what conditions?
54:01Same thing with guilt. People should feel guilty about stuff. You broke your own rules, you shouldn't do that.
54:05Right.
54:08I'm trying to think through this in real time, but just as a mechanism to find like business opportunities and innovation, like, you be looking toward the places which people typically have a lot of ideas and opinions around and try to see if anyone's actually thinking from first principles?
54:25I mean, I think a different way of thinking about it is just like what is you want to find people's trash. What are people what does people think like, I'll give a simple example.
54:36A way to spot a quote good investment is a team that enters the playoff and is the sixteenth seed out of 16 seeds, and you're like, that is way too low of a seed. I think they're way fucking better than that. That is where you bet on the fact that you're right.
54:50Now that's truly sports betting, which I'm not condoning, but that idea is how you translate that into the business setting. People are really sleeping on old people insurance or whatever.
55:00I don't see it like nearly enough, but like I'm looking at the math, The, you know, the population's aging. If I look at where wealth is distributed, it's all here.
55:07When I look at new business being started, it's all targeting here. I'm gonna go there. Like, it's just looking at at the at the numbers and saying, like, a lot of times the missed opportunities are supplied amid mismatches.
55:17So where is there significantly more demand? How many more people want this thing versus how many people are supplying that thing? And looking at those.
55:26So like why are peptides exploding? Okay. Why are like why is med spa still a great business to get into?
55:30Because there's still more demand than there is supply and the people who have demand are getting older and need it more and have all the money. Right.
55:40But I think just I I want to just make this one point for anyone who's listening, especially the younger part of your audience. You do not need to have something that is brand new. Like 99% of businesses are just businesses that already exist that you just need to you could literally just do the same and make money.
55:55And if you do better, you'll make a lot of money. It's like if you want to have a multi billion dollar or trillion dollar outcome, yes, you'll need to do something that's truly net new. That being said, those things typically cost a lot of money upfront, which means you have to get into the raising capital again.
56:09There's nothing wrong with that. It's just a different way to play the game. That is how the the truly de novo ideas can sometimes come to be, but I think that's very limiting.
56:19So, like, I took an entrepreneurship class in college, and I remember it like everybody had to come up with a business plan. And, like, almost all the business plans were, like, inventions.
56:27Like, almost all of them. And what's wild is that, like, that's not like, if we were to take a random slice of of The United States economy, the vast majority of businesses are not inventions. They are just like mowing your lawn, cleaning your clothes, like, you know, selling cars, selling insurance.
56:42It's like, what are the things that people like, the easiest way to look at, like, what opportunities exist, especially for customers who are like you, is just look at your credit card statement. Look at everything you spend money on. You are the customer.
56:54It's like, are any of these things or things that I'm interested in or think that I could do? Great. Maybe I could start there.
56:58And a lot of those businesses don't necessarily require a lot of startup capital to to get going. You have a weed whacker. Alright.
57:03Save, you know, save a little bit of money and you get a weed whacker. It's not like there's you you don't have to start really big. I think that there's this whole again, there's this fallacy of the perfect pick that like the one business you start is the one that you're gonna have the rest of your life, and that's just not the case.
57:14You're gonna learn how to market, gonna learn to sell, you're gonna learn how to deliver, you're learn how to hire, you're learn how to There's all these skills that happen even at a small local business that then you can translate to a much better opportunity when you have a little bit more foresight, little bit more capital, and then you can take bigger bets.
57:28Yeah. I I I'm shocked I haven't met any people my age that are just like, I have a couple laundromats, you know.
57:34It's like no one's looking in those places. And same thing with what you said with old people insurance, like, probably a great opportunity, you know. If you audited your behavior since we last spoke, what's one behavior that moved the needle for you, and what's one behavior that you deleted?
58:02Think about what I've deleted. I'll start with what I what we've added. We've we've fully incorporated AI into our content creation and media as a business.
58:15And so our content output has probably doubled, maybe more.
58:20You guys would know. More than doubled in terms of total posts. Yeah, maybe tripled with same headcount.
58:28So I'd say that's moved the needle.
58:31Doubled is big. How many pieces of content? It's a lot.
58:35It is a lot. It is a tremendous amount. Hundreds a day, a thousand?
58:39It's not thousands a day. It's
58:43it's at least a 100 a day for sure.
58:47Yeah. It's over a thousand pieces a week. Yeah.
58:52Do more, Jack. So that and that's only possible because of because of of AI with the the head the headcount that we have.
59:03From a deletion perspective, it's more it's less that I think I've deleted things and more that I've automated away tasks that I was doing before.
59:13So like there are things that I was doing a year ago that I no longer do that are still getting done. Is
59:18there any like one tactical thing about AI claud in general that you see people doing wrong? It's something you learned recently.
59:26I think people use AI to do dumb things very fast. So like it still doesn't like because at least for now, the models are very agreement biased, so they disagree with whatever you're saying most of the time.
59:41I think people just like get their cockamity ideas confirmed, and so then they just take lots of wrong action. And so it's basically just because AI says it's a good idea, it doesn't mean it's a good idea.
59:53Right. And so there's still judgment that's required today.
1:00:00At least to to make good calls. And yeah.
1:00:06And the thing is is that, like, no AI will give you more leverage than making a good decision. Like, a decision can still have more leverage than AI.
1:00:15And there are still old men right now that don't use AI that are making way more money than the kids using AI. And so it's like, it is a form of leverage. It has not replaced all leverage.
1:00:24Like, I've got I have some older friends who are phenomenal business people and I'm asking you know, I've asked them like, how are you incorporating AI? And they're like, I mean, my teams are. They're like, but I'm paid to take risk.
1:00:41How does it change who you hire? Like, what people already have I mean, think about it like this.
1:00:46Do I hire people today or let's rewind the clock five years ago? Do would I hire somebody who doesn't know how use the Internet? Would I hire somebody who doesn't know how to use Excel or Slack or email or calendar or Zoom or the basic tools they use to run a business.
1:00:59No. Do you test people's proficiency in like prompting? A lot more than that.
1:01:06Especially for the role that's super AI native.
1:01:10That's fascinating. You built an AI version of yourself. It recruits for you.
1:01:18It trains your team. It can coach people one on one. What's left that only you can do?
1:01:24Well, I'm here. So there's this.
1:01:29I think it actually ladders up to the things I was saying earlier like I someone still has to make the call. Someone has to still be responsible.
1:01:37As of right now, no AI is responsible for anything. Now maybe that'll change in the future, but like they don't have currently, you know, you're you can't start an LLC as an AI and then start processing payments and file taxes as an AI.
1:01:50That currently doesn't exist, maybe it will in the future. But right now, a human needs to take the risk. And so I am compensated for risk.
1:01:59I'm compensated for the decisions that I make. And even if you have AI to assist you, you still are the one who ultimately makes the decision.
1:02:06They make a suggestion and make a recommendation, but you make the decision. Right?
1:02:12Me existing in reality is still something that only I can do. So if people will come to a conference and they want to see me speak, if there was a robot of me speaking, they probably wouldn't be that happy about it.
1:02:25And it's like, well, I mean, you could just, you know, stream a recording of you. It's like, we've had that tech for a long time and people still don't care. And so it's just like the robo chess thing.
1:02:34A lot of it comes down to stakes, and risk is that version of that from a business perspective.
1:02:42But yeah, there's there's a world where I could have an AI doing my livestreams for me answering questions the way that I I would. But I still think part of it requires some level of I don't I don't know if the audience would be happy about that.
1:03:03Like, are you just gonna hop on a livestream of an AI, Alex? I don't know. I don't know if I would.
1:03:09And so there's something that there's something real about live that makes us think anything could happen.
1:03:16Right? And that creates the intrigue and interest. And it's unedited, it's raw, it's not changing anything.
1:03:22A guy said to me recently, he said, anticipation is the number one emotion that sells.
1:03:28And I do think that AI, when it comes to content creation, like, kind of cancels out that level of anticipation.
1:03:35What do you mean?
1:03:37Just it becomes predictable,
1:03:39right? I think it depends. I mean, think that an AI, like in the future when it's a little bit better, can write an exceptional story, and you might have anticipation of the story even though you know the story is fiction.
1:03:49Same reason we read fictional stories now. So I think you can still build anticipation even if something's not true. The question is just whether things that are real people will still want to watch.
1:03:58Like, there's a Bigfoot account, you know what I mean, that's on Instagram, I think it's hilarious. But everyone knows it's fake.
1:04:05It's entertaining. If someone's saying, hey, let me give you advice on how to organize your taxes, there's higher stakes involved in that decision and you might be less likely.
1:04:14Not not unlikely, but less likely than maybe like a beauty influencer. Like, if there's a fake AI that's teaching you makeup tricks, the stakes on getting that wrong are very low.
1:04:24You do your makeup wrong, you you wipe your face off. Right? Maybe you buy a pencil that's not as good as you thought.
1:04:28Okay? Not the end of the world. You file your taxes wrong, go to jail.
1:04:31Right? Or you get a big bill and it sucks. So like it's just as the stakes increase, the credibility of the person giving advice and again, this matters more for educators than entertainers.
1:04:44Entertainers are, I think, gonna be super bifurcated where if your entertainment style is something that AI basically has no stakes, then AI will completely wipe you out. And to be fair, there will also be human influencers.
1:04:57There'll just also be AI influencers that can just pump out more. On the education side, the higher the stakes of the thing that you are educating on, the more likely that proof of credibility be important. And so like, why are there no like, someone could take a 100% of my content right now.
1:05:11I mean, shit, that this already happens. They take the content and they just say the exact same words and it's them rather than me and their accounts don't do well.
1:05:21Why?
1:05:23Because, I mean, they're not even AI. They're HI. They're human intelligence.
1:05:26Right? And they're doing the exact same thing. So why doesn't it work?
1:05:29Because they're not me. They don't have proof. They don't have the proof.
1:05:33If they also had sold a $46,000,000 business and also had a portfolio of $250,000,000 a They also had, you know, 300,000,000 in real estate.
1:05:40If they also had those things, then maybe the videos would perform. But the first question that anyone asks when they're about before you even want to risk the time capital to invest in in consuming content, you ask the question, why should I listen to you?
1:05:55And an AI will not have the answer to that for the higher stakes things in the short term.
1:06:03And
1:06:04as far as implementing stakes, like what variables can you play with to implement stakes into content? Which is cost. Right?
1:06:10What so if you think about content, this is funny that we're going this direction, but people will consume this is specifically people will consume content that's a good deal.
1:06:22So if I do a 100 dates in twelve minutes, that's taking a full season of The Bachelor and putting it in twelve minutes. That's a good deal.
1:06:30It's a good return on your time. If I do 10,000 phone calls and I compress my learnings from 10,000 photos, then I document me doing those calls, and I say, these are the three things I learned.
1:06:40And it's like, imagine imagine I had a time warp camera, and I show myself and it has a little counter of all the calls I do while I'm doing it. And at the end, I say, I learned these two things.
1:06:51I'll do it again tomorrow. That content would perform because they're getting a day's worth of value compressed into a few seconds, or at least their perception of that. And so that happens at all the way up, is like, okay, I built a business over this period of time, all these years.
1:07:07These are the lessons that I've learned. I think one one of my top five videos is just like thirteen years of business lessons in like an hour or whatever it is.
1:07:14Right? And so it's just like people want compressions of time. And so it usually comes down to time.
1:07:19Money is another version, is a is a tradable asset for time. So if you could save someone money, you could save someone time, you could save someone risk, they're trying to get a deal.
1:07:28That's fascinating. I've I mean, you've talked about that concept, I believe. Maybe it wasn't you, just that money is like units of human energy.
1:07:38It's compressed time. And I guess content viewing is just kind of the same thing, just packaged in a different way. Yeah.
1:07:44They're trading time for it.
1:07:46I think you might reject the premise, if you've
1:07:49built everything around being useful, so maybe entertain this exercise with me.
1:07:58Okay. So if it's all handled, Layla's set, your child's happy, the mission's done, the legacy's secure, and there's nothing less that needs you, is there anything you still want?
1:08:13I think that that's that assumes that I can no longer be useful, and I don't think that's true.
1:08:21At the most basic level, let's say all those things are true.
1:08:25Can I help someone across the street? Right. Then I can provide I can provide value.
1:08:32Like all we do is do that with just a lot more leverage.
1:08:38Like you can serve soup at a soup kitchen or you can build a million soup kitchens.
1:08:43Both are useful.
1:08:44Do you think if you were the most useful human in existence you would still crave to be more useful?
1:08:49Yeah. Why not? Why would I wanna help more people if I could help more people?
1:08:54Is there any part of your life that can't be optimized? You said maximalized Sure.
1:09:04That you kind of just have to
1:09:06feel your way through it like everyone else? I should say like, what is a relatable component of my I'll do two different extremes.
1:09:15So one answer is, like, I go to the gym and I train hard and I train often. Not much of that is documented. And that is mostly because I just wanna be present training.
1:09:26It's one of the few things that I just truly enjoy for the sake of doing it. And like we had an idea for a show a couple years ago called, you know, between sets, and maybe I'll do something like that in the future.
1:09:39Because usually it's like between sets where I can actually get do a lot of my best thinking because you're fully present. And I think the reason I've I've always been attracted to lifting weights in general, especially like heavier weights, is that like, if it's a forcing function for focus. Like, if you have an amount of weight that if you drop it, you die, you you have to be present.
1:09:57And I think that that is why I've always loved training so much. And so, yeah, there's no like, from an optimization perspective, it would make a lot more sense for me to record content during that time period because, you know, it's me doing it's modeling a behavior that think a lot of people would like.
1:10:14I'm actually pretty good at it, and it's me demonstrating expertise in something. Like, all of these things are would be good for the brand.
1:10:22I just don't because I honestly just enjoy it so much. Maybe in the future, I'll do, like I'll peel off a couple days a month that I train and, you know, I'll have a camera there and whatnot, but I like it the way it is.
1:10:34So that's like an example of being inefficient, and that's purely for enjoyment.
1:10:41On the, you know, the relatability side, yeah, but, like, I I get indigestion sometimes. I, you know, I I get pains and aches like everyone else does.
1:10:51I you know, traffic hits me the same as it does everybody else. Like yeah.
1:10:59I mean, because I I don't know if that one looks what you're looking for, but that's I live like like everyone else does. I mean, there are there are daily inconveniences that have been removed to the degree that I can, but there are some things that I mean, maybe I should take a helicopter home. I don't know.
1:11:12It's still gonna take me time to travel. Like, there there there's something but, like, it's so it's like I don't really see it as, like, a negative. Like, I'll I'll give you a different example.
1:11:22Like, when when when Leila and I were dating, I was driving, we were talking about something, and I missed an exit. And she was like, hi.
1:11:28You know, that was that was the exit. And was like, great. We'll get more time to hang.
1:11:31You know? And so it's like, does it have to be a bad thing? You know, these inconveniences that we deal with?
1:11:37I don't know. Leila said before that when you two went out on your first date for frozen yogurt, her tattoo was visible She on her implied maybe you weren't the biggest fan.
1:11:48I'm guessing you've been able to move past that. We were married, so yeah.
1:11:54If you absolutely had to though, what tattoo would you get? Oh,
1:12:00I don't know. There was one tattoo that I considered when I was 21, 22.
1:12:07When I when I set the Maryland state record, junior state record for I think it was shit. Can't I think it was I think it was bench and squats, something like that.
1:12:18I it's sad to even I don't remember which one which one it was. It's Googleable. I thought about getting like a US APL, the logo, which is like a cool kind of like abstract half barbell like here.
1:12:31And then I just said, alright, well, I'll give myself a year and if in one year I still want it, I'll get it. And a year later, didn't want it, so I didn't get it.
1:12:41And then that was pretty much like the end of my tattooism or like desire to have a tattoo. Right.
1:12:47You once quoted Idris Elba Yeah. Saying men fall in love with what they see, women fall in love with what they hear, which is why women wear makeup and men lie.
1:12:56Mhmm. What do you think makes a man feel addicted to a woman?
1:13:02Like, what's the one behavior that makes men fall in love with women that has nothing to do with looks?
1:13:12So if we define respect as allowing someone to maintain their original function or basically you reinforce them for being who they are.
1:13:27So like
1:13:29someone comes into your house, let's say you normally ask people to take their shoes off, but it's an old man. You show them respect by just saying like, you're good, man. You show deference.
1:13:38You basically reinforce them for doing what they're already doing. Right? And so I think that men in general, I think they've done surveys on this, but like more men would rather be respected than loved if they had to pick one.
1:13:49More would rather be loved than respected if they had to pick one. It's like seventy thirty either way, which is kind of interesting.
1:13:55And so I think that it's not one thing, but it's more an outcome. It's more of the set of behaviors that show respect.
1:14:03Something you said as well on this, if you want to add any part of it was you said was making him feel important
1:14:12as well is the number one love drug, something like that. What are the behaviors specifically that you would guess would be within And I see respect is a lot like that. You know what mean?
1:14:21Like if if if someone shows you deference, they're saying that your your ways of behaving supersede the rules of the establishment or the rules of your personal preferences. You basically take their preferences over yours, which in a different way of saying, they become more important.
1:14:34Right? But that is functionally what happens, which is like someone comes in, let's say they're tired after a day of work, rather than like unload all your shit on them, you would allow them to maintain their current state and reinforce them for doing that.
1:14:49What else can I get you? And like and again, this is not like a subservient type thing. It's more that like I think that that is what a lot of men crave.
1:14:57Now to be clear, I think you have to also earn that. And so that's the that's the trade. I also think that there are times when because it this goes both ways.
1:15:06Right? Like if you have unconditional love, I think you also need to have unconditional respect. Now people get weird about that, but I think that like if we show up both ways, right?
1:15:14Now it would be less popular in current society to say like, is there ever a time that a a woman or man does not deserve love? Now deserve becomes a hard word. It's like, do we deserve it just because we live, because we breathe, because we exist?
1:15:26I don't know. I I maintain zero of these premises, but I just say only that that that we if we take it to its national end, it would look that way.
1:15:36I think that a lot of relationships do come down to do you serve the other person and do you allow them to do you maximize the likelihood that they hit their goals? So I see support as minimizing the likelihood of failure.
1:15:48So someone supports you, which also means that it has nothing to do with intentions. Someone can have bad intentions and support you. If they do things that that's like you like, the people who hate on you.
1:15:58Right? If they tell their audiences that they spend all this time working for about you, a percentage greater than zero will find you and like you.
1:16:09And so they promote you. What a gift. Right?
1:16:13And so they support you. They minimize your likelihood of failure. And so you just have all these people who just advertise you Yeah.
1:16:21For free, which is crazy. It's amazing.
1:16:24So anyways, if we see support as minimizing the likelihood of failure and from a behavioral perspective, like, I think and I'll I'll just instead of saying most men, I'll just say me.
1:16:37I value Leila as a woman, and value Leila as a partner. And I value and she has different behaviors that she does in both those settings, so she's also my business partner.
1:16:47And so we have almost these parallel tracks, and no one really sees like our married life much at all. But our business life is just us being business partners, and we have a very good cadence on how we, you know, communicate about business.
1:17:01And we have lanes where I'm like, this is your call. Like, you know this better than I do. And there's some things that she's like, this is obviously your call.
1:17:07Like, what do you think? And we might weigh in on each other. On on a normal marriage setting, I would say Leyla and I have far more traditional gender roles.
1:17:17And I think part of that is like both of us, you know, luckily came from same Middle Eastern background. And so even though we're both born in The US, we're both first generation.
1:17:25And so we've adopted a lot of, I say, like, very traditional views from that perspective. And so it's, you know, it's a lot of small things.
1:17:33Like, Leila still likes making me dinner. Like, Leila still, you know, she'll, you know, rub my back.
1:17:40I'm stressed. She'll, you know, she'll it's little things like she'll clear plates or she'll just say like, hey, I'm on my way to whatever.
1:17:46Do you want a drink or something? Like, it's just very small stuff besides like taking care of all the details of everything besides that stuff.
1:17:55But I think above all else, so this is your one thing. I think every man so now I'm going go back to generalizing.
1:18:04I think every man wants a woman who believes in them even more than they believe in themselves.
1:18:11And I think it's having someone who on your worst day is still like you fucking got this. You know?
1:18:20It's like you're Jack fucking Neil. You got this. And it's like if your wife, the person that you care and respect the thing is it's like, this is where it's tough because I think there's a lot of men who are married to women they don't respect.
1:18:31They love them, they don't respect them. And that's their prerogative.
1:18:34You can do whatever you want. That type of statement means a lot less from somebody you don't respect.
1:18:41But when the person you you are married to is someone that you actually respect, when they say you fucking got this, it means a lot more. And so I think like I think at least Leila and I have a balance of love and respect both ways.
1:18:54And I think that it benefits both of us because it also goes back the other way where if I'm like, you're Leila fucking Rosie. You got this. Like, I'm not worried at all.
1:19:04Right? And so I think that if we if we see marriage as a partnership, then it's do we have aligned goals?
1:19:12Because I think there there are unpopular, you know let's take marriage out of it because there's lot of taboos.
1:19:19Take a business partnership. There's a lot of reasons that I think people wrongfully end business partnerships. There are a few that are the right reasons.
1:19:27One of them is that we want different things. It's very hard to optimize a machine around two different outcomes. If one of you wants to go and change the world and the other one doesn't want to leave the house, you will both compromise and both be probably pretty miserable.
1:19:40Again, that's a choice. You can do that, but I would say that would be a reason to I I would go back to marriage. But, like, in a in a general business partnership, then that would be one where I'd say, like, this probably this partnership shouldn't exist because we actually both are not supporting the other person's goals.
1:19:53We're maximizing the likelihood of failure. But if we have aligned outcomes that we want, and then underneath of that, we believe in this way of doing things, these behaviors is how we want to achieve this outcome, then the likelihood of conflict is significantly lower and the likelihood that the person can support the other when they deviate from the pattern of behavior that we've said is the pattern that we want to espouse or that we want to live by, then you basically have two guardrails on the bowling ball going towards the pins.
1:20:23If you only have one person that's holding it up, you only have it on one side and then maybe it shoots off the other. But if both of you have a guardrail and you have an outcome, all you got to do is roll the ball and if the guardrails are tight enough, you knock them down every time. And I think that is what a good marriage looks like.
1:20:38I'd I'd love all that. I've heard you say bits of those things, but never altogether. So every guest gets to a point in my podcast where they won't tell the truth about something.
1:20:51There's a line they won't cross. Here's my version of it for you. Mhmm.
1:20:57What's the one thing about money you believe that you've never said in a video?
1:21:06I'm I I very much struggle to answer that question because I feel like I've scrubbed every surface of money that I've that I've that I've seen. You know what I mean? Like, how to store it, how to keep it, how to make it, how to multiply it, how to get people to give it to you, how to give it to other people.
1:21:22You know, the the upsides of money, the downsides of money.
1:21:27Like, and a lot of it is just because, like, money isn't even a thing. Like, it's just it's just a a generalized means of exchange.
1:21:36Like, that's really it. And so I don't think there's like some deep dark secret of money.
1:21:44Like, it's just a unit of measurement for us to store, you know, to measure value. And that's why fundamentally, like, you don't even make money.
1:21:55You earn money by exchanging by giving value and getting it back and then getting money as a monetary exchange for you giving something and then them not giving you anything back, so they have to give you money. Right? If you do something for someone else and they provide value back, don't need to exchange money because hopefully, the value was equal.
1:22:09If the value was unequal, you have some value and the rest is made up with money. It's just the the way that we we balance accounts more than anything.
1:22:17But many of the talking heads that I see on the internet talking about money will use vague terminology and try to anthropomorphize money in terms of trying to make it human or some sort of amorphous thing or they'll add mysticism to it or manifesting it or attracting it where there's energy, money has a frequency.
1:22:41They make up all this stuff and I think it's because they cannot be clear with their language in observable terms and it is easier to confuse people with rhetoric in terms of words that sound good when set together than the reality of what money really is.
1:22:56And so because they cannot be clear about giving instructions because they are not good enough to do it, there's a quote that I was told a lot when I was younger, which is I don't agree with it, but it was said by somebody that I don't I don't particularly enjoy.
1:23:13But the individual said, if you cannot impress them with your intelligence, confuse them with your bullshit. And I would say that, like, I would say, lived my life in the exact opposite of that, of of do not try to impress people with your intelligence, and also do not speak bullshit.
1:23:30Just tell the truth. State the fact is all truth. It's the number one thing that we say in this marketing department above all else.
1:23:36But the thing is is that it's the whole truth. That's the hard part. It's the it's all the way down.
1:23:41It's six layers down truth. How, like, how true can this be? I'll give you this I'll give you a story to to illustrate this example.
1:23:49There was a guy who had a he had a company that taught people how to, like, trade stocks, which is like a little okay. Day trading is probably not the and he's teaching day trading.
1:24:00And so he he asked to meet, and I was like, I was very skeptical of this conversation to begin with.
1:24:08He said, hey, I wanna grow this business. And I said, you have a big flashing Vegas lights above your head, which is if you're so good at trading, why should I listen to you?
1:24:20And so he's like, well, I have a $100,000,000 in verified earnings from trading. I was like, okay. This is by the way why I took my conversation.
1:24:26I was like, okay. That's fine. Then why are you selling courses on it instead of just like going making trades?
1:24:34And he's like, well, I wanna make I wanna impact people and blah blah blah. Was like, no, you don't, dude. No.
1:24:38You don't. What do you like, please tell me the truth because I will be able to help you if you tell me the truth. This went back and forth for a little bit until eventually he was like, I I couldn't sleep.
1:24:50I lost weight. The amount of stress that trading, it ruined my life. I couldn't find anyone to date because I had to trade twenty four hours a day and it it just ruined my health and my dad died at 50.
1:25:03And I just saw myself going to the same path and he was like, I've made enough and I don't want to keep doing this as my main thing. And I was like, that's the truth. So in your marketing, you need to tell the whole truth, which is you need to say that, which is trading ruined my life.
1:25:18It's also the only thing I'm good at. And so if you want to make enough money to ruin your life, I can show you at least how I did it. I can't promise it's going to happen for you.
1:25:27And my hope is that you make enough that you stop doing this and you do something else. That is a compelling marketing message. Is it believable?
1:25:35Much more. Would buy that because it sounds like because believe it. Yeah.
1:25:39Because you believe it though. And so that's the thing is just like people look for these angles in marketing, but like the the rarest stuff out there is the whole truth. Yeah.
1:25:47Do you want to do something really hard? You tell the whole thing. You tell the whole thing, the whole truth.
1:25:52And that is what will make compelling advertising. So to the the whole the whole truth of money is more so that people who lack skills around money make up words that sound good, that mean nothing, and confuse many people.
1:26:13And as a result, they take action on things that do not result in any money making and are confused as to why it doesn't work because their model of reality is flawed. And I would say that the vast majority of the content I put out there, the reason I define terms so aggressively before I make statements or before I answer a question, it's like, well, are we agreeing on these terms?
1:26:31Is because unless we agree on terms, the reason every agreement that makes any sense, the first part of every legal agreement, which means that we have communication that has stakes, is a recital of fucking definitions. What does territories mean?
1:26:44What does non compete mean? What are like, we have to define these terms. And so it's it's funny because, like, I was out of pocket the other day, and they were like, well, what do you mean by that?
1:26:54And they like tried to throw at me and I was like, I will define anything that I say because I stand by the words that I'm saying. I choose these words for a reason. When someone asks a question and then I ask them, what do you mean by that?
1:27:07And then they get flustered. I'm like, well then you're asking me to answer a question for a word that you cannot define. So how am I supposed to get you what you want if you don't even know what you're asking?
1:27:19I had an exchange recently with with someone in this company that not that recently, but that they made a request that I speak to them more more politely or kinder.
1:27:35And I said, I'm super happy to. What does that mean to you? And so it ended up being that they wanted me to put a prefix before I before I made statements.
1:27:43So it's like, could you just ask these as questions rather than as statements? And so to be clear, if I do if I say it as a question instead of a statement, you will deem that kindness and and politeness has been has been checked. And they were like, yes.
1:27:55I was like, done. And literally, as soon as I started doing that, they were thrilled to tears.
1:28:00I was thrilled to tears too because I want to communicate in the way that is your preference. If your preference doesn't cost me anything to do, then I'm happy to to oblige. Right?
1:28:08But the thing is is that so many people will use these words, and these words are used every day. Kindness, politeness, empathetic, energy, you know what I mean, vibe.
1:28:18Until we define what they mean, we're just making noise at each other assuming the other person knows when we don't even know. When someone says, I'll know when I see it, that just means that you haven't defined it yet. If you want to see it more, tell them what you want to see.
1:28:34And that takes work because you have to think, I'm in. Susan's so lazy. You're like, what makes why is she lazy?
1:28:42Like, what did she do to cause you to say that? And then eventually, it gets really down to like, she's pretty slow on Slack to respond to shit. Okay.
1:28:51Well, if you want Susan to not be a lazy Susan, then we just need to start, hey, Susan, just respond to Slack faster and people start stop thinking you're lazy.
1:29:02That's it. Great. It's just like when you drill down, it's like you can become clear with your communication.
1:29:07And so I would say that the vast majority of communication around money, my attempt at all has been absolute truth, and truth is I define it as an observable reality. And I try to use only terms that I can say that I can see with my eyes so that other people can also see it with their eyes and do it with their hands and feet.
1:29:22On our last podcast, I asked you what words you would leave to the world if all your work was erased from history. Some people liked what you had to say. I'll change the premise.
1:29:34Alex, you regularly talk to the 85 year old version of yourself, Solomon, The one who's already lived everything and is at the very end.
1:29:45This question is for him and the answer is for you and everyone else. Solomon, what do you understand now that you couldn't see when you hadn't hit your number?
1:30:08The easy answer to that question would be that, you know, it it wasn't worth it or, you know, you were gonna accomplish it anyways because you're the person who is the accomplishment. Like, those would be the I would say, like, the answers that people would applause and be happy for.
1:30:26But for me, like, specific numbers did change my behavior.
1:30:33And so I would say outcomes, accomplishments, material success, it is meaningless if it changes nothing about your life.
1:30:44If it changes your day to day, then there was a purpose for it. And I tend to try and define my goals almost exclusively by what will this change about my life.
1:30:56And so if it doesn't change my life, then I likely won't make it a goal of mine.
1:31:03And so right now, I have I don't have a tremendous amount of insight on it because I'm actively in pursuit of things that I've wanted, and the things that I have achieved up to this point, I also wanted.
1:31:22And in achieving them, the things that I thought would happen have.
1:31:29And so I never set out on the journey that I have to somehow reach some magical nirvana. I never expected that, and so that's not what's happened. I expected that I would become more useful and help more people as I gained more skills and leverage, and that's been true.
1:31:52And I'm good with it. And so I would say that I have not had a magical revelation.
1:32:01I would say it's been largely that the things that I hoped would be true came true.
1:32:07Do you suspect 85 year old Alex will care so much about being valuable?
1:32:18Yes. I just think that value will change. It's just that the way that I will be valuable might change.
1:32:24That said, typically, Arthur Brooks talks about this where basically there's there's these two kind of mountains in life where the first, you know, mountain is basically all based on fluid intelligence.
1:32:38It's just like how how sharp are you? How good is your memory? Like, and a lot of achievements in basically the the domains that require the most fluid intelligence like mathematics.
1:32:45And so, like, after you're, like, 30, like, no one has ever gotten a Nobel Prize. That's like all of it is in teens and twenties, which is like everyone's peak, and after that, they just go down. You just don't have the processing power.
1:32:56And then there's these different career paths that like they peak later and later and later. And the career path that has the latest peak that basically doesn't really have an end is historians. And so the people who have the largest contexts of just pattern recognition.
1:33:10And so you look at, like, the Warren Buffets and, like, their their study years have huge amounts of data, and they synthesize decisions. Right?
1:33:19And I would say that the role that I'm currently in and that I continue to move more in that direction of is is translating things to the masses, which is patterization, teaching, explaining, breaking things down.
1:33:32And those are skills that get better as you get older, not worse. And so I would see an 85 year old version of myself as having more proof than I currently do, having more track record. I would say that there's a like, I'm I'm very open to change.
1:33:54Like, think there's there's a lot of people will see snippets on the Internet and make a caricature in their mind of what the rest of this person's reality is. And that's just the nature of the Internet in its short form and that's fine.
1:34:08But as a result, I will get questions that are like this, which is basically to this caricature of me which is not reality.
1:34:17Like, I have very strong beliefs loosely held. If there's new information, I'll change. If the day my kid is born, I want to do nothing else but hang out with the kid, I will do that.
1:34:27Why? Because I can't. Mhmm.
1:34:28Like, I optimized for freedom for a long period of time which is like, how can I maximize my optionality? I do think that there are times when you choose to actively go against optionality in order to make commitments to have dependencies.
1:34:40Right? Like having a family removes optionality, but I don't see that as bad.
1:34:46Is it you want to like, you want to have options, but not to always just have options. You want to be able to have options so that you can select the option that you want.
1:34:55And so I think this is probably one of the big issues that this might be the most valuable piece of the podcast for young people. So let me just make this point.
1:35:05Right now, I would say the youth of at least the Western world is obsessed with the idea of independence, freedom, and optionality.
1:35:14They wanna do it their way and have all options open. They never wanna get tied down. They don't wanna commit to a career.
1:35:19They don't wanna commit to anything. And it's because, like, I don't I don't know if something's gonna change. But the optionality that we earn, it's like just making a ton of money but never spending it.
1:35:33If you die at the end of your life with a big pile of money never having spent it, you wasted your life. It's like the ant that saves for winter and saves its entire life but never actually eats this big bread crumb, and then they're gone. And so options are like money, which is that the only time that they have value is when they are spent, when they are used.
1:35:49And so in the short term, you'll have those options, but you need to like, the part of growing up is making commitments, which is eliminating alternatives, which means you make you walk through one way doors knowing that you can't walk back.
1:36:03And like, I see that as a big sign of maturity as you've taken these steps because you've decided and, right, the loudness to cut off.
1:36:11You cut off options because you say this is more meaningful to me and it's because people are unwilling to make trades. Like, all there are no solutions.
1:36:22There are only trade offs. So, like, you will sacrifice novelty for loyalty when you get married.
1:36:29That's a trait. And at some point, it will be worth it more for you to have loyalty than novelty in your life. Right?
1:36:36And so there are many traits like this that we have to make, but the ultimate trade is the one that we don't make when you basically get neither thing that you want because you sit on the sideline with your big stack of money, your big stack of options, never having used in them. Because some doors also do close because at a certain point, you do lose options by not committing.
1:36:58Right. If you were a girl and you wanna wait for your options, if you're 60, the likely that you're gonna be able to have kids is very low. If you didn't have kids by the time you're 60, and I'm using that as an extreme example here because I don't feel like dealing with it, then you're probably not gonna have kids.
1:37:12And it's because that option is now gone for you. And so some options have an expiration date on them. And so sometimes we just have to decide and realize that we will not get everything in life.
1:37:21And I think that is that is probably one of the biggest things of I would say like what has changed about me from a maturity perspective is realizing that you cannot have it all.
1:37:30And like very viscerally. Like if you want a house that has a mountain view and is on the beach and is also secluded but walking distance from grocery stores and shops and shopping, you can't because you can't be in the mountains and then also have the the the shopping malls and all that stuff.
1:37:52And you can't be on the beach but also have the mountain view. It doesn't like, these things these things sit separately. And if you want to also have the beach but also have skiing, like, there there is no place that has those things.
1:38:03And so we want everything and are unwilling to sacrifice anything and as a result get nothing. And I would say that's probably the biggest thing that has changed as I've gotten older is that I'm willing to make trades.
1:38:19Beautiful.
1:38:22Well everyone, this has been your guest Alex or Mosie. This is the Jack Neil podcast.
1:38:31Where can people find you? The internet.
1:38:34Search my name, you can find whatever you want. I've got books. You can read them, they're free.
1:38:40If you want a hard copy, they're obviously not free, the digital ones are free. I've got lots of courses on my side too, they're also free. You can just watch them, you don't have to opt in.
1:38:50I've got full stuff on the YouTubes and I've got a podcast of my own. You're welcome to check it out with the game. Cool.
1:38:56Appreciate it. Beautiful. Thanks, man.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The title dares you with a sneer — “You Can't Make It!” — then promises the exact opposite: Alex Hormozi walking through how he'd build $100K from nothing in three months. But Jack Neel opens not with money but with fatherhood, and the whole conversation turns out to be the same question asked two ways: what inputs can you actually control, and what outputs do you have to release?
How they asked for the click.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
