Full transcript
0:00At 19 years old, I dropped out of
0:01college to join Alex and Leila Hormozi's
0:04media team at acquisition.com. I was the
0:06first internal copywriter that they ever
0:08hired, and so for about a year, I had a
0:10front-row seat to [music] one of the
0:11fastest growing advisory companies in
0:13the world. I also helped launch 100
0:15million-dollar money models, which set
0:17the Guinness World Record for the
0:18fastest-selling nonfiction book in
0:20history.
0:21>> [laughter]
0:21>> We broke the record.
0:22>> But, a lot of that was because of the
0:24team, [music] so I take no credit in
0:25that. The point is, the past year has
0:27taught me a ton. And so, in this video,
0:29I want to share the five biggest lessons
0:31I learned. Lesson number one is the
0:33theory of constraints. People often ask
0:35me why Alex and Leila are able to
0:37achieve so much so quickly. And I don't
0:40want to speak on their behalf, but I
0:42think it comes down to their ability to
0:44recognize the constraint and then solve
0:46it. Put simply, at any given time, there
0:49is one thing that is constraining your
0:50business. Anything that you work on that
0:52is not that constraint is a distraction.
0:54One of the best analogies for this is
0:56imagine you have a water pipe, right?
0:58And there's water going through it. You
0:59can make the gap wider at the end. But,
1:02if there's something blocking the water
1:03further up the funnel, then it doesn't
1:05matter how wide you make the gap. That
1:07is the constraint. And so, one of the
1:08number one questions that we asked
1:10business owners that came in through our
1:11doors to identify their constraint was,
1:13"Imagine we doubled the amount of
1:15customers you had tomorrow. Would your
1:17business double or would something
1:19break?" What that allowed us to do is
1:20identify the constraint. Meaning, if
1:22your business would double, you are
1:24demand constrained. Meaning, it's either
1:26a marketing or a sales issue. If
1:28something would break and you couldn't
1:29handle that many customers, then it's
1:31either a people or a process issue. And
1:33so, immediately you can triage what the
1:35problem is, demand or supply, and then
1:38you can then identify, is it marketing?
1:39Are you struggling to get customers? Are
1:41you struggling to convert customers? Or
1:43is it people or process? Do you not have
1:44the team or the capacity to fulfill
1:46that? Or do you have the team, but the
1:48team doesn't know what to do? You have a
1:49process issue. And so, right off the
1:51bat, you're able to identify what is
1:53limiting the business. I'll give you a a
1:55example. Before I joined
1:56acquisition.com, I ran a ghostwriting
1:58agency.
1:59>> A writer?
2:00>> And it capped at mid-six figures, hit a
2:02ceiling, I just didn't know how to break
2:03past it. And I thought that the
2:05constraint was my ability as a writer. I
2:08thought that if I got better at writing,
2:09then the business would grow. What I
2:11didn't realize was that the business
2:13could not handle any more clients. I
2:14could not write more. I had no more
2:16hours in the week. And so the constraint
2:17of the business was not my ability as a
2:19writer, it was the fact that I didn't
2:21know how to hire, onboard, train, and
2:23retain other writers to help me fulfill
2:26more clients. Another example is when we
2:28wanted to launch the $100 million Money
2:30Models book, we pushed the launch
2:32several months because Leila realized
2:34that we didn't have the capacity as a
2:36team to fulfill that launch. And then
2:38after we launched that book, and we had
2:40a massive amount of increase in demand,
2:42Alex and Leila the next quarter did
2:44nothing else but recruit six C-level
2:47executives so that they could scale the
2:48business past its current level. The
2:50best CEOs see themselves as investors.
2:53It's all about resource allocation.
2:55Where are you deploying your time and
2:57effort? When there's a problem, they
2:58swoop in, solve the problem, attack it
3:01from every angle, and then swoop back
3:03up. And so I asked this question for
3:05myself both in my business and my life.
3:07What's the one thing that's constraining
3:09my growth? So that question changed what
3:11I work on, but the next lesson changed
3:13how much I work, and it's one of the
3:15reasons I gained 15 lb of muscle at my
3:17time at acquisition. Lesson number two,
3:19violence is the answer. Now, before you
3:22report this video, let me explain. So
3:24one of Alex's favorite questions was
3:26what's stopping us from doing more?
3:28Because often times us entrepreneurs, we
3:31have ADHD brain. And so we do [music]
3:32something, it works, we get excited, and
3:35then we do something else. But more is
3:37one of the highest risk-adjusted return
3:38strategies out there because you already
3:40know it's working and it's already
3:42proven. And so Google has this framework
3:44that they call the 70-20-10 rule, which
3:46basically states 70% of your time should
3:48be spent on what's working. 20% of your
3:50time should be spent on variations of
3:52what's working, and 10% of your time
3:54should be spent on completely wild and
3:56new experiments. And so, Alex had a
3:58similar framework that he calls more
4:00better new, which basically means do
4:02more until you can't physically do more
4:05volume of the thing that you're doing,
4:06then do better of the thing that you're
4:08doing, and then, and only then, do you
4:11do new things. [music] And one of the
4:12best examples of this isn't even from
4:14business, but it's from fitness. And so,
4:16before acquisition, I would do push pull
4:18legs. I would work out three times a
4:20week, do three sets per body part. But,
4:22Alex said, "If you really want to grow,
4:24you have to overwhelm your muscles. You
4:26have to do more volume." And so, I
4:27switched to working out six times a
4:29week, doing full body, six sets of each
4:32muscle part. I 4x the amount of volume.
4:34And initially, I thought, "Oh my gosh,
4:36like that's that's too much volume.
4:37Like, I'm going to burn out. I'm going
4:39to be too sore. I'm going to get sick."
4:40It actually retrained my muscles to
4:42learn how to recover faster. And I
4:44gained 15 lb of muscle over 1 year.
4:46Another example, when I first joined, I
4:48asked Luis Madrigal, who was the
4:50director of marketing, I asked him for a
4:52piece of advice. I'm like, "Hey, I'm
4:53new. Like, you know, do you have any
4:54advice for me to succeed? I want to
4:56stand out." And he said, "Jay, work hard
4:58for two reasons. Number one, the harder
5:00you work, the more context you gain, and
5:02the faster you catch up to speed. Number
5:04two, the harder you work, the more you
5:07increase your capacity to work. Just
5:08like in cross country, the more miles
5:10you run, the more miles you can run."
5:13And so, for the first 90 days, I'd wake
5:14up at 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. and try and be
5:16the first one to the office, and I
5:18prided myself on being the first one to
5:19turn the lights on, and the last one to
5:21turn the lights off. And I want to be
5:23real with you for a second. I am not a
5:26hustle bro, grind set, go harder type of
5:28dude, but I am a big fan of
5:30understanding that there are seasons of
5:32life where you go all in, full
5:34intensity, no balance, and that season
5:36sets you up for life. Once you
5:38understand the power of more, the next
5:40lesson you have to learn is when to
5:41pivot. Lesson number three, get off the
5:44X axis. Around 6 months in, I'll be
5:47honest, I got kind of restless. People
5:49from other companies were starting to
5:50recruit me and initially I said no to
5:52everything, but then I started to take
5:55some calls and Alex found out. And I
5:57remember it was after one of our workout
5:58sessions and we were in the hallway and
6:00he said, "Jay, come to my office. Walk
6:03with me." And I remember kind of getting
6:04chills on my arms. I was like, "Uh-oh,
6:06like what could this possibly be? Am I
6:08getting fired? Did he find out I was
6:10talking to other companies? Is he mad at
6:11me? Is he disappointed?" And so we sat
6:13down in his room and he asked me, "Jay,
6:15why are you looking elsewhere? Like why
6:17are you looking at other companies?" And
6:18I told him I was slightly frustrated
6:20that I wasn't working on big meaty
6:22things and that I thought I could be
6:24doing more. And he looked at me and he's
6:25like, "Okay, well, how long have you
6:27been here?"
6:28And I said,
6:29"6 months." And then he smirked and he
6:31said, "6 months?
6:33That's nothing." [music] I was like,
6:34"Well, kind of feels like a lot." He's
6:35like, "6 months feels a lot to you
6:37because it's 15% of your working career,
6:39but in the grand scheme, it's nothing."
6:40Then he said something that stuck with
6:42me today. He said, "If you keep chasing
6:44the new shiny thing, you'll never grow.
6:47To get good, you must go deep." And then
6:49he drew two lines to explain the
6:50difference between perceived progress
6:52and [music] skill growth. And so he
6:53said, "In the beginning, your perceived
6:55progress, everything feels new and
6:56exciting, so you feel like you're
6:57leveling up quickly, but then eventually
7:00the the perceived progress will plateau.
7:02But that's when you have to dig in
7:03because your skill is inverse of that,
7:05meaning you make little increment pieces
7:07of progress on your skill, but the
7:09longer you do it, the better you get.
7:11And so every extra percent, when you
7:13feel like you've plateaued, that's
7:14exponential results for your skill." And
7:16so he said, "In the beginning, you have
7:18to say yes to [music] things. You have
7:19to experiment and try and figure out
7:21what you like and don't like. But once
7:22you figure that out, you have to go
7:24deep. You have to stick with things. You
7:26have to decide." And the word [music]
7:27decide comes from the Latin root cadere,
7:30meaning to cut. And so when you make a
7:31decision, you are literally [music]
7:33cutting off all other options. And I
7:36know that feels scary, but what's the
7:38alternative? A life hugging the x-axis,
7:40always bouncing between different things
7:42because you were too scared or too
7:44distracted to commit. And so, one of the
7:45biggest lessons I learned is, if you
7:48commit to nothing, you'll be distracted
7:50by everything. And so, I committed. And
7:51once I committed, I became obsessed with
7:54figuring out how to climb that skill
7:55curve as quickly as possible. Which
7:57leads me to lesson number four. Go where
7:59the action is. And I have my notes on my
8:01screen over here, and I'm probably going
8:03to look over there and read, because
8:04there's five main tips that I did to
8:07[music] get as close to these rooms
8:08where things were happening. And I don't
8:10want to miss them, because I think this
8:11is really important. This is probably
8:12one of the most important parts of this
8:13video. So, lesson number one is to be
8:16the note taker. And so, at
8:17acquisition.com, we offered three
8:19different tiers, level one, level two,
8:20level three. Level one was like the
8:22workshop that we offered many people,
8:24and I got to sit in a few of them, and I
8:26took copious amount of notes. All these
8:28notes of like what the contents were,
8:30how guests reacted to different things
8:32the speakers were saying, you know,
8:33things that could be improved, things
8:35where there was typos on the slide,
8:36whatever. And then I sent that to the
8:37team, and I just [music] tried to be as
8:39useful as possible. And doing that got
8:41me invited into the L3 workshop. And L3
8:45is where business owners pay to spend a
8:47day with Alex. And I got to sit in over
8:49a dozen of these L3 rooms, simply
8:51because I was the note taker in the
8:52room. Lesson number two is to find your
8:54and. And so, if there's something that
8:56you want to learn at a company, you have
8:58to go make that happen. Put yourself in
9:00your company's shoes. Promoting someone
9:01into a new responsibility or a new task
9:04is risky. It can disrupt workflows,
9:06[music] and you may not know if that
9:07person's good enough at it. And so,
9:08rather than waiting for a promotion or
9:10waiting to get assigned a new task,
9:12[music] what I recommend is to do that
9:14task before it's officially yours. And
9:16so, one example of this would be I was
9:18on the media team, and I wanted to learn
9:20more about paid marketing. I wanted to
9:21learn about ads. Well, rather than
9:23asking for a transfer from the media
9:25team to the marketing team, what I did
9:27is I wrote a batch of ads, and I sent
9:29[music] it to the director of marketing.
9:30And that got me invited onto the
9:32marketing meetings. And so, one of the
9:33best hacks that I can give you is to
9:34pull up the job description for the
9:37title or the position that you want and
9:39usually they have it on the company's
9:40website. Pull up that job description,
9:42identify the skills that you don't have
9:44yet and then figure out how you can
9:45position yourself to learn those skills
9:47so that when they think about that
9:49position, your name comes up. Number
9:50three, the Monday morning visibility
9:52email. I typically don't like to brag,
9:55I'm a little bit more reserved in person
9:57and [music] so it's very awkward for me
10:00to kind of like tell people what I'm
10:01working on, but I realized that was
10:03holding me back because [music] 10 out
10:05of 10 skill with zero out of 10
10:07visibility equals zero out of 10
10:08opportunities. People can't advocate for
10:11you if they don't know what you're
10:12working on. And so one of the simple
10:13things that I did to fix that, I started
10:15to do these Monday morning visibility
10:17emails [music] where every Monday
10:18morning I would write down what I did
10:20last week and over the weekend cuz I
10:22knew Alex and Leila like to people
10:24working on weekends. So I did what did I
10:25work on and then what did that impact?
10:28What did I actually what did that
10:29accomplish for the business and then
10:30what am I working on this week and what
10:32am I prioritizing and why? And so what
10:34that did was allowed me to number one
10:36show visibility into what I was doing,
10:37number two show that I was thinking like
10:39a leader on the things that I was going
10:40to do and it did it in a way that I was
10:42sharing lessons with the rest of the
10:43team so it didn't feel like a brag. And
10:45so one of the biggest tips I can give
10:46you now that I'm kind of in the position
10:48where I'm hiring people for my business
10:50is don't wait for your boss to pull
10:52information out of you. Push information
10:54to your boss. Be proactive about it so
10:56that they know you're a high performer.
10:58Number four, attend the shadow meetings.
11:00This is my personal term for all of the
11:01things that happens outside of work, but
11:03basically I would wake up at 4:00 or
11:055:00 a.m. and get to the gym which was
11:07in the basement because that's when I
11:08knew Alex was working out some of the
11:09other killers. Like only only savages
11:12work out in the mornings and so I said
11:14I'm going to I'm going to join them. I'm
11:15going to start working out in the
11:16morning. And I learned more from those
11:17workout sessions about the business,
11:19about internal politics, about business
11:22growth and scaling from those early
11:24morning workouts than I ever did in any
11:26other meeting. And so I think one of the
11:27best tips that I can give is to find
11:29ways to build relationships with your
11:31teammates outside of work. Play a
11:33pickleball game, put together a list of
11:35restaurants that you want to try and
11:36invite a coworker each time. You know,
11:38invite them to your house for a hangout.
11:40Not only will you learn more, it's also
11:42just more fun that way. Tip number five
11:44is to physically move. And so, I
11:46physically moved my desk from inside the
11:48media room to outside of Alex's office
11:51right next to the director of marketing.
11:52And so, that when Alex would walk out,
11:54he would see me and see the director of
11:56marketing. When people would walk by in
11:58the hallways, like I would be invited
11:59into conversations just cuz I was there.
12:01And so, super underrated tip, but like
12:03if you can sit next to [music] your
12:04boss, sit next to him like they're not
12:06intimidating and you'll get access to a
12:07lot more information and context. Okay,
12:09last lesson and this is arguably the
12:11most important. Lesson number five, you
12:13rise to the standard of the people
12:14around you. The single biggest lesson
12:16that I learned at Acquisition wasn't a
12:18framework, it was actually the people.
12:20And so, I remember when I first joined
12:21Acquisition, I had a ton of imposter
12:23syndrome. I I I felt like I was at the
12:26bottom of the totem pole. I was like,
12:27I'm a 19-year-old kid. Like, what like
12:29what am I doing in here? I'm in rooms
12:30with people who are literally decades
12:32older than me. You know, I I literally
12:34watched these people on vlogs when I was
12:35in high school. Like, what am I doing in
12:36this room? And so, I remember confessing
12:38to Frank LaFaro, who was director of
12:40recruiting and then became director of
12:42workshop operations. And I told him
12:44like, I kind of feel like I'm out of
12:45place. I feel like an impostor. And he
12:47told me this story that I still
12:49remember. He said, "Jay, eagles fly
12:51high, pigeons fly low. If you think
12:53you're a pigeon, look around [music]
12:55you. If all you're surrounded by is
12:57eagles, then you're probably one, too.
12:59And worst case, stick it out because a
13:01pigeon can't fly at an eagle's height
13:02forever." And I just remember that hit
13:04me like a gut punch. And I owe a lot of
13:05my learning to Frank. When I joined, I
13:07knew a lot about media and content, but
13:09I knew almost [music] nothing about
13:11business and scaling. And so, for 2
13:13months straight, Frank would wake up at
13:153:30 a.m. with me and we would drive to
13:17the headquarters and we would go to the
13:19conference room and we would jam on the
13:21whiteboard. We'd draw out decision
13:22flows. Like, if a business has this
13:24[music] problem, what happens next? If
13:26we implement this solution, what happens
13:27after this, you know? And we would
13:29basically just kind of go through these
13:30decision-making trees and we built this
13:32entire mind map of how a business
13:33scales. [music] And the other day I was
13:35talking to a buddy who has a moving
13:37company and he was telling me about his
13:38business and why he was like struggling
13:40to grow. And I was pretty quickly able
13:42to identify that his price was too low
13:44because his offer was commoditized,
13:46which was not allowing him to
13:47sustainably get customers. And so I told
13:50him like, "Hey, your offer seems like a
13:51commodity. There are three vectors of
13:53value, speed, risk, and ease. If you
13:55play around with those three, you can
13:56actually increase your price, which will
13:58allow you to market to customers more
14:00effectively." And honestly, I was kind
14:02of shocked that I could diagnose the
14:03problem just talking to him for a few
14:05minutes. And all of that was [music] the
14:07pattern recognition that I built with
14:09Frank. And so if I could leave you with
14:10one big lesson, it's that you don't rise
14:13to the level of your goals, you fall to
14:14the level of the people around you. So
14:16do everything in your power to get
14:18around the best people at your [music]
14:19craft and get as close to them as
14:20possible. So okay, so that is the main
14:22part of the video. I have three quick
14:24Q&A things that people have asked.
14:26Number one, how did I get this job?
14:28Number two, why did I leave? And number
14:30three, would I do it again? So quick
14:32rapid-fire, how did I get this job in
14:33the first place? Well, for most of my
14:35career, a lot of the roles that I got
14:37was self-created, but this one actually
14:39came to me. And one of the people I used
14:41to work with at No "A" Cagan introduced
14:43me to the director of media
14:44acquisition.com. [music]
14:46And even though it was a warm
14:47introduction, I still showed up to the
14:49interview with a 10-slide pitch deck of
14:51things that I would do if I was growing
14:52[music] Alex's Instagram. And I like to
14:54think that I got the job because of
14:55that. And so pitch deck strategy for the
14:57win again. So why did I leave? I think I
15:00always knew that I wasn't going to be
15:01there forever. Even going in, I knew
15:03that this was kind of going to be a tour
15:04of duty. Everyone there is
15:06entrepreneurial by [music] heart. And so
15:08we we come in with the expectation that
15:10number one, we're going to work harder
15:11than we've ever worked in our life.
15:13>> [music]
15:13>> And number two, we're going to learn
15:14more than we've ever learned in our
15:15lives. And so I remember telling a
15:16friend like, "Hey, you know, I'm
15:18probably not going to be here forever.
15:19I'm just going in to learn, I'll going
15:20to
15:21help as much as possible, and then
15:22leave. And he asked me like, "Okay,
15:24well, when you know learning has
15:25stopped?" And I said, "Oh, I'll just
15:26I'll know." He's like, "No, you won't."
15:29I was like, [music] "What do you mean?"
15:30He's like, "You'll get too emotional.
15:31You'll You'll You'll always convince
15:32yourself and find ways and reasons to
15:34stay." And so I was like, "All right."
15:35And so I figured out a way to quantify
15:37how much I was learning. And so I have a
15:39Google Doc of hundreds of pages of
15:41Google Doc notes of everything that I
15:43learned at Acquisition. [music] And I
15:45told myself the hard rule was when I
15:47stopped adding to the doc at least once
15:49a week, then I know that learning has
15:50declined and it's probably time to
15:52[music] do something new. Around the
15:53same time, some of my family members had
15:55some health issues. And look, I know a
15:57lot of people say they value family, but
16:00when it comes down to a decision, your
16:01actions express [music] priority. And so
16:03I knew that leaving Vegas to move back
16:05home with family was probably not the
16:07best decision for growth, but it was the
16:08best decision for me. And I'll probably
16:10make a future video on this, but I think
16:11there's real opportunity costs to any
16:13decision that you make. So,
16:14>> [music]
16:14>> would I do it again? In short, hell
16:16yeah. I learned more in that one year
16:18than I would have in four years of
16:19college. Now I can sit across from a
16:21business owner, identify their
16:22constraint, and help them solve their
16:24bottleneck. I have a lens for viewing
16:26business that I didn't have before. But
16:28I think most importantly, my standards
16:30rose. I said it before and I'll say it
16:31again, I think one of the greatest
16:33things you can do for your career is
16:34find the best at your craft [music] and
16:36get as close to them as possible.
16:38Because when you see excellence up
16:39close, your standards rise to match it.
16:41It becomes the benchmark that you
16:43measure everything against for the rest
16:44of [music] your career. When I'm doing
16:46things now, I I think so much bigger. I
16:48dream so much bigger just because I seen
16:50both the the the people at Acquisition
16:52and the business owners that have come
16:53in through the doors. By the way, if
16:56you're interested in learning more about
16:57how I was able to create some of these
16:59opportunities and get in rooms with
17:01people that I admired, I just launched
17:03my second book called Work with the
17:04Best. It's my cookbook for creating
17:06opportunities. It covers how to write a
17:08cold email, how to create a pitch deck,
17:10how to ask for a referral, how to create
17:12value for people that you admire. My
17:14life does not materially change if you
17:16grab the book or not, but I genuinely
17:18think that it'll help you out. It took
17:20me 5 plus years to learn the [music]
17:22lessons that I put in the book, and
17:23it'll take you 2 hours to read it. So,
17:25if you want it, link below, and enjoy.