19 Harsh Truths About Human Nature - Alex Hormozi | Modern Wisdom Podcast 610

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The Advantage of Having Something to Lose

Most people assume rich people have an easier life, often crediting their success to their connections and wealth.

But Alex thinks everyone has an advantage. For instance, if you’re just starting out in any endeavor, it's easy to think you have nothing going for you.

If you shift your mindset from this to “I have nothing to lose”. This simple shift empowers you to take lots of risks very quickly, and if they don’t work out, you remain where you started — ground 0.

But for the rich, if they do this, they risk losing their social standing and credibility. They could go from 10 to 9 or even worse.

Power to you

Imagine a masked stranger at your doorstep, asking you to open the door.

Will you open the door? Of course not!!!!

Then why do you allow the opinions of others to invade your mental space and dictate how you behave?

Simple rule: Don’t give power to them—if you stop them from coming inside, they won't rob you of your success.

If you already let them in, try to identify them specifically and distill it down to the core. We generally blame society, other people, etc., but in essence, it’s mostly 1 or 2 voices.

In line with this, Alex firmly believes that “shame only exists in the shadows”. Once you uncover the core and bring them into the light, you'll likely find that they're insignificant and not worth your concern.

Distractions Come Dressed as Easy Opportunities

Have you ever seen the Matrix movie?

In a nutshell, Neo sees a woman in a red dress getting distracted by this. Morpheus intervenes, prompting Neo to take another look. Suddenly, Neo realizes there's an agent pointing a gun at his head.

Like in the movie ,the higher you get in business, the more attractive the woman in the red dress gets. The more successful you become, the more opportunities will come your way, but some of these opportunities may be disguised as distractions.”

Just like this quote, Alex says “Business dies because they overeat, not because of starvation”.

This is also known as Shiny Object Syndrome. We tend to jump from one thing to another whenever we see an opportunity we believe to be good, but this can lead to wasted time.

Concentrated effort produces outcomes, not fragmented attention. Don’t chase the women in the red dresses whenever you see them.

Skills

I’ve always been confused by the word “skills” because when you look at YouTube gurus or high-achieving individuals, their advice is quite conflicting.

On one side, they say, “You have to be good at one skill to be successful,” while on the other, “Learn lots of things; don't try to be an expert.”

But after watching this podcast, Alex provided a helpful perspective on this topic. “The higher you go up, the more generalist you become in your skillset”.

Alex Tip: specialized in projects, generalized in skillset.

Tiny Wins Lead to Big Wins

What if we feel like we haven't accomplished anything yet?

Alex firmly believes the quote remains 100% valid. Most of us didn't appreciate the small wins we had already achieved.

• Did you get some sunlight this morning?

• Did you stretch or exercise?

• Did you sit in front of the computer and start working?

Might seem trivial, but these are evident small wins. If you can do this, then you can do bigger things too.

By celebrating your small wins, you are building momentum and confidence towards achieving your bigger goals.

Small wins lead to big wins.

This is what Hard Feels Like

How would you feel if you were hired to clean a school floor but then asked to make coffee as well? Would you be frustrated? Of course! You only agreed to work as a cleaner.

But if you had also agreed to make coffee in addition to cleaning, you wouldn't be mad.

Why? Because expectations meet reality.

In life, we often move towards our goals, expecting it to be hard initially. But many of us lose that expectation when things get tough.

Remember, next time you encounter challenges that seem tougher than expected, remember that is just what hard feels like.

1st Rule of Entrepreneurship

Mental Masturbation

You heard it right—this is a phenomenon where you consume large amounts of information from YouTube, books, etc. without having any real, tangible impact.

Even Alex is the victim of mental masturbation; he would watch all the TedTalks and read books while in college and after, assuming he’s improving.

Then, after seeing a sentence in his book, “There are people who are wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs”, he realized he was a wantrepreneur.

How to address this problem:

1. Learn the input output equation.

2. Know your fuel and how much you can take.

After this, find out why you aren't doing this.

We often presume that having big ambitions is a prerequisite for success.

Alex thought this was ridiculous, so he said the first rule of entrepreneurship he had learned. Which is “Use what you have”.

Lots of pain. Use it. Anger? Use it. Shame? Use it.

To Ponder About💭

Success is a strange thing; presumably, we want success because we think a more successful life will bring us more happiness, meaning, and fulfillment.

Here's the problem: we sacrifice the thing we want, "happiness,” for the thing which is supposed to get it, "success.". Failure can make you miserable but I’m not sure that success will make you happy.

Infinite Game

There are two types of games: finite and infinite.

Finite games have clear winners and losers, with fixed rules and goals.

Infinite games have no winners or losers; the goal is simply to keep playing.

The U.S. lost the Vietnam War because they applied finite structure to an infinite game by trying to win the war.

But the Vietnamese people did the opposite. They applied the infinite game by staying alive and keeping fighting.

Eventually, when someone is alive and keeps fighting, they will outlast the person who is trying to end something.

Alex believed that most of the games that we’re playing are infinite.

• We don’t win by getting in shape; the goal is to stay in shape.

• We don’t win at marriage; the goal is to stay married.

• We don’t win in business; the goal is to keep doing business.

In conclusion, the point of success is to do the things that make you successful, and if you’re doing this, you are by definition winning.

Success comes with a Curse

Many of us aspire to be champions, trying to identify the qualities they possess that we don't. But in reality, champions are broken—they lack what the average person has: the stop button.

3 most common traits of highly successful people, according to Alex, Timestamp: 1:06:30

1. They had a superiority complex—they believed they’re better than others and they deserved more.

2. They suffer from massive insecurity and the feeling that they will never be enough.

3. They have impulse control.

To sum up, they have big ambitions, feelings of inadequacy that make them always want to do more, and impulse control that keeps them focused on the goal.

There’s an interesting research about fear and motivation:

Starving rats were placed in a tube, and they attached a string to measure the force that they pulled.

They put cheese in front of the tube, believing the starving rats would intensely pull it. Then they do it again, but with the smell of a cat behind the rats.

They discovered that the rats actually pulled harder.

What’s the lesson? You’d not only need to run towards something that you want, but you'd also need to run away from something you're afraid of.

Work for you, Game for me

We, as humans, are frightened of burning out because it is uncomfortable.

But when you look at high-achieving individuals, it seems like they don’t burn out or are even afraid of it. A great example would be David Goggins.

What’s their secret?

Writing, business stuff, running 30 mins every day, etc. This might work for you, but to them, it’s play—they see it as a game.

This is amazing because they probably have a higher chance of winning against you. While you work trying to avoid burnout, they could easily outwork you without risking burnout, as they see it as a game.

Alex is criticized all the time for his work-like balance, saying “Alex doesn’t have any hobbies”.

But he doesn’t want any. Why would Alex sacrifice things that he enjoys doing to satisfy society's definition of work-life balance?

Right or wrong, whatever

Alex has a strong conviction about being directionally correct rather than absolutely correct.

He believed that most people try to find the perfect solution, even though they don't have enough information to make a perfect decision.

And he’s right—We don't have a way to measure perfection, except for our own ideas about what it is. And what you think of as perfect might be completely different from what someone else thinks of as perfect.

Instead of trying to perfect something, go and take action immediately because we often already know what to do.

Remember that most aspects of project work are reversible. Start, and you can refine and iterate as you progress.

Ego is the enemy

At the moment, it seems like egos are being valorized on the internet, especially among men’s advice.

So how do more people stay poor because of their egos if there are a bunch of examples of individuals with big egos having success?

Alex believed this happened because of a fallacy called availability bias.

This is a cognitive bias in which people assess the probability of an event by how easily they can recall examples of it. In other words, people tend to believe that events that are more easily recalled are more likely to occur.

There are far more people who are anonymously rich than people who flaunt their Lamborghini’s.

Think about it—In the world of business, there aren’t that many guys who are actually in the game.

Most of these egotistic people sell something from their platform about building a platform.

Only a small percentage of those who are extremely rich are humble.

🎉You’ve made it to the end🎉

If you like this summary, feel free to check out the full video because I cut out some interesting things.

The video I summarized is by Chris Williamson. You can check the full video on their YouTube channel.

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