How To Fix The Character Deficiencies In Your Life Ep 355

Alex Hormozi, the host and owner of acquisition.com, shares his unconventional approach to overcoming personal deficiencies and psychological issues in his video. He criticizes traditional therapy methods for reinforcing negative cycles by attributing meaning to problems, suggesting instead that we should eliminate the significance we give to our issues. Hormozi advocates for the "fuck happiness" mentality, where one dismisses the importance of their anxieties or shortcomings to render them powerless and irrelevant. He argues that acknowledging and accepting flaws without shame or fear can lead to genuine change, as it stops the reinforcing cycle of negative self-talk and allows one to move forward with their life.

• Alex Hormozi introduces a mental framework to address personal deficiencies and character traits such as anxiety, depression, and being money-focused.
• He emphasizes the framework's effectiveness in his own experience.
• Hormozi owns acquisition.com, a portfolio of companies with an annual revenue of about $85 million.
• The purpose of his videos is to share lessons learned from growing his companies and to help others avoid financial struggle.

"Anxiety or happiness and depression, or being a bad husband or being money focused or whatever the thing is that you claim to have a problem with. I want to give you really, the only mental framework that has ever worked for me."

The quote outlines the wide range of personal challenges that Hormozi's mental framework is designed to address, highlighting its versatility and personal significance to him.

• Hormozi criticizes the traditional therapeutic approach to mental health issues, particularly how therapists may exacerbate problems by focusing on a person's past.
• He questions the expertise of most therapists, suggesting that many are not as effective as they believe.
• Hormozi's approach contrasts with the common therapeutic method of seeking meaning in past experiences and how they shape current feelings and behaviors.

"Most therapists are humans. And most humans suck at most things, especially things they think they're good at. And so most of them are just normal people who did okay in school and now just, like, talking to people and don't have any fucking clue what they're doing."

This quote expresses Hormozi's skepticism about the qualifications and effectiveness of most therapists, asserting that their methods are often misguided and unhelpful.

• Hormozi disapproves of reinforcing negative identities, such as declaring oneself an addict in AA meetings.
• He believes that constant reinforcement of a negative trait or behavior can entrench it further into a person's identity.
• The solution, according to Hormozi, is to focus on living without the negative trait rather than constantly acknowledging its presence.

"It's literally like owning this deficiency and incorporating it and weaving it into your construct and your identity, and you reinforce it every fucking morning."

This quote criticizes the practice of affirming one's negative identity, such as addiction, on a daily basis, suggesting that it strengthens the negative self-concept instead of helping to overcome it.

• Hormozi's method involves owning the power of one's mind and not giving power to the negative trait or issue.
• He suggests that to overcome a problem like anxiety, one should not focus on it or on routines to manage it, but rather live as if the problem does not exist.
• The goal is to hold space for oneself and maintain mental power without projecting it onto the issue at hand.

"What I'm going to walk you through is the way to hold the space and own the power that you have in your own mind outside of the thing that you were projecting the power onto."

The quote introduces Hormozi's approach to mental health, which centers on maintaining control over one's mental space and not allowing personal issues to dominate one's sense of self or power.

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) often involves transforming the meaning of thoughts and experiences.
• Alex Hormozi discusses his personal journey with happiness and how he realized that obsessing over it did not lead to increased happiness.
• Hormozi shares his shift in mentality from trying to find happiness to adopting a 'fuck happiness' approach.
• This approach involves dismissing the importance of the emotion or problem rather than trying to change its meaning.

"So we try and transform meaning. And I think that's like level one, elementary grade school of cognitive behavioral therapy, right?"

This quote explains the basic concept of CBT, which is to transform the meaning of thoughts or experiences that may be causing distress.

• Alex Hormozi describes a point in his life where he was fixated on achieving happiness but found that the pursuit did not make him happier.
• He introduces the 'fuck happiness' mentality, which serves as a way to strip power from the pursuit of happiness by disregarding it entirely.
• Hormozi suggests that by not giving meaning to certain thoughts or emotions, they lose their power to affect us.

"I adopted this mentality, and I will share it with you called fuck happiness."

This quote introduces the 'fuck happiness' mentality, which Hormozi used to overcome his obsession with finding happiness.

• Hormozi explains how fear and anxiety can create self-reinforcing cycles that lead to the very outcomes one fears.
• He uses examples such as panic attacks and erectile dysfunction to illustrate how the anticipation and fear of an event can trigger its occurrence.
• The key to breaking these cycles is to remove the shame associated with them, as shame gives these fears power.

"Because the fear of the thing is what reinforces the cycle."

This quote highlights how fear perpetuates negative cycles and can lead to experiencing the feared event.

• Hormozi argues that openly admitting to one's fears or problems removes the shame and, consequently, their power.
• He suggests that if something is deemed meaningless, it cannot exert control over an individual.
• The example of the entrepreneur with anxiety attacks illustrates how attributing meaning to a problem is often the real issue.

"So nothing can give you shame if you admit it openly."

This quote emphasizes the concept that openness about one's issues can dissipate the shame associated with them, thereby reducing their impact.

• Hormozi questions the necessity of working on certain issues if the outcome is negligible or comparable to not addressing them at all.
• He challenges the idea that all problems need to be actively worked on, suggesting that some issues may resolve over time without intervention.
• The distinction between problems that require attention and those that do not is crucial in managing one's mental health.

"The deeming of the thing a problem is the problem."

This quote encapsulates the idea that the act of considering something a problem gives it significance and can itself be the root issue.

• Alex Hormozi discusses the cycle of assigning meaning to experiences and the subsequent attempt to change that meaning.
• He suggests that to solve a problem, one must stop thinking about it entirely, effectively reversing the meaning-creation process.
• The goal is to remove meaning from the problem, allowing it to shrink into irrelevance instead of transforming its meaning.

"Because the way that you created the mess that you are in, in a vicious cycle of reinforcement, is that you found a thing. And then you said, I will give this meaning."

• This quote explains the initial step in the cycle of creating one's problems by assigning meaning to an event or situation.

"And then you spent the rest of your time trying to transform the meaning when, if you want to solve the problem, the experience of having the problem solved is to not think about the problem at all."

• Here, Alex Hormozi suggests that the effort to change the assigned meaning is futile, and the true resolution lies in ceasing to focus on the problem.

• Alex introduces the concept of "fuck happiness" as a means to overcome psychological issues.
• The concept involves disregarding the meaning of the problem and letting it become irrelevant.
• By not giving attention to the problem, it loses its power and significance.
• Alex shares his personal story where adopting this attitude led to him becoming less unhappy over time.

"I'm saying this because I've had so many things that I've struggled with in my life that I would consistently obsess about over and over and over, oh, I don't want to have that happen again. And then it would happen."

• Alex Hormozi shares his personal experience with the cycle of obsessing over problems and the tendency for them to reoccur as a result.

"It's to destroy the meaning of the thing itself and let it shrink into irrelevance."

• The quote summarizes the core strategy of the "fuck happiness" concept, which is to diminish the importance of the issue until it becomes irrelevant.

• Psychological problems are best managed by not directly confronting them, but by withdrawing attention.
• Fear and shame give power to these problems, but viewing them as irrelevant reduces their impact.
• The goal is to transform significant signals into background noise that no longer holds meaning.

"Most of my opinion, most of the psychological problems that we deal with are better dealt with not by trying to directly combat them, but by not giving them the power of our attention."

• Alex Hormozi argues that psychological problems should not be tackled head-on but should be deprived of attention to diminish their influence.

"And that is how it eventually shrinks into a relevance. And then we only choose to allocate our attention towards the thing that we find meaningful."

• This quote describes the process of reducing the significance of a problem by reallocating attention to meaningful matters, leading to the problem's eventual irrelevance.

• Fear and shame often stem from the perceived judgment of an anonymous society.
• Alex advocates for publicly owning one's deficiencies to eliminate shame and reduce the power of internal and external criticism.
• He gives an example from his business experience where being upfront about his motivations to make money shielded him from potential judgment.

"A lot of the fear and the shame comes from perceived judgment that we have from an anonymous outside society, right?"

• Alex Hormozi highlights the common source of fear and shame, which is the anticipation of judgment from others.

"I own, like, for example, when we were running and growing our first big business, which was the licensing business, I was always up front. I said, I'm here to make money."

• In this quote, Alex Hormozi shares his approach to preemptively addressing potential criticism by being transparent about his intentions, thus neutralizing any power such criticism might have had.

• Alex Hormozi discusses the concept of ascribing negative meaning to certain labels or ideas.
• He points out that people may either reject being associated with a negative label or reinterpret it in a more positive light.
• Hormozi argues that most therapy tries to reinterpret negative connotations, which he believes is ineffective.
• He suggests a third approach: accepting the negative label without resistance, causing the associated thoughts to lose their power.

"Meaning, allowing a bad husband to be a negative connotation that we ascribe meaning to. I think this is meaningful and it's negative, but meaningful. And so I will say I am not that thing. Or version two is this thing is meaningful, but I understand it and interpret differently, right?"

This quote explains the two common ways people deal with negative labels: by denying them or reinterpreting them. Hormozi is setting up the conversation to introduce his alternative approach.

• Hormozi introduces a third option for dealing with negative thoughts, which involves accepting them without opposition.
• By not providing a counterforce, the negative thought or label loses its momentum and begins to shrink.
• He emphasizes that this approach stops the recurring and vicious cycle of internal arguments and self-criticism.

"And so if you struggle with these vicious, reoccurring, consistent dialogues and arguments in your head about what's good and why it should change and why you need to be different and why this shouldn't be this way, just look at it in the eyes and say, and I think you're a bad husband and you're right, and watch them shrivel."

Hormozi is suggesting that by agreeing with the negative thought, instead of resisting it, you remove its power to provoke further internal conflict.

• Hormozi uses Tiger Woods' public scandal as an example to illustrate how one could use acceptance as a position of power.
• Instead of trying to transform the negative perception, he suggests that Tiger Woods could have acknowledged his faults while asserting his strengths, effectively ending the conversation.

"So what tiger, in my opinion, should have done in that situation when they said you banged all these girls and you were lying, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he should have said, yes, I'm a liar and a cheater, but I'm the best fucking golfer there is. Next question."

This quote provides a hypothetical response that Tiger Woods could have used to disarm his critics by accepting the negative aspect and pivoting to his strengths, thereby neutralizing the attack.

• Hormozi encourages applying the same principle of acceptance in personal internal struggles.
• By deeming certain thoughts as irrelevant, similar to mundane facts about oneself, one can stop the cycle of self-judgment.

"Brain, why didn't you bring up that I have brown hair? Because it doesn't matter. Brain, why didn't you bring up how many bow moons I had yesterday? Because it doesn't matter. Brain, why didn't you say, tell me how many stairs I went up yesterday? Because it doesn't matter. You don't find it meaningful."

This analogy compares negative self-assessments to trivial facts, suggesting that by viewing them as unimportant, we can prevent them from affecting us.

• Hormozi shares that he has personally struggled with negative thoughts and that the only effective psychotherapy for him was self-administered.
• He acknowledges that traditional therapy may work for some but wants to reach those for whom it hasn't worked.
• His mental model for dealing with problems involves confronting them with a "so what?" attitude and moving on with life.

"And so I'm sharing the single most powerful mental model that has worked for me, which is purposefully staring at the problem and saying, so what? Your move, and watch it shrivel, and then moving on."

Hormozi shares his personal mental strategy, which involves directly facing problems and diminishing their significance through acceptance, thus encouraging others to try this approach.

• Hormozi concludes by discussing how to deal with shame, emphasizing that it thrives in darkness and secrecy.
• He suggests that the way to overcome shame is not to fight it but to expose it, allowing it to lose its power.

"I can tell you the only way to struggle to deal with shame is to shed light on it. Shame only exists in darkness, and the only way something has power is when we fight it, because we deem it meaningful or worth combating. And so I think the only way to truly fight it is to not fight it at all and say it is not a fight worth having, and then it will evaporate."

Hormozi argues that by bringing shame into the light and refusing to engage with it as a meaningful adversary, it loses its hold and dissipates.