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Alex Hormozi: reading people well is a fundamental life skill
Alex Hormozi is a businessman who runs Aquisition.com, a sort of "incubator" that takes high-potential and already successful businesses to much higher revenue levels.
I'm learning right now from his (free!) course, I got his book and I'm listening to several of his interviews as well.
Alex free course, delivering more value than many highly-priced ones
The guy is awesome.
I had heard he did use some sales tactics that to me felt a bit unethical and not very straight (ie.: fake background voices to simulate higher demand/bidding war, don't remember the exact details but it felt "not cool" type of manipulative to me).
Frankly, I hope it's not true because in all the other interviews he strikes me as a great, high-quality guy.
You can learn from him at many different levels: philosophy, mental self-development, life choices, and business.
Anyway, our topic now is about social strategies and how "reading people skills" impacted Alex's life (both for the positive, and not-so-positive).
Partnership with a thief
In the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey:
Alex: (shares story of ex business partner emptying the bank account that was supposed to fund their next business opening)
Interviewer: What happened to the guy who stole money, were there any red flags?
Leila: (wife jumps in) totally!
We said here before that it's possible to "sniff out" takers, and that some people are better at it than others (while some are totally blind).
This story proves it.
Later on Leila explains that:
Leila saw right away that Alex' business partner was a scumbag just by meeting him, Alex didn't see it not even when working with him.
Later in the podcast, Leila further shares that she could already tell he was a no-good upon first meeting him.
And then:
Alex: he was like "I'm taking out my half because I already know you've taken out your other half"
(...)
Alex: I went to a coach, and the coach was like "just show him the math, just print out the bank statements... "
The biggest "naive moment" in this story isn't even that he was scammed, which can always happen.
The biggest "naive moment" was that both Alex and the coach actually believed the scammer had truly misunderstood -and was otherwise a good person-.
Personally, the moment I heard the coach saying "show him the bank statements" was a "how naive" moment. I had little doubts the thief was never going to sit down and look at the numbers (and some other approaches may have at least given him a chance to recover the money or part of it).
However, this one definitely tells you Alex was being way over-trusting:
Alex: were there red flags? He had already been indicted for fraud
Sure, people may change.
Or may be mischarged.
BUT... That should at least put you on high alert (and you're definitely way too trusting/naive to believe you can sit with him and reason based on fairness after he emptied the banked account and blamed you for non-existing stealing).
Alex lets his girlfriend pick up cash for him
Soon into dating Leila, Alex asks her to pick up cash from his gyms.
It was quite a lot of money.
Alex married without a prenup (almost twice)
Alex proposed to his first serious girlfriend to sign a prenup before marriage.
She went crazy (seemingly, together with the family who hiped pressure that the prenup wasn't cool, an important family-level red flag).
It seems Alex was going ahead with the marriage but then he had a bad feeling about it all, and called off the wedding.
Here's my wild guess:
I'm glad Alex called it off because he obviously wans't too into her, things weren't perfect, and he saves himself BIG TIME.
Going ahead would have been a major mistake.
Second non-prenup with Leila
He then proposed a prenup to Leila.
Leila said "yes" right away, no drama, no biggies (says a lot about the different characters, no?)
Alex turned around on the way to the notary and married without the prenup.
That was a great test I think, albeit still a risk to go ahead without.
However, by that time, it was VERY different.
The two had been working together, Leila proved herself a great (business) partner, pulled more than her own weight, and added true value to both his life and business/mission.
Right now Alex and Leila are co-CEOs, seem to be a fantastic match, and they even started the "powerCouple" trend.
Also notice with Leila Alex addressed one of his weaknesses.
Now he's got on his corner a woman who's good at assessing people's character, and that's HUGE for Alex's business that's based on acquiring and hiring top talent.
Exercise: list up the red-level risk behaviors from worse to best
In shorter form:
- Got into business with a previous scammer
- Didn't see the red flags
- Did most of the work in what was a partnership (another major red flag)
- Was about to marry a former girlfriend who refused to sign a prenup
- Offered Leila to work together on the first date (consider Alex was already successful)
- Very early on he asked Leila pick up lots of cash for him when he was away (even Leila told him "you don't even know me")
- Married Leila without a prenup
I think it's interesting there is at least one major move there that seems a huge mistake, but that instead was probably a smart one.
Alex: try out PU to better assess people's character
Overall, Alex/Leila and their story are a great source of learning.
I also took several notes both for PU and SU.
Alex himself says that "reading people" is an area of improvement for him.
So if Alex will ever be reading here: get in touch because Power University may be the perfect course for that.
Enlightening, thanks a lot!
I have read many times  that past behaviour is the best  predictor for future behaviour and I very much agree.
marrying without a prenup, seems very optimistic to say it nicely. Because you feel great about someone in the present doesn’t mean it can’t turn nasty in the future.
To me, it would be a huge red flag if the other person and the family is pushing back against it.
this issue only would be enough for me to end the relationship.
Yeah, if you know someone was indicted for fraud, you got the "official" red flag, you don't even have to look for it.
I agree that being talked out of a prenup proposal from the party that has most to gain in case of a divorce, raises a red flag.
Especially if the family gets involved (a whole family looking to profit?) and the way he described it also sounded manipulative.
Also agree it's "highly optimistic" to marry with a view of "for ever without major troubles", though that second wedding seemed much different and they were already working together as equals.
Don't have enough details, but definitely a different case compared to the first one.
Wishing them well in any case, they seem to be doing great stuff and taking his free course now, it's really good.
