How To Achieve Success By Facing Your Fears (on The Ed Mylett Show) | Ep 228
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This is the Ed Marlin Show.

And I thought, yeah, that's nice for him to say about his wife. And then we had dinner, the three of us one night. And I left that dinner. I made a mental note, which was, she's a rock star. She really does run things. And I want to have her on my show. And it didn't take me very long. Once the show spot opened up, I immediately texted her and said, I want to have you on. And the reason I wanted to have her on is she is one of the most

articulate and successful and smart entrepreneurs I have ever met in my life. And for such a young woman to have so much wisdom and understanding of the entrepreneurship space, it really took me back a little bit. I was surprised that I didn't gain that kind of knowledge, nor do I probably even have it now that she's gained very young because of her experience. I would also say that she's an expert on success and all the trappings and positive and negative things that come with that.

And so I'm really, really excited today to discuss success and entrepreneurship with my really good friend. She's an entrepreneur. She's the co-founder of Acquisition.com, which is kind of a portfolio company that buys businesses. And she knows how to scale and grow companies. That's her expertise. So Layla Hermosi, welcome to the show. Wow. That was more than I expected. Thank you, Ed. Thank you.

Jeez. It's true. It's true. And, you know, we just had a great connection, you, Alex, and I, the night that we had dinner. And we're going to be friends the rest of our lives. You bring value to people. So let me ask you this first. I always want to ask this. You guys buy companies, right, regularly in your portfolio. Yeah.

How do you know which ones to buy? Like if they're an entrepreneur listings, what do you look for in a company you guys want to acquire or partner with? Did you think, is it, is it the jockey or the horse? Is it the business or the person running it? Or are there specific things you look for in both of them? Yeah, that's a great question. I, uh, you know, it's funny is that when you start off with something like we did when we first started investing in businesses, I think, uh,

I listened to what other people had to say more than just first principles thinking of what I think makes the most sense. And it took about two years and seeing kind of how it played out to realize that using the first principles the same way that I would think about what's important in building a company, well, those same things matter in buying a company. And so for me, what I've seen play out over time is there's a few things, which is like, one, if you can get it for free,

There is a cost. It might not be money, but there is an absolute cost. And so I think there's a lot out there of, you know, you can get businesses for zero money down, all these different hacks and tricks. And like, honestly, I haven't seen that play out well for anybody because at the end of the day, when somebody really values their business and they know what they have is valuable, they put a price tag on it and it's not going to be one that's easy to stomach.

And so I think those were some of the early lessons that I learned. The biggest thing, Ed, is I absolutely put the jockey first because what I've seen time and time again is

the person that's leading the business, the one that's controlling everything, like I can bring in a new team, we can do a new strategy. We can change the product, we can change the sales, we can change the marketing, we can change everything. We just can't change the person who's running the company. And specifically for us, because we do minority investing, or at least we did, that was what we primarily started with. We have no control if that person decides to steer the horse the wrong way.

And so there was times in the beginning where we learned the hard way because essentially we were like, we're betting on this person, or at least in the beginning, it was kind of like, we're half betting on the person, half betting on the business, because I think sometimes the business is so enticing and it's sexy and it's new and it's capitalizing on something that's trending right now or whatever it may be that we're like, you know, we just want to get in on this.

And succumbing to that in the first 12 months was what led to us divesting our interest in a number of businesses, you know, a year and a half later. And so what I've seen time and time again is like our entrepreneurs have blown up the companies that we've invested in.

They're the right jockey and they're able to steer in any direction that's needed. And that means that we have changed the strategy a lot. You know, like we've taken businesses that were, you know, single mom and pop shop and blown them up into more than 50 locations. We've taken businesses that were service businesses and added in software and turn them into software businesses. And so we built marketplaces and all of those things were not things that the business did when we invested in it, but built

The person that was leading the business was so adaptable and so resilient that he was able to become, or she was able to become, whoever they were, whatever they need to be to grow the business. And I think what I lost sight of when we first started investing was like, why have I been successful? And I think what I really always pinned it on is like, I'm willing to do what's required. And if I realize there's a deficit in myself, I don't get sad. I don't dwell in it. I just say, how do I fix it?

How do I fix it? It's my responsibility no matter how it happened. And I've just seen that that same trait is what in our founders, our best founders is what they have. If you want to know what her and Alex do, to some extent, guys, they're like real life Shark Tank people. If you think of the show Shark Tank and they grow company, they've also had exit themselves that was significant.

let me ask you this the ones that are the wrong jockeys once you got in and they weren't gonna work what's a personality trait of a failing entrepreneur because i think a lot of people right now are like do i embody any of the things that's gonna because i i've told you when we had dinner that night i have more friends that used to be successful than currently are number one yeah and i've had more friends have it going for a while they had a good year five years six years

But a real entrepreneur can do it for a decade, can do it for 20 years. And most people self-destruct. They blow up the wrong way. They like annihilate themselves. What is it on the failing entrepreneurs that you see most of the time that causes them to blow it? I thought about this a lot. I think the most common thing and I can tie this back to essentially for each quarterly, I have the CEO rate themselves or the founder.

And when I looked back, this wasn't even that long ago, and I looked at the ones who had failed and we had divested from and the ones that were succeeding, the ones that had failed had all rated themselves higher than I rated them. Interesting. The ones that succeeded all rated themselves lower than I rated them. Mm-hmm.

And I think by the nature of growing a business, you have to be open-minded and you have to be open. I would say like strong beliefs loosely held. That's what I want in an entrepreneur and in a person that's running a business. And so when somebody has strong beliefs that they will not let go of, that is when I've seen it ruin the business. You know, unable to adapt, unable to take feedback, unable to take action.

data that is pointing that they're wrong and admit that they're wrong. And what I see happen the next, the second quarter, second order consequences are that nobody wants to work for that person. And so I can't get talent to stay in their team to even help them. And so a lot of people think like, oh, I can get this strong team around me, even though I'm an A-hole. It's like, but those people don't want to work for you.

They would rather work for somebody who cares about them, who invests in them, who cares about their long-term success. And so at the end of the day, I've seen that happen pretty much in every instance. I would say outside of that, it would be not taking, I would say not being able to manage oneself. Those are probably the two things. It's like either you're so you have no, you are on the spectrum, I would say like of humility, you fall under arrogant, right? Which is like, you are very aware of your strengths and not of your weaknesses, right?

And I think that on that side, that's the number one. The number two,

Is that they can't manage themselves. You know, they can't manage their weight. They can't manage their marriage. They can't manage, you know, how they show up for their team. They can't manage their emotions. And so they're just this, this, and because they're like this, the business goes like. Yeah. And she's moving her hands up and down for you on audio. Like their emotions are up and down all the time is what you're saying. Yeah. Like a roller. They're friendly one day and aloof the next day. Yeah. They are controlled by their feelings, not by their values. Yeah.

wow i told you guys this was gonna be good i have to say something about that you are right when i was young i was the type of entrepreneur that was hard to be around i didn't create a pleasant work environment um i was a bit arrogant i drove people crazy because i was so driven

And I lacked self-awareness. I lacked the ability to know how I was making people feel around me because I was so obsessed with the outcome. And people would leave or quit and I'd be like, I can't believe you're leaving. And then I would find out later like, well, no, two or three of them really didn't like you, man. Like you just, you didn't thank them enough. You didn't praise them enough. You weren't enough fun. I just wasn't any fun. So I totally agree with you on that.

What about the element to the part of not managing yourself? Have you seen this? When I see an entrepreneur that's in a startup phase, they play scared, which I think is a good thing. They work their tail off. They learn. They grow. They have a ton of humility.

But for a lot of people, they want to get over that phase too soon or they think they get over it. Meaning they're like, man, I just want to get to where I don't have to work like this anymore. I don't want to have to do it. And they have this illusion or delusion that at some point I can kind of cool it. And I watch their work ethic change. I watch them show up later. They start to spend money prematurely. They start to vacation, frankly, too much. And they...

They begin to behave in a way like they think they've made it, like they believe their press clippings way too soon. Whereas I'm 53. I'm still afraid of going broke.

I still work 18 hour days. When I had dinner with you guys, there's some of the two most successful young entrepreneurs in the world. It was a dinner, but it was almost like an interview to the extent that these two mega successful people are asking me questions. How did you exit? What did you, how'd you position the company? What did the financials look like? Like you're still learning. So is part of it also this lack of managing themselves sort of like starting to believe their own BS a little bit. Do you see some of that? Like almost like,

Almost like they become too ego driven. I think that is absolutely that combined with, it's almost like, I always say, I don't want to do a deal with somebody and I don't want to invest in an entrepreneur who hasn't been slapped in the face. And I think that what I've noticed is that until somebody has the first season that they go through, where they realize that they can make decisions in the right manner and still make the wrong decisions and still have forces outside of their business dictate what happens,

I think people will continue to fail because they think they're untouchable. And, you know, unfortunately, I've witnessed this in multiple portfolio companies. You know, it's like they're really successful. We had one that's like super successful for like three years. And at the three-year mark, the founder's like, I don't think this plan makes any sense. I think we're going to do X instead. And we're going to go all in on that. And we were like,

That sounds incredibly hard. You're risking the whole company. You're doing all these, it was all these decisions that made no sense. And he was like, I've been right every time. And it's like, it's using this, this illusion that you've created, right? It's, it's almost like this, right? If you wait long enough, you'll be wrong. And then you will realize, right?

But some people get lucky and they get to wait longer. But I don't actually think that's lucky because I think in the third year of entrepreneurship for me, I feel like I just like ate. You know, I realized that we had grown the company really fast. I had a ton of infrastructure debt. I had a ton of talent debt, management debt, tech debt, everything you can think of.

And then I realized, I was like, I'm not invincible. And I don't do everything correctly the first time. And I think because of that, a lot of people just haven't gotten to that point yet where they've had that happen. And so...

You know, it's funny. I don't think they're lucky. I think it's actually, you're lucky if it happens earlier because it wakes you up to the fact that you're not, you can't play God in your business. And I think a lot of people do get almost drunk on the power that they feel to the fact that they have created this environment where if they so choose, they can get everybody to only tell them good things and only tell them how good they are because they will punish people who don't.

Layla, this is what I meant by the wisdom beyond your years just because of experience. But I just got interviewed yesterday, pretty big media company. They said, so like you must know everything now. You're 53 and you must have it all figured out as an entrepreneur. And I said, the older I get, the more I realize how little I know and how capable I am of still making bad decisions.

And actually sometimes, you know, I just called the shot with the information I had and I was wrong or just things didn't work out. And I think I'm a more successful entrepreneur now because I realize how capable I am of making mistakes and

And I think that humility asks, gives me the chance to ask more questions, to, to do a little bit more research, to be a little bit more diplomatic or judicious in the way that I make decisions. So the fact that you say that, like, I just want to acknowledge that very few shows, Andy for sale. And I did one recently where it just went super crazy because I,

We're both real entrepreneurs. We have this like hour long conversation about the real of being an entrepreneur. And it's rare on podcasts to do what we're doing right now because it's usually about the fluff and the puffery and how great it is to be one. But there's this other element of it. One thing I noticed about you and you say this in your content, by the way, Layla has really gone bold on her content recently, which we'll talk about in a minute.

But the reason I wanted her on is because when I watch her stuff, just like Alex, I'm like, yep, that's right. Yep, that's right. No question. I agree with that. And one of the things you say to kind of counteract that potential for you is you say that and I want you to elaborate on this.

You say that I want to know at the end of the day or the end of my life that what I'm doing daily is I'm respecting myself with the choices that I make. I thought that was a really profound way that you worded that. What do you mean by that? Like respecting yourself with how you behave or the decisions you make or the actions you take?

I think that a lot of people nowadays blame others and they position every decision to leave a business or leave a job or leave a partner as this person is toxic. And I'm talking, I'm not talking about like abusive situation. I'm just saying generalized, right? I think it's become a very generalized term. Like this person's bad, toxic, all of these things.

And I think at the end of the day, what I have realized has empowered me rather than stolen my power from me is to not ask, is this person bad or toxic? Is this job bad or toxic? But when I'm in this situation or when I'm around this person, do I respect myself more or less? Do I respect myself more or less if I go to the bar with single girls who invite me out that flirt with men less so I don't hang out with them?

Do I respect myself more or less if I allow an employee to be in my company who does not embody our values and speaks poorly to people on my team? Less. So I cannot have them here, right? Do I respect myself more or less in my marriage, right? I respect myself more because I have a husband who promotes me, supports me, and would do anything to see me succeed. And so I think that there's just been this frame shift that's been in the last few years where I just see...

people blaming others for their problems, for the relationships in their life, for their situations. And at the end of the day, it's not about them because the reality is too, that guy that, you know, maybe you think is an a-hole that in your last relationship, there's some girl that would really like that. She just has different expectations.

Just being honest. And same with jobs. You know, there's some people who probably come work for me and say, this is just like way too much. It's terrible. It's toxic. Whereas like I only hire people who see it as like, I will become a champion if I work here. And so I think at the end of the day, it all comes down to like,

our personal values and vision for ourselves. And the way that I center myself with that is just, do I respect myself more or less? Because at the end of the day, I cannot show up for my company. I can't show up to make content. I could not do this podcast if I don't respect myself.

And so I will sacrifice honestly, Ed, anything to keep that for me. Because since I was young, that is like the one thing that I have held on to. It's just like, I have to respect myself. That's so good. What a great question to ask yourself. I want my kids to hear that. Would I respect myself more or less if I go do this? That's like a great barometer.

What about, because I know the answer to this a little bit. What role does fear play in your life? Like what's your relationship with fear? We were talking the night we had dinner and you're like, I'm going to start going really bold on my social. And you're like, I have some trepidation about it though. You know, there's going to be some criticism. There's going to be, you know, this or that about me. And I wonder just like, what's your relationship with fear? I have an interesting one. I'll share mine after you. But like when I say fear to you,

What thought do you have when I say that? Fear is always present when I'm doing something worth doing. And I think that I've learned to look at it like,

Fear is just the unknown, right? And so we catastrophize it. And for me, coming from where I've come from, and I think just the things that I've had to do to manage myself, I would say that, you know, some people default to anger, some people default to sadness, I default to fear and anxiety. And so for a really long time, I feared fear.

I used to have panic attacks. And after I would have the panic attacks, I would be terrified of having another, which would perpetuate me in the cycle of having them. Even so far as five years ago, I had one, and this was a big moment for me. I was running the company. I had three events coming up. I had my leadership team quarterly the next day. And I was just like reeling on this issue that had just occurred with an employee for

And I just had a full blown meltdown, like panic attack, like body, like shaking, all those things. And I realized afterwards, because I felt terrible, I started judging myself. I started saying, what's wrong with you? Like, this can't happen again. Don't allow this to happen again. And I wanted to run away from it. I wanted to not be in any situations that would trigger it. I wanted to get as far away from anything that I associated with it as possible. And what that did for a short period of time was

would show me how small my life could be. Because if you allow that fear, fear controls you, whether you succumb to it or not. Right. And so it's like by trying to run from it, it is controlling me. And so what I realized is I watched my life for, it was a matter of weeks. I just felt like canceling all of my meetings, doing things just like, I can't work this much. Like it's, it's what's like causing these panic attacks. And I did a lot of

work on myself after that. I read probably every book, original book on psychology that I could. And I realized that I was running in the wrong direction. I need to run towards it. And so it's like, every time I feel scared, I just lean in. I just go right into it.

And I just immerse myself in it. I'm like, we're going to be friends with fear today. Like sometimes I literally imagine it, hearing it in my purse with me because people say all the time, I'm sure you hear it too. They see the things that we're doing that are bold and they see the success and they think fear must not be present. And I'm like, no, no, no, fear is present. I just also have courage, which is to act despite fear. And I've trained myself now over time to realize that

I have been able to diffuse my behaviors, aka separate them from my feelings, meaning I can be terrified and still speak on stage. Half the time when I get up to speak on a huge stage, I can't even like my mouth is cotton, but I've realized I can still talk.

It's like, okay, you know, I was nervous to get on this podcast. I was like pitting out. But like at the end of the day, I think I've realized that whether it be in my marriage, whether it be in relationships I have, whether it be in the business, the more that I just go head on into it, you train yourself and you teach your brain that it's not something to be scared of. And so the irony is that the only way to rid yourself of fear is to just do the exact thing you are scared of.

Oh my gosh. I have to tell you, that's so profound. I'll share something personal with you then that acknowledges what you said. I am a very fear-based person and I've run towards it all my life. I've had friends say, man, I had a panic attack. I'm like, what is a panic attack? How do you even get to that? And I had, this will be surprising to my audience, but I had one about three weeks ago.

like a real one. Like, I'm like, oh my gosh, I think this is what everyone's described to me before. And I couldn't get out of it. It just, it was like, I'm like, kind of what you said. I'm like, I think I'm melting right now. What did the, I'm Superman. What is happening right now? Right. Yeah. And I'm going to tell you why it happened. And it's exactly what you said. My gosh, that was so good. For one of the first times in decades,

I allowed some fears I had and I was hiding from it. I wasn't running towards it. I'm like, I'm rich now. I don't have to do this anymore. I can avoid it. And what I did that I want you to speak to, I don't know if you do this or not. When I run towards the boogeyman, I,

It's like I almost like end up dancing with him a little bit. I'm like, all right, we're here. Let's just go. I've done this before. I'm built for this. We'll get through it. I'll learn something even if I'm not any good. And it'd be fear actually has created adrenaline in me. That's got me to perform at a high level. Speaking is a great example of that. I'm afraid every time I speak, but when I run towards it, I got, I'm running into this fear.

Man, I'm loaded with like superhuman Holy Spirit adrenaline pumping through me. And it's almost like this fear is somehow like a turbocharger on me. When I hid from it, which I hadn't done, it was like kryptonite to Superman almost, right? And what happened was because I was hiding from it,

I made the problem bigger than it was. When I run towards it, it almost shrinks when I run towards it. Do you have that tendency at all? Or do you think people have that tendency to make problems bigger than they are? There's this phrase that I heard a long time ago and it stuck with me because I feel like it resonated so deeply, which was fear is a mile wide and an inch deep.

And I have just never encountered a situation in my life where that has not been the case. That the moment that I see this, what looks like this very ominous lake, right, which is my fear, and I'm going to step in, I'm going to drown. It's like I take the first step and then I realize it's like, it's just a puddle. Like, that's it? That's what's controlled my life for the last three years? Yeah.

I didn't make content for four years after Alex telling me to try and make it because I was so terrified of being judged online. I hate even saying that. It's embarrassing because it's like I literally can run a $100 million company, but I don't want to make content on Instagram. But the moment that I made it and I posted it for the first time, I was like, that literally...

degraded my self-respect for three years because when I avoid the things I'm scared of, I respect myself less. And so it all ties together. And the thing that I've come to realize, I'm like, every time something has started with fear, it has ended with confidence. And so when people want to know, how do I become more confident? You conquer your fears. Like it's that simple. I always look at it like I'm collecting my fears and they're fueling me to be that confident person that I want to show up as.

God, Layla. My next question was about confidence. And when I was younger, you speak to this really well. You actually did some content on it. So I'm going to serve you a softball here, but I want to set it up right. I got fake confidence when I was younger. It wasn't real. And that confidence came from praise or recognition from other people. So in other words, my confidence was very fragile because where I would get it from is like,

I'd give a speech, everybody would stand up and clap. You're amazing. I'm like, oh, I feel confident right now, right? Or, you know, I get his sort of dollar amount and my friend's like, man, that's amazing. I've never made that kind of money. So the praise from other people was giving me like this fake false sense of confidence that I actually really didn't have because any of these good emotions I was feeling was predicated on the response from another person, right?

And I don't really think that's where you generate true confidence from. And I don't think you do either. Where do you think you generate real confidence? I think that in order to have real confidence, you have to have humility, which is the ability to accurately assess your strengths and weaknesses despite outside feedback. Because outside feedback is dependent on a lot of factors. And so...

for me, where I get my confidence from is being able to accurately assess myself. And I think that not just that, but that's the one piece of it, right? I think the second piece is the reason that I have confidence is because of the things I do when nobody is watching,

right? That then make me respect myself more. The decisions that I make that I will never be caught on camera, that no employee will ever hear of, the conversations that I have in private with people and I'm coaching them that like, it's never going to go on camera anywhere. And like, that is how I've lived my life because honestly, I mean, for so much of my life until recently, everything I did was behind the scenes. And I do think I got lucky in a way. I mean, maybe because some people start off under the camera for everything or getting a ton of outside feedback,

I didn't get any feedback. And so all I had to measure my success was the result of my work. Like did the business grow? Did the marriage get better? Did the friendship get better? Did I get fitter? It's not what anybody has to say. It's just like, how do I measure those things? And am I putting in the work to actually increase the measurement in the direction I want to go? And so for me, the reason that I feel like

I can show up for my team even is because I know that I truly work every hour of every day on the mission and under the values that I preach to them. And people ask all the time, they're like, how are you so confident in running this company? I'm like, if you watch me, people are like, I would love more content of these other, I work all the time. I am truly mission driven about this. I want to build this culture with these people to do these big things. And this is all I want to do. I don't want to do anything else. I'm not faking it.

And so I think, especially nowadays when there's just so much noise out there and we get so much feedback, the biggest thing I should say is like, if you're going to believe all the hype when people are saying good things about you, then you're also going to believe the hype when people say bad things about you. And I think I also got really lucky, Ed, because when I first started making content, honestly, it was pretty tough. Like I got terrible comments because my voice is very low as a woman, all sorts of assumptions made for that. And

I had to deal with that before dealing with anyone clapping for me. Like I couldn't even see past, you know, people making videos about me, people making videos, breaking down, you know, are you a guy or a girl? Your voice is too low. Like, what is it? And,

For me, I realized I was like, I am making this content for myself, for the person I was when I started my last company. And I'm not going to let this stop me. I'm not going to let this, the fact that like, I would wake up and I would see a comment and I would start crying. And I felt terrible for Alex. I'm like, I don't cry, but like, it just felt awful. I'd never seen someone dehumanize somebody so much online. And I would say that's what it was. And after, I would say about a year later,

I really asked myself, and I had a conversation with Alex as well. I was like, "Am I going to let this stop me?" And the answer was no. So if I'm not going to let it stop me, do I want to allow it to continue bothering me? Because I'm not going to change my circumstance. And if I'm not changing my circumstance, I've got to change my perspective. And so that's when I realized that I couldn't allow those things to seep in anymore. - Gosh.

I just had to focus on the fact that I knew I was like, if I continue to try as hard as I do, there will be people who hear what I have to say and understand why I'm putting out what I'm putting out. And I think ever since then, honestly, I'd like people can say whatever they want about me. I feel like I've had the worst of it. I am truly fearful of nothing anymore because I just like online. Thank God you're speaking up because.

When we had dinner that night, you shared that with me. You said, you know, I catch a lot of flack when I started to post about my deep voice. To be honest with you, I hadn't even noticed. And you talked and two things happened. Well, three. One, I went, my heart went out. I'm like, that's horrible. Number one. Number two, how brave and or mission driven must she be to do it in spite of that? And then third, though, I was like, this lady's self-aware.

And my favorite human beings are self-aware. Like I know with me, like I have a tendency to get like some people like every show you do, you think is the best, you know, or, you know, like you, you say, I'm not going to get emotional. Then you get emotional or, you know, whatever. Like I know there's the thing on me. I consider myself a relatively self-aware person.

And because of that, I think I'm effective as a business leader too. At the same time, like what you just shared, I want you all just to imagine this. And by the way, she didn't need to. They're already millionaires many times over. She could have had Alex still be the front person who's one of the best front people in all of social media and all of content.

She could have easily said, I'm the behind the scenes. He's the out in front person. She says, no, I got something to say. It's valuable and I can help people like me. So those of you that are hesitant to put yourself out there, please hear what she just said. Yeah, there's going to be criticism. Yeah, there'll be hate, but there's someone who needs you.

There's someone who needs your message. And what if there's just one person who needs that message, right? Like today, there's millions of people that are going to hear your message that are already, if we stopped right now, 20 something minutes into this, 30 minutes into it, you've already impacted tons of different people. But I just want to say your self-awareness level blew me away that night. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to

And what a robbery of the world it would be if this powerful female entrepreneur was not teaching the things that she teaches because it's so, so good what you talk about. And I just agree with you. My son said to me the other day, he's like, dad, you're confident because when you get out there and you speak,

Man, they just go crazy. I go, no, actually, I'm confident because I know the hundreds of hours I put in to prepare that message. I know what I've thought about every word I've said, every story I tell, how I link it in the gym. It's not that, hey, you've got big muscles. Look good. It's like I know when no one's watching, I do the extra rep.

I know the days when my foot hurt, I still did cardio. It's not the public praise. It's the thing you say. It's the quiet, ugly thing I do that no one's going to see. That's my confidence. So I just love, love, love what you said. Let me ask you this about, you said something about too, about mental health. This is deep. I've never heard this before. We confuse how we feel with mental health.

I was like, whoa, what is that all about? Listen to this everyone right here. Because mental health is like this super common vogue topic everywhere. Watch your mental health, watch your mental health, right? So talk about this. Guys, watch this. Here we go. When I was 18, I felt angry and depressed. And so my parents said, we should send you to a psychiatrist. So they sent me to a psychiatrist. I met with him for 20 minutes. He asked me a series of questions.

One of which like, do you have more energy on the weekends? Do you feel, how do you feel during the week? Obviously I have more energy on the weekends than on school. Useless questions. And I got done with the 20 minute call and they sent like an email with a receipt and they had diagnosed me with five disorders. And then they said, take these medications. We sent them to the pharmacy. And I called my dad and I was like, no, there's nothing wrong with me.

Like, it makes sense that I'm angry. It makes sense that I'm depressed. Look at the circumstances. My mother tried to kill herself in front of me. And then I had to separate from her. Of course, I'm angry and depressed. Why does that mean that there's something wrong with me? And so honestly, Ed, like my entire life has felt like everybody has said there is something wrong with you, except the people who are where I want to be.

They have all said, "You should take a break. You shouldn't do this. If it doesn't feel right to you, don't do it." Every time I do what feels right to me, I succumb to my fears.

Because what feels good and what is good for somebody are two completely different things. Yes, there's days I don't want to come into the office and record content for six hours or seven hours or whatever it may be, and then also do an event and speak there. But I'm not going to say, oh, you know what? I need a self-care day to take a bubble bath. Because a lot of times I think people conflate self-care with avoidance. And I think nowadays that is what most people do is they label it as self-care when it's actually avoidance.

And avoidance makes the problem worse, makes the emotions bigger. The more that we avoid an emotion, the bigger it becomes because we literally train our brain that we are running away from it. And so just most of my adult life has been unlearning the things that I think I heard in traditional media and on the news and reading on blogs and like people say them as jokes. Like, I don't think it's funny.

I don't think it's funny that people want to take, honestly, days of their life off. They need to go get drunk every weekend, do bubble bath, do a martini this, like taco Tuesday. Like that to me is sad because they feel good in all the short-term moments, but long-term they create dysfunction in their lives. And so like I will sacrifice short-term comfort and trade that for long-term having a functional life any day. But I think that we have conflated this and we have just turned...

into something that is normal and okay. And I just am so against that because it does not help anybody's mental health. If we wanted to help people's mental health, we would teach them not to be scared of their feelings. We would teach them that it's okay to feel depressed if somebody dies. It's okay to feel depressed if you lost a job. It's okay to feel angry if somebody wronged you. But when you teach people that emotions are bad,

then their brain starts to treat them that way and they avoid them. And then they go into this cycle of like basically avoiding their life. And so I just have a really hard time with it because it is quite literally the opposite of what has helped me in life.

And I think a lot of people see what I do and they see how much I work and they see how integrated my life is with my work. And they say, you know, what about your mental health? They're always asking me, they're like, are you happy? And I'm like, how sad is it that you think that me chasing after a dream so big that I have to overcome all of my fears is sad?

That is how diluted, like delusional it is that like somehow now what you do, you're on a mission every day. I'm on a mission every day. I wake up excited. I wake up like ready to go. I don't, I wish I could delegate sleep if I could, because I'm just ready to go. And people say that's bad and people, and it's because we have this culture now that's just moved towards avoidance as a socially acceptable thing that you do.

Rather than confronting the problems in your life, we avoid them and we have made it normal. I literally pray everybody shares this podcast right now. I swear to you, what you just said just described my life. Like I just pray everyone hears what you just said. Because one, how I feel doesn't mean I'm mentally unhealthy. And...

I want to feel everything. I don't think there are good or bad emotions. Sometimes when I feel a little bit melancholy, which I have a tendency to feel that way. I think that's maybe my disposition sometimes. I kind of embrace it and I like gray days. I like rainy days because it may sound hokey, but

I can sit in that and actually be functional. I don't need to avoid those feelings all the time. It doesn't mean I'm mentally unhealthy. Now, having said that, do you think you're obsessed? And is obsession bad? Talk about obsession for a minute. Like, I think my upset, I am obsessed with...

I'm helping people. I'm obsessed with being more successful. I'm obsessed with growing. I happen to think those are relatively healthy obsessions. What you're being told by people is it's not so healthy. But do you think, are you obsessed and do you think it's healthy? Yes, I am obsessed. And I would say I also err on the side of I can be compulsive with my obsessions. I just find ones that work in my favor.

So, you know, I think a lot of the times, you know, I mean, for sure, obsessive compulsive, like I've had like 17,000 people tell me I am that. And I'm like, great, a superpower. Like, what's wrong with that? Like, I get obsessed and I will reach my goal no matter what. Like, I have shown myself that time and time again. And so I actually just think that I look at the difference between, you know, a lot of the times I think, for example, like people have a parent and that parent is

does something that hurts them or has something wrong with them. You know, for example, like my mother, you know, she ended up getting into drugs and alcohol and we don't have a relationship. And I think because I have a lot of the same tendencies my mother had.

I have very similar way of talking. She was very bright. She was very driven and she used it the wrong way. She was taught that it was bad. She did not fuel any of her life. Like she decided to just be a stay at home mom and not work. She didn't like, she did not unleash this and use it as a power. And I think that if I look at, you know, like a hero and a villain, it's just like, what do you use your power for?

I'm obsessed, but I use it to make the world better. And so is it even bad if it makes my life and others better that I am obsessive and sometimes compulsive? I have those two. I have a couple. I think I am obsessive compulsive. Like I'll do certain things where I'm,

I'm not washing my hands, but there's little things I'll do. And I'm like, I probably, it's not healthy that I do this. And what I, do you do that at all? Do you have any like weird quirks that if everybody knew what they were, they would think you were a weirdo. Do you have any of that? Any of you listening or do you Layla? Oh yeah. Well, I mean, I like, I cannot not wash my hands after I go to the bathroom. Alex knows that. And he, he's like, what? Uh, and like have to shower before I get in bed. I will not get, I will not go into bed dirty. That's disgusting. Um,

Um, but also just like around work, you know, like, yes. Like when you talked about like one more rep, I literally have this notch in my brain and it's probably, and it's like, if you don't do extra reps, you can't leave. It's like, it's not like a choice. And I like, I won't do them. And then I have to like, I like come back into the gym and do them. And then I, yeah.

it's just like a rule that i have made for myself and this is the thing i think a lot of times we get obsessed with something and we create rules that work in our favor to achieve a goal what happens is that if that if that obsession and that rule is no longer serving you and you cannot break it i would say then it's probably something we want to take care of i'm not even gonna say a problem just like it's not helping your life get better um and so for me it's always looking at like well

Does having this rule in my mind make me better or worse? And some people have rules that make them worse, which I think that's fair. Then look at that. But a lot of people are able to engineer a life where they're obsessed with something and they create rules that allow them to succeed. And I think I have done that. And I've just tried to yield all of my force rather than like putting my mental energy into things that don't matter into just like, how do I do that to achieve my goals? So do I. And by the way, all of you that are listening to this,

Some of these little things that could be borderline obsessive compulsive can also be triggers that put you in a place to perform. So is it obsessive compulsive when a baseball player unties their batting gloves three times before they get in the batter's box? Or is that a trigger that puts them in the right state? And so those of you that tend to see it have a little bit of that, you're right on the line of being mega successful because those are triggers. The healthy way to do it is a trigger. The unhealthy way is it becomes compulsive.

Those of you that have a tendency to be addictive personalities, alcohol, drugs, gambling, whatever it is, do you know how damn close you are to being successful? Because you have the brain of a successful person. If you can redirect those compulsions and obsessions in a healthy place, you can change the world and change your world. So those of you that think you're all screwed up,

You're a millimeter away from being mega successful with a tweak or two that we're talking about here today. So absolutely awesome stuff. I didn't know we were going to talk about it. Awesome stuff. Okay, shift. Let's talk about leaders for a minute. Did you want to say anything about that? Do you have a thought? You look like you wanted to say something. All I was going to say, Ed, is for anyone who doesn't believe what you said, I was arrested six times and...

Wow. Wow. I'm glad you just said that. Go ahead. Finish that thought, please. No, I didn't know that when I was younger, I was arrested six times for alcohol and drugs. I was drinking all the time. I was doing drugs. And that was between the age of nine of 18 to 19. Like there was an 18 month period where I allowed myself to

to indulge in the wrong direction. And that's what I realized is like, there's nothing wrong with being obsessed. You're using it on the wrong things. Somebody that is like that. And I would say like, I identify as like, I don't even say like, I'm like, I'm a hunter is what I actually identify as. I'm like, I want to hunt. And so when you don't have something to hunt, you get yourself into trouble.

And I don't think that somebody who's born that way, I mean, it's probably, maybe it's rare that I'm a female and feel that way about myself, but like you should not suppress that because that just makes it worse. And so what I see is that when people try to suppress these things that they're naturally gifted with, and then they're told are wrong, they go in this direction, which is what I went in. And it took me just saying, screw what everyone's told me, what works for me? And what works for me is actually the opposite of what everyone has said.

And so just for anybody who thinks that, like I was that person and I am now where I am. It's not like something fundamentally inside of me changed. It's that I put it in the right direction. I now have it working for me, not against me. You just nailed it. I was talking to a mutual friend of ours, very, very successful entrepreneur last night. And he said that exact thing. He goes, dude, I've just landed on the fact that I'm a hunter.

And I need to be hunting something all the time. And when I'm hunting, I'm happy. And when I'm not hunting, I'm unhappy. And the other thing is those of you that have a child or you're raising somebody or in a relationship with someone who has some of these tendencies where they're obsessive, but they're sort of that can be destructive. Just so you know, to try to suppress that obsessive part of them, I think is a negative. Try to get them to redirect it to something positive and productive. And you can have a world changer on your hands.

They're a world changer. This is a gift they have to have that ability. Obsession is to repeat thoughts. It's to chase something. It's to be relentless. It's to be resilient. It just needs to be directed correctly. Your child may not be nearly as screwed up as you think. They just need a redirection of their gift that they have, which is their obsessive personality. Man, that's good. So about leadership for a second. By the way, this is flying by. We're going to go a little long, everybody, because it's too good.

and i knew it would be but like we're in it right now you say great leaders are like chameleons and some people say well a leader's consistent they treat everybody the same way that has not been my experience and i don't think you think that either what do you mean when you say a great leader is like a chameleon i think that what i've realized over time is if i look at how i am now which i would say i'm the most effective of a leader i've ever been and how i was when i began

the discrepancy between the two is my ability to speak to the person. And I think this is a phrase that many people hear. It's like, speak to the person that you're with, meaning how can I speak in a way that they actually understand the message I'm delivering? And so what I realized in the beginning is I would speak because I naturally just really like people and I love having a team and I like being a leader like I just do. And so if anyone messes up, I don't yell at them. I'm like,

Hey, like, what was going on? Are you okay? Like, I'm checking in. And I start to realize, I'm like, you know, that style doesn't land with everybody. And honestly, it was just environmental feedback. I started realizing, you know, if I speak to this guy who's on my team, who was in the Navy for five years and then worked at, you know, Bain and McKinsey like that, he doesn't even hear a word I said.

And so I realized if I want to expand my capacity as a leader, I have to expand my ability to adapt to the person in front of me. And I truly remember when I was young and I was 24 and had like 110 employees at the time. And I remember doing one-on-ones. I think I had 11 direct reports and I was doing all of them in a day. And I had this cue, which was I had a hat next to me.

And I was reminding myself with each one-on-one to put on a different hat. That doesn't mean that my values change. That doesn't mean that Layla changes. But it may mean that the tonality I use and the expressions that I have change. And that's because it's more important to me to communicate the message than how it gets there.

I don't care how it gets there. And at the end, I really don't. I just want to make sure that it's heard by that person in the way that I intend it to. And I think it's very hard to do that if you don't have the skill of adapting to the person in front of you. I totally agree. What's an exit feel like? Take us into that.

Her and her husband have had an exit where they have that day. I asked him at dinner that night because I know what it's like. But I think most people listening to this dream of a day where all their hard work, someone comes along and values it enough that maybe they buy their company. They have an exit of some type. And I remember my first friend I was playing golf with, first guy I ever met that had an exit. His name was Roger. And he didn't even own the company. He was like the number two or three guy there, but he got a big exit. And I said...

What's it like? And I remember he put his golf club down. He goes, bro, it was amazing. I kept checking the bank. Is it really in there? Oh my God. As good as you think it is, it's a million. I'm just curious for you, what was the first exit like? What does it feel like when that day happens most entrepreneurs dream of? Very unimportant. I don't even think about it. I think the reason for that is because I actually felt, I think what occurred around the exit was

Getting the company to a place where it is exitable was what I was proud of. Because I was like, if this company can grow without me and be purchased and grow without me, I feel like I really did a good job. And that was the measure of my success. It's like, if it goes down the year after they buy it, I'm going to feel like crap about myself because I would have hoped to build a better machine than that. And that was the first thought that went through my mind. The second thought that went through my mind was I was excited to build acquisition.com. The money hitting the bank account

truly felt like nothing to me. And I don't think it's like that for everybody, but I think something, whether it be for better or worse, is money has never been my number one priority. When I met Alex, he was like, if you could just not just want to help people as much as you do and be so obsessed with all this, but also be okay making money, he's like, you'll be dangerous. And so I've had to balance out, and I think he balances me out a lot with also focusing on the monetary aspect. But

I don't get, you know, like having an extra whatever, $45 million. Like the only thing that I looked at it as is a tool. Like in my opinion, money, if just left an account for many, it's security. I think that once you have above a certain amount, it's like, well, yeah, I have enough security with this much. So it's like beyond that, what do you do with it?

And so what a lot of people don't talk about is like, what do you do with the money you get from the exit? Because money doesn't make you happy. But if you know how to use money to build things and to, I would say like advance your mission, then it can be a really useful tool. And so for me, I looked at it as a tool to build acquisition.com. I was like, if we get this money, we can invest it in a building. We can invest it in these, you know, five to 10 businesses. We can do all these things with it. And so I just looked at it as,

not as an event on its own, but like they were merged together. Like I built that company to be able to sell it so that I had the money to start this one. And I think for a lot of people, they get really excited when they see more money, but I don't know if they know what it means. And I think they suddenly think like, oh, because I have all this money, that means I should stop working. And it means I'm not going to want to work anymore.

And I actually think that's not true for most people. And what I saw with most of my friends before we had our exit was people who didn't have a plan for what to do after they exited their business were very depressed. Yep. Because you think about it. Why do people run businesses? Because we get good things from it. It makes us feel good. It gives us status. It gives us money. It gives us attention from employees, like all of these different things. And suddenly you take it all away.

And then they start putting all this pressure on their spouse and on their friends. And like now they need it from somewhere else. And so if you don't replace that with something else, you probably just mess up everything for everyone else around you because you're asking more of everybody. And they're like, nothing's changed for me. And so for me, it honestly is just not something I think about a lot because it was just a tool.

And at the end of the day, I don't even look at like our personal money right now because I'm only thinking about acquiring more money to build bigger things, not to like fuel my shopping. You know what I mean? Yeah. The reason I asked it is that when we had dinner that night, you and I had the same reaction to it.

And I actually think real entrepreneurs feel more like what you described. My friend that I was telling you about worked in the company. And by the way, I actually also think, I want everyone to hear this. I think the reason you got an exit is because your outcome was not to do that. One of the things that I'm leery of when I am asked to invest in companies is if I think the founder is obsessed with exiting.

Because you will do certain things to exit a company that can hurt it to get it ready to be exited. And I always think this person's really eager to get out of here, eager to not do the work anymore. Their mission seems to be the cash out, not the future of the company or the mission of the company. And so I think most real entrepreneurs aren't obsessed with the exit. You agree with that? I do.

Most of them are like what I think you and I identify as. It's like if you just got the kill, you're on to the next one. Your stomach might be full for a brief moment for some, but the next day you're ready to go. It's like, what do I do tomorrow? You know what I mean? And so we literally, like the day after, a lot of people are like, oh, take time off, do all these things.

And like, I actually felt so averse to that because I was like, I just want to build something even bigger now. I love it. And so the next morning after we sold the company, we started the next one. That's awesome. Just went all in. I think that that's just like one of the most telling answers because I have this saying that I teach some of my athletes and I also...

believe about business, which is process over prize. I'm so much more into the process of doing it and building it and doing something great than I am the prize. The prize takes care of itself. Process over prize, which is really what you're saying. Okay, so we talked about exiting a company. I got one last question for you. I don't know that I've had a podcast fly by in an hour this quickly. Seriously. This is one of just like the time flew. But you're young, but I know you think about this stuff sometimes. So

So we're talking about exiting a company now. What about when you exit this life someday? So someday this thing you and I are doing here called life will end. I'm just curious, like what you want that to look like? Like, are you going to be well preserved and well rested? And, you know, you know what I mean? What do you want it to be like? What do you think it should be like?

It's funny, a lot of people ask me about longevity and do you do all these things? I don't think about life like that at all. I think about it like, what a waste of my life if I were to spend half of my days trying to live longer when I could have just lived.

And so the way that I look at it is like, I want to go down just beaten to shit. Like there's a phrase that it has, but like, I want to be used up, dude. Like I want to know that I did everything I was possibly capable of in life. And I think that is what I will measure my life upon. It's not about money. It's not about success. It's just like, did I do not even what I was knew I was capable of, but did I do the things that felt once impossible?

And I think that is really what it is, is like, I will always pursue things that at first I'm like, there's no way that's going to be possible or feasible. And I'm going to pursue it anyways. And I want to get to the end of my life and be like, it was well lived because even if you didn't get to where you wanted to be,

You did the impossible the entire way. You acted in accordance with believing that you could. So even if outside circumstances dictate otherwise, and you don't achieve maybe whatever it is, land a man on the moon, do whatever, build this crazy technology, the fact that I would live in accordance with that belief would be what I'd be proud of. And so, you know, it's funny because of that, I think I spend so little time thinking about

preserving my life because I think about how I'm going to use my life rather than preserve my life. Does that make sense? Yeah. I have to tell you this conversation when you do podcasts, you're thinking now that would be a good clip for Instagram. That would be every single topic. I'm like, I hope everyone stayed to the end. Oh, the thing in the middle. Like, yeah, I do. And I kind of feel that way about today's show. Like, could it have been longer? Yeah. But man, every single minute of this was valuable.

and it'll help other people do the impossible. I'm sitting here very grateful for the hour. I really am. I'm so glad that I called you and said, please do this. And I'm so grateful that you accommodated it because

Man, I'm going to tell you, this was a remarkable hour and I'm hoping that I've introduced the world. You know, I know a lot of the world knows you, but the part that didn't, I'm grateful that I got to introduce you to them and vice versa, because this was outstanding today. So thank you so, so much. It was awesome today. Thank you for having me. I'm grateful that you asked.

I love you guys very much. I'm proud of you too. And you guys, I don't need to tell you this because you've all probably stopped by now to do it, but go follow Layla on social media. Follow the journey between her and her husband because you'll look back in 10 or 20 years from now.

And what their lives are going to look like, the businesses they've built, the people they've helped, the change they've created in the world together is going to be something absolutely mind-blowing. And you're going to remember why because you heard her today in the beginning of her prime. So, Layla, thank you for today so much. Thank you, Ed. All right, everybody. Share today's show. God bless you. Max out.