Alex Hormozi Just Coached 6 Business Owners in 33 Minutes — Here's What I'd Steal

I just watched Alex Hormozi's latest video where he sits down with 6 business owners trying to scale and walks them through how to actually do it. The video is 33 minutes long. The advice in it is worth way more than that.

The line that stuck with me: "The best talent is always in the future." It's so simple it's almost embarrassing, but most business owners — me included, for years — get this completely backwards.

If you're stuck in your business right now and the gap between where you are and where you want to be feels too big to cross, this one's for you.

The first guy nailed his own problem (then ignored it)

The first business owner — a roofing/remodeling guy named Thomas — said he's at $6 million and wants to hit $100 million. Hormozi asked him what's stopping him. Thomas said, "Comfort, distractions, and fear."

He literally diagnosed himself. He admitted he'd worked himself out of a job, can run the business on 2-3 hours a week, has a side drunk-removal business, plus real estate, plus a few other things.

In the video, Hormozi makes the point I think every founder needs to hear: regret comes from imagining the upside without the cost. We picture the $100 million version of the business but we don't picture the work, the family time, the missed weekends. We imagine the win without the trade-off.

That's where dissatisfaction comes from — wanting both.

The cookies-vs-six-pack frame is gold

Hormozi's analogy: "If I like cookies and I'm good with that, and I also want a six-pack, I just prefer cookies. There's no right answer. The trade-off comes from wanting both."

What I'd add from my own experience: I've watched so many entrepreneurs (myself included at times) sit in this middle ground where they don't fully commit to one direction or the other. They want the $10M business AND the four-day work week AND the perfect family life AND the side projects.

Pick the trade. Decide what you're trading. Then go.

The "Who Game" is where most owners get stuck

This was the part of the video that hit hardest for me. Hormozi said when you're trying to go from $6M to $100M, you graduate into what he calls "the Who Game." Meaning — it's not about what you do anymore. It's about who you hire.

He walks through it: he remembers his first $50K/year employee. Felt like a luxury. Then his first six-figure hire — and suddenly the $50K hire looked like nothing. Then $250K. Then $500K. Then a $1M+ per year employee. Each level felt impossibly expensive until he hired the next one.

This is exactly what's been true in my world too. When I think back on every business decision I've regretted, it's almost always waited too long to hire someone smarter than me at the thing I was trying to do.

"The best talent is always in the future"

This is the line. The president at Acquisition.com told Hormozi this years ago and it's the single sentence I think every business owner needs taped to their monitor.

Whatever talent you have today, the best people for your business are still ahead of you. Not behind you.

If you change nothing, nothing changes. So the question becomes: what are you willing to trade short-term to bring in long-term high-leverage talent?

For most founders the trade is:

• Short-term profit → high-end hire who can run a department
• Time spent doing operator work → time spent recruiting, hiring, and leading
• The dopamine hit of "I built this myself" → the slower, less ego-rewarding work of building something through other people

You can make the profit back. You can build the systems again. You can't get the next 5 years of compounded growth back if you spent them being the bottleneck.

The real estate side note

Hormozi made a quick comment that I thought was underrated. A few of the owners mentioned they had real estate on the side. His take: as long as you're not actively running it, it's fine. He's a fan of REITs and funds for that reason — you get exposure without it changing what you do day-to-day.

This is something I think entrepreneurs get tripped up on. Passive income is only passive if it doesn't pull your attention. If you're spending two hours a week managing a duplex, that's not passive — that's a side job. Make sure your "diversification" isn't actually just three half-built businesses.

Where I'd push back a little

The one thing I'd add to Hormozi's framing — and this is from running businesses that involve a lot of human relationships (course members, coaching clients, ambassadors) — sometimes the trade isn't profit vs. talent. Sometimes the trade is scope.

I've seen founders try to scale by hiring big and then realize they were trying to do too many things at once. The fix wasn't more talent. The fix was fewer offers, fewer products, fewer audiences, more focus.

So when you're sitting in the "what do I trade to grow" question, consider: maybe the trade isn't bigger hires. Maybe it's a smaller surface area.

The Bottom Line

Watch this video if you're stuck between $1M-$10M and trying to figure out the next move. Hormozi's two big takeaways are worth tattooing somewhere visible:

1. The dissatisfaction comes from wanting both. Pick the trade.
2. The best talent is always in the future. Stop looking at the team you have and start recruiting the team you need.

If you do those two things consistently for 24 months, your business is unrecognizable. If you don't, you'll be the same person in the same chair complaining about the same problems three years from now.