From: alexhormozi
To make 2025 the best year of your life, four steps are recommended: eliminate distractions, get started, get better, and never stop [00:00:04]. The first and easiest step is the elimination of distractions [00:00:09].
The Cost of Distraction & The Power of Investment
An old piece of advice states: rich people buy time, poor people buy stuff, ambitious people buy skills, and lazy people buy distraction [00:00:13]. Your investments in time and money dictate what you will get more of [00:00:29]. Many are surprised when their bank account is lower or accomplishments are fewer than desired, but a look at their calendar and credit card expenses often reveals why [00:00:31]. We “vote with our dollars” on what we truly care about and the type of person we aspire to become [00:00:47].
Our priorities are dictated by what we spend, not merely by what we say [00:01:55]. To step into a new identity, one must align new priorities with new spending habits [00:02:00]. If you want to achieve a future version of yourself, you need to “buy stock” in that version today by investing both time and money [00:02:43]. While it’s never been easier to be successful, it’s also never been easier to be distracted [00:02:54].
The Principle of Elimination
Commitment is defined as the elimination of alternatives [00:03:07]. If you want to commit to something, you must eliminate everything that is not the main thing [00:03:29]. A laundry list of common distractions often gets in the way of people reaching their goals as quickly as they’d like [00:03:33].
Eliminating Bad Influences (Friends & Opinions)
Bad friends are a significant category of distraction [00:03:46]. If you desire better friends, you might need to see your current friends less, as better friends are often busy friends [00:03:51].
Consider these five questions when evaluating friendships:
- Would you take it as a compliment if someone told you that you are a lot like your friend? [00:04:17]
- Are you truly fulfilled by the friendship, or is it just someone to keep you from being lonely? [00:04:25]
- Are you able to be unapologetically yourself, or do you feel the need to act differently to please that friend? [00:04:32]
- Do you like who this friend is right now, or do you like the idea of the friend and who they could be someday? [00:04:38]
- Would you want your future or imagined child to be friends with someone like this person? [00:04:50]
Exceptional people are rare, meaning it’s normal to have fewer truly good friends [00:05:07]. If you have many friends, it’s likely your bar for friendship is too low [00:05:23]. A good filter for important friends is to ask if they have the same scale of goals and level of dedication as you [00:05:32].
Ambitious individuals must become accustomed to periods of solitude, as they often transition from one friend group to another, sometimes with no friends at all for a season [00:06:21]. To be exceptional means you are the exception, not normal; therefore, it’s normal for normal people to find you abnormal [00:07:02]. Do not allow people with mediocre goals to deter you from taking actions that lead to greatness, simply because it makes you different [00:07:15]. The ability to delay gratification is a function of intelligence, where expanding the reinforcement window for learning increases the rate of learning, despite a short-term decrease in immediate rewards [00:08:16].
The best predictor of long-term material success is your “reference group” – the people you compare yourself to [00:09:29]. More profoundly, it’s about the people you want to impress and whose voices you hear when making significant life decisions [00:09:50]. You should listen to those closest to your goals, even if they are only people you follow online [00:10:06].
Eliminating Opinions of Others
People’s opinions and behavior affect your decisions [00:15:32]. Winners focus on winning, while losers focus on winners [00:11:05]. You will never receive hate from above, always from below, because winners keep their eyes on the goal, not on other people [00:11:10]. Early on, you may look like an idiot to others as you figure things out, but eventually, they will look like idiots for doubting you [00:11:27].
Wise, elderly individuals often care about very little, understanding that life is too short for trivial concerns [00:11:51]. If you want to “cheat code” this wisdom, act today as if you already know what your 85-year-old self will know [00:12:14]. People with ambitious goals see work as life, a fundamentally different understanding of reality than those who criticize their drive [00:12:35]. Develop “armor” against snide comments like “you work too hard” or “you’re too obsessed,” because eventually, these comments will cease as your reality changes, or those people will no longer be in your world [00:13:03].
Your actual standard, what you deem tolerable or intolerable, dictates how far you go in life [00:13:58]. The person with the highest standards should lead, and you should have the highest standard for yourself [00:14:07]. Borrow the measuring stick of your heroes (e.g., Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs); if they wouldn’t pursue a certain standard, why would you? [00:14:56]
Eliminating Environmental Distractions
Your environment affects your efficiency [00:15:38]. If you cannot sit still, ignore notifications, and focus on one task for extended periods, you cannot build anything great [00:15:42]. Hyperfocused periods are required for significant achievement [00:15:58]. Success is not about what you want, but what is required [00:16:40].
Focus is achieved by removing everything else, rather than trying to push harder amidst disruptions [00:18:37]. Jerry Seinfeld, for example, would lock himself in a room with only a yellow notepad and pen, with the rule that he didn’t have to write, but couldn’t do anything else, thus making writing the default outcome [00:18:54].
Tactical Ways to Reduce Phone Distraction:
- Switch to grayscale: Decreases consumption by 30% [00:19:29].
- Turn off all notifications: You dictate when the app disrupts you, not the other way around [00:19:39].
- Use a “do not disturb” mode: No one can get through unless it’s a true emergency [00:20:01].
Eliminating entire channels of communication (like email) can also help you concentrate [00:30:30].
Eliminating Limiting Self-Identity
A significant obstacle to eliminate is your self-identity and the “isms” you claim (e.g., “I’m a neat freak,” “I’m not good at math,” “I’m not techie”) [00:25:15]. A useful “razor” for all decisions: does this person, thing, or belief make it more or less likely that I hit my goals? [00:25:42]
Identity is a lie; we describe people by what they do. Doing is being [00:30:30]. If you want to be different, you must do different things [00:27:40]. Your identity is 100% under your control because you control your actions [00:28:11].
Conclusion: The Path Forward
After eliminating distractions (bad friends, external opinions, environmental interference, and limiting self-identity), you create room to get started [00:28:19]. You only need three things to win: the balls to start, the brains to learn, and the heart to never give up [00:28:40].
The best way to hit next year’s goals is to start working on them now, not to wait for a special occasion like January 1st [00:29:14]. Waiting suggests that today isn’t worth improving [00:29:33]. Your life is the lottery ticket; cash it in as fast as humanly possible [00:30:06]. You are young and have time — this is a false lie that extends how long it takes to realize tomorrow isn’t guaranteed [00:30:15]. Nothing is easy; get over it [00:30:24].
It takes time to get good, and the sooner you start, the sooner you act, and the sooner you get [00:30:26]. It only takes 20 hours of focused effort to get decent at anything [00:30:39]. The problem is many people wait years before starting their first hour [00:30:45]. This means you could achieve next year’s goals before the end of this year [00:30:50].
Most people dislike surprises, even good ones, because they dislike the unknown [00:31:19]. However, once you succeed, the difficult periods leading up to it will compress in your mind; you’ll remember the accomplishment more than the work it took [00:31:59]. Failure does not decrease the likelihood of success; it increases it because failure provides feedback, which leads to improvement [00:40:40]. Everyone loses before they win [00:41:14]. Your second attempt after failing (which you inevitably will) takes twice the emotional effort but half the actual effort [00:42:15].
The best entrepreneurs have the biggest failure résumés [00:42:48]. The crazy thing about success is you only need to win once [00:43:23]. As Jeff Bezos noted, in business, if you swing for the fences, you’ll strike out a lot, but you can also score 1,000 runs, which is why it’s important to be bold [00:43:33]. These “big winners” pay for many experiments through their failures and scars [00:44:01].
You can never expect someone to invest in you more than you invest in yourself [00:44:40]. An insatiable desire to improve can beat talent, connections, money, looks, and intelligence [00:45:05]. Ambition drives people to acquire skills, paying with time and money, which means taking resources from other areas, as resources are zero-sum [00:45:25]. Many people don’t have a resource issue but a priorities problem [00:45:48].
Investing in yourself will always yield better returns than traditional investments [00:50:15]. The “ignorance tax” is the cost of not knowing how to achieve your dreams, and the debt you pay is the distance between where you are and what you could be making if you had the necessary skills [00:48:37]. Education is the highest return investment; it’s the only thing no one can take from you [00:51:56]. You should invest all your money in education for as long as possible, until you are making too much money to spend it all [00:56:54].
To become an expert, you must do more repetitions and fail more times in a narrow field than anyone else [00:57:06]. Staying focused is like beating an addiction: it’s not a one-time victory, but a daily fight against morphing distractions [01:01:44]. To win in business, you need to be able to say “no” without remorse and hear “no” without a loss of enthusiasm [01:02:28].
Opportunity perception increases with skill; initially, you see few opportunities, but with many skills, you see so many that you feel like you’re missing out [01:03:28]. The real opportunity lies in solving the problems in front of you [01:03:42]. Big things don’t happen on small timelines because you have to start from zero repeatedly [01:05:45]. However, sticking with it is actually the shortest way to achieve your goals, even if it takes longer than you think [01:05:52].
There are two types of knowledge:
- Declarative knowledge: Knowing about something (e.g., memorizing facts, watching videos) [01:07:33].
- Procedural knowledge: Knowing how to do something [01:07:46]. You won’t truly learn until you do it [01:08:11]. You will learn more from your first 100 cold calls or door knocks than from 100 books or videos [01:08:15].
Nothing hard lasts forever; it either gets easier, you get better, or you quit [01:08:26]. You only lose when you quit before seeing it all the way through [01:08:37]. A good rule of thumb: when it’s easy, do more; when it’s hard, do different [01:09:50]. When something starts working, put on blinders and accelerate [01:12:15].
Overcoming Obstacles & Maintaining Momentum
Consider working 30 days straight, 10-12 hours a day, to understand your true work capacity, realize you won’t break, and build the confidence that you have that extra gear if needed [01:12:55]. This intense work ethic provides purpose and drive, earning your “shower at the end of the day” [01:14:28]. Don’t satisfy external expectations; operate from first principles: what do I want, what does it take to get it, and what holds me back? [01:16:01]
Obsession with speed, coupled with macro patience, helps you pull reality forward [01:18:57]. Aggressively question timelines and ruthlessly eliminate waste or gaps between actions required to win and everything else [01:21:06].
The “Rule of 100” Daily for Starting Out:
- Reach out to 100 people [01:27:52].
- Make a post you spent 100 minutes on [01:27:55].
- Spend $100+ on ads [01:27:57].
- Spend at least 100 minutes a day making, improving, and researching ads [01:28:00].
Additional Wisdom for Sticking with It:
- Excitement will end after about a week; that’s when the real work begins [01:28:24].
- Your work works on you more than you work on it; you are the product being built [01:28:32].
- Everything is unscalable in the beginning; that’s how you learn every piece and become an expert [01:28:41].
- The pain of repetition forces you to seek improvement [01:28:52]. Lean into the pain because it forces change and improvement [01:29:16].
- Complaining is a net loss: it drains energy and loses respect from others [01:29:43].
- Thousands of people have already succeeded; you are not special [01:30:26]. Repeat the same activities, and you will repeat the same outcomes [01:30:31]. Reframe “it doesn’t work” to “I don’t know how to make it work” or “I am not good enough to know how to make it work” [01:31:00].
- Write down every reason you’re going to stick with it, and revisit it when needed [01:31:13].
- Business is shockingly simple but surprisingly hard; the hard part is consistency [01:31:23].
- Just win [01:31:36]. All hardship will be forgotten, fading into memory, while the “betterness” will carry over into your fresher present [01:31:40].
Goals aren’t finish lines; they are mile markers [01:25:09]. You think your goal is to reach a certain level, but once there, the mist lifts, and you realize there’s another mountain top [01:25:28]. The climb itself, not just the summit, is the purpose [01:25:46]. The lazy don’t know how to start, the losers don’t know how to finish, and the legends don’t know how to stop [01:26:30]. In any game worth playing, you don’t win by winning; you win by staying alive long enough to outlast everyone else [01:27:03].