From: alexhormozi
To make significant improvements in life, such as achieving goals for 2025, one must focus on investing in oneself through self-education and skills development [00:00:00]. This requires a deliberate shift in priorities and a long-term perspective [00:00:29].
The Foundation: Investment in Self
A core principle for success is that “ambitious people buy skills” [00:00:16]. The speaker’s father advised him that “rich people buy time, poor people buy stuff” [00:00:13]. Your current spending habits and calendar reflect your true priorities and what you will get more of in the future [00:00:27].
“We vote with our dollars about the things that we care about, we vote about the type of person that we want to become.” [00:00:47]
Just as someone stepping into a new identity might start budgeting for items that align with that identity (e.g., makeup for young women aspiring to be women) [00:01:17], individuals must align their budgets and calendars with the actions required to become their desired future self [00:02:26]. This means “buying stock” in your future self by investing in time and money today [00:02:43].
The Value of Skills Over Possessions
Skills are the only true assets that cannot be taken away [00:39:17]. Unlike material goods, which can be confiscated or deteriorate, skills compound and remain with you throughout your life [00:39:26], [00:50:05]. This perspective comes from the speaker’s family, who had all their assets seized in their home country, but their education and skills remained [00:39:34].
The “Ignorance Tax”
The price of not knowing how to achieve your dreams is “ignorance” [00:48:43]. The “debt” is the difference between your current earnings and what you could be making if you possessed the necessary skills [00:48:46]. Paying to acquire skills is essentially paying down this ignorance tax, accelerating your progress and “pulling years forward into the present” [00:48:37], [00:55:54].
“You pay reality $950,000 every single year for not knowing how to make a million dollars.” [00:50:56]
This highlights that investing in education and skills provides a significantly higher return than traditional financial investments like the S&P 500 [00:54:06], [00:56:09].
Strategic Investments in Skills
Prioritize Self-Investment
- Bet on yourself: Your personal growth is a long-term hold that guarantees compounding returns as skills stack on top of each other [00:47:11].
- Allocate resources: Recognize that your resources (time and money) are zero-sum [00:45:35]. If you’re not achieving your goals, it’s often a “priorities problem” [00:45:50]. Shift funds from non-essential spending to education [00:46:09].
- Work more, spend less: Working more hours not only increases income but also reduces opportunities to spend money, creating a double net positive [00:46:25].
Embracing the Learning Curve
- Accept initial struggle: When learning new things, you will “suck for a period of time” [00:17:25]. This period of discomfort is the “cost of greatness” [00:17:32].
- Proactive learning: Don’t wait for future failures to teach you lessons. Pay to learn from others’ mistakes and experiences to accelerate your progress [00:18:17], [00:48:17].
- Seek out mentors and heroes: Listen to the voices of people closest to your goals, even if they are just figures you follow online [00:10:06], [00:10:29]. Use their decision-making calculus as a guide [00:10:33].
- Change your environment: Be willing to relocate or change your social circle to be around individuals who are better than you or share similar ambitious goals [00:49:06], [00:49:40].
The Power of Practice and Repetition
- Focus on procedural knowledge: “Knowing how to” is more valuable than “knowing about” [01:07:46]. You learn by doing, not just by consuming content [01:08:11].
- Embrace repetition with improvement: Achieving skill involves constant repetition and an “improvement loop” [00:58:47]. The “pain of repetition is what forces you to seek Improvement” [01:28:52].
- Become a lifelong student: The reinvestment in learning and acquiring skills never ends [01:23:42], [01:23:50].
Conclusion: Continuous Personal Growth
Ultimately, success is not just about achieving goals but about the person you become in the process [00:28:32], [00:32:32], [01:28:32]. Identity is fluid and defined by actions; if you want to be different, you must do different things [00:37:40].
“Business is shockingly simple but surprisingly hard. The hard comes in the form of consistency. The moment you don’t want to do it or just skip today is the day you realize what hard actually feels like. Learn to endure, overcome.” [01:31:22]
By focusing on elimination of distractions, getting started, continuously improving, and never stopping, you can achieve your goals. This requires a commitment to the process, understanding that “nothing hard lasts forever” [01:26:26], and recognizing that failures are merely requisites for success and feedback loops for improvement [00:40:47], [00:41:02]. The payoff is not just material wealth but the unshakeable asset of your continually developed skills and the person you become.