[00:00:00] Leila Hormozi: Leila, these people treat me like shit. They don't gimme raises. I'm not recognized. I understand that. I worked my fucking ass off for years in jobs that I never got a raise and I never got a promotion, and I did it because that's who I am. How I acted was more important to me for my integrity with myself than it was for the person I was working for.

[00:00:17] You are defined by the actions you take, and so if you act like a lazy person, you are a lazy person. Who are you? I show up when nobody else gives a shit. The only way to stand out. Truly is to exceed expectations. Humans, when expectations match reality, we are neutral. We feel nothing. We feel that was how it's supposed to go.

[00:00:38] But the moment that somebody does beyond the job description and exceeds expectations is when the boss will feel excited, feel elated, feel encouraged.

[00:00:52] Hala Taha: What is up young and profiteers you are listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast, where we interview the brightest [00:01:00] minds in the world and turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. I'm your host, Hala Taha, aka, the podcast princess. Thanks for listening and get ready to listen, learn and profit.

[00:01:26] Okay, so we spent a big portion of the interview on self-development. Now I really wanna focus on business. So you've got a lot of management philosophies. You are such a rockstar in this area. You've led numerous teams, you've found huge amounts of success, and everyone can technically be a manager, but not everyone is a leader, even if they are in a management role.

[00:01:47] So first of all, what do you think the qualities are of a world class? 

[00:01:51] Leila Hormozi: Three very important qualities in my opinion. One is industriousness the ability to work hard on the right work when the time comes. [00:02:00] Second is enthusiasm, which is being able to seek out and pursue hard challenges without losing face, without losing energy.

[00:02:07] And then the third is competitive greatness. Competitive greatness is the love of a hard challenge. When the hard challenge comes, it's not you run away from it, it's that you run towards it because you understand what it will do for. Those are the three aspects that when I'm like, I actually use these when I'm hiring, when I'm looking at leadership, I'm like, are they industrious?

[00:02:24] Are they enthusiastic? Do they have competitive greenness? Because here's the thing, if you work really hard on the right stuff, but you lack any energy or enthusiasm, it's hard for people to be around you. They're like, oh, he's great, he's tough. . Versus if you're very energetic and enthusiastic, but you never get anything done, you don't really set a good example for other people in the organization, you're not gonna be able to move things forward fast.

[00:02:45] And then lastly, competitive greatness is what are you motivated by? And I think that the best leaders are not motivated by money. They're motivated by a better version of the world themselves or others that they're constantly trying to pursue because they know [00:03:00] it's, it means something to them and that everyone has a different reason or meaning for that thing.

[00:03:05] But they all have that thing that they're chasing and they know that through leadership is how they can get there. And so that's how I would define a good. 

[00:03:12] Hala Taha: So I found something really interesting when I was studying you and it was about hiring, and you said you can't hire anyone who is a better person than you if you're the boss.

[00:03:21] And from my understanding, you've essentially turned down working with companies because you've believed that top talent wouldn't actually work for the leader. Could you shed some color on that? 

[00:03:30] Leila Hormozi: I'll put it this way. There are situations in which top talent will go work for that person, but how long they stay is what I'm concerned with.

[00:03:37] Think about this, right? I have a certain level of character, I would never work for somebody who had worse character than me. And if I did, it would probably be for a very short amount of time and I wouldn't be loyal to that person. And so when we're looking at companies, that is 1000% the biggest issue that I see, which is there are so many young entrepreneurs that have these insane opportunities, these insane companies, [00:04:00] and they lack the integrity.

[00:04:02] Maybe they lack the discipline, they lack the trust that I don't think that top true, top talent would be easy to recruit for them, and so I don't wanna work with them. 

[00:04:12] Hala Taha: What are the signs of that? Like how do you tell oh, this person doesn't have integrity, or I'm assuming you meet them just a few times?

[00:04:17] Leila Hormozi: That's a tough one because I think that you might feel this, but it's like you can feel someone's intention when you're having a conversation. So there's a lot of people that I talk to in business. For example, it's like when I'm at like an event and I talk to 'em, I'm like, this motherfucker wants to suck the blood outta my brain.

[00:04:31] Like they just want all the information. I talk to somebody else and I'm like, they just want me to talk about them on social. Like you can feel someone's intention. And there's a lot of people I've gotten on the phone with. Not an overwhelmingly amount, but enough that have success. But I can tell that the success is self-fulfilling.

[00:04:46] It's not for others, it's for themselves. They're not in it for others. They're not in it for their clients. They're not in it for their team because they don't talk about that. What they talk about? Me. That doesn't create loyalty. That doesn't create an environment in which top talent wants to work for you.

[00:04:59] It's [00:05:00] being selfishly driven. One could argue that you are selfishly driven to help other people because it feels good to yourself. But I would take that over being selfishly driven to have more money, have more status, have more power. And I can feel when I talk to somebody by the language that they're using what they really want.

[00:05:18] And a lot of that comes from even asking them like, what's the point of the business? Why does the business exist? And a lot of them will say I wanted to make some money and then this, and and then it's always about them. It's I really like this house. I like this car, I like this.

[00:05:29] I like this lifestyle. I like the lifestyle. Whereas I think the best leaders in the world are not building a company to pursue a lifestyle. They're building a company to pursue a purpose. . And they're building a company to pursue impact. Cause that's what I think about the question I ask myself every day when I wake up.

[00:05:44] Is my team supported? Do they have. Are my portfolio companies supported? Do they have clarity? Those are the two questions that I think of in the morning. I don't ask myself, how does Leila gain more status and influence? I could give a fuck. I do this because I want people to know who I am, because I [00:06:00] hope that my true character shows through and they can see I'm not like an asshole boss.

[00:06:04] I really wanna build a place where people love working and I wanna teach other companies to do the same, because I too used to have a shitty boss. So I know what it's like to work in an environment where I wanted to shoot myself every day. It sucked. Yeah. And That's really how you sense it. Is the language somebody uses, are they talking about themselves more?

[00:06:20] Are they talking about the why, the people, the team, the clients. Yeah. It's just a little nuance, but you can tell when you're in the conversation. 

[00:06:28] Hala Taha: Yeah, 100%. So let's talk about the hiring process and dive deep into that. You have a YouTube video called Hundred Million Dollar Hiring Process, and according to your video, the first step in the hiring funnel is the application generation.

[00:06:40] So I know a lot of my listeners are entrepreneurs. A lot of people are struggling with hiring right now, so I thought we could spend a little time on it. So first of all, you say that the job title and the application is like a headline. So what are your top tips to attract the right clients with your job title?

[00:06:56] Leila Hormozi: Yeah, so a lot of people get the job title wrong [00:07:00] because one, they don't know what right looks like. They don't have mentorship, they don't have advisors, and they also don't do. So what I did when I was first starting out to understand what kind of job title I need is I would put in keywords just into Google of what's a job for somebody that does?

[00:07:14] And I would say the top three things, I'm not even kidding you. And then I would look at all the titles that would come up, and then I would Google those titles and read the job descriptions of each one. And then I would find out the one that had the most similar description to the job that I needed somebody to do.

[00:07:28] And so I think that the reason is a lot of people don't put in the time the effort. They don't have the experience but you can easily do that with literally using Google. Yeah. So it's if you went and you read, you're like, okay, I don't know what this role is called, but you read 17 job descriptions on and then took the top three that you think it could be in compared them on six other websites, you're gonna figure out probably the best name for the job.

[00:07:49] I think it's just that most people aren't diligent about that because they don't understand why it's important. If you understand why it's important, it's a task worth doing. When you don't understand the importance, it's not a task worth. But the reality is that [00:08:00] most of the time when someone can't recruit, the number one thing that I'll change is the job title.

[00:08:03] I'm like, oh, it's not the right job title. So I'll give you an example. I'm hiring for, I'll say an administrative assistant to help my EA team. So I put it out as administrative assistant and the people I was getting were like, they had one year of experience. So I was like, shit. Like I need someone with more experience than that.

[00:08:20] So then I made it senior administrative assistant. I started getting people with five, six years of experience, just the Chinese change in job. But if you look at salary.com, payscale.com, what's the difference between an administrative assistant and a senior? There's a difference in pay and an experience, and so it's gonna attract a different type of person.

[00:08:38] I think for a lot of people out there that are struggling with this, it's the exact same thing as a marketing funnel, as a client acquisition funnel. It's just a talent acquisition funnel, and that's the reason so many people don't succeed in businesses. They don't see the similarities between those two things, or they don't believe, they haven't accumulated the evidence to show them like, this really works.

[00:08:55] I've just had enough at bats and I think that I got lucky in the beginning of believing it was [00:09:00] important to try it enough times and see it work. 

[00:09:02] Hala Taha: Yeah, and I think that a lot of people don't realize that when there's a top talent person searching, like they're searching for the job title that they know about, they're not gonna read every single job post and research, like just find you.

[00:09:15] You need to be able to be searchable for them. 

[00:09:17] Leila Hormozi: A hundred percent. They're looking for the name that resonates with who they identify with. 

[00:09:21] Hala Taha: Okay, so second part of the hiring funnel is nurturing. So talk to us about how we can have a frictionless candidate experience and what the indirect and direct experiences are during that process.

[00:09:32] Leila Hormozi: Yeah, so there's really two things during the hiring, lead nurture processes I would like to call, or candidate nurture process, which is indirect communication, which is if I search a company, what am I gonna find? Is it good? Is it bad? Because what candidates do is they go look at your reviews on Google.

[00:09:48] They go look at your client reviews. They go look at Facebook group reviews, they go look at Glassdoor, all of it. Not just employee reviews, lots of customer reviews. You have to understand that, cuz that's usually what pops up first. So that's the first thing I'm asking [00:10:00] is what does it look like when they search your name?

[00:10:02] That's the indirect part of the funnel. And you can have a lot of say in that in terms of what kind of press you're putting out there, what your website looks like. Like you can control the narrative. A lot of people are just too lazy to. So the narrative is controlled by customers, by ex-employees, et cetera.

[00:10:16] But if you take control by controlling the narrative, by putting out content for your company, then you are gonna control the narrative and most likely have a better indirect experience for that candidate. The other side is the direct communication, which is what I see as a huge pattern, is people think I need to have so many tests and so many complicated things to make this candidate go through for this nurture process because I wanna make sure I only get the smart one.

[00:10:40] The smart people have unlimited opportunity and don't give a fuck about your funnel and don't wanna take your 30 point test. That's just reality because guess what? They have five other jobs that are gonna pay them the same if not more, that don't have that test. . And a lot of people will say, I just want the person with the character though.

[00:10:55] I'm like, you don't understand this is opportunity cost. 

[00:10:57] Hala Taha: Yeah. Or they're gonna get poached on [00:11:00] LinkedIn. Like they're not even going through an application. 

[00:11:01] Leila Hormozi: No, this is opportunity cost for them. They have so many opportunities. You have to understand. They don't give a shit about that. And so a lot of people try to make it very complicated.

[00:11:09] They try to make it very, they try to think of it like the candidate should be coming to me versus how could I create a better experience for the candidate? And so I've just taken the same principles from customer experience, and I put them into candidate experience, which is, if I was trying to nurture a lead, how would I be talking to them?

[00:11:26] I do the same thing with people. If I think they're gonna hire I wanna hire them, I'm like, I will be reaching out to them. I will be talking to them. I will be complimenting them. I'm not gonna expect them to just always come to me. That's the first thing. And it does take somebody who doesn't have, who has a good amount of humility because I think a lot of people think my shit don't stink.

[00:11:41] They should be coming to me. I'm like, nobody knows who the fuck you are, so let's just get over our. 

[00:11:46] Hala Taha: Yeah. Can you talk to us about the importance of speed and hiring? 

[00:11:50] Leila Hormozi: The average top candidate gets a job in eight days. The biggest reason that any of our portfolio companies have lost a candidate is time.

[00:11:59] They'll interview someone on [00:12:00] Monday, and then I get like a, a slack on like Thursday and it's Hey, I've got a candidate I want you to interview. I'm like, oh, did you just speak with them? What, how was it like yeah, no, I met with her on Monday and I'm like, it is just the same way that you would nurture a lead that was.

[00:12:13] Hundred thousand dollars customer is how you would want to nurture an employee, because often you're paying someone 50 to $200,000, right? Say you're a small business, how would you nurture a lead that was worth that much money, let alone an employee who's going to stay for a long period of time? And so I think that we look at it the wrong way.

[00:12:29] We think that. It's different than that, but it's actually the same. And candidates right now especially, I think it's gonna change a little bit in the next coming months, but right now, you know the ball's still in a lot of people's courts where they have unlimited opportunity. And so the companies that are out there that are getting the top talent are the ones that have more robust infrastructure and are able to go faster.

[00:12:48] But if a small company is equipped with this and they understand, cuz like when we first started gym, it was me and my assistant hiring and I still was like day of, we send rejection day of, we send follow up day of we schedule. We schedule a meeting [00:13:00] from a meeting, so it's like we'd get done with an interview and be like, cool, we wanna do the next interview.

[00:13:02] Let's schedule it right now while we're on the call because we understood the importance of speed. And I think that anybody can do that. It's just a matter of understanding the importance, which is if you're waiting more than eight days to hire somebody, you're getting worse candidates. 

[00:13:13] Hala Taha: Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.

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[00:13:38] I just launched a LinkedIn masterclass that requires online payments, and so of course I chose Shopify as my frontend and my backend. It was so easy to set up the webpage. They've got pre-made beautiful customizable templates, but by far my favorite part of this whole Shopify experience was their backend. Me and my business partner Kate, we keep our [00:14:00] Shopify tabs up all day and we get a dopamine shot.

[00:14:03] Every time somebody makes an order, it is so addictive. After we send out an email blast or do a social post, or if I go live on LinkedIn, our dashboard starts to show us that hundreds of people are logging onto the store and I can see what city they're logging on from and how many people added it to their cart, and who's checking out right now.

[00:14:22] It is such a rush. Shopify from all these views also helps you iterate and optimize super fast because you know where people drop off in their buying journey. For example, we found that in the beginning we'd have 20 people adding things to their cart and then all of a sudden nobody would buy. And we're like, what happened here?

[00:14:41] And it turns out that people kept adding two to their cart and getting confused. And it wasn't until we made the user experience a little bit better that people started to convert. And they also make it very easy to implement fancy marketing tactics like abandoned cart emails. These things aren't actually that complicated [00:15:00] with Shopify, you can do those things easily, and their analytics are awesome.

[00:15:05] They show me my conversion rates, my average order value, where my traffic sources are coming from, and so much more. And if that wasn't enough, I was able to implement a chat function in two minutes flat. I always thought chat functionality was this very complicated thing that would be really expensive to do, but it took me two minutes, legit, two minutes to set up, and now my team and I are able to answer questions on the fly and close deals.

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[00:19:19] So I heard you say something really cool, which was, we're buying people's brains when we're hiring. So I'd love to understand how we assess people's brains for culture fit for skills. Is it really them taking a test or is it more of a conversation that we have with them? 

[00:19:34] Leila Hormozi: Different people do it different ways. I tend to err more on the side of conversations and situational interviewing. Then I do hard testing. If you look at a lot of the practical tests people put together, those are typically the same format of questions that you would have for an interview anyways. So what I do is I think of, okay, what are situations in which somebody would exhibit the values that we have in the company?

[00:19:55] And then I will take those apart and I will break them down into questions. So competitive [00:20:00] greatness. For example, if I wanted to figure out if somebody has competitive greatness, I would ask them, why do you want to work? What motivates you? Why do you come to work every day? And if somebody says money, it's not competitive.

[00:20:11] Greatness to. And if a portfolio company, I say, why do you have your company? And they say wanna make 10 million. I'm like, it's not competitive greatness. To me, competitive greatness is an unending process, right? It's a continuous cycle of self-improvement. Knowing that the challenge itself is what creates who you wanna be.

[00:20:27] Another example would be sincere candor, which would be tell me I'll give this one. You would think it's like easy and people could fake it, but nobody ever does. I say, tell me the last hard conversation you had and tell me how it went. And I swear, most of the time nobody can think. I could tell you when I had a day ago, I could tell you when from , I had a hard conversation last night.

[00:20:46] You know what I mean? So it's, if I'm looking for someone who's sincerely candorous, I'm gonna ask that. And you're gonna be able to tell by their reaction, not just what they say, but their reaction in terms of do they actually have that? Yeah. And then in terms of the skill side of it and their [00:21:00] experience.

[00:21:00] It's asking people to recall how they drove results. I think it's, you can talk about the actions you took on a daily basis, but I don't really care about that. I wanna know, tell me about results you drove for a company that are similar to the results. I'm asking you to drive here and tell me how you did it, how did you go about it?

[00:21:15] Give me a summary of that. And that's typically what I'll ask. So if I have somebody, I'm hiring for director of customer success and I need them to reduce churn for a customer base, I'm going to say, tell me about a time that you reduced churn. How much did you reduce it by and how did you go about doing.

[00:21:29] And you can tell when someone's answering those questions. If somebody doesn't know how to do that and you have any, as the CEO of course, like I feel like I have to have knowledge of every department, like I have enough to know if somebody's bullshitting me or if the answer they're giving is mediocre.

[00:21:41] What I'm looking for most of the time is that I learn something from that interview. One, I wanna feel like the values are true to them. The other side of the experiential piece in the education is I wanna feel like they're able to teach me something on the interview, and so I leave being better for it.

[00:21:55] Does that make. 

[00:21:56] Hala Taha: Yeah, total sense. So I know that the end of the [00:22:00] process is that you believe, as long as you're a relatively small company, a thousand employees or less, it should end with a CEO interview. And I know that a lot of small entrepreneurs, even if they have 20 employees, they do not do every single interview.

[00:22:12] This was one of the biggest mistakes I made as a young entrepreneur. My, my business skill is 60 employees, and it started to have lower level employees hiring my employees, and then it was like a mess. Really bad talent for a little bit, and I had to let go a lot of my team and it was really hard. And so I learned that lesson first year in business, like I will never do that again.

[00:22:32] Talk to us about why that's so important. 

[00:22:35] Leila Hormozi: I believe that if you are truly a people first company, if you really believe that your employees and your team are the most important to the business, which I would argue in any sense of the way they are the. Then you would think that the CEO would show with the most valuable resource they have, which is time, not money, time, how important those people are to them.

[00:22:55] And I don't think there's a more important way or a more impressive way [00:23:00] than having the last interview. And basically what I do on that interview is I show them that I'm not just here for you with this job, but you as a person, which is what are your personal goals? Do they align with the opportunity that we have within this business?

[00:23:12] And that's what I'm trying to figure. And so I come on there and I wanna set the tone for what their relationship is gonna be like with us and be like with the business, which is, it's not, you're just a number here. It's not this, it's person first, human first. I wanna show you why you're important and I'm showing you right now with my time.

[00:23:29] Hala Taha: Yeah.

[00:23:29] Leila Hormozi: Just like a parent, if they have a kid, it's cool, you can pay for them to go get ice cream with their kids and go to this really cool amusement park, but there's nothing more meaningful than it being their time. 

[00:23:39] Hala Taha: Yeah. 100%. So like we mentioned, a lot of people are having a little bit of trouble hiring right now.

[00:23:46] There's more opportunities to start businesses. It's easier than ever to be a freelancer. And so people have a lot of options. So I heard you say something that was really interesting to me, which was that we really need to create a bigger vision so that people actually feel they can fit [00:24:00] within that if we really want them to work for us, because they could just really work for themselves.

[00:24:04] Now, could you talk to us about that? 

[00:24:06] Leila Hormozi: So I read the book by the CEO of Blackstone, where he talks about. It's just as easy to create a big company as it is to create a small company. And that really resonated with me because I think that the, what he explained is that it is easier to recruit talent if you have a big vision than to recruit talent if you have a small vision, because big talent doesn't want to work for a small vision.

[00:24:27] And so that really hit home with me, and it showed me that you can't have one without the other. It's almost, I cannot even get top talent without a big vision. And you can't create the thing. Creates the vision or fulfills that vision without the top talent. And so that really hit home with me and I realized that you have to have a vision big enough that other people's visions for their own lives can fit inside of it.

[00:24:49] And to the degree of which somebody's vision for themselves fits inside the company is how long you'll keep them. Once they see that, they've hit a point where their personal trajectory of their life has say the business [00:25:00] is here and they're here, and then they go up here. Now there's a deficit. They're feeling like they're lacking something in the workplace because there's some kind of experience that they're not getting from the workplace that they're getting outside.

[00:25:09] And so I think the most important thing that we can do is be very explicit about the vision, be very explicit about where we're going, and very diligent in making sure that when you bring people in, you understand how much runway they have. I will never tell somebody that they have a long runway if I know they don't.

[00:25:25] If somebody doesn't have a long runway, I will absolutely tell them. If somebody comes on to. An EA for me. I'm like, I don't really want you to go anywhere I'd like you to just wanna be an EA for forever because like anyone that's on our administrative team, like there's not a ton of upward trajectory.

[00:25:39] Obviously promotions and raises in like small amounts, but becoming a director of operations or director of HR, that's gonna create a huge hole for me to fill. And so I'm not really looking for that versus if I bring somebody into a new department and I put them as head of business development and there's one person in there, I'm like, one day, I'd like you to be VP of revenue, [00:26:00] or CRO.

[00:26:01] And so I hire according to that, which is what is their personal vision for themselves, what's my vision for the role? And I wanna make sure that the two match. And I think that a lot of times when we're recruiting. The reason a lot of people can't get good talent is because they think that they're like, oh, it's just money.

[00:26:14] I just can't afford to pay top talent. Okay. When we had Jim Launch, I was able to get some really big talent that wouldn't have otherwise worked for us because we had enthusiasm, we had vision, and we had an ability to show those people how they would be able to grow within our organization. So we didn't have the biggest opportunity, but we could show them that their opportunity could at least fit inside what we did have in that company.

[00:26:33] And I think that a lot of people are just so focused on money and thinking about the competition that's trying to recruit people. I'm like, people want opportunity. That's what they really want. They wanna see. It's almost like in the relationship, right? When you get with a guy or a girl or whatever, right?

[00:26:47] You get a new relationship, you're gonna treat it differently. If you think that you're gonna be in that relationship for a long time than you would if you think you're only gonna be there for a few weeks, a few months, or even a year. It's the same way it goes for employment. And so it's reciprocated because if I [00:27:00] feel that somebody really can feel like, I can tell that they think their vision fits within the company, I see how they act, they see how I act.

[00:27:06] It's a much more trusting relationship and you have a lot more loyalty with each other than you would otherwise. And I think a lot of people just don't use it here to their advantage because one, they're probably scared to think too big, they're worried that they'll fail. The reality is you'll for sure fail if you don't think big enough that you can't attract the right talent to build.

[00:27:22] Hala Taha: So smart, and I heard you say before that basically people hop from job to job so they can level up in their career. They need to be able to hop in your company too, from job title to job title. Is there a certain way that you show that to your employees or something that you do to show them the trajectory?

[00:27:38] Or do you just give them new projects all the time? Is it obvious? 

[00:27:42] Leila Hormozi: I think for executive level it's a little bit different. Executive level, it's often showing the business, like I have the business projected for the next 10 years along with an org chart for the next three. And so people can see what kind of responsibility they'll continue to assimilate as an executive team for people under the executive team.

[00:27:57] There's two things that we're working on right now. Cause you have to remember, [00:28:00] acquisition.com is pretty new. Competency maps. So a competency map is basically showing you here's the levels in our organization. So say there's six core levels, here's the skills and the traits needed for each level. And so if you wanna get from one level to the next, here's the skills and the traits required to do and here's what the pay raise looks like as well.

[00:28:17] Here's what the opportunity looks like. Here's what your relationship with management looks like. And so I try to do that within one, the organization as a whole, and then within each department that makes sense. So two that are very typical would be media. So if you have a large media team, like we're building out one for our media team right now to show everyone like, here's the levels needed to build out the media team, and here's all the room you have upward, like upward trajectory wise.

[00:28:38] Same with a sales team. That's a very traditional one, is to show people based on their experience. How much, what their close rate is, all those things. Here's all the levels that you can get to and here's how much you can make along with the opportunity that you'll have in the company. And so it's called a competency map.

[00:28:53] If you look it up, you can find them for other companies. And for a small company, the thing is, it's actually easier to make cuz you have less people. [00:29:00] And so you could even just show, if you don't even know, break it down to three levels. Individual contributor, manager, leader, individual contributor, manager, executive, whatever it may be.

[00:29:10] And I think that if you can just start by showing people. It shows 'em that you give a shit. And I think that a lot of people are like it's not gonna be perfect. Don't have to be as good as Leila's as she's describing. Okay, the point is that you give a shit and that's what people wanna see is that you're thinking about their future.

[00:29:24] Most bosses don't even think about the future of an employee. 

[00:29:27] Hala Taha: It's so true. So let's say we've used all your guidance, we've hired a great team, but if you have a great team and no accountability, Then you know, you're at risk of not getting much done. So you talk about your accountability framework. You even go as far to say that instead of CEO, you call yourself the Chief Accountability Officer.

[00:29:47] Could you talk to us about your accountability formula? 

[00:29:50] Leila Hormozi: Yeah. It's understanding that accountability doesn't exist without measurement, without feedback. And in a timely manner. [00:30:00] And so a lot of the times, the two things that are missing is the measurement, which is are you showing someone where they fit on a spectrum?

[00:30:06] On a scale of 1 to 10, how well are they doing their job? Are you letting them know that they're only at a seven and what they have to do to get to a 10? That's one of the first things required for accountability. It's just if we were a weight scale, so if I go in, weigh myself, right? The scale is basically the accountability officer, as I would say, which is the scale gives them a number, gives them feedback.

[00:30:24] Now the way that we can amplify accountability, the only way that we can actually multiply it is by giving the person feedback of the measurement. So it's like there's the measurement, which is telling them how good they're doing, and then it's how many times are you telling them and how many ways, how good they're doing.

[00:30:40] Are you doing quarterly reviews? Are you doing one-on-ones? Are you having conversations with them? Are you slacking them feedback? So like for example, We just did a kickoff with a new partner company, and the first thing I did this morning was I wrote feedback to the person that conducts the kickoffs.

[00:30:53] I said, here's all my feedback for you. Here's how well I think you did. I actually thought this was the best one you ever did yet, right? And so I'm telling him [00:31:00] where he's at in terms of my expectations. And so the best thing that we can do as CEOs, entrepreneurs, people that employ other people , is really just the feedback.

[00:31:10] If there's one thing that you could do, because especially if you're a small business, that the crux that is always, Hey, I don't have measurement. I don't have things in place. You can at least tell someone verbally in a qualitative manner how they're doing, and you can do it more than mumbling it on a call with them when they're not really paying attention in a way that doesn't even sound direct or like it makes any sense.

[00:31:26] Because that's what a lot of people do is the way that they give feedback is, oh yeah, and then, next time do that presentation maybe we just do it a little bit differently and it's like they, they say it in a way that's very non-direct. And I think the best way to give people feedback and to hold them accountable is to be as clear as.

[00:31:42] It's like when you measure yourself on the scale, it's not like it says it's not blurred. You're not like having to lean in and really wonder what it's saying. You're like, is it say 150 or 155? Like you would be like, I don't know what the feedback is. Did my weight go up or down? Five pounds is a lot, is a big difference.

[00:31:54] That could have been up, it could have been down. And so when people are vague with their feedback to employees, it's the same as the scale being that way and being vague. It's [00:32:00] like a small amount of nuance makes a big difference. And so you have to be very clear in your communication because a lot of the times when someone's delivering critical feedback, the employee actually thinks that it's positive feedback because the way that they're delivering it is so poor.

[00:32:12] And so I think it's being explicit and being able to find your voice is a really important piece of that. And you don't do that unless you have at bats. And so in the beginning, you're gonna suck at doing it, and you just have to get better and better over. 

[00:32:23] Hala Taha: We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

[00:32:27] This episode of YAP is brought to you by Invesco. In every episode of YAP, we turn wisdom from the brightest minds in the world into actionable advice, an effort to help you live out your most young and profiting life. Today our friends at Invesco are sharing some tips on using ETFs or exchange traded funds to beef up your finances.

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[00:33:53] This episode of YAP is brought to you by the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:33:56] You may know that Jordan Harbinger is my all-time favorite [00:34:00] podcaster in the world. So much so that I've willed him to become my podcast mentor, and we literally talk every single day. He's in my Slack channel. The Jordan Harbinger show is the perfect show for young and profiteers to add to their rotation.

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[00:34:51] Jordan has great research. He's a natural interviewer, and his topics are always on point. It's no wonder Jordan is one of the. Biggest podcasters in the [00:35:00] world. You guys know that I'm definitely a fan, a major fan, and if that's not worth checking out, I'm not sure what is. You guys can find the Jordan Harbinger Show on your favorite podcast platform, or you can check out Jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations. That's the Jordan Harbinger show, H-A-R-B (as in boy), I-N (as in Nancy), G-E-R on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcast.

[00:35:29] Yeah. And would you say that feedback should be continual and not just like once a quarter or once a year performance review? 

[00:35:36] Leila Hormozi: A hundred percent. It's the only thing that can amplify and multiply accountability. It's the only thing that really strengthens it to a high degree, is giving that feedback and it's just, the more you can normalize feedback, the easier people can take it, the more likely they are to act.

[00:35:54] But a lot of people avoid giving feedback and they create a culture of secrecy and of, whispers and [00:36:00] gossip. When the reality, if you give feedback on a regular basis, everyone gets used to it and then it doesn't feel bad. It's just like discomfort. It's something that's uncomfortable. Do it enough times, it's not uncomfortable anymore.

[00:36:11] Hala Taha: Yeah. And it's so important so that your employees actually get better at their jobs and continue to learn and improve instead of making the same mistakes over and over again. 

[00:36:19] Leila Hormozi: 100%.

[00:36:20] Hala Taha: Okay, let's take it from the employee perspective. Let's take it from, lot of my listeners are entrepreneurs, but at the same time, a lot of them are corporate professionals.

[00:36:28] They wanna level up in their jobs, they wanna be seen by their boss, taken up for promotions. So what can somebody do as an employee to really stand out? 

[00:36:38] Leila Hormozi: I get a lot of shit for this, but I believe in it, which is the only way to stand out truly is to exceed, expect. Humans. When expectations match reality, we are neutral.

[00:36:52] We feel nothing. We feel that was how it's supposed to go. So if somebody does their job exactly how it's laid out. I think to myself, that was how it's supposed [00:37:00] to go. Now, if somebody does their job worse than the job is laid out, I feel disappointed. I feel frustrated. I feel angry. The only time somebody will really stand out in a job is if they exceed, expect.

[00:37:11] Meeting expectations is not enough. You don't stand out. Nobody feels anything from that. Like truly your nervous system does not get excited by that. But the moment that somebody does beyond the job description and exceeds expectations is when the boss will feel like, truly, like actually feel excited, feel elated, feel encouraged.

[00:37:31] And so I think that a lot of employees say, doing my job is enough. Doing beyond my job takes too much effort. It's not always about the amount of work you're doing, it's how you do the work. 

[00:37:39] Hala Taha: Yes.

[00:37:40] Leila Hormozi: You can exceed expectations in the way you do something. Not even just there's doing something and completing a mission, which is expected, but how you do it is also what's going to make a difference.

[00:37:51] So if you're told to make a presentation to train a team, you can make a presentation that can train a team, and it could be sufficient or it could have animations. You could bring in a guest speaker. You [00:38:00] could think about it like, to the degree at which you do every of your daily tasks is the degree at which you will impress the person.

[00:38:06] Whether you exceed expectations on a consistent basis in the tasks you're doing or whether you are not meeting expectations. Because just meeting them, you'll just blend in. 

[00:38:14] Hala Taha: I totally agree. There's this trend of quiet quitting I was talking about. Basically what it is a lot of people have just said, I'm gonna do the bare minimum.

[00:38:21] And to your point, they feel like I should just do what I get paid for and that's it. But if you do that, no one's gonna as a boss, it's like you don't, nobody wants an employee like that. You want an employee who's gonna be worth 10 times what you pay them. And that's why you're gonna promote them and let them lead and become a manager.

[00:38:37] So I feel like that's just a recipe for not moving in your job. 

[00:38:41] Leila Hormozi: It is, and I think, here's the thing. I talked about this and I got a lot of backlash in terms of people saying Leila, these people treat me like shit. They don't gimme promotions. They don't gimme raises. I'm not recognized. I understand that, but I just don't think that acting in despite of someone else's actions is going to help anybody [00:39:00] because at the end of the day, for me, I had plenty of jobs before I had my own company.

[00:39:04] How I acted was more important to me. For who I was, for my integrity with myself than it was for the person I was working for. Cuz it's not about them, it's about me, who I am, how I work, how I show up when nobody else gives a shit. And so for me, it's not even about either of these things, it's about who are you because you're not defined by how you think and feel.

[00:39:24] You are defined by the actions you take. And so if you act like a lazy person and you don't work, you are a lazy person. It's like when people say, if you feel it, nobody cares how you feel. They just care how you behave. And that is what you are identified with. You are identified with your actions.

[00:39:37] So people are like, oh, he had good intentions. I'm gonna fuck. Intention doesn't equal impact. So it's this boss isn't gonna be a promotion ball. I'm like, that says a lot about you because I can tell you that I worked my fucking ass off for years in jobs that I never got a raise and I never got a promotion.

[00:39:49] I did it because that's who I am and I do everything with excellence. And so to me it's the employees are shooting themselves in the foot. They are degrading their own character. I don't care about the boss [00:40:00] piece. I'm just talking to you as a human, which is like, why are you doing that to yourself?

[00:40:03] You're literally fucking yourself by doing. 

[00:40:05] Hala Taha: Yeah. Not to mention that like your vibe and your energy is that of a lazy person. You're gonna attract lazy opportunities. You're not gonna be even be able to attract the things that you want in your life because you're not doing them. So I totally agree with that.

[00:40:17] Okay. So closing this out, Leila, what a great interview. I heard you on Brooke Castillo's show and you teased possibly starting a podcast. So do you wanna tell us about your possible new podcast? 

[00:40:28] Leila Hormozi: Yeah. If anyone out, there's a podcast producer. That's the only reason I haven't launched it yet. 

[00:40:32] Hala Taha: Oh, I just so you know, we have a whole media company over here,

[00:40:36] Leila Hormozi: Oh, okay. Yeah. I truthfully, that's all it is. I want to start a podcast. I wanna call it Build with Leila, build your business, build your life, build Yourself, build your Company. I think just talking about building in general, and I liked that word, so hopefully it's to come by next quarter. I'm not sure yet, but it'll a little different than the YouTube channel, but a lot of the same kind of content. 

[00:40:59] Hala Taha: Awesome. Let me know [00:41:00] when it comes out so I can tell my listeners to tune in. All right, so we close out this interview with two questions that we ask, and then we round them out and summarize them at the end of the year.

[00:41:09] So the first one is, what is one actionable thing that our young and profiteers can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[00:41:16] Leila Hormozi: Make a list of five things that you can do tomorrow that you've been avoiding because they're uncomfortable and do. Despite how you feel, despite how you rest tonight, despite how you know your mood is tomorrow.

[00:41:30] Commit to five things tomorrow that you've been avoiding. Write them down and do them.

[00:41:35] Hala Taha: Get uncomfortable. And what is your secret to profiting in life? 

[00:41:39] Leila Hormozi: The ability to take action quickly after failure. So I think that a lot of the times when we're getting uncomfortable and we're doing things that are uncomfortable, we fail.

[00:41:48] We stumble. I do not let that, I don't dwell on my failure. I don't find that to be productive. I can, I just get up and I go and I try it again immediately. Not the next day, not a week later. I try to do it immediately. And so I think [00:42:00] that there's nothing wrong with failing. It's the fact that most people dwell on their failure for so long, that becomes their life when you could have just gotten up the next day and done it again.

[00:42:08] Hala Taha: I love that. And where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? 

[00:42:12] Leila Hormozi: You can go to acquisition.com. We have some free courses on there for business. And you can opt in for our email list and we email out like just an interesting nuggets. You could also go to at LeilaHormozi on Instagram, Leila Hormozi on YouTube, and Leila Hormozi on Twitter.

[00:42:27] And I am pretty active on those three platforms. 

[00:42:30] Hala Taha: Awesome, and I'm gonna stick all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time today. 

[00:42:34] Leila Hormozi: Thank you for having me.

[00:42:41] Hala Taha: That Leila is such a rockstar. She's so successful yet, so down to earth. Super funny woman. I had a lot of fun talking to her for this extended series. And I really did enjoy hearing her come up story in part one. So if you miss that, make sure you go check it out, because she had [00:43:00] a really wild and crazy life, especially in her teenage years, and it was really interesting and inspiring to learn how she turned it all around and became so successful at such a young age.

[00:43:13] In part two of this series, I really enjoyed hearing Leila's advice on managing and hiring people. Especially her thoughts around accountability. So I thought I would stick on that for this outro and really dig a little deeper. Recap it so you guys remember it, because I think this was one of the most important pieces of information.

[00:43:32] Leila believes that if you have people in your organization that are not getting things done with the jobs that they have been given. And you as a leader are not getting the results that you want in business, which is a problem for many managers and business owners. Your team is not doing their job.

[00:43:49] It often means that you lack accountability. It doesn't mean that you need more people, you don't need more marketing or more sales, you need more accountability. So I figured this would be a great thing to stick on in the [00:44:00] outro because it's just such an important thing that is so relatable for everyone.

[00:44:04] Leila says, accountability is the glue between action and results. It is how you get your results. You have a responsibility to hold your team accountable. Leila has an amazing accountability formula. It's expectations plus measurement times feedback equals accountability. So I'm gonna break that down for you guys.

[00:44:24] Expectations is telling people how something should be done. So typically this is like a job description or a project plan, right? It's a roadmap that shows people exactly what they should be doing in their role. And measurement is how you measure if that expectation has been met. It's what good looks like.

[00:44:43] And here's the thing, you've gotta reset expectations no matter how experienced your employee is, because every company does things different and measures things differently. And if you want somebody to succeed, even though they've got an amazing pedigree, an amazing resume, if you want them to succeed at your company, you need to [00:45:00] clearly show them what good looks like for you.

[00:45:03] How will you judge them on their work? And feedback. That is the most important piece of this puzzle. Feedback is letting people know how they can better meet expectations or measurements next time. Feedback is the only piece of all of this that can be amplified, so it's very important. Without feedback, people won't know what they're doing well.

[00:45:25] They won't understand if they're doing something poorly, they won't be able to move the needle. So feedback allows you to close that gap so people get closer to what good looks like. And also so people know if they're doing a good job, right? People love getting compliments, getting feedback positively as well.

[00:45:42] The more you tell people that they're good at something, the better they're gonna be at it. That is just reality. So feedback works both ways. It is hard conversation that you need to have sometimes to tell people how to be better. So you can get the results that you want. And it's also a way to appreciate your employees and tell them what they're [00:46:00] doing well, so they keep doing that extra well for you because they've got the confidence that they're doing it right.

[00:46:06] Accountability is a secret sauce element to any successful entrepreneur. And if you guys enjoyed this episode, I want you to tell your friends, let everybody know that Young and Profiting is your favorite way to listen, learn, and profit. And if you guys like to watch your podcast episodes, you can check us out on YouTube.

[00:46:23] We have all of our full episodes on there, all these amazing guests that you hear in YAP. You can also find us on video on YouTube, which is really fun to watch. So you can find us there. Just search for Young and Profiting. You'll can't really miss us. And you guys can also find me on Instagram at yapwithhala.

[00:46:40] I'm also on LinkedIn. You can find me there by searching my name Hala Taha. And I did wanna shout out my amazing Young and Profiting production team. Thank you for producing the show. My team rocks. I couldn't do this without you guys. And my listeners Rock too. Freaking love you guys. Thank you so much for your support.

[00:46:58] Thank you for listening. Thank you for your [00:47:00] reviews. Five star reviews on Apple make my day. So go ahead and drop one. This is your host, Hala Taha, signing off.