This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Leila Hormozi doesn’t talk about her past to shock people. She talks about it because she thinks that’s what it’s about.
The Acquisition.com co-founder opened up about the six arrests, addiction and the moment she stood in front of a mirror and decided she didn’t want to be that person anymore. Not as a cautionary tale, but as proof that the same capacity for excess that nearly ruined her was the very reason she built a portfolio with annual sales of over $250 million by the age of 30.
Founder CEO Nathan Chan sat down with Hormozi to learn how a personal trainer with $5,000 in her bank account became one of the most respected operators in online business, and what she learned about leadership, execution, and telling the truth even when it costs you.
Questions and answers with Leila Hormozi
Nathan Chan: They were arrested six times in eighteen months. What ultimately made it click?
Leila Hormozi: I think at that point I was more of a victim of my life than taking responsibility for the things in my life. A lot had happened in my family. I was just really angry. And so I drank and did drugs.
On the sixth arrest, Hormozi woke up in her father’s house with no memory of what happened. She came downstairs and found him waiting in silence.
Left: I was prepared for him to just completely denounce me. And instead he sat on the couch, turned off the TV and I sat down. And he was like, “I’m not going to tell you what to do.” I just want to tell you that I really think you’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up.
It was the first time I realized that my actions had real consequences. I wasn’t a child anymore and that was my fault. I went upstairs, grabbed my things and left. And I just remember looking at myself in the mirror when I got home and thinking, I don’t want to be that person.
NC: Many people would have known long beforehand that something had to change. What made this moment different?
Left: It was the point where the pain of change was less than the pain of staying the same. Then people tend to change something. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I just said that nothing is worse than how I feel right now.
She stopped drinking, stopped taking drugs, cleaned out every piece of junk food in her apartment, and immersed herself in personal development materials from Tony Robbins, Les Brown, and Jim Rohn.
Left: A lot of people ask, “How did you do that?” Where did the discipline come from? And I thought it wasn’t discipline. It was complete pain.
“It wasn’t discipline. It was complete pain.”
NC: You moved across the country, became a personal trainer, and started from scratch. How did this phase lead to the operator you are today?
Left: I became a personal trainer. I went to every gym within walking distance of where I lived. I got a job at the nearest gym so I didn’t have to spend money on gas. I had $5,000 in the bank and my rent was $1,500 a month. I just had to make it work.
This time of selling, building customer lists from scratch, and managing vital finances became the foundation for everything that followed.
Left: I’m a big fanatic about leadership, starting with self-leadership because you can’t lead others if you can’t lead yourself. And that was what started me on this journey. Starting a business is just one way I can help other people improve their lives.
“You can’t lead others if you can’t lead yourself.”
NC: You and Alex met on Bumble and he introduced you on the first date at Gym Launch. Why did you say yes?
Left: I said the worst case scenario would be me being back where I am now and having to rebuild my client lists. I can accept that. And when else in my life can I do that with very little consequence?
Gym Launch’s early days were marked by one disaster after another: a fraudulent business partner emptying his bank account, a merchant freezing his money on Christmas Eve, and friends who quit their jobs to work for a company that suddenly ran out of money.
Left: I had burner phones with different accounts because that’s what worked back then. We’ve explored everything possible.
NC: They scaled Gym Launch from zero to $50 million in twenty months. But Glassdoor told a different story. What happened?
Left: We had a 4.9 rating until I learned a very difficult lesson: you can’t let inexperienced managers make hiring predictions. We hired 35 people. We only needed five. I had the same wish as now. I just want to create a great place for people to work. I had the wish. I didn’t have the ability.
The day before she was supposed to fire people, her HR manager texted one person and told them they were being fired. This person told the entire team.
Left: My Glassdoor went from 4.9 to 2.2.
NC: You’ve talked about struggling with the desire to be liked and how this has let down the people around you. How did you work through it?
Left: I desperately wanted to be liked and didn’t know it. I was incredibly empathetic and incredibly understanding. From there I had to push through, probably swing too far to the other side and then find my middle ground.
I realized that being nice this way really isn’t better because the two personalities have the same effect on people in the long run. Whether I yell at my team or am so nice that I don’t tell them the truth, the result is the same. This person doesn’t know what they need to do better.
The change came when Hormozi had to let go of a close friend she had hired, someone to whom she had only given honest feedback until it was too late.
Left: When I was fired I remember saying: If I could fire myself I would, but I own the company. I hadn’t given them the feedback they deserved. And because of that they lost the respect of the teams.
I started following John Wooden’s stuff about seven years ago. I said I’m the coach. What is the trainer’s job? The coach’s job is to tell you: you’re at six. I need you at ten. Here’s how to get there. And that changed everything for me.
“I deceived to spare my own feelings of discomfort.”
NC: There’s a through line across everything you touch: Gym Launch, Alan, your SaaS company. Rapid, excessive growth is always the result. What drives this?
Left: There are two things you must have. You have to build what the customer wants: the offer, the monetary model, the understanding of the market. And on the other hand you have to say: How do we do this? Most people invest a lot of resources on the first page and completely underestimate how many they need on the second page.
When I think about business capacity, I think about financial capacity, people capacity, system capacity and thinking capacity. How many people wake up every morning and think about this thing? You will need all four in excess before you start.
Left: Most companies don’t fail because of a bad strategy. They fail because their execution is poor, and they have no one to tell them what good execution looks like. Of all the portfolio companies we looked at, probably two were capped for strategic reasons. The other fifty were executions.
NC: They are obsessed with talent. What do most founders do wrong when building a team?
Left: A great environment can take a mediocre person and make them great. But if you’re just starting your company and don’t have this culture yet, ask yourself: Who makes this culture? You are the culture. The CEO, the founder, is the heartbeat of the company.
It wasn’t until I realized that everything I did was being heard through a megaphone and seen through a microscope by my team. They modeled all of my behavior. I think everywhere: They are watching, and I teach by my actions, not my words.
NC: How do you attract great people without a big brand or huge compensation packages?
Left: As a small business owner, you need to know what you are offering to the market. I don’t want it to be about money. I want it to be growth. When people in a fast-growing company don’t want to grow, they see every point of change as a threat rather than a challenge. I want people who see these turning points as challenges.
I have a large HR team: six people looking to hire four more. Many companies would be three times my size before they had a team this large. But I believe in the employee experience as much as the customer experience.
Although Hormozi doesn’t have an Ivy League pedigree and started out in community college, he has built a team of former founders, experienced executives and high-growth operators who are attracted not by compensation but by culture.
Left: I didn’t start these companies until after I graduated from community college. But they come because of the offer we present: We are a place where people can grow, and we leave everyone better than when they came in.
NC: Last question. What do you want people to take away from your story?
Left: Do you think we would have had great success without the massive failures? No. The same muscle that allows you to succeed at this level and take these risks also means you will fall flat on your face. It’s a rite of passage.
Left: I was obsessed with how to build a great team: a team that could take us not just to 50 million, but to 50 billion. And it all starts with understanding your team as well or better than you understand your customer.
From arrest warrants on kitchen tables to leading one of the most respected operator-founder duos in online business, Leila Hormozi’s story is ultimately about one thing: the moment when the pain of staying the same outweighs the fear of change.
