I think regrets come when we imagine the upside that we don't have without taking into account the cost that we did suffer. If I like cookies, and I'm good with that, and I also want a six-pack, I just prefer cookies to a six-pack. It's just the trade, and I think the dissatisfaction comes from wanting both. In terms of like is there a path where I can work no more than I currently am to go from 6 to 100, there probably is. It depends on how much you're willing to pay other people. And so you might have to take a short-term hit in terms of profitability to bring in the level of talent that you want to expand the business on your behalf to where you want it to go. The question is, which thing do you value the least? Do you value having more profit or more time with your family in the short term? In the long term, you can make it up. You won't make up family time in the long term; you can make the profit up in the long term. So if you're willing to give up short-term profit, you can bring in high-level talent, and then they can lead the growth. And so either want less or trade more.
That was Alex Hormozi; he was responding to a roofer at one of his workshops who does 6 million a year and wants to get to 100 million but is terrified of losing family time. And what Alex told him was something that really applies to basically every business owner that I know, and it's: wanting it all is a losing formula. It's not a hard formula; it's a losing one. If you're running a business and raising a family, it's one that you're very likely stuck in right now. So here's the trap: it's, you know, say you want to grow your company really aggressively—you want to 5x your company—and you also want to protect your margins because you need to make enough money to support your family as you're building the business, so you need profit to pull from to pay yourself really well. And you want to be there for your kids; you want to be a great dad. You know, so all of those are good goals; none of them are wrong on their own, obviously. But each one has a real cost associated with achieving it. Every single one. And those costs in this case, if you just put those three goals up on the board, those costs to achieve each goal compete with one another.
You know, so growing the business aggressively means investing some capital, right? Like taking chunks of profit that you would normally be able to take and reinvesting them into the business to hire people, to build the systems, to build the infrastructure. And it also means investing the hours; it means saying no to things that you probably want to say yes to at home. And, you know, flip side, it's if you want to protect your margins and you want to maximize profit in the short run, then that means saying no to, you know, the people and the infrastructure and the things that aggressive growth usually requires. And if you want to, you know, be Dad of the Year, if you want to maximize your family time, that means pulling back on the pace of growth or the amount of time that you can invest in the business. And, you know, you can't really optimize all three of those at the same time. Like the math doesn't actually work.
And what most people do is they refuse to pick, right? Like they hold all three goals at full volume, and then they wonder why they feel stuck. They feel frustrated, they feel guilty, like they're constantly living regretfully and in remorse, and they're just guilty all of the time. And I know this feeling. They're not failing, right? They've just set up an equation that can't be solved because they won't let go of any of the variables. So, you know, what's the way out? It's—you know, there's two paths. Like Path 1 is: pick the variable, right? Decide which one matters right now and go all in. You know, if it's growth, you accept the cost of growth—the reinvestment, it's the hours, it's the stretch on the family time—and you accept it honestly. You say, "This is the price I'm going to pay to achieve that thing," and I will set a new goal and optimize for it once I've achieved that thing. Right? So you're not doing it grudgingly. And what you get in return is clarity because you stop fighting yourself. You know where you are headed; you're very clear, you're very honest with yourself about what the costs are to get there. Right? So that's Path 1.
Path 2 is—and I think this is one that people overlook—is you optimize for moderation on purpose, right? Like you do it very intentionally, not as a consolation prize but as a deliberate strategy. That might mean 2xing the company instead of 5xing the company, and being more present than most founders at home, but maybe you're not coaching every single Little League game, and keeping a solid, healthy margin instead of squeezing every last drop out of that fruit on profit. Right? You're choosing balance. Like that is the variable that you're optimizing for because you're doing it eyes open, knowing exactly what you're trading and why. Both of those things are winning formulas. You know what the losing formula is: it's refusing to make the choice. It's wanting all the aggressive growth and the fat margins and the family time and never really honestly assessing whether that math actually works. And it's a no-win formula because everything has a cost. You know, like spending time with your kids has a cost. It doesn't make it wrong; it just simply means something else doesn't get that time. And building the biggest business that you can has a cost. Again, not wrong; it just has a cost associated with it. Keeping every dollar of profit has a cost. And an accurate assessment of those costs and an honest look at what those costs are and whether you're willing to pay that price—that's where clarity comes from. So, you know, my best advice is: pick one. Or choose moderation on purpose, which is picking one. And stop wanting it all and wondering why you feel stuck, why you feel guilty, why you feel regret constantly. This is the path. Hope it helps. Adios.
