This episode breaks down Hormozi’s framework from the 11-hour affiliate event on why employees fail to complete assigned work, revealing that every execution failure traces back to five communication breakdowns. The framework applies equally to managing teams, contractors, or even diagnosing your own productivity blocks as a solo operator.
Key Takeaways:
- Five Communication Gaps Kill All Execution Work doesn’t get done because employees didn’t know WHAT you wanted, HOW to do it, WHEN it was due, they were BLOCKED from completing it, or they lacked the WANT to finish it—solving for the wrong gap wastes time on irrelevant fixes.
- “Want” Problems Usually Hide Other Failures Most burnout and motivation issues stem from confusion on what, how, or when, or from unresolved blockers—people inherently want to do good work, so psychological issues are symptoms of unaddressed communication breakdowns in the other four areas.
- Best AI Prompting = Best Human Communication The clarity required for effective AI prompts—specific tasks, detailed methods, explicit deadlines, and removed blockers—mirrors exactly how you should communicate with team members for consistent execution.
- Focus on Internal Deliverables Over External Numbers Instead of fixating on “$2M ARR,” reframe goals as “write 1,000 emails” based on your conversion metrics—action-based targets eliminate the psychological pressure of arbitrary revenue milestones while guaranteeing the same outcome.
- Scaling Forces a Profit vs. Reputation Trade When demand exceeds capacity, you either sacrifice short-term profits to build operations and maintain service quality, or boost margins while accepting reputation damage from slower delivery—both recover over time but require conscious choice.
Listen to understand how this deceptively simple framework eliminates 90% of execution problems in any business.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to Get Serious jumping back into another review of my notes from the hundred million dollar money model affiliate live event in Las Vegas with Alex Hormozi again, 11 straight hours with Alex just firing value away the entire day here.
And like I mentioned on the previous podcast, I thought this might be maybe a two-part pod, could turn into five or more here. I’m sure you all don’t mind me sharing such critical takeaways from one of the best entrepreneurs alive with the proof to back it up. You got a net worth of over a quarter billion dollars before age 40 and set the world record for
fastest selling nonfiction book launch ever. I think we should all take note of some of these various business strategies and tactics here. So if you hadn’t caught the previous episodes, the first one was just like my overall impressions day after the event. That actually went like started to go like semi viral. I don’t know what’s the definition of viral here, but there was, know.
starting to get more views than typical for videos posted on YouTube here. So no surprise talking about HurtRomozi here, but he’s obviously popular and I just want to share as much value related to that as possible. we’ll provide as much input as I can to kind of keep this ball moving forward.
and give you all what you want to hear. And on that previous episode as well too, I just spent 20 minutes about going over the Mozi6 framework about why you can’t do more and the key constraints preventing you from answering that question effectively. And I also just wrote about that on the series news newsletter that came out over the weekend. Already had a lot of great feedback about that as well here too.
It’s going to be a multi-part newsletter to share all of the various takeaways. So with all that in mind, I’ll jump back into more here. So, you know, after that Mozi6 framework, the other kind of core initial teaching that Alex jumped into before he started diving into individual businesses and fireside chats with some of the top affiliates was just focused on,
answering the question why employees don’t complete work assigned to them. So he’s talked about this framework a couple of times in different scenarios here, but like it comes up often enough that again, like Alex finds, yeah, this would be useful enough for everybody here to like reiterate again, because it’s just, I think any of us who run a business, whether you have, you know, just yourself, frankly, you can consider yourself both an owner and an employee sometimes.
depending on what hat you’re wearing, like why aren’t you completing the work at hand? Or if you just have, you know, maybe a VA or two, or maybe you have like a full on team, like inevitably as a business owner, you’re going to be dealing with working with other people that need to deliver a product or services. So it applies to effectively everybody again, even if it’s just yourself. So again, I love how Hermosy just like,
There’s no feeling about, know, like, I feel like this is the problem or like, I think this is kind of where it’s going. It’s just like, okay, how do we boil this down to as much of, you know, first principles thinking in related, you know, in as much as it relates to, you know, the actual core constraints on why something isn’t happening or what is.
blocking an action from occurring or even, you know, a line of thinking to, you know, actually come to fruition for real action. So in this case, you know, there’s really five core routes why employees don’t complete their work. One is that they didn’t know that is what you wanted them to get done. So like all of this, you know,
Why employees don’t complete work like it all comes down to communication ultimately, like, surprise for human beings, right? but yeah, I mean, sometimes the core constraint is like, okay, you imagine this task was supposed to be done, but you know, your employee or whoever’s working with you, contractor, what have you, that was not properly conveyed or there was just, you know, some game of telephone in, in, in between and just that.
process and communication needed to be reiterated further. like they didn’t know that you wanted to get that done. know, let’s just take this exact, well, hey, like I want this podcast published by, you know, 3pm central today. Like maybe that wasn’t conveyed over as clearly, like you could have just said.
Hey, I want these pods published. I don’t know if that example is applying quite as much, but I think you get the idea here of like, they were confused about, that this was the specific task that you wanted done. So just take that in mind here. The next question is, you know, how?
The the employee or the contractor, you know, even yourself again to like consider yourself as an employee You know when you wear that hat like you didn’t know how to get that done or your employee didn’t so You know again, let’s go. Let’s go back to the podcast publishing example. Maybe they don’t know how to do that It was never explained to them. It was never You know, they never had a loom anything like that. And so you might assign something but you know, there’s a
misunderstanding on how that is actually supposed to be done. Or maybe they don’t even know how to access the training to learn how to do that in the first place. So that’s another example on why things don’t get done. And then another issue is they didn’t know when that work was supposed to be completed. again, going back to the podcast publish example, you know, I say, you know,
3 p.m. Central, like that makes it more clear that should get done by this exact time. But if I was just telling you, yeah, publish the podcast, like the employee might assign a different time stamp on when that task is supposed to be completed. So there might be a misunderstanding on the actual timeline and priority of getting something done.
And then the other piece is just a flat out block. So, you know, if, if you ask your employee to, well, again, let’s keep with the same example, right? Like the podcast published, but let’s say, you know, like there was that AWS error that was affecting a ton of websites recently. Like, let’s just say the podcast platform was just down from the AWS error, some other.
know, error, maybe the internet just went out, wherever your employee is, like they are effectively blocked from completing that task. So, you know, that can be another key piece for why something actually can’t get done. And then finally in the middle of all of these is just, you know, want that the employee is just, you know, they’re burnt out or they just don’t, you know, see the need to actually get something done.
You know, this one’s definitely more, know, psychological in, in, nature here. and, know, generally we can assume that if we’re bringing on the right talent and we have a culture of, know, getting things done and, people inherently, most people want to feel productive and valued. So, and that, that’s something Alex was routinely saying is like, most people want to do a good job. They want to be rewarded for,
you know, doing what, what, uh, you know, they, they, were assigned and, um, you know, what they feel is bringing, uh, value to the company. So, um, it’s more rare that, uh, that, that you’re going to find kind of a lack of motivation. Um, and usually if you solve one of those other pieces, like it could be confusion on like what, uh, or, know, that you were asking something, you know, that specific item, you know, how to do it, when to do it, or if they’re blocked, like those items could be.
affecting them psychologically and then all of sudden that creates the burnout or the lack of desire to move forward because it’s like too frazzled or maybe you have so many competing priorities for them to get done that it’s just like overwhelming and all of a sudden it’s like, I don’t even want to be doing any of this because it seems like a complete mess. So that’s just a really helpful framework that I’m also trying to keep in mind here. And the thing is too, is like as we all get better at AI prompting or hopefully you’re…
getting that on a daily basis too is like, this is how you talk to AIs as well too. I think the best prompting that you can do with AIs is also the best way to communicate to other human beings. Cause again, when you communicate to AIs, like you need to solve all of those items in relation to, you know, a specific task that you’re asking them. And so that, you know, again, kind of directly applies to.
what you can get.
when you actually communicate with your own internal talent or external as well too. So that was the other item. Now I will shift more into kind of key takeaways for the fireside chats. Again, props to the top 10 affiliates who each got 30 minutes with Alex one-on-one to just get direct answers about their business.
while the rest of us could, could listen in. then those top 10 also got, you know, private dinner with Alex and Layla after that live event. you know, again, crazy bonus props to those guys. was definitely jealous of the opportunity when I was there, but it’s like, okay, well, I didn’t put the work into, to get in the top 10. These folks did. you know, they obviously are reaping the rewards. So nothing to complain about. And, you know, one guy was actually in the real estate space. So he was going.
first, more related to kind of broker recruitment, real estate agent recruitment in Southern California. he was just running into, you know, going back to that Mozi six constraint pathway, he was running more into just a manpower issue of like, yeah, I’m getting, know, starting to run some more ads, I’m starting to get
you know, some real leads coming in here, but it’s like, he’s just the core person to be addressing like pretty much all the inbound coming in. And it’s like, you know, the kind of battle between when she start hiring talent, you also have to potentially give up some profits that can be coming in and, know, when is a good time to actually solve that, that core constraint here.
And, you know, one thing, and I’m I’m the victim of this too. I think most entrepreneurs are, so we can get so tied up into these numbers here, especially like the round numbers. It’s like, know, okay, you have this, you know, initially like a six figure milestone and you get to like a hundred K whatever. then pretty soon it’s like, yeah, I’m to get to a million dollar business. it’s almost right away after that, maybe it’s like, yeah, I get to like 5 million and then it gets 10 million and you can keep expanding beyond that. you kind of set these.
external frameworks to honestly kind of like these arbitrary numbers. know, the power of 10 numbers that, you know, define so much of our life just because they’re an easy mental model to kind of keep in mind. But it’s like, what do they actually mean inherently? Like, what’s the difference between an $8 million business and a $10 million one?
or why is like, it feel so much more successful to get to that $10 million number versus like just shy of that? So like we really have to examine our relationship with these external outputs, like this entrepreneur who is doing this real estate agent kind of recruiting service. He’s like, yeah, I need to hit 2 million ARR.
like ASAP here. I know and I can do that. I’ll just be feeling better about the business. Alex really just asked him to take a step back and he’s like, know, it’s, again, all entrepreneurs, like we tend to get tied into these numbers, but what ultimately tends to be a more valuable outlook is just to focus more on the internal deliveries. Like just if you get
So tied up in these numbers, like, yeah, you risk making kind of poor decisions just to, just to hit these external targets that, you might not fully conceptualize from what you need to do to actually get there. so to be, you know, even more concise about that. It’s like, okay, if I’m going to focus on those internal deliveries, you know, what hormones he tries to do is instead, okay, like to get these numbers, what are those exact actions that I’m taking that will lead to that?
inevitably. So he’s like, okay, instead of, I’m going to build a $2 million revenue business. It’s like, can I write 1000 emails instead? And understanding my metrics from writing those emails, like that will certainly lead me to, you know, in his case, like, yeah, that’s going to lead to $100 million business or like, you know, let’s say you’re earlier on that’ll lead to a $2 million business because you know, X amount of emails,
leads to X amount of dollars coming in from leads and then eventual conversions and delivery of your product. So it just breaks it down more where, again, we’re humans, we’re born to compare ourselves to each other and our past self and current self, really our future self as well too. Can’t really compare the current self here.
but past and future and just like put so much pressure on these just external metrics that kind of mean different things to pretty much everybody and assign so much value to them. But like we don’t spend enough time thinking about what those actions are that actually lead to those results. Because that’s just, it’s a bit more boring, right? Like no one wants to.
It’s not sexy to think about, I just, you know, I wrote a thousand emails to get to, you know, being a $5 million business. Just like, no, I want that gratification of saying that, hey, I built a $5 million business. Both to, you know, stroke your own ego as well as demonstrate to others. So I thought that was a really helpful framework to keep in mind. Cause like, yeah, I’m such a numbers guy too. And it’s like, yes, we keep getting bigger. And it’s like, yeah, $10 million a year.
then there’s a wrap to a hundred and you know, have this goal to be, you know, a billion dollar plus a UMS, it’s under management business. And it’s like, yeah, it’s fun because, you know, I’m ambitious and so forth, but you know, it’s also like, again, you’re just attributing some external validation from, you know, again, frankly, just these random numbers out there. So I just try, I try to keep that in mind as well, too, because that’s something I really struggle with.
And lastly here, I can’t, you know, there’s only 10, well, there was 10 fireside chats. Not, all of them. took some were more relevant than others. Um, uh, but yeah, I’m only going to wrap up takeaways from this first fireside chat, um, and then, and this other podcast. again, there’s just a lot of excellent content. Again, I’ve never taken this many notes, um, at an event as, as I did for, uh, for this one more hormones you think. again,
I appreciate you all being along for the journey. And I think it’s all going to be extremely helpful for free on business or at least a few nuggets to take you forward. so to wrap this one up, you know, this entrepreneur where he was just like, yeah, right. The leads are coming in, you know, Facebook ads, it’s getting solid metrics, seemingly good, you know, Kectel LTV ratios.
or, LTV to cat ratio rather, vice versa. but yeah, just being able to deliver on that, it’s going to be stressful. like, yeah, when do I hire? And, in this case, like Alex is like, you know, inevitably we’re going to be facing some of these core constraints within a business where you have to make certain trade-offs and, like it might be short-term in one direction for a while.
But inevitably for the growth of the business, like you have to decide which, which part of the business you’re going to sacrifice more on. Like no one runs just a perfect operation where every single part of the business is just firing on all cylinders at all times. Like it’s just, it’s unrealistic. So, but so much of us can get stuck in uncertainty that, you know, to, let anything start to falter. And so in this case, um, you know, when it came, uh, time to, you know, potentially have a supply side constraint.
where, know, this entrepreneur, was, was expanding his business. Alex was like, yeah, you can either trade profits or reputation in the short term. Like one of those has to be traded for a very hard choice. Right. But like, what, what are you going to do? Like only ultimately only you can decide on which path is, appropriate here. So, for instance, like.
yeah, if, you know, he’s, he’s just building in more leads, like running more ads, bringing in more demand. but he doesn’t really want to bring other people out. Like he could bump profits up within the company. like more take home pay, potentially for, for, for the company there, but his ability to deliver is inevitably going to be hurt. like that’s.
that is going to hurt reputation a bit. Like again, even if you were just near perfect at delivering or like when phone, your phone is ringing, like you’re answering within the first minute, even if you’re just delayed enough to like be answering or returning calls within 10 minutes, that is going to hurt your reputation a bit more compared to if you’re answering every single call from, when it’s being dialed within a minute or returning calls within a minute.
of receiving them. like that’s an inevitable bottleneck for increased demand is if yeah, you don’t bump your operations, you can bump more profits, but your reputation is going to be hurt. On the flip side, if you’re willing to sacrifice profits in the short term to understand that you’re going to be bumping demand, but you’re building out your ops, so hiring more folks, maybe.
successfully implementing AI to allow you to service more demand without sacrificing your ability to service, then yeah, you’re gonna be sacrificing profits in the short term because you have to further reinvest into your business operations, but you can maintain your reputation throughout that because your ability to deliver won’t fall off there.
Notably on both of those sides, it should just be a short term hit there too, because if you bumped up profits a bit first, you could then reinvest further into the operations thereafter, give yourself a bit more cushion and then you can repair your reputation afterward. Or again, you could bump your operations first, maintain the reputation and then…
you’ll still be earning more cumulative profits to eventually earn that wind fill over a longer period of time and kind of compound your results that way. it’s again, kind of a short-term trade-off on what to make there, depending on who you are as an entrepreneur and what you feel is best for your business. So I thought that was another really helpful framework. It’s like, yeah, sometimes you just gotta make the tough calls and you know.
which constraint are you gonna solve for first or in what way in order to still move the ball forward. So really like that one as well. Again, we’re at the 22 minute mark here. I will pause on this one so we can jump into the set of notes here. I’m really enjoying this though. this is…
You food for thought for myself here, because it’s just, you know, helps me reflect and, you know, learn these lessons again by teaching them all to, to you. So, you know, selfishly that this is only helping me move the ball forward to hopefully you’re getting stuff out of it. Serious land capital for any of your funding needs, 50 K minimum purchase price, land daily diligence, Facebook group, um, and a serious news newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed to that yet, it’s probably the, um, you know, uh, content that we get the most,
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