Throwback: How I Made My First Million (In Profit) | Ep 380
episodePreviously titled “Throwback: How I Made My First Million (In Profit) | Ep 858” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
Transcript
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How did Alex Hormozi make his first million?
Welcome back to the game. Today, I talk about how I made my first million. And the big difference was focus, honestly. There was a clear transition point in my life where I went from doing business, and I've been doing this for years, and becoming a, I mean, crazy to say this, but a millionaire. It seems so cringe to say it. I think even saying cringe is cringe now. I think it's like old people stuff now. Anyways, how I made my first million and there were significant changes in my behavior. And this podcast zooms in on that exact moment and the shift in behavior and then the resulting outcome. And I think you'll probably be able to take one, two, maybe more things from this episode that could potentially help you out.
I want to talk to you about how I made my first million dollars in profit. Mind you, the reason that I'm so big on profit rather than revenue is that at that point, I had already made, you know, I was already making a couple million dollars a year between all the different things that I was doing, but I was taking home basically nothing. Because I was so spread thin, I wasn't paying attention to profit, I was just looking at revenue, trying to beef myself up and feel status rather than thinking about what I was actually taking home. And I told you in a different video how I got in a head-on collision in a DUI at 60 miles an hour on the highway and walked away from it. And that was kind of the catalyst that ended up changing my life in a lot of ways. Mostly because I decided to confront decisions that I had been putting off and make hard calls that I didn't want to make to force myself to focus on one thing.
What life-changing event influenced Alex's focus on profit?
And so what I want to do in this video is talk to you about the result of that decision and what kind of happened and transpired in the next six to 12 months, which is anything but a Cinderella story. I made the calls. I went all in on gym launch. I basically fire sold my other businesses. And just as a quick tangent on that, like a lot of times i think the great thing that we have is sitting right in front of us after we let go of the things that are holding us down i'm a big believer in the theory of constraint which is uh you know a system will grow to up to it's basically its bottleneck right and then until you relieve that like systems will grow as long as they're not constrained and so most of us are constrained in many ways and we just do not recognize them which is why we have things called limiting beliefs it is a constraint right and for me in a very real way i had constraints in terms of
um, all the different things that I was allocating my attention to. I had, you know, I think literally like nine or 10 business businesses, I'll use quotes here, um, that I was trying to run at the same time. And I was spread so thin that I could barely allocate anything. And I was working every hour of the day and I was drinking half a bottle of Johnny Walker at night. So I just go to sleep. And so anyways, I, I got in the head on collision. I, uh, I decided to make the next, uh, the next move, which was going all in on gym launch. And this is, uh, the beginning of yet another hard road ahead. Um, and so at this time, for those of you don't know, I started flying around and doing, done for you gym launches.
And so what that was, was basically Layla and I would go and do a gym turnaround. I didn't like to use that word because I didn't think gym owners liked it. I was originally going to call it gym rescue, but no one wants to be rescued. So I called it gym launch and everyone was okay with that name. We would fly out to brick and mortar facilities. We'd sit at the front desk.
What was the turning point in Alex's business strategy?
I would spend my own money on everything. So the offer was pretty simple. I said, I would fill your gym in 30 days for free. That was the offer. And I was like, I'll spend my own money on the ads. I'll spend my own money on the hotels, the food, the everything. And the deal is I just get to keep the upfront cash that I collect. And then everything afterwards that's contract value, you get to keep.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Alex Hormozi make his first million?
0:00–1:23
2
What life-changing event influenced Alex's focus on profit?
1:23–2:54
3
What was the turning point in Alex's business strategy?
2:54–4:17
4
How did Alex manage multiple businesses before focusing on one?
4:17–6:04
5
What challenges did Alex face after selling his gyms?
6:04–8:55
6
How did a cash flow crisis impact Alex's plans?
8:55–10:17
7
What lessons did Alex learn about entrepreneurship?
10:17–13:11
8
How did Alex overcome financial struggles in his business?
13:11–33:08
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Game with Alex Hormozi
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How to Think Like the Top 1% | Ep 996
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