Aaron Kendal • June 30, 2022
What Alex Hormozi taught me about self development
If you’re like me and think self development was just about developing new skills and knowing more than you did yesterday, then you’re right. But here’s another element that may help fill out your understanding.
In his book $100M offers, Alex Hormozi mentions that entrepreneurship is about acquiring skills, beliefs and character traits. He says that to advance as an entrepreneur, we must determine which skills, beliefs and/or character traits that we lack. Then improve them.
In this sense, personal development and entrepreneurship aren’t too distant from each other and share a lot of common traits. In this post, we’ll go over beliefs and traits then how they link together.
Beliefs
When we talk about our beliefs, we usually associate them with our values or who we are as people. When in reality, beliefs are our assumptions about the world.
Values and beliefs are completely separate to each other. However our beliefs can make up a large part of who we are and who we see ourselves capable of becoming.
Our beliefs are important because they can help, or hinder, our overall development. Limiting beliefs can create a glass ceiling far below where our potential can reach to, therefore limiting the amount of growth we can undergo.
Our beliefs can also lure us into a fixed mindset of what we can accomplish and who we can become. If we don’t believe that we can become a more disciplined person, then we may not even try to do so.
Why do our Beliefs Matter
Whether you think you can or can’t, you are right. - Henry Ford.
We know from psychology that perceiving change as being possible is the first step to actually making a change.
It’s maybe why you’re reading this or interested in personal development at all. You already believe that change is possible and you know you can become more than who you are right now.
But if we wish to reach our potential then we must be willing to shed our old beliefs in favour of new ones that can help us to reach our goals and live up to our potential.
So, How can we develop new beliefs?
Hormozi, in a separate video of his, mentions that using the word assumption instead of belief, and saying “I assume” rather than “I believe” leaves us more open to changing our beliefs.
I try to expose myself to a wide range of different ideas and viewpoints, then “try them on” to see if I like the outcome of that belief better than my original belief. My go-to content is usually podcasts/debates, books and twitter. But that’s just because they are what I enjoy and find the most engaging, your mileage may vary.
Traits
Character traits are the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves.
The thing that we often get wrong about character traits is that we assume they are binary. That we either have a trait or don’t. In reality, traits are more like a scale/spectrum. Therefore, the question isn’t “how can I become disciplined” instead it should be “how can I become more disciplined”
How to Develop Character Traits.
Leila Hormozi talks about identifying the trait that you think you lack in, then ask yourself “what’s the evidence?” Think of time where you possessed that trait and use that in an argument with yourself that you are a patient person, but you just need to become more patient.
Then, we develop traits by doing the sort of things that someone with the desired trait would do. Even if we don’t feel like it.
Conclusion
When we add in our skills to the mix, we can start to see how each dimension can influence the development of others. I.e If you become more focused, you’ll be able to learn more in a shorter space of time. That decrease in the time you take to learn can give you an unfair advatange in any arena you decide to step into.
All together, our skills, traits and beliefs dictate the level that we can operate at. This looks a bit like a ladder.
The Ladder
As we spoke about, our skills, traits and beliefs all dictate the level you’re operating at.
To put this into context, If you imagine a ladder. The old wooden kind. One one side we have our beliefs, the other side are our traits and the rungs connecting the two are our skills.
To use the ladder, we need all three to be connected.
But if you image that our beliefs are level 8, our skills are level 7, but our traits are a level 4. You can imagine that beyond level 4, you’ll have a very poorly built ladder.
But the upside of this is that in this example, we can jump from a lower level all the way up to level 7 but fixing and focusing on developing our traits.
Similarly, you might have the skills and traits needed to succeed, but do you have the right beliefs?
Or you might have the traits and beliefs needed for success, but you may lack the skills needed to get there.
Whichever is your configuration, when you identify this limitation, you can directly work to overcome this to solve the bottleneck that’s holding you back from reaching our goals.
What did I miss? Reach out on Twitter and let me know.