Alex Hormozi told me to delay gratification but I just wrote it down… and it still worked

Hello there, Jordan here 👋

I was watching an Instagram reel by Alex Hormozi last week.

“What’s your secret to success?” asked Greg, stopping Alex from exiting the stage with all of his 60 pounds of lean muscle mass.

(I’m 100% sure his name is Greg or some other name that has letters in it)

“Delaying gratification.” Hormozi answers.

“Being willing to do the thing I know I want later and being comfortable today.” he closes his grand slam offer so powerfully that Greg is literally thrown off the offstage by sheer overwhelming epicness.

(there’s like 40 more seconds of this; there’s a link on the bottom)

Delaying Gratification

The more I think about it, the more impossible that seems.

Let’s say I’m on Twitter, engaging with you and other awesome people. Cool.

Am I working on inbound lead generation?

Or:

Am I procrastinating while hanging with my friends?

Tough question. And too many moving parts to make it a clearcut answer.

But after a few days of racking my brain, I finally figured it out:

My brain was the problem!

Using your intellect to try to control all the actions you take every day is a fool’s errand. There’s so much going on in our brain’s that if you thought about it all at once, you’d get an epileptic shock.

The solution was simple but not obvious:

I should’ve let my subconscious deal with it.

Why bother doing things when you have your subconscious, the sucker, there to do them for you?!

And it could actually deal with all of the moving parts I couldn’t even list.

win-win

(as in: me and my laziness win while my subconscious is left with all the work)

So, I did my best DiCaprio impression as I whipped out a notebook and wrote the words:

“Delay Gratification”

And started the process of letting my subconscious take over.

🧠 How to outsource work to your subconscious

This seems like a good spot to explain the concept.

Your subconscious is like a weird little computer. Very powerful though.

(weird because it has emotions and those are a mess to debug)

It has two main functions:

1. Keeping you alive. That’s useful for not dying – I highly recommend it.

2. Helping you do what you thinkbelieve is best. That’s the interesting bit!

If your subconscious mind acts according to your beliefs, then to control it we just have to reverse the process.

Simply put:

Control your beliefs and you can control your subconscious mind.

(and get a free ChatGPT on steroids tirelessly working for you)

So, in my case I had to believe that delaying gratification is the time traveling police box that will take me to freedom.

And for the not-so-interesting implementation:

1. I write it down every day on the bottom of my daily tasks.

2. I read it every time I check off a task.

3. I often write 3 for aesthetics.

If a todo list feels painful, put it on your phone’s lock screen or inside of your password. Make a constant, visible reminder. You’re smart, you’ll figure it out.

Your biggest fan,
Jordan

PS: Here’s the original reel.
PS2: Greg survives the fall. Barely.

💡 Idea of the Week

⚙️ Tools, Apps, 'n' Gadgets

Here are today's picks:

• Aomni — Aomni is your personal research assistant. It’s a neat combination of ChatGPT and some basic Google-fu that allow it to provide massive value for no time at all.

• Momentum — Momentum is my new tab page. It has a pretty picture, the time, and a cool quote. They have a pro version with premium features that I never bothered to use (even after they even gifted them to me 😅).

• ThumbsUp — Test how your YouTube thumbnails fare off in the wild. Makes finding if your thumbnail is secretly shit very easy.

🔦 Creator Spotlight

I love how value packed Max's newsletter is. Short, concise ideas you can filter through in moments and find something of value every single day.

📰 Last Week with Jordan

This has been the highlight thread of last week 👇️

That was it for today. Have a great week and I'll see you next Sunday!

— Jordan

PS: Help me out by sharing this with a friend who'll find it useful and I’ll give you free stuff (win-win) ❤️