# Learn 97% of How to Get Rich in 11 Mins | Ep 1009

An episode of [The Game with Alex Hormozi](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1254720112), 20 Oct 2026, 12 min.

Audio: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/episode.flightcast.com/01M5A5NGSTBSA1DY1AC1G8VP52.mp3

Book Your Spot at the 2-Day, Interactive Scaling Workshop in Las Vegas: https://www.acquisition.com/o-vegas Most bad business bets start as emotional discomfort disguised as strategy. In this episode, Alex shares the three questions he uses to pressure-test every decision. He explains why distraction is often intellectual laziness, how asking the right questions unlocks stalled projects, and why doing nothing is so often the right call. In this episode 00:00 The 3 questions Alex uses to make better bets 00:23 Question #1: What problem are you trying to solve? 02:45 Question #2: What would it take? 05:16 Question #3: What do you want to have happen? 10:24 Why “do nothing” is often the correct answer More Value: Get your free personalized $100M scaling roadmap: https://www.acquisition.com/roadmap?el=yt-alex-486r&htrafficsource=youtube Get the $100M Book Bundle: https://shop.acquisition.com/pages/100m-book-bundle Watch My Latest Episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexHormozi/featured Learn How to Scale Your Business to Millions in Revenue: https://www.acquisition.com/ Discover The Easiest Business I Can Help You Start (Free Trial): https://www.skool.com/hormozi Additional Free Books and Video Courses: https://www.acquisition.com/training DISCLOSURE: Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary. Copyright © 2026.

## Transcript

[0:00] I'm going to give you my three favorite questions that I ask when I'm making bets in the business to make the most money.
[0:09] And I have these as almost like my treasured prized possessions because of how useful and how valuable the thinking frames they provide are.
[0:19] And so I'll give you conditions for using each of these three.
[0:24] So the first is, when someone wants me to do something, or they want me to approve of an action, I will almost always respond with, what problem are you trying to solve?
[0:39] And what's really interesting about that question is that a lot of times people have this emotional discomfort
[0:44] there's a problem that happens or they just don't feel good, which they determine is a problem.
[0:49] And then as a result, their actions skew all over the place.
[0:52] They're like, Hey, I think we should do this employee engagement program.
[0:54] I'm like, okay, what problem are you trying to solve?
[0:57] Well, I just thought it'd be good for the employees.
[0:59] I'm like, well, do we have a retention issue?
[1:01] Do we have an attraction issue?
[1:02] Are we unable to attract talent?
[1:04] Like, let me know.
[1:05] That's very important.
[1:06] And like, no, no, we don't have any retention issues or we don't have any attraction issues.
[1:10] And it's like, okay, then why are we doing this?
[1:13] Well, I think it's good.
[1:16] What problem are we trying to solve?
[1:19] And so I would say that I've learned this problem question because there's people, people are erratic.
[1:31] They want to do stuff.
[1:32] And so what ends up happening is well-intentioned people, nothing wrong with that, they will...
[1:40] just take action on things that they know how to do when they are confronted with things that they do not know how to do.
[1:47] And so a lot of lack of focus is actually intellectual laziness.
[1:52] So what I mean is I think most people in their business know on some level what needs to happen.
[2:00] But because they don't know how to solve that thing, they then just find something they can solve because that makes them feel better and more competent, even though it makes no difference.
[2:10] And so, like, I would encourage you to think.
[2:13] If I am being distracted, it means I'm being intellectually lazy because I can't stay on this task that I don't know how to accomplish and be incompetent for an extended period in order to get what I want.
[2:23] Right.
[2:24] And so it's a it's a great suss out of the thinking diligence that the person is asking you to do something or a bet you're willing to make or they're asking you to make or take.
[2:36] Whether they actually really thought of through.
[2:38] So number one, someone has to me to do something.
[2:40] What problem are you trying to solve?
[2:42] If I'm asking someone to do something, so I want something now.
[2:47] I ask the question instead of giving the statement, I'll say, what would it take?
[2:53] And so I almost always wrap my questions with what would it take?
[2:58] Because it assumes success.
[3:01] And what happens is when I used to ask, and this is something I did earlier in my career, can we, could we?
[3:08] I would get no's from people and they would do a calculus in their mind of what they thought something was worth without complete context on my business like I have or complete context for the plans that I have long term for the business.
[3:23] And then they would basically make a decision on my behalf by saying no.
[3:28] So I actually have I'm actually working off of incorrect data.
[3:33] Like this is really important shit, even though I like I'm just making a webcam version here, but like really, really important.
[3:40] This is half of the process because we've got a conversation about this.
[3:42] If I asked what would it take, someone can then just tell me what it would take and then I can make the decision of whether I think it's worth it.
[3:51] And so that the amount of things that have been unlocked in my business of me just saying, like someone says no, I'm like, stop.
[3:58] What would it take for us to do it?
[3:59] Obviously, if I had a billion dollars, can I do it?
[4:02] They're like, well, yeah.
[4:02] I'm like, OK, does it take a billion dollars?
[4:04] Like, no.
[4:04] OK, does it take a million dollars?
[4:06] OK, no.
[4:07] What does it actually take?
[4:08] We probably need to hire somebody.
[4:09] OK, well, it's going to make us an extra million dollars here.
[4:11] And it's, you know, whatever, 100 grand for this person.
[4:14] Okay, then let's do that.
[4:16] So you're just saying that we can't do with our existing infrastructure, or more specifically, that the existing infrastructure is prioritized against other things, which I can then say, let's deprioritize those and prioritize this, right?
[4:28] So if someone asks me, let's do this thing, I like to ask, what problem are we solving?
[4:35] If I want something, I ask other people, what would it take?
[4:40] What would it take for us to do this in half the time?
[4:41] What would it take for us to deliver this in 24 hours instead of 30 days?
[4:44] What would it take for us to buy this company?
[4:47] What would it take for us to do this deal?
[4:49] What would it take for you to get started today?
[4:51] What would it take for me to get you to believe that you should shut down one of your businesses and go all in on the other?
[4:57] What would it take for me, or what would it take for you to take our content from 10 things a day to 20 things a day?
[5:03] What would it take?
[5:04] It is one of the most powerful questions in entrepreneurship.
[5:09] Now,
[5:11] The third question that I'll give you is related to question number one, which is when people ask me, you know, like, Hey, I think we should do this thing.
[5:20] I would say my first follow-up to whatever their response is, because sometimes people don't know the problem they're trying to solve is I just ask, so this is question three, what do you want to have happen?
[5:32] And I'm saying these questions and I feel like my team will be listening to this and be like, Oh, he says those questions a lot.
[5:37] What do you want to have happen?
[5:38] What do you want to have happen?
[5:40] because it just gets around all of the emotional hullabaloo to just what do you want to see?
[5:47] And the reason this is important, let's use a different example.
[5:51] Someone says, hey, I think we should start doing our quarterlies in person.
[5:57] Okay, let's say you're a remote company.
[5:59] Someone says, I think we should start doing our quarterlies in person.
[6:01] I say, okay, what do you want to have out?
[6:04] Well, I mean,
[6:06] I want the quarterlies to be in person.
[6:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[6:08] But as a result of these quarterlies in person, what do you want to have happen?
[6:12] What different outcome will occur as a result of in-person versus remote quarterlies?
[6:20] Well, I think it'll be more fun.
[6:22] Okay, so the argument would be that you think that people will be more engaged in person versus online.
[6:27] Okay, no argument there.
[6:29] Do we think that their engagement in terms of how much fun they're having has anything to do with their output afterwards?
[6:34] Again, I ask these questions not because they're loaded or because I disagree with them.
[6:38] I'm curious because I want to hear the other person's thinking.
[6:40] And so when I'm questioning these lines of thinking, I will typically ask three in succession, which is what does that mean?
[6:51] How do you know that?
[6:53] And so what?
[6:55] So if I say, hey, you wanna get, you know, the employees to be more engaged, I'm like, okay, what is engaged to me?
[7:02] What is that?
[7:03] I'm like, oh, well, I just, you know, I think they'll be happier at work.
[7:06] Okay, what does that mean?
[7:08] Okay, like, tell me, like, what does that even mean?
[7:11] Like, we're gonna, their subjective well-being scores are gonna go up.
[7:15] Okay, question two, how do you know that?
[7:20] Do we want to give them a subjective well-being test that they rate their happiness before and then we have them rate their happiness afterwards and then we see if this made a demonstrable difference?
[7:29] Yeah, okay, I understand.
[7:32] You want them to be happier and you want this.
[7:34] Okay, question three.
[7:36] So what?
[7:37] Let's say we do this, then what happens?
[7:41] Do we think that it'll diminish once they leave?
[7:44] Maybe.
[7:45] Do we think this is going to have something on worker output?
[7:47] Okay, I have this research that suggests that worker output goes up by X, Y, and Z.
[7:51] And so it's like, okay, now the final question for me would be like, what else could we do with this time and energy that would yield a higher return to the business?
[8:00] And to be clear, I obviously want my people to be happy.
[8:02] I don't think that these one-off things are actually what make people happy.
[8:05] I think that having an ongoing work environment that rewards high effort and removes people who suck is a much more effective way at getting people to enjoy their work than kind of, you know, kumbaya bullshit.
[8:18] But I say this as, as just to, just to equip you.
[8:21] Cause I see, I see questions like weapons, like,
[8:25] It's like, it shows how sharp your thinking is on both sides.
[8:30] Like if someone asks me these questions, it's just funny because I've had some people on my team ask me like, well, what do you mean by that?
[8:37] And they're trying to use my weapons at me.
[8:41] And I'm like, bro, I can tell you what I mean because I thought about it.
[8:46] And so,
[8:47] Like these questions, though they appear difficult, allow you to suss out or determine the quality or depth of someone's thinking around a problem or solution set.
[9:01] And I would say that I use these on a regular basis when making bets in the business where I think we will get high returns.
[9:10] Right.
[9:11] And if I want this to happen, and then I say, what would it take for this to happen?
[9:18] I get a very different set of answers from people that tends to create more divergent thinking processes as in they try to solve for success and reverse engineer it.
[9:29] And when I open up the blue ocean of like, let's say we had unlimited money and unlimited time, what would it take?
[9:34] And then all of a sudden you go from unlimited time to unlimited money.
[9:37] And then what it actually would take is, you know, well unlimited is unlimited, right?
[9:42] small percentages in relation to that.
[9:45] And so anyways, this was top of mind because I had a handful of conversations yesterday that were in relation to this, where people would say, we won't do this thing.
[9:52] It's like, what problem are we trying to solve?
[9:54] What do you want to have happen?
[9:56] What does that mean?
[9:58] How do you know that's going to happen when you do that?
[10:00] And even if we do, so what?
[10:04] Who cares?
[10:05] What does this affect?
[10:06] How does this connect to a business outcome?
[10:09] And what you'll find is a lot of these questions lead to, maybe we shouldn't do this.
[10:13] And that's usually the right answer.
[10:15] And so one of my internal jokes that I have is the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world is do nothing.
[10:20] Like when I have like three doors of action, do it, you know, do A, do B, and then do nothing.
[10:27] Do nothing so commonly is the correct answer.
[10:30] As in, nope, continue to allocate resources towards the things that are getting us the highest return.
[10:36] This is a thing that might get us a return, but we have this other thing that we know will get us a return.
[10:40] And the return that we get here might be as good, but this one certainly will be, and so we should just do more of that.
[10:47] So right now, when you're contemplating, should I do this thing, somebody on my team, or I'm the one who's suggesting these things, you might have suggested it because you are emotionally
[10:59] uncomfortable with your existing moment and just want something to do rather than the thing that you know is going to work so anyways uh those are a handful of questions that i use like weapons that have helped me make better bets uh i hope they help you
[11:15] If you like this video and you're a business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million and 3 businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling roadmap that I've used to go from 0 to 1, 0 to 10, and 0 to 100 plus.
[11:29] And so you can click here and you can check it out.
[11:31] Again, absolutely free.
[11:32] And since you're a business owner, I appreciate you and enjoy.

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