Alex Hormozi On Writing

Practicing The Write Stuff Issue #23

I spent a few hours the other day checking out some videos featuring Alex Hormozi that specifically related to writing and books. And amongst the gems that I’ll share in this issue are three really important points to make about writing in general and writing books in particular.

One caveat before we get started: every author is different. Alex talks about having to rewrite a book six times to get it to the level he wants it to be it. For you that might take sixty times. Or ten times. Or two. Don’t ever fall into the trap of thinking: this guy rewrites his book six times…I’ve got to. You should develop a process that works for YOU. Not stick rigidly to a process that works for a different author.

Onwards.

#1 Video 1 - Alex’s Interview With Matt Gray

Here’s an 80 minute or so interview you can find on YouTube:

The section you should watch starts at the 47.12 time stamp and goes to the 1.08.12 time stamp.

Here are the main points that resonated with me, bullet pointed out:

• Alex wrote 100M Leads to be exceptional and wants it to be sold and spread beyond his death.

• Books are an inefficient monetization vehicle!

• Since 2021 - with two books out - Alex has sold nearly 1 million copies. (Remember PTWS issue #15 about Tiago Forte saying self pub is a scam. Alex was the example I used to counterbalance….his sales are off the charts. No trad pub.)

• Writing mantra: how can I make this simpler? How can I make this shorter? How can I make this easier?

• If you can write to a fifth grader….every one else will understand.

• People mistake making things simpler for making them dumber.

• How a book lives for a long time: one person reads it and then refers it to more than one person.

• If you spend two years writing a book that lives for 200 years….that’s a high leverage activity.

• How Alex prepared and practiced the 100M Book Launch (see the 54.00 time stamp).

• Alex thinks all fiction writers should launch their books like this! (57.26)

• What’s the goal beyond the goal? (Where does the book lead to?)

• Can you enhance the book so it’s not just a book? It’s a solution. (Transform words on the page to a better life for someone…..make it easy, cheap, fast, pain free - 57.56.) If so, more people will buy it.

• A book should be an execeptional product.

• Finding the balance between perfectionism and shipping. 59.30 to 1.00. Alex’s litmus test: there’s nothing else I can do to make this better.

• To make something exceptional….take a narrow problem and 100% solve it. And expand from there. 1.01.00

• Most successful people Alex knows have a lot tolerance for mediocrity.

• Practice for the book launch: three times a day for a month. Including recording it watching it back. (deliberate practice feedback in action).

#2 Video 2 How I Wrote a #1 Besteller….No Publisher…

Here’s the second video to check out - this was published in September 2022, nearly a year before 100M Leads was launched:

Here are the main points that resonated with me, bullet pointed out:

• 100M Offers had just crossed a year anniverary….sold over 200,000 copies. No ad campaigns. No publisher. Started with no audience. Built sales on word of mouth.

• If people don’t share it on their own…it’s not a good enough book.

• His books will outlive everything else Alex has produced and help more people.

• The most powerful ability (with writing) is to tell stories. You can educate and entertain.

• If you develop this ability you can use it to teach, to entertain, to change someone’s beliefs, to sell, and more.

• Great writing comes from a place of wanting to add to the body of knowledge - you can compress 5 years of learning into 3 hours for a reader.

• Narrow down the focus of the book to a single problem to be solved.

• The problem with most books is they don’t actually solve anyone’s problem.

• “A good book is a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem.”

• Alex’s 7 Steps to a story that can be used in a book: Setting; Character; The Desire; The Struggle; Eureka Moment; The Victory and Resolution

• How to be descriptive: appeal to all senses; show don’t tell.

• How to make a story interesting: stakes and struggle.

• 7 Components of interesting stories: recency; impact of the event; prominance; proximity; conflict; how unusual is it; update frequency.

• How Alex structures his books (10.00)

• Editing: simplify writing as much as possible so that mental capacity is used on understanding the concepts in the book, not translating words into concepts they understand. (Tip: Hemingway App can tell you what level you are writing at.)

• Simplify everything. Sentences. Words.

• These ideas can be used in all content. Not just books.

• Oh…and this video is an ad for a future book (which is now released.) There’s a lesson just in that.

#3 9 Tips On Writing

This is a short video - less than 3 minutes. As well as long form video content….Alex does a bunch of short form. Sometimes it’s cut up from longer form…sometimes it's unique.

Here are the tips:

1. Present voice (present tense)

2. Active voice.

3. Simple tenses

4. No adverbs. (Adverbs are placeholders for shitty verbs.)

5. Short sentences.

6. 3rd to 5th Grade vocabulary

7. Positive language.

8. Remove redundant words.

9. If it makes sense without it, cut it.

#4 My Three Important Takeaways

One of the reasons I wrote this post as it is, is that it’s a place for me to store these bullet points and the videos so I can always find them. (Am still trying to work out this PKM thing.)

But the most important part of the process is not to just link videos and add bullet points but to identify three biggest learnings. (Sidebar: there’s a reason that ‘three’ is used in myths and folklore. So while I could take 5 learnings. or 10 learnings. I picked out the three that were most resonant to me.)

4.1. Write such a good book that it’s still being read in 50 years. Or 100 years.

4.2. Write such a good book that once it’s been launched, it markets itself via referrals and mentions and articles talking about it. (Like this one.)

4.3. A good book is a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem.

What’s important to note is that your takeaways will be different to mine. So I recommend watching the suggested 20 minutes or so from the first video, and the second and third videos completely. Be about 45 minutes of your time.

Then note down what YOU find important. Or noteworthy.

#5 Bonus Video

In the first video Alex talks with his interviewer (Matt Gray) about how he launched 100M Leads. Here’s that launch webinar in case you want to check it out. I don’t know precise numbers but i think Alex sold 50K plus copies of the hardback version of the book based on this webinar. See what you can learn - and make a note of those learnings in the comments!

The Ride Out

Last week I bemoaned the fact that tallying words was ‘difficult’ because I was writing in multiple projects. That’s just resistance. This week I got much better at doing this and here’s my red line for this week:

If you’re new here, check out PTWS Issue 17 to understand ‘the red line.’

One final thought: there are tons of videos on YouTube with writers being interviewed. It’s worth spending a couple of hours a week checking some of these out…you never know when you’ll get a fantastic idea. (I got a great idea for generating referrals by listening to the first video in this issue.). My favourite this week was Tim Ferriss interviewing Hugh Howey. If you have Publisher Rocket, type Hugh Howey’s name into the search bar with the ‘AUDIBLE’ filter selected. Your eyes will pop open when you see the results!

Issue 24

I posted a tweet this week that resonated with some of my (tiny number of) followers. It was based on a quote by one of the best jazz double bass players in the world who was asked how he practiced and he replied: I spend an hour each day looking for holes in my technique and fixing them. I’ll expand on this idea in Issue 24.