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I also ended up selling a 75% sake of another company. So last year I sold a majority of

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three companies that I owned. I also sold my house and I sold two like hard. So I sold everything

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last year. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more

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customers, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way.

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I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

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Video I want you to take you through the much awaited breakdown of the decision of why I ultimately

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sold two steaks of two of my portfolio companies at a $46.2 million valuation last year. I also

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ended up selling a 75% sake of another company. So last year I sold a majority of three companies

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that I owned. I also sold my house and I sold two like hard. So I sold everything last year.

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And so I wanted to walk you through at least the decision in this video. I'll talk in another

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video about kind of the lessons that I learned throughout the process. But this one I just wanted

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to focus on why I ended up doing it. And if you've watched some of the videos in my channel,

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you'd probably see that I'm for the most part, if you could categorize me as anti-sale,

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that would have kind of been true. And so I wanted to kind of explain why I ended up selling. And

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by the way, if you don't know how I am, I'm a business investor at acquisition.com. It's a

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portfolio of companies that's about $85 a million a year. I don't have any coaching masterminds,

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courses, whatever. I don't have any of that stuff. I just make these videos because I like to

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document the process and I hope the lessons that I've learned are valuable other people. So

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I want to hit on probably four or five major themes of the decision. One was the story of selling it.

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The second was the story of keeping it. The third is kind of the money story. The fourth was the

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energy time and headspace story. The fifth was the team and resources story. And then finally,

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sixth was kind of the vision for my life story. So I'll break down kind of each of these

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in that order roughly. So I'm looking at notes if I'm looking away from the screen. I wanted to

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make this a full presentation, but I honestly have been slammed with a whole bunch of new companies

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that were taking on. And so I just wanted to at least get this out to you guys while I was still

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kind of fresh. So the story of the sale on one side, I had in pro of selling was like, do you

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need the sale to become legit? And for those of you who are like, how can you say that? We all

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suffer from this stuff. You know what I mean? I've been taking home a million a month for almost

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half a decade, more than half a decade. You know what I mean? If you just average it out. I still

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suffer from this stuff. You know what I mean? And so like to be fair, a lot of the achievements that

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I've had in life have been driven through, you know, insecurities of my own that I've tried to

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quell with material success that I had a crush that I could look at and say, look Alex, you have

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evidence that you were not a failure. But I'm just being real with you. Like so that was, you know,

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on one side, like the need for legitimacy, which I ended up concluding that I already had it.

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Right. But that was one of the thoughts. Another thought was, you know, needing the sale to increase

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net worth. The reality of it is that your after-tax net worth is actually lower than your pre-sell net

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worth. So whenever you have a liquidity event, you're decreasing risk, but you also decrease your

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net worth. And so, you know, to a certain degree, you have the value of whatever your equity is in

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the marketplace, which has a value, right? Someone's willing to pay for it. And that compounds and

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grows tax-free. And so when you choose to liquidate it, you actually have costs that are associated

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with the transaction. You also have taxes that are associated, bonuses to pay, things like that. And

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so you actually end up decreasing your net worth and doing that. So that was, that was also kind of

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a false belief. And if you're like, Alex, all these things that you're saying sound like your

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anti-sale, I'll get to why I ended up doing it in a minute. You know, another kind of story behind

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this was like, I've been known as a fitness and gym industry guy for almost a decade, even though,

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right now, the majority of our portfolio is not in that space. But I still had that story, and I

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wanted to kind of break free from that, just from a branding perspective. And so, you know, having

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the sale thought would have helped me accomplish that. Just create a little bit more space between me

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and the industry overall. The fourth was kind of around the headspace, which I'll cover as an entire

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topic. I'll tell you that the reality around this for me was matching the conditions. And so what I

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mean by that is, if I have this envisionment of what I think the conditions of what my life will

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look like after a sale, I can try and match those conditions while I still own 100% of the company.

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And so if I can match the conditions in a situation where I own 100% of the company that I don't

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have to have the inefficiencies of transaction to decrease my net worth, and still accomplish the

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same objective, right? And so I was like, okay, I don't necessarily need a sale to do that. I can

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try and match the conditions and accomplish that. Now, interestingly, over the last year leading

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into the sale, I was bored out of my mind because I was not involved in the company, which just,

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by the way, is what makes it sellable. If they think that you are needed to run the company,

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then you will probably have some sort of urn out and, you know, seller financing and, you know,

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continued involvement in lots of transition services. I had none of those things in either

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of the three sales that I had this year. And so, you know, a lot of that, like I was already

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removed from the business, which is what made it sellable. And so, you know, it's like, how much

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different is my life really going to be and do I really need to go through this, right? One of the

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lessons that I've learned, and the reason that this is one of the three hardest decisions I've

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made in my life, the first hardest decision I had was quitting my job as a consultant to open a

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gym, right? And I had to let go of something that most people considered a success to do something

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that was completely improved, right? And that that was still, I think, to the state of the hardest

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decision I ever made in my whole life because I also had, like, parental approval and stuff that I

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used to care about at that time in my life. It's funny though, just for anybody who's in that space,

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I can tell you that when you get to the other side of it, you're amazed that you even gave a

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shit, just like throwing it out there. It's just kind of funny because it's like it's such a non-none

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decision calculus for me now. But to imagine that it used to be such a huge part of my decision

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calculus is like, what are my parents going to think? Will people approve of me? I can tell you that

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you can break free of that. But, you know, number one was that the number two was selling my gyms,

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that was a super hard decision for me, and starting gym launch. And so, again, I had this thing that I had

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six locations, and I was young, I was 26, you know, and people were like, why would you do something

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like this? You already have this success, and it was because I had to let go of something that I

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knew and I had in my hand for something that was unproven. But I believed, you know, just believed

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that I could make something better. And so, this decision was kind of just like that decision,

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just on a larger scale, which is like I had these companies that a lot of people thought were cool

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and gave me status. But I wanted to do something else which seemed like a bigger opportunity and

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more interesting to me in the future, which is, you know, really going all in on acquisition.com.

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And so, those are kind of the three hardest decisions. And I think the common theme between them

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is giving up something that already gives you status for something that's completely

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untested and has a high risk of not necessarily working, right? I would say with each of those

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decisions, my risk of it not working continued to decrease, right? Like when I quit my job,

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the risk of me not having a business that succeeded was super hot, right? Very realistically high.

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When I quit, you know, when I quit, when I sold my gyms to do gym launch, the risk of it not working

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was lower because I had already had business, I already had teams, I had a course skill set already.

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So, the risk was lower. It was known to have done that particular model, which I flew around

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and did turn around, but like there was a lower risk. And then even so, going from, you know,

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selling a portfolio of three of those companies last year to doing, you know, minority investments

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that we do now through the portfolio kind of have an active business of building businesses

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that we, you know, own a stake in, that had probably, if we're being realistic, a lesser

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amount of risk associated with it. But there was still some risk of giving up the known for the

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end, right? And so each of those were still the hardest decisions, but they got decreasing

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when it was hard, right? And I think what made it difficult from the story of selling is that the

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story of keeping it was so compelling to me, right? Because, you know, I was like, I could just

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learn all the lessons that I learned from this entire sales process, keep it and keep the company.

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I can keep my north higher by not going through the liquidity event overall, because, you know,

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they say rich people sell stuff, the wealthy people will never sell, right? And I believe in that,

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I don't, I don't know. I think I may sell equity positions that I have in minority companies

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in the future, but I don't think that I will ever sell like majority or decision making power

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within acquisition.com because it's so court of who I am. And candidly, it was much harder for me to

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sell Jim launch than it was for me to sell prestige labs or Allen last year from an emotional

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perspective, because I think my thumbprint, my face was on the brand, even though I wasn't involved

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in the business at all, like I didn't go to the events, I wasn't on the coaching calls, I didn't,

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I didn't have any of those stuff. And so that was, it still felt like it was a part of me,

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and I'll tell you this is a side note, like I felt the loss of the business when I did end up selling,

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and I didn't feel the gain of the money. Because for context, like my wife and I've already at that

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point, when we made the sale, I had already taken out, I think, 45 or 50 million dollars in dividends,

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just from those businesses. And so like, you know, I mean, like the money wasn't going to make a

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material difference in my life at all, and it hasn't. And so that was kind of like yet another thing,

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right? And so the kind of one of the last pieces or one of the other pieces around this was like,

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I have this belief like you can't have more than one thing that's active. And I still too

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a degree believe that I think that maybe I just don't have the skill set yet to do more than one

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active thing. So like for me acquisition.com is one active business. And the products of that

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business are all of the, all of the portfolio companies in their subsequent growth. Like, but it's

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one core business of building businesses. And then those are the outcomes of that. Whereas having

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like three or four companies that you were the active CEO of, so being owner versus CEO or

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different. And a lot of times people think that they are owners, but are still running the decisions

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and they're still guiding, you know, the strategy of the business. Like all that time that you do

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research and then you think and you reading, you look at data and all that stuff like that's

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actively what a CEO is supposed to do, not an owner. Like an owner, like if you want to stock an

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apple, you're not doing anything, right? And so like really thinking about that in terms of

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context of like what it means to be an owner. Hey guys, real quick, if you're new to the podcast,

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I have a book on Amazon called 100 million dollar offers that over 8,000 five star reviews

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and it has almost a perfect score. You can get it for 99 cents on Kindle. The reason I bring it up

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is that I put over a thousand hours into writing that book and it's my biggest gift to our

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community. So it's my very shameless way of trying to get to you to like me more and ultimately

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make more dollars to that later on in your business career. I can finish the part with you. So

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that's my gift. Go check it out. Amazon and back to the show.

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So I'm looking back at my notes here. So I started asking myself the question like what,

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you know, what amount would I let it go for? And I realized that no matter what the number was,

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I would end up being a little bit sad. And that was also one of the things that was really difficult

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for me. And I also had this vision of just having this conglomeration of lots and lots of

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companies that I owned in my future. And so I was like, well, I already have these companies while

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when I sell them. And so I also talked to a bunch of people who, you know, have made more money

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than me and they were like, you know, honestly, I've sold companies and most of them I wish I had kept.

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And you're like, man, Alex, like, so you didn't need the money. All the people are telling you

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not to sell, you know, why did you end up doing this? And I'll give you two more reasons why I was

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concerned with actually selling one was I didn't think I was going to get energy and headspace back

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because I was like, I already don't do anything in the business like what's it going to change,

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right? And then I knew that I was going to lose my core team like which we spent a lot of time

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building. And I was like, I mean, that's what people are buying when they're buying the company.

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They're buying the team that runs it and provides value. And so I was like, I'm going to have to

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start off from scratch from that core team because a lot of the core team in those companies

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still helped us with some of our other companies. Like if I need to help recruit for one of our

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portfolio companies that I know minority interested and I can still use my HR resources and the

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company's own majority in to go to go do that. So just give me a lot of leverage. And so it's like,

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okay, Alex, you didn't need the money. You didn't need the story of the exit for legitimacy.

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It was actually going to decrease your net worth. You know, you can just match the conditions and

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still effectively have the same thing energy wise. You're going to lose your team, lose your leverage.

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You want to have this conglomeration. You already have this head start. You can already learn

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the lessons from the self by already going through the process and not taking the deal. So why

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are you going? Why did you sell? And so that's what I'm going to answer now. So I wrote down this one

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kind of sentence at the top of my decision making document. Because I this document, I still have

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tons and tons and tons of notes and I'll probably make more videos about this if you guys want.

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Just put in the comments if that is of interest to you guys. It's helpful for me to know.

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I ended up selling because I believed like the two past hardest decisions that I had that

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if I had ruthless prioritization and focus on just this one active business that I didn't have

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my thumb print on in my face like I have with the other companies that net net I would still be

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better off. And that was for me the bottom line decision. And I can tell you now that I have

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gone through the sale and I was really nervous because I was like, oh my gosh, what if nothing

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changes? What if I feel exactly the same after, you know, the sale happens? And I will tell you

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that from a money and all that sub perspective, I had no high. I didn't even have like, there's

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that brief moment. I got none of that. I didn't even feel the money. It's just numbers on the screen

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and I already had a lot of numbers on the screen and there's just like, okay, cool. And like I

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literally never felt anything. And the moment where I knew I made the right decision was when I started

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building acquisition.com the core basically a week after after we sold. And before the sale,

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acquisition.com had my majority interests and had three minority interests. And the minority

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interests was run with a very, very small team. But what we were doing now with acquisition.com

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is really building the business that builds businesses and creating an active portfolio for myself

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so that I can actively invest money and time to get outside's returns. That's kind of the general

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thesis. So we do majority work for minority stakes so that other entrepreneurs can get all the same

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benefits of having a private equity partner who knows a lot about scaling a company without having

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to give a majority up. And that's what we're doing there because it's something passionate about.

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And some that I just really genuinely love. And I'll tell you this is again a side note is that

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now that I'm in the trenches again without leverage, it's so interesting because right now

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I have so much appreciation for my own love for the game because the difficulty, you know what I mean,

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of starting the business from scratch again the last few times that I've done this, it was much

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more painful. And I would still say like there's still the pain or the discomfort of all the stuff

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that has to get done. But it's weird because I feel like I have more weathered eyes to it. And I know

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that when I was completely empty with nothing to do and lots of cash flow from these companies,

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I missed it. And so I don't think I'm going to move to a chairman position again

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because I just realized that I love I just love this. I just truly love business. It's the thing

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that like it's like my my first true love like I just I love it. And so I can I'm doing this again

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now and I truly don't need to. But I just enjoy it so much that there's nothing else I'd rather do.

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And it's weird because I feel like I've said that or people say that but like

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I think there's just degrees to how true it is. You know what I mean? And for me, it's just so

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it's just true to my core that I love this completely and it's what I want to do

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because I really don't have to do it at all. And I could just I mean stick it all into it. I mean

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just from the you know buildings and stuff we have like I believe me I don't need to work from

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the dividends that come from that. But I got a lot of summers left before I die so I'm going to

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do stuff right that I find interesting. So the bottom line of this came down to

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does this fulfill the vision of what I want and is it helping me accomplish the overarching thing

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that I want to do faster. And so that was the fundamental argument that won this battle for me

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was the opportunity cost of my headspace. And even though I had the argument for matching the

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conditions I can tell you that I know that if I had not sold majority of those companies I would

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be using a lot of the resources of those companies to build the other ones I would be making

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different decisions that I am right now. And the decisions that I'm making right now are completely

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blank slate and I think that they are a long term the best decisions for this company.

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And I am so grateful that I made the decision to sell the majority you know that's 66% stake.

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And it was because I really I really want to do this next thing and I think that I was like if five

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years from now do I think I will build something bigger if I have these other companies or smaller

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five these other companies. And the answer that I came back to is like I think that it won't be as

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big or as good if I still have these other companies that I own majority of which would mean that

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I have like four companies that I'd be running you know owning majority interest in. And the hardest

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one was Jim launch because my my face was on it and I felt like my identity was tied up into it.

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And I'm very glad that I ended up making the decision not to so that this could be my one

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end only focus and I really did get a tremendous amount of headspace back just because the

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headspace of responsibility I would imagine it's like having a child I don't have one but I would

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imagine that even if even if your child moves away to college or you know moves out of the house

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even if you don't have any time that you're spending with the child the child occupies a lot of your

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your shower time your toilet time your in between time your walk time your think time and so

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even if I didn't have anything on my calendar it was still occupying my energy. And so

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that was what I ultimately was trying to get back and accomplished because I knew even though I had a

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short term decrease in net worth as a result of liquidity event and the inefficiencies that are

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you know they happen from taxes and things like that I thought that long term what I was going to

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build would be built better and faster not that I'm really in a rush but like it would be built

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faster on the same timeline if I had a hundred percent focus on it. And so that was overall

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why I made the call it was super hard because we love the team that we built there

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we knew we could potentially use them as the launch pad for the next thing but I thought

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that would distract who wouldn't be fair to those companies which is ultimately why we brought

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an investment partner and who would prioritize those companies and help them grow without having

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me like you know mentally drive it. And so you know I mean some of the other money stories I had

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here is like what else are you going to invest in that's going to get you the same return.

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The answer is I'd have to invest again in a company that I own to get the returns that I was going

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to get from continuing to own those. And so that is what I'm going to be like it's I am investing

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like I know that even more than the money what I can invest my headspace and energy into will get

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me on size returns than the company alone. And this way it's also a little bit more diversified

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for me rather than being you know potentially at the you know whim of the the governments that

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affect those particular businesses. So to wrap this up I wanted to build the next thing

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and I didn't think that I could build it as effectively because I felt like if even I would

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10% less effective building something that was going to be 100 times as big then that 10% would

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still be more than the total value of the companies that I was selling. And so that was why I ultimately

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made the call. And I think with my call with Granny said you know rich people only sell and they

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think the party's over or they no longer have like an interest in the thing. And it's not that I

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no longer have an interest in the thing I think it's more than I had a greater interest in something

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else. And so opportunity cost was the primary cost that I was trying to pay down by making

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the sale. And what's interesting about this is like it felt like I was actually buying not selling.

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I felt like I was buying my time back. And it's weird because I was buying it with my equity

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which almost means that I feel like the money was in consequential. It felt like I was

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trading my equity for my headspace and the money just happened to be an additional portion of the

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deal but was actually one of the least important variables in the entire process. So I hope this adds

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some clarity as to why I did it. I do think that you know the story of the exit you know here's

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some irony for you like my network technically went down but I had more people reach out from the

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woodwork from high school and college and professors and things congratulating me on the exit

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and like basically giving legitimacy to what we had built as a result of the sale rather than

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pre-sale. And I think that's partially because a lot of different business owners from

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businesses differently like they don't make money while they grow it. I've just never been a

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believer in that. There's nothing wrong with it but I think you make poor decisions if you're poor.

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And so I like to make them from a point of not needing anything and I think that that's long term

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it's long term the best way to make those decisions. And so anyhow that's that's kind of the

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consolidated big picture reasoning behind it. So the story of the sale, the story of keeping it,

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the money affect the energy time and headspace, the team and ultimately what I wanted to do with

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my life and if something was going to be 10% less good with what I ultimately wanted then I needed

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to prioritize the thing that I ultimately wanted and having a priority means saying no to everything

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else. And so that's ultimately why I made the decision. So I hope that mozination, I hope that

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makes sense to you guys, or at least I hope that the decision needs to make sense for you but like

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hopefully the communication was clear in this video. I love you all. I appreciate you all. I make

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this stuff for you guys. Actually you know what? I make this stuff for me and I hope you guys benefit

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from it. So keeping awesome and I'll see you guys the next bit. Bye!