Pick the Vehicle That Fits the Journey You Want

It Is the Journey, Not the Goal

​There is a video by Alex Hormozi that his marketing team has been running for six months.

Half a million views.

It breaks down the four main business shapes after studying hundreds of businesses: e-commerce, service, education, and software.

It is one of the smartest breakdowns I have seen. If you have not watched it, go watch it.​

But here is what the video does not cover: why you would choose any of those shapes in the first place.

Because the question is not what is the fastest path to the destination. The question is what is the journey you actually want to live.

The NYC Problem

Let’s say you live near me, somewhere in LA, and you have business in NYC.

Most people would think: what is the best way to get there?

Fly. Obviously.

That is the most efficient vehicle. The fastest path. Get on a plane, land in NYC, done.

You are not wrong. That is probably the most efficient way to get there.

But here is what is missing.

• Why do you need to get to NYC for business?
• What do you need to get done there?
• Is there a better alternative?

And does this decision support who you are becoming, and what are your values, priorities, and principles that are nurtured and supported by that decision?

Because when you dig deeper, you may decide you do not need to go to NYC at all.

And even if you do need to do business there, can it be done over the phone or online?

That is the challenge I see time and time again. On the jobsite. On the mat. In business.

People solve the wrong problem.

Solving the Wrong Problem

I see guys training hard on the mat.

Getting their asses kicked every single roll. And they keep training the same way.

They are not lazy. They are not stupid. They are not quitting.

They are training the wrong skills.

They are not solving for the foundational problem that their challenges stem from.

For me, that is something as simple as calming down. Slowing down. Breathing more.

For some strange reason, I struggle with that. And it makes everything else worse.

My technique could be perfect. My conditioning could be great. But if I am tense and holding my breath and burning energy like a house fire, none of that matters.

I am solving the wrong problem.

I see the same thing on the jobsite all the time.

Guys running around putting out fires. Reacting to one emergency after another. Working late. Working weekends. Stressed out of their minds.

But they never stop long enough to see how their work habits are creating those fires.

Stop reacting. Start thinking and planning. That is the foundational problem.

But they do not solve that one. They just keep running faster and working harder.

Same problem. Wrong solution.

The Four Business Shapes

Alex Hormozi breaks down the four shapes beautifully.

Shape one is e-commerce.

Stair-step growth. Fast scaling when you have inventory and distribution, then you hit ceilings. Cash flow constraints. Supply chain constraints. Traffic constraints. You break through one ceiling, you hit the next one. Rinse and repeat.

Shape two is service.

Slow and steady. People-heavy at every stage. Hard to scale because exceptional people are harder to find than exceptional products. Higher margins, but more volatility because you are selling time and expertise, not widgets.

Shape three is education.

Media. Information. Content. Fastest way to make money. Low startup cost. Very high margins. Very scalable. But people graduate. They leave. You must constantly acquire new customers. And worse, you train your future competitors.

Shape four is software.

SaaS. High up-front investment. Expensive to build. Slow to grow. But once it works, it scales without adding bodies. Infinite scale. Exponential upside if you can survive the early years.

Each shape has pros. Each shape has cons. Each shape has constraints.

But Alex’s video does not tell you which one to pick. And that is because the answer is not in the video.

The answer is in your life.

Why I Am Building a Shape Three Business

I am building a shape three business.

Education. Content. Media.

Not because it is the smartest path. Not because it is the fastest path.

Because it looks more fun and interesting to me.

And I am 60 years old.

If I am lucky, and I do not know, advances in medicine and technology and ways to fight illness and disease and cancer are exploding with AI and CRISPR and everything else, but if I am being realistic, I have maybe 20 to 30 years left. Inshallah.

So I want faster gains. I want variety. I want to create. I want to teach. I want to write and record and build systems that help people see patterns they have been missing.

I am not worried about building the next SaaS unicorn. I am not trying to spend five years building software before I see a dollar.

I want to build something that generates revenue now, so my wife and I can go on some crazy exotic travel adventures.

That lets me connect with my tribe now. That keeps me interested and engaged and learning for the next 20 years.

That is my journey. That is what fits me.

But if you are a young man in your 20s and 30s, I would say build a shape four business. Build software. Build a platform.

Put in the years of slow growth and expensive engineering and product iteration.

And allow exponential scale and time to work in your favor.

Because you have time. You have decades. You can afford to play the long game.

I cannot.

That is not a better answer or a worse answer. That is a different answer for a different person at a different stage of life.

The Belt Is Just the Belt

I got a black belt. Twice.

The test was hard. The celebration was cool. The belt ceremony was meaningful.

But that was about a week of time.

The rest was the years of training. Getting beat up. Getting discouraged. Getting re-ignited. Hitting it again and again and again.

That was the journey. The belt was just the belt.

The goal is a moment. The journey is everything else.

And most people pick the goal first and then suffer through a journey they hate.

They pick the business model that makes the most money on paper. They pick the fastest vehicle. They pick the most efficient path.

And then they spend the next 10 years miserable because the journey does not fit who they are.

Who Do You Want to Become

Here is the real question.

Not what do I want to achieve. Not what is the fastest path to wealth or success or freedom.

Who do I want to become?

And what journey will build that person?

Because you are not going to spend most of your time at the destination. You are going to spend most of your time on the road.

If you build a service business, you are going to spend most of your time recruiting and training and managing people. You are going to spend most of your time dealing with the volatility of human beings. You are going to spend most of your time putting out fires and building systems so other people can do what you used to do.

If that sounds fun to you, great. Build a service business.

If that sounds like hell, do not build a service business. I do not care how much money it makes.

If you build an e-commerce business, you are going to spend most of your time managing cash flow and supply chains and distribution partners and inventory cycles. You are going to spend most of your time solving logistics problems and building a brand so people choose your product over the cheaper knockoff.

If that sounds interesting, great. Build an e-commerce business.

If that sounds like a nightmare, do not build an e-commerce business.

If you build an education business, you are going to spend most of your time creating. Writing. Recording. Publishing. Teaching. Building trust with strangers who do not know you yet. And then watching them graduate and leave while you go find the next batch of students.

If that sounds like a grind you are willing to do, great. Build an education business.

If that sounds exhausting, do not build an education business.

If you build a software business, you are going to spend most of your time building and iterating and debugging and improving the product. You are going to spend years before you see significant revenue. You are going to obsess over retention and user experience and product-market fit.

If that sounds like a worthy long game, great. Build a software business.

If that sounds like throwing years of your life into something that might never work, do not build a software business.

The vehicle matters. The journey matters. The daily work matters.

Because the daily work is what you are going to be doing. Not the celebration. Not the exit. Not the moment you hit the goal.

The daily work.

The Foreman and the Crew

I spent 35 years as an electrician. Most of those years, I was a foreman.

And here is what I learned: the job I loved was not the same job the next guy loved.

Some guys loved being in the field. Hands on the tools. Running conduit. Pulling wire. Building the thing.

Some guys loved being in the office. Running the numbers. Managing the schedule. Solving the logistics puzzle.

Some guys loved managing people. Training apprentices. Building a crew. Watching young electricians get better.

Same industry. Same company. Same projects. Completely different jobs.

And the guys who were good at one were not always good at the other. And the guys who loved one often hated the other.

The shape of the work mattered.

Same thing in business. Same thing on the mat. Same thing in life.

The shape of the journey matters more than the destination.

The One Big Ugly Problem

Here is what Hormozi nails in that video.

Every business model has one big ugly problem.

Not ten problems. One.

• E-commerce: supply chain and cash flow
• Service: finding and keeping great people
• Education: retention and preventing graduation
• Software: product-market fit and the long slow build before revenue

Most entrepreneurs waste years solving the wrong problems.

They think marketing is the problem. They think sales is the problem. They think they need better funnels or better ads or better positioning.

But the real problem is built into the shape of the business.

If you own an education business and you are losing students after they finish your course, the problem is not your marketing. The problem is that you designed a business where people graduate and leave.

Fix that. Build ascension. Build community. Build ongoing value so they never graduate.

If you own a service business and you cannot scale past yourself, the problem is not demand. The problem is that you have not built a teaching company. You have not productized your delivery. You have not documented what is in your head so someone else can do it.

Fix that. Stop being the bottleneck.

The shape of your business tells you where to spend your time and your money and your attention.

Stop fighting the shape. Master it.

Put It On the Mat

If you are building a business, do not pick the business model that makes the most money on paper.

Pick the business model that fits the journey you want to live.

Because you are not going to spend most of your time at the finish line. You are going to spend most of your time on the road.

And if you hate the road, the destination is not going to save you.

You building the business to be rich is getting the black belt.

But what you become and who you are with on the journey, that is the juice of life.

Alex Hormozi’s video is brilliant. Watch it. Study it. Learn the four shapes.

But do not pick the shape because it is the smartest or the fastest or the most efficient.

Pick the shape because the daily work of that shape is the daily work you want to do.

Not for six months. Not until you hit your goal.

For the next 10 years. For the next 20 years.

Because that is how long the journey is.

And the journey is the thing you are actually signing up for.

So pick the vehicle that fits the journey you want.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Today’s training:

The 5-Year Vision Drill

Write a paragraph describing:

Your life in 5 years if everything goes right.

📚 Leader’s Library

Book I recommend this week:

​​​Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink​

Why?

Because if you don't take ownership for your life, you are giving your power away, making you weaker, more stupid and less successful.

P.S. Know a martial arts gym owner who’s stressed about money or student numbers?

Do them a favor: send them to The Leader's Dōjō, my website where I help owners get more students and keep them longer with simple systems.

One forward from you could change their gym: The Leader's Dōjō​

Chuck