**You’re Not Ready for the Life You Want — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/not-ready-life-want/ Greg Lav discusses redefining goals as lifestyle changes, embracing ambition, and building a business and life aligned with your best self. ## Key Takeaways - Goals are ongoing lifestyle changes, not finite achievements. - Today's opportunities require ambition and rejecting outdated generational mindsets. - Self-awareness and structuring your environment are crucial for sustained success. - Consistency and avoiding negative setbacks matter more than occasional wins. - Reinvesting in your business and personal growth leads to lasting achievement. ## What the video covers - Goals are not finish lines but new levels of living that require lifestyle changes. - The prior generation viewed goals as milestones leading to retirement and stability, but today's arena offers vastly different opportunities. - Ambition should not be seen as toxic; instead, failing to take advantage of current opportunities is ungrateful. - Building a business requires awareness of personal weaknesses and structuring work environments to maximize your best self. - Maintaining success demands consistent discipline, not just achieving short-term goals like fitness or business milestones. - Negative actions or days can undo progress faster than good days can build it. - Reinvesting profits and focusing on long-term growth is critical rather than short-term celebrations. - Personal anecdotes illustrate the importance of accountability, lifestyle alignment, and continuous improvement. - Success involves evolving into a person capable of handling greater responsibilities and goals. - The video encourages viewers to embrace ambition, reject outdated mindsets, and commit to sustained personal and professional growth. ## Chapters 1. 00:00 Redefining Goals: Beyond Finish Lines 2. 01:21 Modern Opportunities for Young Entrepreneurs 3. 02:27 Knowing and Announcing Your Weaknesses 4. 03:37 Building a Business Around Your Best Self 5. 05:00 Discipline and Maintaining Success 6. 06:17 Avoiding Self-Sabotage and Negative Setbacks 7. 08:17 Reinvesting and Using Goals as Stepping Stones 8. 09:32 Personal Stories and Lessons Learned Answers ## Questions about this video What does Greg Lav say about the traditional view of goals? Greg explains that traditionally, goals were seen as finish lines or milestones to be achieved, often leading to retirement or stability, but he argues that goals should instead be viewed as new levels of living that require ongoing lifestyle changes. How does Greg suggest entrepreneurs handle their weaknesses? He advises entrepreneurs to be aware of and openly announce their weaknesses, then build their business and team structures to compensate for those weaknesses and to create an environment where they can perform at their best. Why does Greg emphasize consistency over occasional success? Greg highlights that negative days or mistakes can undo much more progress than good days can build, so maintaining consistent discipline and avoiding setbacks is crucial for long-term success. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:00 Speaker A A goal is not something you achieve. A goal is a new level that you learn to live at. And unfortunately, we inherited from the prior generation that goals were finish lines. And it's because they're coming from an arena where you 00:12 Speaker A retired, you bought your first million-dollar house, you made it, you got the white picket fence, and there were these milestones that everyone's goal was to hit this finish line, and then you would live happily ever after. 00:24 Speaker A But you know what happened to the last generation? They all kind of lived a mediocre life. They had a completely different arena than us. I don't mean that in a harmful way. I mean that in the way that they just didn't have the 00:34 Speaker A opportunities that we had. Their 20s were for experience. They were supposed to join the same corporations for 30 years. It's a completely different arena today. And if you're competing in the modern arena, you don't need your goals to be approved 00:48 Speaker A by anybody else. If your goals make you happy, if you want to chase those goals, do not question them and do not let anybody else make you feel a certain type of way about them. You should never question wanting more. And the prior 00:59 Speaker A generation told us that it is a lack of gratitude if you want more and that you have too much ambition. You have toxic amounts of ambition. But the reality is in the way that I've seen it my whole 01:10 Speaker A life now sitting here at 31 years old is that you are actually an ungrateful prick if you do not take advantage of the opportunities that exist today. I just left a speaking engagement in New York City. There were over 500 01:21 Speaker A entrepreneurs. I spoke and shook hands with well over a hundred of them. A majority of them were in their 20s and a lot of those kids were millionaires. 01:30 Speaker A Most of them were well over six figures in net worth and operating very real businesses. That opportunity didn't exist just 15 years ago. It only exists today. And so this video is for the people who want to be playing in that 01:42 Speaker A arena. My name is Greg Levia. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Bloom. I co-founded this company with my wife in 2019. In my 20s, I had amassed a personal liquidity of over $und00 million. I'll just leave that there 01:54 Speaker A because I've been told that I should start these videos with a statement of validity. I'm going to give you several tactics that I have used in my life to turn into the man that can handle running a $600 million plus rapidly 02:05 Speaker A growing business. First and foremost, if you are starting to grow your team, and I don't care if this is just you and your wife right now. I don't care if this is you and one of your college roommates. I don't care if this is you 02:15 Speaker A and your best friend. I don't care if this is you and your mom. And by the way, I've done all of that. I've built a business with my wife. I built a business with my best friend from high 02:22 Speaker A school. And until a hundred million. My mom was the head of finance. This is a proper mom and pop operation over here. 02:27 Speaker A You need to be aware of your weaknesses. You need to announce them. And I knew that I was a lazy bum, relatively speaking, when I worked by myself. Everyone always asked me, especially during COVID, how am I not 02:43 Speaker A growing a remote company? Fam, if I don't have people around me to motivate myself to be accountable to them, I'm a less great version of myself. 02:54 Speaker A Bloom from day one has been an in-office company. Now we have satellite offices around the country. Predominantly, we are in Austin, Texas. We have a satellite office in Los Angeles which is 15 to 30 people and then we have probably 5 to 10 03:05 Speaker A people give or take in New York City and I travel around the country visiting those teams on a regular basis. I am an in-person worker. Ninety percent of the business I do is in person. If I'm even on a Zoom 03:16 Speaker A call, I am a worse version of myself. And so, as the leader, you need to selfishly build the business around what makes you the best version of yourself. 03:24 Speaker A And I don't care if that means you need to get into the office at 11:00 a.m. 03:27 Speaker A instead of 8:30 in the morning. I don't care if that means that you're a night owl and you want the whole company to be used to working in the evening. You need to build your whole operation around what makes you the best version of 03:37 Speaker A yourself. Screw whatever the status quo of operating is. I learned the hard way that hitting your goals is a fake term unless you change your entire lifestyle around it. 03:54 Speaker A The easiest way to put this is that if you're somebody who wants to go get a six-pack and you get the six-pack, congratulations. You now need to maintain a six-pack. If you have a six-pack once, nobody gives a [ \_\_ ] about 04:05 Speaker A it. And when I was younger in my career and we built this whole thing on fitness, my wife and I, I had a very toxic relationship with my physique because I just didn't understand how to maintain it. I would starve myself and 04:17 Speaker A get so locked in on getting ready for this one photo that we would take on a travel vacation once a year. And then the second I got that photo, I would go binge eat and ruin months of work in a 04:28 Speaker A matter of five days and completely lose everything that I worked for. And again, I was trying to become the man that could handle my goals and I was trying to get in good shape. It's my last example. We lived in Boulder, Colorado, 04:38 Speaker A and I identified as someone who had incredible discipline because I was disciplined Monday through Saturday. And then on Sundays, I'd have a cheat day, which is the stupidest, which is the stupidest thing in history. And I'd go binge eat the whole afternoon. I'd ruin 04:52 Speaker A all of the progress that I just made. And on a regular basis, I was literally eating 12 slices of pizza every single Sunday, plus everything on top of that. 05:00 Speaker A And it took me two years to just think to myself, wait, if I'm eating 12 to 14 slices of pizza on a Sunday when I'm eating chicken and rice every other day of the week, I might as well just be 05:11 Speaker A eating two slices of pizza every single day on top of everything I just did the last six days. That would completely ruin my diet. So, no wonder I was making no progress. The moment you let your demon take over, it can completely 05:25 Speaker A destroy everything you had built the prior six days. If you get drunk once a month and make a fool of yourself, your reputation can be tarnished forever. You will be remembered more for your mistakes than you will for your wins. 05:37 Speaker A And therefore, you need to turn into the man that never makes these mistakes. It's the unfortunate reality. And I didn't turn into this person in one day. 05:45 Speaker A It took me years. And I'll tell you some of the action items that I put into my life to make sure that I could turn into this person that could handle my goals. 05:53 Speaker A Your negative days can do exponentially far more damage than your good days compounding up. I meet a ton of entrepreneurs who are killing it. 06:04 Speaker A Some of them are making $10,000 of profit every single month in their lower 20s. And I'll ask them what they do every month to go celebrate. Dude, they'll go to the club and go blow over $5,000 in some Miami nightclub. And it's 06:17 Speaker A like, fam, you need to go reinvest that into the business. Your goals are good at first and you'll have hundreds of good goals that you hit. But they only turn into great goals if you use them as stepping stones to hit greatness. The 06:31 Speaker A only reason we've gotten to this point is because [ \_\_ ] I'll tell you a story. 06:34 Speaker A We were living in Brooklyn, New York. The year was probably 2019, maybe 2020. And we were restocking our greens powder after three months of being out of stock because I was running supply chain and I had no idea what I was doing. The only 06:46 Speaker A full-time team was probably Mari and I at this point. We're walking to a co-working space that we had just rented. I had no expectation for the day. I thought it would just be a random restock, but I had been building hype 06:56 Speaker A and working my ass off to get a ton of hype around this restock coming up. And I learned restock is the most powerful single word in marketing because it creates so much psychology around FOMO and desire to get that pr 07:08 Speaker A day we launched the product on Shopify, sent the email blast, sent the SMS, launched on our Instagram page, updated the Shopify store, and within 12 hours we had over a million dollars in revenue. It was our first million-doll 07:22 Speaker A day on Bloom. And I've told this story a few times, so I won't go too much into detail, but you want to know what I did the next day? I didn't buy a Rolex. I wanted to. I didn't buy a car. We didn't 07:32 Speaker A get a new sick apartment. We took that million dollars. The next morning, I called our top manufacturer and I placed a 50% down payment worth a million dollars for twice as many more greens. 07:45 Speaker A And that's the only reason the business was able to compound because the next time that I had more inventory, the launch was even bigger. And so therefore, that insane milestone of having our first million-doll day was not our last. In fact, now we do well 07:59 Speaker A over a million dollars a day every single day. A bad day is a million dollars now. That's only because I invested those good milestones to get into great milestones. Another example in leadership, I was an incredible leader 29 days a month and eventually we 08:16 Speaker A would hit our goals because Bloom has been crushing the milestones that we've been going after and my ass would get too drunk at the celebration. I would make a fool of myself. And I was able to get away with that for a few years when 08:26 Speaker A the team was 5, 6, 10 people, but then eventually was like 25 plus people. And the CEO and leader of this company was getting sloppy drunk and making a fool of himself on a regular basis during team celebrations. And shout out to my 08:40 Speaker A wife, and anyone who doesn't have a significant other in their life to put them in place, you have an even harder job at this to be able to hold yourself accountable and audit your life. But my wife one day came to me and she was 08:49 Speaker A like, "Greg, you can't be getting drunk like that anymore. You're the CEO of a multiund million dollar company and you're their leader. You need to show stability." And she was completely right. And I realized every time I got 09:02 Speaker A sloppy drunk in front of this team, it probably negated the other 29 days that month that I was a solid accountable leader, that I was a solid, respectable leader. And it just goes to show that no matter how much progress you make over 09:18 Speaker A an extended period of time, you can negate it with just one move. The next thing that I have found that has changed the trajectory of my life based on improving myself as the person that can handle my goals is twice a year, 09:31 Speaker A December 31st to January 1st on New Year's Day and on my birthday, March 27th every single year, I write down in my notes, and it's a note that I pin to the top of my Apple iPhone notes five 09:44 Speaker A things that I am going to change about myself that year. That's it. And I'll write it in third person. And I'll be like, Greg is the type of person who does not hit snooze when he's 30 years old. He's going to go to the gym 6 days 09:54 Speaker A a week. He's going to get into the office at 8:30 a.m. every single day. 09:58 Speaker A He's going to he's not going to go on his phone when he's on a Zoom call. I'll explain what is the type of Gre what is the 30-year-old Greg like when he's 30 years old. And I have done that every 10:09 Speaker A year since I am 24 years old. Twice a year on New Year's Day and on my birthday. And I've just made five to me dramatic, but in theory they're very simple based off of the examples I just gave you. Dramatic changes that I can 10:21 Speaker A actually act on. And now I'm at a part point in my life. Now I'm at a point in my life where I have one about professional Greg. I have a version about father Greg. I have a version about husband Greg, son Greg. And I'll 10:31 Speaker A put a couple things under each category. But if you have one priority because you're early on in your self-development career, dude, just make one list. Just five things twice a year that you're going to change about yourself. Call it 10:42 Speaker A a [ \_\_ ] New Year's resolution. Call it Lent. Call it your birthday resolution. 10:46 Speaker A I don't care what you call it, but you need to do this. And if you're like, "Shit, I'm 6 months away from the new year and I'm even further away from my birthday." Fam, do it today. It doesn't 10:55 Speaker A matter what day you make this list. Do it right now before this video is over. 10:58 Speaker A Explain the best version of yourself by just putting down five bullet points about how you can become better. And they're non-negotiables. If five is too much, do three. If you make three dramatic changes about who you are as a 11:11 Speaker A person twice a year for the next decade, oh my gosh, in 10 years you're going to be you're going to be a completely different person. And I would make the argument in three years you'd be unrecognizable. Guys, these aren't like 11:24 Speaker A little goals that you hit a finish line of. These are these are lifestyle changes. For example, for me, back in the version of me that would drink too much, I said I'm only going to have three cocktails when I go out to dinner. 11:35 Speaker A Never more than that. These are realistic changes that you can make to your life. I'm not asking you to say like, "Okay, now you wake up at 10:00 a.m. and now you're going to start waking up at 6:00 a.m." Do not do 11:44 Speaker A anything too dramatic. Realistic changes that you can make twice a year, three to five of them, and you will be unrecognizable before you know it. The third pivotal tactic that I have used to help me turn into the man that can 11:56 Speaker A handle my goals is starting a personal brand. About 8 to 12 months ago, started posting heavily on Instagram. six months ago started posting on YouTube. It's been an incredible d growth trajectory. 12:09 Speaker A Not that that's even the reason why I'm doing it, but it's incredible the size that this community has got and I'm so glad that I'm providing an ounce of value to one of you. The amount of accountability that I have found just 12:20 Speaker A recording myself and making sure that I can show up every single day and post something motivational for you all about what's top of mind. It has turned me into a into a version of myself that I've never seen before. If I don't go to 12:34 Speaker A the gym and post a video in the morning, I literally get DMs from you guys. Yo, you [ \_\_ ] skipped today, Softy. It's incredible. It's incredible. And this is coming from somebody who like was anti- networking a couple years ago. This is 12:47 Speaker A coming from somebody who like I was a soloreneur. Like I truly did not [ \_\_ ] with sharing my journey with anybody. 12:55 Speaker A If you start a personal brand, you will grow a community of likeminded killers so fast and they will hold you accountable and you will hold them accountable. And this has been a massive unlock. It's been a massive unlock. And 13:07 Speaker A by the way, the whole personal brand thing, I can make a whole video on this if you would like, has provided so much value from different avenues and different verticals of how to be a better person that can handle your 13:17 Speaker A goals. But for this video, the biggest thing that I can take away from building a personal brand is the accountability that I now have to y'all. If you know you have to post twice a day on your Instagram grid or your Tik Tok or your 13:28 Speaker A YouTube, I don't care what it is, whatever it is for you, it has created so much accountability because I know I will let you guys down. 13:35 Speaker A And on top of that, I'll let myself down for letting you guys down. And the only person that you need to make proud is yourself, right? I mean, the f my favorite way of thinking about it is I 13:44 Speaker A have two people to make proud is the 14-year-old version of me and the 70-year-old version of me. And if I was 14 and I started a personal brand and I gave up on it one day because I decided 13:52 Speaker A to go be, you know, soft and lazy, damn, that would that would be pretty disappointing if I was explaining that to the 14-year-old version of myself. 13:59 Speaker A Anyway, the fourth tactic that I have used to turn into the man that can handle my goals is truly just coming up with a ritual routine. I don't just say routine, I don't just say ritual. It's kind of both. 14:15 Speaker A Every day looks very similar for me. And that doesn't mean I don't have fun. I'm I'm coming back from a workout class with my wife. It was the first workout class I've ever done in my life, by the 14:23 Speaker A way. I've never even had a personal trainer. And she kicked my [ \_\_ ] ass. 14:26 Speaker A It was crazy. I try to go on a mountain bike a couple times a week. I try to hike a couple times a week. I try to socialize throughout the week. That could be part of your goals every single 14:34 Speaker A week. But you need to have a routine. It needs to be relatively the same every single day. And as you become the person that can handle your goals, you can start to flex it a bit. But in the 14:45 Speaker A beginning, you enter monk mode. Mari and I, my wife and I, we moved to Boulder, Colorado in 2018, to get away, to get out of our hometown, which is one of my biggest advice to everybody. And I truly had a blank slate 15:00 Speaker A when I moved there. Mari and I knew nobody there. We still don't know anybody there because we were attached to the hip and just worked seven days a week for 18 months. And we laid the foundation for what Bloom would become 15:13 Speaker A when we lived there. and it was the start of laying that ritual routine for the rest of my life. And I still use almost everything. You need to come up with a routine. And if you feel like there's too many variables in the 15:26 Speaker A environment that you're in right now, you need to get the [ \_\_ ] out of your hometown. Truly, if you feel like your parents are going to shame you because you need to get to your workout the next 15:35 Speaker A morning and you're still figuring out how to lay the foundation of this of this routine, dude, you need to go get away for a couple months. You need to go get away for a year. is one of the 15:43 Speaker A biggest pieces of advice that I can give. So whether it's coming up with a ritual routine and figuring out how you can actually achieve that for me was getting out of my hometown and moving to Boulder, Colorado, where I did not 15:53 Speaker A socialize at all for a few months and I entered a full-on monk mode. This is what you need to do. 15:59 Speaker A I'm going to get into what actually fired me up to make a video today. It's the idea of a finish line. And again, I think this is a generational lie that unfortunately we have inherited where the last generation thought like 16:12 Speaker A retirement was this finish line. And I don't know if you have older people in your life, maybe it's even just your parents. 16:21 Speaker A Retirement doesn't look that fun to me. You've you you are no longer at the prime of your health. You are no longer able to go after your goals. You almost like just worked for decades straight to be able to now be too old to enjoy every 16:35 Speaker A all of the fruits of your labor. If you truly turn into the best version of yourself and you become a savage in this game of entrepreneurship and business and that's all that I can speak on. I'm sure it's also relevant to other 16:48 Speaker A categories of growth. You will get access to the greatest game on earth. It is a game of fulfillment, stimulus, freedom. And I know this sounds dramatic, but I am letting you know that if you continue to grow who 17:04 Speaker A you are, one day you get granted access to the greatest game on earth, which is truly your dream life and building your dream brand and your life in association with that brand is truly something that I want you all to experience. And I 17:19 Speaker A don't speak this way motivationally or speaking down and patronizing anybody. I speak this way because I am just like you. The only difference between the people who got into this game and the people who didn't. And this has nothing 17:31 Speaker A to do with your circumstances. Unfortunately, the last generation was taught and passed down to us that your circumstances are your identity. But the reality is most of the savages that I see entering this version of life, this level of life today, getting granted 17:43 Speaker A access to it today, most of them started from the worst circumstances. Most of them didn't even start in America. They start or they started in in truly just like [ \_\_ ] circumstances within America. 17:56 Speaker A Your circumstances have nothing to do with your identity and ability to enter this game. Every single one of us starts at zero. The scoreboard starts at zero every single day. And it is just a matter of what decisions you make that 18:08 Speaker A day. The only difference between the people who get to this level of life and the people who don't is a matter of which decisions they made throughout their life and how they compounded their wins. That's it. And so that's what I'm 18:21 Speaker A telling you is the secret access to this. I am no different than anyone else who is playing this game. It's not that you're just going to continue being a workhorse. You end up just enjoying what you are building and working on so much 18:32 Speaker A that the life of pursuit truly feels like I'm playing a video game that was designed for me that has short-term and long for that has short-term and long-term fulfillment. It is constantly stimulating. It is constantly fun. I laugh every single day and I'm fired up 18:49 Speaker A to get out of bed every single morning. And if that's not what you want, then perhaps this is the wrong video for you. 18:54 Speaker A But if I don't have a life where I'm fired up to get out of bed every single morning, then I think I'm doing something wrong. And I imagine you feel similar. If you continue to level up and compound your good wins until they 19:06 Speaker A become great wins, I promise you, you will be granted access to this level of life that I am speaking on. And it will all be so [ \_\_ ] worth it, dude. It will all be so worth it. And I'm not 19:15 Speaker A telling you to wait until you're 50 years old. I'm 31 years old. And I hope because of videos like this and creators like myself, we can make sure that people are hitting this level of life sooner. and sooner every single 19:25 Speaker A generation. There's no reason why somebody can't hit this in their 20s. There's no reason. To bring this whole video full circle, a goal is not an achievement. It is a new level of life that you learn to live at. And you 19:36 Speaker A continue to level up that level of life that you're living at. And eventually, you look around and everything makes sense. You are the best version of yourself pursuing the greatest goals that you can fathom. And you are doing 19:47 Speaker A it with people around you that you love doing it with. And every single day is so freaking fun. And that's what the whole point of this game is. You are a player. You are not a spectator. And the 19:59 Speaker A arena doors are wide open for you. These stands are full of NPCs. You do not want to be one of them. You want to be a player. And they will be confused because they can't even fathom what you're doing here. But you'll get here 20:12 Speaker A and you'll see what I'm talking about. I need you to trust me. Anyway, my name is Greg Levia. I'm 31 years old. I try to drop a video like this once a week. I just hope that I can pass down the 20:22 Speaker A tribulations that I've learned throughout my career and make sure that you don't need to learn them, too. 20:26 Speaker A That's the whole point of these videos. That's the whole point. I'm rooting for all of y'all. This community is getting so strong and incredible. It was such a pleasure to meet hundreds of y'all a couple days ago in New York City at a 20:37 Speaker A mastermind. I think we're really up to something here. I'm not selling anything. I'm truly just giving you as much as I can every single day. 20:46 Speaker A Oh, that's a wrap. I got to get back to [ \_\_ ] work. That was solid. 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