So I was scrolling through LinkedIn (as one does when avoiding real work), and I saw this post from Alex Hormozi that made me do a double-take:

"23 yrs old: Left my consulting job. 24 yrs old: Opened 5 gym locations..."

Wait, what? This guy—who literally everyone in the business world knows—used to be one of us? A management consultant who graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt with a focus on Corporate Strategy, worked for a boutique strategy firm, and had top-secret clearance doing space cyber intelligence for the military?

Plot twist: The same dude who's now worth $100M and teaches entrepreneurs how to scale businesses started exactly where most of us are right now—staring out his apartment window wondering "is this it?"

Let me tell you Alex's story, because honestly, it's both inspiring and kind of terrifying. And it hits way too close to home for me personally—as someone who also went from Deloitte to building a location-independent business (with a spectacular failure in between).

Alex did everything right. Iranian immigrant family. High-achieving student. Landed that coveted management consulting gig straight out of college. His dad (a doctor who fled Iran) probably couldn't have been prouder.

But here's the thing nobody talks about: Alex was miserable. Like, legitimately contemplating whether he wanted to wake up every morning kind of miserable.

He describes looking out from his apartment balcony and thinking "is this it?" The successful career, the impressive title, the dinner party bragging rights—it all felt empty.

The breaking point? His internal dialogue became: "I have to die to my father in order to live for me. Right now I'm dead to me."

Honestly, that hits different. How many of us are living someone else's version of success while slowly dying inside?

For me, the wake-up call came when my mentor at Deloitte—someone I genuinely admired—got fired. She was one of the smartest people I knew, but she was "too expensive." That's when I realized: no matter how good you are, you're replaceable.

That security we think we have? It's an illusion.

Here's where Alex's story gets real messy, real fast.

At 22, after two years in consulting, Alex made a decision that would strain his relationship with his father for years. He left his job to open a gym. Not a tech startup. Not a consulting firm. A gym.

His dad? Let's just say he didn't take it well. The conflict was so intense that Alex admitted to having thoughts of suicide. He felt like he had to choose between disappointing his father and staying true to himself.

The last thing I wanted was to disappoint them by "throwing away" my consulting career. But staying in a job that was killing me wasn't honoring their sacrifice—it was wasting it.

But here's what's wild—Alex didn't even know what he wanted to do. He just knew what he didn't want: more of what he had. So he reverse-engineered his way out, starting with the one thing people always said he talked about: working out.

The lesson? Sometimes you don't need to know where you're going. You just need to know you can't stay where you are.

Now, if this was a LinkedIn inspiration post, I'd tell you Alex opened his gym and became an instant millionaire. But that's not what happened.

The real timeline? 23: Left consulting. 24: Opened 5 gym locations. 26: Closed down the 6th gym and lost everything. 26: Got back to launching gyms and lost everything again.

Yeah, you read that right. He failed. Twice. Hard.

At one point, Alex was making $20,000 a month from his gyms, but he got bored with running them and was more excited about launching new ones. Classic entrepreneur mistake—falling in love with the thrill of starting rather than the discipline of building.

But here's what separated Alex from the thousands of other consultants who tried and failed to escape: At 26, in desperation, he started a licensing model as a "hail mary." It worked. By 27, "Gym Launch" was doing $3M profit in 6 months.

Here's the part that'll blow your mind: Alex's management consulting background in Corporate Strategy and Human & Organizational Development became the foundation for everything he built.

But not in the way you'd think. It wasn't about frameworks or PowerPoint skills. It was about:

Problem decomposition: Taking complex business challenges and breaking them into solvable pieces (same thing I do now with helping consultants design their exit strategies)

Systems thinking: Understanding how to replicate successful models—the same approach he used to turn around 32+ brick & mortar businesses

Pattern recognition: Seeing what worked at one gym and packaging it into a scalable licensing model

Stakeholder management: The same skills he used to handle demanding partners became essential for managing gym owners and investors

The irony? The analytical mindset that made consulting feel soul-crushing became his superpower as an entrepreneur.

Fast forward to today: Alex's majority sale of his licensing company for $46.2 million in 2021 isn't just about the money. It's validation that the skills we think are "corporate prison" can actually be entrepreneurial gold.

Through Acquisition.com, he now manages 16 companies with over $200 million in annual turnover, focusing on "asset-light, high cash flow, sales-focused service and digital products businesses."

Sounds familiar? That's basically what most of us consultants could build if we stopped thinking our skills were worthless outside the corporate world.

Here's what Alex's story reveals about the current market:

1. The "Consultant Skills Are Useless" Myth Is Dead

The same analytical thinking that makes us good consultants is exactly what entrepreneurs need to scale businesses systematically.

2. Family Pressure Is Real (And Sometimes Wrong)

Alex's father wanted him to follow the traditional path: consulting → MBA → investment banking/private equity. Sound familiar? Sometimes the people who love us most have the smallest dreams for us.

3. Failure Is Part of the Process

Alex's philosophy: "You only need to be right once. If you could fail for 10 straight years and then make a $2 million a year business on your 11th year, you're further ahead than someone who made $100K consistently."

4. The Fitness/Wellness Space Is Consultant Gold

Alex proved that the business world desperately needs systematic thinkers in traditionally "non-business" industries.

5. Geographic Arbitrage Works

While Alex started in the US, his model shows how location-independent business thinking (hello, nomad consultants) can create massive value.

"Cool story, but Alex is some unicorn success case. What about the rest of us?"

Fair point. But here's what I find interesting: Someone on LinkedIn literally titled their post "Alex Hormozi Ruined My Life" because his advice inspired them to quit sales and start their own business.

The ripple effects are real. Alex's content has millions of followers who are applying the same systematic thinking he learned in consulting to build their own businesses.

The difference isn't that Alex was special, or that I got lucky on my second attempt. It's that we stopped believing our skills were worthless outside consulting and started believing they were actually unfair advantages.

Look, I'm not saying everyone should quit consulting tomorrow and open a gym (please don't—the market's crowded enough). But Alex's story—and honestly, my own messy journey—reveals something important:

The skills that make you miserable in consulting might be exactly what make you unstoppable as an entrepreneur.

The systematic thinking. The problem decomposition. The ability to see patterns and build frameworks. These aren't consulting skills—they're business skills.

Maybe it's time to stop seeing them as golden handcuffs and start seeing them as secret weapons.

What's your version of Alex's gym? What industry needs the systematic thinking that consulting taught you?

Because honestly, the world has enough consultants. But it desperately needs more people like Alex—and like the consultants I work with now—who use their powers for good (and profit).

The difference isn't that Alex was special, or that I got lucky on my second attempt. It's that we stopped believing our skills were worthless outside consulting and started believing they were actually unfair advantages.

Talk soon,

San