1036. Q&AF: Potential Vs Execution, Handling Rapid Growth & Becoming Mentally Tough

On today's episode, Andy answers your questions on how to stop wasting your potential and start executing, how to navigate fast growth in business when you're still doubting yourself, and how to become mentally tough enough to handle whatever life throws at you.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Andy Frisella?

  What is up guys, it's Andy Frisella and you're listening to the show for the realist. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality guys. Today we have Q and A F, that's where you submit the questions and we give you the answers. DJ, tell them how they could submit their questions.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Yeah guys, you can email your questions into [email protected]. You can also click the link in the description below, submit them there or just drop them in the comments of the Q and A F videos on YouTube.

• 0:47Andy Frisella?

  If this is your first time listening, uh, we have shows within the show. We've got Q and A F, which you're about to hear, and then we have C T I, which stands for Cruise the Internet. That's where we put topics on the screen. We speculate on what's going on. We make fun of all these idiots in the world and then we talk about how we the people have to solve these problems going on in the world. Sometimes you're going to get real talk. Real talk's just five to 20 minutes of me giving you some real talk. And then other times we have 75 hard verses. 75 hard verses where someone comes on the show who has completed the 75 hard program and transformed their lives. They talk about how they were before, how they are now, and how they've utilized the 75 hard program to make that transformation. If you're unfamiliar with 75 hard, it is the initial phase of the Live

• 1:30Andy Frisella?

  Hard program, which is the world's most popular mental transformation program in history. And it's also free. You can get it at episode 208 on the audio feed. Again, that's 208 on the audio feed only. It is not on YouTube. There's also a book available called The Book on Mental Toughness. You can buy that at andyfrisella.com. Uh, it's not free. Hence why I said you can buy it.

• 1:59Andy Frisella?

  But there's a whole bunch of extra information. If you're someone that likes the ins and outs and likes to know the whys and hows and the nuts and bolts of how everything works. It's a great book. Um, sometimes it's in stock, sometimes it isn't because we are always selling out of it. So if you're that kind of person, you go to the website, buy the book. We're happy to, you know, have your support, but it's absolutely not necessary. You can get it for free at episode 208. Uh, and then another thing is, is we are the largest show in the world that does not run ads. The reason we don't run ads is because I don't want anybody to question why I'm saying what I'm saying or try to keep it real AF here. All right. So, uh,

• 2:41Andy Frisella?

  do us a favor, man, and help us grow the show. That's all we ask. Put a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of money into producing this show for you guys. And, uh, we just ask that you help us grow it. So if it makes you think, if it makes you laugh, it gives you new perspective. Uh, if you think it's information worth sharing, do us a favor and, uh, don't be a hoe.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Share the show.

• 3:01Andy Frisella?

  What's up, man?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Back in action, dog.

• 3:04Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, dude. Yep. Last week we had to, uh, I had to take a little, little break. You know, had summer smash and then it's trying to caught up and, you know, sometimes we go through these little phases with our podcast where, you know, we, uh, will take a week or two and kind of chill out and, and sometimes people get upset with that, but hey, it is what it is, man.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Well, I think people just, they don't understand like this is not all we do.

• 3:30Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  You know, definitely not all I do. Definitely not all you do.

• 3:34Andy Frisella?

  It costs me money to do this. Um, you know, but we enjoy doing it and, uh, you know, it's probably not going to be the first time this summer that there's going to be some irregularities in the schedule because I have a lot of shit planned this summer, like life shit to do.

• 3:51Andy Frisella?

  You know, one of the things I'm going to do for sure is I'm going to ride more motorcycles, which means I'm going to be gone for a couple of days at a time. We might miss a show here and there. Uh, but I just want to let you guys know that, you know, it's going to continue. And, uh, if the schedule isn't on point all the time, you know,

• 4:09Andy Frisella?

  that's the way it goes.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  I mean, if you guys have complaints, you can send that to my dot at, uh, andyfacella.com.

• 4:16Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  No, man, it's gonna be great. And the good thing is, guys, we got a great lineup this week.

• 4:23Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  We got a guest on the show coming up. I think tomorrow you guys have that. A super good dude coming in and.

• 4:30Andy Frisella?

  Dude, honestly, man, sometimes I just need a break from talking about the shit, you know, like, it's not, a lot of the stuff that we talk about is important, but it's, it's also like, mind numbing, you know, because it's like,

• 4:45Andy Frisella?

  you're literally talking about some of the dumbest, craziest, stupid shit that's going on in the world.

• 4:54Andy Frisella?

  From some of the most low IQ corrupt individuals and it just sort of like wears on you a little bit sometimes.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  It's taxing.

• 5:01Andy Frisella?

  Mentally, for sure.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's not just what the IRS does. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's, it's a lot, man.

• 5:07Andy Frisella?

  Yeah. So, you know, just, uh, understand that and, you know, we're gonna do the best that we can for you guys.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  As always, as always. And so why not start off with making some people better?

• 5:18Andy Frisella?

  That's, I think that's the plan.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  I got three good ones for you, bro. Guys, Andy, let's get into these questions. Andy, question number one. Hey, Andy. This one had an exclamation point, so.

• 5:30Andy Frisella?

  Hey.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, Andy, I think one of my biggest problems is that I love the idea of what I could become. I love setting goals, making plans, imagining the future, but there's a huge gap between imagining a better life and actually doing the work required to create it. Why do you think so many people fall in love with potential but struggle with execution? Oh.

• 6:00Andy Frisella?

  First of all, if you're so in love with this idea of the ultimate version of yourself, you think about it, you dream about it, you wish you were that already.

• 6:15Andy Frisella?

  How much regret do you actually think you're gonna feel? If you don't go out and build it? Yeah. Okay, most people. They have regret and they don't even really think about what they want to be. They don't, they, they get to the end of their life or they get to a certain point in their life where they're like. Oh, man, I could have done more. But those people didn't even take the time to draw the vision in their mind and you have. And you spend all this time thinking about what you could be. Now realizing that's just gonna be that much harder to deal with. If you don't become it. And then what we're talking about here is awareness, dude. You're aware that you could be more, you're aware that you should be more, you're aware that you want to be more.

• 6:59Andy Frisella?

  And for that reason, if you don't go out and create it, you're gonna feel much worse than the average person. Who never takes the time to actually think about what they could be. So, there's that. And on top of that. Is this idea of.

• 7:20Andy Frisella?

  How the internet works right now, you know? It's so easy to escape from reality. And paint these pictures and visions and have these dreams about this life that you want to live and the options are endless.

• 7:38Andy Frisella?

  And you end up wasting your entire life. Dreaming of a life. That doesn't actually even exist. And so, this is a big problem in society, especially now with the technology that we have. It used to be. You picked something and then you realize that you had to work really hard to create that in reality.

• 8:05Andy Frisella?

  And now, there's so many options and we see so many people and we watch everybody else doing all of these things and we have a hard time picking what we actually want to do that we end up doing nothing and we end up spending years of our lives wishing we were doing something else but failing to make a choice and to go out it. Here's the reality dude, you gotta choose. You gotta make a choice. What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? Where do you want to live? You can't do all the things dude, okay? That's the thing. Very rarely do people get to have the life of all the things, right? Like you get to a billionaire status and you

• 8:47Andy Frisella?

  can fly a private jet and you can go to your ranch in Montana and you go to your house in Florida and you can visit your businesses. That's ultimate freedom, but very, very few people get to that point. And the only way they got to that point was they made a decision earlier to get to a certain point. They got to that point and then they made another decision to keep going and it compounds. So, the younger that you can realize this, the better because we are on a limited timeframe. And I think the internet really damages people in this way because they have such a hard time making a choice because we're so busy watching everybody

• 9:28Andy Frisella?

  else live their lives that we like have a hard time choosing. And by the way, I do this, okay? Like, when I look at, like I look at property every single night on the internet. And dude, I look at houses on the water, on the beach, and then I look at ranches in Montana, and then I look at farms in Tennessee, and then I look at villas in Italy. And I'm like, fuck dude, like, what am I gonna do? Go to all these places and like, and then you know what happens? I miss that day that I'm actually living the dream that I set for myself.

• 10:06Andy Frisella?

  20 years ago, because I'm thinking of these other things. And that's something that we have to be cognizant of and all of us can fall into it, including myself. And um, so I just want to say that because so many of you guys are stuck where you are because you're failing to make a decision about where to go next. So you gotta pick a path.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Said you blamed it on social media. You know who I think is at fault? It's fucking Bo Jackson, bro. Bo Jackson.

• 10:37Andy Frisella?

  Cause he did everything?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  He did all of it. You know what I'm saying? And like, but the game's changed now. Well, you have kids now that are like nine years old and they're dedicating the rest of their life to one thing now.

• 10:47Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, look, man, everybody who's ever created big, big lies, big success, and that's a relative term, okay?

• 10:58Andy Frisella?

  But like, look at a guy like Elon Musk. He just became the world's first trillionaire. All right?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Can't even comprehend that.

• 11:04Andy Frisella?

  No one can. Okay? But here's the thing. He didn't start out saying, hey, man, I want to go to fucking Mars and I want to fly spaceships and that's not what he did.

• 11:18Andy Frisella?

  He started out, he said, here's a problem and I have a solution

• 11:25Andy Frisella?

  that doesn't exist in reality that I can build and it can be a solution that can make money. That company was called PayPal. All right? And you could argue how he got into PayPal or this, that. Here's the reality. He gets the credit for PayPal. That's it. Okay? Everybody's like, well, he stole the idea or he did. It doesn't fucking matter. What matters is when people say, how did Elon get started? He created fucking PayPal. Then he took the PayPal money.

• 11:52Andy Frisella?

  It was like 200 million bucks. Z, look it up. It was, it was, it was a lot of money, but it wasn't a lot of money compared to what he is now. He rolled that into other shit. So then he got here and then he said, I want to go there. Right? And then when he got there, you know, he started to build Tesla and, you know, then he went to these other things and then, and that's how it goes. And that's how you end up in that life where you literally have the ultimate freedom. And I know not everybody wants to win on that level. What'd you got? 178 million. Okay? So pretty close to 200.

• 12:31Andy Frisella?

  It compounds, okay? And I know not everybody wants that big of a life. You don't have to, but you should want a bigger life than the one you actually think you want. Because everybody's heard that saying, shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars. There's a lot of truth to that. All right, you may not actually get to that big goal, but you might get 80% there. So you need to make sure that that goal is so big that if you only get to the 80%, it's awesome. All right? So

• 13:05Andy Frisella?

  these are the differences of how like the big winners think about things and how things actually materialize. And a lot of people, back to this person's question, they spend their lives dreaming and dreaming and dreaming, you know? Something I had to do that was different than like a lot of the younger people now. You know, we didn't have social media, dude. We had magazines. So like I'd look at magazines and I'd be like, dude, look at this house. And then I'd have to get in my car and I'd have to like drive to the rich neighborhood and like look at it. And like now we're just so inundated with all these things that it's almost like it

• 13:45Andy Frisella?

  becomes meaningless and it doesn't impress you the way that it would if you actually had to go seek it out. So you have to correct this line of thinking and be able to make a decision about what you really want. Um, but dude, to answer this person's question, why do I think there's a big difference between what people want and how they get it? I think there's a lot of reasons why. I think those things I just said are a big reason why. Okay? The dream is too available. It's too easy to dream. And by the way, when you're bored, that's the time that you create. And so we're filling the creation time that we used to have.

• 14:26Andy Frisella?

  Like when I was bored, I'd sit down and draw out these business plans and think about how I was going to do things. And I had time to plan out the play and make calls and do these things to actively make this happen. Now that time is just filled with more fucking meaningless dreaming. Okay, so I'm not saying you shouldn't dream, but I'm saying you should make a decision about what the dream is. And then fill that time that you wasted, looking at all the other dreams with a plan to create the one that you've chosen. And so, I think that's a big part of it. I think the biggest part of it though, is that there's a massive disparity between what people think it takes and what it actually takes.

• 15:09Andy Frisella?

  And I think because the internet is so full of shit in regards to how many people pretend to win versus actually winning. That people think it's easy and they think that like, you know, if they don't hit a home run their first time at bat, that it wasn't meant for them. Right? If you're not driving a Lamborghini by the time you're 25, then you don't have what it takes. But you don't realize that even those people, first of all, most of those people are lying. They're renting their car, they're strategically marketing themselves. In a way that makes them appear to be successful when they actually aren't, and then they sell you something. Which makes them a little money. We all know the game at this point.

• 15:56Andy Frisella?

  What, what happens is, is that people think they're doing it wrong. It's, it's like in the early days of fitness, before the internet came around. The biggest product that was sold was like lose weight quick, lose weight fast, lose weight easy. And that didn't exist at that time. That wasn't a real thing. But you could make that promise and people would buy it. And what would happen is, and this is actually the fundamental basis that our entire ecosystem and, and our fitness companies is based upon. What would happen is people who struggle with their weight, and if you've ever struggled with your weight, you understand what I'm about to say. They would look for this solution and then this hack and then that next solution and they would try

• 16:41Andy Frisella?

  three or four of these weight loss solutions or these programs or these pills or this powder. And they would never lose weight and then what ends up happening is they would just give up and they would say, well, it's just in my genetics. And they'd start telling themselves a story about why it wouldn't happen, which actually caused them to lose all the rest of the potential for the rest of their lives of what they could live and how they could be. And that's very damaging and ethically wrong. And you know, the whole fundamental basis, uh, and I think the, I know the reason that we've been at the top of this game for decades now is because we actually do what we're supposed to do.

• 17:25Andy Frisella?

  We help regular people get real results and that requires fucking work. Okay. That requires effort. That requires doing certain things. And I think we've lost that in society. As a whole, I think it's coming back a little bit now. Because people are realizing how, how much bullshit it is, but you know, we have so many of these people that appear to come out of nowhere and all of a sudden they're rich. And when you have young people who are, and when I say young, I mean, young in entrepreneurship, they could be 30, they could be 40, they could be 50, they're just starting out. When they see these people and they, and they go out and they try these things and they don't work.

• 18:11Andy Frisella?

  The same thing happens to them. What happens is they, they say after three or four things, they're like, well, fuck, I must not have what it takes. It never occurs to them that they're being marketed to and they're being lied to and they're being misled, which actually causes them to give up on their dreams, which is incredibly damaging to culture and society. Because that person's success would inspire so many more people in culture. If they just understood the real path and that's why I've always been so adamant about telling people the way that it really is, even though I probably could have made way more money. Making it seem like it was way easier, right? But dude, I don't feel good about that. That's not the truth. The truth is, it's hard as fuck.

• 18:56Andy Frisella?

  It takes everything you got. It's not a hobby. It's not casual. It's very intense. It's very urgent. And yes, that is not for everyone. So you should know what the fuck you're signing up for. So there's that too. But ultimately, I think the reason that most people can't achieve their dreams, throw all that shit to the side. I think these are all contributing factors. Is because they don't understand that learning how to execute, having discipline, building grit, having tenacity, building resilience, perseverance, the ability to endure, mental toughness.

• 19:35Andy Frisella?

  These are skill sets that you must acquire and then maintain and keep sharp throughout your life. Okay? I was just like most people for most of my life, dude. I looked at other people who had the ability to do things that were really hard for me, and I thought that they were just born that way. All right. I remember a very specific instance where I had to question this. And it's gonna sound stupid when I tell you the story, but I can remember exactly where I was, dude. I had a buddy of mine, his name was Ty. He actually has passed away now. He's, he, he, uh, he, something, it was a bad deal, but he passed away.

• 20:18Andy Frisella?

  We were at a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium, and Ty was fucking always in really good shape, dude. He was always in great shape.

• 20:28Andy Frisella?

  And I always looked at Ty and I was like, dude, this guy's got the freakiest genetics ever. It's so easy for him. He just looks good all the time. But yet, every time I went to the gym, guess who was in the gym? Oh, Ty was in the gym. So I knew that he worked out and I knew that he worked hard, but I still told myself, oh, it's his genetics. This is genetics. But it like, it wasn't registering to me fully, right? Like, these are just things I was telling myself.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Ignorantly thinking, yeah, yeah.

• 20:57Andy Frisella?

  Well, I was justifying my lack of dedication to that area of my life. Because I felt like if I could tell myself that story, it would make me feel better about myself. All right? And that's what everybody does. But there was this one instance. We were at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game, and there was like 10 of us there and Ty was there. And... I remember he was sitting right behind me. We had like, we had like five seats and then five seats like behind, okay? And I, um, we're all drinking beers and you know, I got a fucking nachos and all the shit, right? And I'm looking to the left and to the right and everybody's having fun. I turn around and I look at Ty

• 21:41Andy Frisella?

  and Ty's sitting there with a big, huge cup of water with ice in it. And then in his nacho tray was just all turkey meat. It was just all turkey meat. And I'm like, why the fuck are you eating turkey meat, bro? Like at a baseball game? And then it clicked in my head immediately. I'm like, damn. This is why Ty looks the way fucking Ty looks. Okay? And then I real, then my immediate thought was, man, that guy's, man, he's got some serious discipline. I don't have that. So then I started telling myself another story. And the next story I told myself was, oh, well, he has discipline and I just don't have it.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  He wasn't born with genetics, he was born with discipline.

• 22:23Andy Frisella?

  Dude, it took me another 10 years after that, another 10 years to figure out that this is a skill and not something you're born with. And so I think that simple acknowledgement from looking at people who have their shit together, physically, financially, in their life, and saying, well, they just have this discipline that I don't have. And if you could simply just shift that perspective to, they've invested in a skill set that I haven't learned yet, just as if you would look at our friend Jamie Johnson, who is a tremendous guitar player, tremendous singer. Well, he's been doing that since he was a teenager.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:06Andy Frisella?

  Okay? So you could look at someone like that and you could say, man, he's so gifted. But that's really kind of an insult because he's been practicing that his whole entire life. And now he's a fucking legend. Okay? If you did something for 30 years, you'd be pretty fucking good at it too. And that's the reality that people don't understand. They don't understand that it takes way longer than you think. It costs way more than you think in terms of effort and life. What you think is sacrifices, which are actually investments if you follow through, but also just acknowledging that the one skill that you actually lack,

• 23:50Andy Frisella?

  that's keeping you from being able to go from that dream to reality outside of just choosing what you want, is you haven't learned how to adhere to a plan, okay, which is called discipline, alright? And once you fix that one skillset, the ability to draw out a plan and adhere to it and stick to it, now you're in a position of power because most people can't do that. Most people lack the ability to stick to a plan long enough for the results to materialize. And if chefs did this, we'd have some shitty motherfucking food, okay?

• 24:32Andy Frisella?

  Just like cooking a meal and you go get a cookbook and it has a set of directions. If you lack the ability to follow the directions, how's your food gonna turn out? Okay, now if you lack the ability to follow a set of directions over the course of your life, how's your life gonna turn out? It's gonna turn out by circumstance. And that's why so many people think that they are not in control of what they actually do. When in reality, they're in control of all of the shit that matters. And we tell ourselves these stories over and over and over again about how we're not actually in control. But the truth is, you're just telling yourself that, A, because you may not have figured it out yet, or B, you don't want to actually address the problem and become the kind of person that can follow a plan.

• 25:16Andy Frisella?

  So, once you, once you sort through all of this shit and you say, and you acknowledge, alright, man, I don't have the discipline, I don't have the grit, I don't have the mental toughness, I don't have the tenacity and the fortitude.

• 25:30Andy Frisella?

  I don't have the ability to persevere past that first punch in the fucking face. Okay? And the second, and the third, and the hundredth. Once you acknowledge that, you can start to become that kind of person. And once you become the kind of person that cannot just follow through, but can get literally everything ripped away from them. You can lose your home, you can lose your arm, you could fucking get sick. You, bad things can happen. The weather can be bad. A hurricane can come. Fucking a blizzard. It doesn't matter, and you still continue to go? You cannot be fucked with. You, your success becomes inevitable because you refuse to quit. And you have the skillset of following through.

• 26:16Andy Frisella?

  Especially when you don't feel like it, and especially when everybody else quits. And when you do that over the course of time, you end up being the person standing on the mountain when everybody else went back down. That's how it works. And there's no magic to it, dude. It's not glory. It's not, it's not romantic. It's not fun all the time. But I'll tell you what is fun. What is fun is when you can look back and you can say, I saw all this shit in my head 20 years ago, now I'm living it. That's fun. You know? So, we gotta be real about what it actually takes. And you ask what keeps most people? That's what keeps most people away from it, dude.

• 26:56Andy Frisella?

  They can't acknowledge, or they're ignorant to the fact that it takes a skillset that you must develop and practice and keep sharp over the course of your life to make that dream happen, once you've chosen it. And this is why when people, this is why we built Live Hard. This is why 75 Hard exists, because it's the number one problem that keeps people from success. Okay? It's not just about getting your body in shape. It's about sharpening the skillset of discipline. And you know, people who criticize 75 Hard, they'll say things like, well, if it worked, you wouldn't have to do it twice. Well, I mean, I don't know, bro. Do you gotta take a shower fucking day?

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Gotta wash nuts.

• 27:38Andy Frisella?

  You know what I'm saying? Like, it's a perishable skillset. You know, you guys at the security company, you gotta keep your shooting up.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:46Andy Frisella?

  You gotta practice shooting every week. If you don't shoot for four weeks, your shooting goes down. It's the same thing with musical instruments. It's the same thing with- Training to run a race, it's the same thing. And for some reason, society looks at these things and they think that they are traits instead of skillsets. And if you can make the mental shift and understand that your discipline is the most important thing that you can develop. And if you develop it, then keep it sharp. You are, once you get that dude, you're fucking, you're not limited by anything. You're not limited by anything because it doesn't matter what happens, you're gonna keep going.

• 28:27Andy Frisella?

  So, you know, that's the game dude and like all these hacks and, you know, everybody likes the story of, oh man, you know, I, I built this funnel and I fucking made $10,000 today. Cool, man. What about next week? What about in the next year? What do you have to sell later? Like, the whole idea of entrepreneurship has gotten so watered down and convoluted that people really don't even understand what the fuck it is, or what it takes, or how hard it is, or how long it is. And this is why some of the most successful people in the world, you don't even know who the fuck they are.

• 29:12Andy Frisella?

  Because they're, they're understanding that they're building an actual mechanism, an actual company with enterprise value, because that's how people get wealthy. They, they build enterprise value and they sell or borrow against it.

• 29:26Andy Frisella?

  But instead, they see social media as their, their fucking business. And it's like, yeah, that works today. But what's your mechanism? What's your machine? How's this, what are you feeding it into? Okay, and that's a whole nother discussion. But to answer the question, man, you gotta make the shift, you gotta make a choice. You gotta use the time that you would think about what it is, what else you want to do. Make a choice, take the rest of the time, build the plan, get yourself in a position where you can execute the plan and be able to keep going longer than everybody else. And if you can do that, I always say it comes down to two things, man.

• 30:07Andy Frisella?

  It comes down to, one, if you're intelligent enough to not make the same mistakes over and over again. You know, you might make a same mistake twice, but definitely don't make it three times.

• 30:19Andy Frisella?

  And also you could develop the ability to not fucking quit no matter what fucking happens, bro. There's nothing that can stop you. It just, you can't be stopped. You can't be stopped.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love it, dude. I love it. Guys, Andy, question number two. Andy, I started a pressure washing company three years ago as a side hustle. I know you don't like the word side hustle. But now it's doing way more business than I ever expected, which sounds like a good problem to have. But honestly, I feel like I'm making it up as I go. I'm hiring people I've never managed before, signing contracts I've never dealt with before, and making decisions that affect other people's livelihoods. Did you ever have a period where your business was growing faster than your confidence?

• 31:03Andy Frisella?

  This is how it works, dude. Have you not seen the meme where like it shows the entrepreneur standing on the cliff and he jumps off the cliff and figures out how to build the glider on the way down? Like this is the problem that most people think. Most people think it's acquire knowledge, acquire knowledge, acquire knowledge, acquire knowledge, then go. Okay, but tell me a single job that you've ever had or ever known about where you don't learn how to do the job on the fucking job. Okay, like you could read the manual, you can watch the videos, you can, you know, take the training course, but until you get in the fucking game, you don't know what the fuck you're doing. Okay, so I give you massive amounts of respect because you figured

• 31:47Andy Frisella?

  out what being an entrepreneur is about, which is about going before you're ready. Okay, most people will sit down and they will consume podcasts and they will consume courses and they will read all this shit and they will think about it and then they'll constantly say, well, I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. And then all of a sudden, 20 years have gone by and they're an on paper expert with fucking zero dollars in the bank account, nothing to show for it. Okay, if you're such a fucking expert and you know so much shit, then why the fuck haven't you done anything? That's the truth. Okay, you have to go first and then figure it out. Do you think I knew what I was doing when I fucking hired my first employee or when I fired

• 32:29Andy Frisella?

  my first employee or when I signed my first lease or when I, I fucking didn't know shit. Bro, the first time a dude came in to fucking buy a product back in fucking 1999, the first real customer, not the one I knew.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Not your friends.

• 32:48Andy Frisella?

  The dude comes in, I remember it dude. The thought never occurred to me and I guess, you know, like we thought the thing now is retard maxing, right? Like it's, it's, and what it mean, people think it's funny, but what they don't, they don't understand is it's actually a super fucking true concept. Okay. Stop thinking about shit and just go fucking do it. Okay. I remember this example, dude. This dude comes in and I've told this story before. He comes in, he looks around and he's looking at the products. And he goes over to this, I remember the product exactly. It's a product from a company called Muscle Tech and it was a product called Cell Tech.

• 33:31Andy Frisella?

  The only reason that I knew that to order the product in the first place is because I went to another store and I saw that they had it. So I'm like, all right, well, we probably gotta have that too. That's how much shit I didn't know. Okay. Do you know how I came up with the first inventory list of our first order? You, you, you want to know?

• 33:52Speaker 01

  I don't know this.

• 33:53Andy Frisella?

  You know this story, Z? You, you never heard this?

• 33:56Speaker 01

  I've never heard this story, no.

• 33:57Andy Frisella?

  About the camera? So dude, so I went in to fucking, uh, uh, there was a fucking, this is so kind of fucked up, but I'm gonna tell the story. So I went in, now back in the day, we had these, those little yellow Kodak cameras that were like disposable.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:14Andy Frisella?

  Okay. And you wound them up, you clicked, you wound them up, you clicked. So, listen, this, this would make the point, this makes the point of what I'm trying to make. I didn't even know what fucking products to order. So. I went into this fucking supplement store that was in the gym I worked out in.

• 34:35Andy Frisella?

  And they had a fucking, uh, like a laminated price list. Okay. So they had all the products and then it was a ring, there was a ring that connected like three pages. I took the price list, I took my camera and I took pictures of it. Okay. Cause I couldn't take it home. There was no cell phone shit. So I like sneakily fucking grabbed the shit, took pictures of it, took the thing to fucking Walmart, got the fucking list, uh, developed. And then those are the products I ordered.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 35:06Andy Frisella?

  That's how I started the, that's how I knew what to order. Okay?

• 35:09Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 35:10Andy Frisella?

  So, so listen, so this guy comes into the store and he's looking at this product called Cell Tech. And I'm like, he fucking, and bro, this didn't even occur to me. Like, I hadn't even, you wanna talk about retard maxing, bro? I was the biggest fucking retard maxer. There fucking ever was. I was the OG of it.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  You maxed out.

• 35:29Andy Frisella?

  All I knew was that I'm doing it.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:32Andy Frisella?

  That's it, dude. And that's all you gotta know, by the way. So, this guy comes in, and it never occurred to me that like, I should probably like, know all these products. Okay? Dude, seriously, man. It never even occurred to me. So this guy comes in, he fucking looks at the product, and I remember, it was over on the right side of the store, and I was behind the counter, and he had to go around the left to get out. And the guy, the guy walks in, and he's like, he picks up the cell tech, and he's looking, he's like, what's this do? And I'm like, and it dawned on me, I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, I don't fucking know. So I like, nonchalantly, like, walked around the counter, and like, acted like I was gonna just come out there and talk to him.

• 36:15Andy Frisella?

  And I picked it up, I turned it around, and I said, well, it says here, and I just started reading the shit that it said on the fucking label, dude. And one of the things it said on the label, because it had creatine in it, it said, gain seven pounds in seven days. And I said, dude, seven pounds in seven days? That sounds pretty good to me. Like, at that, like, yes, dude, that's where I started. And he bought it.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  That's beautiful.

• 36:40Andy Frisella?

  Okay? But like, this, the point I'm making here, is that the difference between people who do shit and people who don't, is people that have the courage to just go, or the ignorance to go, without having to know everything. Okay? And dude, you know, so when you say, oh, you know, uh, like, I, first time I hired, I didn't know what, no shit.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:07Andy Frisella?

  Like, you're not gonna know anything the first time you do it. And by the way, that's how you learn. Okay? You're gonna hire the wrong person, they're gonna fuck you over, you're gonna recognize why, and then the next time that same kinda person comes around, you're gonna be able to be like, oh, I remember what happened last time, and you're not gonna do that. Uh, when you sign a contract and you don't read the whole thing. And then all of a sudden it creates a big fiasco. Uh, then the next time, which by the way, all this shit's happened to me. The next time's gonna come through you like, well, I fucking better read the contract. And then you're gonna see that little part that fucked you over and you're gonna be like, no, not doing that. Okay. And then it's all these little lessons compounded over and over and over and over again to give you the skillset.

• 37:48Andy Frisella?

  And this is why people are, have it wrong. They're so afraid to make mistakes. Not realizing that the mistakes are what create the wisdom. That 10, 15 years down the road allow you to become a super effective operator and business owner. Alright, so.

• 38:05Andy Frisella?

  Yes, I've been there. Yes, I understand what that is. And yes, every single person that's ever built anything significant. Did not know what the fuck they were doing when they started, dude. They just had balls and they had courage and they said, fucking, I'm doing this. And they went and figured it out and they didn't give a shit if people made fun of them. They didn't give a shit. If they looked stupid or they stumbled or they made mistakes. They didn't care. Because they had made a decision about what they were gonna do and they said they figured it the fuck out. And right now we deal in this, in this, in this, uh, era where there's so much fucking information. And so many different opinions, which by the way. 99% of the opinions are from people who have never done anything. Alright?

• 38:50Andy Frisella?

  This is why I'm so hard on these guru people on the internet. You should not listen to fucking anybody who hasn't built something real that you can see. If you can't see it, you shouldn't listen to them because it's marketing bullshit. A lot of these people will say, oh, I built this and this and this and this and this, but you never see it. How come? What benefit do they get from hiding what they built from you? If they were trying to sell coaching and trying to help people and show people, wouldn't it make sense for them to show all the shit that they built? And like make it open to the public to see? How could that hurt them? It could only hurt them if it wasn't true.

• 39:34Andy Frisella?

  And we have to get, we have to become more intelligent about who we're listening to. When it comes to these opinions about success. You know, Ed Mylett and I, who have both built multiple fucking companies, big ones. We have this group called RITA Syndicate where we coach other entrepreneurs. I did my call two nights ago and one of the questions that was in the call was this woman who's been in the group for a long time. She said, "Well, I'm listening to this person and they're saying do this and then this person and they're saying to do this and then this person and they're saying to do this." And she's like, "I don't know who to listen to." I'm like, "'Cause you're listening to too many fucking people, bro."

• 40:16Andy Frisella?

  Okay, when you get on the NFL team, you listen to your fucking coach. You don't call the coaches in the other team and say, "What the fuck do I do?" They're all gonna tell you some other shit, okay? You have to make a decision about whose information you're gonna listen to. And by the way, there's probably fucking five people on the internet that are actually real entrepreneurs who have proven time and time and time and time again that they understand how to fucking win. Pick one of them and fucking listen to what they say. And everybody else, don't listen to it. Cause it's just gonna get you frozen with, you know, the paradox of choice. The paradox of choice is basically when you

• 40:58Andy Frisella?

  present someone with too much information, they choose nothing. Okay, like-

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Too many options.

• 41:04Andy Frisella?

  If I have product A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and I show them all to someone, people can't choose. But if I have A and B, they can make a real choice. So, think about that in terms of your information that you're consuming. You have person one, person two, person three, person four, all the way to person 50, and you're trying to figure out who's telling what. Bro, pick the most credible motherfucker, listen to what they say, and your chances of a positive outcome go up exponentially and you won't get frozen by the overwhelming amount of choices that you have. So, to answer the question, dude, uh,

• 41:44Andy Frisella?

  yeah, that's how entrepreneurship works. You figure it out as you go. That's how it works.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Did you, did you learn? What did you do after the Celtech situation?

• 41:54Andy Frisella?

  I fucking learned, I figured out, like, "Oh, well, I better learn this shit." So, I mean, dude, we only saw one customer a day if we were lucky back then. So, I spent the rest of my time, literally going around and reading all the labels and reading the- listen, man, you gotta understand, the internet wasn't a thing. There was no, like-

• 42:16Andy Frisella?

  I couldn't go on the internet and like find out shit. It wasn't like that. It was like email. Like there was email, but like there was chat forums, but like you don't know who the fuck you're talking to. So I went around and I fucking, I, I started reading all the shit and then the shit that I didn't know, I would go get books. I buy books on the topic and read about that part of it that I didn't know. And I accumulated all the knowledge. You know, and over the course of 10 years of doing that, I became a very knowledgeable person about these things. You know, I surrounded myself, like dude, I'd get on the phone with people. I would call people who were

• 42:56Andy Frisella?

  PhDs in these things and I would ask for an hour of their time and I would have a discussion and they, you know, and back then people would just tell you.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, way more accessible, ironically, way more people were way more.

• 43:08Andy Frisella?

  Well, now everybody's, you know, they wanna, they wanna fucking posture and they wanna charge and you know, but like, bro, you gotta remember, like the, these guys who were running these studies and shit back then, no one gave a fuck about them. These are just dudes sitting in their office running fucking studies on, you know, muscle protein synthesis and you know, fat loss and like all these different things. So like I'd figure out where the fuck they were and I'd call them on the phone.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  They were probably excited.

• 43:37Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Talk to them about.

• 43:38Andy Frisella?

  Yes, yes. And so I just did what I had to do to talk to credible people to, to, to increase what I knew. And then, you know, after a number of years, you know, the next day, the next day I knew more, next six months I knew more. The next three years I knew a lot more and after 10 years I fucking knew what the fuck I needed to know.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  But you went.

• 43:59Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  I love it, dude. I love it. Guys, Andy, our third and final question, Andy, uh, question number three. Andy, I'm 31.

• 44:07Andy Frisella?

  And I recently went through a rough stretch. Uh, work was stressful, money was tight, and there were some family stuff going on all at the same time. What bothered me wasn't the situation, it was how I handled it. I got short with people, I stopped taking care of myself and basically abandoned every habit I'd built. It made me realize that when life gets hard, I become a completely different person. So how do you build the kind of character that doesn't disappear the second things get difficult? Well, you gotta invest in building yourself into that kind of person. That's what we talk about with Live Hard. Okay, if you could only operate when everything's good. Um, I hate to break it to you, but you're not going to be able to operate most of the time as an entrepreneur,

• 44:51Andy Frisella?

  because most of the time as an entrepreneur, shit's burning the fuck down. Even whenever everybody's smiling and they're pretending it's good. There's so much bad shit happening that you're trying to solve, you're not going to be able to be effective. So you have to understand, and you already do, you've already learned the lesson, understand this. By you asking the question, you already have figured out the answer. Most people would not have the awareness to understand that I need to fix how I reacted in this scenario, so the next time I don't react that way. That's a, that's a pretty high level of awareness that most people do not have.

• 45:33Andy Frisella?

  So having that level of awareness is a very good sign that you have what it takes to be successful long-term. You had a problem, you had a situation, which by the way, every entrepreneur goes through this. Like they have life too, man. Like people get sick, their dogs get sick, they get in car accidents, bad shit happens, the economy changes, they, you know, fuck dude, I couldn't, you could go on and on and on and on and on. The secret to being a great operator is that you have to be able to operate effectively at a high level when shit is not going well. And so if you're someone who can only operate when things are going well, you're gonna get killed by everybody else that can operate no matter what.

• 46:19Andy Frisella?

  So, and by the way, there's very few people like that. But it can be built, it can be trained, it can be acquired. By intentionally building yourself to be a disciplined, high functioning, high executing diligent human being when things are hard. This is the live hard lifestyle, bro. This is what it's about. Okay. People are like, well, can't I just do two workouts outside or inside because it's raining? Motherfucker, when do you think it's going to be perfect outside? You only going to go out and work out when it's fucking perfect? You're supposed to do things when it's inconvenient. The more times you do things when it's inconvenient, the better it makes you doing it when it's convenient.

• 47:01Andy Frisella?

  And it gives you an advantage because everybody else is staying inside when the fucking weather's bad too. Right? So every day, and let's just break this into business. Every time life happens to a mediocre or bad entrepreneur, what happened to you happens to them and they fucking give up. They quit, they go down the rails, they fucking quit all their good habits, they lose all their momentum. A great entrepreneur, someone who consistently wins over and over and over again, they do the opposite. They see these opportunities of hardship as times to get ahead, understanding that everybody else is quitting when these times come. So they actually get excited when these

• 47:46Andy Frisella?

  things start to punch them. When these bad things start to happen, they say, yeah, fuck that. Bring that shit the fuck on, bro. You ain't breaking me. And that's the mentality difference. That mentality comes from you pushing through these things over and over and over again to the point where you trust yourself that it doesn't really matter what's coming your way. Now, are there exceptions that are going to derail you in your life? Yeah, man. You're going to go through some really fucking hard shit.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  That's why you're 31, right?

• 48:14Andy Frisella?

  But what better reason to train yourself to handle that shit now?

• 48:21Andy Frisella?

  So then when it does come and there is a lot on the line, you can keep your shit together. When you know everybody else is quitting. Every single successful, that I consider successful entrepreneur operates at a high level. No matter what's happening around them. Okay. If they get derailed, if they get bad press, if fucking something happens, a natural disaster. It doesn't matter. Their shit still gets done at a high level and oftentimes at a higher level. When things are challenging because they understand that this is a test that they have to pass. In order to keep the space between everybody else. You're not the only motherfucker that bad shit's gonna happen to you.

• 49:05Andy Frisella?

  It's gonna happen to all your competitors. It's gonna happen to everybody that you know you're in business against. And you want to be the person that when that shit happens, you can push right through it. And knowing that every single time they don't, you're gaining more market share. You're gaining more momentum. You're gaining more ground. That's the game. That's how people start out at zero with, you know, let's say a hundred other competitors. And then at year five, you know, these people have gone through hard times and there might be 50 left. At year 10, there's more hard times and then there might be 10 left. And at year 20, there's two left and you're fucking winning and everybody else is out of the game. And that's how it works, dude.

• 49:48Andy Frisella?

  So training yourself to be one of these people who could push through these difficult times. Is not a nice thing to have. It's a requirement of long-term success. And all you have to do is realize that most of the things that affect your outcomes are always in your control. Okay. Yeah, people are gonna fuck you over. Yeah, bad things are gonna happen. Yeah, you're gonna have a bad idea. Yeah, the market's gonna shift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day, you could control what you drink, what you eat, the information you put in your mind. Who you associate with. All of these, how you move your body.

• 50:31Andy Frisella?

  These are the things that create the most effective weapon, which is you, you're the fucking weapon. That allow you to push through. So even when there's total chaos in your life, if you can still stay in control of the things that are in your control, you will keep the momentum moving forward while everybody else falls off. Most people will never understand this. Most people will go through a time like this person just said, and they will say, ah, well, fuck, you know what? I got divorced, my fucking, uh, house burnt down, uh, the economy shifted, and they'll just fucking quit. They just quit.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Out of my control, okay?

• 51:15Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, they'll just quit, dude. And like, that's not how it works. Those are the times that it's most important to get dialed the fuck in and make sure that you keep whatever the fuck you can and keep moving forward. And that's the difference between people who win and people who lose. That's the difference between average and great. That's the difference between, you know, looking at the menu your whole entire fucking life and worrying about what the fuck you can order, and paying for your entire company and not giving a fuck what it costs. Like, that's the difference. Can you push through the hard shit? Can you push through the hard shit that is so fucking hard that you know that every single motherfucker besides you is quitting?

• 51:57Andy Frisella?

  If you become that person, you are literally fucking unstoppable. Unstoppable.

• 52:06Andy Frisella?

  So like, that's the game, dude. How can you become that person? Well, you become that person by living a disciplined lifestyle, and every single time that one of these tests come your way, you don't look at it as a tragedy, you don't look at it as, and it might be, it might be, but you gotta close that gap between that sulking and that, why me? And God hates me? And all this shit that we all think when things get hard? You gotta close that gap and say, fuck it, it is what it is, and I gotta move forward from here. And if you can close that gap, And keep going, you're gonna win. Most people can't close the gap ever.

• 52:48Andy Frisella?

  Most people would have got stabbed in the face at 23 years old like I did, and then told a story their whole fucking life about how they got stabbed in the face. It would be the most significant thing that ever happened to them. And their complete story and excuse for why the fuck they're sitting on a bar stool at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a fucking Tuesday, not doing shit with their life. That would be their entire identity. "Oh, man, you know, I got stabbed in the fucking face." And like, bro, like, I did that for a year, by the way. Like, I made- That gap was a year. Yeah, it took me a year. But now, now I understand how to fucking minimize that gap.

• 53:31Andy Frisella?

  And you know, some people will say, and I've been told this, they'll say, "Well, you lack empathy." No, it's not that I lack empathy. It's not that I don't understand. It's that I understand that if I sit in that spot, it's gonna ruin everything. So I have to fucking accept it and move forward immediately. Things that are out of your control are fucking out of your control. You could sit there, and you can cry, and you can whine, and you can go to therapy, and you could talk about healing, and all this fucking bullshit. But at the end of the day, bro, eventually, you gotta move past it. And that's why I have this big problem with the fucking therapy industry. They want people to sit in this fucking shit for years and years and years and years and years, and convince people that they're fucked up because of something that happened to them,

• 54:16Andy Frisella?

  and it keeps them from moving past it. Yeah. Like, bro, you can't move past something that you constantly revisit over and over and over and over and over again and build your identity around. You can't become a non-victim if your whole identity is, "There's something wrong with me, or something bad happened to me." Something bad happens to fucking everyone. The point is, how do I overcome that? And how do I win in spite of that so that other people, who have gone through similar things, can be inspired to get past that? It's always the people, too, that the shit really isn't that bad, okay? When you see people-

• 54:58Andy Frisella?

  One of my favorite examples is a race car driver I mentioned here on the show before, Alex Zanardi, he recently passed away. He was in a fucking wreck where he lost both his legs in a race. Okay, he was one of the best fucking, uh, race car drivers in the world.

• 55:14Andy Frisella?

  It, this guy went on to become a champion wheelchair racer. Okay, then he got back into, into racing cars again, and he won more fucking trophies at racing cars with no legs. When you, the people who face the hardest hardships, they don't have a choice but to accept it. There's no therapy to regrow your motherfucking legs yet. So it is what the fuck it is. Okay, like you don't have legs now. Now what? And if you could close that gap and, and dude, you know, this is like a real thing. The people with real shit that happens to them, they don't have a choice but to accept it. The people who have false victim bullshit,

• 55:57Andy Frisella?

  they can wallow in it because it's not something that they have to fucking accept. Right? So they get to, they get to like tell a story and create identity and like fucking, you know, poor me, poor me, poor me. Not realizing that they're gonna waste their whole life stuck in that cage they created. A person who gets in a car wreck and loses both their legs,

• 56:21Andy Frisella?

  they know that their legs ain't coming back. Like they're not coming back, bro.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Gotta keep moving.

• 56:26Andy Frisella?

  Okay, so what the fuck we gonna do? Right? So the harder the situation, the bigger punch, the more likely people accept it and move on because there's no other option. You see what I'm saying? So we got a big problem with this victim mentality in the world. Like, it's not like I'm minimizing the bad shit that's happened to you, but if you're being real about it, dude, there's been people that have had a million fucking times worse shit happened to them. Who have gone on to do exactly what it is you want to do and more because they accepted the reality of their situation very quickly and went forward anyway. And those are the stories that matter.

• 57:09Andy Frisella?

  No one fucking wants to hear your whining, bro. No one wants to hear your fucking sad story. There's so many fucking bullshit sad stories. No, yeah, you might get some claps and you might get some likes and you might get some attention on the internet, but at the end of the day, that's, that's the bullshit that hurts other people because they see someone who might have went through a similar situation that they went through and they see this person wallowing in it and creating this victim identity and building this, you know, I'm a victim and this is why I can't do this. And then they think that's how they should behave when in reality, what would serve them better is if you were to do something like this. Hey, all this bad shit happened to me, but guess what?

• 57:53Andy Frisella?

  I still went on to do this and this and this and this and this. That's inspiring. Those are the important stories. So which one of those stories are you going to fucking tell about yourself? Because one is very selfish and the other one helps a lot of motherfuckers.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  I love it, dude. I fucking love it, man. Guys, Andy, that was three, dog.

• 58:11Andy Frisella?

  All right. Well, we'll see you tomorrow.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, buddy.

• 58:15Andy Frisella?

  Don't be a hoe.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Share the show.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Went from sleeping on the floor, now my jury box froze. Fuck a boat, fuck a stove, counted millions in the cold. Bad bitch, booty swole, got her on bankroll. Can't fold, just a no. Headshot, case closed.