1051. Q&AF: Trusting The Process, Navigating No Man's Land & Building An Empire

On today's episode, Andy answers your questions on how to stay committed to long-term goals when progress feels slow, how to deal with outgrowing your friend circle while building something bigger, and how to scale your service business into an empire.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  What is up guys? It's Andy Frisella and this is 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 is going to tell you how you could submit your questions to be answered on the show.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, guys, you can email your questions in to ask Andy at Andy Frisella dot com. You can also click the links in the description below, right here and submit your videos for a chance to be answered, or just drop them simply in the comment section of the Q and A F videos on YouTube.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  Now, before we get started, if you're new, we have shows within the show, okay? Tomorrow, you're going to hear C T I. That stands for Cruise the Internet. This is where we put topics on the screen. We kind of evaluate what's going on in the world. We speculate, we laugh, we make some jokes, but then we talk about how we, the people, have to solve these problems going on in the world, alright? Then we're going to have Real Talk. Real Talk is five twenty minutes of me giving you some real talk. And then we have what's called seventy-five hard verses. That is where someone who has completed the seventy-five hard program comes on the show. They talk about how they were before, how they are now, and how they used the seventy-five hard program to change their lives. If you're unfamiliar with seventy-five hard, it is the initial phase

• 1:34Speaker 00

  of the Live Hard program, which is the world's most popular mental transformation program ever. You can get that for free in episode two zero eight on the audio feed. Two zero eight on the audio feed. It's not on YouTube. There's also a book. The book is called The Book on Mental Toughness. I know, it's super creative, but you can get that book at Andy Frisella dot com. It is not free, but it includes the entire Live Hard program, plus a whole bunch of other information on mental toughness, why it's important, how to cultivate it and use it in your life, alright? One thing about our show that's different from every other show on the internet

• 2:17Speaker 00

  is that we do not run ads. We are actually the largest show in the world that doesn't run ads. And we don't run ads because I don't want to be told what I can and can't say. This is called real. It's not called for sale, alright? Uh, so we only grow if you guys share the show, alright? So if you don't share the show, we don't grow the show. So we have a little ask of you. If the show makes you think, if it makes you laugh, it gives you new perspective, it's something that you think people need to hear, do us a favor and share it out. When you see the short form clips, do us a favor. Share those out. That helps us grow the show, okay? So don't be a hoe.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Share the show.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Alright, what's up?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  It's actually selfish when you think about it, right? Like they're keeping all the good information and the laughs and the jokes to themselves. They don't want to, it's kind of selfish, if you ask me. You know what I'm saying?

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Sorry. I had to get my, uh, I had to get my, my energy juice here. Um, yeah, I do think it's selfish.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  It's selfish. You know what I'm saying? They just want all the laughs to themselves.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  Well, you know, hey, it's not just that. It's like, hey, you, do you want people to get better? Do you want society to get better? Do you want culture to get better? Then everybody has to get better.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I just want to get better. I'm not sharing it.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  Right. So, you know, and it is what it is, man, you know? Uh, the truth of the matter is, is we would be the biggest show in the world if everybody paid the fee. So, pay the fee.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Selfish whores.

• 3:44Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, some of them. Yeah.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  What's going on, man?

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  How you doing?

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Good.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Good.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Looking good?

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Feeling good?

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Flip it. I, I didn't mean, I could say.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  That was a little weird, bro. I don't care what anybody says. This is the best flavor.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Bro, I listen.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  I don't give a shit what anybody says.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Bro.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Well, of course you like that. Yeah. Orange is good too.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Bro.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  But I'm a screaming freedom dude.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  It's been a minute since I've had a watermelon, uh, mainly because I couldn't find none cold.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Can y'all chill? Uh, I couldn't find none cold, man, but they, uh, somebody just put a cooler out there. I guess they're free. I don't know. I just took it.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  They're free for you.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Alright, yeah. Uh, yeah, it's great, guys. We got, uh, we got, we got some really good.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Man, I'm, I'm telling you, dude, this is, this is the best one.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Bro, I almost died earlier. I'm not gonna lie. That's why I had to get an energy drink. Like usually like, you know, this is like the, this is about the latest you can, I can do in a day. You know what I'm saying? You gotta be careful, but I, fuck, I needed it.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  I needed this. I almost died.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  It's fucking bomb pop.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. You like those bomb pops?

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Uh, fuck yeah, bro. Who doesn't like bomb pops? Like when you're a kid and the ice cream dude came by, man, bomb pops where it's at, the red, white and blue.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  How much were bomb pops when you were a kid?

• 5:09Speaker 00

  Fuck, I don't know. I didn't pay for them.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  You just steal them?

• 5:12Speaker 00

  No.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  I'm saying, but like, I mean, you saw the stickers.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  They were like a quarter or something, bro. They were five cents.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Bro.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  Is that what you want me to say? They were a nickel. Yeah, they were like, they were like fifty cents.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Bro, those things are like seven dollars now.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that's inflation.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Fuck, dude. Like, bro, I, I, the fucking ice cream man drove by crib, not too long. I'm like, no, keep that shit moving, dog.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Bro, I love, I love when I can hear that ice cream, ice cream truck. Even if I don't even get ice cream, I'm like, man, it's like nostalgic.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  It's nostalgia, yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  I love that they still do it.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Uh, fuck, what was the ice cream truck we had? Uh, Mr. Softies? Did you guys have those rolling around?

• 5:50Speaker 00

  I don't remember what they were called. They all looked the same to me.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  You know what I'm talking about? Mr. Softies? It was always like an Arab dude.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I'm serious. I'm serious. It was always an Arab guy selling ice cream to little black kids. It was great.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  It was great. Good times.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  I fucking, I love the ice cream truck, bro.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, it's good shit.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  I love the music that it plays. Like something that, it's like relaxing. Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  You know something fucked up? This is, this is a God honest truth story right now. Okay, this is how fucked up where I grew up at. One time, a, a police officer drove through our neighborhood playing that on the speaker to get all the kids. He start locking their ass up. I swear to God. I swear to God. All little black kids running out, bro. He started chasing them, man. It's fucked up.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Oh, man. What'd they do?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  They were stealing some shit.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  They probably held up the fucking ice cream truck. And they're like, here's another one.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  No, they, they, like, bro, there was some badass kids where I grew up. They, they definitely did something bad, but yeah, he fucking started playing it on his little loud system. Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  God, I love that.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Oh, good times, man.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  That is such a good drink.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. It is. But yeah, man, guys, it is.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  I got some fucking great news when it comes to the drink.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  I finally got what I've always wanted. Blue Blitz is being discontinued.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  You're such a hater.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  The fucking worst flavor of our entire line is finally being removed of our core four and it's going to be replaced by Silver Lightning, which is the appropriate move.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  It's a good move. It's a good move.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  It's the appropriate move.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  A lot of people.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Only peasants like the blue. Blues for peasants. And weird ass kids. Bro, we didn't have blue shit growing up. Like it was like a, it came after like my generation. Everything was like grape, orange, red, and then all of a sudden Kool-Aid came out with like blue.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  And then it became a thing and like, dude, it just never sat right with me. So, yeah, fuck that blue shit.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  It feels personal.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  It, I'm glad. Bro, I found that out and I was so happy.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  I'm like, finally. Dude, you can't argue that Silver Lightning is far superior.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  No, I'm not, no, I'm not arguing that.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  Okay, it's way better.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  I mean, I wouldn't, I'm not like at the point like, yeah, fuck Blue Blitz. It needs to be discontinued. Like it's a good, it's a good flavor.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  No, it's not.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  Maybe not core.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  It's, it's the best blue flavor of any of the other flavors of any company, but like it's still Blue Blitz.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Fuck is Blue Blitz?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  Anyway, that's good news.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  You could tell I was excited about that.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I mean, listen, you gotta get it out.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  But, uh, it's Monday, uh, and we have to make some people better today.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Alright, now, uh, guys, we told you it was coming back. We're here. Uh, and we got some really cool submissions, uh, coming your way. Um, so let's just get into it. Guys, Andy, our first submission.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Hi, Mr. Frisella. My name is Tyler. I am a 22-year-old aspiring orchestral bass trombonist. My question for you is, how do you trust the process?

• 9:22Speaker 02

  This is something that a lot of my mentors, a lot of my teachers tell me. Always trust the process, to be patient.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  From me, my own experience, I want to win an orchestra job so bad.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  And I want to, I just want it so bad. But during the process, you know, I get very frustrated with myself sometimes, especially when I'm practicing and I'm having some difficulty with certain things. It's very, I get very frustrated. And I go through these ups and downs periodically. And there are times where I do trust the process and there are times where I don't trust the process. You know, how do you trust the work that you're doing now will pay off in 10, 20, 20 years from now?

• 10:16Speaker 00

  That's a great question, you know, and I think a lot of people struggle with that. I actually like the fact that it's such a, the context of the question has to do with joining an orchestra, not just building a business. Because this concept is applicable to anything that you want to be great, okay? Now, let me say this to start. The fact that you are frustrated, the fact that you get mad when things aren't moving fast enough, that's a fucking great thing, okay? Because most people are the opposite. They're lazy, they think it's just gonna happen, they think that it's just gonna pan out and things are gonna be okay, and guess what? They're fucking not. That's the reality of winning.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  It is not going to be okay unless you force it to be okay. And that is the biggest misconception when it comes to the idea of patience that we could possibly have, okay? So, to answer your question, before I answer your question, you have the right mentality. That is the right mentality of a winner, okay? Winners are constantly frustrated. They're constantly pushing. They're constantly questioning if they're doing enough. Losers are the people who automatically assume that they are doing enough, okay? Winners always think there's more to do and that they have to go harder. Losers think they've done enough work.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  That's the, there's a big difference between that mentality, okay? So the mentality that you have as a young man saying, "I want this, and I want this now, and I fucking want it more than anything," is exactly the mentality that you have to have to become great. It's exactly the mentality. Now, let's talk about reality, okay? For you to become great at anything, you have to put in the work. And the time that compounds over that process is always going to be part of the recipe. You can't just go hard for two or three days or four days and then say, "Oh, well, I put in the work."

• 12:25Speaker 00

  This, we're talking about years and decades. And just like you said, how do I know it's gonna pay off 10 years from now, 20 years from now? You don't know unless you make it pay off. That's the point, okay? So you have to force your dreams into reality through relentless daily actions that move you forward, all right? And even with that aggressiveness, the daily actions, the daily practice, the daily, you know, learning and applying the lessons, it's still gonna take time. And this is the concept that I talk about all the time called aggressive patience, okay?

• 13:07Speaker 00

  You got, when most people hear, "You gotta be patient and things will work out." They hear patience as, "I'm gonna put my feet up on the desk, I'm gonna do a little bit of work, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna," you know, and eventually it'll be my time. Not accurate. You will lose, you will fucking lose that way, okay? You have to go intense with urgency and like, discipline every single day. And then you have to understand that it's still gonna take time. And that's where the patience comes in. So we're gonna be aggressive on our daily actions. We're gonna be aggressive with, you know, our pursuit of becoming great. We're gonna be relentless and yes, dude, you're gonna get frustrated.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  You're gonna get, you know, you're gonna go through peaks where you have this, you're like, "Fuck yeah, I'm killing it, everything's going good, I'm definitely gonna make it." And then things didn't happen fast enough, so you're like, "Fuck, it's not gonna work, I'm probably wasting all my time." Real winners that become great, they push through all that shit and they ignore how they feel on the day. The days they feel great, they go hard. On the days they feel low, they go hard. And they just understand and quote-unquote "trust" that that process will lead to where they want to go. And guess what? It will. The reason that it doesn't for other people is because on the days they feel like they're killing it, they'll, they'll do everything that they can do, right?

• 14:31Speaker 00

  On the days where they're frustrated, they'll like, you know, "Fuck this," and they'll take a day off, right?

• 14:38Speaker 00

  People who become great do the same actions with the same level of intensity every single day, regardless of how they're feeling. So for this young man, your key is to never lose that drive and that hunger. And you shouldn't look at that frustration as a negative thing. I look at that as somebody who cares a lot about what it is they want to do. And the fact that you feel that way is a great sign that you will get where you want to go as long as you don't let the emotional highs and lows affect what you do on a daily basis in terms of you practicing your craft to become great at it.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  And I love this question too, because as you said, it's applicable to literally anything, right? Like, I mean, obviously a lot of people listen to you for your business advice and your entrepreneurship advice, right? But I mean, whether you want to be a fucking, the best trombonist that has ever existed, success, and you've said it before in a way, it's an equation.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  It's a fucking equation. And I think I've struggled with the time variable of that equation also. But like, it makes me, it's like farming, right? Like, if you plant the seed and you fucking watered it, you know you watered it, you know, you planted it, it might not sprout in fucking five days, but you gotta keep fucking tending to it. And eventually you'll have fucking something, right? Can you talk about that equation of success?

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Well, it's, it's very simple. It's the, it's the result of the actions that you take on a daily basis compounded over time, okay? Depending on where you start and how skilled you are in the beginning and what maybe your natural talents might be, that's different for everybody, okay? But what lets people become great is understanding that it is not about their natural talents. It is not about where they started. It is not about the advantages that someone may or may not have in the beginning. It is about what they are willing to do on a day-by-day-by-day basis over the course of time. So for someone who starts out a little bit ahead, they might have less time to go than you. So what? So what? Okay?

• 16:42Speaker 00

  We hear this in business all the time. Well, this person, they started on third base and they, they thought they hit a triple. Yeah, so what? That ain't you. You did it, so you're gonna have to do a little more fucking work. It's gonna take a little more time. What are you gonna do? Not do what it is you know you want to do in your whole life, the thing you desire more than anything? Because it takes you more time than the next guy? What the fuck are you talking about? Okay? It is going to take more time for some people than it takes other people. And that is not an excuse for someone to just punt and say, "Oh, well, they had an advantage that I didn't have." Who fucking cares, bro? What are we talking about?

• 17:24Speaker 00

  Like, think of this kid was like, "Well, you know, I want to be in the orchestra and I want to be this, I want this more than anything, but Tommy down the street, he grew up playing since he was three, so he has 20 more years of experience on me, so I'm just gonna fucking quit." Okay? Like, that, that's ridiculous shit. That's ridiculous shit. We hear this in business all the time. "Well, this guy had rich parents, this guy got investors, this guy grew up in this kind of environment, this guy did that, so what? You're gonna fucking punt your entire life because someone else started out a little bit more ahead of you? That makes no sense." And honestly, people who quit for that reasons never had it in the first place. They never had it in the first place.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  So it's kind of a moot point, but it does annoy the shit out of me. Because it's like, dude, what are you talking about? "Oh, so you had to start, you grew up in a bad neighborhood, you were poor, you had shitty parents, but you still have this dream."

• 18:26Speaker 00

  So you're gonna quit because of what happened in the past or the circumstances that you were born into? Like, that doesn't even make fucking sense, bro. And so much, so, so many people quit because they spend so much time analyzing the advantages or disadvantages, or the quote-unquote fairness of what someone else's situation is, that they totally obliterate their own chance of success. Guess what, motherfucker? It's not fucking fair. It's never gonna be fair. Fair is a word that people use when shit doesn't go the way they want it to go. That is what fair is about. You have to understand that every single person that ever built anything in the history of motherfucking earth

• 19:11Speaker 00

  understands that fair is not an element of the equation. It doesn't matter. Some people are gonna have to do more, some people are gonna have to go harder, some people are gonna have to go longer. But if you're willing to do whatever the fuck it takes, you can get where you wanna go. That's the reality. Okay, so let's be real about this. It doesn't fucking matter what anybody else is doing, it matters what you're doing, and it matters how good you do it, and it matters how consistent you do it, and it matters how long you do it to allow those things to compound over time. And by the way, if you want a system that actually does this for you, you can join Operator Standard, and we've built this with technology to where literally if you put in your fucking goal,

• 19:53Speaker 00

  it will backtrack to the daily tasks that you need to do to become great. If you follow the play, you can't lose. Period. Okay, and it does it for you. It's gonna totally reprogram your idea of what winning is and take all the guesswork out of it. So, anyway, I love the question, but more than the question, I love this kid's mentality, bro. That hunger, you could feel it through his video.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  You know, he fucking said, "I want it more than fucking anything." That is the level that it takes. You have to fucking want it more than fucking anything. You have to be obsessed with it. That is the reality of, of high-level achievement. It's not casual. It's not fun. It's all the time. It's fun, it's fun,

• 20:38Speaker 00

  but dude, you have to be obsessed. It can't be an afterthought, it can't be a maybe, it can't be a, "Well, this would be nice." It has to be an obsession. And if you are obsessed and you are willing to do whatever the fuck it takes, there's nothing that you can't do.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  No. It's real, man. That's real, I fucking love it, man.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, great, great question.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Great question. Submit these questions in the link, uh, down below if you wanna be featured on the show as well. Uh, guys, they don't all have to be video either, you can just submit audio, like this next question, let's check it out.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  Hi, Andy. My question is, how do you navigate no man's land? I'm in a place in my life where I feel really good about what I'm doing and what I'm building, and I definitely feel like I'm not connected to any particular circle. I feel like the friends that I've had in the past, which, again, I don't necessarily need to bring them into every aspect of my life, but there's definitely a part of me that feels like they don't care or support anything that I'm doing, whereas I feel like when they're trying to grow and do their thing, you know, I'm like right on the sideline clapping. I don't know, it's a weird place to be.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  I, I, I think maybe also I'm overthinking it a little bit, and that most people are just, you know, wrapped up in their own lives and doing their own thing, but it certainly does feel like the people in my circle sometimes are the ones that I want them, I want their feedback, I want their, not their permission or anything like that, but, you know, you want their support, and sometimes you feel like you don't have it.

• 22:22Speaker 00

  Okay. Why do you need the approval of people that aren't on the same path as you? That's the first question you should ask yourself.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Okay, and they...

• 22:29Speaker 00

  What you're asking is for people that will never understand what it is you're trying to do, or why you're trying to do it, to support you in doing so. They do not understand why the fuck you're doing it. And if you don't understand why someone's doing something, you don't understand what they're doing, and you're not on the same path, it's kinda hard to support it, cuz you wouldn't even know where to support it.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Okay? Secondly, this is normal. Okay, we've discussed this so many times. Clearly you know, because I have a name for it called no man's land. And for those of you that don't know, it is a very simple concept. When you start out on your path to success, you've got your friends. You've got these friends that you met coincidentally through school, or through your neighborhood, or maybe they're your cousins, I don't know. But you were born through your circumstances into this friend group, some way, shape, or form, okay? You went, then you went to college with some people, okay? So you got the college group, and the high school group, and the fucking, now you're trying to go out and become something more. Ninety-nine percent of those people are gonna stay exactly where the fuck they are, their entire fucking lives.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  And if they do try to change, they're not gonna try to change at the exact same time that you're gonna try to change. So, there's a gap in relating that happens to every single person that goes down this path.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  I remember when I first noticed this in my life. When I first noticed this in my life, I was about 12 years into business. Okay, and I was at dinner with a friend, and we were, it was him and his wife, and he asked me

• 24:06Speaker 00

  what was going on with my business. And I told him, I said, "We got a lot of good," like, at this time, we had a lot of good shit going on, because we had just turned the corner from not making any money and to making pretty good money. And I fucking told him. Okay? I said, "It's going great, we're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing this." And then, after I left the dinner, everything was fine, and then like two days later, I got this text from him that was like, "Bro, I love, I love you, but like, you gotta really work on your bragging." And I'm like, "The fuck you talking about?" And he's like telling me how, you know, uh, he's like, "You know how you were telling us this and that and that?" I said, "Well, that, you asked." That's what's going on in my life.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 00

  Okay?

• 24:49Speaker 01

  You asked me.

• 24:49Speaker 00

  Yes. But you gotta understand that when everybody else stays in the same place, and you start to progress, and then they ask you, and you tell them, they perceive that as bragging. Okay? And this is a good thing, by the way, because when you're actually telling people what is actually going on in your life, and they perceive it as bragging, you're doing all right.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 00

  All right? But the point is, is that I realized at that point that I had outgrown this group of friends. So I went through this period of not really having anybody to hang out with, and, you know, I didn't, the, the, social media was kinda just getting going, you know, it wasn't like you were connecting with other entrepreneurs, you were more so connecting with more people from the past. Um, and it was lonely, and it was like, "Well, who the fuck do I hang out with?" And then, organically, you know, I met this one person who was also in business, and then I met another person, and then I met another person, and we started getting together. And I developed this new group of friends. But that gap in between your old group and your next group is what we call no man's land. You're fucking confused.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  You don't get it. And the problem with no man's land, especially the first time you go through it, because you're gonna go through it multiple times throughout your life, is that because you've never been through it, you feel very out of sorts. And of most people will start to listen to that original friend group about like, "Oh, you're getting too big for your britches, you're not humble anymore, you're not this, you know, you're bragging." And they will literally fucking shrink themselves and just go right back to the old friend group and sacrifice all their fucking dreams. Okay? But once you find that new group, here's the cool thing. Now you've got shit in common with people. Now you can openly share successes, and nobody thinks anything of it. Okay?

• 26:34Speaker 00

  And not only that, these people will contribute to you actually becoming successful. So they will say, "Hey, I know a guy that does this," or "I know a person that does that," or, "I've got this connection, I've got that, let me help you with this," okay? And then, as you progress, and you, if you keep going, you will probably outgrow a lot of those people. But a bigger percentage of those people, like zero at first, thirty percent of these people will continue on the path with you. So you'll be able to maintain that friendship more with some of those people down the path, but then you'll go through another no man's land. And the second no man's land, instead of you having, you know, nobody, you'll have two or three. Okay? And then you'll get to the, the, the third version, which is like, now you're scaled up even more. Okay?

• 27:18Speaker 00

  And that's the path of an entrepreneur. You're gonna go through times where you cannot relate to anyone, and to this lady's question, you are expecting things that are unrealistic. You, you have expectations on them. Okay, you say, "Well, I cheer for them, they don't cheer for me." Well, maybe you're a fucking nicer person than them. Maybe that's why you're winning and they're losing. Maybe the reason that you're moving down the path is cuz you're acting like a normal fucking human being, and they're being a bunch of jealous little pussies. Okay? So, winners root for people. Winners want people to win. And what you're identifying is, is that your old friend group is not made of winners.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  It's made of losers, which should make you even happier to get the fuck away from them. So, like, you know, yeah, dude, uh, to answer your question, this is part of it. I think, yes, you're overthinking of it. I think you should definitely not be worried about trying to win over the approval of people that can't even like comprehend what you're trying to do, and you should keep your head down and let the, the, let it play out. And the cool thing about today's day and age is that you could actually intentionally go out and seek out other communities of people who are on the same path. Those groups exist. Okay? We have Arte Syndicate. Arte Syndicate, that's what that is. Um, but

• 28:42Speaker 00

  it's much easier now, whether you do that or not, it makes no difference to me, but... It's much easier to find people that are of like mine now than it was pre-internet. Okay, or pre-social media. Like, imagine you being in social media, pre-social media and trying to find and connect with other people who are on the same path as you. It's almost fucking impossible. You don't even know, you don't even know they exist. Well, I mean dude, you do, but like you see their business and you're like, how do I get in contact with that guy? And then you gotta go through all the gatekeeping to even get to that guy, right? And then there's other things, like doing high-value things where there's a barrier of entry to get in, you know? There's a reason why country clubs cost fucking, you know, a hundred grand to get the fuck in. Because it keeps people who can't afford it out.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Okay, and then the people who are in are the kind of people, now I'm not saying a country club, but there's all kinds of clubs like that. There's country clubs, there's cigar clubs, there's, there's entrepreneur groups. These things cost a lot of money because they want the fucking other people to not be in there. Right? So places where you can pay to be a part of a different or higher group. Going to nicer restaurants, uh, you know? Being involved in things where there's a financial barrier that these people can't get into. That's where you're gonna meet these other people. They're out there. Do you think that all these people that pay, you know, a hundred thousand dollars to country clubs? Do you think they're fucking not doing shit? Yeah, yeah.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  Like they're doing shit. That, that membership pays for itself. Dude, a hundred percent it does. Yeah. A hundred percent it does. Bro, I would highly, I mean, this is me tooting my own horn, but I, I would highly recommend joining Arte's in it because I'm gonna tell you right now, there's not another fucking group out there anywhere where you're gonna get the education from two guys who have built fucking, you know, what Ed and I have built in our lives. It's not real. Like, there's a lot of people who've done good on Ecom, they sold info, this, that, the other, that's fine. They've not actually are experts at running a company or starting from, we are the best in the world at what we do. And that group is the best in the world at taking entrepreneurs from nothing to something. We have like 12 people in the last five years that have gone from zero to nine figures. That's incredible. Okay?

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Like, you wanna be around fucking winners, I'd highly recommend you, you get in on that. Yeah, 100% man. Look, I'm just gonna say that too, dude, like, I don't care what anybody says, we're the best in the fucking world at what we do. There's nobody that can do it better. There's nobody out there doing it better. We may not be the biggest, we don't fucking market it. Yeah. It's all word of mouth. Okay, so you don't see our ads and we don't run fucking big ad budgets and this shit, because we don't fucking have to. Okay, in fact, we don't even do it for the money at all. We do it because it's, it's something that we wanna do to help people actually improve. And we would do it for free, except where we'd have a bunch of fucking people in there that are knuckleheads. Right. So Gotta have some. It is what it is. It's real. Uh, let's check our next submission. All right, here we go.

• 31:42Speaker 04

  What's up guys, my name's Jalen, I'm a 25-year-old barber, became a barber two years ago, had my son at the same time. Grinding my ass off to make it work, and luckily I've done so. Um, my question for Andy is gonna be a what would you do in my shoes kinda question? My goal is to become as successful as I can and create as much purpose as I can. A vision that came to me to accomplish that goal is to, one, you know, be as successful with as, with barbering as I can and then open up a salon suite business. Which is basically a, a building with a bunch of rooms that people run out to run their business out of. I wanna add a component to that of education to help these people thrive in that setting. And then eventually later down the line, if we get to that point, um, these people can franchise out the suite business and open up their own.

• 32:27Speaker 04

  My question is, what would you do in my shoes? What would be your game plan, what would be your route to make this happen? If there's any flaws in the goal or in the mindset, let me know. But, um, there's a lot of barber gurus online trying to teach you how to make viral content and charge astronomical prices for haircuts. And that route just really hasn't worked for me all too well. Um, the route that's worked for me since I graduated school, um, was just old-fashioned business, just hand out as many cards as I can, talk to as many people as I can, give good service, things like that. Um, I guess my doubt in my mind right now would be, like, back when I was charging $30 a haircut, that seemed to work a lot better. And then now that I'm at a higher price point at 50 and 65, like, maybe I doubt that that same blueprint may work the same

• 33:08Speaker 04

  and that I would need to be this barber celebrity or whatever to accomplish my goals. Um, so, what would you do in my shoes to accomplish the goals that I've set for myself, uh, in any other game you could give me? Appreciate you.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  Oh man, there's a lot there. Okay, number one, I love the fact that you thought this out, okay? I went to barber school, I'm becoming a good barber. I'm gonna open up, uh, a salon, I'm gonna rent out the spaces to other barbers. Then I'm gonna franchise that business out across. Great fucking plan. I would add something else to that. I would add a CPG line of personal care products that you can sell off of that brand along the way at some point in time. Okay, because that is much faster in terms of creating revenue and brand equity for yourself than it would be just to do these spots. By the way, this is exactly what I've done.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Okay, we started out in retail, we opened up retail, then we became a CPG company, scaled that out, now retail's even growing faster, okay? So they build off of each other. So

• 34:18Speaker 00

  I love the plan. I would add the idea of personal care products into it, okay? Now, getting back to what it is that you were saying, uh, well, first of all, don't change your price, do not fucking go down. Okay, that price objection, that, that price objection, I wanted to hit on this before I got into the next thing. That price objection is your price objection, that is not their price objection. That is yours. You even said, I'm not sure if this is gonna work, which means you don't have fucking data that says you're too cheap or too high. You're making it up, which means it's coming from your heart, which means you are thinking there will be an objection, when in reality, there will not be an objection.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  As long as you do what you said you were gonna do, which the key piece in what he said he was gonna do was making sure they had a great experience and making sure people told other people. That is the fucking key to what it is. Now,

• 35:13Speaker 00

  what can you do to create a better experience? What can you do that other barbers don't do? Can you offer them a drink? Can you offer them a smoke? Can you do something? I don't know what it is that you can do. Whatever you can do to create, uh, a non-commodity experience, okay? Because a haircut's a fucking haircut, right? Why do we go get our haircut from the same person? It's because we like the person and we get a good experience. I can get the same fucking haircut 5 million places, in fact, you've cut my hair. I've, yeah. Yeah, a bunch of times. I've done the good. I'm just saying, but the, the haircut isn't the fucking thing you're paying for. I'm paying for the fucking relationship and the experience, okay? So get your mind around that.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  What can I do that other people don't do onsite, on premise, that makes people tell other people to come to me? Nail that down now, okay? Cause that doesn't cost anything, and if it does cost something, it's gonna be cheap. Now,

• 36:12Speaker 00

  getting back to the most important part of this. Okay, because I like all of that. I like the plan, I, I, I would add the CPG, I like the price point.

• 36:24Speaker 00

  Do not let your own fucking, you know, hangups of your own financial situation or upbringing allow you to affect that, because you're gonna have to, you're gonna need the profit to scale this out.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  The personal brand thing. You seem to have

• 36:41Speaker 00

  an, a negative attitude towards becoming a well-known barber. Okay, and when you talked about these barber gurus and this and that and this, bro, those guys have figured it out. Understand that. They have figured out how to become famous online by becoming great barbers. And then they're selling how to become a great barber, which means there's none of this cost in between. Okay? So they're fucking printing money. Understand that. So they've figured it out, and you're, you're saying that you don't like what they're doing. Well, they've figured it out, bro. All right? They do this thing, they do it well, then they tell you how to do it well. All right?

• 37:26Speaker 00

  You need to lose the idea that somehow becoming famous on the internet is something that is not cool or something that you don't want. It can only fucking help you. It can only accelerate your dreams bigger. Now, I think your play is better than their play. Because what you're creating is a product that not only generates cash flow, which is all they have, you're creating a product that has enterprise value backside. Meaning, you can sell this for a lot of fucking money in 20 years, so you're not cutting hair with your back all out of place and your fucking elbows all fucked up. Arthritis. Okay, right, exactly dude.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  So, your plan is better, and it's a much better long-term plan than their plan. But why couldn't you do theirs and yours? Okay? And the reality of looking at you is you already have a look, okay? You speak well. Come up with a great angle that you can do that's different than everybody else, okay? Get to a point where you are showing your cuts, you know, talking, like dude, there's this one guy, I can't think of his name. Uh, Vic, Vic. Oh, yeah. Vic Cuts. Yeah, Vic Cuts. Vic blends, Vic, Vic blends. Vic blends. Yep. Fucking, dude, he figured it out. He did. Okay, here's what he did.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  He created content where he goes up to random people and he'd say, hey, can I cut your hair? And they're like, yeah. And then he like talks to them.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Prefer, yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  And they, and then it becomes a piece of content. Okay. And by the way, it's great. Okay. But here, when Vic started, he was just doing random people. And I know he still does random people. But what happened was his brand got so big that now he's doing like celebrities. Okay. You want that because that's only going to help the other pieces of the puzzle. That's only going to help you rent out your studio more. It's only going to help you sell your CPG line more. What happens if you have 200, 300, 400,000 followers and you say, guys, I came up with this personal care products. Here's where you can get it. Okay. You have leverage then. So this personal brand aspect that you seem to have a resistance to

• 39:44Speaker 00

  is really going to cost you a lot of time. And prop, maybe cost you your ability to even execute this other plan. Okay. So I can appreciate because I'm the same. I prefer in person. I prefer that old school way. I like that. And by the way, it's great that you like it too, because that's where people are starting to value things again. They're starting to value analog experiences. So. But you, you have to do it, dude. You have to build a personal brand. You've got to get creative in how you do it. And if you can figure out a way to do it, that is a little bit different than what everybody else is doing. That's how you're going to start to get traction. And you may not get traction the first one or two years, but eventually you're going to have videos that are going to go. And people are going to say, damn, this is cool.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  And where, where is this? And can I use this guy's products? Or can I stop into his place, wherever it is in Philadelphia and get a fucking cut when I'm there? Right? Like you can only win by creating that. So you need to drop this hesitation to go build that. You need to go fucking build it.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, on the leverage piece, I'm looking at this, uh, like the metaphor you utilize, like the axe or the chainsaw. Like, I mean, the axe is always going to cut down the fucking trees. But social media being a chainsaw, use that fucking.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  Bro, you can jump years ahead. Why do you think there's so many people out there that are 25 years old that are crushing it in business? It's because they had the ability and they use the technology to create a brand for themselves. Like dude, if you're, if you're in business and you're trying to like avoid creating the brand, you're only doing yourself a disservice. You're only doing yourself a disservice. Okay.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  I don't know why you would do that. If your goals are really your goals, why wouldn't you do everything required to get to the goal?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Use every tool available.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. You'd be obsessed, bro. And so like, that comes back to like the main point of what we talked about with the guy with the trombone. All right. You have to be fucking obsessed. This is not casual. You don't get to pick and choose how hard you go, brother. You're at the beginning. Okay. You better use every motherfucking tool you have, or you're not going to fucking make it. So this isn't like me politely suggesting, this is me telling you that you are not good enough to do it without that. Unless you want to spend double the time or triple the time. All right. So you have to fucking do it. Okay. And sometimes people are like, well, you don't post any content. No, contrary. I post more content than fucking anybody on the internet. It's just long form content.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  Okay. I post how many hours of content a week? A fuck ton.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  A shit ton.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Right. So it's just not the way you see it.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  It's out there, baby.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, bro.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  And you motherfuckers got to share it.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  That's right, man. Yeah. My guys, Andy, that was three submissions.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  That's a hell of a.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  That was good, dude. Those are good. See, send me your questions, bro. I'll answer them exactly like to, I like this because now I like, like this last question and that first question. I can answer exactly to your scenario.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  So send your shit in, dude.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Love it, man.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  All right, guys. Links in the, uh, description below.

• 42:53Speaker 00

  All right, guys. Don't be ho.