980. Q&AF: Maintaining Discipline, Gratitude Vs. Drive & Feeling Behind

On today's episode, Andy answers your questions on how to break the cycle of on-and-off discipline, how to balance gratitude with the drive to improve, and how to manage the feeling of being behind even when you're doing the work.

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

• 0:16Andy 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. Now you can submit your questions a few different ways. DJ is going to tell you how.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Yeah guys, the first way is you can email your questions in to [email protected]. You can also drop your questions in the comments of the Q and A F episodes on YouTube.

• 0:45Andy Frisella?

  And where are the Q and A F episodes now?

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Brand new, uh, brand new page, man. That's Andy Frisella motivation on YouTube. Make sure you guys are subscribed to that one as well. It's all the, uh, get your ass better.

• 0:57Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, it's all the Q and A Fs, it's all the real talks, all the 75 hard verses and the main YouTube page is going to be for, uh, CTI. So, uh, yeah. So if this is your first time joining us, this is Q and A F. We also do a number of different formats of the show. Shows within the show is what we like to say. Uh, we will have our cruise the internet live, actually tonight at 7:00 PM Central. So you check that out. Uh, do that a few times a week. Then we have real talks. Real talk is just five to 20 minutes of me giving you some real talk. And then we have 75 hard verses. That's where people who have completed the 75 hard program come on the show. They talk about how they were before, how they were after,

• 1:38Andy Frisella?

  and how they use the 75 hard program to transform their lives. If you're unfamiliar with 75 hard, it is the initial phase of the live hard program, which is available in its entirety for free at episode 208 on the audio feed. So if you just scroll down the audio feed, go to episode 208, you'll find it. Uh, there's also a book. The book is available at andyfrisella.com. It's called the book on mental toughness. Great book. Sell the shit out of it. Still not required. If you want the program for free, get it episode 208. Uh, the book just has a lot more in-depth information in it. Speaking of 75 hard, for those of you, I know everybody's talking about what they're gonna do after the new years.

• 2:22Andy Frisella?

  We have a massive, massive, massive, biggest ever group of people starting 75 hard at the new year. So do it with us, man. Change your fucking life. With that being said, we have a fee for the show. The fee is very simple. Do us a favor and share the show out. All right. We put a lot of time, a lot of effort into the show. We don't run ads on the show, nor have we ever. And we just ask very simply that you help us share it out. Okay. So don't be a hoe.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Share the show.

• 2:54Andy Frisella?

  All right. What's up, dude?

• 2:55Speaker 01

  I thought we had to do something special for tonight's live.

• 2:58Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, but it has to be, I wanted to wear, so I've been doing some some trying on things.

• 3:04Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  And I tried on a really awesome suit that you got me. It fits beautifully.

• 3:10Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Fits beautifully. And I feel like, you know, it would be a nice reward for the people to see, but like, like, there has to be something in it from them. You know what I'm saying? Like, what's the buy in?

• 3:18Andy Frisella?

  What, to see you in a suit?

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, to see me in that suit, though. You know, that, that, that special one.

• 3:23Andy Frisella?

  Oh, yeah?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  No, not the birthday one.

• 3:25Andy Frisella?

  I don't know, man.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  That's later. You know what I'm saying? We gotta have something. We gotta have something, dude. People have been asking for it, but like.

• 3:30Andy Frisella?

  Hey, what are you drinking over there, dude?

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Dude, this is, this is the best one.

• 3:35Andy Frisella?

  You know what?

• 3:36Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna lie.

• 3:37Andy Frisella?

  It's, it's actually pretty damn good.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Bro, it brings me back to like, fucking like, like when I was a little kid. I used to love Hawaiian punch.

• 3:45Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, me too.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  And this is carbonated wine. Like, I don't know if I can legally say that.

• 3:50Andy Frisella?

  Yeah. I, I don't know what it's called. It's, maybe it's called a

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Punch, dude.

• 3:54Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  When are these rolling out?

• 3:56Andy Frisella?

  Right after the first of the year. They'll be on the shelves. So we've got that and the

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Grapes gotta watch out, bro.

• 4:00Andy Frisella?

  And the, the silver lightning coming out.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, Grapes gonna have my

• 4:03Andy Frisella?

  I call it white lightning. You know, people, people didn't like that one. But, uh, yeah, we got those coming out. I actually haven't tried the silver lightning, but I did try the, the punch flavor. Holy shit, man.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Paradise punch is fucking

• 4:17Andy Frisella?

  It's really good.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  It's a punch of paradise.

• 4:19Andy Frisella?

  It sure is. Punch you right in the mouth. A little paradise. Anyway.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 4:27Andy Frisella?

  It is good, dude.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  It is fucking.

• 4:29Andy Frisella?

  I, we, you know, a couple of guys on the team out at UFC. They've been trying it and I've been getting texts about it, dude, and they're like, damn.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is gonna, like, I'm telling you, Grape's got, Grape's gonna be in second place. There's no doubt about it.

• 4:42Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz it is in first place.

• 4:44Andy Frisella?

  That's your swirl talking.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, man, you good?

• 4:51Andy Frisella?

  I'm good.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 4:52Andy Frisella?

  I'm good, man.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Let's make some people better today.

• 4:54Andy Frisella?

  All right, let's do it.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Shall we? Guys, I got three good ones. Let's dive into these. Guys, Andy, question number one. Hey, Andy. Andy, I'm 32. I've got a decent job, a family that depends on me, and on paper, I should be grateful. But I feel behind and frustrated all the time. I'm disciplined for a few weeks, then I fall off and hate myself for it. How do you stop the cycle of starting strong and then disappearing on yourself?

• 5:28Andy Frisella?

  Man, you know, that's something I think most people struggle with. That's actually one of the biggest reasons that we started developing the operator standard, which doesn't really do anybody any good right now because it's closed for quite some time. It's gonna be invite only when we open it back up, but that won't be for a while. But that, that system actually does what we're talking about here. But the reality is, it comes down to awareness, okay? We all struggle with this. We all know what that's like. We've all been disciplined at certain points. We've all been undisciplined, and those ebbs and flows are consistent amongst everybody across, you know, whoever is trying to practice discipline. And that's why discipline is hard.

• 6:11Andy Frisella?

  That, that's why it is, it is something that most people struggle with. And the biggest thing that you have to really understand. Is to become aware when you start to slip, okay? Like, right when you start to slip, you have to be able to identify it. And when we think about like 75 hard and live hard, that is one of the skills that it tunes up. Anybody who's been doing it or done it, or lived that lifestyle, you know exactly what I'm talking about, okay? When you first start off, you know, it's a little bit of work. Uh, it gets a little bit harder, it gets a little bit harder, then it starts to feel easy once you catch momentum. And, um, then at a certain point in the program, it gets hard again because it becomes very monotonous. And this is a reflection of how life

• 6:56Andy Frisella?

  sort of hits us with these little, I guess, sneak ups of us being lazy and how it starts. Is that when things are going well, they're going well. And then they tend to get harder again and we start to slip. All right, and so what you have to do is to start becoming aware uh, not only when you start to slip, but what causes you to slip. Okay, like what is it?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Where are you at, who you with, yeah.

• 7:23Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, what is it you're struggling with? What starts it? Is it, is it food? Is it a night out with the homies? Is it, uh, you miss a couple workouts? All of those things, even though it might seem like nothing, that's where the slip starts. And so this idea that you can just become disciplined and you're gonna stay disciplined your entire life is not real for most people. Discipline is a perishable skill. And it's totally normal to go in and out. And that's why we have to be aware that it's a, uh, that it's a perishable skill so that we can recognize when it starts to happen. And keep the slide from going any further immediately. All right, and

• 8:07Andy Frisella?

  when we think about like what people mostly think about discipline, most people think discipline is something that they're born with. Or something that they can create, but then will stick. And neither one of those things is true. Okay, discipline comes from the repetitive action of holding a standard that is high. And that re-trains your brain to acknowledge when things are hard for you to push through them anyway. And That that's just not a natural thing for people to be aware of based upon, you know, how we're taught about discipline and what most people think it is. Like I said, you know, people think that, you know, you're either born with it or you're not. I thought that for a

• 8:48Andy Frisella?

  long time, or then once you have it, it stays. And those things are not true. You have to practice it every single day. And one of the things that you can do to reframe this slip from happening is that you could start to understand the reality of how discipline is built. Okay. Everything matters. Every little thing. When you see something that needs to be addressed, or something that's inconvenient, or something that, you know, uh, you know, needs to be done, and then you walk past it without addressing it, you're taking away, you're making a withdrawal from your discipline skillset every single time. That could be

• 9:30Andy Frisella?

  something simple. That could be seeing a shopping cart in the parking lot rolling around, and you recognize it as fuck. That's not good, but you know, that's not my shit. I don't need to handle that, right? That takes away from your own discipline, as silly as that sounds. You know, for a lot of you guys out there, it could be something that is as simple as not replacing the toilet paper whenever the toilet paper rolls empty. Okay, these are like little bitty things that nobody thinks about when they think about discipline. And when you don't really understand the dynamic of it being an account that you put deposits in, or take withdrawals out of, it becomes where people can't really recognize where these slides start to start to happen. So like, when you truly understand what discipline is all about, when

• 10:14Andy Frisella?

  you truly understand that the smallest things can cause you to slide back to who you were before, you start to value that momentum and that discipline a little bit differently, and you start to recognize when things need to be addressed, that when you don't handle them, you're walking away and you're like, fuck, that just cost me, right? So, um, I think a lot of it is just awareness about how it works, how you put deposits in, how you make withdrawals out. And just like a bank account, dude, you're gonna want to deposit way more than you withdraw. Uh, otherwise, you're gonna end up with a negative balance, which is what puts people in this place of frustration, doubt, misery, you know, looking in the mirror,

• 10:58Andy Frisella?

  hating their life, feeling frustrated about where they're at. When you just start to really understand it, it really brings a new perspective to the little things that help keep this discipline tuned up high, right? People, a lot of times, they think, you know, I'm gonna be disciplined, I'm gonna go out and run 100 miles. That's not how that works, dude. It is little things compounded over time that you know need to be done and doing them. It's not just keeping promises to yourself, which is what everybody likes to say. It's about identifying how it actually works and then operating within those rules. And most people just overlook it. And that's why they find themselves sometimes at a very high

• 11:39Andy Frisella?

  place and then a very low place. But I could tell you as someone who, you know, has developed a very, very strong bank account with discipline, before I really understood that, I was in the same boat as this person was. I would get, get good, get bad, get good, get bad. Things would go well, then they would go bad. And I kind of thought it was just like up to the universe, like, things are going well now, things are going bad now, I've got momentum now, oh, I don't have momentum. When you start to realize that you're in control of all of that, the game changes. And honestly, this is why the book is such a good resource, the book on mental toughness, because it really explains this in depth. To the, to the other point that

• 12:23Andy Frisella?

  he made about always feeling behind, look, dude, ambitious people are gonna always feel behind. They're gonna always feel like they're struggling. They're gonna always feel like they're not doing enough. We, as ambitious people, don't have the luxury of being able to coast and be happy with ourselves. No matter how much money you've got, no matter how good of shape you're in, no matter what you're working on, or what impact you're making, if you're an ambitious person, you're gonna always feel like you're not doing enough. But that's a hell of a lot better place to be than the someone who thinks, oh, I'm doing everything I can. Really, they're not doing shit. Okay, so, one person has unsatisfaction.

• 13:01Andy Frisella?

  With their life justifiably so because their life looks like a shit show. And the other person might have a much better existence. But they understand I can do more, I can be better, I can always improve. And that creates this feeling of uncomfortableness even when you're winning. But the key thing to understand here is that that's a good thing. People need, we need people like that. We need people who are never satisfied. We need people who are always driven. We need people who are never gonna say, oh, well, this is good enough. Because the reality is that good enough mentality is what put this country in the shitty position it's in currently. So if you're really serious about changing yourself and you're really serious about impacting people and you're really serious about fixing what's going on in the world.

• 13:45Andy Frisella?

  You have to understand that you play an important role in that. And that's a burden that you have to carry and part of it is going to be always feeling like there's more to do. And that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. That means there's something right with you.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  I think in this case, though, I mean, it's fair to say that like, I mean, if you're feeling like you're behind, it's probably because you know you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing.

• 14:04Andy Frisella?

  Well, yeah, I mean.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  That's a red flag popping up in your head. You're ignoring.

• 14:08Andy Frisella?

  Well, yeah, for sure, dude. I mean, that's, that's part of it too, you know. When you're not doing enough for real, yeah, you're, you're gonna fucking know it.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Bet your ass you're gonna feel that.

• 14:20Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, right. Yeah. So like, there's that too, right? Like, I assume that people that listen to this show are ambitious people and that's why they listen. Uh, but yeah, I mean, dude, if your life's shitty and you're, you're fucking out of shape and your bank account sucks and you're not doing what you need you should do, you're gonna feel like shit. You're gonna feel anxious, you're gonna feel uh, like something's not right, you're gonna feel frustrated, you're gonna feel, you know, like, like dog shit, man. And that's the important uh, point that you need to recognize is that because of the way that you're wired and the way that you think, if you're not constantly progressing, you're gonna always feel like shit. So.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  It'll be 10 times.

• 14:56Andy Frisella?

  Are you, that's right. Are you gonna feel like shit because you're having to work a little harder? Or are you gonna feel like shit because you're not doing anything?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:03Andy Frisella?

  And. The funny thing is, is it's almost like a paradox and people who live the 75 hard and live hard lifestyle know this. When you're doing more work, you feel better. Because at the end of the day, you could look yourself in the face and say, bro, I did everything I could do today. And then you get to do it again tomorrow. And then when you wake up the next day tomorrow, you're not like as anxious or as frustrated because you can look back on even just one day and say, okay, well, I've got some momentum rolling. Yep. Even if the fruit's not there yet. Right. And so what can happen is, over the course of, you know, 30, 40 days of, you know, pushing and winning days and making sure that you're doing what you should do. That momentum starts to catch and you start to feel really good because you know you're doing everything you could be doing.

• 15:48Andy Frisella?

  If you know that you're doing everything you could be doing, there's really nothing else you could have done in 24 hour period. How can you feel frustrated? Right. You can't. You're going to feel peaceful. You're going to have low anxiety. You're going to have high confidence. And these are things that, um, you know, all the gurus out there, they try to preach this balance shit. And, you know, oh, you deserve some time off, bro. The reason you feel like shit is because you've, you think you deserve time off. You've been taking time off your whole motherfucking life, which is why your fucking life looks like a dumpster fire. Okay. So when you hear all these people who are saying nice platitudes on the fucking internet, realize that they're doing that for likes, shares, comments from victim minded people who want an excuse

• 16:31Andy Frisella?

  for why they don't have to get up and do what the fuck they're supposed to do. They're enabling low performance. They're enabling lack of confidence. They're enabling lack of discipline. And these people who that appeals to, all they're doing is looking for an excuse to not do it. And unfortunately, we live in a culture that is full of fucking victim mentality.

• 16:55Andy Frisella?

  And that is most people's default right now. And that's why the culture has to change. So, you know, when you see all this stuff online, you gotta understand this stuff's not for you, dude. This is for people that are still living in the victim mentality and have no intention of changing it at all. But here's the thing, those people are going to continue to be miserable. They're going to continue to be anxious. They're going to continue to feel like shit. And no amount of affirmations, or breaks, or rest, or mental health days is going to fucking fix it. And so, it's no different than like a few years ago when everybody was talking about body positivity. And they're like, oh, I'm so fat and I love it. But yet, here we are three years later.

• 17:36Andy Frisella?

  And they, they came out with Ozempic, and now they've lost, you know, 100, 200 pounds. And they're, you know, and it's like, oh, I thought, I thought you loved that. I thought that was what that was about, right? So it's exposing the lie, okay? And I've been fat. I know what the fuck it's like. And no matter how hard you try, no matter, you know, what you tell yourself, you know it's bullshit. Which even makes it, makes you feel worse. Because you know you're lying to yourself to justify your lack of action that you know you should do. So it's not even a, it doesn't serve people in any way. And we, unfortunately, we live in this world where, you know, we have predatory therapy.

• 18:18Andy Frisella?

  I'm not saying all therapy is bad, but like not everybody needs fucking therapy, bro. And we have a bunch of predatory therapists who convince people they're broken, who, who, who, you know, play to the victim mentality, collect money off of it. And I have to ask you this, what interests do they have in solving your problems? If they're, you're going to pay them more money while you're still broken? You gotta use your fucking brain, bro. You're being played. You're not being told the truth. You're being told what you want to hear in the moment, which makes you feel good for five fucking seconds, until you go home and have to look yourself in the eye and you know it's still fucked up. Okay, so until you address this for real, it doesn't matter what book you read.

• 18:59Andy Frisella?

  It doesn't matter what mastermind you go to. It doesn't matter what therapy you use, or what retreat you go to. Like, it doesn't fucking matter, bro. You know what the fucking problem is. And until you address it, you're gonna feel like shit, no matter what anybody else says to you. So.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Dude, I want to hit, because you know, you brought up this awareness piece, which I think ties into this, like, really important to hear. You know.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  You, your whole mindset is just win the day.

• 19:25Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Right? And, you know, especially in the season that we're in.

• 19:29Andy Frisella?

  It's not my mindset. That's reality.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  That's how it works.

• 19:31Andy Frisella?

  That is how it works. It's not, yes, I'm the first motherfucker that's been talking about this for the last 20 years. Okay, but that's the rules of the game. It's not what a week or a month or a year or five years. It's fucking today, bro. And if you win today, you're winning the game. When you win the next day, that's the game won again. And then you stack those wins over the course of time, which creates the external outcome that you're looking for, but the internal outcome materializes way before that. So, you know.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  It's a very important mindset though.

• 20:07Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, and it's, it, listen dude, this is how you win. And, and there isn't a fucking other way to win. It's this way. If you're not winning your fucking days over the course of time, how can you win? You can't. So, it's not my theory. It's just how it fucking works.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  It's law dude, but, but on, on that though, like, you know, I, I've, I've been on a, a, a transformation journey, if you will, right? And because of the season we're in, we got Christmas coming up. I know a lot of people getting ready for those New Year's resolutions and shit, right? Speak to the person who, who, who's hearing this right now. I'm like, damn, okay, yes. All right, I gotta get to it. About to get to it. Okay, cool. Winning my days. I know for me, for sure, there were, there were days, dude, where like, I just had to win the fucking hour.

• 20:48Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, like, let's, let's tie awareness into this because sometimes it's gonna be like that.

• 20:53Andy Frisella?

  Yeah. Well, that's where we talk about like production pivots, okay? A production pivot is when your bitch voice, the voice that talks you out of all the shit you know you're supposed to do for what they want to do right now.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:09Andy Frisella?

  You have to become aware of that. And when you start to become aware of that voice. Telling you these things, what you do and how you beat it is that whatever the fuck it's telling you to do. You know, you go, you, I just traveled for three days and I'm a little tired and I don't feel like doing my workout. When you hear that shit, you go work out right then. Immediately. It doesn't matter if it's fucking 10 o'clock at night because every time you act in opposition of that voice, you are shrinking its power over you every single time. That's what we're talking about, bro. When you walk past a shopping cart and you fucking say, oh, well. That guy's an asshole. Right. Right. No, you're the asshole. Right.

• 21:53Andy Frisella?

  Cause you fucking left it there. Okay. So when you start to realize that this is about every single conversation that happens in your brain and you become aware of that, then it's very easy to squash it with direct action in opposition immediately. All right. So yeah, sometimes it is going to be you're fighting for the hour. And if you're going to win days, bro, sometimes you're going to have to fucking fight. Sometimes it's going to be really fucking hard. Sometimes you're going to feel like the exact opposite of what needs to be done and you gotta do it anyway. Otherwise it's going to cost you way more than the temporary discomfort that it's going to cost you.

• 22:34Andy Frisella?

  Like dude, you guys all know what this is like. You know, you, you have a conversation that you've been putting off, but then you have it and you feel better. Okay. You don't want to work out. It's the last thing you want to do, but then you go do it and you're like, fuck dude, I had a, I'm glad I did that. Everybody knows this, but they don't label it in their mind or become aware of it. Right? They, they never really dig in and say, okay, what's, how do I get past this voice in my head that sounds like a lazy, fat, disgusting piece of fucking shit that doesn't do anything and always telling me to take it easy. How do I get past that? You do the fucking opposite, bro. Okay. Like if you have a leader and your leader is always saying, do this, do this, do this.

• 23:17Andy Frisella?

  And you start doing the opposite. Okay. You're telling the leader. That motherfucker ain't gonna listen to me. It's no different with your fucking, your voice in your head.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:26Andy Frisella?

  Okay, and after a while, you know, in the job market, you're gonna get fired, but, but, but the reality is, is in your brain after a while, your bitch voice learns this and says, I, the motherfucker's not gonna listen to me, so I'm not gonna say anything.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Let me just keep my ass quiet.

• 23:40Andy Frisella?

  Exactly.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  I love it, dude. I love it, man. Um, speaking of ambitious people, let's get to question number two. Um, Andy, I love you, dude.

• 23:50Andy Frisella?

  Oh, thank you.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Seriously. That's what he says. Andy, I've been head down, working for the last five years, grinding. Uh, I keep chasing the next goal, thinking I finally feel proud or content. But every time I hit it, I move the finish line and I feel empty again. Is that just how driven people are wired, or am I missing something bigger here in life?

• 24:14Andy Frisella?

  Well, look, if you get to a point where you're not acknowledging the progress that you've made at all, you are always going to feel that way. If you get to the point where you hang on to shit that you've done, and you over-celebrate and you think it's a big deal, you're gonna lose. Okay, so you have to find a middle ground of being able to acknowledge and be grateful for what you've accomplished and what you've done and where you're at. But also understand that there's a lot more to do. And neither one of those extremes is good for you, okay? Like, if you can never, ever recognize that you've done anything, you're gonna feel like you're spinning your wheels, even if your whole world

• 24:55Andy Frisella?

  is materialized around you. This has happened to me a number of times, where like, everybody from the outside looks and they're so, fuck dude, it's amazing, everything you've done. And I'm like, bro, I haven't fucking done shit. Okay, but that's because my vision is so big in my head, and if I catch myself not being grateful for it, then I really feel like shit, right? So when you start to feel, uh, you know, you know you're doing everything, you're producing results, you're producing the outcome, you're, you're meeting your goals, you're, you're exceeding your goals, you're resetting the bar, if you don't stop and say, okay. We're doing something here. I'm grateful for that. You're gonna feel like shit, okay? But most people aren't that way. Most people go the other way. Most people live in the land of what the fuck they used to be.

• 25:40Andy Frisella?

  Okay, and let me tell you something, bro. Nobody gives a fuck what you used to be. They don't care. They don't care that you won the MVP in high school. They don't care that you went out with the prom queen. They don't care that you got a great job right out of college. And 10 years later, you're still working at the same shit. They don't care. The world only cares about what the fuck you were doing now. That is it. That is it. They don't care about what you're gonna do, and they don't care about what you did. They care what you're doing now. And so, that is something that we can take from the world and sort of apply to ourselves as truth, because dude, it is true. You shouldn't be hanging on to these old wins. Yeah, you could acknowledge them, and you know, when you're having a beer with your buddies, be like, "Hey, man, remember that time I ran for 200 yards?" You know what I'm saying?

• 26:24Andy Frisella?

  You could talk about it, but you're not walking around in your fucking football outfit talking about 1987 when you were a stud.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, my home run ball is still falling.

• 26:32Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, you're not a stud anymore. You're a has-been, okay? It's like that dude that, remember that guy that emailed in a while back, and he was like, "I'm 5'7", and I'm 38, and I'm 350 pounds, and I can still run with all the young guys."

• 26:48Speaker 01

  No, you can't.

• 26:49Andy Frisella?

  And I'm like, "Dude, what the fuck myth are you living in?"

• 26:51Speaker 01

  No, you can't.

• 26:52Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, like, and that's where most people live. So, most people live there. They live in the past. They don't live in the future.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:59Andy Frisella?

  So, but if you-

• 27:00Speaker 01

  And then the other people are like, "Oh, I'm doing, I'm gonna do all of this shit, I'm gonna do all of this", but never, they're not doing anything.

• 27:04Andy Frisella?

  Well, yeah, of course, but the point is, is like, if you're the other kind of person who says all this shit they're gonna do, and then you've also backed it up with really good results to this point, but you don't acknowledge what you've done, you're gonna feel really bad, too. The only difference is, you're gonna have a bunch of, you're probably gonna have a lot of money, and you're probably gonna have a really cool life. But what, what uses a really cool life if you can't be grateful for what the fuck you did? You know, so there's a balance there. You don't wanna over-celebrate, but you also don't wanna- I guess minimize what it is that you've been able to do. You've got to find a good place of gratitude with a big purpose and you have to act with discipline, which by the way, we talk about all this time is the equation of being an actual happy human on a day by day basis.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:46Andy Frisella?

  Right? People think that happiness is some destination place they're gonna get to, when in reality, it's a way that you feel uh, and that you try to replicate over and over and over again in your life. There is no fucking happy land, bro. You know, oh, when you get here, you're gonna be happy, or when you get there, you're gonna be happy, or you get over here, you're gonna be happy. No. Did you do your shit today? Were you grateful for today? Did you exercise discipline today? Did you work towards your purpose today? And if you did all of those things, you're, you're gonna feel good. You're gonna be happy. And that happiness will come and then it will go. And then tomorrow, when the new game starts, you get to start over again. Okay? And that's how happiness actually works. Uh, but, you know,

• 28:29Andy Frisella?

  nobody teaches that because when you could tell someone, hey, eventually this, eventually that, we're gonna get you to here, just pay me some more money.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Andy Frisella?

  You know, like.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Happiness is coming, a price.

• 28:39Andy Frisella?

  Like, bro, the reality is, is most of these motherfuckers are just, they're, they're fucking cult leaders. Okay? And it's funny because people always say things to me. They're like, oh, you're over there running a cult? Actually, no. Because cults centralized power around the leader. Meaning, if you have one of these predatory therapists, the predatory therapist will convince you that they're the only ones with the solution, and then you gotta pay them money to get the fucking thing.

• 29:04Andy Frisella?

  The opposite of that is decentralizing power. It's teaching everybody to be self-sufficient. It's giving them their own leadership skills. It's pushing them to stand up for themselves and lead their families and their friends. That's what the fuck I do. Okay? Most of these motherfuckers out here in the world, it's all about money. They don't intend to fix anything. They don't intend to fucking do anything positive except convince people that they need them to feel better, and it's just not true.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Andy, I wanna, I wanna zoom in on these, uh, on, on, on a piece of this question. Specifically on moving the goalpost, right? You know, he, he says he keeps chasing next goal. Once he gets there, he already moves the next finish line.

• 29:43Andy Frisella?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Is that, i- is, is that the right way to do it?

• 29:46Andy Frisella?

  If you wanna win.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Okay, let's, let's talk about it.

• 29:49Andy Frisella?

  If you wanna win, okay, we just talk about two groups of people.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:52Andy Frisella?

  Okay? One group of people, the people who don't do shit, they'll set a goal, they won't ever even hit the goal. They'll get 60% of the goal and then they'll pretend they hit the goal. Or they'll see the goal and it's within, it's within range and they'll stop. Because it's now it's within range, they don't follow through. Winners do a completely different version of that. They get to 80%, they realize they're gonna hit the goal and then they set the bar further out and then they fucking rush through the goal with ever acknowledging that, without ever acknowledging that they passed it. Got it. Okay, so, you know, you certainly want to be in that group more than you would want to be in the other group, alright?

• 30:32Andy Frisella?

  And that's normal for ambitious people. Every motherfucking winner I've ever met, every champion, every billionaire, every person I've ever known that's created massive amounts of success in their life, they, they operate the way I'm talking about and the way this man's talking about. You're get, they get to 80%, 90% of the goal, they say, okay, I'm gonna fucking hit this. I'm gonna keep moving to go to this. And that's the way champions think, dude. Every champion that's ever existed in the history of humanity operates on the idea of resetting the bar over and over and over and over again. And that's how you end up with these exceptional individuals, because every time they reset the bar, what the bar becomes is actually their new minimum.

• 31:14Andy Frisella?

  Alright, so that's their operating homeostasis. That is, that is where they live. Okay, and if you're the person who gets 60% to your goal and never hit it, you're gonna end up back where you were and that's where you live. Alright, so it's just a matter of what sort of discomfort would you like to deal with? Would you like to deal with the discomfort of never achieving anything, being totally unhealthy, being broke, being dumb? Being a fucking human drain on society and then feeling mad about it and it being difficult? You not being able to go to dinners, you not being able to drive the car you want or buy the house you want or take care of the family the way you want? That's uncomfortable. Or you could deal with the uncomfortableness of I'm going to reset the bar over and over and over again.

• 31:59Andy Frisella?

  And I'm gonna win. Uh, and you know, I'm gonna live that way. That's, that's the two options, dude. And the second option, while it may feel more difficult, it's actually far less difficult than living like the other guy. So there's gonna be uncomfortable. Uh, feelings on either way, it's just choosing which way that you want it to be. And if you're a champion, if you're, if you're gonna be a great creator, builder, uh, becomer of greatness. You're, how he's operating is the way that people do it. Okay. And yes, there's some emptiness that comes with that, but only when you're not able to acknowledge how far you've come.

• 32:40Andy Frisella?

  And so what we're talking about for this gentleman is, hey dude, you just gotta tweak your gratitude up a little bit. That's the bottom line. Like, if you want to answer this question, you want to feel better? Tweak your gratitude up a little bit. Work that into your daily routine. At the end of your day, be grateful. At the beginning of your day, be grateful. You know, when you fucking step out of bed, bro, it shouldn't be like, oh man, another day I get my ass kicked. It should be, I'm the baddest motherfucker alive, bro, and whatever comes my way, I'm gonna fucking handle it. That's the first thought that should come out of your head. And by the way, the first day you do it, you're gonna not even believe it yourself. But after a month or after two months of doing that every day, you're gonna be surprised at how much fun you're having kicking the shit out of everything. And then, you know, bring that back to what we talked about on the 24 hour scale.

• 33:24Andy Frisella?

  A lot of people never feel, never feel like they did anything because they, they don't, they don't define the outcome. Okay. They define the outcome, like we said, this magical place I'm gonna eventually get to. That, you know, I'm gonna do this and this and this, and then I get here, I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna get that, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be there. There is no there. There's only now. Okay. So if you define the win as, did you win the 24 hours? You can win every single day. And I don't mean that from, I won my day, I won my day, I won. I mean, from a feeling of fucking being a winner. You're gonna feel like a fucking winner. Okay. And this is why, I mean, this is a, a not, it's, it's a piece of what the operator standard is doing for people.

• 34:08Andy Frisella?

  But, um, yeah, you have to define the outcome. That you're looking for, the big picture outcome, you have to break it down into critical tasks that you would execute on a daily basis and you have to define the wins on a 24 hour basis because those are only wins that fucking matter, bro. Like, and the reason most people can't do that 24 hours is because they do this shit. And a year from now, I'm gonna be here and then they're like, okay, a week goes by, right? And they're like, okay, well, I still got time. And then another week goes by, they're like, oh, I got time, I'll hit it extra hard. And then 40 weeks go by and they're like, fuck, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna starve myself, right?

• 34:46Andy Frisella?

  And it becomes this fucking negotiation and you're gonna feel like shit the entire time because you know, no matter what you say, no matter how much you try to justify, no matter what story you tell, you know, you're full of shit. And how do you feel about your fucking people that you know that are full of shit with everything that they say to you? You, we all have one, we all have somebody we know who comes and tells us all the time about all this shit they're gonna do and they never do it. How do you feel about that person? You're like, dude, that guy's a bullshitter. He ain't doing none of that shit. Your brain knows that, you know that, you know, when you're full of shit. And if you try, it doesn't matter how you pretend on an external basis, you know, which is why you can't justify your way out of, out of it and you're gonna feel like shit.

• 35:30Andy Frisella?

  This is why, like I said, uh, Lizzo, who, you know, was 5,000 pounds and who's now, you know, down to a respectable weight. Now she's happy about it, okay? Good for her, I'm proud of her, it's a great thing. But what I don't like is how she tried to convince the whole motherfucking world that, you know, it's cool being fat, it ain't cool being fat. Okay, your life's not gonna be as good, you're not gonna make as much money, you're gonna be unhealthy, you're letting your family down. You're like, there's, there's all these other things that come with it that

• 36:00Andy Frisella?

  people never consider. And by the way, did we not all know that was bullshit?

• 36:06Andy Frisella?

  Like dude, did anybody ever really believe that someone is, oh, they're so happy with their body? I'm not saying that you gotta be perfect. I'm not saying that you gotta have a six pack. I'm not saying that you gotta be fucking ripped. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is where the pride comes from, where the win comes from is knowing that you've done everything that you can do. And the result is what it is. Some people are gonna have better genetics. Some people are gonna have better connections. Some people are gonna have a special knowledge. Some people are gonna have a special skill. But most people can find, all people can find massive levels of improvement in their lives. So we're not talking about perfection here. We're talking about what you know to be true in your brain.

• 36:48Andy Frisella?

  And if you're doing everything you can, it's literally impossible to fucking feel anxious about it. You can't feel it. Dude, every single motherfucker listens. I challenge you, dude. Do everything you're supposed to do today. You're supposed to work out, work out. You're supposed to do cardio, do cardio. You're supposed to eat healthy, eat healthy. Supposed to drink a gallon of water, drink a gallon of water. You're supposed to have this conversation, do that. At the end of the day, if you could tell me that you still feel anxiety and doubt and feel like shit, you're lying. Cause it's impossible. You can't feel bad when you know you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing. It's impossible.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  That's real, bro. I love it, man. Guys, Andy, we got one more question for you. This is our third and final question. Guys, Andy, question number three. Andy, I started a business last year while working full time. I'm doing everything myself, working nights and weekends, but the money still isn't there yet. At what point do you know if you're being patient? Or if you're just lying to yourself and you should pivot or quit?

• 37:47Andy Frisella?

  Well, this goes back to the question we just answered. You've got to be very honest about the progress that you're making. Are you making some progress? Are things moving forward? Maybe you're not making the money that you need to make. Maybe you haven't made a single dollar yet. But are you having wins toward the outcome? And It's awareness. The theme of this show is fucking awareness. Okay, um, you have to understand and tell yourself the truth. Okay. And, and dude, like this is real shit because your business plan might be fucking terrible. All right. There's business plans that just ain't gonna work. They're not gonna fucking work. They don't have enough margin. They, there could be a gazillion reasons. There's no interest.

• 38:30Andy Frisella?

  Just because you start a business, it doesn't mean the market's gonna reward it. So you have to be able to be very honest with yourself, which hurts, right? Like, nobody wants to like, be, nobody wants to have an idea, admit to themselves that it sucks and say, okay, I gotta change this up. But it's necessary for building something that actually produces results. And so in this situation, you know, this is, this is, this is, I, I'll tell my story on this. Okay. Like, look, the first day I was ever in business, I sold $7. Okay. The next day. I'm not laughing at that. I'm sorry. No, it's, it is what it is. Yeah. I like it's. I can think how pumped you would be though. And it's like, fuck seven bucks. Okay. Well, the next day I didn't sell anything. Fuck.

• 39:14Andy Frisella?

  Okay. You, what do you think I was thinking? Fuck. Right. Yeah. Okay. It took us eight months to have a day that we'd sold $200 on. All right.

• 39:23Andy Frisella?

  If you think that I was terrified and doubtful and scared and wondering if I was making the right call, you're damn fucking right. Okay. Every motherfucking day. And I'm actually really grateful for that period of time. Because what it did was it made me hyper aware of the details and the indicators and to look at things and, and it almost made me crazy about it. Like to the point where, you know, our own teams and the companies I'm involved in sort of fucking hate me a little bit. Cause I know for real dude, because I will come in and, and say, bro, that ain't good enough. It's just not. So what it did was is it trained me to be hyper vigilant about the details, but also to be unemotional about the details.

• 40:03Andy Frisella?

  Okay. It either is or it isn't. It's either fucking good or it's not. All right. I don't give a fuck if it was my idea or your idea or Sal's idea or fucking Dana White's idea like, and, and by the way, amongst all effective operators, they all operate this way. They don't look at it emotionally. Nobody says, oh, I got this great idea and I want it to work. They look at it and they say, all right, here's the feedback we got. Here's what's happening. We haven't had any wins here. This isn't working. We've got to change it. But to the contrary of that, a lot of people will change things too often, too quickly. Right? So what ends up happening is, and I've used this example a number of times on the show. They it's like running a marathon. Okay.

• 40:48Andy Frisella?

  You can never finish a marathon and get the reward of running a marathon if you start over every fucking seven miles. Okay. Or you get 15 and you say, oh, fuck, I could have done it better. Let me start over. Right? You have to be very honest about how much progress you're making. Is what you're doing viable? Will the market take it? Is there enough margin in it? What's the volume of which I have to sell to make it worth my? These are all real data analysis metrics that you have to look into to separate emotion from your quote unquote idea. Ideas don't mean fucking shit, bro.

• 41:26Andy Frisella?

  In fact, if you want to watch how this works, there's a really good documentary on Enron on Netflix right now that explains this. The reason they fucking failed is because they thought that ideas won. Ideas don't win. Actions win. Okay. Reality wins. Sales win. Margins win. Market adoption wins. These are real things that you have to pay attention to. So when you're starting out, it can be very difficult to do that because one, you lack experience. You don't know. Okay. Two, you're emotionally attached. You want it to you. You've already built the story in your head of what life's going to be like when you get there. Right? So you're very emotional about it.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  You already told your friends and families what you're doing.

• 42:08Andy Frisella?

  Yeah, but dude, listen. You should be emotional about where you're going, but you shouldn't be emotional about how the fuck you get there. Okay. So, yes, I want this life. Yes, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get there. Yes. I'm going to I'll eat dog shit. I'll sleep on the floor. I'll fucking take no pay for 10 years. Okay. Whatever the fuck it takes, I'm going to get there. But you have to be unemotional about the engine that's getting you there because sometimes you got a bad engine. Sometimes it's not going to have the horsepower to get you there. Okay. So when we, when we talk to someone, you know, who's in this situation, you've got to understand that aspect, but you've also have to understand the aspect of time. Okay. Not, yes, not everything will work, but.

• 42:53Andy Frisella?

  If the indicators are right and you're moving in the right direction and you're paying attention and you're having little wins and things are indicating, okay, people do like this. I'm not talking about your fucking friends and family either. All your friends and family will tell you bullshit. Can't listen to them. If you know them, can't listen to them. Doesn't matter if you knew them from 20 years ago or five minutes ago. Are they your dad or your mom? Cannot fucking listen to them, bro. They will tell you bullshit. Okay. And they will tell you bullshit both ways. Cause some of those people don't want you to win. Okay. So they'll talk you out of something. Some of those people want you to win and feel good right now, but they're reinforcing something that's not gonna work. Okay. So you have to fucking not listen to anyone, but the actual consumer that you

• 43:37Andy Frisella?

  were unaffiliated with, that note that is like legitimately either buying the product or not. And when you're first starting out, what ends up happening is people don't pay attention to those metrics. And because like this guy says, I'm not making any money. Things aren't happening. They'll switch from thing to thing to thing to thing. You know, they'll go one year down the road and be like, this isn't fucking working. They'll go two years down the road. They'll be like, this doesn't work. I'm gonna try something else. And then that doesn't work for two years. And then they try something else. And then that doesn't work for two years. And then they try something else. And before they know it, they're 50 fucking years old and nothing's worked. And they think it's them when in reality, they just didn't let the fucking cake bake. Okay. You have to

• 44:19Andy Frisella?

  understand that time is a real component to success for very practical reasons. One, uh, and the main one is that word of mouth takes time. Now we live in a great society where word of mouth can spread instantly, but it still takes time. We are very fortunate to live in this time because like when I grew my first business, something with super stores, that shit didn't exist. So I had to create a good experience, have someone go out to, you know, their Friday night party or whatever, right? And hope that they have a conversation that comes up and where I get a good story and they, they recommend somebody. That's not the case anymore. You can get that instantly. So we could speed this process up tremendously. But a year's still in it.

• 45:04Andy Frisella?

  No, fuck it dude, you can't do anything in a fucking year. Yeah. Bro, you, you, you, you, it takes longer to take a shit. Yeah, right. Okay, like, like dude, a year is nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing. But seven years of the same thing not producing a result. Now we have. That's not good either. Okay? So you have to pay attention and you have to understand that things take time. What if I had quit? What if I had quit three years in when I still hadn't made a dollar? Fuck. Okay, no, I want to think, I want you to really think about the impact, not just my personal success, the impact. What, what would have not happened had I quit? You see what I'm saying? Yeah, bro. You guys definitely wouldn't be listening to the show right now. No, you wouldn't be listening to the show. Uh, Live Hard, 75 Hard, never been created.

• 45:49Andy Frisella?

  MSCEO never created, Real AF never created. Uh, you know, companies that employ thousands of people never created. I mean, fuck dude. None of this shit would exist if I would have quit after three years when I wasn't getting fucking paid. So, and, and fortunately for me, there was times where I wanted to quit, that my situation didn't allow me to quit because I didn't have any other options. So that gets into another principle, you know, zero option mentality. In the beginning, you may not have any other options. You may not have something to fall back on. That's a fucking blessing. All right, but as you become more and more successful, more and more comfortable, it becomes a game mentally that you have to trick yourself that you don't have another option. Like to this day, to this day, and people laugh when I say this, but I, I fucking truly believe it.

• 46:32Andy Frisella?

  And what taught me this was my first 10 years where I had to fucking just grind it the fuck out. I will tell people, I say, you've heard me say this a number of times. I'm like, bro, I don't have a choice. Like if this doesn't work, I'll be digging ditches. I don't have any other skills. And you truly believe that? Yeah, well, yes, I do. I feel like you do, but you know. I figure it out, right? Like I've developed some other skills now. Like I'm pretty damn good at public speaker, you know, I could fucking figure out something else, but the point is, is that in my heart and in my mind, this shit has to work. Okay, and now it has to work because I got all these people relying on me, dude. I got thousands of people fucking on my back every motherfucking day. If I don't fucking win, bro, they lose too. So that is zero options, right? So the zero option mentality.

• 47:16Andy Frisella?

  evolves from you to the responsibilities that you carry and you have to keep that pressure on yourself to make sure that you don't get too comfortable to fucking flake the fuck out and lose your shit. So, so yeah, dude, it's, it's a, it's a learning curve and everybody who starts out, they always start out, you know, feeling like this guy does. Uh, but the reality is dude, I, you know, if you got a good plan, you probably, I'm assuming he has a good plan. Okay. He probably just hasn't had enough time for the cake to bake. All right. And by the way, when I say there's businesses that won't work, most businesses can be made to work with just a few adjustments.

• 47:54Andy Frisella?

  All right. But if like you come out with like a widget that nobody fucking needs or wants, it doesn't matter how much you market it. It doesn't matter, you know, like it just doesn't matter.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So check the metrics.

• 48:05Andy Frisella?

  Pay attention, be aware.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Check your time.

• 48:08Andy Frisella?

  Right. And, and make sure that you understand that like, bro, you'll never get there by starting over every single time. You know, oh, I ran that eight miles, but I ran it this way. I'm going to try running it this way. No, dude, you just keep fucking going. Adjust your, adjust the way you're running right on the spot and keep moving, you know? So those are the pitfalls of both sides of that equation. And again, you know, it's nuanced. You want to know where the fuck you are. You want to know if it's going to work. Be conscious of the time. Ask yourself, will this work in three more years or will this work in two more years? And be honest. All right. Can you see it working? Do you know how to make it work? Will it work when it's ideal? These are real things that you have to think about. And, you know, we get on the internet and we look around and everybody's like, oh yeah, just fucking, you know,

• 48:53Andy Frisella?

  you're going to make your dreams come true selling fucking, you know, toothpicks for your ear. No, that shit doesn't, that's not something that somebody needs. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But motherfucker came up with the Q-tip for the ear and then that worked. Okay. What's the difference between a Q-tip and a fucking toothpick? Not very much. All right.

• 49:13Andy Frisella?

  I know you're trying to make a joke there, but, but the point is, is that that's a slight evolution that makes a massive difference. You see what I mean? Absolutely, dude. I love it, man. I love it, guys. Andy, that was three. Yep. Hell of a way to start a Monday, bro. All right, guys, don't forget, we got CTI Live tonight at 7 Central. Join us. We're going to talk about all the wonderful, amazing things that are going on right now in the world, and then we're gonna make fun of them. It's gonna be fun. Yeah. So come see us. 7 PM. Don't be a hoe. Show the show.