REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 11. Real Talk: 5 Steps You Can Take To Power Through Dark Times

Episode Date: March 5, 2020

I recently had a stint where I was going through some dark times in my life. As some of you may know, I've been clinically diagnosed with depression. If you're going through a similar situation, know that it's nothing to be embarrassed about. Resources are available to help you in these difficult times. In todays episode, I share with you 5 steps that will help you power through your dark times.

I told my teacher, dumb bitch, I'm gonna get millions. Watch this. In a project living. Damn. Spoke it till existence. Wallow. Mode changed to 50. What up?

Got more cars than diddy. I only weigh 180, but my watch cost 250. What's up, guys? Andy Frisella here, and this is the show for the realists. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society, and welcome to motherfucking reality. Guys, today, I've got a very special real talk episode. If you follow me and you pay attention close, you know that the last couple

weeks of my life have been one of the darkest times I've had to deal with. Not for any particular reason. There was no tragedy. There was no bad thing that happened. It was just me going through a very difficult time. As you guys know, if you follow the old MFCEO Project show, you know that I struggle with depression. I've been diagnosed with depression. I've dealt with mental health issues basically for the last 20 years. It's something that I talk about consistently, not because I want to be vulnerable or be real, but more so because I feel like there's so many

people out there that present themselves to be these bulletproof superhero characters when it comes to entrepreneurship. And I feel like that actually hurts people's ability to succeed. You know, I have people approach me every single day. Yesterday, I was at my local gun store here. And one of the guys who I've known for a long time thanked me for talking about this consistently because he, as he communicated to me, which is the reason I do this, he said, look, man, when you struggle with these things and you see all these people succeeding, it makes you feel like you can't succeed. And so while I'd rather not, as you guys know,

I don't share a lot about my personal life. I'd share a little bit, but I'm sort of a private dude. And one reason I talk about these things consistently is for people just like my friend that I was just telling you about. You know, you might be struggling out there and you might be someone who has dark times and everybody goes through hard times, guys. Everybody does. It's just for some people, it just gets really, really, really bad to the point where, you know, and I'm just saying this, you know, you consider the alternative of ending your life. That's a real thought for a lot of people. And I know a lot of people that doesn't make sense to, I know a lot of

you guys listening right now. And you hear that you think of it as like weak and you think of it as like a crutch or a selfish thing. And you know what? I used to think about it like that too, uh, until it happened to me. And then I started to realize that it's really not, uh, the thing that I thought it was before. And so the reason I talk about it guys is because I want you guys to understand that if you're struggling with these things, if you have severe darkness, if you're dealing with depression, it doesn't mean that you can't build an amazing life. And it doesn't mean that you don't have a future. And it doesn't mean that you can't do anything. I could tell you for a fact, whether they be

an athlete or an entrepreneur or an artist, a music artist or any of these things, a lot of these people struggle, man. And they don't talk about it because it's embarrassing, right? It makes us feel weak, makes us feel, I don't know, like it just makes us feel weak. I guess that's the best way to say it. And so, especially with men, there's a lot of like pride and ego and things that really make it tough for a lot of men to talk about and be about. And you don't have to talk about it. You don't have to be transparent about it. You could deal with it. All right. But I talk about it because I want you to know that it's still possible to kick ass when you're dealing with these things. And so what I wanted to do today is I wanted to go through five steps real quick

that I think can help you when it comes to getting through these tough times. And these are things that I literally have learned about myself through some realizations I've had over the last month or so. And some of these things came from other periods of time where I went through that. But I made this note in my phone, and I'm just going to go through it, man, to myself so that I could go back and recognize how to get out of these dark times. And that's why I've put it in my phone. So I would just like to share these five steps that I've learned that will help you manage some of these dark times that you're dealing with as well. So the first thing that I want you to learn how to do is this.

Learn what your triggers are, okay? What causes you to start going down that path? If you learn to recognize it, it's going to become easier to prevent it. And when you can prevent it, that's a hell of a lot easier than trying to dig out of the hole once you're in it. So for me, one of the things that triggers me is obviously I'm in a high stress position. I run a bunch of different companies and none of them are small. All right. So I'm constantly being asked. I'm constantly being overwhelmed. And this is going to sound stupid

to you guys, but one of my triggers is getting asked too many questions, all right? Because I constantly have people asking me things, and I'm not saying asking me for things, but they're asking me things. Instead of taking the time to go teach themselves the answer, they just continually ask me and ask me and ask me. And guys, we only have so many decisions that we can make in a day with our emotional energy. So what happens to me is I don't stop this from happening. And I let people just keep asking me and asking me and asking me and asking me, and it wears me the fuck out. And so I can realize that that's a trigger for me that I have

to actually pull away and really kind of just tell people like, hey, can you find that answer on Google? Yeah. Well, go fucking Google it. All right. And not only am I saving myself by doing that, I'm helping them learn how to learn new things on their own. So while that may feel rude to do, it's something I have to do to protect my ability because when I shut down, dude, I shut down for weeks at a time where I won't even show up to do. It's something I have to do to protect my ability because when I shut down, dude, I shut down for weeks at a time where I won't even show up to work. All right. So I know that that's one

of my triggers and now I'm aware of it. So now I can handle it. When people start to unload their emotional shit onto me and they ask me a bunch of questions, I can stop that. All right. So you might have a different trigger, but I'm just explaining my situation with you guys. Point number two, stay in your routine, all right? Get up, shower, train, eat good. It's hard as fuck when you feel the way that you feel and you're going through these dark times, but the structure of you staying in a routine

will help pull you back to normalcy, okay? During this dark time, I happen to be on phase three of 75 hard, and that's been a huge blessing for me during this time. Because normally, when I would go through one of these dark phases, I would literally stay in bed all day long, okay? For weeks at a time. I know that sounds excessive, but it's true, okay? Weeks at a time, not get out of bed, run shit through my phone. It's possible, okay?

So one of the things about 75 Hard and the Live Hard program is that it forces you to get up. It forces you to take the cold shower. It forces you to train. It forces you to get outside. It forces you to eat properly. And since I'm such a stubborn motherfucker

and I refuse to lose, I will push through my negative feelings in the dark times to make sure I get those done. Now, are they being done, you know, to the best of my abilities? Probably not. But the truth is I'm doing them the best that I can do them at the time that I can do them. And that counts for a lot. So guys, staying with the routine. Now I'm not plugging 75 hard, but if you're not doing it and you haven't done it, you should fucking do it. I guess that's a plug, but it's the truth too. All right. So point number

two, stay in your routine. Point number three, take the negative energy you have and put it out in the form of positive action. If you use the negativity as fuel, what you're doing is you're essentially taking something that cripples others and using it to propel you into new areas of success. Okay. The excitement of that alone is going to help you get back on track because you're going to know, yeah, dude, even though I feel like shit, even though I'm having a hard time, even though I'm going through this dark period of time, I'm still gaining ground on the people I'm competing against. If you can learn to take the negative and instead of letting it stop you,

letting it drive you into doing effective tasks that are going to help you get where you want to, dude, that is the ultimate competitive advantage, all right? So learn how to take negative energy and put it out in the form of positive action. Doesn't matter how dark it is. I know what it feels like to have zero motivation, but remember this kind of links back with point number two, which is stay in your routine. All right. So understand that when it gets dark, when it's hard, when it's tough,

when you're battling through these times, all the people you're competing against, those people are quitting. That creates a gap between you and them every single time. Every single time they shut it down and you keep going, you're improving and they're not. And that should make you feel good. And it's going to help put you back on the right track. Okay. Point number four, sometimes you just need a fucking day to rest. All right. Sometimes you need two days to rest, but never

longer than two, never longer than two days out of your routine ever. Okay. Because it becomes easy to make that three, four, five days. All right. So getting a day to yourself, to rest, to lay in bed and not do shit, that doesn't mean anything. Sometimes that's what exactly what you need and that's okay. All right. So understand that sometimes you just are going to need a day and you might need two days, but do not let it go past two days. Going past two days is going to fuck up your routine. It's going to make your mentality worse. You know it and I know it. All right.

So know the difference of when you need that day. That's point number four. And point number five is this. If you're in charge and a lot of you are because this is an entrepreneur success-based show. That's just what it is. And you can't control your emotions. You can't control your darkness, which I have a problem with, to be completely honest. Stay away from the office. When you're in a bad mood or in a dark place, it's a lot better for business to not have, you know, a negative tornado ripping through the office, ruining everybody else's fucking mood.

This is something that I have learned by actually creating problems that I didn't need to have that were only created because I was in that dark place. So then what happened is the momentum started to compound because I go through the office. I fucking, you know, bring everybody down. I distract them. I get them off track, which creates more problems for me as the owner. So if you're the owner or you're the operator or you're the head honcho, whatever the fuck you want to call yourself and you're in this place, fuck dude, stay away, man. It'll cost you money. If you have to stay away for two days and then you come back, people will never even know that

you were fucked up. So now you come back in the office as normal and everybody's still on track. This one took me a long time to learn. I used to unload all my stuff on everybody, man. And it's something that I think has cost me a lot of time and progress and certainly cost me some good employees over the years. So learning how to manage and stay away when you know that you can't control it is a big part. So let me review these five steps. And guys, I'm sure there's a hundred more. And if you need more steps for this, you know, follow other people that talk about this consistently. You know, Dr. Nicole LaPera, the holistic psychologist, she's my favorite. But here's the review, okay? One, learn what your triggers are.

Two, stay in your routine no matter what. Three, take the negative energy and put it out in the form of positive action. Four, recognize if you are at the point where you just need a day. Know the difference between maybe you're being a little bit of a wuss and maybe you actually do need a day. Know that difference. Okay. And number five, if you're the head honcho and you're in these places, stay the fuck

away from your team. Don't go in your office and let everybody know that you're all fucked up. Tell them you're not feeling well and stay the fuck home. Don't unload your shit on them because all that does is create more problems for you. And you might unknowingly trigger one of them to go into a dark place too, because you're putting all kinds of pressure and anxiety and bad things into their brain. So think about it like that. It's a bad business decision. So guys, that's pretty much it, man. That's the five steps that I think helped me the most pull out of these dark times much faster. And if you're going through one

of these dark times, guys, right now, understand it's going to pass. Everything is cyclical. There's going to be highs. There's going to be good times. And there's also going to be bad times. And as corny as it sounds you have to understand that without these bad times you wouldn't even know what the good times were so keep that in mind too guys look everything that you want to achieve if you're a driven person if you're trying to become a high operating individual if you want to win you're going to go through this shit it's just part of the deal that we fucking signed up for all right but these five tips will help you pull out of it get back on track

much much sooner now guys that's the show but as i always try to remember to ask i don't always remember to ask if you like the show if it helped you if you learn something which i think the show is really going to hit a lot of you guys the right way in terms of giving you some tools, please share the show. I don't run a bunch of ads. I'm not trying to sell you a whole bunch of bullshit. That's not what this is about. This is about helping other people figure out what their problems are and getting them on track so that they can fucking live a better life and they can learn to win. All right. So if you get anything out of this and you thought it was a value, I really appreciate it.

If you shared it, if you help it grow and you help us, you know, get out there for it to help other people. So guys, I love you guys. I appreciate you guys. And I'll see you next time.

Told my teacher, dumb bitch. I'm going to get millions in the project. Spoke it to the existence. I'm from where you can't trust. So welcome.