REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 197. Q&AF: Starting From Scratch, Taking Capital Investments & Becoming Truly Undeniable

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

In today's episode, Andy answers your questions on the path he would take in business if he had to start over from scratch, the pros & cons of taking capital investment when starting your business, and what to do if your boss doesn't or refuses to see that you're becoming undeniable.

What is up guys, it's Andy Frisella and this is the show for the realest. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society and welcome to Motherfucking Reality. Guys, today we have Q and AF. And what that means is DJ is going to ask me three questions and I'm going to give you the AF answer on them. All right. But before we get into that, we do have a fee for the show. And the fee is very simple. If you like the show, if it makes you laugh, if it taught you something, if it's something that changed your perspective, if it's a value, share the show. Okay. Uh, we don't run ads on the show. I don't run ads for the show. I take pride and we as a team here take pride in growing this show organically through word of mouth, which means if we do a good job, you guys share it.

And we've done very good on that relationship, and I love doing it that way. It's something that we take a lot of pride in. So if the show's good, share it. If the show sucks, don't share it. We're totally cool with that. All right? So what do we got, dude?

We got three questions. We got some shareable shit. I know that. Do we? Yeah. All right, good. We got three questions for you guys as always you can email your questions into ask andy and andy for seller.com send those in so before i got a question for you before we get started yeah so i saw you uh this weekend doing leaves oh again yep yep you did so wasn't there a show that we put out within the

last i don't know six weeks where i said don't fucking do the leaves there absolutely was andy there was wasn't wasn't there a clip there was yeah we should maybe let's let's play that clip there you go yeah so dj's got a house basically in my old neighborhood that I had with a million fucking trees. Listen, it's a beautiful part of town. He's got all these huge mature trees and he's having his, uh,

he's having a realization about, about, uh, how handy he really is. And so my friend Scott lives in my old house that used to be right over where his new house is. And so I see DJ on his Instagram, like fucking piles of leaves, four foot high and shit. And I am laughing my ass off, dude. And I text the screenshot of it over to Scott.

And I say, hey, Scott, go watch DJ's story. And dude, we had this conversation. And I was like, bro, I'm like, so what did you do with your leaves? He's like, oh, I was out there raking. Now, Scott's lived there for like what? Fucking eight, nine years now. And he's out there doing his leaves and shit. And he's like, fuck it, his leaves and shit and he's like

fuck it i'm calling someone to do it and i'm like bro you still haven't figured out like that you're gonna call someone like what do you what do you guys you're gonna you're gonna call someone to figure it out anyway so why do you waste like three weeks of your life doing a little raking a little raking a little raking when you know you're gonna call someone honestly you know what it is for me like i said it's pride like like you know first house like i want to take care of being smart is knowing when you're stupid that's that's very very true all right and i know that now yeah like bro some of these jobs they're just best left to the paid professionals i agree i agree get yourself a you know some battery operated power tools go out in the garage

squeeze the trigger a couple times and make you feel good. And then go back inside and let motherfuckers, let professionals handle it. That's it. Like, bro. I'll come drink a beer when they're done.

That's what I'm saying, man. Like, you know, dude, that's an unwinnable battle in that part of St. Louis. Yeah. Like, you can't win that battle. Dude, it's miserable.

Yeah. And like, that's the thing because like, I fucking hate them. All right. So what do you have to say for yourself? Well, you know, Ricky was not available.

He was not available. There's more than one dude that does leaves. I didn't want just a good, I wanted the fucking dude. Oh, okay. All right. This sounds bullshit. Nope, dude. Nobody was fucking available.

Here look dude. Nobody was. Look dude, we just spent the last two fucking years telling everybody what the fuck was going on in the world. And, you know, every day DJ's like, man, if they would just listen to us, we wouldn't be in this shit. What do you got to say for yourself? I got

it done, and I'm on the books for next year. Did you get it done? I got it done. I got it all done. Problem is, I fucking walked out the house this morning. There's more! There's more! It's an unwinnable battle bro there's not as many listen granted there's not as many i won't lead you the wrong way bro hey man i'm on the books for next year all right so rick is gonna take care of you're stupid this year yeah i'm a fucking idiot man just making sure you know oh i know i know i know we're not

afraid to pull out the receipts on this show. No, no, not at all. Not at all. But yeah, so I'm on the books next year. So it's all good. It's all good. There's something about taking pride in it. I don't know. Like it's,

you know, first crib. I get it. I'm just, but it is fucking stupid. I'll be, I know it's no, they're listen,

people are listening right now and they're thinking like, Oh, listen to Andy bust his balls about the DJ. I want to, you don't understand. No, I lived in this neighborhood, okay? And this neighborhood is an unwinnable neighborhood

when it comes to leaves. It's a forest. Dude, there's hundreds of big, mature trees everywhere. You cannot win the battle. That's all I'm trying to say. It's an unwinnable battle. And you'll very rarely hear me say that sometimes you just gotta know when to fold them

I should've fucking folded them man but it's funny too cause my neighbor comes out so I battle my yard looks fucking way better than his which I take pride in that cause that's who I battle with but I was talking to him so I get done

I'm going back up to the front cleaning up some shit and he's like yeah well you got that big one there it looks like it has probably another another month or two before if drops his last leaves oh yeah motherfucker get the fuck away from me right now i just spent the last five hours fucking went through fucking three gallons of fucking gas no great by the way yeah and. You didn't have one of those Tesla mowers? No. The South says I need a bigger one, so it's possible. No, man. It's all good, man.

I'm a dumbass this year. I learned my lesson. We're going to pay out next year. How much you guys want to fucking bet next year he does the same shit? I want this bet now. Now I'm definitely taking it. A hundred. He'll forget. Easily. 100 bucks 100 bucks all right listen don't talk about it ever again he'll forget

i'm booking that shit yeah all right three questions for you let's knock these out the first question andy so 23 years in business okay if you had to start everything over like right now right like right this second okay and start from scratch would you pick a different field of business or would you stay in the health and fitness space and dominate this again like what would you do well there's conditions on that question if i start over right now do i know all the shit i know about this everything oh well then yeah why would i fucking why would i go want to learn something else i already know about you know you when you know that when you know that much about something inside and out you'd you'd be an idiot to go out there and try to fucking wreck your brain

doing it again yeah i've already paid those dues i don't want to pay them again see that's what people don't understand your your knowledge you're you're going to develop and like dude i built several successful companies in different areas okay um but like when i think about what I would do differently or if I would, I, I don't know. Like, it's a weird thing. Like,

I think like five years ago, I probably would have said what I just, what I was just trying to say. Like, why would I fucking do that? But now I'm starting to understand, um, on a macro level,

how the principles actually can be put into play anywhere. So maybe I would, I don't know. I see the thing is though, dude, is I like this line of work. Like I really enjoy it. So it's not like work to me. Like we actually help people change their lives. You know, everything I do, everything I'm involved in helps people change. You know, this podcast helps people get better. Um, the speaking part of my business, RIT, those improved people, first form improves people, uh, S2 improves people. Like we can go down the list and list all the different things, but they all make people better, you know? Um, so we start talking about tequila, you know, it gets a little different different but it might be better

for some people yeah listen it makes you have a better time i might go to jail i don't know yeah but i mean the point is is like i enjoy that like i don't know anywhere else in any other line of business where i think i would be as good because what i genuinely care about is the stories that we create you know what what I mean? Like, so with like 75 horror, the reason I pour myself into 75 horror, the way I do is because I know it actually changes people's lives. So, you know, I don't think it's a, I don't, yeah, I don't think I would do something different. Like, cause there's just not that many places where you can get a piece of that

feeling you know like you can go other places and make money yeah you know what i mean but like there's something about seeing someone and this is what got me into this business uh permanently after we were in it for 10 years and this is the decision i've told you guys before you know there's something about seeing someone who's 100 pounds overweight come back, you know, six, eight, 10 months later and not be 100 pounds overweight. And have tears in their eyes talking about how much better their life is, how much better their relationship is, the confidence that they now have, um, you know, and then seeing how it emotionally, uh, affects them, bro, you can't get that in other things. So, you know, for me to switch, I'd have to be in a scenario where I could get that sort of result, because honestly, that's where my biggest source of fulfillment comes from. It doesn't come from money. Yeah.

You know, I've had money for a while now and I have enough money to do whatever the fuck I want to do literally anytime I want to do it. Yeah. So I do have my choice to do whatever the fuck I want to do. And I continue to choose this so that I think that kind of speaks for itself. Yeah. You know, I show up here every motherfucking day i was here an hour after i got out of surgery bro yeah you know what i'm saying

that says something so i probably wouldn't change because i do have a true passion for the results driven side of this industry you know what i mean because i've been i've been the before picture right i've been there many times yeah and i know how much better i feel and how much more improved my life is uh being the after and going through that process and how many people were affected positively through that process like dude there's just a lot to it, man. And I'm incredibly grateful to be exactly where I'm at, doing exactly what I do with the exact people I do it with. And so, like, if shit melted down and we had to start over, I think most people here would be down to do it again. Or down to build, like, because, dude, the truth is that's what we're doing anyway.

Yeah. You know, we're a lot of people from the outside. Look at what we got going on here. And they think, oh yeah, they fucking made it. But everybody here has the attitude of this.

This is the beginning. Like they don't understand what our goals actually are. So most of the people that are here now understand that we're at the beginning of the journey, not the end of the journey. We've been working 20 plus years just to get the financial resources and the opportunities and the relationships built and the knowledge built and the experience built to do the things that we want to do.

Right. Yeah. And most people here have that anyway. So like we kind of are starting from scratch you know yeah so that's you know that's the 10 minute answer yeah no that's perfect that's perfect and so so going from that right the second question ties into that a little bit so you know you you've talked about how when you and Chris started, you guys didn't get help from nobody. Like there was nothing there.

What are your thoughts on, you know, companies that are in the growing phase, in the beginning phases, taking capital investments from other people in today's economy? Like, what are your thoughts on that now? Well, dude, look, you can always move faster when you take on capital. And that's where the appeal is, right? You can move faster because you leverage on capital and that's where the the appeal is right you could move faster because you leverage other people's money we never did that yeah um and the main reason we never did that was because honestly i didn't feel skilled enough to go to battle with someone else's money um now i know i am obviously uh but i still don't now because I don't have to now. Now I just use my own money, you know, but, uh, you know, there's a lot of situations

where practically it makes a lot of sense to have, like, if you're going to grow fast, bro, you're going to need money because you're going to need to scale. You're going to need inventory. You're going to need, uh, to pay out payroll. You're going to need money because you're going to need to scale. You're going to need inventory. You're going to need to pay out payroll. You're going to need to pay product advances. There's all kinds of things that come down the pipe where you've got to have capital that exceeds what your normal, you know, working capital would be. So sometimes you have to do it. If you want to get there in a certain amount of time, if you don't want to get there in a certain amount of time, you know, and you're just in it it i prefer to do the shit my own way uh that way no one ever has leverage on me i

don't have to answer to anybody and now you know here i am uh where i don't owe anybody anything yeah you know what i'm saying and so like i'm in that place now where I can accelerate my own success by just investing my own money as if it were someone else's. Right. Um, but I paid a price for that for the first 20 years. Like I probably could have got a lot faster, but here's the fucking thing that I want to say about this is that most people are not skilled enough to take money from other people. Right. We, we, in this entrepreneur culture that we have right now, it's people are talking about how much money they raised instead of how much shit they sold.

Yeah. And here's the thing that you need to understand. Um, if you're going to borrow money, you better have the fucking skillset to be able to back that shit up. Like, don't be trying to learn on someone else's money because that's going to get you out of business,

right? You'll go make a mistake. You'll owe the money. You won't be, have a chance to pay it back. You're done. Yeah. All right. And then that sticks with you forever, right? You'll be known as that guy. That's right. That's right. So when I look back, if I'm giving my honest feedback, when I look back on my first 10 years in business, bro, I was super bitter because no one would ever give us money. Like it wasn't like I wasn't trying to get money. It was that nobody would loan it to us. So, but now I look back and I'm like, fuck dude, that's a really good thing. No one ever gave you money because you were fucking stupid and you would have done this and this and this, and you would have never even gotten to this place that I'm in now because the whole reason I've gotten here is because I had to

push through without the money. Right. Right. So the reason my tools are sharp and the reason I know my shit and the reason I have skills when it comes to the game of entrepreneurship is because I had to develop them to survive. So there's value in both. But the one thing I would say to most young entrepreneurs right now is that A, it's about what you sell and about how many people buy from you more than once. That's what it's about, okay? It's not about how much money you raised.

It's not about, you know, and then if you want to say one thing further, it's about the story they tell about that, um, after the transaction, but like, dude, most people honestly, um, are not at a skill level where I would recommend them taking money. You know, people's instant gratification, uh, wants is always like, I want to get, you know, so if I could just get a million dollars, if I could just get 2 million bucks, I could do this and this and this. But really, dude, what you would do is you would take that $2 million instead of investing it in real infrastructure that will grow your business. I promise you, you would try to like pull some marketing scam

and do some entrepreneur math. You know, entrepreneur math is where you pull out your calculator and you start saying shit like this. Oh you know all i gotta do is sell 15 of those at this much price and this and this and i'm good yeah like and that shit don't ever add up you know i'm saying that's a big mistake on your way to go get the least lamborghini yeah yeah right and that shit just never it never makes sense um it never turns out to be real so you know i I think it's important to be financially educated and to understand when it's appropriate to take debt and when it's not appropriate to take that. I think it's important to analyze your own wants and desires as to why you're doing that. Do you need to take the debt or are you impatient? Do you have a good reason for the debt or are you going to spend it on some

bullshit? Right. Cause I hear a lot of people too. They say shit like this. Oh yeah, dude, I'm going to take some money off the table, my own company. And you know, I'll, I'm going to take this and then I'm, I'm going to still own this share. And it's like the whole reason they're taking money off the table, the company is because they want to live a lifestyle and like bro a real being good in entrepreneurship will provide you the lifestyle organically if you just focus on

being good instead of trying to leverage your way to it yeah you know so i know a lot of people will say different things but like fuck dude that's how i did it that's how i'm here that's how I did it. That's how I'm here. That's how I have all of these things going, and I owe nobody fucking anything. And that's extremely valuable. Nobody can fucking pinch me on fucking anything. Nobody has my fucking balls. I do whatever the fuck I need to do. If I need more money, I get out my checkbook. Mine.

Yours. Yeah. And that's a good place to be. So you got to decide where it is you want to be. And my main thing is this. Don't get impatient and take on money that you don't need because your friends and everybody around you talks about getting the money. You're not going to be able to fake it till you make it. I see a lot of the guys do this shit. They go out, they get some money and they start driving nicer shit. They're flat. They think that's going to make them legitimate in business. It doesn't.

Okay. The only thing that's going to make you legitimate in business is being fucking great at it. So focus on that. Yeah. You know what I'm saying saying don't focus on taking money focus on making money yeah you know that's real yeah fucking awesome all right our third and final question for you andy so and by the way there are plenty of opportunities that come along where you may need to take money temporarily like i understand like i don't want anybody to take that answer as oh i'm against taking debt i'm just against taking debt that you don't actually need so yeah because i mean especially right now it's fucking people are willing to give you money for free like it's they never gave me money all right our third and final question andy so this term undeniable okay it's it's fucking powerful when it comes to be to being truly undeniable right and and showing that value

to your boss is it do you believe it's possible that that boss will never see that person that that employee or maybe will refuse to see that employee, sees it as a threat maybe. As that employee, how should they handle that? Well, of course that's possible. That's why it's important that you evaluate the culture structure of a business. That's why it's important that you talk to people who have been there for many years. That's why it's important for you to talk to people who have moved up within the company and see what their experience has been like. Yeah. Right. Of course that's possible. There's a lot of people out there that don't

truly give a fuck and they will promise you everything and deliver you nothing no matter how hard you work. So being, being in the right organization is a fucking super important part of that. Yeah. Right. Like you could go give yourself a million percent to the wrong organization and they might tell you too bad. So sad. You know what I'm saying? So it's about being in the right place too. So you have to like pay attention and do your homework and see if they're actually trying to grow. You know, a lot of what I see companies do from a leadership standpoint is they talk about these big goals they have or these big visions they have, but they don't follow through in real world. Right.

Like instead of taking, uh, you know, $5 million and fucking invest it into the company, they'll take that $5 million and go buy a fucking beach house. Yeah. Right? Like, you got to pay attention

to what motherfuckers are doing. And by the way, if your CEO buys the beach house and fucking puts it in the company, you can't say shit. Cool. Right. Right.

Because he's doing his part, reinvesting and building your fucking future there. Right. And that should be respected. But what's not respected is when motherfuckers say, oh, we're going to do this

and this and this and this and this and then pull all the money off the table for themselves all the time. People aren't stupid. They see it, you know? And so for you to have your employees buy into your company or your vision, you have to actually be building that vision. You can't trick them. Right. And here's the other part that i see a lot of these guys these guys and girls ceos that don't understand when you do that it starts with just one person like one person notices it right and then they start saying they say to the other guy in the break room hey man you know fuck dude this guy's saying he's gonna do this but like i don't see him doing any of that like yeah where's this move where's that. And by the way, the guy just bought a new beach house. Right. Then you got three, then you got

five. Then you got, that's the quickest way to ruin your culture is to be full of shit. Okay. So stand for the, what you say you're going to do. Okay. Understand that if you own a business, you're responsible for those people's careers. Take it serious and understand that if you own a business you're responsible for those people's careers take it serious and understand that if you build out their careers they're going to help you build out your careers and that's how the fuck it works so yeah it's really simple i feel like it gets overshadowed by people who think they're undeniable and they're really not of course you know there's that too yeah yeah there's that's the whole other flip side like dude so many people fuck i had this fucking dude reach out my dms and and tell me how great he was yeah you know

and it's like well bro i don't if i if you were that great i'd fucking know it you see what i'm saying like i'm not out of touch to who's fucking who inside where. Right. Like, and so do people do overvalue themselves? And actually, that's a huge problem. And the reason that people overvalue themselves is because we live in a soft-ass culture where people fucking think that getting out of bed, going to work, paying your bills, working hard is some sort of fucking bragging achievement.

No, motherfucker, that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to do that every day. Right. If you want to be undeniable, you have to exceed that standard. Right. Right. So a lot of people think that just getting up,

doing the normal shit. Oh yeah. I take care of my body. I read, I fucking put in hard work at work. I'm killing it. You, maybe you are.

I don't know if you are, you aren't compared to what? Yeah. But at the bottom line, that's the fuck you're supposed to be doing. And if you want to build an actual career, if you want to build a, you know,

a lucrative position in life that pays you well, you have to become fucking undeniably great with skills, not a opinion, not, you know, public your, your friends in the break room all think you're great i'm talking about you're putting numbers on the motherfucking scoreboard that are undeniable that you could show someone and say look dude boom right you see what i'm saying like that's truly undeniable shit and so um and numbers on the scoreboard can appear in many

different ways by the way you know like there's and numbers on the scoreboard can appear in many different ways by the way you know like there's cultural numbers on the scoreboard like uh figuratively speaking yeah you know what i'm saying there's uh people who contribute to the team there's people who represent certain core values that are valuable just because they represent those core values in such a great way so there's all different kinds of ways to be valuable, you know, but undeniability comes with skillset, bro. You know,

so if you're not trying to be undeniably great, you're probably going to always feel like you're being overlooked. You're probably going to always feel like you're getting lost in the crowd. You're probably going to always feel like you're getting slided when in reality, it's not any of those things it's that you have set your standards to a point that is considered average for high level fucking people right like what most people think a win is for me is not a win right when most people come to me at these events and they're like i do this this is this like i don't really get excited because i look at them and i'm like well i hope you're doing that right

that's like the basic shit right you know what i'm saying right and so we have to be real about what constitutes high skill level and high performance and guys that's not just effort that's not just how long you've been there. We're talking about producing real, actual results. And we've created this scenario in society where people are willing to do everything to appear to be undeniable, but are fucking so unwilling to do the work required

to actually become undeniable. And that's the problem. Yeah. Fuck, that's fire that's fucking three man that's three you should go pay the fee yeah that's three pay the fee guys for real dude look i love doing these shows uh we love doing the shows help us grow the show help us get the the message out. All right. Love you guys. Appreciate you guys. Talk to you next time.