REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 222. Q&AF: How To Know When To Change Your Plan, Dealing With Actual Struggles & Introvert To Extrovert

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

In today's episode, Andy answers your questions on when you should reevaluate your game plan when working towards your goals, the lessons you can extract from the adversity you've faced, and what is the best way to go from being an introvert into an extrovert.

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 before we get into it um i'd like to remind you of the fee uh the fee is very simple share the show that's the fee so man what's up dude i mean dude look it's just it's real simple and people hear it but they don't necessarily do it and the thing is is like bro i'm not pumping people with a bunch of fucking ads yeah i'm not running fucking shit in their face all day trying to you know i mean like look dude we're out here trying to help people trying to answer their questions do good shit all i ask is is a little shirry shit. That's all.

You know? That could just be a conversation. Yeah, bro. Like, it ain't got to be like this big Instagram post that you make. Talk to your friends about this shit. Well, dude, and especially, man, like, guys, if you've been listening to me for the last two years, you know that I've called all this shit exactly for what it was. And had we had, I mean, yes,

we're a high rank show. We're number one, two or three in business every single day, no matter what. But had we been the number one show in the world, maybe we could have got more shit done. That's all I'm saying. That starts with you guys. So share the show. It does. Guys, I got three questions for you, Andy. And as always, guys, you can email your questions into askandy at andyfrasella.com. And without further ado. Guys, these questions are designed to help you get ahead. Like, what are you trying to do?

Where are you trying to go? Who are you trying to become? All right. A lot of you guys listen over the last couple of years and you come here for the political society commentary. But I'm a decent entrepreneur as well. So I know some shit. Yeah, I know a couple of things. So, like, let me help you with that. You know, that's the purpose we do these Q&A. It's not it. We're trying to serve. So if you think something we can help you with, send it in. We're always looking for good stuff.

All right. So our question number one for help you with, send it in. We're always looking for good stuff. All right. So our question number one for you, Andy, question number one, how often should you reflect on or change up the game plan? I get the, if it's not broke, don't fix a mentality, but should I change it? Well, I mean, dude, look, there's tons of nuance to that question, right? My answer to that question is that most people change things far too rapidly to ever get any real traction. Most people who are trying to build whatever they're trying to build, right? They're trying to build business, their fitness, a life, whatever.

It's all the same. It's the same principles. Most people have zero comprehension of how long it actually takes to get things going. And so what happens is they come up and they get this idea, right? Or this decision that they've come to that they want to build X business, fitness, whatever. and because the world messaging is consistently a fast easy instant we're inundated with you know all these overnight millionaires on instagram and and running ads and we see all this shit every day we start to assume that it's supposed to be quick easy and fast and and then what happens is we start to get down on ourselves because it's not happening for ourselves. And then we abandon our play for a new play. And here's the problem

with that, guys. If you abandon the play that you're trying to run to get where you want to go too early for a new one, and you never give it time to materialize and actually produce fruit, all right, what happens is you spend the next 20 years of your life, every two or three years, or fuck, right now, man, it might be every six months because the time that people are claiming it to become successful is shorter and shorter and shorter. Now there's crypto experts and NFT experts and fucking everybody's getting rich overnight, so to speak. And what I want you to understand is most of that's a lie. All right.

And I don't want you to fall into the trap of abandoning your plan because you see so-and-so doing this over here. And then over here, you got this other knucklehead doing what he's doing. Right. And it makes you feel like you're off track. And so then you come up with a new plan. And what happens is we end up going, you know, every six months to a new thing, to a new thing, to a new thing, to a new thing. And we never give the thing enough time to actually materialize. Right. There's an analogy that I like to use and I've used for many years of farmers. Okay. If a farmer were to go out and plant a seed in the field and then walk out two days later, three days later, four days later,

and look at the fucking hole where he put the seed and say, fuck, it's not working. What would happen to people? We'd starve. Okay. So there's an element of time that has to happen for you to get where you want to go. And that time guys is, I'm sorry to say a lot longer than what you're being told via the social construct that we live in currently. Right. Okay. So we're sold instant gratification and we're sold quick, easy, fast, because that's what the sheep buy. All right. But the wolves don't buy that shit. The wolves understand they got to fucking hunt and they got to hunt consistently. And if they give up on the hunt, guess what they know? They ain't eating.

Yeah. Okay. So don't be the guy or the girl who read throat, scraps their plans every single six months because they think they're on the wrong track. Instead, be the person who sticks their head up every six months because they think they're on the wrong track. Instead, be the person who sticks their head up every six months and says, okay, how can I adjust this plan? How can I improve this plan? How can I take what I've already been doing and actually pivot it into a better direction? And that's what truly successful entrepreneurs do. They look at what

they've done and they might say might say okay what we've done here it's not working the right way but if we just tweaked it like this this is what and that's that's how we learn right right we learn from going through this process and and and it's very frustrating for me as a true uh i don't want to say self-made because i'm not self-made i had a lot of people tell me some really good shit along the way that has helped me. I've had a lot of people work to help build these companies that I'm a part of. And so I don't like the term self-made, but in the way that most people think of it, I'm a self-made person. And as someone who's come from literally zero to where we are now, I want you to understand that the only way we could have got there is by not doing what most

people do, which is three months, six months, scrap the plan, become a new thing. And they do that over and over and over again. And that's a recipe for losing. You'll always lose that way. You're never going to hit a grand slam. Bro, I've never hit a fucking grand slam. I've never hit a home run. Every fucking thing that I've done in business has been singles and bunts and stolen bases. Okay. It's small, it's small things over a long period of time. All right. So don't be that person who scraps all your shit just because you see Tony from the old neighborhood pretending to be successful. Cause he's probably not. And if he is, he's only going to be temporary because the skills required to keep success occur over a long period of time, not in a short period of time. So even

if you were to hit a home run and you were to, let's say, get that NFT that makes you $3 million, motherfucker, you're not going to be able to keep it because you never built the skills. All right. So think about the skills, the skills, pay the motherfucking bills. That's where you want to be. All right, Andy, question number two. So question reads, Andy, I know that you've spoken a lot about the victimhood mentality, and I absolutely agree with you. My question is, what's your advice for someone who actually went through some real pain and real struggle that isn't trying to play the victim card, but is trying to turn their struggle into a story?

Well, look, dude, that's me. You know what I'm saying? Like, dude, I went, I was stabbed in the fucking face, dude. I almost fucking died. I was heavily disfigured for the first two years of that. What you guys see today is not what it looked like for the first two years. It was swollen up the size of grapefruit. I went through massive depression. And by the way, that's only one of the things I've gone through. I've gone through tons of these things. Okay. What you have to do is you have to look at the situation that you're dealing with. And instead of saying, oh dude, poor me, poor me, poor me, start to fucking figure out how the lessons that you've learned can help others. And also what you've learned and how to drive that through forward for example like one of the things that for me was very beneficial of getting stabbed right in the fucking face okay

was um and i didn't realize this until after i pulled my head out of my ass okay so for the first instant lesson no no it took me a year or so to figure it out. I went through this massive depression. Um, I had this, I had this, this amazing experience with this woman who truly, uh, changed my entire perspective of life. Um, and I, I it's in my book. I've talked about it before. Um, and I'm not going to tell the whole story here, but the point is, is that I was in business at the time. Okay. And up until that time, when we got, when I got stabbed in the face, no one cared who we were. Like it was very hard. We would go to trade shows and we would, um, go, go try to meet people and make, you know, do little things to try to get traction. Right. And it was very hard for us to get any traction because we didn't have anything like

we didn't have money we didn't have uh you know we there was nothing special about us right we're just two dudes trying to run a business but when i got stabbed in the face something happened um everybody remembered me everywhere i went okay so now all these people yes because my my face was fucked up all right and and and you might say well fuck that's a heavy price to pay to be remembered and it was and it is but now dude it's a part of me like now 20 years later whatever it is um 19 years later it's a fucking part of who i am could you imagine me if i didn't have them no you see what i'm saying like that's you right so and i've had you know at the time i couldn't afford to get those scars fixed and now i have some of my best friends in the world or best plastic surgeons there are and they're like bro i can take care of that i'm like are you fucking crazy bro you know what i'm saying

yeah so that thing that was actually like my biggest negative and self-criticism thing actually ended up being a blessing because what it did was it allowed us to go to trade shows or allowed me to meet people in the grocery store or it allowed me to do things um to where people will remember me you know before it was hey you know andy and chris from supplement super stores and people were like no no and and then then it became no you you know them the andy the dude with the fucking scars. And they'd be like, oh yeah, dude, I know. And I started to realize at first when I was down in that pity party, I get pissed about that. I was like, dude, fuck those people. That's all they see.

And I would be all bitter and shit. And then when I met that woman in the grocery store who had been burned in the airplane crash, and we had that conversation, a lot of you guys know about, uh, it changed me, dude. You know what I'm saying? And I started to be able to see things for the advantages that they brought, not for the hardships they brought. Okay. And almost every single hardship that you face. And dude, I want to say

this with some real empathy because there are some really horrible things that happen to people. But if you look hard enough, there's something about it that can serve you. There's something about it that can make you better. There's something about it that can help others. And that's what I would give this person. Uh, my advice's like, look for the thing that you learned and try to use that to either move yourself forward or move others forward. And only good things come from that. You know what I mean? So you really have to find the silver lining in these negative situations. And I truly believe that the perspective you choose is the perspective you'll have. And by the way, it is the perspective other people will have. Right. Like nobody walks up to me anymore. And

it's like, Oh dude, your fucking scars on your face. What the fuck happened? Like everybody knows, everybody knows. Right. And that's a great thing because it, it, it, it, it preludes me and sets a precedent for my presence when I walk into a room or when I meet someone or when I, you know what I'm saying? So there's all kinds of things like that like your your hardships if you can learn to see through them can actually become some of the most powerful things in your life that drive you forward and that's how i would encourage someone to think about that's fucking awesome dude reminds me of like derrick wider yeah you don't say like yeah he makes dick jokes with his leg you know i'm saying like it's fucking awesome bro the thing okay so derrick is a great example derrick's a guy who uh was shot through

the leg uh in iraq had he chose to have his leg amputated because it wasn't going to function right anymore and now dude he's one of the best fucking athletes adaptive athletes in the world he inspires literally fucking millions of people okay we just had another young lady who was here with uh an adaptive with uh above the knee amputation who's now in the going to the adaptive the crossfit games okay and this dude has inspired literally millions of people because of of his journey yeah right and it's not been easy for him bro i've been friends with him for a long time dude he's gone through all kinds of mental things and come out the other side of who he is now which is fucking an amazing motherfucker you know what i mean yeah that inspires lots of people so dude

you know how can you use it that's that's what you got to ask how what did you learn how can you use it and dude that's a hard conversation to have with yourself um when bad things happen because dude everybody will remind you of how horrible whatever it is that happened to you no was yeah like so you're constantly you're constantly inundated with other people's sympathy which makes you feel bad about yourself right and you at some point you've got to sit to people hey like dude people say to me when it does come up and they find out like if they don't happen to know what happened they're like holy shit bro i'm sorry it happened i'm like this is the best fucking thing that ever

happened to me dude right look at my life right like this is fucking awesome you see what i'm saying so and dude i could have easily went the other way and i could have easily went the other way and said because dude i was suicidal at that time like i could have easily went the other way. And I could have easily went the other way and said, cause dude, I was suicidal at that time. Like I could have easily killed myself at that point in time. And what would have been, none of this would have been right. You see what I'm saying? So like, dude, we have to take what happens to us in stride. And we have to understand that there's a reason it's happening to us. And Ed, my let my business partner, he says, and one of the smartest dudes I fucking know, he says all the time, it doesn't happen to us. It happens for us.

And I'm a believer in that. You know what I mean? And like, dude, there is horrible things. There's horrible fucking things that some of you guys have gone through. Losing a child, right? Like shit that is like, there's nothing good that you can say of it, but maybe you can be of help to someone else who also is going through the same thing or, you know what I'm saying?

Like there's all kinds of little things that won't necessarily remove the trauma that happens from that, but will help you find some good in that. Yeah. I'm going to be in vain. Right. Exactly. Exactly. That's fucking that. Yeah, I won't be in vain. Right, exactly, exactly. That's fucking awesome.

Andy, our third and final question for you. Andy, I am an introvert. What are your recommendations for someone trying to climb out of this introvert cage when I'm just not a social butterfly? Yeah, that takes practice because I'm an introvert as well. You know, a lot of people think I'm an extrovert. you know, for sure. I'm not. Yeah. Um, because you're with me every day. And when I tell people I am, they don't, they don't understand that I actually am right. Right. Like for me to go to a public event, um, and speak or do it, this is why I don't really do

meet and greets hardly at all, because like, dude, the anxiety that comes with it is really hard for me to deal with. Um, so I have to practice and the way, what, what I came to realize, and this goes for any of you guys, this, every single person who's listening to the show right now should follow this advice because it will improve your life tremendously. I realized, uh, a little over 10 years ago that I had to get better with people. If I was going to be successful and we were going to fulfill our vision for first form and for supplement superstores, um, and for all the other companies that we, that we run, um, I was going to have to get better with people, dude, like more comfortable with people. Like, and, and, and when you throw technology on top of, of the introvert nature of people, right? Like if you're 20 years old right

now and you're an introvert and you've grown up on technology and you're naturally an introvert, you've got like a couple of things bearing you right now. Cause we didn't have that when I grew up. So I still knew how to, how to shake a hand and, you hand, look someone in the eye and make small talk. But most of these younger people right now really are at a disadvantage with that. And you have people telling you, oh, it doesn't matter because it's all technology and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, it does fucking matter, bro. And the people who are good with people are going to win way bigger than the people who

are good on a keyboard. It's just reality. Okay. So how do we get better at that? Well, we have to put ourselves in those situations intentionally. All right. So what I did was I developed a fucking little routine of mine. Um, I lived over here in South County and I went to the South County Deerbergs. Uh, and those are you in St. Louis, you know, what I'm talking about right there, Tesson, Ferry and Kennerly. And I would go in that Deerbergs. And those of you in St. Louis, you know what I'm talking about right there, Tesson, Ferry, and Kennerly.

And I would go in that Deerbergs and I would make myself talk to three people. All right. And so I would go there not to buy anything, but to walk through the store and try to introduce myself or have a meaningful conversation of small conversation, not like fucking war and peace, bro. You know what I'm saying? Like let's solve child hunger right now, but also not, Hey, how you doing? Right. Okay. And then for those of you guys who are just starting, Hey, how you doing? Might be this might be where you start and that's okay. But what I would do in the, I made up a little rule. The rule was I couldn't leave the store

until I talked to three people. So three people that I didn't talk to before. All right. And after a year or so doing that, you get to know a lot of people in your area. I actually think from doing this, it actually helped make us get where we are today because I ended up having so many conversations with people that were in my area of where our retail stores were that it actually drummed up business unintentionally. That's not the intention of what I did. The intention was for me to go in, make small talk or have some sort of interaction with people free, and then before I could leave. And sometimes that took me 10 minutes. Sometimes it took me an hour.

Sometimes it took me two hours. But I did it for years, years and years and years. And I did it consistently. And what that did was that allowed me to break down all the weird, uh, social, socially awkward, um, you know, actions that I know that you normally have from being an introvert. Does that make sense? And so, dude, it's, it's no different than anything else, bro. If you want to get good at something, you have to practice it.

So I would recommend doing that. Go to your Walmart. Okay. Or your, whatever, whatever your local grocery store is, go in and, and make yourself talk to three people. And no matter what it takes, if you do that for a fuck, if you do that for a fucking month, if you do it for 30 fucking days, I promise you it will change your fucking life. Okay. So do that because that's, that's what I did. And now like, dude dude i could talk to anybody like i

i don't i'm not an extrovert person but i can easily i have the skills to be extroverted right does that make sense right right right right so so naturally i'm an introvert like i like my i like my alone time um you know i spend a lot of time alone it allows me to think it allows me to uh focus it allows me to focus, it allows me to come up with the ideas that I need that are maybe creative or innovative. It allows me to do all that part of me. But then I also have the skillset when I go in public and I know what needs to be done there too. And so we can't rely on the traits that we were born with. This is what society likes to tell us, right? It likes to tell us, oh, you know, well, you know, you're fat or you're an introvert or

you're stupid or you're this. And dude, the truth is we just lack the skills. We lack the skills. We lack the skills of how to eat right. We lack the skills of being an extrovert. We lack the skills of discipline. If you start to look at all these things as skills instead of traits, it becomes very obvious how to improve them and how to improve them is to put yourself in those

situations intentionally. That's fucking awesome. That's awesome. Well, Andy, that's three. So guys go pay the fee. All right, guys, show the show, man. We're out here trying to do some good stuff for y'all. We appreciate it. We love you guys. We'll see you next time.