REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 610. Real Talk: 3 Things I Wish I Had Known On Day 1 As An Entrepreneur

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

In today’s real talk, Andy talks about the 3 most important things to keep in mind when planning to start your business which can save you a lot of time, money and put you decades ahead of your competitors.

What is up guys, it's Andy Priscilla and this is the show for the real, let's say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality guys. Today we have a real talk, all right? And I'm going to try to do these more regularly because I think they're important and I think you guys like them. I'm going to get right into it, okay? I'm going to spare you the normal long intro and we're going to get right into this. You know, I was thinking about what kind of value I could provide for you guys and what I wanted to talk about. And the idea was floated to me of

what are the top three things I wish I knew before starting on my entrepreneurship journey. And I'm going to cover that with you guys today because entrepreneurship has become this glorified solution to everybody's life. And everybody wants to be an entrepreneur and everybody's talking about entrepreneurship. And there's just some things that you should know. And I think the first one is this. If you decide to be an entrepreneur and I'm talking about a real entrepreneur and I'm not talking about one of these people on Instagrams that pretends to be an entrepreneur and puts it in their fucking bio. I'm talking about building a real company with real people and creating a solution to a problem for a consumer

and making money doing so. The first thing that you have to understand is that you are picking literally one of the hardest paths that you could possibly pick over the course of one's life. All right. Statistics show that less than 8% of people become entrepreneurs and less than 1% of those people become quote unquote successful entrepreneurs. All right. But here's the thing. Aside from those statistics, it's still possible, but you should know what to expect and what you can expect is a life of waking up and getting your fucking ass beat day after day after day after day and having some wins in between. see on the internet. It is not always nice cars and fat watches. And like, that's not what the fuck it is, bro. Entrepreneurship is a lot of loneliness, a lot of getting your ass beat, a lot of questioning yourself, a lot of doubt, a lot of pain, a lot of mistakes, a lot of expensive mistakes, all your friends and family telling you that you're crazy.

Everybody you've ever known telling you, you need to grow up and get realistic until you actually build something. And then they're like, holy shit, I always believed in you. And they didn't. Okay. You're going to move from friend group to friend group, to friend group, to friend group over the course of your life. Because every time you level up, the current friend group is going to take it personal

and they're going to say, oh, you're forgetting about us. Oh, remember where you came from? Oh, you're too good for us now. And, and bro, that's going to happen over and over again. Okay. Like you're going to live a very different kind of life than literally every one of your friends. All of your friends are going to be able to go out on the weekends, go to parties, go on vacations and do all this shit, travel the world in the van or whatever is popular now. Okay. And you can't understand because you're at the beginning of the journey that those very people that say all those things to you and live this different life that you're having like massive FOMO about are going

to pay a price later when they're working at fucking the local cell phone store because they have to, because they have to, because they have to provide for themselves. All right. A lot of these people in the beginning that are doubting you talking shit, you know, laughing at you, making fun of you saying all this shit that pisses you off. These people in 15 or 20 years are going to be working at fucking KFC, bro, taking your motherfucking order.

Okay. That's the price they're going to be working at fucking KFC, bro, taking your motherfucking order. Okay. That's the price they're going to pay. You're paying a different price. You're paying a price of pain, frustration, investment of time and energy, skipping out on other things that you could be doing with your life. And eventually the price, the reward that you get back is you don't have to worry about things other people have to worry about. That doesn't mean you'll have a carefree life.

It doesn't mean life's going to be easy. It doesn't mean things are just going to come to you. It doesn't mean that, you know, you're going to have freedom, bro. You never have freedom. And that's going to lead into my second point. Okay. But here's the point. It's hard as fuck and it takes a long time and nobody's going to understand you and you're going to feel alone most of the time. But if you keep going, it nobody's going to understand you and you're going to feel alone most of the time but if you keep going it's possible okay and if you keep going for long enough it's probable but the ultimate thing i need you to understand is this it is not what the internet makes it out to be it is not free it is not easy it is not for everybody and it quite

honestly is the opposite and anybody who has built anything real in real life will tell you this, all of them. They will say, bro, it's the hardest fucking thing I ever did. The hardest fucking thing you ever did. That's what, that's what you should expect. Instead of wishing and wanting and hoping and complaining about how hard it is, you should recognize this on day one, because I'm telling you, dude, I've been doing this now for 25 years. That's the way it is. And anybody else that tells you anything else is full of shit. And I'd be happy to have them sit here and debate me on it.

Okay? And I'll end them. All right? Reality. It's hard. So what's the best thing that you could do as a young entrepreneur? It's to accept this Okay, and the reason that you need to accept that it's going to be hard is because if you think that it's going to be

Easy, you're going to constantly feel extra frustrated and victimized by the circumstances in your life If you assume that it's going to be easy, you're going to spend your life saying, why is it so hard for me? And that's the problem of what's going on in the Internet. We have a lot of fake motherfuckers presenting themselves as experts telling you how easy and quick and fast this journey is. And you get out there on the playing field and you get your ass kicked. You can't figure out why. And eventually you blame yourself and say, I just don't have what it takes. And that's what I'm trying to get you to avoid.

It's not that you don't have what it takes. It's that the expectations were wrong from the beginning. Okay, so understand this. It's hard. The second thing to understand about point one is this. What's the best thing you can do if you know that you're on a hard journey? Well, it's to prepare yourself for a hard journey. You wouldn't go on a hundred day hike through the forest with no fucking supplies and no

training and no understanding of what the fuck you needed to do, would you? That would be stupid. It would also be stupid to go on to this incredibly hard journey and not understanding that you have to do things to make yourself capable of enduring this journey. And that comes into things like live hard and 75 hard, where you're getting your mind right. You're getting your body right. This is your weapons. These, these are your tools, your mind, your heart, your soul, your body. Get those to the highest possible level that you can have.

Now, I'm not saying you have to go out here and be David Goggins. I'm not trying to be David Goggins. A lot of you guys say to me, what are you trying to do? Be James Lawrence? No, motherfucker. I'm trying to be the best me so I can do what my main priority is, which is to grow and be successful in business and life. That's the goal.

You should look at your situation the same. You don't have to go out and run 100 in business and life. That's the goal. You should look at your situation the same. You don't have to go out and run a hundred fucking miles, bro, but you got to have your mind right and be focused on the right shit, putting the right shit in your brain all the time. You've got to be physically capable, meaning you have to have high confidence. You have to be fit. You have to carry yourself well. All of these things are skill sets, you know, confidence, self-esteem, self-belief, the ability to endure, fortitude, grit, mental toughness, discipline are skills that are required for this journey. So if you are going to go on this journey, wouldn't it make sense for you to sharpen those skills first? I think it would. Okay. And I don't think it would. I know it would. Okay. So stop thinking

it's going to be easy. Understand it's going to be hard. Understand that's the reality and then build yourself into someone who can tolerate that journey. That's point number one. I wish I would have known that on day one. It would have saved me a lot of frustration, a lot of time, a lot of anger, a lot of bitterness. And I probably would have gotten a lot further in a lot faster timeframe had I understand that. Now, point number two, okay? I talked about freedom in the first point. This shit ain't about you. And guess what?

It ain't ever going to be about you. And guess what? It ain't ever going to be about you because in order for you to succeed, what you have to understand is that you have to serve other human beings, whether they be your customer or whether they be your employees. You as the leader have to contribute to them in different, but absolutely certain ways. When it comes to your customer, it's not about getting what they're going to give you. It's about what can you give and what do they decide that's worth and are willing to give you in return. Okay. So your question should be not how much money can I take, but how much value can I provide? And if I can provide exponentially more value, I will make exponentially more money. That means it's not about what you can get. It's not about you. It's about them all the time. Okay. And a lot of people like to say, well,

I'm free. I'm my own boss. Motherfucker. You ain't the boss of shit. Your customers are the fucking boss. And that's reality. Okay. So this whole idea that it's about you and it's about this, and it's about that, lose that shit. I spent a decade of my business life believing that I could sell shit and take money and the most amount of money from people and I would somehow make it. I didn't even figure this out until I was at least 10 or 11 years into business when I finally figured out what I loved about our business. And what I loved about our business was I loved when someone would come in who was very unfit, very unhappy, and over the course of six or seven months, they would become a new person. And they would come back in the store, and they would give you a hug, and they would be crying shit, and they'd be thanking you.

And at my lowest of lows in business, where I had to assume that I would never make any money in business, I had to really think about what I wanted to do if money wasn't an option. I fucking loved that. I loved helping people get better. Okay, I loved it. And so I flipped my perspective from, hey, I'm going to take money from these people. And I went into this perspective of, hey, I'm just going to try to replicate this level of result every single time with every single customer. You know what

happened? A company grew a hundred percent. You know what happened for the last, for the next five years after that, we grew a hundred percent every fucking year. You know why? Because I stopped focusing on me. I started focusing on what I could do for other people. The same goes for your employees. Once you get to a point where you have employees, the intent of having employees should be that I give a fuck about that employee. I care about their career. I care about where they're going. And yes, I'm going to be hard, but I'm going to also be their friend and real friends. Give a fuck about those people's futures. And once your employees start to understand that they start to perform. Okay. So it's not, Hey motherfucker, you work for me, do this shit so I can make money.

It's, Hey man, you fucking aren't holding the line on yourself. You aren't doing what you need to do to be great. And if you did these things, you'd be great. And guess what happens when they have that respect and they have the understanding that you are trustworthy as an entrepreneur, as a leader, and they believe that you have their interests in mind, not because you made them believe you have their interests in mind, but because you actually do. What do you think happens? Oh, you create a tremendous team culture where people want to win and people are motivated and people want to build shit and it becomes

amazing, but it still ain't about you. It's about them. Okay. This will never be about you it's about them okay this will never be about you this will never if you want to be a successful entrepreneur this will never ever be about you there's a famous saying that stuart scott the the deceased espn announcer said one time and i'll never forget i was watching sports center and he said this he said great leaders take responsibility and give the credit. Okay? Never make it about you. You know what your reward is, bro? Your reward is you get to make some money.

Your reward is you get the public praise, but you have to remember it ain't really you. It's them. Okay? It's them. And then beyond them, your employees, it's them, the customers who built you. It's not you. Okay. It'll never be about you. Your reward is the financial gain and the success. And your job is to make it about everybody else. And if you make it about everybody else and you focus on everybody else, you will never have a problem making fucking money in business. That's reality. Okay. So that's the

second thing I wish I would have known because had I changed my perspective from it's about them, not about me before 10 years in business, I would be 10 years ahead of where I am right now. So that's a 10 year lesson. Make it about them. Focus on what you can provide. Do what you can to make their lives better. How can you over deliver with your product? How can you over deliver with your leadership? How can you make your employees better humans? How can you do everything to contribute to everybody around you and make them fucking win? How can you do that? And if you do that to the best of your abilities, you will be rewarded. Okay. And that cost me 11 years to learn that lesson. That's a multimillion billion-dollar lesson depending on how far you want to go with it. All right?

And point number three is this. Shit takes time. Okay? I have this concept called aggressive patience that I've talked about for years and years and years. People hear certain personalities talk about patience when it comes to entrepreneurship. And we have all these different people saying different things. When people hear patience, typically, what do they think? They think, wait. Okay. And they think, wait around and eventually it'll happen. And this is why most people fail in life. They think that when they turn 30, the finances are going to turn on, or when they get to be 35, the finances are going to turn on and it never happens.

It doesn't happen because you're missing the aggressive part. All right. What you have to understand is yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes a lot of time. And during that time, do you know what you should be doing every single day? Every motherfucking thing that you can fucking do on that day to win. Then on the next day, every single thing you can do. And then on the next day, every single thing you can do all day long. Aggressive patience has nothing to do with sitting on your hands. It has everything to do with doing everything you can and still understanding that it's going to take a long time. That's what patience means in business. And you should be impatient. You should take impatient action on a day by day basis, but you should understand for the sense of your own sanity that is still going

to take time. No matter what you want, no matter how fast you want it, it's no different than a recipe on a fucking cake, bro. Okay. If you do not allow time to do its part, nothing will happen, okay? You could get the best recipe in the entire world from the most famous baker, and you could take all the ingredients and you could mix them up in a bowl, all right? And you say, I got the best recipe, and then you pour it in the cake pan, and then you say, well, fuck, dude. The recipe calls for 400 degrees for 45 minutes. And you say, well, I want this in 20 minutes. So what do you do? You turn the fucking heat up in the oven to 800 degrees

and you cook it for 20 minutes. What the fuck you got now? You got a burnt piece of shit, okay? Nobody's eating that shit. It's fucking disgusting. And then half of you have the nerve to blame the person that gave you the fucking recipe, okay? Nobody's eating that shit. It's fucking disgusting. And then half of you have the nerve to blame the person that gave you the fucking recipe, okay? The reality is the reason it calls for 45 minutes because that's what the fuck it takes. It takes time and it takes a long time,

okay? And you can't out finagle time. There's nothing you can do. Now, what you can do is you can do everything you can day by day by day by day by day. You can be aggressive on a daily basis and still exercise patience over the long term. I didn't know this That's not true. You have to, in the patient time, over the course of time, if you're not executing aggressively, the result never happens. So let me break this down and summarize for you. First thing, entrepreneurship is the hardest motherfucking thing you could do. If it's not the hardest, it's one of the hardest. All right. It's hard.

It's hard as fuck. Take the time to become someone who is capable and equipped of going on a difficult journey for a long period of time. Build your mind, build your heart, build your body, build your resilience and become someone that can tolerate that. That's the first thing. The second thing is the quicker you can understand that it's not about you and it's about service. It's about everybody else. The more successful and the more money you're going to make quicker. All right. So don't waste time thinking you're going to scam people. Don't waste time thinking you're going to trick people. People are fucking smart. Take the time to figure out how I'm

going to over deliver, how I'm going to create to figure out how I'm going to over deliver, how I'm going to create so much value. And I'm going to create so much value for my customers and so much for my employees that they love to do and be customers of and support and work for and build what it is you're building. Okay. It's about them. It's never about you. And the third thing is aggressive patience. It doesn't matter how hard you work. Time is still going to exist. It's still going to be a component of success. You cannot cheat your way around it. All these people online, they're telling you they could save you this or that. Yes, there's value in learning from someone who has legitimately been

on the path that you're on and has done the things that you do. If I were to talk to 19-year-old Andy now, 19-year-old Andy would say 15 years off of his journey by learning from 44-year-old Andy. Okay? But I can promise you these knuckle fucks on the internet who post these reels all day long talking all this shit cannot do that for you. So understand this, all right? You have to realize that this is going to be hard. You have to act with urgency. You have to act with impatience on a daily basis and still recognize that it's going to take a long time. Okay?

Aggressive patience. If you can get those three things in on day one, bro, you're in a much better spot than I was. All right? So go out there, kick some fucking ass, take these things to heart, listen to this a few times, let this sink in. It'll save you a lot of time, a lot of money,

a lot of frustration, and greatly increase the chances of you getting to where you want to go.