REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 67. The Leadership Paradox

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Vince Lombardi was right, "Leading by example isn't the best way to lead; it's the only way to lead." However, if you want to create a legacy for decades to come, there's another part. On today's episode, Andy talks about the second part needed to be an effective leader.

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

Got more cars than did. I only weigh 180, but my watch cost 250. What is up, guys? It's Andy Purcella, and this is the show for the realists. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society. And there are a fucking ton of them. Welcome to motherfucking reality. Guys, today is a real talk episode, and it's going to be short, but it's going to be important.

It might be one of the most important episodes that you ever listen to in regards to why it is you aren't getting the response from other people that you are looking for. We're going to talk about leadership. All right. Now, before I get into leadership, I'd like to remind you that we have a fee for this show. The fee for this show is, is if you learn something, if you get a laugh, if you get entertainment, if it made you think, if it made you change your perspective, share it. That's all the fee is. It's not money. I'm not going to sell you a bunch of shit. I'm not going to have a bunch of ads. I want you to win. And that's why I do this. And all I

ask in return is that you share it. And this is going to be one that you want to share. Now, we've all heard over the course of our lives. This is nothing new. Vince Lombardi, in my opinion, said it best. Leading by example isn't the best way to lead. It's the only way to lead. Now, you've probably heard that quote before. And if you listen to my show for the last however many years we've been doing it, you've definitely heard me say that before.

And we've had some of the greatest leaders in entrepreneurship and business on this show before. We've had some incredible guests that know everything about leadership. We've talked about all different kinds of leadership. Talk about leadership at home. We've talked about leadership in business, obviously. We've talked about leadership on your sports team or in the military or on your pickup basketball team. It doesn't matter. There's millions of different places where leadership is required, all right? Maybe you work for a company and you work with a bunch of other people.

You have to become a leader there. All right. So the first thing that I want to remind you of is that that little quote that I just said by Vince Lombardi, that's a great quote, but it's only half of the leadership recipe that you need to learn. All right. And a lot of you out there who are young. And when I say young, I don't mean young in age. I mean, young into the business game, into the success game, into the entrepreneurship game, into whatever fucking game it is you're playing. All right. Where it requires a team effort to win. You are probably not even holding yourself to the standard that you actually want your team to operate at. That's just a fact. Lots of people think they live that lead. I lead by example, but you fucking don't because you're the leader by default. You don't hold yourself to a higher standard. Most of these people who think they're leaders because they hold a title of leadership, such as a CEO or such as national sales director or such as,

you know, captain of the team. Most people think that when they get that title, that means they're a leader and they fail to lead the right way because of that. So by getting that title actually weakens their ability to really lead. All right. So that's the first mistake that most people make. So if you're having problems right now, there's a 90% chance it has to do with that. But I'm not talking about those problems today. I'm talking about the 10% of the people who actually do lead by example and actually do what they're supposed to do and actually live the standard

that they expect other people to live at wherever it is they're living, all right, in business, in the church, on the sports team, et cetera. Now, there's lots of you out there that are doing the best you can. I see it every day, man. Every time I go get gas, every time I talk to a young business owner, somebody who's got something going for two or three years, I can see that they're doing the best that they can. And the purpose of what I want to talk about today is to help you fast track what it is you're struggling with because I've been down this road. Okay. This year I was ranked the 14th best speaker in the world.

14. It's pretty fucking good. It ain't three, which is really all I care about being a top three. Um, but I didn't come out of the womb, the 14th best fucking speaker in the world. All right. How did I get there? Well, I had to do some speaking and I can remember not too long ago, maybe 10, 12 years ago of standing in front of my team, my own team, people that I'm paying and being scared

shitless to speak, being scared shitless to direct traffic. Okay. And so for those of you right now who are struggling with leadership, I want you to understand that it's okay. It doesn't mean you're a bad leader. It means that you have a lot of development you need to do as a leader. And most people don't do the development work on what I'm about to talk about. If they get to be a decent leader, it's because they execute on their own. They take personal accountability. They do the fucking job and they do it the way it's supposed to be done. And you can count on them all the fucking time. That's what most people do. And that'll get you somewhere in life. That'll get you a decent career. That'll get you a decent house.

That'll get you a decent income. You'll probably be pretty comfortable and pretty happy if you can just master that part. But I'm going to tell you right now, you ain't going to be Michael fucking Jordan. I just spent the last couple of days watching the last dance with Michael Jordan and my friend, Tim Grover, who's in it quite a bit. And the one part of that entire miniseries that really stuck with me, and this is the reason that inspired this talk that I'm giving you guys right now. He was asked by the person who was interviewing him. He said, Michael, you know, a lot of people you play with, they didn't like you. They don't think you're a good person. They say you're mean. They say you're a shit talker.

They say that you are a jerk. And Michael sits there and dude, you could see his face. If you watch the documentary, you know exactly the part I'm talking about. He gets tears in his eyes and he has to stop the interview. And man, that fucking hit home with me. It hit home with me so fucking hard because I know exactly what the fuck he's talking about. It is a very lonely feeling to be a leader that holds the motherfucking line. And that's what we're talking about today. We're talking about holding the motherfucking line. Nobody likes you when you hold the line. Nobody says nice shit. Nobody says, hey, thanks Michael Jordan for making me fucking great. Nobody says that shit. Nobody says, hey, thanks, Michael Jordan, for making me fucking great. Nobody says that shit when you hold the line.

And that's most of y'all's problem. See, you're more worried about whether or not your team likes you versus what your mission is. And what your mission is, is to be the fucking best at whatever it is that you do. If your mission isn't that, and your mission is to be okay at whatever it is you do, then you've already fucking lost. So I'm assuming that if you're listening to this show,

you're at least mildly interested in being fucking great. And if you want to be great, not everybody's going to fucking like you. And that's the problem that you have. And what that does is that causes you to not hold the line. It causes you to be flimsy. It causes you to lack a spine. And we see this in society. We see it everywhere we look right now. Nobody wants to say anything that upsets anybody. Nobody wants to say anything that is the right thing. Nobody wants to say anything that ruffles anybody's motherfucking feathers. And this mentality of passiveness has been forced into our society over the last 20

years by the politically correct culture. Well, you know what? Fuck the politically correct culture. If you want to fucking win and you want to be great, you're going to have to tell the motherfucking truth. And that means in leadership, you can't just live it. You got to look to your guy on the right and your girl on the left and your peers and the people around you. And you have to demand that they operate at that level that you're living at. So you have two things right now that you got to worry about. One, worry about yourself. Chances are you're not operating at a standard that is what you want everybody else to operate

at. And if you are, you're probably not enforcing that standard across the board because you're afraid of people not liking you. And you're afraid of people thinking you're mean. And you're afraid of people thinking you're mean. And you're afraid of people thinking you're a dick. And let me tell you something. I'm going to be real. That shit hurts.

It's a very thankless job to hold other people accountable. But it's necessary. And see, there's delayed gratification in holding the line. What you guys don't understand is there is actually a paradox at play here. And it looks like this. When you let people coast because you're being nice, they don't respect you. Even if you are a high performer, even if you are the best in your office or the best on your team or the best leader that you can be in your organization.

Even if you're that person right now, if you don't hold the motherfucking line for that person next to you, you don't have their respect. And what's holding you back is that you're afraid that they're not going to like you if you hold them accountable, which is actually costing you what you really want is their approval.

You understand what I'm saying here? When you hold the line with people and when you look to your left and look to your right and you make the other people around you fucking better in every single way. They might not like you today. They might not like you tomorrow. They might not like you next week, but four years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, they're going to look back and say one of the best things that ever fucking happened to me is I met Andy for selling. I fucking worked for that motherfucker. That dude made me better in every single motherfucking way. Do you know how many people I know that have said that to me that are no longer around me?

A lot. And at the time they hated my motherfucking guts. So we as a society and we as a subsection of society, you the listener of this show, have to understand that if we want to win, we are going to have to be willing to be unliked in the short term in order to be loved in the long term. This is what holding the standard does for you. It produces wins. It produces progress. It produces greater good for everybody involved. And sometimes that means you're going to have to bring the motherfucking thunder on people's asses.

And you're not going to like it. I had to do it today. I had a group of people who disrespected my motherfucking gym here at headquarters. We had to have a little talk and not one of them fucking liked it. But guess what? They're going to be better for it. The gym's going to be nicer for it. The experience for the people here are going to be nicer for it.

And it's for the greater good. Now, a lot of you guys sit there in leadership roles and you wonder, well, I'm doing this and they see me doing it. Why the fuck can't they just figure it out? Well, I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to save you 10 years of your life. They ain't going to figure it the fuck out. You know why? Because other humans are inherently lazy and they like to look around. And as long as the job's getting done by somebody, they're willing to sit on their fucking ass and let that somebody do it. This is why you have to learn to be vocal. This is why you have to learn to address things

directly and truthfully every fucking time. You will never win and you will never be great and you will never become the person that it is you see in your visualization or in your dreams or whatever it is you think you want to be. You'll never be that. It'll never, ever happen until you learn how to hold the line with other people that surround you. And that goes for your family. It goes for your friends. It goes for your company. It goes for your community. If you want greatness, you have to first be great. And you have to second, hold people to that standard of being great. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean that we go in and scream at everybody and tell everybody they're pieces of shit every day? No, it doesn't. Does that mean that we

fucking attack people for doing a shitty job? No, it doesn't. But what it means is we set expectations and we hold people accountable to those expectations. So let me give you a little, a little recipe for how I do this. It's really fucking simple. One, I set the expectation I tell the team Hey, this is what the expectation is Two, when the expectation Is not met To perfection

The very first time I call it out in front of the whole company I let everybody see it And a lot of you guys don't like that You don't like that style of leadership Because it embarrasses people. Well, fuck that. Some people deserve to be embarrassed. It teaches everybody a lesson. Okay. Then if the problem happens again, we have a consequence and the consequence for the problem happening again is a punishment for everybody on the team. It's not for the person who did it. It's not for the person who didn't

do it. It's for everybody. Because we win as a team, we lose as a team, we get punished as a team. That's how we fucking roll. And if you want great culture at your workplace or your team or your environment, I suggest you do that. And why do I do that? Because there's people that get punished that are obviously not guilty. Those people get pissed off. But who the fuck do they get pissed at? Do they get pissed at me for holding the line? No, they get pissed at the motherfucker who ruined it for everybody. And what that does is creates a community of accountability. So real short, because this is a question that I get all the time. And I want to answer it once and for all. Leadership, leading by example, Vince Lombardi. It's not the best way to lead. It's the only way to lead fucking right 100

If you don't do the job, nobody's gonna follow you period But don't forget about the second part either and the second part is looking to your left and looking to your right and saying You're not doing it This is how we do it here This is what I expect And if they don't do it, you punish everybody. And you'll find out real quick who the fucking leaders are in your company or your organization or your team, because that same shit will never happen again. Now, when we talk about these things, a lot of you guys are probably sitting there thinking,

well, that's not what fucking so-and-so said. And that's not what my business professor said. Well, fuck your business professor. Because I built this shit from the ground up. I'm not teaching it for fucking fun. When I leave here today, I'm going to a fucking nice ass house and I'm going home in a nice ass car.

And I'm going to have a nice ass fucking night. This ain't theory for me. This is fucking real. This is how I do it. This is how you should probably think about doing it. So instead of you sitting there and antagonizing and worrying and, you know, causing yourself anxiety about you saying something to someone who might have hurt their fucking feelings. Remember that if you ever want to be great in life, go watch that scene from Michael Jordan and see what people said about him. Yeah, you're going to have weak people that are going to fucking blame you. And they're going to get mad at you. And they're going to say you're mean. And they're going to say things that hurt your feelings. But do you want to

be great or do you not want to be? Because that's what it comes down to. I can tell you this, the people who do the first part of leadership where they lead by example, those people do good. But the people who do all of it, where they lead by example, and they force every single person that they come in contact with on a daily motherfucking basis to be better, those motherfuckers become great. So it's a simple decision. Do you want to be good? Because you're likely not doing the shit to be good anyway So that'd be a good place to start Lead by example Do the things you know need to be done

Do the things the best that you can I'm not talking about little things, big things I'm talking about every motherfucking thing All of it The success recipe that you guys all think is fucking magic Is really fucking simple I'm going to give it to you in one sentence Solve problems all of them, period. That's the fucking secret.

If you can do that, you're going to be good. But if you want to be great, you are going to have to get over yourself. You're going to have to get over the fear of people not liking you. You're going to have to get over the fear of hurting motherfuckers feelings. And you're going to have to get over the fear of people not liking you. You're going to have to get over the fear of hurting motherfuckers feelings. And you're going to have to get over the fear of being Mr. Motherfucking nice guy all the time and start holding people accountable. That's what's going to make you great. They might dislike you now, but they'll love you later.