REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 672. Q&AF: #75HARD Highs And Lows, Consequences For Employees & Handling Investors

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

In today's episode, Andy answers your questions on the highs and lows of the 75HARD program, how to establish consequences for negative actions taken by employees, and the best way to deal with investors when expanding your business.

What is up guys, it's Andy Frisella and this is the show for the realest, say goodbye to the lies, the faintness, and delusions of modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality guys. Today we have Q and AF. That's where you submit the questions and we give you the answers. You can submit your questions a few different ways. The first way is, guys, you can email those questions into askandy at andyfrasella.com. Or you can go on YouTube on the Q and AF episodes and drop your question there in the comments as well uh i'm going to

skip the entire intro because you already know what we do here so what's up hey how's it going good yeah yeah what's going on with you oh not much you know just doing the damn thing i think i'm gonna marry her yeah hey listen, I'm still laughing about that. Yeah, those guys, man. There's a special place for those guys. I think those guys are necessary in society. Bro, $30 to get slapped in the face? Yeah, that's a reach.

That's a reach. They're still talking about it because we're talking about it. It's like the guys that fall in love with the girls at Hooters. Yeah. With the waitresses. Like Butters on South Park? Yeah, exactly. No different. Yeah park exactly no different yeah no different yeah yeah man what's going on with you anything new no no enjoying the weather weather's nice it's starting to warm up a little bit yeah training hard yeah you know getting that uh beef special yeah i had to had to spend some

time putting a little weight back on because that issue I was dealing with with my stomach, you know, I fucking lost all my muscles. So I had to focus on putting that back on, feeling good. Yeah, looking good. I mean, I look good at whatever weight. Let's be fucking real. Well, let's get into it, man. I got some good ones for you. All right, good. Let's dive into these guys andy question number one hey andy i love hearing your stories about

75 heart can you please share one of your favorite high moments from 75 hard or the live hard program um and can you share one of your lowest moments on the program? This question is meant to be up for interpretation. Seriously loving 75 Hard and pushing myself when I don't think I can anymore. Just want to hear your insights. Highest and lowest moments on the Live Hard program you've had. I couldn't say one or two moments like that. That would be impossible because the entire program the way it's built you're gonna have highs you're gonna have lows and the whole point is to move through those times

and not let those times affect you so good or bad yeah that's right because dude listen and there's a lesson in that right when times are good people get comfortable and when they get comfortable they don't execute to the same level of detail that they do when they're hungry or when things are bad when things are bad they're frustrated so they don't level they don't execute to the level that they need to execute at because they don't feel like it so becoming successful in life is about learning how to execute regardless of what's going on around you. And if you want an example of the program or inside the program that teaches you this, it would be like the outdoor cardio part, right? Like it doesn't matter if it's snowing or the

wind's blowing or it's raining or it's zero degrees outside, you got to go outside and do it and execute. It also doesn't matter if it's a beautiful day and all your friends called you to go out and day drink on the patio and, you know, chill out and navigating through the highs and lows is the most important part. So, you know, for me, I've had many lows and many highs, just like everybody else who's done the program. It's no different for me. You know, I think a lot of people think that I have it all figured out when it comes to, you know, the discipline aspect. But the truth of the matter is the reason I live this lifestyle is because I have to recalibrate just like everybody else. I have to tune up just like everybody else.

And, you know, there's people on the Internet that make this into some sort of competition like, oh, you know, David Goggins runs 400 miles a fucking day. Cool. That's David Goggins, bro. Like, I'm not trying to be David Goggins. I'm not trying to be Cam Haines. I'm not trying to compete with you. I'm trying to get myself in the best possible state to execute the plan that I've laid out for my life over the long haul. And so just like you, I have highs, I have lows, and I have to work very hard to move through those highs and lows. We can't control our environment. So what can we control? We can control our environment so what can we control we can control our actions that we choose to take regardless of what the environment is and so i wouldn't say you know there's one high or one low

or i mean fuck bro there's plenty of lows there's plenty of highs that's the point and we have to execute regardless of what's going on so i know that's not the answer that you're probably looking for, but that's the right answer. That's the true answer. Do I have some memorable moments that were really hard? Yeah, I do. The first time I did the program, the first 25 days, bro, my feet hurt so fucking bad, I thought I was going to fucking die. I wore the wrong shoes. I learned a big lesson there because my feet got fucked up,

and they were fucked up for the whole 75 days. That sucked. But guess what? I pushed through it. That one particular time when you and I went out and did it together, you were doing the program too, and it snowed 18 inches. And it took us 45 minutes to get halfway to what our our normal route would be and and i and i remember saying to you i said and i said this i said well that's we could turn around here and you said no

we're gonna do the whole fucking thing yeah and i'm like all right let's go and we did the whole thing it took two fucking hours and it was it was zero degrees 18 inches of snow and now a couple years after i'm proud of that. I look back at that. I'm like, fuck dude. Oh, it's raining outside. Who cares? Oh, it's, it's sleeting. So what? Oh, it's five. Yeah. I've done way worse. And that's the point. The point is by doing the hard things and overcoming the hard things, you gain the confidence that you can overcome the hard things. And the things that come your way from that point forward are no longer perceived as hard. And this is where people

really have to understand how life works. Life is hard. Everything worth doing is hard. There is no easy path. And so many of you spend so much time, so much energy and get yourself so frustrated searching for the easy way to get what you want. When in reality, if you just accepted everything worthwhile is hard and just stopped beating your head against the wall, looking for the easier, quicker, faster, freer way to get where you want, because you're, you're expending so much energy searching for the easy way that it actually makes the path that much harder. So by accepting the path and saying, okay, this is hard as fuck. Everything I want to be, everything I want to build,

everything I want to do in my life is going to be hard. It makes the path that much easier because now you know the game that you're playing. You're no longer spending energy looking for this easy way. You're no longer, you know, being disappointed because the easy way didn't work. There is no easy way. And any motherfucker out there that tells you there is, is full of shit. I would encourage you, anyone that tells you there's some sort of easy way or hack to really dig into their life and look deep into what they have actually done or built in their life. And I can promise you, if you look deep at those people, they haven't done a motherfucking thing that's worthwhile. I feel like I've always heard this saying man you know like everything happens for a reason and it got me on this you know this idea when we talk about these highs and

lows you know i feel like most people when they're in their lows they don't realize that that could also that same low could be a high for you if you choose to look at it the right way well it's a test day right right right and like i've been people but people have that hard time it's like well i mean fuck what what meaning am i supposed to get what good is you know a death or or a sickness whatever the case is getting stabbed in the face like there's like it may be a low moment right but there's something there that could be make that the best best thing that ever happened well that's choosing the proper perspective yeah you know like when i did

get stabbed i spent like you guys know a very long time in a very deep dark suicidal depression i was 23 years old my face was completely fucked up everybody in the world saw it it's not like i got stabbed in my arm and it was covered up or something like it's on my fucking face dude what do i do wear a kanye mask everywhere there was no code right like yeah right like i couldn't hide from it so i had and i had an amazing experience which many of you have heard um that really shifted my perspective you know where i ran into a lady who was a burn victim and we had an important conversation and i tell that story often. And it shifted my perspective and I started looking for what it was that made that experience helpful to me.

In hindsight, when I look back at that, it was a transformative experience in my life. It changed everything. And in the moment, I thought it was the end of my life. It changed everything. And in the moment, I thought it was the end of my life. I thought it was the end of hope, the end of dreams. My life was over. And it's a perfect example for what you're talking about. When you're at the low, if you could step back and emotionally disconnect from it and say, okay, what can I get from this this or how can this serve me or what path can i take from here that will help me moving forward and if you can do that you will find something 100 yeah it's just very difficult to do in a high emotional state yeah for sure but it is a choice yeah for sure

yeah i love that man highs can be lows yeah i love that guys uh andy question number two uh andy uh thank you for continuing to put out content to help all of us get better i'm an entrepreneur of almost 10 years and at 20 uh at a 24 year old small business with 15 people throughout my time i've helped you say entrepreneur entrepreneur okay okay and uh yeah entrepreneur 10 years in. The company has been in business for 24 years, 15 people working there. Got it. Throughout my time, I've helped build systems and processes in each of our departments.

We have great people, but feel we're not always on the same page. We see actions that don't always look like winning. So my boss and I are redefining what's important to us and what we expect, detailing culture ingredients and some policies. My thought is that without established consequences for negative actions, for things like being late, there won't be enough motivation to do the right thing for some people. And when we, the managers, have to call out the negative actions we don't have a policy for repercussions to stand on what are your thoughts about having some built-in consequences

for when people aren't meeting expectations well look this is basic human motivation you you have the carrot which is the positive reinforcement the reward the bonus the recognition whatever that might be and then you have the stick and the stick is if you do that again you're fucking fired okay and both are needed and people don't like the stick people today in today's business culture they like to say oh that's so wrong that's so mean well unfortunately when you don't have the stick people abuse the fuck out of you and they, you give them an inch and they take a hundred fucking miles.

That is human nature. So you have to have both. However you want to set up both is up to you. And by setting up both and then enforcing it, what will naturally happen is you will figure out places where you're too hard. You will figure out places where you're too hard you will figure out places where you're too soft and over time of holding that line you will begin to find exactly where the line is so my advice to this person would be to yes absolutely reward recognize promote the people who are doing their shit who are great examples

for all the employees who perform at a high level, those people move forward because that sends a signal to everybody else, this is what you have to be to win here. And then if someone is not doing what they're supposed to do or they're underperforming or they're doing grossly negligent shit or immoral shit or consistent problematic shit, those people have to go. And that sends a signal to everybody else. These people will not work out here. So what you do in these two situations sends a signal to everybody else. And that's the more important part than actually the discipline or the reward to the actual individuals doing it. It's what signal does it send to everybody else? Because if everybody else, and dude, this can fuck you up too if you're

running a company. A lot of companies will promote people because they like them. Well, the problem with that is that when people see someone promoted and that person actually isn't performing, that person actually isn't kicking ass or living to that example, then they lose belief in the entire system because they feel like the only way to move forward is to be quote-unquote chosen, or a brown noser, or an ass kisser, and all of that creates negative culture too. So whatever standards you pick, they have to be for everybody no no matter how much you like or dislike a person You should be treating them fairly within the boundaries of that standard Yeah, like dude, I like it, but you're not ready for this position. Well, yeah, and dude also, you know

Look man, if someone's causing problems in your company, someone's always late someone's cancerous someone's Gossiping someone's underperforming. You have to look at it like this. You are doing that person a very, very, very harsh disservice by keeping them inside of your company, knowing that they could maybe go somewhere else and be successful. So it's very important that you look at it, not just from a company standpoint, but also if you truly care about people, you will look at certain people and you will say this person does not fit here. They will do much better somewhere else and you will move them both consistently at a standard that is consistent with every single person. Let me ask you this, because I want to clarify this. Because what you're saying is the carrot alone is not enough to keep everything in line.

No, absolutely not. You cannot just rely on the carrots and think that nobody's going to fuck off or be lazy. The carrot alone is not enough. No, if you only have a carrot, bro, what will happen is, so dude, you have to think of these things like this. These are guide rails. Okay. Like gutters on the fucking bowling alley.

Yeah. Okay. Right. Exactly. Like curbs on the fucking street, bro. Got it. All right. And your goal is to get the people running down the street.

All right. And they know if they go too running down the street, all right? And they know if they go too far to the left, they're out of the game. And they know if they go too far to the right, they get to go down the street faster, okay? So when they know where the boundaries are, people generally move in the right direction. The problem that becomes when you only have the carrot is that the disparity amongst your great entrepreneur

kick-ass employees and your very shitty ones that don't do anything becomes greater and greater and greater because there's no boundaries that keep them moving down the path together so then what happens is you start to get like gangs inside of your building right you'll get three or four people over here you'll get three or four people over here. You'll get three or four people over here. They fucking hate each other. It causes all kinds of cancer. And now you got a real problem. So, yes, you have to have both.

It's very important. Every fucking place in the world has rules. We live in this Gen Z society where everybody thinks like, bro, fucking Gen Z is bringing their goddamn parents to fucking job interviews, bro. Get the fuck out of here. It's wild. Dude, listen.

Let me ask you this. A lot of these people are fucking delusional, bro. Not only are they delusional that they are not entitled to a career or a job, they're also delusional to the fact of what it takes to actually win. A lot of people think that showing up, clocking in on time not

fucking off because there's so many people that won't even show to work on time now that people think that that's some sort of win that's not a win bro that's called what you're supposed to do like you know it's like when people say well i fucking pay my bills i fucking mow my grass i do no shit really you're supposed to do that bro i don't know who told you different no you know what i mean like you're anyway yeah let me ask you this on the parent thing because i thought about this i don't know who i was talking to about this but do you think that there is potentially a benefit of that meaning like okay well now i get to see what your parents are actually like like you know i i get maybe there's that little bit of insight into the family bring your parents to an interview here

i'm videotaping it and i'm putting it on youtube and i'm letting the whole world know that you're a fucking pussy yeah all right yeah real talk all right don't come here i don't want those people here bro I want high performers I want winners You know Like dude I get this question all the time People are like Don't you worry about attracting employees Coming to your work

The way that you are in your podcast No Because every motherfucker that comes here Knows exactly what they're getting It's not a fuck around place We're here to fucking win We're here to build shit We're here to do shit

We work really fucking hard We have a great time yeah But guess what We're here to fucking win And if you don hard we have a great time yeah but guess what we're here to fucking win and if you don't want to win don't fucking come here i love it man i love it i want to go back to that last question okay but the reason i want to go back is because a lot of you motherfucking business owners you don't say shit about what you actually believe okay and then you attract all these people that believe all this different shit than you.

And then you spend your entire life trying to corral those people and get them on the same page as you. If you would just find your fucking balls and say what the fuck you think in public and not apologize for it, those people that cause you 100% of your problems will not apply to work with you. Do you think that a bunch of fucking weirdo, cultural, pronoun, blue hair, fucking communist fucks apply to work with Dana White?

No. Okay. Why? Why not? Because they know he's the enemy. Exactly. How much money does he save by not having to go through that that's what i'm telling you and it works that way for me too

and it will work that way for you too if you would just find some fucking balls yeah okay i love it no that's a good i mean it makes sense man like i mean fuck the amount of money you can save not having to hire time the time. It's not just money. It's time. Bro, every time you have a cultural disturbance, it costs you weeks and months of time to fucking fix. Yeah. Like, it's time. You cannot win with that shit in your organization.

And the reason that a lot of you guys have it in your organization is because you're so fucking scared of these people. And you want them to be your friend and you want to accommodate them and you know what they fucking hate you you know so say what you think be real say the truth be fair set real fair guidelines and run your fucking company yeah and if people don't like it guess what they don't have to buy your shit right it's real simple dude it's very simple like i was thinking about this suit man it's real simple like you go to let's say you go to this little you know neighborhood shop and you walk and there's a they got all the all the flags on the door yeah are you gonna put an

application in there no probably not all right so my business i'm gonna put an american flag right there on there there you go you know i'm right there on their fucking door. There you go. You know what I'm saying? There you go. Need not apply. There you go. Need not apply. Stick yourself a 1776 sticker on your front door, bro, and solve all your fucking problems.

That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm going to make that bison sticker for everybody's front door. Yeah, fuck yeah. That's going to mean stay off my fucking lawn. Need not apply. That's right. Can you imagine the emails? So what you're saying is you're not going to hire people like me?

What the fuck is that? That's discriminatory. I don't have to hire you. I don't have to fucking hire you. Especially not here in Missouri. What skills do you have? What can you do? I don't give a fuck about your pronouns, man.

I have a degree in climatology. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck off with that degree. Oh, man. And you know what I'm saying? You don't have to hire people like me. You're not hireable, bro.

You don't have any skills. You cause all kinds of problems. Your gossip, your drama, your fucking... I'm not paying for your surgery. Yeah, dude. You're expensive. Yeah. You bitch about everything.

I got to give you maternity leave. And you wonder if paternity leave... No, and then you wonder why nobody wants you to work with them and then why nobody wants to hang out with you. All you do is bitch. Yeah. You get Mother's Day and Father's Day off? Yeah.

Fuck, dude. Fuck. Oh, shit. Bro. off fuck oh shit bro oh man dude i don't know where we went off the rails man i don't know yeah boundaries guys yeah back to it all right apply. Guys, Andy, question number three. Andy, I've been learning. Climatology. Science. That's offensive. You offend me.

Bro, I had a fucking. I had a fucking. I brought my mom here for no reason. Oh, my God. All right. Let's go to question three. Oh, man. Guys, Andy, question number three.

Andy. It's Bam. Andy. It's Babs. Oh, my God, dude. I need Mother's Day off. What the fuck is going on in the world, man? Why can't we just be cool? Oh, man. We're cool. I know we're cool.

It's just us, man. Dude, I know. They're going to kill us. Oh, fuck. All right. Andy, question number three. Get serious, bro. Get your game face on.

All right. Andy, I've been running my own business for about four years now. We offer direct farm-to-table beef and poultry. And I've been an av own business for about four years now. We offer direct farm to table beef and poultry. And I've been an avid listener for the last three years. Over the last two years, we have absolutely exploded in growth and are rapidly growing and looking to open our own inspected slaughterhouse. I give credit to our success to the show, 75 Hard, and my mentor who happens also happens to be my father-in-law as a mentor he has been an open book when it comes to any and all questions i have had i mean it's been great considering he's built real shit in his life two seven figure companies

he is now offering to help me expand with the only requirement being a monthly expense report. My question is, should I take the additional resources or keep moving forward on my own? I know that things can get ugly with family involved, involved, but helping local business owners isn't unheard of for him when he likes what he sees and believes in the cause. Thank you for your time and any advice on this subject. So the father-in-law is going to invest?

That's what it sounds like. And all he's asking in return is just monthly expense reports. Yeah, well, that's reasonable. You would have to do that for any kind of debt that you would take. So it sounds like your father-in-law is a pretty good dude. He wants to help you grow. He's loaning you some money or giving you an investment, and he wants to know that you're not going and buying a fucking porsche with it yeah you know what i'm saying i think that's reasonable can we talk about a little bit because you know how you started up

in business well hold on here's the thing though like it does take money to to to grow yeah and when you are in a growth cycle of high growth that sucks up all your cash when you're a small business so for i just want to unpack this for everybody listening that might be in a similar situation it is very normal when you're growing to to fucking be pissed off because you don't have any money all right and you have to understand that that's the normal process for those growth spurts that your business is going to go through. So there's two ways to look at this, all right, if you're a small business. One, you can ride it out and you can live below your means, which is what I always did,

all right? We never took any debt, still haven't took any debt, all right? Two, you could take some debt. You can get a a loan you can get a line of credit you can get an investor however you want to look at that and then you can start to scale your company out but here's the problem with that and this is where i would caution people to be very careful oftentimes when you're an inexperienced entrepreneur and you take debt, you get some sort of money invested. You're not experienced enough as an entrepreneur to know how to invest that money in the appropriate ways. And what happens a lot of times when this situation happens is that the small business takes the money and then they think that they're going to like blow the company up. So instead of realizing that to blow your company up, the first thing that you have to do is make sure that your ability to fulfill the supply,

the demand with your supply has to be locked tight. The second thing is your customer experience has to be locked tight. It has to be over the top because if you scale and that customer experience goes down, the word of mouth travels so fucking fast that it will destroy your reputation. So what ends up happening to a lot of small businesses that take money is that they spend it on the, like they get aggressive about bringing in new leads, bringing in new attention, scaling the brand but then their infrastructure can't fulfill the orders and their customer service doesn't make a great experience and people don't come back and once they come once and they get a bad experience

they're they're dude it's they're not coming back it's like going to a it's like going to a restaurant and then driving by it you know having the worst fucking meal ever and then driving by it six months later it says says, under new management. Are you going in? No. Probably not. No, probably not. So most small businesses do this backwards.

And so I would caution you, if you're going to take money, that you invest the money or make sure that your ability to fulfill in a fast, quality, amazing way is there. And that your service, your fail-safe, your customer service aspect of your business is locked tight. Because, dude, it's like this. Imagine a bucket. And you have a bucket. And the bucket has holes in the bottom and you somebody gives you 10 million dollars and you go buy a bunch of fucking water and you pour it in

the bucket it comes right out the bottom yeah okay and the water represents your customers okay so you have to fucking make sure that the bottom of that bucket is solid and the holes are going to be the the system server yes and the, the ability to fulfill, supply chain, all of this shit that people forget about. You know, we live in such a fast, you know, get rich quick mentality right now because of the bullshit that these clowns do on the fucking internet that people don't think like this. They don't understand.

If you go out and spend all this money on leads and you don't have the ability to fulfill leads have a finite there's a finite amount of leads bro like as big as the world is as big as the market is once your reputation is your reputation it's very hard to fix so it's very important that you consider these things before you take money and just go spend it on marketing because what happens is these companies will take the money spend it on marketing. Because what happens is these companies will take the money, spend it on marketing. None of the customers stay.

They don't capitalize on any of the word of mouth. They don't grow their business hardly at all. And then they're saddled with that fucking debt. Okay. And this happens all the time. This happens all the time. So if you're going to take debt as a small business or an investment as a small business,

however you're going to do it, make sure that your systems are good. Make sure you can fulfill the product. Make sure your customer experience is amazing. That way, when the attention comes in, they say, holy shit, dude, best meat ever. Best pork chops I ever got. Best steak I ever got. Not only that, amazing experience. It came the next day they can't do these people are awesome and that's what you want out of that investment does that make sense absolutely you don't want them saying the opposite because the internet is an amazing tool the internet will spread word of mouth instantly in a good way and also in a bad way so you cannot make a mistake here if you're a small business you you have to do this the way i'm telling you or you're gonna fuck yourself now the pro of taking these these investments or taking the

the capital or the loans is that you can achieve this fairly fairly quickly right because you have that money there now your experience you started like i said you've been doing this with no no debt you you it's been your own building of this right and it's been it's taken 25 years to get here so what are the pros versus cons well the pros is i own my shit yeah you know what i'm saying like i'm a very wealthy man because i never gave any of my shit away yeah all right that's the pros the cons are it's a massive pro that's right yeah but i'm still young because i started young i wasn't able to do that if you're 40 years old and you're just getting started, time is not on your side in that way. So you might need to do it a little bit differently.

So that's the pros. The cons are it takes a long time to do it that way. Had I taken money 10 years ago, I would be where I'm at eight years ago. And sometimes I'm like, fuck, that probably would have been a smarter move. You know what I mean? But that's not the way the cards played out for me. And I've got the situation I have now and it is what it is. But at some point, most businesses have to bring on a partner, an investor, some sort of debt. They have to, to scale past a certain point. Otherwise you're just not going

to be able to get there because like I said, the growth becomes so, it consumes all of your profits. And when your growth is so great that it's consuming all of your profits and you don't have any more, then that growth will eventually stall out, right? So most companies end up at some point having to take a partner, having to do some sort of strategic partnership, having to take some debt on. And in my opinion, I think you should make that process wait as long as possible. That's only going to benefit you more and more and more because you learn more lessons, get better you have better skill set You're doing better on your own and that way when the money comes in, you know what the fuck to do with it Money is not the answer for small entrepreneurs, bro

I know I know that's the big thing right now raise money raise money raise money raise money But raising money if you don't know what to do with it is just going to crush you financially because it's going to saddle with you with all kinds of debt that you can't pay because now your business is out of business you see what i'm saying yeah so there's i just think when you're a small guy and you're just getting started it's better to bootstrap the as long as you possibly can um because you need the skill set to know where you should invest that money. Yeah. And, dude, like, you just don't know. Like, this guy, he's doing it three years.

Real talk, bro. You better listen real close to what I just said. You'll fuck yourself. I've seen it happen a gazillion times. Yeah. And there's people out here listening right now who are like, fuck, that happened to me. Yeah.

So, a lot of them. That's real shit, man. I love it. Well, guys, Andy, that was me. Yeah. So, a lot of them. That's real shit, man. I love it. Well, guys, Andy, that was three. Yep. It's ma'am! We're from sleeping on the floor. Now my jewelry box froze.

Fuck a bowl, fuck a stove. Counted millions in the cold. Bad bitch, booted swole. Got her on bankroll. Can't fold, that's a no. Head shot, case closed.