REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 85. Transactional Vs. Intentional

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Are you being transactional or intentional in your interactions and conversations? On today's episode, Sal talks about the two changes he's made that have lead him to happiness and success in his personal and professional life.

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. Hey, what's going on, guys? You're listening to Sell for Sell on Real AF, and today we're going to get a little bit of real talk for you. As always, I don't know what I did, how it works, but it seems that maybe my failures in life, my experiences are seeming to resonate with some of you guys because the share, the support, the love, the messages, the text messages, quite honestly, I'm just not used to it and I really

greatly appreciate it. I love the ability to help people. And I think, you know, just these little 15, 20 minute segments for me, almost like therapy, honestly, you know, I get to, I get to talk to you. I feel like I'm talking to myself. I feel like I'm talking to my kids or maybe leaving something out there in the world that, that helps somebody become a better version or helps them through a tough time. And, you know, we were just talking about what we're going to talk about today. And, uh, Medat, I don't know if he calls himself the producer. I don't know what his job is. The janitor, the producer. He said, I like when I talked to Enzo and, you know, I talked about, I talked to Enzo on my Instagram. I don't know if you follow me at Mr. Fursella on Instagram. I love the lessons. He said he loves the lessons that I

talked to Enzo about because I try to share my emotions and I try to share my experiences through talking to my son through Instagram, even though he doesn't have Instagram. And it led me to think what was the transition of life for me? And what was the aha moment for me? And what was the, what was like the aha moment for me? And, you know, you have a few of them throughout, you have a few of them throughout life. And I think that's what you realize, you know, if you're young and you're listening to the, to the podcast, you know, and you're 21, you think you have life figured out. I'm here to tell you, you don't have fucking life figured out. You're 25. You think you have an understanding of what life is. I'm here to tell you, you don't have a fucking clue what life is. 30, you start to smell it a little bit. 35, I think I started to grasp it

maybe a little bit, but now at 39, I think I'm starting to kind of understand. And they're all little chapters and they're important chapters. But for me, the biggest thing that I learned, and there's two things actually, so I don't want to say the biggest. There's two things that I've done in my life with intention that have led me to what I would call my happiness or my success. And I think whether you look at success from a monetary standpoint or success as a personal standpoint, these two things go hand in hand and understanding that it's what got me exactly where I'm at today, which is from a professional sense and a personal sense. And I say personal sense because of my marriage, my wife, and my relationship with my team. The first thing is tell the truth. I learned to tell the truth, not sort of the truth, which is what I did in my early twenties, not kind of the truth,

which is what I did in my mid twenties, but the truth. What I decided to make a vow to myself when I was about 30. I learned that lies didn't get you anything. And I learned this through relationships. I would lie to women to manipulate them to get what I wanted. Well, it would work, but it was always short term. And I never had a good relationship. Imagine that. I was feeding in lies and I was getting bullshit in return. But what happened is I transacted that into my first business career, which is selling copiers. And I would tell the white lies to

kind of get the result that I wanted. And I had a really bad sales manager at the time. He would teach me these skills. And because I was good on my feet, I learned to exemplify the little white lies to kind of get the job done. But I was never fulfilled. I never did well. And I always, honestly, I felt like a fucking scumbag. And it took me a little while to figure that out. And it took me a little while to figure out that the little lies always got me in trouble. Little lies always made me feel empty. And I remember very intentionally, about six or eight months before I met my wife, that I'm going to be just dead ass honest the rest of my life. I'm not going to lie. I feel like a scumbag. I knew I wasn't doing the right thing, even though I was yielding the result

that I quote unquote wanted, which was really kind of money in the sense you're trying to transact. And when I learned to tell the truth, I saw a side of me that was much more compassionate. I saw a side of my friendships and relationships that were much more genuine because I was able to be completely honest with people. But in return, they were completely honest with me. And in return, as soon as I started giving people the truth, I started hearing the truth and receiving the truth. And it was mostly important, and I say this because as I started developing a relationship with my wife, or my girlfriend at the time, my wife now, that truth and honesty and difficult

conversations, instead of me lying about things I wanted, I would just tell the truth. And we were able to have good, solid discussions. And we were able to get through some tougher times. Instead of me having to lie and try to work my way through it, I was able to tell her how I felt. And I was able to tell her my struggles. And I was able to really just bond with her in that way. And it was important because it spawned into a trusting relationship. And I don't know that I'd ever had that before. And over the last 10 years, my wife and I have developed an unbelievable bond built through truth and built through love and struggle. And it hasn't always been fucking sunshine and rainbows, but she knows.

And I know that when we sit down at the end of the day, I know exactly how she feels. She knows exactly how I feel and we can spawn a relationship. So telling the truth for me was very freeing because for 10 years of my life, I didn't tell the truth. I was lying and it bled over into my sales career and bled into my relationships and it bled into who I was. I was lying about who I was because I wasn't telling the truth. And I think that's an important piece because when you can stop telling lies, you'll stop believing your own lies. You know, the first person that you tell the lie to is yourself. That's how you justify it. And when you can cut that shit out of your life, you'll start

to really see who you are and develop into what you're meant to be. And that to me is a piece of personal development that leads to the ultimate success because it's a freeing feeling. You know, it's a freeing feeling to know that I can walk into a room and everybody knows exactly where I stand. They know the exact story and we can get down to fucking doing business versus the old version of me, the 23 year old version of me. I'd have so many fucking lies going on and I figured I would forget what's going on in what direction. And it was taxing. It was mental struggle. I always forget who, what did I tell? What story did I tell this customer? What story did I tell this girl? And it was like this constant fucking battle, man. And it just got old, just got fucking old. And, you know, I realized

the second I started telling the truth, my life started taking a pathway in which I wanted it to go. And it was that pathway for me was first with my wife and second, secondarily into my career, which leads into my second point, not only my personal success from the standpoint of, you know, how I feel, but this is, this one is very much leads to the financial success. And all too often, we worry about the money first and we think that the happiness will come. But I challenge you to think that the money does not come first. The happiness has to come first and understanding that the money is simply a byproduct

of how you do that job. So let me unpack that for you. If you are the best at what you do, the money will come. If you are the best, insert whatever you want here. If you're the best NASCAR driver, you make the most money. If you are the best flooring contractor, you make the most money. If you are the best bricklayer, you make the most money. And I think a lot of, all too often we focus on how do I make the most money in searching something for that. And it's a lost way to chase your happiness that way. And I can tell you, I used to chase money and I chased it. The first thing I did when I got released from baseball is I was looking for a job.

Well, what'd I do? I found the guy I knew that made the most money. He sold copiers. Well, I realized it was a fucking hustle. It's like a used car hustle. That's what it was. And guess what? I used car hustle and I made a little bit of money. It wasn't fun. And that whole time I was looking for a job, they're like, well, and in my head, I'm like, what job makes the most money? Medical sales. I'm going to go do that. And I did. I went and I made a lot of money. Guess what? I didn't find happiness because it wasn't fulfilling for me because I wasn't learning to be intentional. And this is the lesson. I had to find something that was intentional, not transactional. Meaning I had to focus on what I enjoyed doing, not how to make the most money. And once I learned to focus, to love what I was doing, if I became great at that, the money would come.

And the opportunity to take my career to a position where I was able to be intentional with the message versus transactional with the delivery, it allowed me not only to fulfill what I love to do as a human, which is help people, it allowed me to succeed financially towards the goals that I wanted because I was able to do what I love to do every single day, which is help people change their life through physical fitness and education. I was, it allowed me to financially free myself from the burdens of money that I was so often trying to fulfill all because I took this one little mindset shift and said, you know what, I'm going to stop being transactional and I'm going to start being intentional. I'm going to start actually caring about what it is that I do every single day, and I'm going to pour my heart into it.

And if I do great at it, I can and will win financially. And it took a while. And then trust me, it wasn't like, oh, just because I love doing it in one minute, I'm going to start making a lot of fucking money. No, that's not what happened. But what did happen is I found what I was meant to do far before the money came, and I enjoyed doing it. And that's not what happened. But what did happen is I found what I was meant to do far before the money came and I enjoyed doing it. And that's where the happiness comes before the money. And I know that sounds really fucking stupid for somebody who's struggling right now, but the struggle is part of the happiness equation. The story, the bond, the tears, that is all part of why you can celebrate success. And I think all too often, like when you look at the lows in life, the reason the highs feel so high is because you've been able to establish a

low. And if you always had high, like if you were always winning, you would never, you would lose the taste of the win because you would never have experienced the low. And I think that's where the struggle of the journey, the struggle of the journey allows you to appreciate the value of the win. And, you know, those two things for me, they really changed my life because man, telling the truth is the most freeing thing that I can tell you that you can, that I can promise you, promise you, promise you. If you can learn to speak the truth, even if your voice shakes, I can promise you that your life will be better. Two, stop looking at people as transactional. Stop looking at somebody if you're in sales or whatever. Stop looking at your customers like they're a fucking ATM machine

and start giving a shit about them. Start asking them how their day is. Start caring about why. What is their why? We're in the fitness business and when somebody wants to change their life, you got to learn to treat them as a human, not as a system. You got to learn to figure out why they want to lose weight. You want to be a better dad. You want to be a better brother, mother, sister, leader, husband. Like what is your why? What is your decision?

Be intentional with that conversation so that when they struggle, you know that human and you know what drives them to get them to the goal line. Because at the end of the day, our job is to deliver results. Our job is to take that person who wants to change their life and do whatever we can possibly do on God's green earth to make sure that we get them across the goal line. That's the goal. And he can't look at it.

That's not a monetary exchange. That's an exchange of being intentional about who they are as a human and what makes them tick. And I can tell you the combination of learning to tell the truth and learning to be intentional are the two biggest things that I've done in my life to help me be successful. And they go hand in hand because if you just do what it is that I do for a living, which is help people change their life, both physically and financially, if I can help you learn to tell the truth and the truth in our situation is, you know what? You didn't get fat in 21 days. You're not going to get skinny in 21 days. Let's just be honest about that. You know, we don't sell a wrap. I don't sell a fucking 21 day fix.

You're not going to, you know, stick something up your ass and you're going to lose 15 pounds. That's not how it works. That's telling the truth. The truth is it's going to be fucking hard. The truth is you're going to have to weigh your food. You're going to have to track your food. You're going to have to work out. You're going to have to drink water. You're going to have to stop drinking alcohol. These are truths. These are stories that I had to learn to just be dead ass honest with people to help them understand the journey that they're going to go through so that they can change. But I had to be honest with them. I had to set that expectation, but I was intentional with that message because when they were struggling, I want them to know like, hey, I told you it was going to be this way

so that they believe in me so that we can keep going so that I can explain to them, hey man, when you get through this eight weeks, 16 weeks, 24 weeks, I promise you we're going to make you a better version of yourself because you're going to have earned confidence and earned respect And we're going to make you a better father brother mother husband leader sister It doesn't matter because I was intentional with the message of making sure that I helped them Get where they wanted to fucking go and if you can learn to tie the truth to the intention I promise you that your career, no matter what it is, will be 10 times better off than it is today. Learn to tell the truth and learn to be intentional versus transactional.

And I promise you, you can win it.