REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 938. Q&AF: Ownership Without Guilt, Tough Leadership Decisions & Balancing Team Commitment

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

On today’s episode, Andy answers live call-in questions on how to take over a business without the guilt of a “handout”, how to handle critical situations as a leader without hurting team morale, and how to inspire team members to fully commit to excellence.

Yeah Went from sleeping on the floor Now my jury box froze Fuck a pole Fuck a stole Counted millions in a cold Bad bitch booted swow Got her own bankro

Can't fold Just a no head shot case closed What is up guys It's Andy Fricela And this is the show for the realists Saying goodbye to the lies The fakeness and delusions A modern society

And welcome Mother fucking reality Guys today we have Q&AF That's where you submit the questions, and we give you the answers. You can submit your questions a couple different ways. The first way is, guys, email your questions into Ask Andy at Andy Fricela.com. And what's the second way? You can also drop your questions in the Q&A of episodes on YouTube.

And what's the big way? Big way, guys, is you can click that link in the description and submit your questions for live call-ins. Yeah. I think we're going to start doing the live chat on the Q&A and just pick you right out of the chat. No, that'd be sick. Yeah, let's do that. It would be sick. We're doing that from now on, executive decision.

Executive decision. Yeah. So look out for that. Let's see. Throughout the week, we're going to have shows within the show. It's not always going to be Q&AF. Sometimes we're going to have real talk. Real talk is just 520 minutes of me giving you some real talk.

Tomorrow, we're going to have CTI. That stands for Cruz, the Internet. We talk about what's going on in the world. We speculate on what's true, what's not true. And then we talk about how we, the people have to solve these problems going on in the world and there are a lot of them then we have 75 hard versus we just had an awesome 75 hard versus if you didn't get to check that out it was 75 hard versus lexie johnson uh but that's where someone who has completed the 75 hard program comes on the show they talk about how they were before how

they are now and how they use the 75 hard program to fix their shit uh if you're unfamiliar with 75 hard is the initial phase of the live hard program, which is the world's most popular mental toughness program ever created. And it is available for free at episode 208. Get the whole program for free episode 208 on the audio feed only. There's also a book on my website, Andyficella.com, called The Book on Mental Toughness. Go fucking buy it. It has the entire program in there. uh plus a whole bunch of other chapters on mental toughness um how to how to use it how to build your life the way you want uh and why it's important all right so for you nerds out there that like dig deep get the book yeah what else we got a fee we do have a fee fee is very simple

uh please share the show um we're always dealing with throttling and bands and all that bullshit uh we need your help sharing the show so if the show makes you think it makes you laugh gives you new perspective if you think it's information that needs to be heard um do us a favor no be a ho share the show all right what's up what's going on man oven yeah yeah yeah beautiful day is yeah it's a beautiful day dude it's been fucking hot it's been hot yeah how long is it's supposed to stay hot like i don't know but i don't like it dude so uh you know it was nice for like a week yeah it was beautiful 70 degrees now it's hot again yeah it's back hot you know it is crazy um so you know one of my passions for those that don't know is i like i love football you love

food football do you say food ball i said football oh football oh got it i thought you said food ball what's uh it's supposed to be better at like thursday oh is it yeah yeah that's nice yeah anyway so yeah no i love football it's it's a big passion of mine uh played it for years coached it for years and so recently i'm like i want to i want a ref right like i went through the whole process i'm doing like little league junior high games and shit now and yesterday uh i caught two cramps in my quads on the first play i was trying to try to scoot across field bro listen first of all did they have to call the fucking uh the traitors out

bro i started running like fucking like i had something up my ass bro it was so bad crazy thing is though like uh one of the uh coaches recognized me and once you saw you running yeah it's like wait you said your name was DJ you're DJ right I'm like yep that's me flag yeah off you know what I'm saying it was great though man it's been where's the games at uh they're all over I've been doing uh like I'm doing junior high right now because do the the j they want me to do some jv games but like those are on

mondays at like five o'clock i can't do those yeah um now i can do like some of the varsity stuff i just haven't got a sign it's the first year so yeah but i'll do the uh junior high game so seven eighth grade uh yesterday was at marquette yeah and uh they got they got they got swept by they play riddner oh really they're fucking swept bro those kids are good you ref uh you're gonna ref um i cd s probably yeah they're probably we played them in junior high they've they've always shit out of us. We play them in high school, too. They, fuck, they're good.

They've always had a program. Yeah, it's been cool, man. Yep. It's been fun, but y'all caught two fucking cramps on the first play, man. I was fucking dying the whole game, man. I'm like, y'all niggas got some diabetes water here for me or something. I, dude, I just wanted something, man. The diabetes.

Diabetes water. The diabetes water. Pickle juice. Fuck. Dude, I would have, I would have drank anything. Yeah. Speaking of drinking anything. That's right.

How about that fucking plug? Now, we may not run ads on the show, but if I were, it would be for this amazing form energy. Fuck, man, that was good. Energy drink. That's right. The greatest energy drink in the history of Earth. And just so you know, there's more. Because we also have.

Look at you. The form, first form snack stack. That's right. I just picked this up on my way over here at Wallies. Yeah. not really okay but if I did I actually got this out of my office but I could have bought it at Wally's or 7-Eleven or pretty much anywhere else yeah and you should too I needed those yesterday yeah so this is definitely not an ad because I'm not getting paid but this is a

personal recommendation mm-hmm I like it damn that is fucking good bro orange is good good I can't wait for the new flavors bro because there's some I know which one you're waiting you know which one that's right yeah can you guys guess can you guys guess which flavor is coming the DJ is really gonna like yeah I'll send you guys a case if you guess it right yeah all right case will be stolen too I was waiting for that yeah let's uh yeah but dude it's hey listen it's it's it's It's our Monday morning, so let's make some people better today. I got some good ones for you.

We've got some callers ready, too. So let's get this first one going. We got, let's give Cody a call. Cody. Cody with the C. Cool. Because there's other ways? Yeah.

The K. Cody? Yeah. You guys do that shit all the time. No, we do not. Yeah. We do not. Yeah.

Now, that's Carl. You know, 28-year-old. 25 28 year old new moms and they're trying to be unique yep that's right yeah they'll do that shit yeah we we normal people do not people don't realize like how bad that like fucks up their kids life like every class you're in you got to spell your name out you know what I'm saying like people that have like a regular name don't know that but like I know that you know that I know yeah I just spell my last name and everybody always says it so many fucking different ways Frily Frizilla yeah Frizzella yeah it's how hard is it to fucking pronounce bro it's fricella

Like fry seller fry cella see and that's that's my calling is sell fries that what it is I got this whole plan bro yeah yeah I'm gonna transition into a fry no barbecue bro tycoon no we gotta do with smoke meats both okay we'll do both there yeah we'll put smoke meat on the fries fuck talk about fucking diabetes And then we'll sell them weight loss southwomen. Yeah, that's right, perfect. It's perfect. It's called vertical integration.

That's right. We'll put a gym right next door. Yeah. All right, let's give a calling going. We got Jake. Let's give Jake a call. Hello? Jake, what's up, dude?

What's up, big dog? How'd you know I was a big dog? I don't know I'm a little dog I'm a little dog bro you know you're a big dog Jake what's up dude What's up Andy how are you? I'm doing great brother How are you? I can't complain

Another day another quarter Yeah where you call it in from Long Island New York Nice So what do you do What do you do up there bro? So I run A gourmet seafood market Okay

Yeah, you sell to all the, uh, do you sell to all the, uh, you sell to individuals or also restaurants? Individuals, mostly individuals. Okay. A lot of, uh, hedge fund guys and housewives. All right. So they want in between, you know, I got everything from hedge fund guys to, uh, you know, people who clean houses. So it's a really, really good job. That's awesome, dude.

So what, how'd you get into that? Uh, I was a, uh, pretty troubled, uh, team always, uh, fighting and, uh, getting in the problems, you know, running the streets and doing stuff like that. And I turned 18 and I said, well, it was either I'm going to go to work or I'm going to go to war. And there really wasn't much of a war at the time. So I walked into this little seafood market in my town and I actually had a black eye at the time. I didn't think I was going to get hired. I got stung by a bee a couple days before. And the woman at the time, she really needed help. So I just walked in and asked for a job. And that was 10 years ago. And I've been here five, six days a week, blood sweat,

tears. Um, my first year here, I boosted sales 30%. Um, really just knuckled down and, and did my best. And it's taking me, taking me pretty far. That's awesome, bro. So, so do you own this place now? No, I don't. And that's part of my question. Um, so I, like I said, I've been here 10 years. And it was always a plan to either buy into this one or me and the owner now, we're going to open a new market together. In the past couple of years, she's taken like a 180. She got divorced, bought a house, and then got remarried. And she's in nursing school right now. Okay.

She kind of, she wants out of the business. But me, I have my foot on the gas. I want to grow the business. I have a lot of things. I want to do with the business, do things with community. I have a whole lot of ideas. So I'm looking to buy the business within the next six to nine months. Okay.

And my question is, is I'm going to be getting a loan from my father-in-law to the business. Like I said, I've done everything by myself my entire life, phone bill, core bill, everything. I've never gotten a hand out. and getting the money from my father-in-law, to me, it feels like almost like a hand out, not a hand up. So I'm kind of just like struggling with that a little bit, how I can feel like I'm getting a hand up and not a hand out. Okay. This is very easy. The one way, dude, the real, the real way that you make what you're trying to do happen is to make it successful and make it worth this while.

Beautiful. Yeah. I mean, that's it, dude. You know, like take the loan, understand that, you know, this is something that you're not really comfortable with, but have the intention, which I could tell you already do, of not just paying the loan back, but also making it a strong financial investment for him. You know, it sounds to me like you're trying to scale this bitch out. And, you know, who knows? This could be one of the greatest investments since he's ever made. And I would make it my point. personal goal to make it that way. And it sounds like you understand the business. You've been doing it a long time. You sound confident. You sound like, dude, I, I, I think you're thinking about it exactly how you should. You know, anytime you take money, you should feel a little hesitant about it.

I think that awareness is like, yeah, that's a healthy thing, dude. Yeah, and then figuring out how to make it worth as well. What are the terms that you guys figured out or did you do that yet? um so right now i have uh we're getting contracts and everything um written out um i know i i do everything here so taking over really wouldn't be that much of a problem i write the checks i do the ordering um you know it's not really like a job to me i love it so much i talked to all different people and stuff like that um the terms would be basically um we haven't really talked about like a payback situation.

Because he's one of those guys that, I just got the contract from the lawyer and everything. He's one of those guys that nothing happens until that contract is written and signed and then we move forward. But it would probably be kind of like a traditional SBA loan where I have a 10-year period to pay it back. It would be my mission to pay that back in four years. And I believe that I can do that with the revenue of the business. Because for the first couple of years, I really, I'm going to take the salary I take now, which isn't great.

And then I'm going to take whatever else from the business, reinvest back into the business, and pay back my loan. Like, I tell all my customers all the time, like, I'm prepared to open a cooler, put a blanket in there and a pillow and sleep in that thing if I have to. Yeah. So I really, you know, I really think I could pay back the loan. The loan isn't in terms of like, you know, it's a couple hundred thousand dollars. So I really think that just grinding it out for a couple of years, I can pay back that loan in full. And it would probably be my mission to do it with under four years. Yeah.

Do you ship your product or is it walking? We don't ship. We don't ship. So that's one of the next steps that I want to look into once I get everything situated and start going to business and doing things my way is we make a couple of niche products here that I look at the, seafood, the frozen seafood selection in, you know, supermarkets and things like that are pretty trash. It's fish sticks. Oh, I'm aware. A fish mix. Yeah. It's, it's trash. Um, so I really want to look into, um, we make swordfish meatballs. I make swordfish meatballs. Um, I make these really nice, uh, salmon burgers that I think in the long run, um, you know, I would try to get into

a frozen space in supermarkets, Walmart, uh, B J's, Costco, things like that. Um, you know, I know a Walmart customer is not to be the same as a target customer. So you have branch out and have different things that I can put in these shelves and stuff like that, that I can do different products. And that would be the ultimate goal. I have another idea that I want to do is I want to take like a 10 to 13 foot friskraft, a woodbrain priscraft boat. Yep.

And I want to hollow it out with a metal fabricator. and I'm going to gut the engine, gut it out, and have a metal fabricator come, and we're going to install a metal bin inside the boat that I can bring to beaches, parties, people's mansions over here. People have

funny money. The average house over here is like a million dollars that I can bring to these people's houses, and it could be a shucking boat. Put clams on it, oysters, king crab, lobster, and things like that. And they're really, they have canoes and things like that, but a real

wood grain actual boat that has not been done and I look at that as like a business inside of the business. Yes. That I can grow and I can even get one boat, two boat, three boats, have a separate Instagram for it, post things, you know, run it as a business

inside of the business, not taking my attention away from my bread and butter, which is retail seafood. For sure. But something like that can easily bring me an extra 20 to 30 grand of summertime season just renting it out on the daily yeah brother look can i can i tell you what i do yeah all

all right because it sounds like you got it all figured out and i'm gonna play big brother here how old are you i'm 27 all right i'm big brother all right i'm not dad yet uh yeah here's the deal bro you got a fucking great thing going okay and it's and it's niche too it's gourmet seafood here's what i would do if I was your partner, all right? I would take the loan. I would, well, first of all, before I take the loan, I would sit down today and I would make a concrete plan of how we're going to scale this motherfucker out.

And how I would do it, if I were you, is I like the Chris Craft idea a lot, by the way. I would, are you on social media yet with your fish market? it um so there is a social media for it i um i tried to take it over about a year and a half ago the owner the woman she was like no i'm doing it the social media is trashed so that's number one thing when i take over is i'm going to delete everything and revamp the entire social media um that's my number one my number one goal okay okay here's what i would do dude i would make a plan and it would look something like this

we're going to go out and get the loan we're going to pay this thing back within five years here's how we're going to do it we're going to take over the ownership of the retail location we're going to continue to run that we're going to continue to make it better the product is going to continue to get better not worse we are never going to compromise the product we are only going to move it in the direction of better because you're playing in a premium market space so the price of what you sell is less relevant than any of the other spaces it's about quality then what i'm going to do and what well what we're going to do is we're going to get that fucking criss craft boat but we're not going to get five of them we're going to get one

and what we're going to do is we're going to shoot content around the brand story all right this is how jake makes the meatballs this is where we get the fish this is what i do it follows you It shows that you're a blue collar small fishing expert who loves his product. And by the way, you do fucking love it. I can hear it. Yeah, yeah. Who loves what he does and loves this whole thing. And the content that we make is going to be very Cape Coddish feeling, all right?

Premium. You know, the northeastern. feel um and then what we're going to do is we're going to create an amazing social social uh strategy that's going to tell this amazing story what's your what's the name of the business uh it's marty's gourte's gourte's gourmet seafood all right that's fucking great dude that's highly merchandisable that sounds like a place that sounds like a place i want to get my fucking fish from yeah real talk yeah so so then we're going to create this um we're going to create a direct-to-consumer model, okay?

That's the first thing we're going to do. So we're going to have the walk-in. We're going to create the content. Then we're going to create a direct consumer model fueled by advertising, you know, on digital spaces. And we can, we'll start to create an operation where you can sell to individuals wealthy, high class, high-demand, high-standard individuals at a high-price point throughout the country. all right and that's going to create that's going to create a high margin that you're going to be able to scale the business off of you know most of the problem that most of the reason that most people can't scale their business is because they don't make enough margin and they race to the bottom and the the reason i like the premium category is because when you're dealing with a customer that just wants the best it allows room for margins to be fair and yeah and uh so this this is

basically what I would do with you know with what Marty's gourmet seafood is that it yeah okay yeah and then I would create some cool old school feeling shirts I would have those available and I would go with branding war on on the product dude and a great product great branding digital ads direct consumer model keep the retail to where it is and then what happens is dude is the retail will eventually become this like like this landmark where people who come to Long Island, they got to go to Marty's because because this is where I get all my fish for my program or for my parties and my events. And I and I got to meet Jake, dude.

You see what I'm saying? Like this is. Yeah. So this is how I would scale that business out in a very general way. But here's the thing, bro. And I'm like, I'm getting excited about it. you have a highly scalable situation here and a lot of people don't a lot of people have things that can't be scaled properly this could be a massive brand dude and yeah that's the goal

yeah and dude you you originally ask how do i make how do i not feel guilty make the brand so fucking big that you can afford to give your father-in-law an equity position of five 10% that pays out for the rest of his fucking life and then when he says just undeniable. Yeah, right. Then when he says, well, you already paid the loan, you say, yeah, but now I'm doing the right thing because you believe, you believe to me. That's right. And that's how we fucking do things here, bro. That's, that's, that's how I've always done shit. And while it's cost me money and, you know, it's not really. It's an investment in the right thing. And when you do good things, good things come back. And, uh, exactly, you know, I believe that. I, I've seen it. A hundred percent,

100%. You know, I always tell people, I'm like, yo, give the homeless got $5. Kip the guy at the gas station pumping your gas a couple bucks. Buy somebody coffee in line and junkie donuts. Those things compound. Yes. Even if you might not see them, like, originally a day, a day or two later, it's just, it's karmic, it's good, karmic relief. There's karmic debt and there's karmic relief.

And you put, you put good out there, you will get good back. Dude, a thousand percent. And people with bad karma will look at that guy on the fucking corner and they'll say, you just gave that guy a hundred bucks and he's just going to go drink with it look motherfucker this ain't about what he does it's about what i did exactly exactly if he wants to go party let him he's happy you know that's right bro i'm with you bro in fact man like this is an exciting if we were a few years down the road bro i'd be like say i'd be calling you back on and be like hey let's fucking do this together like this this is awesome dude yeah i'm with it man i'm with it

You know, it's crazy. I found you in, like, 2020, and you were talking about, like, chopping heads off and putting them on the White House lawn. And I was like, yo, this is my guy. Yeah. And you started talking about business and everything. And I was like, holy shit. This is really my guy. Hey, we can make a business out of that, too.

Yeah, by the way. Yeah. We can make some, we can make some thrones with the skulls on the corner, you know. Hey, look, dude, you're in a good spot. And I like the whole idea. I love. Thank you. I really do.

bro and uh i'm excited for you and you're young enough to do it and i i fucking hope one day oh and by the way after you've built the direct of consumer business then you then you have an opportunity to to fill in that retail play that you're talking about all right yeah so then you can go to the the you know the you could start with the high end groceries and then you can go to the um you know you can go to the big chains that and then and then the box and you can You can scale this out. But here's the thing I want you to remember. Because a few years from now, when this is a real conversation, this is what the fuck

they're going to tell you. They're going to say, Jake, your product's too expensive. Jake, you need to make the product cheaper. Never fucking do that. Because the whole magic of your brand is the quality of your product. That's right. And if you're going to play in a premium space, you cannot ever, ever, ever cut corners on quality, no matter what it does to the price definitely beautiful so hopefully that's helpful bro oh it's

100% helpful annie and you know if you're ever in long island hit me up i'd love to take care of you give you some you know whatever whatever you need you know if you're ever if you're ever over here you know i'll take care of you man i i really appreciate everything you guys do and you know you just give free game you get free game free game free game and that's really appreciated to you know a younger generation of entrepreneurs like myself i i really appreciate it i listen your podcast every morning it just gets me fired up to just you know go out and conquer brother there's nothing that i have that you don't fucking have all you got to do is just all you got to do is show the fuck up and keep doing it dude that's it i appreciate it thank you all right jake

appreciate you guys thank you for everything all right see you dude see you brother i see that's a fucking entrepreneur yeah that's a young dude that's why the fuck i do this that right there you got a young dude who sees an opportunity you can hear the hunger bro bro it reminds me of how I feel dude I feel that way every day yeah I still feel that way you know what I'm saying like a lot of people are like why do you still do this and this and that because I fucking love the game dude you're still Jake yes still because my goals are so big you know what I mean like and it's not greed it's just the game it's a game I love the game And he loves the game.

You can fucking hear it. We got to, I feel like we got to stay in touch with him. Bro, I want to see Marty's gourmet seafood fucking everywhere, bro. I want to see Marty's gourmet seafood restaurants. Fuck. Bro, I'm about to call him back and give him that money myself. I love it, man. I absolutely love it.

I love it. Well, let's keep going. Let's keep doing it. All right, guys, Andy, here's another question for you. Hey, Andy and DJ. Hey, Andy, how do I move forward when I caught a co-worker stealing time, clocking in at 4 a.m. when she wasn't there, which also manipulates our tip pool, gave my boss proof. My boss staked out the place to gather her proof for herself. My boss confronted her, but instead of firing her, my boss let her apologize and is keeping her on because she's deemed irreplaceable. Mind you, This has been going on for months and months, and I had suspicion and have known. It's not just one-time thing, and my boss knew that, and I can see the proof in the POS system.

It feels like this sets a bad precedent for the rest of us, and honestly just shows we don't align on the same rules. Thief this theft. What should I do? Oh, man. Doing the right thing. Listen, here's the lesson here for anybody who is a manager, a leader, an operator who's in charge. of hiring, firing, and running a team. When you have someone who is doing something that is outside the realm of what is

supposed to be allowed to do, and you allow them to continue doing that, you demoralize the rest of the team. The rest of the team loses belief. They don't believe in you. They don't believe in the mission. They don't believe in the company. And eventually, all your good people leave because they recognize that. all the standards and all the things that you say you stand for don't mean shit and they also

recognize that there is no accountability for doing good or bad so you as a leader and a manager need to understand that when your team understands that someone's fucking off and you don't handle it it ruins the team it tells the team you don't need to try that hard. It tells the team that even if you break the rules, there's no repercussion. It literally makes it impossible for you to grow and build the company. So I'm going to say that first. That's terrible leadership. I don't know why he would do that. Maybe he has a friendship or a history or he's known this girl's family. I don't fucking know. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. I agree with you

that is a character flaw that will end up biting him again and again and again until he doesn't because that same person is just going to find another way to cheat and by the way

what are you training that person to believe about their job there and also their job anywhere you see this isn't just about holding someone accountable for the behavior on the job. It's about teaching them a lesson

that they will carry with them for life. And what this leader just did was teach this person that it's okay to do these things and there won't be any repercussions. And because they now have witnessed this, they are much more likely to continue that pattern through their life everywhere they go. And this guy thinks he's cutting her a break

when in reality he's probably handicapped, her for life and so you know that's something that no one talks about or believes uh that's a real thing fuck yeah it'll ruin dude that guy just ruined that girl's life she's going to go to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing and eventually the thing we'll get her arrested and it'll fuck her whole life up yeah um so what should you do uh you know i'd probably have one more conversation with the fucking boss and i'd probably say something like i'm saying and i'd say hey man I know you think you're doing the right thing, but here's the problem. The rest of the team fucking hate you for it.

And the rest of the team doesn't want to work here because that you're allowing her to fucking get away with special shit. What's that tell us? That tells us that it doesn't matter what we do or not do. And by the way, if I do the same thing and you fire me, I could just sue you for discrimination. So he's creating all sorts of holes and liabilities for himself that I'm sure he's not aware of. And I would have a conversation with him about it. And, and I would be okay walking out of the room, not working there.

You know, like I would, I would already decide personally when I walk in the room that I might walk out of the room and not work here anymore. But I'm going to say what I think. I'm going to say the truth. And hopefully they respect it. And if they don't, then I'm going to move on to something different that, you know, is more representative of a place that I believe in and want to work at. Yeah. Yeah. dude it's hard to have the the courage it's easy to have morals and values it's it's hard to

to be able to stand on them that's a tough thing for a lot of people yeah you know yeah but i mean that's also called being an adult you know like yeah i understand that that's tough for people but if they never learn the skill of confrontation or standing up for themselves then you're gonna get walked on your whole life yeah so you know if this is making you nervous to handle instead of letting it make you nervous, maybe you should look at it as an opportunity to grow and say, all right, this is something that's holding me back. My inability to have a direct conversation about things that are wrong is something that's holding me back. And I need to conquer that. And I'm going to invest in that right now by handling this situation the best

way. And regardless of what happens, whether he gets rid of her or whether he, you know, says, well, hey, maybe this isn't the place for you. You're going to be proud of yourself. And that's going to build integrity and confidence in yourself to where you're going to be. actually what will happen is you'll become less afraid to have those conversations and then you'll get into a place where that direct feedback is very valuable because I'm going to be real with you dude direct feedback that is not bias to either way is some of the most valuable shit that you can have inside of a company there are people who will tell you you're wrong because they think like well nobody stands up to him and they you know I got it's my role

to tell them the truth those motherfuckers are annoying as fuck everybody sees through them they're not valuable because they take contrarian viewpoints no matter what and then you have the other extreme which is oh that's a great idea it's great we should fucking do that that's not valuable either so when we think about like who's the most valuable it's the people who can objectively tell you the facts of the matter without exaggerating them one way or the other so that you can make the proper decision and the most valuable people in my organization are those people, the people who come to me and they say, hey, here's what's going on. And it's the truth and the facts.

And then if they want to be even more valuable, you know what happens? They come to me and they say, here's what's going on. Here's how I handled it. And I don't even have to fucking touch it. Those are the most valuable things that you can do. And you're in a position now to invest into that skill set by having that sort of conversation. not a conversation that is extra contrarian or abrasive and not a conversation that sucks balls right like the truth here's what it is here's what's going on i want you to know because this is real and this guy doesn't sound like he might value that so but dude i'm going to tell you most competent operators that's like some of the most valuable shit that you can look for and i would i would further this discussion to say that the reason that most people don't succeed and get capped out

in their careers is not effort or hard work or even skill set but it's their inability to communicate honestly and directly yeah they're afraid and if you're in the right place what would you be afraid of in regards to telling the leader something that's going to benefit the overall mission yeah they might get upset they might fucking bark and make some noise but that's not at you yeah that's at the situation you see what i'm saying yeah i was just dude he may not value it because he's may never had it maybe never had anybody come to tell him yeah yeah because it is rare it is rare you know what i'm saying does it say where he works uh no no so yeah i mean it's rare dude um in my career of 26 years i have

probably 10 people that I would say have developed that skill set yeah all 10 of those people are either making a lot of money or they've gone somewhere else and made a lot of money so it's a hell of a skill to have man it's it's it's it's one of the best skills and I you know I truly think that from my experience when I look back there's not much difference between skill set you know there's people that have high performing skill sets that put up numbers and then there's people that have high performing skill sets to put up numbers that tell you how to make shit better who's more valuable yeah the second guy's way more valuable so yeah that's real

yeah and it can't it's got to be real though it can't be bitching it can't be complaining it can't be you know some false information it can't be bullshit yeah it's got to be real shit all right shit is your job to handle the real shit has to be communicated honestly directly without bias in a factual manner so that your leadership can make correct decisions and when you develop that skill set and you don't put emphasis on one way or the other way and you're just telling the way it is that's fucking valuable bro i love it i love it we got another call it's got a call in this is uh bailey who bailey bailey i don't know which way i don't know which way i don't know which way so let's check it out let's give a Bailey a call hello Bailey what's up dude

what's up DJ how are you brother I'm good man I'm doing much better now I'm talking to you how you doing I'm just living the dream man you know Bailey what's up bro what's going on Andy how are you man I'm doing real good real good where you call from North Carolina. All right. All right. Good spot. What are you doing out there, man? What you do? I do sales for a flooring company and we sell exclusively to the to the apartment business. Okay. All right. So how'd you get into this? I kind of fell into it, man. after the Air Force I left active duty to do the Air National Guard and one of my one of the guys of my squadron was working here and referred me and here we are coming up on four years man

and it's been an absolute blessing for sure that's awesome dude that's awesome so uh what are you struggling with bro how can it help you today yeah man so um it seems like I'm about to take my first jump into leadership here I've got an interview Thursday and that's kind of the last step and it looks like it's you know kind of a formality but you know I don't want to count my chickens before my eggs hatch but in preparation for that you know just doing some thinking and my question is you know I got like I'm struggling with like not everybody's going to be committed to excellence the way I am and like how do I reconcile that you know well uh if i knew that answer to get a hundred percent compliance i'd be

worth a trillion dollars yeah uh look you know here's the reality of being successful in life if you are going to be successful leadership is a required skill there are there are basically two avenues and you're in both of them of getting paid real money one is the ability to sell two is the ability to lead and manage a team and if you have those two skills you're extremely valuable anywhere in any industry and the fact that you are aware that this is a different skill and it's one that you need to pay attention to is a huge deal because a lot of people think that leadership is just like a promotion or you get a title and you just show up and continue to do the same thing when in reality it's a completely different thing so obviously uh the biggest thing that you need to do as a leader

is to operate at the standard that you expect from your team and you are going to have some fall off okay if you operate at a hundred percent your team's going to operate at 85 percent they're they're not going to ever truly hit the standard that the leadership is operating at they might now you will have some people that do and you'll have some people that exceed that standard even but you shouldn't allow them to exceed it because your shit should be so high so the first thing is you know you got to live the standard which the fact that you asked I'm worried that they don't have the same level of commitment uh to personal excellence that I do you know that shows me that you're you're probably already live in a pretty high standard. The second thing that you have to do is you have to realize that leadership is not just about the job at hand, it's about the character development of the people underneath. And I think the difference between a leader who struggles and a leader who thrives is the amount of interest that they take in developing the individual.

A lot of people who do claim to, lead people will basically set a standard inside the workplace and then let that standard be and then never really teach them or coach them or make them understand and Bailey the truth is man a lot of people do not understand they just don't you know they've never read a personal development book they've never listened to a podcast on success they've never tried because they've never had anybody that has been successful within their realm of observation. And if people have never seen or touched success, it's very hard for them to understand that they can also have those things. And so your job as a leader is to make sure that one, you're holding the standard,

two, you know, you're setting the standard for the job. Three, you are becoming their personal mentor in terms of how you're going to help them improve in all of their areas and the fourth one is is that you have to get them to care about improving and that's the tricky part so what you should be doing on a consistent basis when you get your team is to sit down and paint out the big mission okay this is what we're trying to achieve this is what we're going to do and this is what it means to you all right and then always tie the mission back to what it means to them their development their career and their family and then you have to make good on those on those situations when they earn them so doing those things bro you'd be surprised at who will step up

and want to be led and want to be coached a lot of people have never had anybody taking interest in them at all. Not at home, not in school, not at their job, never. And so when we have people who sort of, you know, I have this saying that you got to be brave enough to go after what you really want and you got to be strong enough to pull people with you. And pulling people with you is draining, dude. It's a hard thing because you're basically trying to unfuck their brains from a lifetime of bad information and discouragement and bad experiences and bad belief systems. But the truth of the matter is, man, is that we're all human, we're all capable and what one man can do, another can do.

And so to be an effective leader, you have to embody these things that we just laid out. And at the end of the day, man, you know, you're going to have people that are going to step up. You're going to have people that are that are not. And the people that are not, you're going to have to move on from and replace with people who, you know, are going to fit the culture that you're developing. And here's the cool thing. When you start to develop this culture of winning, when you get rid of the people who won't buy in and you bring new people in, the culture will vet those people. That your team, your winners, your ass kickers, they get this new guy in and within, you know,

two weeks they're going to know if this guy's going to fit or not so it weeds them out real quick and yeah man i mean that's i mean that's pretty much it dude like leadership is is its own skill set and i think the reason that most people fail at it is they don't think that it is they think that it's just something they earn by putting up numbers on the board um you know i scored a bunch of touchdown so i'm a leader that's not that's not it has nothing to do with it it's more about like how'd you train how'd you eat what's your work ethic like what's your what's your influence on your other teammates is it good is it bad do you bitch do you moan or you positive and empowering you know these are the things that make up leadership do you make the

people around you better and um it's far less to do with the title and far more to do with with your behavior so i think you're going to be fine though bro the fact that you're aware of it already you know most people aren't like that most people will get a promotion into a leadership position and they'll just say well i'm the leader now and like continue to do the same shit they were doing and then you'll say well why isn't this person or that person getting any better well fuck i don't know they just they're not any good well your job is to make them fucking good you know and and uh it's a skill bro and i'm going to tell you this too the other thing is is it's a skill you never master you'll go your whole life continuing to learn continuing to develop continuing to be

better and it's a full-time commitment man it's um you know there i've been doing this for a long time in business and there's still things that i mess up and there's still things i need to improve on and um it never ends so and i like that i like skill sets that we can continue to get better at over and over and over again through the course of our life so i think you're going to be fine bro that gotcha yeah and i'm fortunate enough too it's like i'm stepping into a good situation there you go culture here it's great and everything it's just we want to expand capture more market share and all the good stuff and i i guess i'm very wary of trying to like not hire myself i guess because success comes in different forms um you know like some some people a lot of people

out there in the world you know don't have to wake up at 4 a.m. hit the gym at the gym and do all this stuff to be successful um but i do um and i just i don't know i'm very conscious of that you know yeah well i mean look man you're you're holding you're holding a high standard and that's a great thing to be a leader you know i have to do those things too bro like i have to do all the extra shit like i'm not gifted i'm not fucking nothing was given to me like i've i have to fucking do these things like yeah and and you know I it's it's funny bro because

I know I'm a lot better than most people like I'm a lot more skilled and a lot better and a lot harder worker and fucking way more intense and care way more than most people and I still have to do those things to fucking win bro and then some of these people are like I don't have to do those things I'm like the fuck you talking about you're special yeah right that's right

yeah i forgot you're super special i will take a mile yeah dude me too bro and you got to know yourself for that you know what i'm saying like i have to stay focused because the minute i start sliding i fucking slide fast yeah so that's you know i make this joke bro i've never done cocaine in my life because i know what'll happen yeah right i'll spend all my money and end up in a ditch in about 48 hours. It's zero or 100 with me. Yeah, I watch these motherfuckers, like, how they behave when they start doing drugs. I'm like, that's why you never start.

Don't do it. Fuck, man. Don't do it. So, yeah, brother, I get it, dude. And I think if people are being honest with themselves, you know, real talk, they all have to operate that standard if they want to win. But, you know, some people haven't figured themselves out yet. Mm-hmm. So.

Love it. Yeah. love it sure i think you're in a good spot though bro what are you most concerned about um just the added pressure right so yeah i i fully understand all these awesome sales numbers i put up and all this you know cool shit i've done over the past four years all that goes to zero yep right um this next chapter it's it's another mountain it's another climb and like i'm ready for that i'm excited for it but at the same time you know it's uh it's a bigger deal you know um still relatively young like i just turned 33 like a a week ago at this point um so yeah it's just

the next big jump you know i mean it's what you want to see right that's what yeah after i'm just trying to be you know prepared for it yeah for the sake of my you know the team because they deserve that remember this bro the people that founded this country were fucking 20 years old fair enough you know you can you can lead these motherfuckers i promise you that Yes, sir. I appreciate that. Yeah, I could tell from talking to you, bro. I mean, you're going to be fine. You're going to fucking do great.

Appreciate it, man. I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited for you, brother. Do work, man. Bailey, we appreciate you calling in, brother. I appreciate y'all, man. Keep up the good work. Yeah, man.

You guys are killing it. Keep going. Yeah, you too, bro. I appreciate all the support. And go out there and do it, bro. You're going to be fine. Lots and lots and lots of people that don't have your mental acuity have become great leaders.

I can tell you that. So you'll be good. Copy. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the other thing, too.

It's like when it comes to leadership specific or when people get those positions, it's like, well, I was a great, you know. Absolutely. Salesman. I mean, I know I'll be a great leader. He understands it. You heard what he said. I'm starting to zero. Yeah.

It's a different scoreboard. Totally different. Your score is not the numbers you put up. Your score is the numbers they put up. And a lot of leaders don't understand that. right it doesn't matter how good you were at selling it doesn't matter how good you are at selling what matters is is are you good of transferring that skill into your people and helping them develop and a lot of people can't connect those dots it's it's very hard to adjust from being someone

who's only responsible for themselves and their performance to then putting your life in your performance in other motherfuckers' hands. Like, dude, that's a hard thing. And, you know, as an entrepreneur, you got to do it every day. You know, not everything depends on how well everybody else performs. And you have to care about those people. You got to care about their lives. You got to care about their families.

You got to care about, you know, their development. You've got to care about them. And the best leaders care the most. That's the truth. leaders have the ability to understand the difference between nuance, you know, cutting someone's slack versus teaching them a lesson that they need to fucking learn or it's going to cost them later. You know, I used to be someone who protected my people, meaning like I would, they would make a mistake and I would say I would kind of stand in the way of them. What I realized is,

dude, I was costing them time later down the road. You know what I'm saying? Like I was doing them a disservice and if I really cared about those people I would let the results of their actions affect them so that they felt that pain and didn't allow it to happen again they got to touch the stove absolutely bro and you got to allow that to happen it's probably it's kind of it's probably kind of like being a parent yeah you know what I'm saying you got to let them learn otherwise you're that you hurts yeah otherwise you're creating a situation they get really hurt later and um when you really care about people bro you know it's hard because you know 90% of the time people value very heavily that you care about them

but then there's 10% of the people who see that as an opportunity to take advantage of you yep and so you're always when you really truly lead the right way you are always going to have people that take advantage um and you've just got to deal with that it's heartbreaking it fucking really hurts but you know you got to you cut those people out and you you take the good with the bad and the good far outweighs the bad so that's my take on it man um I think leading people's the hardest fucking job managing people's the hardest fucking job you will ever fucking have and if you can master it it's worth big money big big money if you can run a fucking team effectively dude you become invaluable not just to your organization but any

because it's so fucking rare. So to all the guys out there and girls out there, you know, moving into a leadership position, I would take the responsibility seriously. I would take the opportunity seriously. I would understand that it's no longer about you. It's about them. And if you help them win, you win.

And it's not just about them, dude. It's about their kids, about their family, about their fucking bills. Like there's a responsibility that we have. as leaders in the workplace to help people win if you actually care man full circle yeah it's it just in the office yeah and a lot of people a lot of people will say things like well how do you build a great culture well you can't build a great culture when you don't give a fuck about the people that work for you bro and like that's most places you know they're like how do you get all these

people to care and do well i mean bro listen let's be real you you you don't give a fuck about them You don't teach them You don't sit with them You don't help coach them You don't give a fuck And they're not gonna give a fuck People you give what you get You know

And that's reality It's in life and business And I think it's a universal biblical truth Yeah So that's real bro That's real Well guys Andy

That was three man All right guys Let's start a Monday Yeah Let's get out there Let's make some shit happen And uh We'll see tomorrow

We're sleeping on the flow Now my jury box froze Fuck a bull, fuck a stole, counting millions in a cold Bad bitch, booted swow Got her on bankro, can't fold, dust a no headshot case closed