REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 968 Qaf Misunderstood By Family Convincing The Unmotivated Scaling Smart

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

On today's episode, Andy answers your questions on how to navigate the situation when your family doesn't understand your ambition and drive, how to inspire change in unmotivated close ones, and how to build bulletproof systems to support a fast-growing business.

on the flow Now my jury box froze Fuck a pole Fuck a stove Counted millions in a close What is up guys It's Andy Priscilla And this is the show

For the realists Say goodbye to the lies The fakeness and delusions About our society And welcome to motherfucking reality Guys today we have Q&AF That's where you submit the questions

And we give you the answers Now you can submit your questions A couple different ways DJ Go ahead and tell them how they can do that Yeah guys you can email your questions into Ask Andy and Andy Fricela.com. You can also submit your questions using the link in the description below

for your chance to be on the call-in shows or drop your questions in the comments of the YouTube episodes. If this your first time listening, we have shows within the show. All right? If you tune in tonight at 7th Central,

you will be able to watch live CTI. That is Cruise, the Internet. That's where we put topics on the screen over here. We speculate on what's going on. We have some laughs. We talk about how we have people have to solve these problems going on in the world. Other times throughout the week, we might have real talk. Just five to 20 minutes of real talk.

And then we have 75 hard verses. That is where people who have completed the 75 hard program come on in the show. They talk about how they were before, how they are now, and how they use the 75 hard program to straighten out their lives. All right. If you're unfamiliar with 75 hard is the world's most famous mental transformation program in history. And it's the initial phase of the live hard program. All right.

You can get those programs for free at episode 208 on the audio feed. You can also go to Andy Fricela.com and get the book on mental toughness. The book on mental toughness has the entire Live Hard program plus a whole bunch of other content regarding mental toughness, what it is, how to cultivate it and how to use it to build your ultimate life. All right. Now, we do have a fee for the show. The fee is very simple. You don't have to send us money or anything, but we'll take it if you do. But we just want you to share the show, all right?

We put a lot of time, a lot of effort, trying to bring you guys some good valuable content. If you find valuable content in our show, we ask very simply that you do us for favor and help us grow the show. So don't be a hoe. Share the show. All right. That's every show. That's every show. Not just like one.

Like, if you find value in this episode, right now, share it right now. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And then tonight. Show you guys should join us for the stream tonight. It's fun, man. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah, bro. I do have a big announcement. All right. You guys know that I've been talking about the MFCEO project coming back for a very long time. We are very, very, very close to that coming back. There is another product that I have been working on for the last three years with my amazing team to help solve this problem. that's going on in the world. And if you want to find out about what that product is,

there's only one way to do it. You have to go to Andyficella.com forward slash MFCEO and register and you will be notified exclusively when the show drops and then you will be one of the first people to understand how we're going to change the entire world. All right. There is no other way to get it. If you do not register,

you will not get it. If you register, you will get it. And that's that. So if you're interested in that, which you should be, because it's probably going to be the biggest thing that ever, ever, ever has been created.

And I mean that. I think it's the biggest product in human history. You have to go to Andyficello.com forward slash MFCEO and register. So go do that right now and then listen to the rest of the show. All right. Hell yeah, bro. So what's up?

I got a big announcement. Oh, yeah? What's up? I got three good ones. for you. There's a lot of stuff going on today. We got so much stuff going on. Oh, that's CTI.

Yeah, CTI. I mean, there is a lot going on. Actually, you know what? Let's just do CTI real quick. Yeah, no shit. So, man. CTI's fun. Hey, have a great time.

I feel like we got to wear an outfit tonight. We got to do something. All right. Well, we'll figure it out. Yeah. We'll do something special. I mean, with all those super chats. Yeah.

Might not have to wear anything. You know what I'm saying? Everybody's like, let me see this. It's ain't only fans, dude. That's what I'm saying, man. We got standards here. That's right. They're low, but.

They are low. Yeah, man. Well, guys, it is Monday, beautiful Monday. As always, we like to make some people better. We do got some good questions here. So let's go ahead and get going. We got our, I'll start with a call. Let's get Patricia on the call.

All right. let's do it Patricia Hey how's it going What's going on Not much I'm excited to talk to you guys How are you Patricia

Good, what's up Andy Oh not much Just doing a thing here How are you? Nice, I'm good Amazing Where are you calling from Canada

Oh shit All right Got some freedom up there Okay Now before you ask I'm not sure we know how to escape. So give us a little background of what you got going on up in Canada. So what I'm doing currently is I am studying full time to be a game developer. So I'm working

out daily and I'm at home currently. I take care of the home and my grandmother who has cancer. So I help her out, but I'm going to be going to college this January and pretty much just pursuing what I love and my goals. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. How old are you if you don't mind us asking? I'm 19.

Okay. Cool. Cool. Yes. All right. Yes. Well, what do you got for us today? How can we help you?

All right. So, I'd say I'm a very ambitious person. I work out daily, strict on my diet, and study hard to go to college. However, the way I operate and live and think is different from most people my age, especially women. I don't drink at all. I've never been to a club in my life. don't smoke and I have a very strict mindset. As a result, I find hanging around average teenagers

a bit irritating. I only have a handful of friends, but this actually doesn't bother me at all that I often don't fit in. And I can tell my parents seem to feel bad for me, seeing me as a loner or lonely, but I feel perfectly fine pursuing my goals with you people around me. I'm just very picky and selective with who I make friends with. And my parents may find me abnormal, I think, and like there's something wrong with me. And sometimes it makes me feel alien-like. And so my question to you is, is it okay to be a loner in pursuing your goals? My parents want me to hang out with groups of people my age, but I've always felt too mature and dislike their mindset.

Okay. Yeah. So, all right. you have to realize that here's what I'll tell you all right when you're young and you're ambitious it is extremely lonely all right because most young people believe that they have all the time in the world and they do have the most time right you're just entering the phase of being a full-blown adult and a lot of people just aren't taking their future seriously and while that's that's very pronounced at a younger age, that doesn't really change. It's always going to be that way.

And as you get older, it starts to present itself in different ways. You know, people start to find the, what I call the quote unquote rules, right, go to school, get a job, get the house, get married, have kids, and that's the norm. And anytime you do anything outside the norm, no matter if you're 19, 29, 39, 59, 59, people are going to look at you weird and they're not going to understand it. And here's the thing that I would want to put into your mind is that you don't want to be understood by people who are destined to be just normal people who go through life when you have ambitious goals.

Kobe Bryant said this very clearly one time in an interview. He's like, look, I don't. want to be like them i don't want to be around them i don't want to i don't want to know what they do i don't i don't want anything i want to i want to i want to be around this i want to i'm a driven person i want to kick ass i want to be a champion and i don't want anything to do with that and you know what yeah that's okay and by the way not only is it okay it's actually required all right because if you surround yourself with people who are doing things in life that are not aligned with what you're trying to do just because you want to be around people, you'll end up absorbing their mindset and

their worldview and their motivation and their discipline levels, which will water yours down. Yeah, that's not what I want. Right. So you have to be very comfortable moving down the path alone, at least in the beginning, all right? And what's going to happen to you is you're going to continue to be ambitious. you're going to continue to chase your goals and build your life. And you will eventually start to naturally find other people of that mindset that you could be friends with that share that same ambition drive and care for their future. And whenever you find those people, you're going to feel like, okay, I've got a good set of friends.

And you have now, I call this no man's land, all right? You go from the beginning where you're just setting out to become successful and you start to move down the path. And these friends that you had back in the day, they don't go with you. So you ended up going on this journey alone. And then eventually you find a group of friends or a group of peers or colleagues or however you want to call them that share the same mindset. And those people, instead of dragging you down, instead of dragging you, trying to drag you out or put doubt in your mind, they'll start to encourage you and they'll start to push you and they'll start to collaborate with you and you will find more success and then what happens is if you continue to push down and and want to do more

and more and more the same cycle repeats itself again so you will move past that group of friends and then you will feel lonely again until you get to that level of the next level and you will find a new group of people to work with and your friend group as an ambitious person will change over time many times because you will always settle within the people that want your level of success at the time. So every time you level up, you're going to go through this process. And it sounds like you're mentally equipped to go through it already. You know, most people will give up their dreams and their goals and everything they want for themselves for the Thursday, Friday, Saturday night lifestyle with their old friends, right? So you don't want to be someone.

who has to have people around in order for you to be happy. I'm not like that either. I don't mind being alone. In fact, I kind of prefer it. And I really hate spending time around meaningless conversation, small talk, all of these things that other people gossip, drama. That's not, that's the language of poverty, man. And we're trying to get past that. So I don't think I don't think that you should feel bad at all in fact I think it should be encouraging to you that you are in the mindset that you are so early and if you continue to move down that path you're going to find yourself much more successful than all of your peers because they're likely to waste their entire 20s hanging out, partying and then they'll get to be 30 and let's say well I should have done this and I should have taken this more seriously and and still at that point most people

people don't make the change. They just say, well, they say, well, you know, this isn't that bad. And I, I can probably get it going when I'm 35. And they start to kick the can down the road. And eventually they find themselves, you know, in their mid 40s, wasting 25 years, working a job they hate, earning money they hate with no way out. So you can either, it's really about delay gratification, right? You could either put in the work now and be way ahead. later or you could do what they're doing now and be in a situation later where it's much much worse it's much harder and they can't see that because when you're 19 you don't have that perspective there's no way to have it you haven't lived that life you haven't grown up you haven't

seen your friends that you used to have settle for a mediocre existence and I've seen all that stuff over and over and over again anybody who's my age who who's built things or done things or become successful knows exactly what I'm talking about but when you're 19, 20 years old, you can't see it because you never seen it. And so to put your mind at ease on this, it's really simple. No, you're not weird. No, there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, I think it's very encouraging.

And I think you need to like, if you really want to relieve that pressure from your parents, just have a conversation and say, hey, look, I know you guys worry about me. But here's the thing. I'm doing this and this and this. And I want to do this. This is what I want to do with my life. And these people aren't doing that. And I still have fun.

I still feel good. I enjoy the friends that I do have. I just don't want to do what everybody else is doing. And it doesn't mean I'm broken and just tell your parents that directly. You probably have, right? Yeah. I mean, I let them know that I'm not suffering mentally in any way. I don't feel lonely.

I've never had depression. I'm not anxious. Like, I feel completely secure and mentally healthy doing what I'm doing. Yeah. And you know why? because you're doing things yourself that make you feel productive and proud of yourself and you don't need the external validation. Most of these people that need the external connections, the mass approval, the,

you know, most friends they can have. That's just all that is is they're trying to cover for their lack of their own self-esteem and their own confidence and their own self-belief because they're not actually exercising any of their skill set or doing anything productive of themselves. So when they're around people, they're reminded that they're more normal and they're not feeling alienated. So this is where we get like hyper social activity. It's really about the fulfillment of something else that's missing.

And it never fulfills it. It actually just digs you a much bigger hole. So, and I'm not, I'm not saying you shouldn't be social. I'm not saying you can't have fun. I'm not saying you need to. isolate yourself as a young person because there's a lot of things that you do need to learn

socially. And, uh, but what I am saying is, you know, there's nothing wrong with being hyper focused on what you want to do at a young age. I actually think it's a, I think, I know it's definitely the way that people become successful. I know very few people who decided to change their lives in 30, 35 who actually did. Um, I, in. And, terms of like their career in terms of building something. I don't I don't know a whole lot of people who have you know said at 35 years old, hey, I'm going to start this and do this and then become successful later. That's not saying you can't do it, but it's saying that it's just much more rare than someone who starts when they're 20 and works, you know, their way up. So yeah, true. You know,

I think you're completely on the right track. I don't think you should be worried about it. Um, I think you should see it as a good thing. And you don't, you need to keep in mind that you don't want to be like these people. You don't want to be like these people. Right. So, uh, you don't want what they're, what, what they're going to get. And so you're going to have to take different actions. And that's just the bottom line reality of the situation.

Mm-hmm. So. Yeah. I agree 100%. Yeah. You know all this. You're just looking for confirmation. Yeah.

You know, it's a weird feeling. when you're, it's a weird feeling being misunderstood at first. It's weird. But it never goes away. So you have to like learn to kind of be comfortable with it. You know, I still get it. I get it from people. You know, a lot of people come to me who they say things like, dude, why are you building this new thing? Or why are you doing this thing? Or why are you still go there every day? Or why are you work so hard? Because I fucking like it, dude. Like I know you can't. comprehend that and I know that you don't understand that but that's what I like just like you like laying your ass on the couch and watching fucking Kardashians or whatever to fuck you're watching I like to build shit and that shouldn't be something that you're criticizing or or

really even caring about so um you know there's nobody like if you think of all the people that have done amazing things in their life every single one of of them has been misunderstood by the people around. Yeah, they're seen as weird. Yeah, until they get where they're going. And then all those same people are like, dude, I always believed in you. This was so awesome. I can't believe, you know, you actually did this.

But you know what? I'm not surprised. And they start, like, coming into your camp and cheering for you, which is ironic because at this point, you don't need that anymore. Right. So it's funny how people only support you when you, after, you know, you've passed the point of needing it. But getting to that point of pushing through that point of where it would be nice to have support makes you strong and it makes you resilient and it makes you be able to

move down the path without slowing down because of people's misunderstanding. And I actually think that being misunderstood is one of the greatest indicators to genius. All right. So yeah, man, I think you're fine. I think you just got to keep doing what you're doing. And, And remember that this situation will play out over and over and over again, the further you go down the line. Right. Yeah, absolutely, man. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate you guys allowing me to ask. Yeah. Even your input. Yeah, for sure. Listen, just keep your head down, keep doing what you're doing. And, you know, in 10 years, you're going to look back and you're going to be like, dude, I'm so glad I put in that work. And you're going to be proud of yourself.

And I, you know, so. Absolutely, man. I guarantee it. Yeah. I look forward to it. Exactly. Hell, yeah. So, Patricia, we really appreciate you calling in.

Yeah, thank you guys. All right. Well, thank you. See you. All right. Bye. It's so great. Like, that's, I feel like that that's one of the, we talk about cultural changes, right?

Like, this is, I feel like that's a really big shift that's happening right now just with the younger crowd. Is they're getting way more serious about. Well, yeah. realize they've been lied to you. Yeah. Gen Z is starting to realize like school didn't teach me what I needed to know. They're smart enough to understand.

There's enough available information to grasp the concept now that, you know, we are put into the world out of the school system not to be effective, but to be dependent. And this is why they don't teach us things like personal finance properly. This is why they don't really encourage ambition and drive. and building things anymore. Instead, you know, they're trying legitimately to create a completely dependent youth,

which is backfiring in their face because these young people are starting to realize like, hey, dude, I don't want to be poor. I don't want to struggle. I want to make fucking money. So I don't struggle. And it's a really nice, refreshing turn of events

because that's the world that I grew up in. I grew up in a world where you were encouraged to be successful. And the people who were successful were not shit on. They were seen as people who, as an example of what you can do. And we were encouraged to win and we were courage to build and we were encouraged to, you know, be the best at what we do. And if you didn't do that, you were a fucking loser. And now for the last 15, 20 years, it's been kind of the opposite. If you go out and build something, you're greedy.

you're materialistic, you're a bad person, you're this, you're that. And if you have an understanding of, and this is why we do CTI, if you have an understanding of the political, cultural environment that's going on, you completely understand that their goal is to create a dependent population of literal dumbasses so that they could control them. So Gen Z has woken up to this and it's really, really fucking exciting for me because like that's my wheelhouse. My wheelhouse is to help people win.

And now that they're actually wanting to win again, it's fun. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Trying to convince people that winning is a good thing is like not as fun. Pulling your hell out. Yeah, it's annoying, dude. And for the last 10 years, that's what I've had to do.

Yeah. You know, I've gotten so much shit for the content that I make over the years because it's like, oh, you care about as money. No, that's not all I care about. But money is very important. It's a very fucking important thing. And if you don't have a lot of it, your life's going to suffer. That's the truth.

All right. So in my mind, you know, that's the foundation of the life that you're trying to build is to have enough money to do the things that you and your family want to do. And then to take care of things as they come along. And most people need, you know, like 10 times more money than they think they do to actually be at that level. So, you know, it's good that people are starting to wake up to it because I think, you know, in 20 years, we're going to be. going to see the effects of that, you know? Yeah, dude, it's very refreshing. Yeah.

Very refreshing. I love it, man. Let's keep moving. I got another question for you. Uh, guys, Andy, question number two. Andy, uh, I understand you aren't a parent, but as a leader of men and women, when you see someone you care about becoming stagnant or not reaching their potential, how do you help when you know you aren't getting through no matter your approach?

Well, people have to be willing to help. themselves if you're if you're if you're gonna help them you can only do so much and one of the quickest ways to be miserable is to try to convince people that have no ambition and no no inkling to become better themselves to be better that's very draining it's very hard it's very frustrating and if they don't want to meet you halfway it doesn't matter what you do or what you say or how much you do for them they're not going to do it and furthermore if you do all these extra things for them to try and get them to be successful, they'll just learn that you're going to do it for them and they won't ever

learn the things themselves, which actually handicaps them. So we have to face the reality that there is just a lot of people who talk a lot of shit about wanting things that actually don't want them. And you can tell who they are because their actions don't back up their words. And it doesn't matter how good of a leader you are. It doesn't matter how charismatic you are. It doesn't matter how respected you are. If you have people that don't want it for themselves, There's literally nothing you can do. Now, to answer your question, let's assume that this person does have some sort of ambition, which I don't think they do, to become more successful.

That's where you've got to pull them aside and you've got to have a real talk. And you've got to say, hey, look, dude, here's the thing. All right. Where are you going to be five years from now doing exactly what you're doing? Where are you going to be 10 years from now, giving the exact amount of effort that you're given now? What do you think that's going to look like? And if you can really get them to understand that they're in for a world of hurt, if they don't step on the gas now,

you might be able to get them to wake the fuck up. But the reality is, is there's a lot of people, in fact, most people that say they want things that actually don't want them. You know, they're full of shit. They say they want it because everybody says they want that.

Well, everybody does want to be successful. Who the fuck doesn't? You're right. You know what I'm saying? But there's a difference between saying you want it and actually wanting it with your actions. and most people just don't want it with their actions. That's just reality.

And so you have to be very careful to watch someone's actions over what they say when it comes to this because you will drain yourself and you will run yourself ragged trying to get people to do things that they're just never going to do. And I assume that because of the frame of this question, this person is talking about their kid, all right? Look, kids develop at a different age. you know if you would have looked at me when I was in high school there's not a single motherfucker on the planet that would say that I would end up where I'm at now all right not a single one not a single one so you can't just look at kids because of how they're behaving as a teenager and say that determines where they're going to go in life yeah

you know a switch will eventually flip if they really have it and it usually happens when they realize that there's nobody coming to save them dude And when that starts to happen, that's what happened to me. Okay, when I got out of my own and I started building my company, I started realizing very quickly like, holy shit, like this has to work. And my mentality flipped, right? And I went to work. And that doesn't necessarily happen for a kid who's living at home, who's, you know, his parents are taking care of them and still raising his hand to use a bathroom. For sure.

Right. They're not going to grasp that. So, you know, this is one reason why I'm very thankful for sports too, because I played a lot of sports growing up. And, you know, I was a good athlete. I wasn't the best athlete. But what I did learn was how to win, how to work as a team, that winning was important and what it took to win.

And this is why I think, you know, instead of sitting your kids in front of a video game or a screen, you guys should consider, and I know it takes a lot of time and extra money, but consider getting your kids involved in sports year round. It keeps them out of trouble. It teaches them what they need to know. And, um,

gives them healthy. Yeah. It's, there's a lot of benefits to it. But again, if they don't want to do it, how do you get them to do it? Yeah.

So I think showing people, you know, I've had a number of events in my life growing up that have stuck with me. Um, that reminded me very, very, like strongly. of how important it is to make money.

I had one of my family members when I was a young kid get evicted from their home. And we had to go to their house and get their shit off the front yard. All right. I've never forgotten that. Yeah. Never forgotten that. You know what I'm saying? You don't forget that.

That was one of them things that stuck with me forever. And as hard as it was to understand then because I didn't really understand it. but now I do understand it. And once I clicked for me what that meant, I was like, man, I don't ever want that. You know, so those kind of situations, I think those kind of situations help people a lot. You know, this is why I say all the time,

you know, the people who become the most successful, it's the opposite of what people think. A lot of people will say, oh, well, you had it easy or you were lucky, or you were born on third base, and you think you hit a trip, all this fucking loser shit people say about, successful people to justify their own lack of progress.

But at the end of the day, the reality is the opposite of that. The people who win are usually people who had to crawl out of the shit many different times growing up, have seen difficult things, have been through difficult things, and it taught them the skill of learning to fight through. And then as they got older, they started to harness that skill into where they were going, which made them gritty, resilient, persevere through the hard things. And so, you know, this is why most people have it wrong when it comes to successful people.

They're willing to do fucking whatever to go as far away from that as possible. And it never stops because it's stuck to you. Yeah. You know, so. Let me ask you this. I mean, because we talk about people with potential, right? Like, how do you look at a situation where you have a guy or person that, like they're driving a fucking thousand horsepower vehicle?

like the tires are fucking going. They're just doing donuts though because they're not, you know, the direction's not in the right place. They're not applying, I guess, to all of that momentum and potential in the right. Yeah, I mean, you could talk to them, dude, and you could say, hey, the problem is is that people that usually have that natural ability to go. They think that their ego is also big because of that. So they listen less, right? They think, well, I got it. So like, everything I do is going to work.

And it's like, no, dude, you're, you're missing this. you're missing that, you're missing this. And when you try to tell them those things, they don't listen because they think they have something that everybody else doesn't have. And that's another misconception is that the people with the most talent win. It's not the people with the most talent.

It's the people with the ability to learn and apply those lessons moving forward and then the grit and the resilience and the perseverance and the fortitude to continue down the path. And so being successful has little to do with intelligence or talent and it has to do with being just intelligent enough to not make the same mistake twice or three times

and developing enough grit to persevere through the process. And if you have those two things, there's really nothing that will stop you long term. Winning is inevitable with those two qualities. But, you know, unfortunately, as humans, when we think we're better than we are or we think we're naturally talented, we see this in the NFL or the MLB.

How many of these guys that got drafted first round never pan out because their whole life and their whole identity became, I'm a first round draft pick instead of, well, I'm graduated from that era and I'm now a new era and I needed to work just as hard as I did then. Sometimes the athlete was so good that they didn't have to work in college. They're so fucking good. They didn't have to do shit. There was a quarterback that got drafted by the Raiders a number of years ago named

Jamarcus Russell. Jamarcus Russell was drafted number one in the NFL. and he was touted legitimately as maybe the best quarterback ever coming out of college. And he went to the Raiders and he fucking flapped. And the reason he flapped is because he wouldn't read the motherfucking playbook. And they know that he wasn't reading the playbook because they gave him a blank playbook with nothing in it. He went home. He came back and he's like, oh, yeah, I read it.

Oh, man. And didn't say shit. And that's how they caught him on it. So, so a lot of, yes, a lot of times when you have this big talent, those people don't pan out because they rely on the talent more than they should. Yeah. Right. So. But also not probably facing any adversity.

Right. So then you get, you know, like getting hit by NFL, you know, D-Lyman is a lot different than, you know, college or high school, bro. Yeah. Big difference. Yeah. And, and dude, this happens in all areas of life. Yeah. let's say you're an executive and you work for a small company and you've done really well at that

company and then you move to a big company and instead of thinking like okay this is a new league I need to learn I need to get better I need to brush up my skill they form their identity based upon what they already did they carry those habits moving forward and those habits aren't good enough to support the success that they're trying to create now this happens all the time this is why people who win long term are actually of medium skill set who are aware that they are a medium skill set and understand very in a real way that they have to do all the things that that are required to win because they know they're not good enough i know that about myself people people talk to me all the time they're like why do you do all these things why do you do this why do you do that

because at the end of the day bro i know for sure i'm not good enough to win if i don't do the things i know that and i've accepted that and that doesn't hurt my ego right i actually like that everybody else thinks they're awesome. Right? Because, and, you know, people will look at me from the outside and they'll say, that guy thinks he's awesome. Not really, dude. You might think that, but at the end of the day, when it comes time to get better, I'm

going to sit in room, shut the fuck up, and learn what I got to learn. You think your actions are awesome. Well, that's a difference. You know what I'm saying? I think my results are awesome. Yeah. And my results are awesome because I'm willing to learn along the way. Yeah.

So. Dude, I love it, man. I love it. Guys, let's get one more in here, man. Let's get another one. Let's get Ross on the line. Let's get Ross a call. Hello, this is Ross.

Ross, what's going on, man? This DJ. How's it going, man? No, man, no complaints over here, man. How are you doing? Like, they'll get no better than this. It's about to get better. I got to 80 here, too.

Yeah, what's up, Ross? They've been on a Chris screaming freedom right now, actually. That's right. That's right. Somebody stole on it. I actually just picked up four cases from the local brown jug in town. The brown jug? Yeah.

Is that a store? Yeah, a liquor store in town. We get more more, more, uh, form energy up here in Alaska, man. We don't got much. Well, hey, man. We're in Alaska. Hey, dude, we got it coming, bro. We got it coming.

I promise you. Thank you for the support, brother. I appreciate that. I really, really appreciate it. Well, I appreciate the support. You've been a huge inspiration for me and everything that we've done. And I got my business partner actually sitting here with me. And it's really cool to talk to you guys.

So thank you. Cool, cool. So give us a little background on what you got going on up there, guys. So we started a restoration company six months ago. I worked in the industry for a year and a half, two years. And my business partner, I met my business partner because he came up. to run a company that I was at actually from Oregon. And so he took a special interest in me

and things didn't work out with that company. And we decided, hey, there's a need in the community and we need to do this for the community. And so we did. I started out with just me and my buddy. And we were just doing work, me and him. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. My business partner was helping out where he could,

but he had to, work another job in order to pay for both me and my buddy's paychecks. And so through all that, now six months later, we've got 13 employees. We're looking at, you know, moving, what, three quarters by the end of the first six months. And it's just been absolutely insane. I mean, can't take credit for it. The Lord has blessed us every step of the way. And listen to the podcast and everything like that. It's been helpful. well so but with that being said we're growing super super quick and you know we talked about growing smart but it's at the point where things have just blown up

so much and so my question was what's the most important thing to focus on when your business is blowing up faster than your internal systems your staffing and structure can keep up with without losing the quality or burning out. Well, that is a very, very important question. And it's something that the fact that you're aware of it tells me that you're going to do what I'm about to tell you, which is very difficult. You're going to have to do every single thing that you can to make sure that because your systems are not where they need to be, that you are able to make absolutely sure that every single customer that's coming in to your funnel right now is leaving excited, happy, overwhelmed,

and is telling a proper story about you, okay? You guys are in the beginning part of your business. And this is a mistake that a lot of businesses make, man. They scale faster than their systems, all right? And when companies do this, what happens is they, I'll just use a example, all right? Let's say somebody wants to start a business selling hats, all right, but they only have 24 hats. They go out and run ads and they get 500 people that want hats, and now they can only service 24 of them and you have the rest pissed off saying, oh, I couldn't get that or, you know, it took six weeks to get it. So this is actually a pretty big problem that you guys are facing and the solution is too far.

Hold. One, you have to make sure that during this time you're putting in any amount of effort required. If it requires two hours of sleep a day to make sure that these people are excited and happy, you have to do it because you're in the beginning phases of your business. And if you don't do it, the word of mouth will spread so fast that you guys are shitty company to work with that you'll lose your whole company. All right. So whatever that takes, you have to do that now. Second part is, while you're doing this, you have to work to scale your systems to where they can service the influx of business. And as you're developing your systems and building your systems, you should build them not to service the amount of customers that you have currently,

but you should build them to service 10 times the amount of customers that you have currently, which will end up fixing the problem of you having to stay up till three in the morning servicing all these customers. So you're in a little bit of a tight, spot here. It's going to require some extra effort, but this is not abnormal for starting a business. I mean, there's many times throughout the business career where we've gone through this in multiple companies that I've worked with and own myself, where this extra effort is very crucial to that point in time. And it's a natural thing. You're going to see this as you scale. You know, we just went through this first form about three years ago, where we had

had so much business we couldn't fulfill it. Our warehouse couldn't fulfill it. And then we had to spend like $10 million or some crazy amount building this the dragon that you guys see on my Instagram story, which is our fulfillment line. And then when we got that built up, we were able to fulfill a lot more. And now we're to a point now where that can't even keep up. So now we got to make another investment. So right now we're having to work extra hard to make sure that we fulfill everything. And just the same thing you guys are having to do. We're having to work extra hard. to make sure that we keep up with everything that we're doing and making sure that our customers are getting that proper treatment while on the backside we're working to scale it so we don't

have to put in all that extra time and effort. So that's pretty much to answer, bro. You know, the difficult part of this is just it's just going to require extra time on your guys' part until you get the systems figured out. But if you do it, you'll be fine. If you don't do it, it'll ruin your business. And that's what you got to remember. Right.

And that's, you know, something that we have been doing. I mean, there's a, there was a customer where we had to take out the lid in their bathroom because there was some mold growing on there. We did all that. And we got everything done. We got everything put back, dry wall and painted everything. And I went back to do the final walkthrough with the customer. and she was a super nice lady and she was like, you know, I like it, but it wasn't up to the standard that I wanted.

And, you know, there was just some stuff that paint wasn't supposed to be on this or, you know, they didn't mask properly and things like that. And so while she was okay with it, I said, well, I'm not okay with it. Can we come back and fix it? And I'd actually, that day was listening to your podcast on the way up there and someone had mentioned that. where you had told them, like, go above and beyond, basically for the customer. And so that's what I did. And then she was, you know, while it took a little bit longer and, you know,

her husband wasn't necessarily happy with us with the amount of time that it took. I told him, I said, we wanted to make sure that we got it done right. And that kind of leads me into another question, if you guys have time. Yeah. With the small market that we have up here in Fairbanks, we have really two competing companies up here. And when we started and as we've gotten things going, we're basically picking up all of their work. And so that's also part of the reason why we've had to hire super quit and expand our team. so quickly and with that we've gotten a lot of younger guys and we've got a

sixteen year old a couple seventeen year olds and you know a couple eighteen year olds and i'm only twenty four and so i'm trying to learn while also teaching these guys how to do everything and so what's the best way to instill accountability and reliability into the younger guys who want to learn and are hungry but still struggle with basic

consistency with having a job because a lot of this is their first job. You got to, okay, so you're really in a pickle here too because you can't fulfill all your business without these guys, right? So there's another thing you could do too, by the way. If you wanted, if you need to slow down the amount of work that you're doing, you can raise your price. Okay.

So you could do less work for more profit and be able to scale the company with a little less stress. That's something to think about. I don't know where you're priced, but just keep that in the back of your pocket. The problem with that, yeah, the problem with that is that we work with insurance companies mainly. Okay. And so the price is what it is. And so a lot of these, I got it. Yeah, it's the amount of customers that we're getting in the amount of work.

Okay. Well, when it comes to these young guys, all right, this is where Bill, a culture in your business is very important, all right? A standard of how we do things. This is our mission. These are the cultural values that we stand by. This is how we do things. And you have to very specifically intentionally set that up in your company and then hold those young men accountable to that standard. If you don't have a defined standard or if your standard is abstract, all right? And you're just saying, hey, go do a good job or go above and beyond. That only means something while you say it. But if you build your whole company around this is what we do,

this is how we do it, then what that does is that allows you to hold those young men accountable to that standard. There is a defined standard of how we do things. And that's the best way to create accountability because the reality is is that most people do want to do a good job, but most people are still people. And they will go 80% of the way and then say, oh, well, this is good enough. And you have to fix that by intentionally building a culture around like what you already did for that lady, going the extra mile, making sure that these people are taking care of. This is the standard.

However, you guys decide to build that. But when you set an intentional standard of cultural expectations in your company, it becomes very easy to hold people accountable because now it's not just like something I told them to do. This is just how we do it. This is what we do here. So that's something that you guys would benefit from, especially because you're so young of setting that up. I didn't set up an intentional culture in my company, my retail company, until 2011. And that was 12 years into our business. And when we did that, the business started to operate way better, way less hands-on,

way better performance. And people who work now understand what the acceptable standard is. And when they don't do that standard, it's very easy to hold. them accountable to it and they know they know that they weren't holding that standard so um right i would i would something i would think about too is is it too late no that no not at all this is a perfect time to do it it's not too late for any company to do that if you're if you're a more it gets harder as you go because here's what'll happen right now you have what did you say you have five or six guys or 13 what'd you say uh 13 yeah 13 guys 13 okay

If you had 200 guys and you tried to reset your culture and your company's doing pretty good, half of those guys are going to be like, man, what the fuck are they changing all this for? I liked it like it was before. And then you got a big problem on your hand because then you got to replace half your guys. And if you don't replace half your guys, the other half will adopt that attitude. So doing it when you're smaller and when you're newer is much easier than doing it when you're big. but you can do it when you're big too, you just got to be prepared to let the bad apples or the not even the bad apples, the people who don't want to adopt that cultural standard, you got to be willing to let them go.

And you got to let them go immediately. You can't let them sit in and rot the culture out. So you're in the perfect place to do this, you know, and that sounds like this. Okay. Hey guys. Look, we're all young. We all want to do great thing here. We all want to build something that not only can,

kicks ass but provides for you and your family and builds a solid career for many, many years down the road. And this is what it's going to take. And we're going to have to do these things. Are you guys in on that? And they're going to say, fuck yeah. And then you're going to say, okay, well, these are the standards that we're going to hold. And, you know, these are not, you know, this is different than systems, right? Systems would be like, okay, here's how you talk to the customer. Here's where it goes when they, when they call in. Here's the procedure for this. Culture is here's the value that we stand for because if you set specific items and like a lot of people will fuck up their cultural statement like this. They'll say, we always do this or we do that or we do this and the lines the system, which should be in systems, okay, but it'll have 50 fucking items and nobody can remember all that shit.

All right. So systems belong over here. culture is more like accept responsibility okay take initiative these are these are values these are these are cultural standards and then you allow them to adopt those things all right and those things are up to their determination but they understand that you expect this character quality out of that human being and when you have an entire team representing the character traits and the cultural values of what it is you want your company to stand for and they're living them then the company starts to have that cultural value okay so right it has to go

from establishing intentionally the culture to implementing the culture with your team to allowing the culture to cook and then your company will naturally have the culture and here's why you want to do it now because if you do it strong now and you've got 13 guys and When you put that in, you're probably going to lose three or four of them. All right. But when you put that in and then it grows and you go five years down the road, it actually protects you from making bad hires because when bad hires are made, your culture naturally weeds them out.

For example, let's say you have your 13 guys. And let's say you're operating on a very intentional culture right now. and you hire somebody comes in and they don't fit any of those items, but they're really good at they're really good at what they do. Your guys are going to be like, bro, this guy doesn't fit. And they're not going to fuck with that guy. They're going to let you know that that guy doesn't fit. And he will either quit on his own or it will be very easy to see that you need to

not let him stay in the company. So the culture becomes a natural organic weeding out of people who don't fit once you let it grow and mature. And many businesses can't understand this concept. They think people just want to show up and get their paycheck and go the fuck home. But dude, the reality is, is most people don't want just that. Most people want to belong to something. Most people want their work to matter.

Most people want to make a difference. And when you define your culture around those things, it creates a more fulfilling existence for your employees. And it also creates better results for them and you. So, uh, installing an intentional culture right now is going to be the way to go, bro. Okay. And what do you have for me as far as, I mean, it's probably stuff you've already said before to other people, but me not having experience, a lot of experience leading people.

What are things I could be doing to further that, um, to, uh, help help them, if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah. Well, dude, you just got to become a student of leadership. You know, I've read every leadership book that's been out there. I became a student of leadership. And then the more important part is to just do it. You know, you learn everything that you need to learn on the job by making mistakes.

So you're going to go out there. And right now I'm sure you guys are making leadership mistakes. That's okay. That's normal. But you should be quickening your development as a leader by studying previous leaders. you know um Vince Lombardi John Wooden uh you know there's all kinds of of Nick Saban these guys are all great leaders and by reading their shit you're going to figure out okay I could do this or I could do that or I should do more like this or this or this and this and you're going

to get all these ideas quick in your development as a leader but ultimately most of your leadership uh skill set is going to come from the experience of just doing it and being a 24 year old, you know, there's not many 24-year-olds out there who are tremendous leaders in their company. It's just something that develops over time. So those two things, bro, you know, just become a student of leadership. You know, all the information on every great leader is out there. And I would become a student of it. And then, you know, practice those skills as you move forward.

I appreciate it. I mean, there's no, there's no quick answer to that, dude. This all takes time. You know? Yeah. I want to hear from Randy Mayo on what he's got. He's got anything? That's you.

Oh, I'm Randy Mayo. Randy Mayo. With the with the MX. Yeah. Yeah, no, dude, it's a process, bro. Like, I mean, I started leading, like, my team. I'll leave my team. Yeah.

I still fuck up. And, like, I think accepting that, like, it's not going to be perfect. You know what I'm saying? You're going to work through it. But, like, you can read all the books you want. but you got to do it. Great leaders understand. Great leaders put the mission first.

Yeah, always. And then right after that is a development of their people. Yep. Okay. And then after that is the accountability to the mission. Mm-hmm. All right. So you got to make decisions that are mission first.

And which, by the way, garners tremendous amounts of respect from your team. Then you work very hard to develop them. And then when they don't develop, you have to hold them accountable. So it's a, very simple process. And ultimately too, like, bro, as long as you actually give a fuck about your people, you'll be fine. That's, that's part of it.

Okay. You have to, you have actually give a fuck. You have to care. You have to care. If you don't actually care about, I'm not saying that you don't, but. No, no. This is for everybody listening. You can't fake that.

People smell that shit, bro. And a lot of people will hit, hit me up and be like, I can't keep any employees. And I start to dig into this shit and I'm realizing like, bro, you're not, you don't really give a fuck if they win or lose. You're worried about yourself. And people can sense that. And people don't follow people that that are like that. They're going to follow people who are legitimately committed to the mission.

And that mission has to be big enough for those people that you're talking to to see themselves having all the things and the life that they want underneath that mission. So if you don't have that, bro, you're going to have a hard time getting people to stick around. They're not going to do it. And this is a big problem with a lot of leaders. A lot of leaders, they think they, and this is actually a sales problem too. They look at sales as a manipulative venture. Okay?

Instead of saying, my product, my service is here to solve a problem. And we are to solve that problem as effectively as possible. possible, they say, our job is to make money, okay, not realizing that money is just a byproduct of the quality of what you put out, all right? So a lot of people fuck this up and they think they can manipulate the sales and you can't, not long term. I don't care how big the world is. It ain't big enough. Your reputation will get around. This is the same thing that happens with employees, okay? They can sense if you actually care. They know if your intent is genuine or if it's bullshit.

Everybody knows. Like everybody listening, if I asked you to raise your hand right now, do you know when someone is trying to fucking bullshit you? Do you know when you're being sold? And everybody will raise their hand. Yeah, I know.

But yet, the same people who raise their hands saying, yeah, I know, think that they are good enough to trick people. That's right. That's right. Right? And you can't do it. No. So, so, D. Your point is spot on, dude, you have to have the right intent. And if you don't have the right intent, you just shouldn't be in business.

It also means you have to, like, holding them accountable as part of that carry. That's right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Just fucking let them walk over, y'all because I care about you. Yeah. You didn't do this, bro. Yeah.

Well, no, dude, that goes right into your real intent. Yeah. Because if you're not willing to correct someone, you're not willing to coach someone, you're not willing to make them better, then they're not going to respect you. No, you don't care about it. Exactly. You don't. There's no fucking chance.

Right. There's a lot to this, dude. Exactly why we started this company. We started that company because we saw the need in the community for a good, honest contractor to go in and do good quality work. And I've done personal training. You know, I've coached high school basketball. I've done all this stuff. And the whole time I kept saying it's because I love helping people.

I love serving people. And, you know, I believe, obviously, as a Christian, you know, that's the reason why we're on this earth is to help and serve people. I always thought, though, when I was saying that, I was just trying to make myself look good, but I really do have realized that that's the whole reason why we're here and also why I believe we've been successful, at least in the first six months, is because of that. So I completely do with you guys on that. Yeah, brother, that, that, okay, you just pointed out something that is very important

for people to realize, all right? if you do good you get good if you do the right thing good things happen to you there's no mistake that the the companies and the projects and the services that serve the most that people are willing to trade their money for that those are the companies that win the biggest the companies that actually provide the best and solve the problem the best it's the it's the most ethical way to do business, and it's also the most profitable way to do business. And that's why all these people that think they can manipulate, and that's why they wash out, dude.

It's just short-sighted thinking that never plays out long-term. So, that me and my business partner said the other day, we're doing too good. We're doing too good a job. That's why we're getting all this work, but I guess it's just a good problem to have, but we just want to make sure we're not letting that good thing

saying it's a good problem for too long, then we end up in a bad problem. Well, those first two things I said are how you get out of this right now. Yep. Absolutely. I love it, man. Ross, dude, we appreciate you hopping on the call, man. Yeah, thank you guys. Hey, I'm pushing form energy up here to see you guys know all the time.

That's what's up. You ever need sponsors or anything. You let me know because, like I said, I just bought four cases today. I guess it's a coincidence that I talked to you guys today, too. that's awesome. So, well, I really appreciate you guys.

Thank you so much for what you guys are doing. We appreciate you too, brother. You too. You too, bro. Thank you. Absolutely.

Yeah, dude. Yeah, look, building a company's hard, dude. And it's, it's,

there's all kinds of things that happen along the way. And nobody that's running a company, especially in the early days, feels like they're doing it right. You're always going to feel like you're fucking up. But that's actually a great thing because if you feel like you're fucking up,

you're going to have a natural desire. to get better, right? It's the people who don't feel like they're fucking up that refuse to get any better and end up losing. They fuck up. So, you know, awareness is such a big part of this. And that's why, like, you can really tell a lot about the way people ask questions about where their awareness is.

Because, like, dude, if you're aware that you might get sick, okay? And you start doing preventative things way ahead of time, you're in a pretty good spot. But if you don't become aware that you might get sick until you're sick, then you're fucked. All right. So having the understanding of where your holes are, what needs to improve and being concerned about those things all the time is indicative of a great operator. It just is. I don't sit here and sit at my office or in a locker room or walk the floor or go home and think about how much I'm winning. That is not what I fucking think about.

all I fucking think about is how to get better. All I think about is where the holes are. All I think about is how to do a better job. And I obsess over it. And going back to what I said earlier, because that's what I know it takes for me to be good enough to win personally. So we just have to understand that, you know,

if you're aware of these problems ahead of time, like Patricia, to ask the first question, she's already aware. She's aware. She knew what the answer was. She just needed to have confirmation of it. And awareness is a big deal, guys. And the fact that you're aware, it tells me that you're not going to have a problem solving the problem.

100%, man. I love it, man. Guys, Andy, that was three? Yep, sure was. Hell of a way to start a good week, man. All right, guys, don't forget, 7 p.m. Central tonight. We will have CTI, gather the family around, teach your kids some dirty words, some dirty jokes. and we'll have a good time tonight too

that's right all right all right well is that it all right guys well that's the show we'll see you tonight

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