REAL AF with Andy Frisella - How to Lead Your Team, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO8

Episode Date: July 28, 2015

In this special extended episode, Andy Frisella is joined by Washington Redskins linebacker Will Compton, as well as his co-hosts Vaughn Kohler and Ben Newman.  From leading by example to showing appreciation for your team, this is an insightful and comprehensive discussion.

Hey guys, what's up? It's Andy. You're listening to the MFCEO Project. For those of you who are new, welcome. Give you a little history on us. My business partner and Chris and myself started a company called Supplement Superstores, a sports nutrition retailer with $12,000 that we earned from striping the stripes on parking lots. Now, 16 years later, we do over $100 million collectively with six different companies. I started this podcast for basically three different reasons. One, to mentor people that don't have mentors. I was very fortunate growing up to have people around me that told me the truth that didn't prey on me and got me on the right track. I hope to do that for you guys. Number two, to motivate people in a real authentic way. I'm going to say fuck. I'm going to say shit. I'm probably going to say pussy. If you don't like those words, this podcast probably isn't for you. And three, because I have a passion for motivating and helping people. I think that

success is very, um, can be very selfish. And the way I define success is doing and fulfilling your ultimate potential. And I believe that, um, helping people get to a point where they can be successful as part of that potential. Guys, basically, we're trying to help you, okay? We're not selling anything. We're not asking you to buy anything. We're just giving out information for free. Today, I have a couple of very special guests.

And as always, my host, Vaughn Kohler. What's up, Vaughn? I'm excited. I am too. Why don't you tell the people who we have here today? Well, we have Ben, who's not really a guest. I mean, I think we were thinking of keeping him on. He's still special.

Ben Newman, international man of mystery, professional public speaker. How are you doing, Ben? I'm doing good. I'm doing real good. Good. Well, for those who didn't catch last podcast, and nobody who's anybody missed last podcast, but for those who did miss it, Ben, he's a professional public speaker, author, he's a performance coach, and he works with executives and elite athletes.

And one of the guys that he works with, Ben, you're going to introduce. Yeah, so couldn't be more fired up today. Obviously, I get fired up just to be in the room with you two guys and to be with all the listeners, but today we have Will Compton, who is a third-year player with the Washington Redskins, and what's unique about the opportunity to be with Will, Will's become like a little brother to me, and his story is incredible. You know, oftentimes in a mentor-type relationship, you know, I'm supposed to be giving advice, but the great thing about our relationship, and you guys are very fortunate to have this time with Will, is that I learn so much

from Will, and it's a two-way street, and we have the opportunity to grow together. So I'm excited for you to have the opportunity to learn from Will. He's kind of an old soul, which means that he has overcome a lot of adversity, a lot of challenge to accomplish some big things that were his dreams at five years old. So excited for Will to be with us. And I kind of spaced out for a second, didn't catch whether Ben said it or not, Will, but where'd you play college ball? Nebraska, the University of Nebraska. The Cornhuskers.

Now let me just, one thing, interject. So very, very humble is Will Compton. So let me share with you, there's about 100 individuals that have ever walked the face of the earth that have been a captain at the University of Nebraska. So there's a big wall in the school that he showed me, and he is one of those individuals. So one of the most storied programs in the history of college football, and he's one of those very few captains from that school. So he's done some big things in his football career. So he knows how to lead a team, which plays right into our subject. Right, Andy?

Yeah. Today, guys, we're going to talk about different aspects and all things related to teamwork and leadership, which is an awesome topic. You know, we sat here and talked for two hours amongst us guys here, just kind of shooting the shit and seeing what was going on. And I'm happy to have you here, man, because I know you're going to have a lot to offer on the leadership aspect. You know, it was cool to hear the – I wish we would have been recording, you know, like the stories.

Private recording. Yeah. Thanks for coming out, dude. Oh, man. Thanks for having me. People ask all the time, one of their questions is like, what's the coolest thing – what are some of the coolest things you've done since you've been like in the NFL?

Like what have you got to do? and I'm not BSing here like this is probably the coolest thing oh come on I promise I know I know a few guys will be listening my teammates they know they know how much I was hyping this up and you know now that I have the opportunity to be on here it's man it's an honor but thanks for having me well we got to warn you man because I got to tell you you you got to get ready for fame um i mean i'm up to almost 900 instagram followers no i'm happy to be here that's yeah guys so so basically what we're going to talk about today is things that cover concepts like the basics for how to lead a team how to to be a team player, how to develop your team, strengthen the morale and the cohesiveness of your team. And we're also going to talk about what not to do when leading a team. And this is going to apply for whether you have

zero employees or whether you have 200 employees or whether you have 2000 employees. These concepts are going to come into play because here's the reality, guys. Nobody can do anything great alone, okay? Nobody's won a Super Bowl alone. Nobody's won a World Series alone. Nobody's, you know, cured a disease alone. Nobody's built a multibillion-dollar company alone, okay? It takes a team.

Everything great takes a team. And if you can't understand that concept and you don't make yourself a student of leadership and teamwork early on you're going to have a much harder time because you're going to learn things through example or through experiences like i did um whereas had i had somebody walk me through some of these things maybe it wouldn't have been so tough so hopefully we'll uh you know we'll answer some of these questions because that's, that's a lot of the questions I get on my Periscope. Um, per by the way, Periscope is fucking awesome. If you're not on Periscope, get on it. Um, I know me and Mr. Ben here killing it on Periscope. Uh,

basically dude, I just get on there and yell at everybody every day and people fucking love it. I don't, I don't really get the appeal, but, um, it's a cool, it's a live broadcast app. Um, it's definitely worth checking out. I know I'm watching it more than I watch TV or even read at this point because you're able to learn from other people. I follow some really cool people and learn a lot from them. If you want to check out Periscope, download the app, and then you can follow me at Andy Fursella.

Ben, you're at Continued Fight on Periscope. Guys, it's definitely an app we're checking out either way while you're on, while you're on the subject of social media. Yeah. Why don't you just share all of your social media contacts? Cause we're going to, I'm going to take a second just to make, before we get going. Yeah. Before we get going. Yeah. I mean, Instagram, um, I'm at Andy for Sella Periscope, the same thing at Andy for Sella, Facebook, the same thing. And then,, which is basically me just taking pictures of random shit throughout the day. I'm MFCEO-1. Ben, what are you on?

Yeah, so, you know, Facebook, you know, those mediums. It's just Ben Newman. And then the Instagram, the Twitter, Periscope is at Continued Fight. Yeah. How about you, Compto? For myself, for Instagram and Twitter, I am at underscore Will Compton. Yeah. And I'm at Vaughn Kohler, and I've been told multiple times to spell it.

V-A-U-G-H-N-K-O-H-L-E-R. That's for everything except for Snapchat, which I'm not super active on quite yet. But on Snapchat, I'm Vko-mfceo. And then, guys, check out the website, themfco.com. And to link directly to this episode, it would be themfco.com slash p8. All right. I think that covers everything. Oh, and send your questions.

And you're doing a good job of sending your questions, but keep them coming. Ask Andy at themfCEO.com. Yeah, we're getting ready to change the format of how we do podcast releases here soon. We've been doing basically one every Tuesday. It's about an hour long. And then what we're going to do is a shorter one on Thursdays, which will be 15 to 20 minutes, where we're going to hit Q&As pretty hard. But yeah, guys, let's go ahead and get into what we're going to talk about today.

You know, like I said, nothing great is done individually. A lot of times the leader is going to get the credit, the guy that's quote unquote calling the shots. But the reality is there's always a bunch of people behind them that are making it happen. They're making the dream happen. And if you're not able to create a culture of a good teamwork or be a good leader, you're going to have a very hard time being successful in any sport, in any business, basically in anything that you're trying to accomplish. So that's what we're going to cover today. And, you know, I think we've got excellent,

we're gonna have some excellent content going forward. Yeah. Yeah. If I could just mention something real quick before we get started, you know, the times where I have fallen, the times where I've been knocked down or the times where I tried to control too much and you start moving backwards from your goals, I can look back at those periods of time and I was trying to do it alone. You know, you try to do something, it's like, man, why was it? And then you have those, you know, the Andy Frisella who steps into your life, the Will Compton who steps in and says, hey, you know, what's going on here? What's going on with you? And then you can kind of, you can step back and say, why am I trying to do this by myself? So I think for all of you out there, I've been there. So as we walk

through this, if you're kind of in that space, think about where you are and the people that are going to be on your team, because these are two individuals and Will and Andy that you're going to get amazing nuggets about leadership to really take you to that next level. But sometimes you've got to be truthful about where you are. And I know the times I've been held back, it's when I wasn't accepting of teams. And now I'm very conscious of making sure I'm not doing it alone. Well, you know, what's funny too, is that I get a lot of questions, obviously, through the website and also on Instagram a lot. One of the questions I get that's most common is how do I go from what, like people that own a business, an entrepreneurial setting, how do I go from one location to a second location? How do I go from, you know, me running everything to hiring my first two or three employees?

And I can tell you from experience, that for me was the scariest time in business because you think that you're the only one capable of doing what it is that you do. But let's be honest here. You're not that fucking special. You know, other people can run your business. And you have to be good at organizing and you have to take that first step in trusting somebody to have your back.

And I think that that's a huge part in business. And a lot of businesses get caught up in the fact of not being able to take that step, which is what ultimately keeps them to be a mom and pop where they could go be a Zappos or an Amazon or something crazy big, you know, 100 locations versus one. I mean, there's so many retail operations out there

that are great. They could have, you know, a thousand locations, but they don't because that owner's so scared of taking that first step. So, you know, accepting the fact that it's going to take the power of many to reach your goal is the number one thing that you've got to, you've just got to accept it. It's going to, it's part of the deal. That makes a lot of sense to me. But even before you get to the point where you're taking,

you're going from one store to the next, I mean, even before that more fundamental is how do you even start getting people to follow you? I mean, I, you know, in terms of how. One thing you have to remember as a business owner, and this is entrepreneurial-based podcast, so a lot of things I speak about are going to be in terms of business. You know, Will, you're going to speak in terms of sports, but they're all the same things. One thing that I see a big mistake with a lot of leaders

when they're small is that they forget that you are supposed to be the number one salesman in your company. And when I say number one salesman, I don't mean number one salesman of product. I mean, you've got to be the number one salesman of your fucking vision. You've got to be able to look at people and sell them on your vision, on your mission, on what you're trying to accomplish. And if you're not able to do that with passion and with your heart and your soul, you know, you're probably in the wrong business.

You know, so that part should come naturally. Like if you don't truly believe in what you're doing, which is why we always talk about passion is where you start with a business. I always say passion pays the bills. But if you're not able to truly look at a situation and get excited about where you're going to take it, you're probably not in a great place business-wise. You should probably reevaluate it

because the reality is, is you are the number one salesman and your job is to sell people on your vision, on your goals, on the future. And a lot of leaders just don't do that. You know, it'd be the same thing as with you, Will, when you're in training camp and somebody's got to step up and say, hey, this is where we're fucking going. I mean, is that right?

You know? No, absolutely. I mean, you got to have a guy who, you know, sells you on what what the culture is. And, you know, you got to you got to stand behind that. I know at Nebraska for myself, when I stepped into the leadership role, it was more, you know, we'll talk about it here in a second, but changing yourself first, making sure you're doing all the things right. Before you stand up and speak to anybody, before you say something, you've got to have yourself in check first. But, you know, that was a big thing for me, you know, making sure I did all the little things right. So that way when I spoke on something, people knew I was coming from the right place.

Right. And not just out there barking or threatening people or anything like that. I kind of, you know, you lead with your personality. Right. And, you know, you keep yourself in check first before you put it on everybody else. So that's a great place to start. I mean, you know, we've got this agenda here, but I'm just going to start here because that's a great place. We just talked about this a minute ago before we started recording.

We were talking about people's ability to lead is usually held up by their own mindset. And what, what I mean by that is they look at themselves and they say, man, nobody's going to listen to me. Nobody wants to hear what I had to say. Nobody, you know, nobody's going to follow my, my lead. But the reality is that starts with you. So that point you're making, you know, for you guys listening, that would be something, if you're a business owner, that would be cleaning the fucking toilets. It would be sweeping the floor. It would be stocking the shelves. It would be doing the shit that you ask your employees to do better than they do it. And, and, and from a sports, we talked about this a minute ago, you know, in conditioning drills, it's, it's going all the way to the finish line. It's touching the line. It's waiting for the whistle to start

before you start running. It's taking pride in all the way to the finish line. It's touching the line. It's waiting for the whistle to start before you start running. It's taking pride in all the seemingly insignificant details that you have in a day-to-day operation, whether it be sports or business or whatever, and taking pride in those details and being consistent. And if you do that through your actions, people will follow you. Vince Lombardi, his whole thing is uh leading by example isn't the best way to lead it's the only way it's the only way so leadership and teamwork and building a great team dude it starts with yourself absolutely yeah i mean i i totally agree with that point um you know if you're going to get up and you're going to try to rally guys around your vision or your business and your mission, and you can't execute the way that you want your

team to execute yourself, it's very hard for them to take you seriously. So you have to get yourself straight first. I mean, I, I, you know, I would have skipped right over that point. I'm glad you brought that up because like, honestly, like that's, that's the number one thing. And that's, I think, the number one trait between good leaders and good executives and good managers and bad ones, and you could say, you know, good leaders on the field, are the guys who execute the way that they call on their people to execute. You know what I mean? I think that that's a differentiating trait.

Well, to go along with the leading by example, you know, having yourself, getting yourself right first, you know, that is the most important thing, leading by example. But then from a leadership standpoint, you've got to bring somebody along. You know, if you're just a teammate, you don't see yourself in the leadership role, you need to bring a teammate along, hold somebody accountable. Because what good is it if, you know, you both get thrown out of the boat, the boat burns, and you both got to swim back to shore. One guy knows how to do it by leaning by example, but that's not helping the other guy who doesn't know how to swim. So, you know, once you have yourself right and you know how to swim, you know how to take care of yourself and you're doing all the little things right, then you got to start pulling somebody else

along or some of your teammates along because you're not going to do no good if you know how to do it, but, you know, you're not trying to instill that culture or you're what you know into somebody else so i think that's really big once you do lead by example i think that's a great point too because for me like i'll be honest like i take pride in all the shit that i do and and sometimes i skip that step like and that's one of my faults as a leader i'm not ashamed to admit it because everybody has their weaknesses one of my weaknesses as a leader is assuming that the shit that i know that you should automatically fucking know you know so taking the time to show people how to do you know back you know 10 12 years ago i i was in the store so i was able to show guys what to do i was on the sale i was a front

line salesman i showed people what to do. Now, you know, we were doing this so long, I forget, you know, and I'm like, man, that guy doesn't know how to do that. I'm getting all pissed off about it. So, I mean, that's even, that's a great point too, because remember what it's like to be like day one and show people exactly what needs to happen and bring them with you. I mean, that's, dude, that's gold. But for you to recognize that that guy doesn't know that, you had to have a lot of knowledge of yourself and you had to know what you didn't know 10, you know, 10, 15 years ago. And not every leader does that. So it's super important.

A lot of people are in leadership roles by default. They start a company and then they're a leader or they're an owner or whatever. And I see this a lot because, you know, I get hit up on business consulting all the time and dude, I go meet with people and they're running it. Like these people should listen to me or these people should be in. I don't understand why they're not inspired by me. I don't understand why they don't listen to me. And it's because it's always the same kind of guy. It's the same kind of woman. It's always the same. It's the guy who sits on his ass and doesn't do the fucking work himself. isn't willing to do

it and treats his team like they're a bunch of fucking servants. It's always the same kind of guy. I'm a leader because I own the business. No, you're not. That's not leadership. I'm a leader because I'm the best guy on the football field. No, that's not leadership. Your performance does not dictate leadership. It's how you bring people along and teach them along the way. Realistically, Andy, are those kind of people going to change? I mean, are those kinds of people ever going to want to put in the effort to get, to be better leaders? I personally, I, I have never seen it happen. I've seen,

I feel like a lot of people want to be in business to be in business and they want to say, I own a business or they want to say, I, you know, that's, it's hard to explain. They, they want to like play i call it like play business like i want to be the boss i fucking want to go to the bar and say i own this or that but they really don't want to do anything other than earn a living you know and and i've never seen it change i could explain what i'm talking about to those kind of individuals till I'm blue in the face. And it just never seems to sink in with them. And now when I do my initial meetings for consulting with other small businesses, if I sense that the person is that way, I won't take the account because it's not worth my time

to do it. I don't really do it for the money at this point. I do it because I want to see improvements and I want to see the business grow. And I feel like I just, I don't know. I mean, Ben, have you ever seen somebody change? Do you know the mentality I'm talking about? I know exactly the mentality you're talking about. And I think it becomes so that there's two kinds of mindsets. So there's a growth mindset and there's a fixed mindset. And there's individuals who with a fixed mindset, they reach a point of leadership.

My company's doing this much revenue. They really don't want to grow anymore, so they stay fixed. And usually that revenue is not that fucking much. That's exactly right. And not only is it not that much, it's not even tapping into close of what their company could be. Yet the growth mindset is no matter what you accomplish, you always look for the person who's doing more so you can say, what can I do to improve? It's the same thing with you, right, Will? I mean, Will could go in and say, look, I was a captain of Nebraska.

I did this. I'm going to go to the Redskins. But it's constantly looking. And what I always think of in the stories I loved hearing was how you went straight to London Fletcher when you went to the Redskins, who, you know, is one of the iron men of all time in football. And Will had a burning desire to learn from the best not hey look at me I was a captain I'm on the team so what is it that in you Will give us your example because you you're all about a growth mindset from reading books to nutrition to everything yeah absolutely uh me personally I think uh I think it depends on what's driving the person, what's driving them to talk to you. You have to be coachable. I mean, you have to be coachable. one day and you feel like you know it all, that's when you need to hang it up.

And he's a big believer in that. You need to constantly be learning, constantly looking for new ways. And, you know, for me, you know, I don't want to sound arrogant or bragging or anything, but I've just always had the mindset that, you know, I've got to learn from more people. You know, London, one of the best stories, I think, out there. I mean, he was a D3 player and was undrafted, played 16, 17 years in the NFL as a middle linebacker. Ray Lewis has done it. But that guy, I mean, he was a first-rounder.

I mean, he was a stud. I mean, you're talking about – London worked his way, worked his ass off to be what he was. Yeah. When he was here in St. Louis, he was my favorite player. Yeah. I mean, he's incredible. He's a great human being, and, you know, he shared – he was an open book. And, I mean, I think it's just awesome when you're out there trying to just learn new things.

But I really think it comes from what's driving the person. If it's, you know, if it's monetary – you've spoke on that stuff before with purpose and passion. If it comes from the wrong place on, like, you know, how am I going to tell these people what to do to make me more money, you know, versus really trying to consult with you and, you know, learning better. Yeah. How can I do things better? Right.

You know, that's when true growth will happen. And until you figure out why you want to, you know, do something in the first place, you're not going to grow. So all the great leaders, I mean, they're focusing in multiple areas. It's not once. Like if you look at a lot. Yeah. I mean, they're focusing in multiple areas. It's not one. We just talked about that. Yeah. We talked about it before we went on here.

We talked about – and I'm not going to name any names because I don't want to – but we talked about some of the guys in the NFL, and we named some pretty high-profile dudes that just kill it in the NFL. And Will's comments were, yeah, he also kills it in all these other areas because he works and he's into business. He's into these other areas. He's interested. He's got mentors for different areas of his life,

and he's trying to get better, and that's a common trait. And a lot of guys only see what's on the field in the NFL. They don't see the mentality behind it. Absolutely. And that name he's talking about, I'm proud to say it's in Dombik and Sioux. Which a lot of people, you hear that name based off the press he gets. You wouldn't hear that. Right, right, right, right. No, Indomitian, he's a great guy. I mean, the stuff you were talking about, I know an example in particular when he's flying to a business meeting or in a car with

somebody for business, but he's on the phone with his psychology mentor, sports performance coach, whatever you want to call it, and working on his visualization for an upcoming game. And it's just, he does it all the time. He knows it. He surrounds himself with the right people. It's not just, he's not just some freak. I mean, the guy has a lot of horsepower

and work ethic behind all of that. Will, do you think it's fair to say that if Ndamukong Sioux was here today, he would be pretty intimidated by us? I think he would love that first-form truck you guys got going on out there. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if he fears anybody, but he's a good dude. Dude, I want to add to that conversation real quick

because what we were all saying there comes down to – I do periscopes on core values in the morning and, and, uh, two of the core values that we just talked about without even naming either one of them was humility and always be learning. Okay. And this is why, this is how you differentiate good leaders from bad leaders. Like you were saying, growth mindset, um, how you, how you define the growth mindset, how you define the growth mindset. You, me, dude, in reality, you, all of us, and what we do for our livings, we're all fucking ants in the scheme of things. None of us have achieved top-level greatness.

And I think that always knowing that is what drives, being humble enough to admit, like, dude, you're really just kind of a pissant in a big scheme of whatever it is you do that drives that hunger to grow and improve. And when you're humble, you're able to admit, Hey, I don't know this or that or this without your ego getting in the way you're able to learn, which allows the always be learning core value to come into your life. You know? So, you know, unless you're the best in history or whatever it is that you do,

you've got a lot to fucking learn. And nobody listening to this podcast, I don't fucking care who it is, can't get better. All of you should be humble. Everybody. Because I don't care how good it is you are at painting the stripes on parking lots

or fucking packing boxes like we do here or making supplements or speaking or playing in the nfl you ain't that fucking great right period so i think that that's the willingness to check your ego at the door and know that if you have the right mentors and you have the right teammates they're going to challenge you to continue to get better in all areas dude one of my biggest fucking pet peeves is when people say shit like when they insinuate that they're at the top of their game when they're not when they they say things like you know i always thought that it was going to be different when i reached the top or when people say to me and and a guy and a person running it's running like you know

it's like this middle-sized business like 20 million bucks or something you know it's like dude you haven't fucking done shit you know know, we $20 million a year businesses are out there a trillion, you know, or when somebody comes to me and they're like, Oh dude. And I don't get upset at this, but it's just, it irritates me a little bit. But when they say, Oh, congratulations on all this success. And I'm like, fuck, I haven't done shit. You know, don't congratulate me. I haven't done anything yet. Nothing. I've done 10% of what I want to do.

You know? Yeah, you're going to think I'm kidding when I say this, but I'm not. I love your analogy of the ants because ants are small. They are seemingly insignificant, but they get things done. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. And by the way, Ant-Man is an amazing movie. But, I mean, you know, being humble enough to learn is a huge indicator of leadership ability, I think. And I think, like I mentioned, it's learning in all facets of life.

That's one thing I think, Will, that is so impressive about your game is that it goes beyond the game. It goes beyond athleticism. It's about nutrition. It's about studying the playbook. It's about reading books. It's about studying finances so that you can protect your money, protect your body, protect everything. So what's been your philosophy on not just learning football, but learning and improving in life? Oh man, gosh. For me, you know, I'm always looking to listen to people. You know,

one thing we talked about being around the right people and teammates and leaders and things like that, it's you become who you surround yourself with. And, you know, being in D.C. now, I'm surrounded by great people with, you know, Sean LaValle, Ryan Kerrigan, Adam Hayward, a bunch of guys where, you know, you have this idea of what you want to become, so you know you need to surround yourself with those people. For me, outside of all that, where all that for me comes from, you know, I watch and listen and read about a lot of people. You know, I just love listening to Andy's new podcast that he's had come out before Andy.

It's, you know, Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, you know, Eric Thomas, a bunch of people. And now I'm getting into reading books. I know Andy talked about reading a book a week. That's ultimately what I want to get to. It's just, you know, me stop making excuses and reading a book once, reading a book a week. But that's where I get it from. And I fully believe in all that stuff that these people talk about. Will Smith, he's probably, you know, one of my favorites to listen to. And, you know, speaking about the law of attraction and all this psychology stuff. And, you know, to a lot of people before I've gotten to where I'm at and where I'm at now isn't even that, you know, like you said, I'm not even close to scratching

the surface of my potential and things. I haven't done anything that's, that makes me some legend or anything like that. But, you know, I've shattered a, probably a lot of people's expectations, you know, doing, getting to where I've gotten through practice squad, being in drafted and all that. But, uh, I fully believe in your psychology and, you know, you, what you think you become, you know, thoughts turn into words, turn into action, all that stuff. I fully believe in all that. And you, you attract what you just think about. If you're thinking negative all the time, you're going to attract that negativity into your life. And I'm not saying that you go out there and you just have strong, you know, you talk about IM statements,

you don't just say stuff and then hope for something to happen. You work your ass off for it to happen. Yeah, you follow it up with action right away. Absolutely. Like Tony says, you create a very vivid vision, you know. Dude, he doesn't get enough credit, man. Like I was just thinking about him last night. Something popped up on my Yahoo or Google about Tony Robbins.

And, you know, for you young people listening, you guys need to invest in Tony Robbins' stuff. And when I say invest, I say that for a purposeful reason. It's an investment in your future. The guy is unbelievable. There's not been a person that I can name who's dedicated his life more to teaching the principles of what you're talking about, Will, the psychology of success, than Tony Robbins. I mean, I think the young generation hasn't really been turned on to him as much as they should be.

I mean, you listen to his audio. I mean, Tony, if you ever listen to this, you need to update your audio with some more relevant stuff because, like, it's just dated. You know, you listen to it, and it says, like it says like it talks about like the fucking microwave oven being like yeah you know so like it's older but you have to put it in context the berlin wall coming yeah dude it's tremendous shit and and i think people get turned off you know and dude if he came out with another program and i know he's financially you know i think he's worth half a bill you know but the thing is is like uh the information is just invaluable, man. I mean, it's just tremendous.

The guy is just so rich, the information that he puts out. I mean, it's cool to hear that you as a young man are into that because I don't find a lot of the younger guys turn on a Tony. I think what they realize is that there's a new Tony Robbins in town and he uses the F word a little bit more. But listen, all kidding aside, one of the things I really love about this podcast is that we address issues in a way that, like you say, Andy, no unicorns, no rainbows. And one of the things that had just dawned on me is that, you know, there's this cliche that there is no I in team. But what's really fascinating to me as I'm listening to you guys is I'm hearing Andy say,

okay, first you have to sell yourself. Then you have to, then, then Lee, uh, Will, you were talking about leading by example. Uh, Ben, you just talked about this, this desire to grow and get better. These all have to do with I. So there is an I in team. It has to start with you before it's transferred to anybody else. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, I think that people, I think it comes down to, you know, you have to step up and you have to say, all right, look, it's time for me to be a fucking leader.

You don't need anybody's permission to be a leader. You know, you don't need the rest of the football team to say, okay, well, you could be a leader now before you're a leader on the team. You know what I mean? Being a leader, being a leader comes with a decision, like you're saying, Vaughn, within yourself, you know, and if you're going to progress past any kind of mediocrity, because, and that's the thing about business that people don't understand is that, dude, it's pretty easy to go out there and start a business and get it to, you know, a few million dollars. It's not that hard, but getting it from, you know, five or 6 easy to go out there and start a business and get it to a few million dollars. It's not that hard. But getting it from $5 or $6 million to $60 million or from that $2 or $3 million to $20 million, dude, that's hard because it takes a lot of fucking people to make that happen. And so that's what we're talking about today is how do we get people organized beneath us and to follow us into battle, so to speak. Right. And for me,

you know, I guess some people are, you know, I'm not one of those people who's a natural born leader. I think I've, I've been like, like what you're saying, Will, like you're a student of all these things. I've, I've always been a student. You know, I've always said, I'm going to read this information. I'm going to listen to this person. I'm going to, I'm going to surround myself with people who are leaders. And I try to like, like soak that in, um, you know, as much as I can still to this day, you know, I try to surround myself with people that are better than I am at what I do and are more knowledgeable and know more. And, um, you know, I, I think that's a huge trait for being a good leader is always being willing to like, you know, learn from people who have huge trait for being a good leader is always being willing to like,

you know, learn from people who have done what it is you want to do, you know, and you don't have to like, you know, you don't have to get them on the phone. You don't have to like, you know, I don't talk to Tony Robbins. I never met him, but he's a huge mentor in my life because the information is put out. So, you know, go out and study the people that, that, that are what you want to be. You know, I think that's a huge step. You know, reading is and study the people that, that, that are what you want to be. You know, I think that's a huge step. Uh, you know, reading is a big deal for leadership to me. I can always tell, like when I, when I go to my meetings for consulting and I asked somebody how much, how many books they read this year. And if the guy who owns the company says like, Oh,

well, none. Cause I'm too busy. I won't even take the fucking account because it shows me they're not willing to learn. You know, I help you go through the emails and, you know, we're always getting tons of emails. And what's not surprising to me is that we have a lot of people always asking, well, what are Andy's book recommendations? So we're going to probably just to let everybody know, we're going to post those on the on the website very soon. We're going to gather them all together and offer them for you for download. So just to let you know about that. Hey, Will, you were mentioning just a second ago that part of leadership is not, or part of being a team is not just leading yourself, but knowing how to bring

other people with you. And I know, Andy, you're always saying that a huge part of success, like you are not truly successful unless you bring others with you. And so I guess if it's okay with all of you guys, I'm just going to leave the discussion on how do you then transfer what you model to other people? And how do you develop the, I don't know, the morale or the cohesiveness of the team? How do you transfer what you possess yourself? Ben, you want to talk about that? There's a couple thoughts I have, and then I'm going to pass it to Will, because I think we'll hit on it. This is an area we really connected. But you always hear Andy say that passion is what

pays the bills. And I think it's an individual's passion of where they want to go and their vision, which is what attracts people to want to follow their leadership, right? Andy's so passionate that people want to follow. And then his passion is going to drive his daily disciplines. And if you look at the 17 years and the times you've been knocked down, there's things Andy focused on that he could control, his attitude, his effort, and his beliefs. Well, when Will and I talk, and it goes back to Nebraska, it goes back to high school,

what are the things that you've always said that you can control? Attitude, effort, beliefs. So I think it's the same thing. Now when Will, you know, when he's in the football game with the Redskins, when he's in the football game with the Redskins, he has a green dot on the back of his helmet, which means that he's going to help call the plays.

What's given him the ability to do that? Attitude, effort, beliefs. The same thing that got Andy to where he is, same thing that's allowed Will to continue to grow no matter what arena he's been in, high school, college, pro. So what are your thoughts on that and the importance of focusing on those things you can control because it causes people to follow your leadership? Yeah. You know, at any level, you don't have to be the CEO or you don't have to be the team captain. I mean, right now I'm not a captain or anything like that. You know, I have a role.

Again, I'm not on here saying we're not on here saying I'm an expert or anything like that. You know, I have a role. Again, I'm not on here saying we're not on here saying I'm an expert or anything like that. But you can be a teammate. You just being a teammate, somebody that you might see yourself as one of the lower guys on the team, right? And you have a leadership role. And I learned this from Nebraska brought in these Navy SEALs. They call themselves the program.

They put you through a few days, and you kind of do a bunch of stuff, team activities, things like that. But you have leaders, and then you have teammates. You don't have to just see yourself as the number one guy on the team to be a leader like you were saying earlier, Andy. But you've got to be one hell of a teammate, and that's adapting your principles and the guy next to you holding him to that standard.

If his standard is higher than yours, then you've got to rise up to his standard. But you're next to somebody, you've got to bring somebody along. Right now I'm at a teammate role. I surround myself with guys, with vets who have been doing it a while because that's what I want to do, so I need to surround myself with those guys, ask a bunch of questions, and then hold guys that are maybe the same year as me or younger than me accountable. Or if guys are starting to respect me more, I start sharing my opinions and ideas with them. You know, you don't just go in just being a rah-rah guy. I'm this, I'm that.

You kind of lead by example first. You got to earn that respect. Yeah, absolutely. You know, right now, like I said, I'm not that in Nebraska. I was a captain. But you have a leadership role, no matter if you like it or not. You know, you're either part of the problem or the solution. And, you know, you either buy into the culture and bring somebody along with you or, you know, you're a bad egg. Or you need to look to somebody to raise your standard. Let's even get down to, like, practical application here, okay?

What we're talking about, Will, what you're talking about is you have to earn the respect of your team. Okay. And you don't have to be, if you're the CEO, I mean, starting a good culture in your company is going to start earning the respect of your employees. It's going to start with being, like I said a minute ago, being able to do the jobs that you ask them to do as good as they do. And maybe you have a guy who's a computer programmer in your company and you can't program computers. So he's in a special role, but the other things that are responsibilities of the office, like the little things, that's where you earn the respect. You know, it's in the company

kitchen, you know, cleaning up after yourself. It's making sure the floors are clean. It's making sure the bathroom's clean. It's taking out the trash. And it's not taking out the trash to make sure everybody sees you taking out the trash. It's taking out the trash when nobody's fucking looking. You know, those are the things that earn respect amongst your team. And if you can't, if you aren't willing to do those things, it's going to show. And you're not going to ever have the respect or even have the opportunity to build that culture that you need to build inside of your company. So you have to

be willing to do what you ask somebody else to do. And you have to hold yourself to that standard. That's what you're saying, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. You got to, you know, you got to do all of those things, you know, like when we talked about conditioning before we started and you were talking about, you know, going to the line and stepping on the line and that. I mean, tell people what we were talking about because that was cool. Yeah, I mean, they always talk about winning, and it's from the smallest margin. And I actually saw a picture the other day of somebody not –

I forget who posted it – of somebody not touching the line. I saw that today. The best fucking – It was unbelievable. Best meme. I'm going to post it later. That was the best meme I've ever seen. The difference between winning and losing. And it's this guy. The best fucking meme. It's unbelievable. Best meme. I'm going to post it later. That was the best meme I've ever seen. The difference between winning and losing.

And it's this guy. It had a guy from a hand-distance gap from touching the line. I screenshot that this morning just to post that. That is the coolest graphic, this one. Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, that's exactly it. But it kind of just reminded me. Because we're not visual here, explain a little bit more of what you guys are talking about

because I'm in the room and I don't get it. Okay, so coming from Nebraska, we were a very disciplined team, touching the line, waiting on the whistle. Inconditioning. Inconditioning and hard stuff, just things where you would be worn out and tired and you would false start or something, and you would get chewed out by starting early. You'd get held accountable by your teammates, all that stuff.

And then, you know, my first year coming in the NFL, you kind of see a little more guys being able to do what they want, just, you know, whether it's getting paid or anything like that. But it kind of just shocks you on the different, you know, levels of culture, guys holding themselves to the standard and things like that but it kind of just shocks you on the different you know levels of culture guy guys holding themselves to the standard and things like that but uh you know we were showing that picture and it had a guy barely barely missing the line coming up short of the line six inches from the line and it had it just said it showed a graphic that said the difference between winning and losing you know it sounds you know repetitive or or dumb or some people might think it's dumb but

it's the truth. And seeing that picture is a good reminder because I'm at fault of that sometimes. Yeah, we all are, dude. Especially when you train by yourself or when you're in with a group of guys and your teammates and you're kind of just joking about stuff. And everybody's like, fuck this, man. We're tired. I know.

It's like, well, shit, he did it, so I'm going to go ahead and do it. But it kind of just reminds you that that that is the truth and that's those are the disciplines that you've got to you know cultivate yourself in you know those those are the things you've got to do so you're an all-the-time person you're not just a some of the time person I love that yeah I love that say that again you you can't be a some of the time person you got to be an all-the-time person and again a lot of stuff that I talk about comes from coach Bo Pelini he was he was one of the time person you got to be an all the time person and again a lot of stuff that i talk about comes from coach bo pellini he was he was one of the first people that really inspired me to look at things in a very small disciplined manner like the little details you can't just show up on saturdays and play in front of 85 90 000 people you got to go to class you got to do the things

all the time and practice everything all the time he would be pissed when we missed practice we'd have team meetings he'd be he'd be getting after us on grades, all that stuff because he's not here to babysit. He's not going to trust you to play on Saturdays when you can't do it Sunday through Friday. And he truly believes people want to talk about winning and all that stuff, but winning takes care of itself when you take care of all these little things. When you live that disciplined life, the winning and losing, that's going to speak for itself.

It's so funny that you even say that because around here at our office, it's so similar but different application. It's like somebody comes to me because they want to raise, but yet their desk looks like shit and there's trash overflowing out of their trash can. You know, like if you can't take the fucking trash out, why the fuck do I even want you in this building? You know, that's the simplest shit that you could possibly do.

If you can't clean up after yourself, do you even deserve to be in this building? You know, people don't think about that. They think about the big shit. They think about scoring touchdowns. They think about, you know, being on ESPN. They don't think about the offensive lineman who's, who's in the trenches making all that shit possible, which is your team. You know what I mean? That's in your team is you. If your team's performing badly, guess what? Guess whose fault that is. That's not their fault. That's your fault. Because you haven't cultivated enough teamwork and enough leadership within yourself to make your team perform.

So, you know, being accountable for your team on top of all the things we're talking about is a huge aspect of leadership. It's not something – you never see a great leader say, dude, my fucking team sucks. You know what they say? They say, dude, I've team sucks. You know what they say? They say, dude, I've done a poor job at leading my team. I can improve. You know, I should have done this and this and this better. You know, that's what a leader says. No, I agree.

You know, we have a different defensive coaching staff. I have the same linebackers coach, but Coach Jay Gruden, he's in his second year. But it's already so different from last year as far as culture and as far as disciplines and things like that because you just – you know, he's a leader. I mean, he wants to change things. You know, one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

And there's already a bunch of things. That's why I'm so excited about this year is the leaders we have and the things that Coach Gruden's putting in place to create a culture is awesome. I mean, our new strength coach, Coach Mike Clark, he's big on sweeping the shed. Whenever we're done lifting, we got to be the ones to pick up the weights, put everything back.

It's not the assistants. It's not those people who are in their spot and all that. He makes it a point to tell the leaders, hey, you do it first and tell guys to come with you and sweep it themselves. You know what's so awesome about that, dude, is that this is like a spot number one, rule number one, mission number one in creating a great culture is that people will follow. If you set the example, because people know in their heart what the right thing to do is.

And if they see you as a business owner or a leader, and you're running a company, and you're out there sweeping the floor or doing the shit that they should have honestly done on their own, and they see you, they say, fuck, man. Without saying anything. This is an internal dialogue. They're like, fuck. Look at Andy out there sweeping the floor. Fuck. And that sucks when that happens because you kind of get humble because you know but what happens though all the guys come out yeah everybody comes out and that's how you get

the culture going yeah you know what i mean that's how you get the culture going you do it yourself and you do it perfect we have this talk amongst our managers um a lot, 99% of issues with training or performance in a work environment can be solved by upping your own performance, period. And not saying anything, you don't have that fucking meeting. Well, there's some psychology to the preparation and organization that you're talking about. So let's use Will's example of sweeping the shed, you know, getting the weights ready. Think of the last time that you went into the weight room and the way you're getting ready to start your workout. The weights are everywhere and you're looking for the 45 pound dumbbells and you can't find them because they're tucked away in a corner. You get pissed off. You're angry. You're trying to fight. It completely

takes you off your game as opposed to if you walk in and the 45 pound dumbbells are exactly where they're supposed to be. You're organized. You're ready, you pick them up and you start what you're doing. There are no distractions. So if you think of that in all areas of your life, how important is it to be organized, to be detailed? So if you're the leader sweeping the floors and setting the tone for organization, your people are going to do the same, which means the efficiency of that company, the efficiency of the follow through and the elimination of distractions allows people to perform. Yeah. And the thing is about what you just said, that's so true is that you've got to attach a meaning behind the task. A good leader will, will, will tell people what to do and then also explain why it's important. Okay. A bad leader will just say, go clean a fucking toilet.

I'll say, go clean a fucking toilet because what if a customer comes in here and we're selling nutrition products and they come and look at our toilet and it's got fucking poo stains on the inside of it and dribbles of pee because you guys are disgusting, filthy fucking animals and can't clean up after yourself. And they take a picture of it and then they post a picture of it on social media and say, Hey, I just went into this nutrition store. Look how fucking nasty their bathroom is. You think that's going to have a bad effect on our business? So is this fair to say, Andy, that in your mind, a good leader is not just a good manager, but is also a teacher? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

That's a fabulous point. Yeah. You can't just point and say, go sweep the floor. You got to say similar to what Ben just said. You got to say, hey, look, and this is what I tell our guys around here. I said, look, you never know. We're a pretty public in the public eye company. We have people who, which is still weird to me, but we have people who are fans of first form. Like they're fans of a nutrition company. People stop by here and they want to see what's going on. They want to see the operation. I never know who's going to come in today. I don't know who's coming in the front door today. It could be if our, if somebody comes in here and our warehouse looks like dog shit and they want to go look at it, what am I going to tell them? You know? So I have to attach a meaning to the task, like why

it's important. You know, don't be the guy who just says sweep the floor, clean the toilet. These are your tasks because people hate it. But, but what they don't hate and what they will learn to love is the meaning behind the little things that you do. If you can attach a meaningful meaning that they can understand why it's important to do these things that would otherwise be pointless, then you have an inspired worker versus somebody who's just doing something to not get in trouble.

You know what I mean? Now you have somebody who takes pride in what they do versus somebody who's just doing things to get a paycheck. Now you have a culture. That's where it starts. I have something very good to follow that I was reading. Yeah, yeah. I was reading, or I am reading, The Dude's Guide to Manhood written by Darren, I forget

his name. I got to read that. It sounds cool. Darren Patrick. Yeah, so I was just reading it last night. He's a local pastor here in St. Louis. Yeah, out of St. Louis. But I'm reading that book right now, and I was actually, I take a bunch of notes on my phone.

But I wrote down last night, if we are to cultivate disciplined hearts, we must also create systems of discipline. The sweeping of the sheds, the cleaning of the toilets, all that stuff, it all makes sense. I mean, having all these discipline systems in place, it cultivates that discipline heart. I mean, all you know is that standard. Right.

I mean, when somebody comes in and, you know, somebody who's right below you but they're training somebody new, they don't know the difference because that's what you've been stepping down. No, here's the two ways that conversation can go. All right, let's say I hire somebody in, they don't know the difference because that's what you've been. No, it is different. Here's the two, here's the two ways that conversation can go. All right. Let's say I hire somebody in new. All right. The conversation, and I have a guy training the new guy. All right. So it's me. Take me out of the equation. I've got Tyler who's worked with me for a number of years, training a new guy. The conversation can go two ways. If you did it properly, it's going to go like this. Hey, this is how we clean the toilet.

This is why we clean the toilet because people come in here. It's a public place. It needs to be clean. They need to have a good impression. This is how it relates to our business and your performance and your growth as an individual and part of this company. Tyler will explain that to the new guy. Now, if I did a bad job as a leader, Tyler's going to go and he's going to tell the guy this, Hey, we clean the toilet because Andy fucking says so. And if you don't clean it, he's going to fucking freak out. Absolutely. And that's the difference.

But we're talking about something that is so simple as cleaning the toilet. But you can inspire people to clean the fucking toilet if you attach the proper meaning to it. And they understand why they're doing something. When I was playing football, and I never played in college or anything, but in high school, I used to fucking hate conditioning. I'm sure you guys don't love it. Oh, absolutely. But the point is I hated it.

And you know what I hated more than anything is when the coaches wouldn't tell you how much shit you had to do. When the coach tells me how much I have to do, hey much shit you had to do okay when the coach tells me how much i have to do hey you're gonna do 20 fucking gassers i'm like all right i'm down with 20 let's fucking do it yeah but when they just let you keep going and going and going and going and going and didn't attach a meaning to it like hey we're gonna do 20 gassers because we got fucking the smet high school coming to vianney where I played, and we're going to beat their fucking asses this week, and that's why you're going to do 20 versus you're going to do 20,

and I'm not going to tell you why, or I'm not going to tell you how many you did. That used to drive me crazy. So, dude, employees are the same way. Vision drives behavior. Yes, exactly. Elaborate on that, please. So vision drives behavior.

So what Andy's saying is a coach has to say, hey, don't just go run this. You have to say the reason why we're going to run this is because we're going to come together as a team. We're going to unite. We're going to fight. We're going to go to battle because we are absolutely going to take it to our opponent on Saturday night. Once a team can see the vision, then when you follow that up by saying, okay, here's how we break it down today if we do this. Tomorrow if we do this tomorrow, if we do this in practice, then that vision will come true. The vision is going to drive the behavior, right? Which goes back to my point of being the number one salesman in your company.

It's selling the vision. It's selling the purpose. It's selling the meaning behind the seemingly meaningless shit. You know what I mean? That's what a good leader does. A good leader sells the meaning behind the insignificant, seemingly meaningless shit that you're required to do to win. There's actually, yeah, you're not going to be surprised to know this, but there's actually hard science behind what you're saying because there's a psychologist. Oh, you know I just wing everything. I'm just making this shit up. I know. You don't realize that all the scientists in the world agree with you, but there's a psychologist named Robert. There's a psychologist named Robert Cialdini, and he's got all sorts of books about persuasion and influence. And he's got a book called Yes.

And he talks about how there are all sorts of studies that prove that you are 90% more likely to get somebody to comply with what you're asking them if you tell them why or you say or you use the reason because or the word because i read a book one time um and i cannot remember the book and i i cannot remember the book what it was and i think it was a gittimer or a godin book but it might have been a vaynerch. Um, but they use this example of these brick layers. Okay. And the brick layers, they, they use the example of, um, a guy, you have two brick layers. Okay. And you have a wall that needs to be built. That's three foot high and it's, it's never ending. There's never an end to this wall. So they come to work their entire life every day and they build the same wall every day. Okay.

After 30 days, they come to work and they say, you know what? I liked them. I'm thankful for having a job. I like this. You know, it's good. After a year, it's like, Hey, this is getting a little bit boring. After 10 years, it's like, fuck, I'm wasting my life. I don't care how much I'm getting paid. This sucks. Okay. Because you're not telling them what they're trying to accomplish

and you're making them do the same thing. Okay. So the example is take the same two brick layers and you give them a beautiful, elegant cathedral to build. Okay. Something that they can look at and they can say, wow, I fucking built that. All right. And the whole purpose of the, the whole thing I always took away from that conversation was give them a cathedral. Okay. That's the theme I taught. I took from that story and I might not be explaining the story properly, but in what book it is, and I'm sorry if you're listening and I butchered your example, but the book, the example is one of the best I've ever heard because if you give people something that inspires them to do great work,

they will do great work. Right. If you ask them to do mundane work and do the same thing over and over and over again without a purpose, they're not going to be happy. Right. And so you could take those same two brick layers and you could say all right we're going to build this wall it's going to be a thousand miles long and the purpose is to help this drainage so that the farmer's field doesn't become flooded

and they can grow crops and then our village won't starve and now you have a totally different mindset amongst the people working for you. Okay. They're doing the same action, but now they, now they come to work and they're like, fuck yeah, we got a purpose. Right. We've got something that, that, that we need to accomplish, you know? So just by attaching a meaning to your, to the things that you need, and it can't be a bullshit meeting, you know, don't treat your employees like they're stupid because a lot of them are probably smarter than you. That's the reality. The smartest guy is not always the boss.

I know I'm not the smartest guy in our building, but yeah, Tyler is definitely. See, the guy who raised his hand and says he's the smartest, he's never the fucking smartest. Hey, listen, I don't want to hijack the conversation, but a couple of things. We want to cover a couple more topics, and I know that we want to be sensitive to the fact that Will has to get to working out. Oh, don't worry about that. But one of the things I want to do is add another layer to this conversation, which is that we've been talking about leading a team, and you guys have been really good about, you know, talking about the issues of leading by example, holding yourselves accountable. And so it's all

about what you, you, you can do. But I want to introduce this whole issue of your team and the fact that, let's face it, your teams, I mean, Andy, you've got like 200 guys in your company. Your teams are comprised of there is how do you motivate different people with different personalities? I know somebody like Coach K or John Wooden would say that there's a certain kind of person that you don't call out in front of everybody because their personality is going to shut down, whereas maybe for other people that would work and that would motivate them. But I want to know what are the standard things that you have found that really motivate people, the teams that you work with? I'll answer that because I struggled that. And you guys could chime in, but just let me handle that off the top. Dude, I struggled with that for a long time. I grew up, and like you guys have heard, the first 10 years of business, I kind of wasted because I chased money. So I always assumed that people were motivating by money and it caused me a lot of problems. And then I figured out certain people are motivated by money. Certain people are

motivated by accomplishing things. Certain people are motivated by contributing and they're happy to contribute. They don't need to be the center of attention. They don't need to be the highest paid guy. But there's two things that I have learned in my experience that will keep people motivated above all other things. And if you can corner these two things and make them part of your leadership skillset, you're going to be very successful and you're going to deal with a lot less headache. Anybody who runs a team or manages people will tell you it is the hardest job in the world. So trust me when I tell you this, that these two things will motivate 99.99% of individuals on a team. Number one, identify the purpose and the goal. We've been touching on that here a little bit, but number one, always speak towards your purpose. Don't speak towards your dollars. Don't speak towards the money that you're going to make. Don't while some people might be motivated by motivated by that,

other people get turned off by that. Okay. Which is a whole nother deal. You shouldn't get turned off by making money. But the point is you could capture everybody by speaking to purpose, no matter how money motivated, no matter how recognition motivated, no matter how recognition motivated, no matter how gratitude motivated people are, everybody can get behind, let's go out and kick some fucking ass. Okay. And so when you define your mission to define your purpose, you can capture everybody, not just the people who are motivated by X or Y or Z. Okay? So one, define your purpose and speak in terms of accomplishing your purpose all the time.

Not 80% of the time. All the time. All your communication should be geared towards this is our goal. We're all on the same team. What do we have to do to get to that fucking goal? Okay? Number two, be appreciative of the efforts that your team are putting in. Okay. Say thank you.

All right. A lot of people reward people. They think that they can just reward them with cash prize or money or a raise. And, you know, one thing I had a hard time understanding as a business owner was that sometimes, you know, that doesn't even mean anything to people. Some people are just happy where they are financially and they are much more responsive to you. Just saying, look at them dead in the eye and shaking their hand and say, dude, thank you so much for doing a great job for us. Thank you for the effort that you're putting in. You know, when you do that and you make it genuine and you really mean it dude

That means more to people than any amount of money. You could ever fucking pay them period So defining your purpose speaking in terms of your purpose and always showing appreciation for your team even when you lose even when you lose now if someone goes out there and they and you lose because You know people aren't putting the effort in you go you don't go out there and thank them for not putting the effort in but let's say you got the one guy who's working his ass off and you just got done chewing the rest of the fuckers out take that one guy you walk over to him you say hey man i know you're doing your job thank you so much for doing what you need to do it doesn't go unnoticed and that's very powerful you know

so always be mindful of the effort that people are putting in because dude, the reality is, is these people are the people that drive your business. They're the people who allow you to get the credit. You know, I'll add a third thing in there too. You know, um, I just said, get the credit. You know, I get a lot of credit personally for our business that I don't fucking deserve. And our team deserves it. And there's a saying that, uh, and I think it was, I heard it from Stuart Scott the first time. So I don't know where he heard it from, but, um, it was, you know, when things go wrong, you use, I, when things go right, you use we. So sharing the credit and

giving the credit to your team when you guys fucking win is a huge deal it's huge it's the same thing as saying thank you on an individual level you know um because as the business owner you're gonna likely get the credit anyway but what i don't know personal pet peeve of mine are the business owners that try to have all the fucking spotlight and they act like their team doesn't exist right it's like, dude, you're not fucking fooling anybody. Or the business owners that throw people under the bus. I mean, I don't know. It's annoying to me personally.

But the point is, speak with purpose, define your purpose, always talk in terms of purpose, always show gratitude, and always give credit to your team. Those three things you could bring in everybody. You know, you don't have to worry so much about how is this person motivated versus how is this person like, you know, people are surprised we don't have HR person here. You know, I don't need an HR person because I fucking make sure that everybody's inspired that works here.

You know, I make sure that every single person wants to come here. You know, people don't, we don't even, we don't have required hours here. We don't have, you got to get here at this time, leave at this time. Dude, it's not uncommon for these guys to be here until 8 or 9 o'clock at night. I don't ask them to do that. Why do they do that? Because they want to fucking win. You know, they're on the team, man.

They want to win. And people always love to win. So when you talk about how to bring people together in terms of culture and inspiring and how to get people on the same page, speak in terms of winning. Speak in terms of purpose. Don't speak in terms of the fucking $5 an hour raise I'm going to give you. Don't give a fuck about that. Will, what do you care more about?

Yeah, I was going to say. Do you care about the team winning or do you care about you getting a fucking highlight on ESPN? I already know the answer. Yeah, the team winning for sure. I think one thing that's interesting on all the things you're talking about, the cathedral, the wall, this and that, you always start with purpose and stuff coming from why.

You know, Simon Sinek. Start with why. Yeah, his golden circle or whatever. Everybody, every football team, business, they know what they do. They know what they are. I'm going to play football. We're going to go out here and play football and win. Right.

Everybody knows what we've got to do. Everybody knows how we're going to do it. Everybody knows the strategy. But when you sell people on why, that's kind of what drives people for the long term. Because if you don't know why, you're going to go by your feelings eventually and you're going to fall short of your goal. Because that little voice from day one, very motivated with what they're writing out strategy-wise, versus day 100, you know, Will, there's going to be completely different minds unless you have this vision in mind, this cathedral in mind. You constantly take a minute to reflect on what that is.

Absolutely. Because otherwise that 100-day Will is out there running his fucking gassers, and he's like, fuck this. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to do this shit. Absolutely. Why am I doing this shit? Exactly.

And that's where your vision and your why comes into play. You know, Will Smith, he talks about you don't set out to build a wall. You have this wall in mind, but each you lay this a brick as perfectly as you can but uh because his story his dad uh trashed a building and made him and his brother uh build this shop for him but uh he only made him lay like one brick a day or something like that but that's what will smith you know i got that from will smith yeah you you lay a brick as perfectly as you can and then you have a wall or a cathedral or whatever, you know, you see the vision, the result of mine. I love that, dude. When I have kids, I'm making them build a fucking wall. We're moving out to the farm, dude. I'm going to, I'm being dead serious, dude. I'm

going to come up with this fucking plan. I'm going to do the same thing. What an awesome lesson that is. Yeah. And then his dad told him, don't you ever say that you can't, you know, somebody says you can't do something, you know, he gets that from that pursuit of happiness scene where he tells his son, don't ever let somebody tell you you can't do something. He gets that from his dad making him do that stuff because they had to build this shop. And they did it on their own. But, you know, he said at times they hated it. But, you know, each day you want to lay a brick as perfectly as you can.

And I think that just goes with all that. Well, that's a good analogy. You know, you should look at your days as the brick. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. And when you put enough perfect days, a.k.a. bricks together, you build great shit. You build this vision you have in mind.

And, you know, you've got to lay this brick that's tailored toward that wall you have, meaning you have a vision. My vision, being an NFL linebacker, is do my days look like what an NFL linebacker does? I mean, am I out there working out, eating right, doing all these right things, reading, in my mind, in my opinion, reading and trying to learn new educational ways. Just fit yourself in that mold of what a Hall of Fame linebacker would do in a day. Yeah, on a daily basis. Am I doing these things?

Or am I playing video games? Or am I doing this? That's when you've got to be truly honest with yourself. Are you doing these things? Because that's how I feel like, that's when you start to grow, when you can be honest with yourself. What do you want to be? Who do you want to be?

Now, is that person living that life day to day, right? And if he's not, there's where you find the problem and you fix it. You write out your standard or your plan. Man, that's great. I never heard of it like that before. I like that a lot. This is one of the reasons why I can bond so well with the two of you is because sitting back listening to the commentary, everything both of you are saying, you have the choice

to be intentional, to choose what it takes to follow through on all of these initiatives. Now, one time Andy said, if you lose, here's how you react. But you didn't say, I get up there and go win, win, win, win, win. And Will's not saying win, win, win. It's all, it's focusing on being intentional of the things that you can control, which will drive progress towards what that big goal and that big vision is. And I think the more that you listeners, you are choosing to be intentional with the things that you can control. You can control passion. You can control effort.

You can control the attitude. You can control the focus. You can control whether or not you choose to connect to the why, the purpose, why you're gonna take action. It's all about being intentional. Great leaders help cause their people to recognize what can I do intentionally today

to drive progress forward example Will Smith's dad one brick at a time that's cool yeah and I mean it goes you have a lot of stuff your prize fighter day and all that you know all it comes down to is creating a new standard upping your standard nothing happens without being intentional we're not sitting here talking on a podcast without being intentional people listening aren't trying to change their life without being intentional by listening to this and then trying to put it into practice everything you do comes from intention and comes from it all starts with a thought in mind you know I know on yours you talked about how correct me if I'm wrong the word you haven't worked out or something for three

weeks and you said no matter what the next day you're going to wake up and do this but everybody's the same and goes through the same stuff you wake up and you don't want to get up and work out right nobody wants to do that right today I didn't want to get up earlier than I had to to do a speed workout because I had to fit drive up here and do this you wake up and you always want to hit the snooze button and I'm guilty I hit the snooze button. And I'm guilty. I hit the snooze button at least twice. So I give myself two snoozes a day. But you wake up and you tell yourself why you're doing something, whether that's I write things on my phone and take a snapshot and put it as my lock screen just so I can remind myself why I'm doing something. Because again, day 100 will and training is way different from day one. You know, you're right out of diet

and all this stuff. You're all motivated and pumped up. You listen to Andy. Maybe you're listening to this one and now you're starting to be, you know, motivated to do something or change something in your life. You need to write it down and put it on paper because when the next month comes or a few weeks go by, you're not going to want to do the same stuff because it's hard. You've got to make it a habit to remind yourself why you're doing things. Absolutely. And that's how that happens. I mean, you take this momentum you have by listening to something or, you know, doing something right or anything, you need to write it down, map out your strategy, how you're going to get there.

And you need to recite it and review it every day. Because if not, your feelings are going to succumb to, you know, all of these things that you're trying to do. If we all live by our feelings, we'd sleep in every day, we'd eat cake for breakfast and all that, but we have a standard for ourselves to live a certain way. Yeah, and hold on, hold on. And that's why you get up. You have chosen a standard for yourself.

Andy has chosen a standard for yourself. And I think that's the difference for everybody listening. It's that moment in time when you choose a new standard. See, it rolls off your tongue that way, Will, because you have chosen a lifestyle like that for a long, long time. You have to make that a choice. It's got to be a choice. And it's not natural. It's you choosing standards. You don't just wake up and just do what you do. You have created standards based upon the mentors, the coaches, the teammates, the people that have been there

for you in the past. Right. And you just said it right there. It's not God-given. You're not born with the genetics to think and choose to be coachable and all this stuff. It's literally a decision. Well, I think it's a decision anyway. Yeah, I'm thankful looking back knowing that I didn't know it at the time because I wasn't into psychology as much as I am now. But subconsciously, always looking to be better. Like, that's simple.

If you can't do the easy things right as far as being coachable and always trying to learn like that's easy information that's been written for millions of years i mean it's out there literally go on youtube i guys come to me you know comp uh guys i play with that nebraska comp what what what are some things that you did or what do you do and i give them links and books to read i mean it's not this isn't something i made up and it's i'm just born with you know my body didn't think that way it's just all this isn't something I made up and it's, I'm just born with, you know, my body didn't think that way. It's just all this credit. I mean, I am, I, the way I live is just by other people. Now you listen to your stuff, but it's all stuff I've just decided to sit down and learn and be like, well, Tony Robbins has it figured out. Let's see, let's see, you know, if I can put some things into practice, I listened to him and it's like, holy cow, like this,

I'm so motivated by the wrong things sometimes that you can literally rewire yourself by being intentional with choosing to look at things a different way and then writing it out it's crazy it's crazy none of this is stuff i've came up with you know again i'm not on here saying i'm an expert i've played no one in my third year what you're saying is the humility in his in his message you know mean? He's saying, this is the truth of where I am. Exactly. Being honest with yourself. Dude, it's awesome.

Absolutely. And also, I can agree with everything you're saying from a different aspect in terms of business. Right now, we're talking about building a great team. I get a lot of compliments on our culture, on our team, on our internal culture and external culture, our ability to create fans of our brand. And we're selling fucking vitamins, okay? And, you know, people are like, God, man, I don't know how you do it.

I don't know, blah, blah, blah. And they speak of it as if it's this thing that I have or this thing that I know. It's not a thing that I knew or had. It's a thing that I chose to study. It's a thing that I chose to put in my brain. It's the materials I chose to read. It's the people I chose to listen to. Okay. And that's where people get off track because they look at somebody like you and it's very easy to say,

all right, here's Will Compton who plays in the NFL. He must be faster and stronger and smarter than me. Okay? They look at somebody like myself and they say, oh, here's a guy who's running all these companies and doing all this shit and they think he must be smarter or work harder or know more than me. No. I just choose to put the right shit in my brain and to study the right things that have created habits that have allowed those processes to play out. And I've given them enough time, you know, and I think that's the biggest mistake people make is they look at a guy like you or a guy like me or a guy like Ben who goes around the world and speaks for a living. And they say he has something that I don't. And that's not true. You have to go out and choose to cultivate

those qualities in yourself. And, and, you know, as corny as it sounds, I even feel corny saying, cause it's not my style, but dude, you really can go out and learn the skills to be whatever it is you want to be. You know, and anything else that you tell yourself is a fucking excuse, period. Yeah. Tony Robbins says it's 20% mechanics, 80% psychology. Yeah. I mean, you're just very, we're all just very conscious of being intentional with our actions.

Right. You know, when you do something wrong or, you know, when I would get reminded, comp, sweep the sheds. What are you doing? Why are you leaving the weight room you know if adam were to say adam hayward were to say that to me you know it sucks at the moment in time like like damn he's calling me out right now but in my mind it's like i know that's the right thing so you have two decisions reframed yourself yeah you can you can sit there and say something back on why you're going to walk out or you don't have time to do something or you just you know you take your medicine you go over there and start sweeping the shed right yeah your medicine it's like it sucks that you're going to walk out or you don't have time to do something or you just, you know, you take your medicine, you go over there and start sweeping the shed with them.

That's right. Take your medicine. It's like it sucks that you're being called out in front of people, but, you know, you've got two choices to make. People fail to realize the adversities and things you've got to go through to get – The more and more I talk to guys like you, like just guys in business or guys who have been successful, high-level athletics, dude, humility, the humility of the guys guys and i'm speaking like totally off the

subject here but the humility of the people that i talk to it's such i think it's such it's so much more of an important aspect to success than people realize i just it opens up your ability to learn like what you're saying it opens up your ability to accept criticism or to be called out when you're not doing what you need to be doing. And instead of you being like, man, screw you for saying that. You're like, fuck, you're right. I better get back there and do it. You know, that might be worth a whole podcast at some point.

That's what I'm saying. Humility is. But it all starts with being humble. It all starts with being able to accept the things that you don't know or accept criticisms that are true. You know, today a popular term is haters. I got all these fucking haters. Well, are they haters or are they telling the truth? You see what I'm saying?

Everybody says anything against anything that you say is a hater. But are they or are they just trying to make you better? And if you're somebody with the mindset that they're trying to make you better, you're somebody who can be honest with yourself on critiquing your own daily routine. You should be able to take some, even if someone's being a dick and they're, and they're going about the wrong way of approaching you with it, you should be able to decipher their message and say, you know what? Absolutely. Maybe that guy has a little bit of a point, you know, maybe he went way overboard, but there's 10% of what he said was true. Right. And you're able to be like, you know, there's, there's a little bit of truth to that on critiquing something, but you know maybe he went way overboard but there's 10 of what he said was true right and you're able to be like you know there's there's a little bit of truth to that on critiquing

something but you know you're so strong-minded about that that's not going to phase you but it could it could help change something exactly you take the negative and you make it you make it help you get better yeah right whether or not he's 90 wrong or not you're able to see it yeah oh you know he's just messing with me and then you're able to you know i know for for me personally lay down at night and be like man maybe i could be doing something else you know guys don't know that they that they influence me all the time you know when i see keenan robinson doing extra things um in the in the training room the rehab room or yeah you're not walking up to him and saying hey dude you're inspiring me right but dude in your head in my

mind when i'm like oh shit i'm i just got done rolling i was about to go in the locker room and i'm thinking yeah i need to start doing more. You never know who you're inspiring. You never know. You never know. You never know who you're inspiring. And one thing that I love, there's a book called The Lombardi Rules, which is one of my leadership books that I make everybody read who's in a leadership role.

Do you know who read it? Or excuse me, who wrote it? It's like a compilation of Lombardi stories. His son actually put it together. It is freaking awesome. Excuse me, it is fucking awesome. We're not going to put this out here on the show. I've been rubbing off on you.

Yeah, I know. Jeez, Vaughn. It's a really cool, awesome book. You know, I should say, I have some people that... Everybody go read a fucking book. All right. The Lombardi rules. One of the things he says in there is that you act, and Tony Robbins says this shit too.

And there's actually a boiler room scene. If you want to talk about three different ways to hear this message, the movie Boiler Room. And Ben Affleck talks about act as if. Okay. Tony Robbins talks about act as if. Like act as if you are the greatest of all time. Absolutely. Act as if.

Muhammad Ali. Like what you're saying about framing yourself into these situations of what Hall of Fame linebackers do. I don't want to do those things. It's a term that – and Vince Lombardi says it too. Act as if, except for his – the way he follows it up with, is if your team is always watching you. If you want to be a great leader, do what you would do if your entire team was watching you

and do that all the time. That's one of the best pieces of leadership advice that I've ever come across. Because then no one can ever point at you and say, hey, I saw that one time, man. You know, you put that shit in the trash can and it was full and you just stuffed it down instead of taking it out. I saw that. No one can ever say that about you. You know what I mean? So you have to act as if the whole world's watching all the time.

And I think that's something that Tony Robbins talks about in terms of acting as if I think even talks about it in the same terms as if you're a celebrity and everybody sees everything that you do. Because when you act as if that, okay, so let's talk, we're talking about leadership and teamwork, right? When you act as if you're the world's greatest leader all the time, you eventually become a great leader because you're forcing yourself to go through the motions of what that leader would do or what that hall of fame linebacker would do or what that professional speaker would do that's world renowned you know or what that ceo would do you know or whatever it is that you do you have to frame yourself and pretend as if and almost trick yourself into acting as if because when you act as if the rest of the world kind of forms around you.

And eventually you become that. That's all it is. When I share, you know, they're called I am statements, right? So it's an answer to a who are you question. So ask yourself, what's going to drive you more? If I say who are you, are you going to be driven more by telling me the things you've already accomplished in your life? Are you going to be driven more by the things you believe that you can achieve with the talents that you have it's exactly what you're talking about right yeah yeah go ahead i think it's

awesome because you talked about you kind of trick yourself that's that's kind of what i say sometimes when i'm trying to explain this crazy stuff that i talk about psychology wise but you basically brainwash yourself into thinking something different you You know, Muhammad Ali, he would always say he's the greatest. He's the champ. He's number one. Right. You know, his name of speech before a foreman, you know, I know all of you got him picked. And everybody laughed.

Everybody laughed. Everybody made fun of him. Yeah. So let's, I mean, I got to bring this up because this is important because this is an entrepreneurial podcast. I got to stop right there and use this as a good parallel or something. You know, when we were building our business, like a lot of guys were like, Hey, nobody believes in me. Nobody's going to believe in my vision. Nobody's going to believe in what our company

is trying to achieve. Okay. That is fucking normal. People are going to not believe you, dude. I once had a guy tell me in my meeting that our retail stores would net, they were doing like $20,000 a month. And I, I set the goal the next month for 40 grand. Okay. And the guys looked at me like I was fucking crazy. There were 16 people in that room. There's only one person that was still in, that was in that room. That's still with me today. And I told him we were going to do 40,000 that month. And the guy looked me in the fucking eye and he said, Andy, there's no fucking way these stores will ever do $40,000 a month ever. Now, dude, I've got stores do $10,000 every fucking day. Okay. Per day. You know where that motherfucker is? He's selling some fucking multi-level marketing shit. Cause I see him on Facebook. facebook all right people are not going to believe in your

vision people are not going to believe in what your vision is they are going to laugh when muhammad ali says i am the fucking greatest people he got chastised people raked him over to fucking coals they said look at this cocky dude he's of shit. This guy really thinks he's the greatest. And guess where he is now? He's the fucking greatest. And arguably one of the greatest athletes of all time. Not just boxer, athletes ever. So I was going to bring up... But the point is here,

guys, is that, dude, your team, when you're in the beginning stages, you're going to... Let's say you're a guy starting out and you're only doing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in business or less. Alright? You're very small, you're not, let's say you're a guy starting out and you're only doing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in business or less. All right. You're very small. You're just getting going and you've got five or six guys around and you're trying to build this culture. Dude, that is the hardest time. If you're in that position right now, you are in the hardest time in business that you ever fucking be in. Okay. What you're going through now is so fucking hard that you can't comprehend how much easier it is to do what I do now versus what you're doing now.

Because I've done both. And what I do now is fucking easy. Because they see the big buildings. They see me drive to a meeting in a fucking Rolls Royce. They see me wear a $70,000 watch. Okay? It's easy to fucking believe now, but when you're where you are and I'm speaking to the guy who's just getting started, nobody is going to fucking believe in

you. Nobody's going to say, Hey, I'm selling, you're selling lemonade and I'm going to grow into the greatest fucking lemonade company that ever existed. People are going to fucking laugh. Okay? Expect that. The people that you have working for you, you have one person out of your group that might stay with you. Okay? Expect that. Expect resistance from your own team. It's going to happen, and it's easy to throw rocks at something that doesn't exist.

But as long as you can become and cultivate good leadership qualities, you could speak with purpose, you could speak with gratitude, and you can sell your vision to your team, and you can get at least one guy to believe in you, that will turn into two guys, and that will turn into four guys, and that will turn into eight guys, okay? And that's all you need to do. So just bring, like you said in the beginning, one guy with you. Bring one teammate with you. Real quick, there's just one more story that I had to get in here and share about I am statements and the importance of it. And it has to deal with the example of the guy sitting across the table from me. So Mr. Will Compton, you know, some of you heard on the last podcast I talked about at five years old, Will was telling himself, I am an NFL football

player. And now we know that he is, you know, when he was playing football by himself out in front of the house. But here's a story that I don't think is really private anymore. And he's shared it and we've shared the stage. So I'm going to share it with all of you because it's pretty powerful. But when we first met, he was in that undrafted free agent status, just having graduated from Nebraska, getting ready to report to the Washington Redskins training camp. And he started telling himself, I am a linebacker with the Washington Redskins, which was something he was telling himself before that was a reality. And getting invited to training camp as an undrafted free agent is not being on the team.

And I'll never forget, I was pulling into a lunch meeting and I get this text message from Will. And the text message says, do you drink coffee? And I thought, well, what kind of a bizarre text message? Do I drink coffee? And I responded back, yeah, I drink coffee. And he says, here's a great post-workout drink. And he says, take whey protein, honey and coffee and mix them all together. He says, it's great for post-workouts. And I said, okay, I guess I'll try it. And then he responds back, that is what a linebacker with the Washington Redskins drinks. So it was that point in time when Will had made the choice. You know, he bought in, right?

So like what Andy's been talking about, it's seeing that vision. He believed he was a linebacker with the Washington Redskins, and now here we sit. He's getting ready to report to his third training camp, and there was a stint last year, three games, where he led the NFL in tackles. So it's about believing, no matter what anybody else thinks, believing in what's possible for you and putting the work behind it. I love it. And, guys, that's just my experience. I mean, that's just an example.

Again, not on here claiming to be an expert, but these are real-life experiences that I've put into practice. And, honestly, I wrote that example because Ben had challenged me to write that example. I know Ben remembers me saying, you know, we were writing my I am statement. I just wanted to say, I am a, an NFL linebacker. And he was like, why would you, why would you want to do that? And I was like, I mean, you never know what'll happen. I can, you know, get cut and somebody else can pick me up. He's like, why even think about that? He's like, say you're with the Washington Redskins. And, you know, again, just like everybody, everybody goes through their doubts and their, you know, their self,

you know, their self doubts on thinking, you know, they're not good enough. And, you know, I was the same way. I still am the same way. You know, you get nervous about everything, but, you know, you buy into it. Like Ben said, I bought into it. And, you know, I told myself that, you know, every day that you know every day and that was the first year I got cut I was on the practice squad you know I got cut and picked back up on the practice squad and get activated until the very last game of the season but I continued to tell myself that you know whether I was on the practice squad or not I knew one day you know my hard work would pay off you know doing the daily disciplines and things like that but you know it's

not I just said that and then then ultimately it happened. I mean, I didn't want to say it. Then I challenged my, Ben challenged me to say it. I said it, I got cut, picked back up for the practice squad. I continued to say it. And, you know, now, you know, fortunately I'm able to say, I got to live that experience. I have that same statement on my notes and my, my iPhone. I have all the statements I've made before, but it's crazy how that stuff works. Speak things into existence and, you know, it's insane. It's insane. Not only that, I'm going to challenge you right now because it's time to reframe. You are a linebacker with the Redskins. Now it's time to be the greatest linebacker with the Redskins. Absolutely. It's

time to reframe that. You know, it's time to change your thinking from making the team to being the best on the team. When you're the best on the team, then it's time to reframe and become the best in the league. And my point in telling you that is to give an example, and not only like I'm seriously challenging you. No, I know you are. I see the look in your eyes right now.

You can see Selma's eyes right now. Boy, in your eyes right now but my point is in this is this that's that's how you that's how you become great and anybody listening now once you where people fail and where they fall off in developing a team or becoming a leader is they get the small little goals and then they stop trying to grow they stop trying to progress and it becomes okay i becoming a leader is they get the small little goals and then they stop trying to grow. They stop trying to progress and it becomes, okay, I'm a leader. That's good enough. No, now it's time for you to become a great leader. Okay. And then when you become a great leader and you accept that you're a great leader, it's time for you to teach other people how to become great leaders. Absolutely. Okay. So it should always be the next thing.

The next thing for you is going to be the best linebacker on your team. You know? Yeah. That's what you need to start telling yourself. And I know your buddies are listening right now and they're going to give you shit. Because you're a humble dude, they're going to say, oh, Will, you think you're the fucking best? Right, right.

You know what? Sometimes you got to look at them and say, damn right, I'm the fucking best. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Sometimes you got to look at him and say, damn right, I'm the fucking best. Yeah. And guys, the thing is, when you have big goals like that, you're going to fail most of the time. I'm not saying that I'm going to fail or you're going to fail, and react to the next situation, you know, prepare for the next situation. It doesn't work out. You know, your mindset, you've cultivated this discipline so much that, you know, you don't see it as a failure. But, you know, you've got to look for it.

There's another opportunity out there. So, you know, you keep going about it. You might fall short. You're going to fall short. That's what happens in business. I mean, you. That's right. What did you raise the first day?

Seven bucks. Seven bucks. And now it's so crazy to me hearing $100 million, then you talk about $20 million. That ain't nothing. But that's just crazy to me. You know, you're going to fail. You're just going to fail.

That's just going to happen. And you might fail in the specific subject you're in. So here's the point. We just talked about reframing where you are to become better. You know, the minute we hit $20 million is the minute I said, dude, we're going to 40. You know, and there's a little bit of a, I don't even know what the proper word is,

but a paradox there to that. And people are like, oh, well, you must never enjoy anything. No, you know what I enjoy? I enjoy the fucking progress. The fight for your real potential. That's right. I enjoy the fucking fight. I enjoy for your real potential. That's right. I enjoy the fucking fight.

I enjoy the growth. I don't enjoy, I don't care about the cars. I don't care about the money. I really don't. At this point in my life, I don't give a fuck about that. I care about the progression of our employees. I care about the progression of our company. I care about accomplishing the fucking goal.

And that's where, when you about accomplishing the fucking goal and that's that's where when you learn to love the fucking fight and you learn to fight for the sake of winning the fight that's when you become a great leader that's when you build a great culture absolutely the alchemist loved the desert yeah but yeah no i think so so well by the way yeah amazing yeah so um last night i my wife watched a movie with me. It's one of my favorite movies. I actually named my dog after this movie. And I finally got her to watch Rudy with me.

Oh, yeah. So I was just thinking, how cool would it be if you found a way to help me walk on as a 40-something guy with the Washington Redskins? See that, guys? That's my point. Everybody laughs at your dreams. Yeah, yeah. Everybody. Because you know what?

That's my new I am statement. The Invincible Part 2, that movie. You'll be the next Mark Wahlberg doing that movie for you. Well, listen, this is great conversation, and this has gone long, and I'm sure people are going to look at it and say, oh my gosh, those guys were, you know, when they first see the length of the podcast. What they don't realize is that we were going for two hours before we started recording. I think we got another five or six in it.

Yes. But, but I do, I, I, well, I hope you could, I mean, dude, I hope you definitely plan on coming back and joining us. This has been awesome. Oh hell. Yeah. Ben knows I'll be back in a heartbeat. My girlfriend knows too. That's all I've been talking about. So that's awesome. But we are going to wrap up with one. I want to throw one last question out there. And that is on this leadership issue and being part of a team and what it means to lead a team. And you touched on it a little bit earlier, just a second ago, Will. But what happens in a business context? Obviously, Andy can attack this question.

But in a business context, what do you do when a member of your team not because of laziness but because of just human failure they screw up they do something wrong and will what do you do on the field when you have a teammate who is an incredibly committed player but they drop the ball they do something wrong all right let's close with a discussion on that issue i think it's a great defining quality amongst good leaders and bad leaders great leaders good leaders and and believe me i have a long way to go i mean i i wouldn't i would say i know the minimum enough to speak about it in terms of hopefully providing some sort of information i've got a long way to go

but one quality trait that i have seen amongst great leaders and poor leaders is their ability to handle teammates or employees that screw up. And the great leaders always do the same and they look at it the same. And the poor ones always look at it the same. The poor ones will usually fire somebody. They'll fire that person and they'll say, you fucked up. Let's say they made it and you're running a business of a million dollars a year and they made a mistake. That's going to cost you $20,000. It's a big fucking deal. Okay. They'll fire that person. All right. The great leader will pull that person in and they'll say, you know, you fucked up,

right? And they're going to say, yeah, I'm so sorry. Blah, blah, blah. All right. All right. Stop. How'd you fuck it up? Well, I did blah so sorry, blah, blah, blah. All right, stop. How'd you fuck it up? Well, I did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All right. Well, you know not to do that again, right? You know why that costs us, it costs us $20,000. You understand that, right? He's like, yes, I'm never going to do it again. And then you fucking reinforce the fact that they're a quality member on the team and you give them their confidence because here's the reality. That's valuable education for that person and for your company. So if you fire that person every time they make that $20,000 mistake, not only are you going to cost yourself much more in the long run because the people you bring in are going to come

in and make that same mistake over and over and over again every time you fire them. But you're not allowing your company to learn from that person's mistake. And you're not allowing, you're putting bindings on your employee's ability to take initiative because they're going to be afraid to make mistakes. And when you're afraid to make mistakes, and Will, you can lend yourself to this, when you're afraid to screw up on the football field, are you at your best no not at all right you attract it you know you want to play to not mess up well you're attracting that to yourself that's all you're thinking about you're not able to focus on the task at hand so what happens is you bind your whole company up because everybody's afraid to not fuck up and you impede your ability to grow so you have to have

compassion you have to understand that people are going to screw up and you have to look at it as their education when you're growing a company. Now, I mean, I, I would assume that if you have a guy who's maybe you're his mentor on a football team, would you handle it the same? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously it's a shorter amount of time you got to talk to him or, you know, rally them around you. But, you know, depending on who they are and, you know, what they're about, you know, first of all, don't be an air repeater. When you're an air repeater, that's when, you know, you've got to get in on them a little more. You know, for myself, I mess up more than once on the same thing. You know, I beat myself up a lot, but that's when the coach will get into me a little more.

But, you know, you can't live in the past somebody just messes up you don't have time to sit there and dwell on it right you know chew them out and hurt their self-esteem or confidence because like you said then you start you start going about it not to make a mistake you know and which not only hurts that guy but it shows your whole team that you're going to come down on them the same way which is going to basically shackle up everybody from doing their great work. Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, for me, I know at times it was, you know, you would have – it would kind of be more unforgiving playing at Nebraska when you mess up

because you just feel like you've got to make every play. Right. And then playing for Coach Haslett and Coach KO, you know, when I've messed up before and I'm really beating myself up because, you know, that's kind of what I've thought about it. I'm like, gosh, I'm going to lose my opportunity. Last year in my fourth preseason game, I missed like two tackles in the first series. And literally, honestly, I was so nervous that it was game four because I had,

in my mind, I was like, this has been game four because I had in my mind I was like this has been the best I've played I can make it like don't mess this up type of type of mindset and that first series I was messing up I wasn't playing like myself and the my coaches knew it and I got to the sideline and even Perry Riley and Kenan Robinson you know like comp what's up man I'm like man I just don't want I don't want to mess this up like I was in this position last year and I got cut and, you know, because it happens the next day within the next 24 hours they make decisions. Right. And Coach Haslett and KO – well, Coach Haslett, he was on the sideline.

He's like, come, what are you doing? Just go make the tackle. And, you know, I was kind of like, I know, I was just – this is what I've had in my mind. He's like, man, don't even think about that. You're going to be with us. You got this and you're a hell of a player. Go out there and play a hell of a game.

You know, you're good. Go out there and show everybody. And just that little bit of encouragement, like, you know, he's not sitting here thinking about me like, comp, don't screw this up. He's out there, you know, ready to coach me up and be like, man, what's the deal? You're way better than that. Yeah, yeah. Go out there and do it.

And all the, you know, the backers with me like, comp, go out there and do your thing, man. And then, you know, knowing you've got that support from your leaders, you know, it just shows like you have nothing to lose. Go out there and how that one interaction will affect your whole entire team. Because if you have, if you have one guy and let's say you've got five guys, well, you're four other guys because you just fired this one guy for making a mistake. Dude, all of a sudden they're pulling there. They're not going to go the extra mile or take initiative or do the extra things because they're afraid of screwing up. You know, you don't get the creativity you would get. You don't get the internal culture building you would get, you know, as you would if you would just handle it as a lesson and let everybody know.

And when other people screw up, it's a good opportunity to pull all your employees in and say, hey. And, dude, you know, around here we'll make fun of them a little bit. You know, we'll jab at them and, you know, it's like a locker room of yeah oh yeah and we'll be like hey you see how fucking so-and-so how tyler fucked this shit up blah blah blah but then we'll say you know seriously guys like did you see what he did because none of us can afford to do that and you use as an opportunity to educate everybody as opposed to you know firing him and then trying to bring in somebody else that does what he does you know it's it's a great opportunity for everybody to learn, you know,

and that's something that a lot of people just never, great leaders understand that, poor leaders never get it. Well, we are definitely bringing Will back in the future, especially since you got us, what was it, season tickets to the Redskins. But we are going to end with a question that, Andy, you said you wanted everybody to do, which is if you could be coached by. Vaughn asked this question earlier when we were off air, and I made everybody stop because we started to get into it.

So I made him hold the question until we were on air. Yeah, so the question is if you could be coached by anybody in the history of athletics. Oh, is it just the NFL? could be coached by anybody in the history of athletics. Oh, is it just the NFL? Well, yeah, just athletics in general. And I'm going to just shoot mine out there. It's a tie. Coach K because of the person he is.

And then because I'm just amazed by the motivator that this person is, I'm going to have to go Pete Carroll. All right. What do you think, Ben? Easy, John Wooden. Dude, I was going to say two. I was going to say two, and he was going to be one of them. And I just want to make one really, really quick point.

You mentioned it earlier. Tony Robbins is a mentor to you. You haven't met him. John Wooden is a mentor to me. I haven't met him. So I think for all of you, you read great books. You follow great people. I mean, Andy, I know it, is a mentor to so many of you listening,

and you've never met Andy, but you have met him because he's with you every single day when he pours his fire. So for me, it's John, never met him, but John Wooden, without a doubt, I'd play for him. He was a mentor. The man was incredible. Dude, I had two and he was going to be one of my two. Cause I can't name it, name it to one, but I stole yours. So what's your, no, no, anything that you can read on John Wooden, read it the guy was a fucking genius and you talk about attack the process he was the king of attacking the process he understood what that meant and probably defined what that meant for you for you young people who don't know who this man is one of the greatest coaches of all times um you need to read about

him you need to learn everything you can. Excellent call. I was going to say the same thing. The other guy I would say. Real quick, Seth Davis' John Wooden. I think it's Seth Davis wrote the book on John Wooden recently. It's incredible. I read that. It's awesome.

I love how he starts by putting your socks on properly. Like, dude, the guys get sensuality. But my other coach, and some people are going to disagree, but I always love this dude, Bill Parcells. And the reason is, dude, the guy's just a hard-nosed motherfucker, man. He doesn't take any shit. And I respect that. A lot of times when you meet somebody who's going to hold you to that kind of standard,

you play for somebody like that in Nebraska. Somebody who's hard-nosed, not going to take any shit, going to force you to play and perform and be at a certain standard. Dude, I respect that. Like we were talking about when you were sitting in my brother's office when I first came in. A lot of times you hate those fucking people when you first meet them. You're like, God, why is this guy always on my case?

Why does he care about this? Why does he care about that? Why is he always yelling? Blah blah blah and you hate him until you realize what they made you you know and and bill parcells responsible for a lot of success in this earth uh you know the guy's just a just a badass and and you know i would prefer to play for somebody who's who has that mentality because it's it's it jives with my mentality you know yeah i know for me you know i'm very fortunate i've gotten to play for coach you know bo pollini to me what an experience he you talk about parcells and wooden i know he loved wooden but yeah you know a quote we had all over our facility he just looks mean yeah like he just

kill you but a quote we had around our facility everywhere is just looks mean. Yeah. Like he just kill you. But a quote we had around our facility everywhere is just focus on the process, compete every day, live in the details, you know, focus on the process because everything's you need to be process oriented, not result oriented. But you know, fortunately, I got to play for somebody like that. And Coach Bo Pelini, I know somebody, you know, I read his book and, you know, was just fascinated by, you know, his ways because it's, you know, it's different from the hard no stuff. But Coach Tony Dungy, I read his book and, you know, was just fascinated by, you know, his ways because it's, you know, it's different from the hard-nosed stuff. But Coach Tony Dungy, I read his book, and I thought, you know, the values and things that he embodied. You know, he has a tremendous story.

And the adversity he faced that he had in his life, I know everybody does, but, you know, he's just a big. He's had some tough shit. Yeah, yeah, you know, with the sun and everything like that. But, you know, his philosophy philosophy on things it's just funny everything's similar but he was a you know the way he presents personality yeah he was he was on a personality that was a lot different from that but yeah that's a good point i thought i thought i feel like that would be awesome to play for somebody like that it would be i agree with that because that would be something for me like would be a different type of leadership yeah that i i don't think i've ever personally

experienced you know yeah or. Or Tom Osborne. Right. I mean, he never cursed or anything like that. Yeah. I would enjoy that too. Like that would be a nice perspective. I've never experienced that personally with, with, in my life. But I mean, yeah, those are two great points, you know, learn how to be intense, how to be, cause I mean, there's a lot of times where, you know, I know I go over the top and I wish i wasn't as like yeah the aggressive type that i but it is what i am so i use what i have yeah you know but you know to see how i don't know how i would lead if i wasn't that way yeah so

like learning it that way would be really cool it's like seeing somebody with that exact same mindset but they're just so delivery so yeah it's so different you're just like you just feel like they're in such control of their emotions. Yeah, dude. Like, oh, man. Yeah. And it makes you, dude, you know, I have met people like that. It makes you want to be better.

Those people always make you want to be better. Yeah. Just a better person in general. I don't know what it is. That's like their presence. It's like they make you want to be better people. Yeah. You know, I imagine Tony Dungy having that presence about him.

Our website is themfceo.com. If you want to listen to this, or if you want to go directly to this podcast episode page, it's themfceo.com slash P8. Gosh, we're going to wrap it up, but thank you, Ben, for being here again, and one of our regular co-hosts, and Will. Wow, we can't thank you enough for being on here. Yeah, it's been awesome. We're going to do it again, and Andy, just wrap us up. Yeah, guys, thanks for tuning in.

If you want to contact us, make sure you're emailing us at askandyatdmfceo.com. Hit us up there for Q&A. Like I said in the beginning of the podcast, we're going to be doing a 20-minute shorter version there for Q&A. Like I said in the beginning of the podcast, we're going to be doing a 20 minute shorter version podcast slash Q&A on Thursday. So that's where the content will come from is directly from you to us. Really appreciate the reviews too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The reviews have picked up. I appreciate the effort. They help us a lot. Thank you for supporting what we're doing and helping us get ranked up on iTunes.

I think I'm pretty happy with how we're doing so far. My goal is obviously to be the best podcast that we can out there, and you guys are making that possible. But other than that, guys, if you have any ideas, you have any questions, if you have any criticisms, send us. We're always looking to improve and become better. Again, Will, dude, thank you so much, man. It's been awesome.

Oh, man. I love the fact, like you said, old soul. Like the whole thing when I'm hearing him talk this whole time, and I'm speaking to Ben. I'm looking at Ben right now. The whole time I'm hearing him talk, and he tells me he's 25. It's like I can't believe it. You know what I mean mean it's pretty cool so dude thanks for coming down man i appreciate it yeah no i've had a lot of fun and again

i mean it's nothing that i made up it everything you've heard me state comes from somebody else and i'm very fortunate to have the teammates i do now and surrounding myself with those guys and being able to shoot sit with you now but uh there's no doubt that great things are coming your way brother yeah i mean that's a parent sitting here with this with this guy i appreciate that thank you thank you man and guys uh thanks for listening and we'll we'll catch up with you soon thank you Oh, not to my friends. Oh, not to my friends.