REAL AF with Andy Frisella - LEADERSHIP: The Dichotomy It Takes To Dominate, ft. Jocko Willink, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO264

Episode Date: September 18, 2018

Jocko Willink is among the best in the world on the subject of leadership & in this episode he joins me to talk about his new book "The Dichotomy of Leadership." We talk about the opposing qualities that leaders need to develop, as well as Jocko's tactics for dealing with lack of confidence, overly inflated egos, & a ton of other situations & challenges a leader will face with any team or business on the planet. This is as thorough an education on leadership as you're going to get...in less than 90 minutes.

I can stack them hundreds to the roof. I ain't stopping till they stack to the moon. Without me, my family wouldn't have food. Anybody go against me, gotta lose. What is up, guys? You're listening to the MFCEO Project. I'm Andy. I'm your host, and I am the motherfucking CEO. Guys, if you're new to the podcast, first off, welcome. Second off, why do we call this the MFCEO Project? It's because I'm here to help you become the motherfucking CEO of your life. All right? Yes, this is an entrepreneurship podcast, but it's also personal development. And no, you don't have to own your own business to benefit from it.

We don't have ads. We don't ask for anything. I'm not selling anything. But what I do ask is that if you find benefit from this episode, and I guarantee you you will find benefit from this episode, and I'll tell you why in a minute, I ask that you share it with one friend. If you've got a friend, if you've got somebody who is like-minded,

you think that they would enjoy the content here, I ask that you share it, talk about it, and help us grow the movement. As always, I'm joined by my host, Vaughn, the pastor

of Disaster, a.k.a. DJ DJ God, a.k.a. Vaughn the Impalerughn the impaler aka how the man of many names the man of many names yeah what's up dude dude i i'm a i'm a very weird combination of excited you are very weird yes excited gratified and tired just like what we experienced over the last couple days oh that was cool yeah so we just got back from idaho from the first arte syndicate summit uh which is our high level uh entrepreneurship society that am i let and i have created um i guess this is an ad right yeah it was by the way it was fucking awesome it was leave it at that yeah uh dude we have an awesome I've been looking forward to this show for literally three years. Um, we have my

most anticipated guests that we've ever had on the show. Uh, and I'll tell you why that is before I tell you who it is. Um, leadership is, I tell you guys all the time, you have to have two skills to be ultimately successful in life. You've got to learn how to lead and manage people and you have to learn how to sell shit. And yes, you could find your role in life with one of those skills or the other and be moderately successful. But if you want to have unlimited success, you have to have both skills. And a lot of people look at me and they see someone who they think was gifted with the skills of leadership. And that's just completely false. I was not a very good leader for the first 10 or 12 years I was in business. I was not the captain of my sports teams.

I was not born with leadership skills, and I've had to learn them. And one of the books that I've read along the way that has really helped me become an effective leader, I am not a great leader, I have a long way to go, but one of the books that has helped me become an effective leader is extreme ownership. And, uh, today I am super, super honored, uh, to have the author, one of the authors of that book, uh, Jocko Willink here with us today. So, uh, what's up, dude. Thanks for having me on. Oh,

man, this is, this is awesome. He just spoke to our team. Um, was great man i'm like super pumped about that uh i don't know man i'm like it i don't look up to many people dude you're one of the dudes i look up to and so it's it's really and i know that's weird because like we're we're like of similar age and we're like you know we have podcasts that are similar size and but dude it's just an honor to have you man for real Thanks for having me on. I can promise you there's many things about me that will make you not look up to me at all. No, bro.

It's been cool to read and listen to your podcast and learn. And I just really appreciate what you're doing for the world. I think a lot of people in entrepreneurship, they do what I just said. They struggle with leadership because they think that they look at polished leaders like you, uh, or other guys running big companies like me. And they think like, dude, this guy was just born with these skills and they think we're superheroes and we know all this shit. But the truth of the matter

is, is, is that's not true. You know, we, uh, we, we we were born with with certain skills but not all the skills and and do we fuck up as much as anybody you know what i'm saying yeah without without uh screwing up along the way you've never learned anything right and and and also you take risks to try and make things happen and sometimes they're successful and sometimes they're not and you can do one of two things when that happens. If you have to do something that's not successful, you can either let it destroy you or you can learn from it and move on. So I recommend you learn from your mistakes and move on and make them make you a better person and make them make you a better leader, which they will. And if you look at any of these,

what you call a polished leader, which is a good term because there's some people out there that look very polished. All of them have a history of errors and mistakes that they made that they built into their life and corrected them and moved in the right direction for sure. One of the things that I'm super grateful for is your new book. And I posted it on my Instagram story last week. I read the book literally right when I got it. Um, I started the night that I had, by the way, thank you for sending me that. Uh, I'm pretty honored to have, you know, the preview copy. That's cool. That's when I'm done with that, that's going to go on my shelf. Um, the, uh, the dichotomy of leadership. Um, I, I personally think that that book is like

extreme ownership on fucking steroids, man. Like it is, it is awesome. I loved extreme ownership, but man, if I had the dichotomy of leadership when I was 20 years old, you know what I mean? What would my life look like? I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. We were talking before the show and I said that and you were like, yeah, I wish I had

it too. People say that to me all the time. You know, I wish I would've had this book. And I always say, yeah, I wish I would have had it too. Extreme ownership, the same thing with dichotomy. These, these books, these are, you know, we just talked about all these mistakes and how you learn from mistakes. You don't have to make the mistakes yourself. You can actually read someone else's mistakes and learn from them. So that's another thing I would recommend. You read a book like extreme ownership and extremehip, as you know, it starts off with the first chapter,

which is about a horrible situation that occurred on the battlefield. Friendly forces fighting against friendly forces, which is, in my opinion, the worst possible thing that can happen. And I was the guy in charge of it. So it doesn't get any worse than that. And you don't have to experience that yourself. You can read about it. You can understand what I learned from it, what we learned from it. And it's the same thing in dichotomy. It's like, hey, these are situations. The fundamental idea of the dichotomy of leadership is that there's these opposing forces that are pulling you as a leader in opposite directions. And what's really hard is

that both the directions that you're getting pulled are usually correct. So you're getting pulled in two different directions, opposite directions, and both those directions are correct. So that's what makes being a leader so hard. And some of the common examples that I was talking about before the show, it's like, is there such a thing? Well, we know that a leader has to communicate, right? Obviously, a leader has to talk to his people. Can a leader talk too much? Absolutely. Can a leader talk too little? Absolutely. Where do you want to be? You want to be somewhere in the middle. Can a leader be too close to their people? Yes, they can. But can they also be too distant from their people and not understand what's driving them and not understand what problems they're

facing on the front lines? Yes, you can be too distant from your people. Where do you want to be? You want to be in the middle somewhere. Can someone be too much of a micromanager? Well, absolutely. You can be too much of a micromanager, but the opposite of that is you're two hands off with your people and they don't even know what's happening. So these are the different dichotomies that you as a leader have to balance. And absolutely, if I would have known this 20 years ago when I was starting in leadership inside the SEAL teams, yeah, my world would have been a lot easier and I would have been a much better leader. For sure, man. Dude, I'm not a very smart guy, so I didn't know what dichotomy meant. Vaughn, I know you knew what it meant. Did you?

I had a pretty close. Are you lying? No, I thought I had a basic idea. I was thinking more like paradox, but it's not really the same thing, but I knew it had something to do with opposing ends of things. You know what was cool about when I started reading the book? Dude, it just brought so much clarity like instantly because like I text you, I text you like right away when I was reading it i'm like holy shit dude this is awesome and the reason it was awesome was because it really validated

why i had made these mistakes in the past um like for example like the micromanaging versus hands off right you know i was always the guy who was at one extreme or the other. And I would let guys get so far out that I had to micromanage them to bring them back in. And then I was like pissed, right? And I'm pissed at them. Cause I'm like, dude, you were doing it right. But now you're so far off the radar. Like what the fuck are you guys doing? You know what I mean? And I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong. And then when I read the book, I'm like, the lights went on and I'm like, holy cow, dude, this makes perfect sense. And, and I mean, it's been a week, but I can't, I'm so excited about what it's going to mean to our company. You know what I mean?

Because it instantly made me realize, like, I know, I knew what you were saying, like, and I understood that, but I didn't understand that it was correct to have both things be right yeah and that's that's what's that's what's really nice about this is just the simple awareness that this exists the simple awareness that it exists allows you once you see it's like when you're when you're when you don't understand it when you don't know it exists you're just shooting it you don't even know where the target is right you're just pulling the trigger you don't know what you're shooting at once you realize that hey there's one extreme there's the other extreme i need to be balanced somewhere in the middle once you realize that it allows you to see it and then act on it as

opposed to just micromanaging too much you don't know why everyone's gets frozen up and won't act won't take any initiative anymore why why won't they these guys aren't stepping on these guys aren't taking any any ownership of anything They're waiting for me to do everything. That's because you've been micromanaging so much. You trained them to be that way. And so then you go the other way where you just go, okay, I'm just going to let them do whatever they want. And then they start running in random directions because they're not sure where they're supposed to go because they haven't been told. Well, now you've got the opposite problem on your hands. So when you realize that both those dichotomies exist and that you need to be balanced in the middle,

it really, I think this book is going to help people immensely. I mean, it is going to, first of all, if you're an inexperienced leader, you're going to read the book and you're going to like, you're going to read it. And it's great because how you format it, just like an extreme where you, you know, you tell a story and then you tell the lesson, it's going to make sense and it's going to help people understand that when you're beginning. But dude, if you're a leader who's been leading for a few years and you're like, fuck, dude, I just can't grasp this,

it is going to change your life, not just from an effectiveness standpoint, from a happiness standpoint. Because I know what it's like to be in that you're trying to run. I mean, dude, we've got seven companies, man. And we're, you know, between Sal, myself, Chris and Jason, we're running, I mean, a million different things a day and being able to understand that it's not just something that you can do once or that you can set systematically and let it run itself is going to change the change our whole dynamic because dude now we know how to be in the middle there and it's going to make us happier because we're not dealing with this crazy extreme from

you know all the way over here and then all the way over there you know now you have like a little instrument panel in your head that's telling you when the engine's running too hot or too cold. Yeah, for sure, man. And this book, it's seriously the best book I've ever read about leadership. And I've read them all. And I told you that. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean it.

And if you guys don't buy it, there's something wrong with your brains. A question that I had is, so I get the basic concept of achieving balance, but it seems to me that it's also true that depending on your staff and the people around you, that you're going to have a separate dichotomy for each person that you're leading. And you're going to have to, in some cases, you are going to have to swing a little bit more micromanaging and others, you know, macromanaging, whatever the opposite of that is. How do you do that without going insane? You're right. You do have to modulate your behavior and you have to modulate your leadership. So let's just talk about that. If you got 10 people that are working for you, right? There's three or four of those people that are go-getters that are going to make things happen. They're fire and forget missiles. You give them a mission and

they're going to go make it happen. There's two or three of those people that you're going to have to micromanage them, hold their hands and guide them much more strangely. And there'll be some people that are in the middle. So the way you don't go insane is you're allowed to say, okay, my guys over here that are going to make this happen don't need to worry about them. So I can focus on these folks that need a little bit more leadership and management right now. And by the way, my goal is not to continue to micromanage them forever. My goal

is to get them up to speed and get them where they're making decisions on their own and get them where they become fire and forget missiles. And then guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to put them in charge. I'm going to build a bigger team and I'm going to bring a new group in that I'm going to then train and lead up and get them up to speed as well until I just keep building my organization, until I'm filled with the kind of leaders that I want. And what I do when I have leaders that I want working for me, well now instead of looking down and inside of my own organization, I'm looking up and out and I'm seeing where I can grow, where I can move. Like you got seven companies, right? If you had crappy leaders, what was the first one? A retail operation called Supplement Superstore.

So at some point you got that to a point. You had some people that could run that without you really having to worry about. So then you could go, oh, wait a second. What was your next business? Right. First form. Your next, you said, okay, you know what? We could probably have our own brand.

Right. Now, if you would have been sitting there trying to square away the stores, you would have never thought of that. Right. But luckily, you got some leaders. You micromanage them i'm sure at first until they got to the point where they were running it then you looked up and said you know what we can do our own brand right we can do this right and then you got control of

that you built that you did it again yeah and now you're at number seven yeah dude i think the biggest thing that i struggle with and i think and you would know this better than me because you speak to so many different companies, is thinking that a team, and I see this now. I mean, I don't do this anymore, but this was something I made as a young leader. But looking and managing the team as a team, as in saying, like thinking they're all the same. You know what I mean?

That you're dealing, like kind of an evolution of your question. You what i think a lot of young leaders they look at their team and they think they're all the same they think they think like them and that's how they fail leaders they just talk to them like they're them right and it goes over their head they don't they don't they don't connect with it um and then great leaders what i observe observe is guys who have to have a pulse on the individual components of each team, right? Yeah. There's two parts that I'll talk about on that. Number one, if we're going on a mission and I'm the leader and I can carry a hundred pound rucksack 10 kilometers in two hours, and I plan my mission to go 10 kilometers in two hours with a hundred pound rucksack and you can only, it's going to take you five hours. We're going to fail,

right? We're going to fail. So I have to, I have to look at my team. I have to see what their capabilities are and I have to plan according to that. The other thing is, and this is a heavy one because it's a reality that a lot of people don't recognize. You have to be, you don't, you don't get to be the leader that you want to be. You have to be the leader that your team needs. And you're right that different people need a different modulation of that leader. But a lot of times we think, Hey man, I would, I want to follow a guy that just comes in here and kicks down doors and is going to going to make things happen. That's who I want to follow. And so you think that's how I'm going to act.

Well, the problem is your team is not all like that. And and and this is becomes a little bit tricky, too. So does that mean we have nine different personalities if we're running a nine person team? No, it means that, it means that we carry ourselves in such a way that the different people on the team identify with the part of us that drives them. So it's a challenge. And again, you know what? Leadership is hard. Leadership is the hardest thing in the world. The hardest job ever. Yep. I mean, I said the very first podcast I was ever on was Tim Ferriss podcast. And you know, I said, look, he said, what's the hardest, you know, what's the hardest mission you, you planned? And I said, the, the, the, the, the planning of missions is not that hard. I mean, it's actually pretty,

pretty damn straightforward. Hey, there's a bad guy here. We're going to take helicopters or vehicles. We're going to get on target. We're going to go in, we're going to kick in the doors. We're going to grab the guy. We're going to get back in our vehicles or back on our helicopters. We're going to fly back and we're going to, that's it. That's, that's the mission. It's not rocket science. The hard part by far is you're dealing with human beings and you've got to get these human beings in, in that, in my old job, you've got to get these, these human beings who are also your brothers, who are also your friends. And you've got to, you've got to get these human beings who are also your brothers, who are also your friends, and you got to get them to take these massive risks of their lives, of their friends' lives, to go and accomplish this mission. And when you deal with that over an extended period of time, it's a challenge.

Yeah, yeah. It's really similar to business, though, don't you think? Because if you're a good leader in business, you love your team you know you always see this you see you see the society's what the portrait of a ceo in society is a rich dude that doesn't give a fuck about anybody and steps on everybody's heads and treats everybody bad but the truth of the matter is in successful companies that's really the case the case is the guy who's running the company really really loves his team and wants them to develop uh to the point where a lot of times they become too close to their guys um and make that mistake you know i've done that a million times um

how how closely would you say is leadership in the teams to leadership in business? It's the same. Exactly the same. I mean, it's the same. Okay, so, okay, are there differences? Yes. The big difference is the consequences, right? Yeah, people don't die.

People don't die. Right. Now, I work with businesses where people do die. You know, you work with a big construction company, right? Your dad was in construction I mean like you work construction people get killed in construction people get killed on the oil field people get killed pouring concrete I mean so there are jobs where there are huge consequences But none of those jobs have have have a situation where there's another human being that's actively trying to kill you, right?

Right. So the consequences are definitely higher. And, but what, where, where those, where those differences come together is as a business leader, you've got how many people are working here? 200. You got 200 people working here. There's 200 people that are feeding their family, putting a roof over their head, paying their vehicle, saving for college based on your decision-making process. That's a huge responsibility. And so you might, and I say this all the time, you might not be dealing with their lives, but you're dealing with their livelihoods. Right.

And if you don't feel the weight of that as a leader, like you said, if you don't feel the weight of that as a leader, you're not going to do a good job for that company. You've got to care about those people and you've got to want to make the right decisions to put them in the right situation. Now, what makes it hard, and it's the same thing, that's the opening chapter of the dichotomy of leadership, and I call it the ultimate dichotomy. And it truly is. There's no greater dichotomy than what a combat leader feels on the battlefield which is this you've got these guys that you care about more than anything else in the world you've worked with them you've trained with them you've drank with them you've eaten with them you've gone through difficult situations with them

you love these guys these guys are your brothers and you would do anything for them and what makes it even tighter is that you see and you know and you would do anything for them. And what makes it even tighter is that you see and you know, and you feel that these guys will do anything for you too. They will lay down their lives for you. And so you take these guys that you care about so much and what you're going to do with them as their leader is you're going to send them on missions that can get them wounded or killed. And that is, there's nothing, there's, for me, that is the ultimate dichotomy. And it's something that, you know, when I was on deployments and facing that every day, and then when I lost guys, I mean, there's nothing more challenging as a leader than

to go through those situations. Because guess what? When someone gets hurt, someone gets wounded, someone gets killed, and you're on deployment, the deployment doesn't stop. The deployment's not over. The enemy doesn't take a break. You have to continue on with your mission. And so being able to do that and, and, and having to

do that as a leader and having to balance these, these incredibly strong forces that are pulling you one directions, you want to take care of your guys. And the other, the other is you have a duty and you have a mission that you have to get accomplished. That's, that's the ultimate dichotomy. It's, it's, it's a, It's a ridiculous amount of responsibility. And I think any good leader, if you don't realize, and I like how you talk about it in the book too, how you talk about the differences, their lives versus their livelihood. I mean, dude, if you can't recognize that as a leader,

there's something wrong with you as a person. Because like you said, you've got people who are supporting their family, paying for their kids to eat, and your decisions affect all of that and I see a lot of guys that that really disconnect with that as as an owner of a company but dude their companies are never good their companies always suck they always have high turnover they always have people that aren't happy they always have people saying stuff about them on social media and they can't figure out why. And the reason why is because you don't give a fuck about your team, dude. And if you don't want to, if you don't want your, your people to care about your company, you've got to care about them first, you know? And I think that's something that, you know, people buy into because right now entrepreneurship is the hot thing, right?

Everybody's an entrepreneur. Um, but they think that being an entrepreneur is getting a widget and selling it via Facebook ads and this and that. And dude, that can get you some good success. And I am getting somewhere with this. That could get you some good success. You can make some cash. But if you really want to become successful long term, you have to know and learn and develop your leadership skills. And I think I talk to these guys all the time and they're like, dude, I want to build a brand, but I'm just not a good leader. I'm just not a good leader. You know, that's not for me. I have

guys in my own company that said, you know, I, I like to sell. I'm good at selling, but I just don't want to manage people. And I don't want to lead people. And I'm like, well, why not? And they're like, cause I'm not a leader. What would you say to someone like that? Well, as you pointed out earlier, there's, there's no one where there's very few people that just feel out of the gate. Like, Hey, I'm going to step up and start leading. And what, what bothers me the most about the statement that you just made is it's people that are saying, Hey, look, I'm not comfortable in a leadership position. Therefore, I am not going to do it.

And to me, that's that's like just a giant cop out. You're throwing up the white flag, dude, in life, you know. And, you know, we were talking earlier as well that. You know, like you said, you can reach some level of success because you can sell well, you can reach some level of success because you have some individual skills that are, that are good. But if you want to actually achieve something meaningful, you can't do it alone. You can't do it alone. So you need to learn how to be a leader. And there's, there's no, really no two ways around that.

I mean, okay. I guess there is, there is one way around it. You can just stay where you are and be an individual contributor. And some people like that. Yeah, they're great. And that's fine. Yeah. You know what?

You need, you need, you need those people. You need cogs in the wheel, man. But your goal should not, should be, your goal should never be to be a fucking cog. It should be to help the team win. And to help the team win, that means you've got to constantly be developing. I mean, dude, that's why you write the books, right? You write the books. Dude, if everybody was born a good leader, you wouldn't have books to sell.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's the truth. And like so many young kids, especially you guys listening and you're thinking, dude, I'm not a leader. Guess what? I wasn't a fucking leader either. Now I get paid a lot of money to go talk about being a fucking leader. Just like

you do. You know what I'm saying? It's crazy. I was the worst fucking leader ever, dude. I told you outside, I've ruined a ton of good people because of decisions I made. Cause I thought I knew what I was doing when I did it. And, um, and then, you know, it's funny because it's like the, it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect. Like when you think you're good, you actually suck. And then when you actually get good, you realize how much you don't know. And we both said that when we were talking privately, you know, I said, dude, I've got a million miles to go. And you go, your exact response was dude. So do I. And I thought that was cool, man. And that explains a lot about you as to why you've been successful where you are. We used to, I made up this when I was running the training for the West Coast SEAL teams,

I made up these self-evaluations where you could grade yourself on what your tactical prowess was, how well you interacted with your troops, how well you could simplify plans, how well you could assess dynamic situations. And the guys would grade themselves one to five, one being the worst and five being the best. And I just had the leaders fill out these forms and didn't think much of it at the time. And then we had this guy that was really not a good leader and real arrogant, thought he knew everything. And I went and said, you know, let me look at these forms that I had these guys filled out. So I pulled out his form and no kidding, he graded himself fives across the board. He was an expert, the highest possible grade in every category that was in his mind. And he was one of the worst. In fact, he ended up getting fired.

Fake it till you make it. Yeah. And so once I saw that, I decided, you know what? And I pulled up another guy who was a great leader, who was just doing a fabulous job, really respected by his guys and by up the chain of command, I pulled out what he grade himself. And he gave himself like 2.3, you know, 3.1. And I actually pulled him aside and I said, Hey man, you gave yourself really low grades. You know, what are you thinking? And he said, well, you know, like, like the tactical decision, like I always feel like I'm a little bit hesitant and I think I could do a better job with that. And I was listening to him and it was like the, the, the switch or the connection got made in

my head. That was one of the strongest connections, you know, cause I, I mean, even extreme ownership, we talk about ego. That was one of the strongest connections that I made between humility being a positive thing and ego being a negative thing. Now, I have to clarify this because there's a dichotomy with that as well. Do you want to have people working for you that are just all humble and no ego? They won't do anything. They don't care if they lose. They're just like, hey, I'm not that good. It doesn't matter what the score is. You get a participation trophy, we're fine. No, we want people with ego. We want people that want to win.

But when that goes too far and you give yourself 5.0 on every single category, you're not going to make any adjustments. You're not going to improve on anything. You're not going to even listen to anybody. That was the thing you'd see with these egotisticalistical seal leaders that we would fire because they wouldn't take any advice. You'd have a guy that would done three or four combat deployments and you get this other inexperienced person saying, ah, now the, I'm going to do it my way. Right. And, and you just, you need to hear that two or three times and you, you realize they've got a giant ego and you

realize that they're never going to listen to anybody. And most important, you realize that if this individual goes over into combat in a leadership position, he's not going to listen to anyone and he's going to get people killed. Sure. And dude, not only like, and what's funny is, is the overinflated ego is actually a projection of insecurity. So, you know, it's, and dude, a lot of leaders talk about, you know, they think they got to have all the right answers. And they think that if they ask their team anything, that that's showing like, oh, dude, I'm a weak leader. But the truth of the matter is, it's actually showing that you're very secure in your authority and you look to your team for the answers. Because, dude, it doesn't matter how smart you are, there's going to be shit that comes up that you don't know. Especially when you're dealing with, well, when you're dealing with your

subordinate leadership, they're on the front lines every day, right? They know and see things that you don't know and you don't see. So when a dynamic situation occurs and you haven't been in that sector for a little while, and now you're supposed to have the answer or you jump in and you start giving orders. Well, people are thinking, well, you haven't even been here. How do you know what's going on down here? Whereas if you came in and said, Hey, listen, guys, haven't been here in a while. I know this is a dynamic situation. What do you think we should do here? Like you just said, that's not a sign of weakness. It's actually a sign of strength. Yeah, dude. I always tell people, I'm like, look, dude, being a great leader is not about having the answers. It's about figuring out what the best

answer is and putting it into play. And guess what? A lot of times the best answer is not going to come from your own fucking noggin. Absolutely. Yeah. It's going to come from the dudes out there doing the work. Absolutely. So in real practical terms, how do you, when you take the people who are, you know, have the big egos, but maybe not so much that it's, that it's not correctable. And then on the other end, you have the people who are really second guessing themselves and maybe overly humble. Describe for us like how you get both ends to the middle. You know, this is a remedy that I have. That's a common remedy that I use to cure a lot of leadership problems. And that is when I get someone in a situation like that, I put them in charge of something. I will take someone.

And so when I have someone that has their egos maybe getting a little out of control, they think they're a little bit better than they are, they need to get put in check, I'm going to put them in charge of something. And what I put them in charge of is going to be something that is outside their capacity to execute properly. It's above their skill level. So when they go and they take charge of it, they're of course beating their chest like, yeah, I should have been running this the whole time. And then they actually get in that situation where they're supposed to be running it and they fail because they don't know what they're doing. And it was all in their head that they were so great. So there's two things that's going to happen. Either they're going to fail and they're going

to come back with their tails between their leg and, and you'll explain to them, Hey, it looks like you weren't quite as good as you thought you were. Or before they fail, you're going to come up to them. They're going to come to you and say, Hey, listen, I'm not quite as good as I thought I was. Can you give me some help? And, and in either one of those situations, they just got put in check. Their ego got put in check. They got humbled a little bit and that's positive. Now, if I get someone that's not confident, so other end of the spectrum, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna also put that person in charge of something,

but I'm gonna put them in charge of something that I know that they can do and I know they can do well. And they're gonna, you might actually have to kick that person in the ass a little bit and say, hey, look, no, you can do it, come on. You can make this happen. And they come to you and say,

hey, what do you think I should do here? Hey, go figure it out. You might have to urge them along, but when they get done, they'll do it. They'll do it successfully. And then their confidence will be increased and you keep them on that track, keep building their confidence,

giving them harder and harder things along the way. What's cool about those two things as I'm sitting here listening to that, that I really like about that method is that both, a lot of times when guys who are leaders and they get someone who's too egotistical or too confident and they start causing you know issues with that they'll just fire them what I like about your solution on that is that it's actually development of both sides right like you know you know what I'm saying yeah like a lot of leaders

will just fire that dude who's getting too egotistical and too cocky. Or they'll fire that guy who just can't make a decision. And the truth is that's your failure as a leader to see where they can develop. And what I like about that solution so much is that, because, dude, your goal as the CEO of a company where you have employees should be to develop them as much as you can. And a lot of guys won't develop people because they're like, well, dude, I don't have a place for that guy. Well, guess what? That's okay. Because if he comes to your company and he progresses and he, he outgrows your company and goes and takes a better job. Guess what you did? You just created an advocate for you and your company that will talk positively

to every single person at that company. Guess what? You just gained a whole bunch of new customers. And so what happens, and that's worst case scenario, but what's probably going to happen is he's going to progress. Your company's going to do better and you're going to be able to afford to keep them. I mean, AKA your company grows, you know? And I think that that solution that you have is so great because it, dude, it perpetuates growth. You know what I mean? And even if it's, I truly believe, dude, if you do right by people, good shit happens to you.

And, um, people will, you know, they like to poke holes and say, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but that one time, but we're talking about the fucking average here. The average of shit is that if you do the right thing and you treat people good and you have their best interests in mind and you help them develop, they 99% of the time are going to pay you back with goodwill. For sure.

Question. What about somebody that is in the middle and that you see a lot of potential in but they're okay with being like a cog in the system? If that's where someone's at and that's what they want to do with their life, then I'm going to get the most out of them I can. I'm going to try and develop them as much as I can

and they reach a point. You know, that happens, right? There's people that they've got. They settle in. They settle in. And, you know, I'm going to talk to them about it and I'm going to say, listen, here's where you're at right now.

And, you know, a lot of times people don't think about the future as much as they should. And so I'll have that conversation with them as well and say, okay, you know, I understand that you're comfortable right now. You're working nine to five. You don't want to put in the extra hours. You don't want, you don't want any more responsibility because managing people is hard. You just want to keep doing what you're doing. I get that. I know your kids are young or your wife is sick. I mean, people have things going on in their life and they need to focus on other things. Hey, I just want to let you know that if you work hard right now for the next three years and you step up and you take this

leadership role, that means five years down the road, you could be financially set for life. That could happen. You built a real happen. You could build a real career. You could build a real career. You could be at a position of authority where you won't have to do as much and you can spend more time, but you're going to have to invest in what we're doing right now. So I just want to make sure that you understand that. And then people will say, look, I get it. But guess what? I don't want that kind of stress in my life. What I want is to get my paycheck. I want a nine to five. I don't want that kind of stress in my life. What I want is to get my paycheck. I want a nine to five. I want to be able to go home to my kids. Yep. And you know

what, dude? Respect. That's fine. Right. Exactly. I don't, I don't. Unlimited potential is not for everybody. Right. Right. So when I have somebody like that, what I'm going to do, I'm going to get all I can out of them. And like, like you just said, Andy, I'm still going to take care of them. Right. I don't, I don't. No, you don't look less on them. Yeah, I don't look less on them. I actually respect that. Totally respect it. I respect when people are honest with me about that. Because, dude, what happens is, and this happens a lot to us.

Dude, I'll see potential in someone. And I say, dude, this guy could run this. This guy could take this. This guy could own this. And I try to get them to do it, right? And they're not doing it and then the guy comes to me and he says um you know hey dude look i got kids here i got this i'm at this point in my life and they're honest with me about it dude i respect that but what i don't respect is whenever i say that to them they're like yeah yeah yeah yeah go i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it and then

they don't fucking do it. That makes me hate them. And then I'm like, dude, fuck this guy, and I'm getting a new guy. You know what I'm saying? That's a definite problem, because there's trust issue. Because I'm relying on that, dude. I take people at their word.

Like, if you tell me you want that, then I say, I believe you. So let's work on it. And then I'm putting energy and coaching and all this stuff into them, and they're just dragging their feet. Yep. So what do you do with a cog

that you have to constantly micromanage? Well, this is where, well, this is where I was just going to go with this. Cause there's a dichotomy with this as well, which is, and it's a dichotomy with extreme ownership of people say, okay, if, and you just said this to Andy, Hey, if I get someone that's not doing what I need them to do, that's my fault, right? That's a great attitude to have. What can I do to fix them? What can I do to mentor them?

What can I do to coach them? That those are great things to think about. Now, sometimes you invest in someone, the coaching, the mentoring, the training, you do what you can and they are not capable of doing what it is you need them to do. And at a certain point, you're investing into them, you're expending your time on them instead of on someone else and they're detracting from the success of the team. Now, this is a problem. And this is where your loyalty to that individual, because we build loyalty with our team, right? We're loyalty to them, to each individual on the team.

We build loyalty with them. But if we have somebody that's dragging down the team, our loyalty to the team trumps the loyalty to the individual. Every time. Yes. our loyalty to the team trumps the loyalty to the individual every time yes and and by the way as well if andy's working for me and andy's slacking and andy's not pulling his weight and i'm letting it slide and i'm letting it slide and i'm letting it slide what does the whole rest of the team lose respect the rest of the team loses respect for me they then they start to slack i mean it's just it's an it's a dysfunctional

situation so you have to and these are hard conversations dude that's a hard situation because people you can literally ruin the culture of your company by letting someone stay who isn't doing their job is a it is a culture killer right for sure because then nobody trusts you as a leader and then they start taking advantage of you oh yeah yeah and they're like fuck it i don't have to do it either and then all of a sudden dude you got a whole group of otherwise high performers performing at the lowest common denominator it's an awful situation so there comes a point where as a leader you've done what you can you've you've invested as much as you can,

and you have to be straightforward with that person. That's what makes us feel guilty as a leader is when we go and fire someone and we haven't given the right counseling, we haven't been straightforward with them, and we're just going in and firing them. Like, no, look, man, I talked to you for the last four months or whatever. Different businesses have different time cycles. I work with construction companies. If they miss a date on a job, they're going to, they're going to, it's going to cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. So they have three, four, five days to figure out, you know what, this guy's not working. Here's your warning. Here's your, okay, here's your warning. You need to fix this by like tomorrow. Right. And then tomorrow they don't fix it. Okay. Look,

I told you yesterday to fix this. It's not fixed. You got another day and you're not going to be working here. So that happens. And other companies like a, like a sales type company, there's a longer window usually to get someone up to speed to try and train them. And, and hopefully they can get up to speed that might take six months. But if after six months, you're still pouring, you know, assets and resources into this person and they're not performing where they need to be. Yep. It's time for you to make the hard decision as a leader, talk to him and say, look, man, sales isn't for you. This isn't going to work. Is there anything else that you think you might be able to do here? Cause this isn't going to work. Right. And dude, the dichotomy there too,

as a leader is when to pull the trigger for sure. You know what I'm saying? It's like, how long are you going to coach this guy versus, you know, cause some leaders come in, they're just fucking fire the dude, you know? And then if you do that, the problem is, is that you never develop anybody and you're constantly spinning your wheels at the base level, right? You bring in the new guy, the new guy doesn't have any skills. You fire the new guy for not having any skills. You bring in another guy, the guy doesn't have any, and it's just constantly repeating itself. But then you have the other kind of leader who lets the dude who isn't developing stay because, dude, he really cares about his people.

He cares so much that he doesn't want to have that conversation. And then the leader lets that guy do exactly what we just said where he brings down the skill level of everybody else, the care level of everybody else, and now you've got a real fucking problem because you just fucked yourself by loving this dude too much but what happens i got this big smile on my face because like i can see the light in your head it's just like so bright you know why bro that's because i've done that yeah i've done both of those and what's awesome is as i started off talking about the dichotomy leadership when you realize this yeah now once you see it now

you go okay i've let this person be here too long this is not good for me i'm not being a strong leader i need to get rid of this person and you can make that or you can say like look i want to fire this guy right now but i haven't put any effort into it you can scale it back and you can look and you can balance these two dichotomies because that's what they are it's so i would say that that dichotomy is the one that i've struggled with the most knowing when to say hey dude this just isn't going to work and you know what helped me figure that out was uh looking well first of all i made that same mistake like 10 times in a row okay so let's just be real um and and i think what figured it out for me, what made me become the, cause I was the guy who like, just let the guy stay too much. You know what I mean?

Now I was never a quick fire. The first time I had to fire someone, dude, I fucking cried. Like I fuck cause dude, I love these dudes. You know what I'm saying? But this guy, I remember his name was Eric and he was just never going to make it like it was just never going to make it. I couldn't dude, I didn't have the skills to develop him. And I don't, honestly, I don't think I could have developed him to be effective here. And I remember, dude, I felt fucking terrible. Like, I cried on the way home, like, for real.

Like, big 260-pound dude with a beard crying in his fucking truck. You know what I'm saying? But, and I'm not ashamed to say that because, dude, I care about my people. Yeah. But what made me realize to quit doing that was that, because I do truly care about them, was that I was holding those individuals back from finding success elsewhere by keeping them. Yeah, and that's another point is, again, I talk about these hard conversations and a lot of people in leadership positions have trouble telling people what they're doing wrong and, and counseling them and letting them know. And that is actually, so having a hard conversation is the worst thing you can possibly do is,

is not tell someone like if you're screwing up and I don't come and tell you, Hey Andy, the way you're doing this isn't working. And I just let it go and let it go and let it go. The reason I'm not, the reason you're not telling me is because I'm your boy and we hang out and you care about me. But the truth is, is that you're not telling me because you care. And if I truly cared about you, I would tell you exactly. So you could fix yourself. Dude, I have the saying that I say all the time is like being nice is not being nice. Being nice is telling the fucking truth. You know, everybody thinks like being nice is like letting someone get away with something or letting someone slide or letting them get away, uh, with not developing their skills or a million other things. But the truth of it is, is if you really

care and dude, some people will hate you for this, by the way, you know, this like, dude, some people you tell the truth to because you care, we'll fucking hate you back for it. Now here's the dichotomy, it now here's the dichotomy right here's the dichotomy can you be too direct with people absolutely and the answer is yes and so what you know if i come in i'm like andy you suck this is horrible and now you get pissed at me right and now there's animosity as opposed to me saying andy Look man the last project that you just ran I mean you got it done and I appreciate it

But I think there's a lot of things that I and and this is where this is where taking ownership is a little bit of a Jiu-jitsu move right I come in and I say andy, you know that last project that you ran You got it done and and I appreciate that you did get it done. But when I look at it overall, I think it could have been done a lot more efficiently. And I think I let you down. I don't think I gave you the right type of guidance from your perspective. And you're looking back at it now. What do you think you could have gotten from me that would have made it run smoother? And now you open up, you feel like I'm asking for criticism myself. And you know what normally a person says to that?

They go, look, man, to be honest with you, you gave me what I needed. I dropped the ball here, here, and here. That's right. And you go, oh, man, okay, well, let's get you trained in that. And instead of me just attacking you with the truth, which is like you dropped the ball and you suck, which is what I'm thinking in my head, right?

Instead I'm saying, hey, man, where did I let you down? And they always own it. They always own it. Because, dude, there's enough rapport there. They care, dude. They do care. There's times where people say, well, if you take ownership,

and if I said to you, hey, Andy, I think I dropped the ball and didn't give you the right guidance, what could I have done better? And you're like, yeah, you did drop the ball. And some people are hey, Andy, I think I dropped the ball and didn't give you the right guidance. What could I have done better? And you're like, yeah, you did drop the ball. And some people are like, what do I do now? Right. And I'm like, you actually are saying that not to set the person up.

You're saying it because you believed it. Right. If I give you a project and you fail, whose fault is it? It's my fault. Actually, it's my fault. I'm the guy that's in charge. If I give you a project and you fail the project, I need to look at it and say, of course, as a leader, everything's my fault. I'm the guy that's in charge. I'm confused on what you said. If I give you a project and you fail the project, I need to look at it and say- I was asking that as a leader.

Dude, everything is my fucking fault. Exactly. But when I say something's my fault and you, as your leader, if I'm your leader and I say- I work for you. Yeah. All right. That's what's good between us two here. I say, hey, Andy, you screwed up this project.

It's my fault. And you go, yeah, you're right. It is your fault. I shouldn't be offended by that. I just admitted it was my fault. And you go, yeah, you're right, it is your fault. I shouldn't be offended by that. I just admitted it was my fault too. Yes. That's the whole point. The whole point is like, I'm saying this was my fault.

And if I don't actually believe that and I'm full of shit, well, then that's, you're going to see right through that. Right, right, right. But if I say, hey man, this is my fault. Here's the mistakes I actually made. That's a real, you have to be in a place to fucking really own that shit. You have to believe it.

Because a lot of dudes, the weak leader will come in and fucking try to set their dude up to say some shit and that's how they get thrown off, right? Exactly. So like, but dude,

I just, I know everything's my fault. You know what I mean? So like it's. I think that's the biggest quality of a leader is being able to check yourself and seeing if know, seeing if you're doing everything. Dude, look, man, if you're in business long enough, you're going to figure this shit out. Like everything is your fucking fault.

Otherwise, you won't be in business long enough. That's the truth. Yeah. You know, leaders that don't understand that they don't make it that far to figure it out because you fucking your business goes out of business. You know, dude, you deal with all kinds of successful leaders. You know, what, what would you say just to switch gears a little bit, man, like a well-intended leader? I mean, cause dude, you guys that can afford to pay what you charge, they're successful, you know, leaders. So what would you say a well-intentioned leader, the common mistakes that you see made say a well-intentioned leader, the common mistakes

that you see made of a well-intentioned guy, right? Not, not a guy who's like a dictator, but a guy who's really making an effort. What would you say the most common things are? Yeah. So this is a question I get asked a lot because people want to know like, what's the thing they should work out, look out for. And the bottom line is it's the same thing that we've been talking about where you and I were talking about earlier, which is different people have different strengths and weaknesses. So when you go into a company, that company will have different strengths and weaknesses. Usually they're based on the strengths and weaknesses of the leader itself. So if you've got a leader, that's not a very good communicator and he's not getting the word out to the front

line, that's a, that's a real problem. And so that's one type of person. You've got somebody else that's a great, great communicator, but guess what they're not great at? They're not great at understanding their strategy. They don't even know what their own real strategic vision is. And so when you go into a company, it could be so many varieties of things. Not so many.

There's like a dozen things, right? Like a guy's not a good communicator. The troops on the front line don't know what's going on. It seems complicated, but it's not. Yeah, but it's going to be one of those things. And usually they have complementary strengths and weaknesses. So they're really good at something, but they're not so good at someone else at something else. Like you get a guy that's a great visionary, but he's not good at any of the details. So he's got this great vision, but none of the stuff, their operational execution is weak. So what do we do in a situation like that? Well, I like to tell that guy, guess what?

You need to hire someone as your number two that has operational execution as an expertise. And boom, that's going to bolster you up and we'll get this problem solved. Because it's not training somebody that's a visionary, that has that type of mindset to become executional operational expert is very challenging to do, especially in a short period of time. Yeah, it takes a long time. But bringing someone on board that has that different attitude. So the common problems are just those.

There's a variety of common problems. So it's awareness problems. Well, yeah, people definitely have to be aware. Right. But we're going to find the different problems. We're going to figure out how to solve that problem. It's going to be a little bit different at every company. Yeah, the reason I say an awareness problem is a good leader who's got it figured out already knows,

like, hey, what the fuck am I weak at? Like, I already know what I'm bad at, right? So I surround myself. Like, I'm bad at understanding technology. So I have guys that I talk to every day that are great at that, right? So I already know to fill that in. So aware leaders are going to know that, that are great at that. Right. Um, so I, I already know to fill that in. So, so aware leaders are going to know that, right. And dude, they're secure, right? Cause a lot of people don't, a lot of really, uh, guys struggle with, with doing that because their own ego,

they're like, well, I should know that, you know, and they won't, they won't bring anybody in that knows what they know. Yeah. Well, that's, that's an interesting point with my company is that, so we get it brought into companies for a variety of different reasons. Most of the time we get brought in because someone inside the company is saying we need to get better at leadership. And when that's why you're getting brought into the company, that means right out of the gate, there's some humility inside that company. They're thinking, you know what?

And this is also interesting. Which means they have the skills to get better. They have the skills to get better. They have the open mind to get better. They have the humility to get better. And by the way, normally those companies that are voluntarily bringing us into, they're already doing, they're already successful. Like you wanted me to come and talk to your team today, right?

I came and talked to your team. Your team is already kicking ass, but you're thinking, Hey, how can we get better? Right. So, so that's what happens when a good companies bring us in, their minds are open. They want to get better. The bad companies are the ones that are like, dude, I'm not paying that shit to bring it. Yeah. And this is, so what happens sometimes is let's say for instance, the board that owns a company hires us to go in and help fix the leadership inside the company. So the attitude inside the actual company is, hey, we don't need help.

Why are you here? And by the way, the reason that the board is bringing us in is not because the company is doing well. The reason the board is bringing us in is because the company is failing. So this is what it tells you. A company that is humble, the first companies that I. The reason the board is bringing us in is because the company is failing. So this is what it tells you. A company that is humble, the first companies that I talked about, the companies, most of the companies that we work with

that are doing well, one of the core reasons that they're doing well is that they're humble and they're constantly looking to where they can improve. One of the reasons that companies are failing is because they're not humble and they're not looking to where they can improve. And also, on top of that,

the companies that are doing well, they take ownership. And they say, you know what? We could be doing this better. The companies that are doing poorly and failing, it's never their fault. We go in there and say, oh, what's going on? It's the market. It's the economy. It's the market. It's the economy.

It's the competitors. We've been doing this for 50 years. Yeah. The guys on the front line are lazy. Yep. It's millennials. It's everyone else's fault. But it's never the leadership fault.

When the fact of the matter is, and I tell this to companies all the time, every single problem that you have at a company or any organization that you deal with, every single problem that they have is a leadership problem. All of them. Absolutely. All of them. Absolutely, dude. Absolutely.

Can I circle back to your remedy of giving people things to do? So it seems like in order to execute that, you have to really, really know your people. So the question that I had as you were talking about it earlier was, what is your method for sort of breaking down the game film of the people who work with you, of the people who are under your command? Do you have specific habits? How do you make your observations? How do you, how do you evaluate? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, interestingly, it's also the remedy. Like if I, when I'm starting to figure out what people are like, when I, when I bring someone onto my team, guess what they're going to do? They're going to run something and we're going to see where that they're going to run something at first. What are they going to run? They're

going to run something that's pretty small. They're not going to, I'm not going to send a guy like right now with Echelon front, I'm not going to send a guy out on his first gig with a, with a, a fortune 500 company that's already signing a big contract with us and say, Hey, you take this. Cause that's an important client. And I don't know where the guy's at. What he's going to do is he's going to go, you know what he's going to do? He's going to volunteer and do something for free with a boys club in in Minnesota That's right and we're gonna send up out there and see how it goes and get feedback and I might go with him and watch and

And see where he's at or at least get video and then talk to him. Hey what it happened? Hey, you got to ask this question and it stumped you you got asked a question by a 12 year old kid and it stumped you That's not a good sign. We need to work on it. We need to, we need to train you more. So when I get people coming on board, what I'm going to do is I'm going to, I'm going to give them small tasks in the beginning that are less important. I'm going to assess and evaluate how they perform. I'm going to, I'm going to make adjustments, course corrections on their performance, and then I'm going to give them something a little bit bigger and I'm going to give them something a little bit bigger and I'm gonna give them something a Little bit bigger and then you know what I want them to do. I want them to take my job from me

I want everybody that works for me to be get to a point where they can take my job for me Just like you did at supplement superstore That's right, right like you probably maybe you weren't consciously doing this but some part of it was going was okay Well, there you go. You're going you know know what? Somebody's going to have to run this for me because I'm going to go do something else. I'm going to take one more step up. There's people that through their ego, they don't want to let anyone else run their program. Right. They're going to ask their little baby. Yep. It's their baby. They don't want anyone else to touch it. And you know what they do? They stunt their own growth. Right. So I want everyone that works for me to get good enough to take my job. That's my

goal. Me too, man. Me too. A hundred percent. You? Well, yeah. I mean, dude, this is an interesting topic because you know, you got to actually come to work to do that, right? Yeah. I have to actually come to work because, you know, I'm at this place to where, you know, a lot of people that, you know, I don't want to say success because I'm not successful one bit, but you know, I've, I've made it developing. I've made it to a point to where a lot of people didn't think I would, or, you know, I don't have a formal education or anything like that, but you know, I'm definitely working on my leadership and that is, you know, for anybody out there that's listening that, you know, might look up to me like you're gonna run into the ceiling of you have to be a good leader to take that next step you have to develop

the people underneath you to take over your job in order for you to move up that's just that's the way it works especially inside an organization you see a lot of that um at like the retail level where managers managers of a retail store they don't they don't want to develop the guy because they're afraid to take a job but what they don't realize is that that's the only way you're going anywhere it's the only way it's the only way i had a situation like that working with a company and one of the leaders was not developing his people and i said hey you know what and the ceo is kind of like hey what you know what this guy's just not he's just he just keeps everyone below him and he won't develop him and i said said, you know what? Next time you promote, don't promote them and tell them why you don't promote them. And he goes, well, why? And I said, you tell them that

there's no one to take your place. So I can't promote you. It's the truth. It is the truth. I cannot, and our retail company, four guys ready to take it. I can't fucking take, you know, a lot of these guys in our, our retail company, they're hungry to move. They want us to open more stores. They want us to do that. I'm like, all right, dude, like I could take you know a lot of these guys in our retail company they're hungry to move they want us to open more stores they want us to do that i'm like all right dude like i could take you and put you over here but what am i gonna do with your store you know and then they're like well you can find no dude i gotta take one of your guys and put them in that spot you know until that's until that's done i can't you're there people fail to realize that like how to me that should be obvious you know but especially if you're looking at the bigger picture realize that like how to me that should be obvious you know but especially if you're looking at the bigger picture I mean

dude like I'm holding your brand your personal brand back right now by not being good enough to develop I fucking tell you that all the time but at least I'm aware of that complete your statement you're holding the brand back by what because I can't put as much effort into

Andy's brand as I should be able to. Because we use the same guys for first form and my brand. So Tyler has to run first form. So if he can't get the guys to do all the shit that he was doing for first form, we can't do as much stuff for personal brand. Gotcha. What are you saying? Makes sense.

Which the truth of the matter is we're getting to the point where we need two teams. That's the bottom line. Yeah. But that's neither here nor there. Well, that's also because we still have a lot of room for improvement on our team side. How many people do you have on your team? Five. And are they ready to step up and take your place?

No, and that's on me. Yeah. You should be ready to split off those five guys into two teams that hire on me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you, you should have, you should be ready to split off those five guys into two teams that hire one more guy each. You got two teams of three and you got one work and one element or one work and the other one. And guess who's in charge of them both. You, you should be. Yeah. If you have, like, if you want to be, if you would have asked him a year ago that, okay. If he would, he would not have said that a year ago. He, what he would have said is those guys don't want to fucking do work they don't want to do this they don't want to do that and i'm i'm not that's a compliment to you not enough no i get it it's a yeah it's a

growth thing and and yeah and if your team the people on your team don't want to do work whose fault is that it's mine of course course. 100%. Yeah. Yeah, dude, I, dude, you're making progress. You know what I'm saying? Well, I know I can actually feel it. A year ago, I shit you not,

he would have for sure said, that's because they're fucking lazy or some shit like that. So, and my brother's been working with him a lot. So it's, it's been showing the growth of showing. Oh yeah.

So dude, what do you think? Uh, like, I think I know the answer to this question but i want to know what you think what do you think the most underrated quality of leadership is most underrated it's it's it's to me it's the most important quality to say i give this answer

all the time it's humility right dude i knew that's what it was going to be and it that's just what it is right and and if you if you're not humble do you think it's because like the way the way a ceo or a leader is painted in the in like in movies and shit like that because they're always painted as a dude who has all the answers like dude captain america comes down he's like do this do that do this do this and everybody just does the shit right like that's what people think it's like or they think it's like you know the ceo's sitting in a mile long uh wood table and he's like stevens you go do this uh you go do this bob you go do that and like he's just got all the answers but that's not what it's like at all no and you know this was an answer that i even, again, the first time I ever got interviewed

was on the Tim Ferriss podcast. And he asked me what's the most important quality for a leader. And I said, humility. And people were really, I guess, kind of surprised that that's what I said for the very reasons that you just stated is because most people, most people that are striving for leadership they you know this is what we talked about you have an ego like you got an ego i've got an ego guess what i want to win an ego is not a bad thing no it's not a bad thing it's a good thing and that's what drives you you wouldn't be where you are i wouldn't be where i am right now if i didn't have an ego that

didn't want to win right and that's why that's why for a leader, that characteristic is underappreciated because most people look at it and they go, that guy wants to win and he's going to do everything and he's going to make these things happen. When reality, a really good leader, the reason they're winning is because they're looking around going, what can I do better? Now I'll tell you what was interesting. I went up and talked to some underprivileged kids and I actually had to flip this because as I sat there and looked at these underprivileged kids from the inner city with broken homes, guess what I saw? I saw just total lack of confidence with all these kids.

Dude, wait, I talk about this. So I have a pot where I talk about humility is overrated, okay? And people are like, what the fuck does that mean? Blah, blah, blah. You're an egomaniac. And it's for the exact reason that you said.

Dude, there's a dichotomy between ego and humility. Look at him using the word now. Right? Dude, I fucking love this because when I say that, people don't know what I mean. That humility is underrated. Like they think like, oh oh you're a huge egomaniac no but you got to have

an ego to fucking work and go try and do things and you got to have confidence to to dream that big that you can do certain things and dude I find that people are either there's very few people in the middle of that there's lots of people who think they're awesome you know and, there's very few people in the middle of that. There's lots of people who think they're awesome, you know? And then there's lots of people who think they're nothing and can't do anything. And so that's what I mean when I'm saying like, dude, humility is overrated. Like believe in yourself. You don't know you're the shit. Be a bad motherfucker. You know what I mean? And I think for me from working with companies, like you said, I'm working with companies, these companies, these CEOs of these companies, male male and female they didn't get where they were by having a small ego and being humble and that's why again when people ask me about it in the seal teams you

don't you don't become a leader in the seal teams by being a a you know a little tiny dude little person that you've got to be able to step up you You've got to be at a minimum, you've got to be confident with what you're talking about. And, and that's why it's surprising to people. But like you're saying, there's, there's people out there that are at the other end of the spectrum that that's why it's a dichotomy. There's people that, and when I saw these kids, I mean, just, just a bunch of kids, you know, between the ages of like eight and 15, there was not a shred of confidence. They've never even seen success in any way. Exactly. And so what I was telling them, well, it's just like the simple things like,

okay, hey kids, stand up. And I was making them talk loud because people that aren't confident, they don't feel comfortable talking loud. And you know what? Just like we talked about earlier in this podcast, you can get more comfortable talking loud. You you know what just like we talked about earlier in this podcast you can get more comfortable talking loud you can get more comfortable talking in front of people you can get more comfortable standing up straight and looking people in the eye those are things that that especially younger kids that haven't really developed yet that's a big deal so when you say on your podcast like hey don't be humble Those are the people you're talking to all day long and they need to hear it. And there's some people that don't have the confidence to step up and do a job. Those people exist. The people, you know, and then there's some jackass out there that

hears you say that that's like, that's right. I'm the best ever. And, and, and Andy just told me I was the best ever and that I should go with that. Like that person is going to lose situational awareness. Isn't going to see the mistakes that they make. Isn't going to know that they need to listen to other people and they're going to end up getting crushed. Yeah, dude. The, the, the way to look at it, like, this is how I look at it, right? Like I literally look at it as like a fuel gauge in your car. Okay. Like it looks like, you know, uh, it's a, it's a, it looks like a half of a circle. Okay. And on the one side you got E and on the other side you got F. All right. And that needle, let's just say on the left, you know, it's E not for empty, but for ego. Okay. And then on the right, it's H for humility. All right. And, and dude, you should be, this is where aware you said

situational awareness. This is where you have to be aware. This is where you have to know where your needle is at all times. And so, you know, it's okay sometimes for the needle to go towards the E. Like, for example, dude, I go and speak in front of 20,000 people. My fucking needle, when I go on that stage is pinned to E it's actually far past it okay but I let it get there and I try to get it there on purpose because dude if you can't go out with that with your needle pinned to E you are not going to fucking move people and get them excited and get them want to change it's going to be impossible you're going to go up there you're

going to be scared you're going to be you know st You're going to be scared. You're going to be, you know, stumbling over your words, you know? So I let it get to E there's other times when I'm sitting in a room with you, who is the best in the world at what you do, in my opinion. And it's becoming more and more of a fact every day, dude, you know what I do? I don't sit here and think about how great of a leader I am. I let that needle go all the way over to H and I shut the fuck up and listen. You know what I'm saying? And that's, that's what you have to do, man. It's gotta be, I mean, it's funny, dude, because we're sitting here talking and literally everything we talk about is a dichotomy. And like, before I even got your book, I didn't know what the fuck that was, you know? So it's, it's, uh, yeah, those that's, you just explained one of the key dichotomies of leadership. Right. That you can have too much ego.

And if you brought that attitude of if you pinned out the E and you went to a meeting with some of your team and they had feedback for you and you were like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. We're going to do it my way. That ego would kill you. Yeah. And at the same time, if you went, if you pinned it out on the H and you went into your team and said, Hey guys, I'm thinking about rolling about out this new product, but I don't really know if it's going to be successful. I don't know if we have the, the wherewithal to make it happen. Well, that's not going anywhere either. Oh, so you gotta, you gotta modulate and you gotta stay balanced. That's, I think that's the hardest thing, not just as a leader, but as a person, you know what I mean like people people like you guys who are listening right now

you know there's time this is like the imposter syndrome almost like there's times and this is no bullshit there's times where i feel like i'm fucking faking it right there's times when i feel like maybe i don't know and you know what guess what all of us feel that way we all feel like hey we don't maybe we don't know sometimes you just gotta fucking guess but the truth of us feel that way. We all feel like, Hey, we don't, maybe we don't know. Sometimes you just got to fucking guess. But the truth of it is, is that being aware of where you are in what situation and what's applicable and how, dude, that's the key, man. Like that's the key to growth of a company. It's a key to growth of your personal development. I mean, dude, and, and I feel like from, from, and dude, you speak to so many people

as well. You know, I'd be interested to hear what you think, but I feel like people are, are way more towards the H than they are the E and that's, what's keeping them where they are. That's what I see. Like I, I meet so many of these guys who do, they've got a little business going and they're doing pretty good. And like, dude heard this this weekend this guy who's making everybody in our group's making a lot of money dude this guy's making over a million dollars a year and he's like he's telling me right to my face he's like he's making a million not the fucking company selling a million this guy's making a million dollars and he looks at me he's like dude i just don't know if i have what it takes to get the next level what the fuck are you talking about bro you've already built this to a

million dollars why can you not make it a hundred million or a billion you can fucking have it most people say that at like 50k i know but that's the reason he's been able to make a million yeah because of that attitude but so i gotta give him a little kick and be like bro you need to get over a little to the e a little bit right you know that's this is exactly what we're talking about this is the dichotomy this is the dichotomy and and there's situations there's people that get to a certain point and i know you've seen this too and i have too like there's people that are maniac egomaniacs and it gets them going oh yeah i mean they get they make they make a bunch of money right and they and then what happens when it comes time to go to the next level yeah they don't make

it because somebody comes along and says, hey, instead of selling this, you should also sell that. And they go, I've been doing this for 14 years. You don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Right. Or, you know, maybe you should, I mean, look at, look at, look at Blackberry, right? Look at Blockbuster.

Blockbuster could have bought Netflix at some point. Yeah. And they didn't. They didn't kill them. Yeah. Yeah. Because they were like, hey, no, we're going to have, we got people coming in blockbuster yeah we're blockbuster yeah so we're we're america on saturday night bro like you can't fuck with us and like that's what killed

them that's what dude i was sitting in a room i i did the math i was sitting in a room uh at dan fleishman's speaking event with uh in a and that we were in the green room and in the green room, the collective net worth was about $3 billion. All right. And I'm sitting in the room and dude, everybody is crushing everybody. And dude, you would not believe the shit that they were saying. Like everybody would think like they were in there. Like I believe it, but like everybody else would think like they were in there, like telling everybody like how good they were. This or that everybody in there was like, look, I don't know, man. I kind of feel like I got lucky. Like, like, I don't know, you know, like they're totally,

and it wasn't fake. It was like, you know, I had a guy, I had a guy who sold his company for a billion dollars asking me, he's like, Andy, I don't know, man. Like, I know we did this, but what do you think about this? And I'm like, fuck dude, you shouldn't be asking me, you know what I'm saying? Like, but it's just an example of what we're talking about. The people who, who, who are the most successful are able to learn and they're, they become students of learning. And the only way to learn is to put that needle over to the H man and shut the fuck up. And something to tie into that, one of the best leadership qualities and in team development qualities I've ever learned from you was even if you do have the answer and someone comes up to you with a question, what's the question you, what's the answer you give them?

Always, 100% of the time, I'll say, what do you think? What do you think? You know? Same exact thing I do. Yeah. In fact, my guys would come to me and say, hey, Jocko, here's this mission. You know, how do you think we should do it? I'd be like, go figure it out. Come back and tell me. Yeah hey hey jocko here's this mission you know how do you think we should do it i'd be like go figure it out come back and tell me yeah dude because that's a

confidence builder right because most of the time they know yeah they're gonna get it somewhat right they're gonna get it close and maybe give them a little adjustment but yeah we'll be we'll get close yeah i learned that from my dad by the way that's you met my dad yeah so my dad's like og uh but but dude it's funny because um you were mentioning the hit how it doesn't change over over time like this is one skill that does not evolve and it does not change we're dealing with human beings so human beings and and it's interesting too dude because like you said millennials earlier and i am like super pro millennial and, and so many guys, they make doodle.

You've heard all this shit. Millennials are fucking lazy. They are this or that dude. Well, how the fuck do you explain my company? Because I have 200 employees here and five of them, you saw them are not millennials. So how do you explain that?

It doesn't change. You know, that's just an excuse that people lose. But my dad, you know, he was, he would, he would lose but my dad you know he was uh he would he would dude my dad would like tell us this he's like look like he would tell me this you know when we first started getting employees he's like dude the best thing you can do let me

tell you the secret to leadership this is all it is just ask them what they think that's what that's what he told and i'm like dad that is not a leader i've seen leaders that's not what they do you know what he was right your dad was right. Your dad was right. Yeah. Your dad was right. You know, when people, people ask me how to get buy-in, which is a big thing. Oh, I can't get people to buy in. Well, ask them how they want to do it.

Yeah. And then it's their plan. They bought into it. Yeah. And you know what's interesting about getting buy-in too, is that you don't always have to do their plan. A lot of times, I would say most of the time, you tell me what you think, but I would say most of the time they just want their idea heard. They don't actually need to have their idea chosen.

They just want to be heard. They don't want to be directed like a bunch of little robots. They just want to be heard. So you ask your team. You got 10 guys there. You ask each one, hey, what do you think we should do? What happens is, is you start at chair one. Hey, what do you think you should do? And the guy says, well, I think we should do that. And you ask each one hey what do you think we should do what happens is is you start at chair one hey what do you think you should do and the guy says well i think we should do that and you

ask the next guy well i think we should do most of that but i think we should change this and this and the third you ask the third guy he's gonna say you know what i like both those ideas but you know what about this by the time the motherfuckers get done and they go all the way around the table the idea is there the idea is there and now everybody's bought in you know it's not that hard absolutely absolutely i see people fighting all the time over they have you know my idea versus your idea both the ideas are fine yeah and they want to fight over it right and and it's totally worthless yeah messes up the relationship and finally when i say you know what andy i'm in charge you do what i told you to do it's a disaster you go in the field and you just you're gonna you're gonna sabotage it right you're not even gonna do the idea because you want the idea to

fail to shove it down the other dude's throat exactly yeah dude and that's that really is a culture problem like now what we're talking about is two guys who dude i do this sal and i do this sometimes like because we're brothers all right people ask like what's it like to work with your brother this is what it's like we both want to win so fucking bad and we both believe because we're brothers, all right? People ask, like, what's it like to work with your brother? This is what it's like. We both want to win so fucking bad, and we both believe that we're right, that we actually lose sight of the bigger mission sometimes, and usually it ends in a fist fight.

So it ends like two gorillas fucking beating each other up like it was, what, about a month ago? A month ago. Yeah. So I'm like, what the fuck was that? By once a year, we're getting into a fight. But really, the truth is, is that's a time where we should step back and say, look, dude, we both want to win. All right? Your idea is good. My idea is good. Which one are we going to do? Yep. And you know what I'm going to do in those situations? I'm going with the other person's

idea. If I have that opportunity, as long as your idea isn't just garbage, if it's close, if it's going to get the mission done, we're doing it your way. And that, that's a good way for me to prove to you that like, Hey, I trust you. I'm humble. I listened to you and you have buy-in and, and you're going to work so hard, especially if we were, if we, if you know, I didn't really a hundred percent agree and I want to do my way, but I gave it to you. You're going to get out there and bust your ass to make it work. That's right. And that's what I want. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. That see, that helps me just now for real. Like you just helped me become a better leader. Anytime I can, anytime we can, anytime a subordinate comes to me that has a

plan of any kind. And that's my goal is to get that thing executed the way they're doing it. Yeah. Because it's just a win across the board. Yeah. Because they, like you said, they are going to make sure, you know, that it works. Not to mention, but the leader might not actually see the full vision that the other person has. This is true. The leader sometimes doesn't know the details that are happening in the front lines. And so that's why it's important to pay attention to what they're saying. Also, dichotomy. The frontline troops don't always see the big picture.

And so you have to marry those two things together. And that's why you come up with not just whose idea you come up with the best idea. That's something that I think for us, um, I, people ask like, how, how have we gotten first form to do what it's been able to do? Uh, because dude, we started with nothing. I mean, I, I was picking up product literally in the back of my pickup truck and storing it in my garage. That's, that's how it was. Um, you know, we didn't have investors. We didn't have, you know, people who,

you know, by that time my dad had made and lost his money. We didn't have people to give us money. It wasn't, it wasn't an option. Um, the, the best thing that I've been, I think that we've been good at, and people ask, like, how have we done this? I think it's this. I've been, and I'm going to give myself some credit, which I don't usually do, but, dude, I've been really good at painting the fucking vision. Like, making sure these guys understand what the big vision here is, what the scope of it is. And so many leaders, and I don't even like to call them leaders. I call them business owners because they're not leaders. All they care about is how much money they're making and they can't figure out, like they look at us and they

say, well, dude, how the fuck are you guys doing this? And I look at them and I'm like, dude, it's pretty obvious. Like all you give a shit about is how much money you make. And you haven't painted a big enough vision to where every single other human that works for you can find a place underneath that vision to be successful yeah just like just like life if you're in life if you always go for the short-term gratification yeah then your long-term goal is going to suffer is going to suffer yeah just like in business, if your immediate gratification is we want money and you're not looking at the long-term strategic, because, because let's face it, the decisions that you make today for immediate gratification of cash

are not generally in the best interest, the best interest of the long-term strategic movement of the company. Dude, what was cool. And I know you probably thought this was cool too. When you were talking to the team and you said, dude, our goal at Echelon Front is to help people. I don't care that the book is called Dichotomy of Leadership and Andy doesn't understand what that means. What I care is that the material in that book is going to help people. And what did I do? Yeah. You turned around, looked at the team and said, what are we here to do? And everyone said, we're here to help people. That's right. And if that's your goal, the other things are going to fall into place in this case, the, you know, with Echelon front, like we write

a book, we are our purpose and going out and working with companies is to help those companies win. That's right. What's a by-product. We get paid money, get paid and you go out and help people get in better, better physical condition and make them healthier. What's the byproduct? You get paid. We grow. Dude, I thought, I'm so glad you were here to witness that because I talk about that concept so much and people will hit me up and they're like, dude, you're just saying

that shit because it sounds good. No, I'm not. I literally, all I talk about within these walls and a lot of people, they don't believe it because they're not here to see it. But all we talk about is how we can help people get better results. How can we help people lose that weight? How can we help people become more confident? How can we help them in any way? Anyway, dude, we had a, we had a guy call in these spark plugs. Our dude fucking got them spark plugs. You know what I'm saying? How can, that's true. How can we help them? And dude, that's why we're successful and that's it that's any business too you know but dude it

is business that's all you're doing all you're doing is trading some sort of help for money that's it you're trading you know uh cleaning someone's house you're trading of somebody designing a logo that's going to help you i I mean, dude, it's just trading. It's blurring. It's fucking simple. I am not a smart person, and I understand this concept. The only reason I'm able to execute this concept is because I don't complicate it. You know what I mean?

Yeah. The first 10 years I was in business, I wanted money. I wanted to make money. I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be a baller. Blah, blah, blah. Guess what? I was fucking broke When I had to figure out how to

You know, I had I had a little time where I'm like fuck dude. I'm not making any money doing this I had to think about what I want to do. I could go back and work construction at the poor concrete Wow, fuck that I want to do that shit. You know, I could make some money doing that I don't want I literally made less money than then I would make a McDonald's working in our company and um, I Was like, you know what? I do like helping people. It's pretty cool when someone leaves and they come back six months later, I've lost a hundred pounds. That's cool. I like that. You know what? We're going to do more of that. And guess what? Guess what happened? We started doing more of that. We fucking made money, man. It's not that hard. You know, uh, people complicate it, man. I just, I don't know, dude. Like I could sit here and

talk to you for fucking days about business and life and you know, all this shit. I just, dude, I just want to tell you, man, you really are helping people like this building that we're in. Uh, the people that you met, they would not exist if it wasn't for the shit that you're doing. That's the truth. I appreciate it, man. And it's, uh, it's awesome to come to this company, come to other companies that I work with and, and meet people all around the world. You know, they, they read the book, they listen to my podcast and they reach out and they get, they get helped. And so that's, to me, that's the reward. Yeah. I know you get to see it, you know, um, and people tell you that, but what you just did, those were

all younger people. You're truly helping people, bro. I'm just super grateful for it. I know we have competing podcasts, and I want to win. I want to fucking beat you in podcast ranking. You know what I'm saying? I know you're the same, but the truth of the matter the matter is dude if you listen to the show and you're not listening to his show you're missing out dude you guys should all go to his show and subscribe

you should all be you know participating and bringing friends to his show and doing the same thing you do for this one because it is it's real shit it's a real life how to win how to be successful how to move people and uh we're just saying a little bit different way. And I, and I love that about you, bro. Indeed, man. Well, I appreciate it. Yeah. So, uh, dude, with that being said, um, guys, if you're listening, please do what I just asked and go to his show, give him a follow on Instagram and make sure you're consuming his content and make sure that you buy, uh, the dichotomy of leadership when it comes out. And I'm not just, you guys know, I don't pitch shit. I don't, I don't ask you to buy things unless they're good because I don't want to violate that trust. This is a book that you

have to read. When does the book come out? September 25th. Okay. So we got like a couple weeks. Can you pre-order? Yeah, you can pre-order it. Yeah. So in fact, if you want to get it when it comes out, you should pre-order it because otherwise it'll be sold out that's right so uh dude thanks again man i appreciate it has been one of my absolute favorite shows uh that we've done and uh just thank you thanks for having me on and thanks for what you're doing kicking ass in the world giving stuff away for free giving away as much knowledge as you can trying to to help people. And I can see that's coming back, but the real reward is seeing that you're helping people all over the world. So keep kicking ass, brother. I appreciate it, brother. you