REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Struggle Is Your Privilege, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO280

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

What's your attitude when you go through tough times? Do you think, "this isn't fair" or "I wish this wasn't happening to me"? To the average person, struggle is something to be avoided. But elite achievers find benefits in being knocked around by life. In fact...far from being averse or ashamed of struggle, they embrace it. They take pride in it. They think of it as a privilege. And that's why they always power through. How can you develop this mindset? That's what I talk about in this episode.

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. Today, I just got done having our 20th anniversary banquet and award ceremony. We call it the S2 in first form, which S2 stands for supplement superstores. Awards dinner. What do we call it?

We call it the leadership and core values banquet. It was really cool. Had a bunch of people in town. We got our whole, both of our public companies together, all of our employees, all of our team members from inside St. Louis to get together to celebrate the things that we value here in our companies. And what we value more than anything is our core values. We value the character traits that we instill in our team over the course of time and we reward them based upon that. Now, a lot of companies will reward people for sales goals and a lot of companies will reward people for you know all kinds of numbers oriented metrics but the truth of it is is that if your core values are solid the sales are going to be there because you're going to have productive people you're

going to have happy people but let me tell, because that could be a totally different podcast. I want to talk to you about something a little more simple than that and a little bit easier to implement than that, that you can start right now and will actually help you over the course of time starting immediately. All right. And what gave me the idea to talk to you guys about this is that I have a lot of young employees and I have a lot of employees on our team that quite honestly come from meager backgrounds. They come from lower middle class or even poor backgrounds. And this event is a black tie event, which means you wear a tuxedo. All right. It's not a suit. It's a tuxedo. And I just got to tell you guys, man, we gave out some

amazing awards. We had a great time. But the thing that stuck with me the most about this event was seeing our young men and women who had some of them never put on a tuxedo in their entire lives. All right. And I'm not Mr. Tuxedo by any means, but to see the look and the confidence and feel the energy that these young people had by putting on the tux, it struck me, man, because I take that shit for granted. You know, I've been to a lot of events where you wear suits and tuxedos and things like that. And is there a better feeling on earth than when you put on a suit or a tux or a dress and you're just looking good and you're feeling good and you are ready to go out and let everybody see you, it ups your confidence. It ups your feeling. It almost makes you transform into a different person. Kind of like, you know, when, when

Superman puts on his, his, his tighty whities, you know, his fucking blue tights and Batman puts on his uniform and, um, you know, all the superheroes, they all have an alter ego. And that uniform, they put it on and it somehow gives them superpowers. That was what it was like to see all these young people wearing that. And that just stuck with me all weekend. I spent a lot of time reflecting on how, you know, much different these guys and girls looked. Not physically looked, but the energy that they were putting off looked and so this morning when I saw all of our team again I said how many of you guys felt amazing when you put on that tux or that dress or got dressed up and literally every single

one raised their hand and I asked him I said do you feel like that every day? If you feel like that every day, raise your hand. One person rose, rose their hand. And that guy I know feels like that every day because he has a contagious energy. He has a contagious confidence. You could tell he's very comfortable in his own skin. Um, and it was interesting to me. So what I want to share with you guys is the idea of that feeling. And I want you to think about what you feel when you get dressed up or you put on a tux or you put on a nice suit and you go to an event. And I want you to think about how that feels. I want you to think about how powerful you feel, how successful you feel, even if you're not. You know, even when I was broken, I put on a suit. I felt like a fucking baller.

All right. And I want you to think about that feeling. And I want you to think, what if you woke up every single day with that feeling? What if you woke up every single day with that confidence? What if you woke up every single day feeling like the baddest motherfucker in the room and you walked around with that everywhere you went? How different would your life be? How different would your relationships be? How different would your career be? How much better would you advance in your career? Because let me tell you something, when you can embody those feelings

in your day-to-day life, you figured out something extremely special. And that something extremely special is special because most people can never figure it out. And let me tell you why you feel special when you put on that suit or that tux or that dress. It's because you're paying attention to the details. All right. Your, your, every single detail of your physical appearance is at its maximum and that makes you feel good. But how do we translate that into day-to-day life. Because even people who wear suits know that if you wear a suit every day, it loses its luster. If you wear a tux every day, they call you a waiter. Okay? It's not the tuxedo. It's not the dress. It's not the suit that makes you feel that way. It's the pride in your attention to detail. All right. And this is how successful people cultivate this feeling over the course of their everyday life. Okay.

You ever know someone who's successful that radiates that energy, who radiates energy, whether they're wearing a tuxedo or whether they're wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, like I'm wearing right now. I'm going to tell you how. And this is one of the most powerful things that you'll ever cultivate in your life. You have to understand that you feeling that way is a direct reflection of how you're living up to the standards that you know in your heart you hold for yourself. If you miss a workout, if you miss meals, if you do a half-assed job at your work, if you do a half-assed job at home, guess what? You are not going to have that crazy feeling of superpower, all right? But here's the good news. It's very easy to cultivate this.

It starts when you get up in the morning. It starts with taking pride in your appearance. It starts with taking pride in your job. It starts with taking pride in your discipline that you know you need to have to become the person that you want to become. You might want to listen to what I just said. Taking pride in the discipline. All right. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean by that is this. When shit gets hard, I talked to a guy today in the gym who was asking me some pretty serious questions. He just started a business, um, 18 months ago or not. I'm sorry. Not eight months ago, an excavating business with a skid steer slash Bobcat. All right. Uh, his name was CJ

and he was asking me some stuff about, uh, you know, he's going through a rough time. He's I think he's getting a little bit depression, which really after we talked about it was typical frustration that entrepreneurs feel when things aren't going well. So we had a little talk while we were doing our cardio at the gym. Really cool guy. Really nice guy. Head on straight seemed like. And what I told him was this. I'm like, look, man, he's like, dude, do you ever just want to quit? And I'm like, well, yeah, of course. He's

like, no, man. Like, do you just want to end it all ever? And I'm like, well, look, man, that's a really serious question. And I had a serious talk with him. But one thing I share with them that I think I need to share with everybody here is this. You should take pride in the feeling of wanting to quit and not quitting, okay? You have to know, and this is how I think about it. When things get really hard for me, when things have been really hard for me, the hardest in my life, whether it be in my fitness,

whether it be in my business, whether it be in my fitness, whether it be in my business, whether it be in any area of life, the one thing that I've always taken pride in is this. When things get hard, I don't look at it like, oh, dude, things are so fucking hard. That's not how I think about it. I reframe my thoughts to think about it like this. Hey, shit's really hard right now, dude. You're really struggling right now. But here's the thing. Right now is when everybody else quits. Right now is when everybody else is

going to fall behind. Right now is when everybody else decides to do something that's easier or faster or not as hard. And that's what gets you ahead. That's what gets you to have pride because those struggles, those feelings, those things that are difficult, they are there to test you. And if you want to hear more about testing, you can go listen to Test Days podcast. I don't know what fucking number it is. Go look it up. But here's the thing. Those things are there to test us. And when we test ourselves on a consistent basis and we pass those tests, you have to think of it that other competitors, I actually visualize people that compete with me or try to be like me or try to take money off of my table or business away from me? And I think about them and I said, dude, would they quit now?

And the answer is usually yes. And when I think of all those people quitting, I get energy to push through my struggle. I get happy about my struggle. I get ready to take more struggle in and chew that shit up and spit it right back out. You have to understand that struggle is a privilege. Hardship is a privilege. There's a lot of talk about privilege right now. Okay. And you can hear it from all different sides of the socioeconomic, you know, political talk, white privilege, socioeconomic privilege,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Take that shit and stick it up your ass because the real privilege is the one that you have. The real privilege is your hardship. The real privilege is your struggle. The real privilege is how long it's taking you and the lessons that you learn because those struggles, those hardships, those things that people face will usually cause them to quit and it brings you up. So if you want to create the type of energy that is magnetic, if you want to create the

kind of energy that attracts other people, if you want to create super high confidence, super high self-esteem, super high momentum, okay, for lack of a better words, for yourself, that feeling I'm super powerful, I'm invincible, I'm the fucking man or I'm the fucking woman, I'm a boss lady, whatever the hell you want to call it. You have to take pride in not quitting when other people are going to quit. You have to take pride in executing your job to the very best of your ability. Now you might be horrible at your job. You might be terrible, but taking pride in improving, taking pride in giving it your best, all of those things are what truly create what we're talking about here. That beaming energy and confidence that other people can just feel.

That presence that they can feel when you walk in the room. That comes down to taking pride in your discipline. Okay. And most people never figure that out. Most people can't figure out why they don't feel good. Most people can never figure out why they only feel good when they dress up once in a while. They never figure out how to create that day in and day out for themselves. And that's why they lose. That's why they create situations of frustration that just hang on and stick with them for their entire lives. Because it's the day-to-day disciplines. It's the eating the meals, doing the workouts, doing the best you can in your career. Those things, doing the best you can for your family.

Those are the things that create the energy that I'm talking about. Those are the things that are going to create your superpower so that you can go through life being a badass motherfucker. And who doesn't want to be that? could sit there and say oh well you know I'm a little reserved I don't know if that's for me motherfucker don't bullshit me the only reason you say that shit is because you think you're incapable of being that and you're not the only reason you're not that right now is because you let all the shit slide that you shouldn't you let your physical appearance slide you let your job slide you let your friendship slide you let your physical appearance slide You let your job slide You let your friendship slide You let your relationship slide

And when you do that Guess what else happens Your confidence slides Your self-belief slides Your momentum slides And what do you become You become like everyone else Every other

Blind, lost Conf confused, frustrated human being in this country is that way because they are not taking pride in their opportunities to be disciplined. They are not taking pride in the opportunities to be better. They are not looking at frustration and struggle as something to be proud of versus something to despise and be more frustrated about. Because here's the reality. Negative emotion, negative frustration is compounding. If you can't figure out

How to create a good situation Out of a situation where you're having difficulty You are in for a long Long Long Ass kicking Your whole life is going to be a fucking train wreck Take pride in what you do

Take pride in how you do it And most of all Learn learn to look at your hardships as a privilege. Learn to look at your struggle as a privilege. Learn to look at every single thing that you have that's negative in your life as a privilege because it's going to teach you what you need to do. See, part of knowing what you need to know is knowing what not to do. It's knowing how not to do things. It's knowing how not to behave or how not to execute.

Nobody knows when they start. The only reason that people know is because they've been through it without quitting and you guys are out there searching for this the miracle fucking thing you think it's gonna you know come to you in somebody's fucking meme you know all the spiritual gurus out there right now posting their stupid fucking memes that don't mean shit in real life that's what you think is going to make you feel good no motherfucker doing the work's going to make you feel good taking pride in that shit okay doing the things that you know you're supposed to do and taking pride in and taking pride in the fact that when things are tough and you don't

quit you know that other motherfuckers are quitting, which means your competition is getting less and less. I talk about this a lot. If you listen to the podcast, we talk about how the competition is the greatest at the bottom of the pyramid. The reason the competition is the greatest at the bottom of the period is because it's easy and everybody's doing it. But as shit gets progressively harder, when you have to go one, two, three years without a paycheck like I did, and then seven more making $695 fucking dollars a month working other jobs to keep your fucking place open. Guess what? Everybody else quits during that time. So by default, 10, 12, 13 years in, I'm standing higher than everybody just because I didn't quit.

And you guys fail to grasp that concept. It's learning how to endure. It's learning how to reframe struggle and seeing it as a privilege. It's learning how to reframe frustration and seeing it as a driver for your success. You can read all the feel-good fucking memes you want, be my guest, but not one of those motherfuckers, not one, will be as powerful as you, not just enduring your struggles and enduring your frustration, but turning them into a privilege,

knowing that they're teaching you a lesson, knowing that other people who aren't as gritty and tough as you are quitting while you're sitting there suffering. Suffering is a fucking privilege. And a lot of you guys will argue with that. A lot of you guys will cry at that. A lot of you guys will whine about that. A lot of you motherfuckers say, Oh, what do you know about struggle? You're fucking rich. Motherfucker, I've struggled more than you will ever possibly know. And that's a fucking fact. You guys have to learn that if you're going to be confident, if you're going to be success, if you're going to have swag, if you're going to have that energy that attracts people,

not just mates, but friends, positive relationships, great culture, great employees, you are going to have to understand how to see every single thing that every other person on the earth sees as negative, as a positive. And when you do that, when you figure that out, and when you execute it,

you are going to see your confidence go it, you are going to see your confidence go up. You are going to see your self-esteem go up. You are going to see your performance go up. You are going to see your level of relationships go up. And most of all, you're going to see your fucking income go up. you