REAL AF with Andy Frisella - Talent Vs. Choice, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO181

Episode Date: October 12, 2017

Does loads of talent determine your success? No. So stop looking at other people and say, "Man, if I had his talent, I'd be able to achieve my goals." That's total bullsh*t.  Here's the reality: It's not lack of talent or ability or circumstances that keep you from success. It's the failure to make the right choices. You have to know what to do and to choose to do it.

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 today is Thursday Thunder but before we get into Thursday Thunder little housekeeping as you guys know if you've been listening to the podcast, we are doing a testimonial contest. Testimonials are to be less than one minute long video testimonials with the link emailed to testimonials at the MFCEO.com. Again, that's testimonials at the MFCEO.com. The prize, the prize is a trip to St. Louis. And we're going to pick five people to come to St. Louis and we're going to pick five people to come to St. Louis, hang out, get their questions answered, get on the podcast,

hang out, do some fun shit, go out to eat at one of my favorite spots, stay at five-star accommodations here at the Four Seasons St. Louis and have a great time. Guys, submit your testimonials as soon as possible. I'm not sure how long

we're going to run this contest, so don't wait for us to say a deadline. Now, before I get into the thing I want to talk about, I want to tell a story. I got a DM last night and we recorded this episode yesterday. And then I text Tyler last night and I said, Hey, I want to rerecord it because I have the story to add to what, what the theme of what we're talking about is. And I got this, this DM from a young man who is a big fan of the podcast, a big fan of the content. And he was asking me to come meet me in St. Louis because he wanted to start a nutritional supplement company, uh, which is fine. You know, I'm all for people doing what

they want to do. Um, he wrote me five or six messages, you know, and I asked him, I said, Hey, I said, what do you hope to gain by coming to meet me here? I was just curious. Okay. Uh, he writes me back, man, do you know how far I would get if I had you in my corner? You know, do you know how, how good I would be? Do you know how much money I'd make? I'd never let you down this, that the other blah, blah, blah. Okay. That's all good and fine. But let me explain to you the problem with this sort of thing. A, I don't do personal mentorship at all for anybody. And the reason I don't do that is because I don't have the fucking time to do it, which is why we're creating the academy that

we're creating, the Entrepreneur Academy, why it's going to be invite only, why it's going to be highly selective, because I am putting together the exact information that is in detail on how to run a company, how to start a business, how to do all the things you need to do to be successful. And that's what the Academy is for, because I cannot do it one-on-one. All right. So keep an eye out for that. But two, you have to understand that as an entrepreneur, figuring shit out is one of your biggest assets. Okay. This goes for any area of life. What is more valuable to you? Me telling you how to do something or you going out and figuring it out? What lesson is going to sit with you longer? What is going to provide more benefit for you? All right. I am not going to appease my own ego by mentoring somebody and

then taking that whole learning period out of their experience so that they can get ahead faster because here's what's going to happen. Yeah. I may be able to help you get ahead faster, but the truth of the matter is, is that you will lose everything that you gain. You will not be successful long term because you haven't learned the lessons yourself. You've been following a map as opposed to learning the hardcore lessons. And that is not valuable. That is not true value. So realize that when I say, no, I won't mentor you or no, I won't do this. That's because I don't want to take the experience of you actually learning these skills that you need to learn for the longterm away from you. I don't want to take

that journey away from you. Okay. And I'm doing you a fucking favor, whether you realize it or not. All right. Now, with that being said, I, I get constant emails guys about, you know, people, and this goes right in with this kid's email last night, people who have these big dreams, they have these big goals, they have these things that they want to accomplish. And they say things like this, well, I wish I had the talent that that person has, or you know what, I wish I could do what they do, or I wish I could do this. And you see this every now and then in society as well. You see people who are extremely, quote unquote, talented at whatever it is they do. You see a professional athlete and you say, dude, that guy's such a talented

baseball player. You see a professional musician and you say, man, that guy is so talented. He's so amazing at what he does. You know, you see somebody who creates sculptures and you say, man, that guy's such a talented artist. All right. And dude, people get caught up in this mentality of talent. All right. But what you don't see and what you don't understand is the 25 years that musician put into his craft or the 4,000 sculptures that that sculpture made that sucked. Okay. You don't see that shit. You don't see the 20 years the entrepreneur put in. You see him driving a nice car, living in a nice house, and you think he has something that you don't. Well, the only thing any of these people have that you don't have

is that they have the ability to make the correct choices. It isn't talent. Are there talents? Absolutely. Are there freaks of nature that can, you know, dunk a basketball when they're five foot two? Absolutely. But the vast majority of this earth has the same talent as you. And you decide to put yourself on the outside and to put yourself in a bad position because you point at the talent instead of recognizing the choice that these people made to dedicate themselves to the process for a long fucking time. You know why you do that? Because it's fun to point at someone and say, wow, that guy's got so much talent. It's not sexy. It's not fun to say, wow, that guy put in so much work to be that good. You guys are missing the boat. And by doing this guys, you are negatively affecting

your progress. And let me explain. We hate negative people here, right? All of us listening to this podcast fucking cannot stand the negativity. the people who say we can't, the people who make excuses. Every single person listening to this podcast right now, yes, you are the kind of person who says, oh, I fucking can't stand people that make excuses. Well, while you may not be a negative Nancy and somebody who makes excuses and somebody who makes negativity part of their daily routine, when you point out somebody else's quote unquote talent, as opposed to their work ethic, you are doing the exact same thing. You are negatively talking about yourself. You are indirectly implying that you don't have the skills to do what they do. And that might be true right now. The reason you don't have the skills to do what they do. And that might be true right now. The reason you don't

have the skills is because you didn't put in the 20 fucking years. You didn't make the day-to-day decisions. You didn't do the things that needed to be done when you didn't feel like doing them. You didn't practice when you needed to practice. You didn't make calls when you needed to make calls. You didn't work out when you needed to work out. Instead, you chose the easier routes. And that's the difference. That's the difference between people who do things and people who talk about doing things. The people who become great at their craft, all the people that you're pointing at right now saying, oh, that guy's such a tremendous talent. Oh, that entrepreneur, he's such a good businessman. Yeah. You know why he's good? Because he fucked everything up every which way that he possibly could for a long fucking time,

but he kept moving. And that's the difference between him and you. The difference between him and you is that he's making the decision to move forward. He's making the decisions he needs to make. He's doing the things that he thinks are the right thing every day. And if they aren't, he's learning from them and making adjustments. You are sitting your fucking ass on the bench pointing at someone saying, oh, he's so talented, like a spectator. There's no difference between being a spectator and being someone who negatively talks about everyone else and creates that negative energy. Because like I said, when you talk about other people having things that you don't have, which by the way, isn't true, you are insinuating to your inner self that you don't have what it takes. You are not believing in yourself. And I'm here to tell you guys that is complete bullshit. You have what it takes. You have the opportunity. You have

the tools. You are making a choice to not execute the way you need to execute. You are choosing to be where you are. It's not lack of talent. It's not lack of ability. It's not lack of circumstance. It's not lack of opportunity. It is a lack of circumstance. It's not lack of opportunity. It is a fucking choice that you are making to stay where you are because you are choosing to not do what needs to be done. But Andy, I don't know what needs to be done. Fuck yeah, you do. It's instinctive. Do what you think is right.

Make your mind up. Make a decision. Say, you know what? I don't actually know know but i think this is the right thing to do and do that and when you think if it doesn't turn out to be the right thing what you thought it was guess what you're gonna learn that that wasn't the right thing and guess what you're not gonna do you're not gonna do it again and so you're gonna go back to where you were you're gonna say okay well that didn't work. Now I think this will probably work. And you're going to repeat that process about 47 billion fucking times. And then

guess what's going to happen. You're going to become educated. You're going to become smart. You're going to appear to be talented to the outside world because you decided to do what needed to be done and you were willing to fail and you're willing to learn there is nothing more insulting than saying to a musician or a businessman or an athlete that has worked their ass off to become great at what they do and is saying man you're so lucky you have this amazing talent think how fucking insulting that Man, Andy, you're so lucky that you're, you know, you've built these companies. You're such a talented entrepreneur, motherfucker. That's the furthest thing from the truth. I'm just good at not making mistakes twice.

I'm good at choosing to take action. I'm not talented. I'm not better. And neither are any of these other guys. They're not better than you. They're not more talented than you. They have the ability and understanding that they need to make a choice and that success is a choice. And that perspective is a choice. You know, when I was laying on the ground, choking on my own blood, when I got fucking stabbed in Springfield, Missouri in 2003 and almost died, my face was swollen up to the size of a fucking cantaloupe for almost a year. Okay. I have permanent nerve damage in my face. I've got scars all over my face. I didn't look at what I had and say, oh, I've got this

amazing ability to see the positive in the situation, or I've got this amazing talent to see the positive in the situation. No, I made a fucking choice. My choice was, I can either be negative about this and let it hinder my development and my mentality and my mood and my depression for my entire life and make me miserable. Or I can choose to see the good things that happen. I can choose to recognize that everybody remembers me because of my scars. I could choose to recognize that it taught me a lot of good things about life. It taught me a lot of good things about acceptance. It taught me a lot of good things about life. It taught me a lot of good things about acceptance. It taught me a lot of good things about perseverance. I can choose to say it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

That's not a fucking skill. That's not a fucking talent. That's a fucking choice. And your life is a choice. Your life and what you lead now is a reflection of the choices that you have made to this point and nothing more. Anything else you tell yourself is a bullshit excuse. Quit making excuses. Quit saying other people have talent.

Quit looking at other people and saying, oh, they have this thing that I don't have and negative speaking to yourself and start understanding that your life is a reflection of the choices that you make and that you have the opportunity every fucking day to make the right ones. That's the difference between you and where you are now and you and where you want to be five years from now. Or when you look at other people and say, man, they're way ahead of me, but they're the same age. The reason that they're way ahead of you and they're the same age isn't because they're talented. It's because they've been making better choices for a lot fucking longer than you have. Quit pointing at talent and start thinking about choices.