REAL AF with Andy Frisella - The Power Of Perspective, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO1

Episode Date: June 9, 2015

Is getting stabbed good for business? In this first conversation of the podcast, [Andy Frisella](www.andyfrisella.com), CEO of Supplement Superstores and 1st Phorm International, explains the purpose of the podcast and shares how he was brutally stabbed, left for dead, but eventually recovered and learned the importance of overcoming adversity for success in business and life. The key is to develop a mindset that knows how “to turn adversity into an asset.”  This is a provocative, motivating conversation that drives home what all successful people have in common: the ability to find the good in the bad.  

Hey guys, what's up? This is Andy Priscilla and you're listening to the MFCEO Project Podcast. 16 years ago, me and my business partner Chris started a company called Supplement Superstores with $12,000 we earned from striping the stripes on parking lots. And now we do annually over a hundred million dollars a year in business. You're listening to the first episode of the MFCEO project. And I started this podcast basically for three reasons. One, to mentor people who don't have mentors. I feel like there's a lack of quality mentors out there. And it's something I want to do to give back. Two, I wanted to motivate people in a real authentic way. You're not going to hear a bunch of Care Bear bullshit and rainbows and butterflies and cupcakes.

You're going to hear the reality of business, the reality of motivation. And some of you aren't going to fucking like it. So let's get that out of the way. And number three, I've got a passion for motivating and helping people. You know, I've been very fortunate in my life. I've been surrounded by good people. I'm very, very blessed in the way that my life goes, and I want to give back as much as I can. So my main motivation here is to help you guys realize what it takes to, A, be successful,

B, stay self-motivated, and C, hopefully for you to give back to others as well. Joining me in the studio today is my co-host and good friend, Vaughn Kohler. Say hi, Vaughn. Hey, everybody. Vaughn, why don't you tell them a little bit about why you're here and how we met and how we became such good friends? All right. Well, before I do that, I'm going to add a fourth reason that you're doing the podcast, and that is because a crap ton of people asked you to do it. And so we're sort of responding to that public outcry. So that's always a good thing. I met Andy, gosh, it was almost two years ago. I was working as the editor and writer of a St. Louis area men's magazine. It was more of like a GQ for the St. Louis area. And I'll be honest with you, when I was assigned to write about him, I heard that he was involved in the fitness industry and was this incredibly successful guy at, I don't know,

not even, I don't know how old I thought you were at the time, but I knew you were in your early thirties. So I kind of made some assumptions that you were kind of a prick. Well, you're right about that. Let's be honest. Key words being kind of The key words being kind of. Right, right. Yeah. Right. So I just thought I'd meet this guy, and he'd be full of himself and, yeah, not very fun to interview. But I was wrong. We spent the first, God, probably it was 20 minutes talking about, do you remember? Yeah, Bulldogs, I think. We were talking about Bulldogs.

Yeah. And actually, it was kind of sad because I think you're— My American Bulldog, Oscar, who I'd had for seven years, is basically my little right-hand dude, had just passed away. Yeah. So I was going through a real rough time. Yeah. So I knew you were a good dude if you liked dogs.

But really, as I started asking you questions and learning more about your companies and what you'd achieved, you told a story that, wow, it just was amazing, compelling story, and it was something traumatic that happened to you. And I think that, you know, as we thought about doing this podcast, I thought what a better way to start the whole MFCEO project than to tell your personal story and kind of what you learned from that. And why don't we start with you telling that story? You know, people that first meet me in person,

oftentimes the first question that they have that they might be afraid to ask is, what happened to your face? Because I've got several scars on my face. I've got nerve damage in my face. And, you know, there was a time where I wouldn't tell people what happened because I was embarrassed of it because I felt like they judged me. But so I would tell them I got in a car accident or something like that, just quick and easy. But basically what happened was, you know, I was coming home from a bar in Springfield, Missouri, 2003. I was walking home with a good buddy of mine and a neighbor who's, who's a friend of mine as well. And she's, uh, um, she's very, she's Mexican and she's very dark. And, uh,

we were walking home and, uh, this kid yelled out the window, uh, and, you know, I'm just going to say what he said. And, you know, he said, Hey, you know, where'd you get your nigger girlfriend? And, uh, you know, I wasn't going to allow him to say that shit. And basically we ended up getting into a fight. He pulled out a knife and he stabbed me in the face three times and in the back once looking back on it, I mean, it was just, I handled it completely wrong. But the reality is, is, is I said, you know, hey, I'm going to call the cops. And he, I started to walk away, which is where I really screwed up. And I was walking towards the rear of his car on the driver's side. And I didn't hear him, but he had got out of his car and he came up behind me and stabbed

me right in the side of uh in the side of my face and basically um at the last minute I heard him come behind me and I turned my head to the right to where my chin was basically pinned to my shoulder and instead of stabbing me in the throat he stabbed me right in the side of my jawbone um and you know I didn't realize that I had been stabbed I turned around and I punched him and we got in a fight and I didn't realize that I had been stabbed. I turned around and I punched him and we got in a fight and I didn't still didn't realize that he was stabbing me. I thought he was punching me. And, uh, cause it happened like so fast. I, there was a couple things that he had done prior to that. Um, one of them beating a kid with a baseball bat like three weeks earlier and the cops didn't prosecute them. Um, they were waiting to press charges. Had they pressed

charges, you know, this whole thing wouldn't have happened. But, you know, that's all here or there. And, you know, the good thing was, is, you know, he stabbed me. And when I finally realized that I was being stabbed was I started choking on my own blood. And because I was bleeding so much in my face and I was trying to breathe, I was breathing it in. And, uh, so I like, I started choking on my own blood and I fell down on the ground. And I remember him looking at me and like the, his face, like, it was like, Holy fuck. Like I, like almost like he didn't realize what he just did and he ran. But the good thing I was getting ready to say a second ago was that there was a cop.

His name was Neil McCamus. I still remember his name. He actually became a pretty good buddy of ours, of mine and Chris's, my business partner. But I haven't seen him in a long time. But anyhow, he was watching the whole thing unfold from, like, the next parking lot over. So there was there was like a street in between where we were and you know it happened so fast there was nothing he could have done but he saw the whole thing the guy got in his car drove away

Neil went and pulled him over they got the knife and basically the case went to court you know because of everything having that witness and everything but but yeah man you know I because of everything, having that witness and everything, but, um, but yeah, man, you know, I, I, I basically, I fell down on the curb. Uh, I started, I was breathing in my own blood, you know, because the cop had seen what happened.

The ambulance was on its way. Uh, when the ambulance got there, you know, I was, I, I didn't realize how bad it was. Um, and I basically told him, you know, that I didn't want service or, uh, I refused, uh, yeah, I refused attention. And, you know, then a couple of my buddies had walked up because I was literally right down the street from where I worked. And they're like, dude, you got to go. And, and, uh, my, my, I, the last thing I remember is being in the ambulance because blood was just pouring out. And the last thing I remember is being in the ambulance and the girl in the ambulance, like, telling the driver that she couldn't stop the bleeding and didn't know what to do. And then I fucking passed out.

So anyway, so I went to the hospital. I ended up getting 160 stitches, most of them in my face. Ended up with total nerve damage on my left side, your right side, if you're looking at me, of my face, where I really can't feel anything on that side of the face. I can't move my face. And, you know, long story short, he ended up getting some prison time. He got 40 years. He got paroled after three.

I remember going to Bass Pro and looking at shotguns. And the day or two after it happened, my face was swelled up like the size of a softball. And the guy in the gun store, and Chris was with me, the guy in the gun store was a fucking asshole. And he wouldn't even talk to me. And when I did get him to talk to me, he was a fucking dick. And, uh, and I still remember that. And I couldn't, you know, I couldn't, I didn't really realize what was going on. And then I started noticing it more and more like, you know, I go to the grocery store and the, and the checkers wouldn't look me in the face or, uh, you know, I talked to somebody and they look at the ground and do what it was happening was

people, people didn't want to look at me because they felt like they were staring, you know, because dude, my face was swollen for six months and the, you know, it doesn't look bad now until you get close and look at it, like in pictures and shit that people see on Instagram or whatever, Facebook, they don't really notice it. But when you see me in person, it's pretty obvious that there's something going on. And, you know, I had to go through basically this like social rejection that I wasn't prepared for and nobody really told me to expect. And, you know, I went from being a normal dude and to being somebody that like people didn't talk to. And I was in retail, man. I was talking to customers every day on our

first retail store and you know, fuck every single person that came in that, you know, most of them were pretty considerate and like said, man, dude, you know what happened? They ask it a polite way. And then like some people were just rude and they say like, dude, what the fuck happened to your face? And you know, that dude, it beat me up, man. You know, I went through a lot of mental shit. You know, I went through feeling really sorry for myself and thinking that my life was over. You know, no girl's ever going to fucking want to date me. And, you know, and dude, because it consequently, you know, I think that like actually pushed people away from me.

So it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy looking back. Um, and so I kind of isolated myself in that way. And, you know, I, I started getting into drinking real hard. I started getting into smoking weed. Um, and, uh, more than, more than I had in the past, I had, I kind of picked that habit up in high school and, and, uh, you know, I didn't really grow out of it until I was about 25. But I got to where I was relying on things to make me feel better. And, dude, I got depressed, man, you know, and I didn't really have any goals. It's the same story you hear from anybody who's gone through something traumatic. You know, we hear this from guys who have been in the military now, you know, with their, their PTSD and things like that. Like, dude, it's, it's a, it's a fucking weird thing because like you end

up isolating yourself based off your own insecurities. It's not that other people are judging you. It's that you're judging you more harshly than what they are. And so, um, I was walking through the grocery store. This is like a year and a half after it happened. And, and, you know, my face was still pretty bad. Uh, it took a long time to like really even actually kind of look normal. Um, you know, and now clearly, you know, I've turned into the good looking motherfucker that I am, but the reality is, is that, you know, I was down on myself, man. And like, I, you know, I thought every day about killing myself. I mean, that's, that's really the honest to God's truth. And, you know,

it took like, I was very fortunate and I feel that like this happened for a reason, but I was walking through a price cutter grocery store and I was like going through getting groceries and stuff. And I came to the end of an aisle and I bumped somebody's cart coming around the other corner, like coming towards me in the aisle. And I was like, you know, I didn't, when you're in the grocery store, I mean, how often do you really look at somebody's face? You know, I was kind of like, Oh, sorry, blah, blah, blah. And I looked up and, uh, it was like this, I couldn't really tell if it was like a man or a woman because her face was burned so bad that, like, I couldn't even see, like, or tell if it was a man or a woman.

And I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. And I looked away, you know, the same shit that had been happening to me. And she looks at me and she goes, man, what happened to your face? And, like, I remember, like, just dying laughing. And, like, I remember like just dying laughing and like she was laughing and she obviously got the fact that like people do that shit, you know, like, and, and, uh, and we had a conversation for like 10 minutes, man, that honestly changed my whole life. Um, and put things into perspective because here I have this, this woman who, up, what she had been in was a plane crash.

And she lived through the plane crash when everybody else died. And it was like a small plane, like the four people died and she lived. And she got burned, you know, terribly. And basically, you know, she told me her story and we talked and she knew what I was going through and we talked about that and dude, I walked out of that store fucking cured. You know what I'm saying? And that's whenever I, that's when I started taking business serious because I realized how quickly things can change, you know, and I stopped saying, dude, you know, oh, I got this face and nobody fucking loves me and all this other bullshit that you tell yourself.

And I said, dude, you know what? Fuck this. You know, I'm fucking do this. And I did it. And we're doing it. This whole thing is what taught me that there's always two sides to every coin. And, you know, the thing is now is like that's how people remember me. So I started figuring out like when I went to these trade shows, like I go to the Arnold Classic or the Olympia or these Europa shows that I go to every year. You know, when nobody really knew who we were, people remember me because they remember me as like the dude with the scars on his face.

And, dude, that's, I mean, that's cool, you know. It's something that, you know, I took that was a huge thing that most people would, including me, had that not happened to me, would curl up in a ball and let life just fucking destroy you. And I turned it into something that is like a calling card now. I mean, to the point where, like, dude, I own a fucking Lamborghini and the license plate says Scarface on it. That's how much I've accepted that as me. Well, like I said, Andy, I don't like it that you got stabbed, but it's every time I hear that story, it's just, it's awesome. And just the way you responded to it is awesome. So one of the things that we talked about doing in the MFCEO project for the podcast is not just telling really good stories that motivate people, but also

giving people practical takeaways. I mean, I feel like people, first off, I feel like it's necessary to realize that if you really want to have an awesome life, if you really want to be successful, you have to develop the perspective of finding the good. Now, I don't mean that in terms of, you know, fairytale, fluffy, you know, cottontail rabbit stuff. I mean, like, look, there's going to be bad shit that happens. There's going to be things that happen to all of us. There's going to be adversity. There's going to be things that we can't necessarily control. There's going to be situations that are going to piss you off and frustrate you and really make you want to quit. But the difference between people that are successful and people that aren't quit. But the difference between people that are successful

and people that aren't successful in life are that the people that are successful look at these situations that cause tremendous amount of heartache, headache, and pain, and they find the lessons in those situations and use them to their advantage. You know, the people who fail,

the people who end up sitting on a bar stool a Tuesday afternoon talking about how great they could have been, those are the people that look at everything that happens to them and they say, man, I got totally fucked. I got totally screwed by life. And that guy over there who's doing well, he got lucky and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know the rest of the story because reality is that's what everybody tells.

Now, I know you don't feel this way. So I want to clarify something and you can, you can flesh this out a little bit, but you're not saying that successful people say, Oh yay, I got stabbed. You're saying what? No, you're going to be fucking upset at first, you know, but, but when those feelings start to creep in and say, man, you know, this sucks, you've got to be able to say, okay, and stop yourself and develop the ability to stop yourself at that time and say, okay, well, what did I learn here? What did I learn about? I mean, and there's things that are really, really hard to, uh, to develop, uh, or, or come up with something that's good out of situations. I mean, you know, when somebody dies or a car accident

happens or, you know, people get cancer there, I mean, there's fucking horrible things that happen. And, uh, you know, a lot of times it's really hard to like develop the perspective to find good. And honestly, there is some things that just are bad. Um, you know, you look at like, I mean, as an example, I mean, one, one thing that, that I look at and I can never find anything good is whenever you see these, like, sexual predators molesting children. Right. I mean, what fucking good can you really come of that? I mean, those guys, you know, in my opinion, deserve a fucking death penalty, like, instantly.

But, and there's bad shit. But the reality is, is most of the stuff that happens to you, I would say 99, 98% of it, you can learn a lesson from how to get better. Even when someone does pass away, you know, maybe that should teach you how to, how to treat the people that you love now and that you don't take for granted. You know what I mean? I mean, I know I've had that happen to me before where things have, you know, I wish I had done X, Y, and Z while they were here. You know, I mean, there's a lot of lessons to be learned. And if you can develop the ability to instead, you know, when sales tank or when a sales strategy doesn't work out or marketing strategy doesn't work out, I mean, that's minor shit. You should be able to bank that shit and learn from it on a consistent basis.

And, you know, successful people do that and unsuccessful people go in the corner and cry and say, why me? Like a little bitch. I do think it's interesting too, that, you know, you told the story and, and you did say it was like a, what, at least a good year or two before you got over it. And so, right. And that's, you know, some people have to go to therapists and all this other shit to like get over things. And the reality is, is dude, it is what it is. And you've got to come to terms with it, you know, and the sooner you can come to terms with it. And if that takes a year, sometimes it does take time.

I mean, that's the reality. But if you come to terms with it on your own and you say, all right, this is what it is. And this is what I'm going to do now. That's a successful mindset. You know, unsuccessful mindset is, well, that happened and it ruined my life I can never be anything because I fucking look like masks now you know what I'm saying I mean dude you know it all comes down to your perspective and it comes down to how you choose to see things and the great thing about developing that mindset is that when bad shit does happen you don't get

upset about it anymore. So what happens is instead of getting pissed off and upset and crying about the bad things that happen, you automatically look at those and say, all right, that happened. A, I'm not going to do that again. And B, here's what I learned. And that's something that all successful people do and all unsuccessful people do not do. So, you know, developing the strength to have the mindset that of learning everything that you can from the setbacks that you have is a tremendous tool and advantage that you have over other people. So, you know, you have to be able to find the lessons and the things that really disturb you and the things that frustrate you and the

things that cause you pain, because those things are in your life for a reason. They're there to teach you. That's what their purpose is. If you can learn from those things, you're better off than 98% of the people because most of the people out there are going to take that. They're going to take a big kick in the balls and they're going to go sit in the corner and cry. And they're going to say, why did you kick me in the balls? Well, dude, fucking life does that. That's the reality. You get kicked in the balls. It's going to happen. Expect it. Now you're talking about developing a strength for, for seeing the good, even when bad things happen. And, and, and obviously you've talked about, uh, developing that ability, but I've, I've also heard you say that really isn't about necessarily an ability, but as just making a choice. And I think that's your second takeaway is, is, is that seeing this good and bad is really ultimately about making a choice.

Oh, absolutely. It's a, it's a conscious choice. You know, like what I just said a minute ago, eventually it becomes an automatic, but when you first start that process, you know, I had to have it pointed out to me like, hey, here's the good things that could happen from this. You know, that when you have that pointed out to you at first, you know, it's kind of like an epiphany. You're like, oh, you know, yeah, that actually is a good point. I think everybody's had that happen to him. You know, you're upset about something. You go to a friend and your friend says, you know, well, at least you learn this.

And you're like, fuck, I didn't think about it like that. So that's kind of how it starts. And that's what I'm telling you. So whatever it is, it's frustrating you in your life, whatever it is you're having problems with, whatever, what is that teaching you? What is it? What is that there for? That's there for a reason to teach you a lesson that's going to help you progress further, longer down the road. And that has to be understood. You know what I mean? And so you have to decide that, hey, all right, the X event has happened. It upset me. It hurt. It caused me a lot of pain. But I'm going to choose to believe that that happened for a reason. And that reason is to teach me so that I don't touch that hot stove again. You know, basically adversity is all in your life for a reason. It's to make you stronger. You know, people that are strong will get stronger from adversity. People that are weak will quit.

And that's it. So, you know, it's just the public speaker in me. So I'm going to recap a little bit of what you're saying. So you basically said the number one takeaway is successful people do this. They find the good in the bad. That's the first one. The second one is it's really not ultimately about developing an ability or strength. It's about making that conscious choice to find the good. What would be a third or fourth takeaway? Well, I think the third takeaway is that once you develop that skill on a regular basis, it becomes automatic and you become exponentially more powerful

because it's not a conscious decision anymore. It's just what you are. When bad things happen, you automatically say, all right, I did this. You don't look at it as like this act of God that is there to punish you. You start looking at it as like, all right, good. I'm not going to make that mistake again and we can move forward. And instead of it costing me $1 dollars today, like it did today, you know, I'm glad it happened because it would cost me $10 million 10 years from now,

you know? And that's what you have to look at, in at least a business sense. Life sense is the same thing, you know? If you're having trouble with your girlfriend and, you know, you're having relationship issues or something, and you're, let's say you're a young man, and, you know, you're having relationship issues or something and you're, let's say you're a young man and, uh, you know, you guys don't get along and this and this and this and this dude, be lucky that you, instead of getting upset, it didn't work out. Be, be glad that you didn't fucking marry her. And it ends up costing you half your shit when you're 30 years old and you're miserable, you know, or 40 or whatever. I mean, you got to admit some of that as a product of getting older and learning that. I mean, I'm ashamed to say I took almost seven years to get over a girl. Dude, I think we've all been there. I mean, let's be real. I mean, whether guy or girl listening, let's,

let's be honest with ourselves. And none of us are, none of us are that Rico Suave where we haven't been hurt pretty bad by a relationship situation. But you know, it's kind of crazy because when you're in that situation, you just assume, oh, there's no way that it's going to be better. Right. And how dumb is that it's always it's always better it's always it's always better yeah no matter how bad you hurt and how much you think uh it's not going to be better next time it's always better the next time right and that's uh it's just the way the life works man you know why because you subconsciously learn those lessons and you don't fucking go out with somebody like that again right i mean whether you want to admit it or not, you're just, as soon as that person starts

showing those characteristics, you're like, you're out next time. You're like, fuck that. Yeah. So we're on the very first episode of the MFCEO project. You thought you were just going to get great advice about entrepreneurialism and motivation, but you're also getting love advice. So, so Dr. Love, Dr. Love. Yeah.

So anything else you want to take inventory of the, of the quote unquote bad shit that's happening to you right now, take inventory of the things that you're frustrated about. And instead of being frustrated, take a piece of paper out and write down physically, like, what can I learn from this? What is the upside and how can I use this to my advantage? And it changes your perspective instead of being frustrated, now you're like, okay, it basically like takes a weight off of your shoulders. So try doing that. See how it makes you feel. And when you're in a positive mindset and you have that pressure off of you, it's a lot easier to do the things you need to do because you're not dwelling on the negative. Yeah. I like it. That's your homework for the

school of MFCEO. All right. Listen, as we do the MFCEO Project Podcast, I know that Andy wants to hear from you. So if you have questions for him or if you want to give a shout-out, follow him on Instagram, at Andy Frisella. That's F-R-I-S-E-L-L-A, Andy Frisella. And you can follow me if you want. I'm a whole lot less interesting than Andy is. It's just at Vaughn Kohler.

You can also visit our website, www.themfceo.com, and there'll be a place where you can ask Andy questions. Guys, bring me your questions. You know, I get asked a lot on Instagram. It's hard to respond there because, honestly, it just is a fucking pain in the ass typing on the phone. I'd rather answer your questions here through the podcast. So if you have questions about your business, different aspects of business, any aspects of how to perceive motivation or

basically anything, just hit us up with an email and we'll try to get to it here on the show. All right, guys, thanks for listening to the first episode of the MFCEO Project. We're going to try to bring you some fresh advice, none of this stuffy suit and tie stuff that you're gonna get anywhere else. Thanks for checking us out, this first episode of the MFCEO project. If you thought it was good, you know, tell your friends,

and then we'll talk to you next time. See ya. I'm never gonna settle