REAL AF with Andy Frisella - You Need To Be Direct, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO152

Episode Date: June 8, 2017

Good communication skills are critical to success. Unfortunately, society has become so soft and overly sensitive that people feel they need to be passive and tentative in the way they speak to others. They tone down the truth to avoid offending someone. They are vague in order to avoid hurting someone's feelings. Guess what? This doesn't work. In order to succeed personally and professionally, you need to speak clearly. You need to speak truthfully. You need to be direct.

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 this is your first time listening welcome this is an entrepreneurial self-development personal development podcast a lot of the principles we talk about are going to directly have to do with your career or how you can become better in your life. And that doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or if you're a guy who works within a company, the structure of a company. If you're somebody who's wanting to start a business, if somebody works at McDonald's and you're thinking about doing your own thing, or you're somebody that works at fucking McDonald's, you just want to

be good at what you do. Okay? So while this is considered an entrepreneurial podcast, realize that being an entrepreneur is a cultural mindset that helps you improve across all areas of life. And that's the things that we talk about here on the podcast. Guys, today, before I get into what we're going to talk about today, I want to talk to you real quick about what I would like for you guys to do for me. It's very, very important in our podcast rankings that you guys subscribe to the podcast. Okay. So if you guys could go on iTunes and you could actually subscribe to the podcast, it would be very much appreciated. And also leave us a review. We don't get paid for this. We don't ask for this. Um, in fact, I personally spend a lot of

money to do this. Uh, you know, Tyler doesn't work for free. Vaughn doesn't work for free. Um, and we give a lot of value. So guys, my deal with you is this, is if you find value in the podcast, if it helps you, if it helps you improve, it helps you think differently, if it helps you in any way possible, please actually subscribe. And then also please take a minute to leave us a review. It matters a lot for us. So thank you guys for that. Now, what I want to get into today is very, very important because I feel like it is an area of, uh, you know, life career, um, that most people struggle with and it's, it's communication. Okay. Um, a lot of people have trouble communicating because they feel like if they're communicating,

they're being confrontational. All right, guys, there is nothing confrontational about being direct. There's nothing confrontational about saying exactly what you think. There's nothing confrontational about communicating some with someone in a direct way direct way. In fact, if you're in the right organization, that's going to be highly valued. If you're in the wrong organization, it might be looked down upon. But ultimately, don't you want to be in the right organization or don't you want to build the right culture in your organization? I know I do. And I know that the way you do that is by communicating directly. And I want to talk to you guys about that for just a second. You know, normally on Thursday Thunder, we talk about motivation. We talk about, you know,

basically how to get your shit together, how to be more productive, how to think differently. This is more practical, but I think it's important and it doesn't need to, you know, be an hour long podcast. All right, guys, you have, if you're going to be successful in life, you've got to learn to be direct in your communication. You can't waste time trying to fluff around people's feelings. You can't waste time trying to beat around the bush. You can't waste time trying to get the message across without actually saying the message. All right. You've got to be direct. You've got to get the point across. And you've got to, if you're somebody who has always had trouble with this, it's going to feel weird at first. You're going to feel awkward and you're going to feel confrontational. It's

going to feel like you're confronting people, even though you're not, when you start being direct after spending a lifetime of being a passive communicator. Okay. Guys, you need to start practicing this. You need to start practicing this on a daily basis. All right. And a couple of things you can do here to help with this is this. One, A, realize that when you communicate directly, you're saving yourself time, you're saving the other person time, and you're getting the point across right away. And the right kind of people are going to value that. All right. Number two, when you communicate directly, you are stating a clear expectation and the other person that you are communicating with is going to understand that expectation in a very precise way. That means when you tell someone,

hey, I expect this to be done this way in this time frame and it needs to be done exactly how I tell you this right now, you're going to get exactly what you asked for. And if you don't, you could deal with it because the expectations weren't, were made clear. Now, in most situations, people, you know, they give 70% of the info they want, and they don't communicate directly. And then what happens is the person goes off and does the project, it comes back, and it's not what you wanted. And then you're upset with the person. Then they're upset because they thought they're giving you what they wanted. And it just creates a total clusterfuck of confusion.

Okay. Why are people not direct? Why are people have a trouble being direct? Well, I'll tell you why. Because society has become so pussified and so soft and so accommodating to everyone's point of view and everyone's feelings and everyone's wishes and wants that when you communicate directly now, you're going to be perceived as an asshole. You're going to be perceived as a dick. You're going to be perceived as an asshole. You're going to be perceived as a dick. You're going to be perceived as someone who's a jerk. You're going to be told that you're not a people person. When in reality, guys, I would argue by communicating directly, you are going to

eliminate the time and the progression of someone else's career because you are shortening that time span by being direct, being more efficient, getting things done, which makes you a lot more of a people person because you actually fucking care about the progression of the people in your organization. And that can go for a manager, go for an owner and go for any level of somebody who's a leader in an organization. So guys, when you communicate direct, I would argue that you're more of a people person than somebody who flip flams around and flounders around with their communication. All right. Think about it, guys. What kind of communication do you prefer? Do you

want somebody to share their expectations exactly with you? Or would you rather someone give you 70% of the truth and you have to figure out the rest of the 30% all right you can't help it if someone's too big of a pussy to handle direct communication you can't help it if someone gets their feelings hurt because you're simply direct and they're that fucking delicate in reality the best thing that could happen to them is for you to help callous them up because the real world doesn't give a fuck how offensive or how hard or how direct communication is. You just deal with the facts. You deal with reality.

You know, the real world isn't going to soften its message for someone just because they were raised in a household and a school program that was never direct with them, never held them accountable, and always made them feel like their feelings matter. In the real world, guys, your feelings don't fucking matter. They just don't. Okay. In the real world, you are going to get stomped on. In the real world, you're going to get punched in the face. And by being a direct communicator, you're helping people understand that even though that happens, it's okay. All right. And I can tell you this, you know, I'm a very direct communicator. I communicate very directly and far in a way, the response is much more appreciative and,

and respectful and thankful for that kind of communication than it was before I really became a direct communicator. You know, I wasn't always this way. I became this way. I taught myself to be this way. All right. For the first, you know, 10, 12 years I was in business, I used to try to manipulate people's feelings to get them to see what it is I wanted them to see and do what I wanted them to do and be, you know, try to like convince them. That's not your job as a leader. Your job as a leader is to make the fucking decision and put the fucking action in play to make that decision materialize your decision. You're, you're, you know, this whole thing of like, everybody's got to buy in and everybody's got to do this and everybody's got to do that. Let me tell you something on a great, a great communicator will get buy-in from their employees because they're good communicator. But you know what, when you first start becoming a direct communicator and you first start, especially when your business is not established, saying you're going to do this or you're going to do that or putting out these big dreams and big goals, your employees are going to look at you like you're fucking crazy.

They're not going to believe in you because you're not proven. Okay. And when you communicate in a way where you're trying to convince them, you're delaying the result that you're after because it's going to be impossible to convince them. So you've got to step up. You've got to be the leader. You've got to say, hey, this is what we're doing. I know you might not believe in it right now, but you'll believe in it in six months whenever you see this fucking happen. And let me tell you, there's nothing more powerful than that. Because when you have someone who you both acknowledge doesn't believe in your plan, and then it goes out and happens, you know, they will trust you from that point forward usually. So you have a situation where you can earn that trust. And that's very effective in business long term.

Now, guys, am I saying go out and be an asshole? No, I'm not saying go out and be an asshole. Am I saying go out and disrespect your people? No, I'm not saying go out and disrespect your people. What I'm saying is communicate directly, tell people exactly what you expect, and then put them in play to go accomplish those tasks. You know, there's all kinds of people in the world. And one of my biggest failures as a leader has always been that I was not direct enough, which is why I've become very direct because it works much better. Okay. I used to always spend a lot of time trying to convince people and trying to ask people and trying to, you know, and then finally I embraced my role

as a leader. And I say, you know what, you're going to fucking go do this. And then you're going to feel good about it because you're going to see that I was right. And I embraced my role as a leader and I said, you know what? You're going to fucking go do this. And then you're going to feel good about it because you're going to see that I was right. And I took my role as leadership more serious and I went about it more serious and I went about it more direct. And guess what happened? Our productivity went up. Our growth went up. People moved up.

We created new careers. Everybody's making more money and everybody's fucking happy. All right. So you have, and it all starts with communicating directly, you know, just because the politically correct thing out there right now is to fucking pussyfoot around the issue and not offend anybody and this and that, that has no place in business. That has no place in business. You should think of it as a fucking battle. You know, we're playing, we're playing a game against a hundred other companies, a thousand other. We're playing a game against a hundred other companies, a thousand other companies that we're trying to get a market share against.

And we've got to be efficient. We've got to be effective. And you've got to step up and be the fucking man that calls the fucking shots. And far too many of you guys, CEOs and managers and leaders are not taking that initiative. And the reason you don't take that initiative is a, you're afraid to communicate directly and B you don't do the shit that you fucking ask your employees to do. You don't lead by example. You don't go out there and try to do everything they do. Instead, you try to utilize them as little worker bees and you sit with your fucking feet on your desk. And you know what? I don't care how direct you are.

If you fucking operate like that, you'll never have your people's respect. So guys, you have to communicate direct and you have to be willing to do what you ask your people to do. And you have to be able to do it better. And if you can remember those two things and you consistently put those things in play, your business will grow. Your career will grow. Your confidence will grow. Your respect will grow. Everything will grow, guys, because everybody appreciates direct communication. Now, there's going to be people out there when you start doing this and be like, oh, what's up your ass? Are you in a bad mood? No, I'm not in a bad mood. I'm just trying to get shit done. You know, it's not, Oh, you know what? Why are you so crabby today? I'm not crabby.

Our job here is to do this and I'm trying to get this done. Now let's go get this done. You understand that work is not fucking social hour. It's not donuts around the fucking coffee machine or water cooler. Work is about a mission. It's about accomplishing something. And the way you accomplish shit is by having a clear cut plan with direct communication, machine or water cooler. Work is about a mission. It's about accomplishing something. And the way you accomplish shit is by having a clear cut plan with direct communication. You sir, go do this. You sir, go do this. You ma'am, go do this. And we'll meet back at the end of the day and see where the fuck we got. It's not up for debate. It's not up for fucking discussion. Are there times that we discuss these things? Absolutely. Are there times that we take everybody's feedback? Absolutely. But your job as a leader, your job as a communicator, your job as the fucking shot caller of your company is to take everybody's views and decide

which direction is the best to take. It is not to please everybody in the fucking room. It's to take whatever could be the best decision and make that decision and then delegate the tasks that need to go out and happen for those things to happen for the betterment of your fucking team. And until you can understand the role that direct communication plays in that, you will never, ever, ever be successful. There is not one CEO on earth. There's not one successful business person on earth who has built a business that doesn't communicate directly with the people in their company. It just doesn't exist. It's a key trait. It's a key factor. And if you're going to be successful in life, guys, whether, like I said, you work within the framework of

another company, whether you work for yourself and you're the only person or whether you're the CEO or manager or whatever your role is, you have got to learn to be direct and you've got to start now. Okay. So quit fucking beating around the bush, quit worrying about people's feelings, quit worrying about what they're going to say about you when they go home. Because at the end of the day, when you do right by people and you're making the right decisions and people go out and they better their career, you better your company, they better their pay, they better their growth, they better their lifestyle. They are going to be fucking thankful for your direct communication. And that's the bottom line.