911. Q&AF: Stay Or Leave, Leading Young Employees & Finding Direction After A Layoff

Yeah, when we're sleeping on the floor, now my jury box froze.

Fuck up bowl, fuck a stove.

Counted millions in a cold.

Bad bitch, booted swole.

Got her own bank rope.

Can't fold, just a no.

Headshot, case close, close, close.

What is up, guys?

It's Andy Prissela and this is the show for the realists.

Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society.

And welcome to motherfucking reality, guys.

Today we have QAF.

That's where you submit the questions and we give you the answers you can submit your questions a couple different ways first way is guys email these questions into askandy at andyforsella.com or you go on youtube

you go in the bio there underneath the video on the q a f episodes click the link you can submit your

question to be answered live on the show is that correct

that is correct all right that's how we do it here now

since it is monday i'm gonna give you the rundown for the week.

We're going to have CTI.

That stands for Cruise the Internet.

That's where we put topics on the screen.

We speculate on what's going on, what's true, what's not true, and then we talk about how we, the people, have to solve these problems going on in the world.

Other times, we're going to have real talk.

Real talk is just five to 20 minutes.

I'm going to be giving you some real talk.

And then we have 75 hard verses occasionally, okay?

If you're unfamiliar with the 75 hard program, you you can get it episode 208 on the audio feed.

Again, that's 208 on the audio feed.

75 Hard is the initial phase of the Live Hard program, which is the world's most famous mental transformation program ever.

And again, it's free.

So it's episode 208 on the audio feed.

Occasionally, we bring people on who have used the program to turn their life from a dumpster fire into a spectacular palace of winning.

I think that's accurate.

Right?

So there is also a book.

The book is available at AndyForsella.com.

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Yeah.

What's up?

Morning.

Morning.

I had fun with you last night.

You had fun with me last night?

That was fun.

It was a good time.

Yeah.

Good time.

We should do that.

We did not do anything gay.

Just for clarification.

No, it was a good time, though, man.

It was a good time.

We watched the UFC fight last night.

Yeah, man.

Poirier's last fight.

Yeah, Poirier's last fight.

It was a good fight.

It was a great fight.

He got his ass whooped.

It was a good fight.

I don't even think he got his ass whooped.

I thought it was a pretty good fight.

Yeah.

I mean, definitely Holloway had the upper hand more of the fight, which is why he won.

But

I thought it was pretty good.

We also have a

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu legend in studio.

All right.

One of the top-ranked BJJ BJJ up-and-comers, right here, sitting next to you.

We should do, like, you know, how uh, they do the interviews in the ring.

You know, you should just uh, you just ruined it.

What's it like to be uh a BJJ legend?

It's great, it's great, man.

Of many words, come here, come here, come here.

Look, all right, we got we got Madat here, yeah, but why do you like to roll with guys?

So, Madat

won his tournament.

What did you get?

Two first place?

No, just one.

I was the only one bracket.

Really?

Yeah.

Well, I didn't do it open weight.

It's another first place.

You're leading by like, what, 200 points in the rankings?

100 or something, yeah.

Yeah.

So he's doing very well.

He's doing great.

Yeah.

Doing great.

So we just have to acknowledge that as well.

What's your secret, dude?

Consistency.

Yeah.

Oh, it's not just luck?

Overnight success?

You didn't just come out of bed kicking everybody's ass?

Unfortunately, not.

Yeah.

He's been grinding.

How long have you been doing it?

It's been, what, three years now?

Three and a half.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's awesome, dude.

We got winners here, man.

Winners on the street, bro.

Fucking win.

Winners win.

Winners fucking win, man.

Well, sweet.

Let's get into

some questions.

Let's help other people win.

How about that?

I'm down with that.

QAF.

So let's make some people better today.

We're going to start with the call.

Get things going nice and easy.

Let's give our boy Hunter a call.

Hunter.

hunter

hunter hunter i wonder if he hunts

you writing his jokes

i get them straight from z yeah

what is going on he hunts 100 he hunts what's up

What's up, dude?

What's going on, DJ?

What's going on, brother?

Hunter, what's up, dude?

How's it going andy doing good bro how are you where are you calling from

we are from like northern kentucky cincinnati area i have my wife and a good friend of mine and his wife in the car all right what are you guys up to today

we're heading home from the lake all right bro he hunt you do you hunt hunter

i have before okay once i don't miss Once doesn't count as a hunter.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I guess that's true.

Yeah, just just like that time you did that gay shit.

That's right.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah, 50 bucks, 50 bucks.

You know what I'm saying?

Well, it was Black Friday.

It was half off.

25 bucks.

Hunter, what's going on with the door busters?

How can we help you?

Not a whole lot.

So I guess I could just read my question.

But it's basically, I guess I'll give you a background.

I I work for a plumbing contractor.

And I'm not a plumber.

I'm a project manager, estimator.

I kind of do a little bit of everything.

But recently it's been pretty tough because I try to value loyalty and sticking around.

But they've kind of admitted that I'm out of sight, out of mind because I'm in like a separate department.

So I've had a struggle with opportunity because they continue to tell me like I'm too young to do this, I'm too young to do that.

And it's it's just been trying to decide like what's best for me.

Do I

stay doing what I'm doing, keep my head down and grinding, and hope that eventually like the opportunity comes?

Or do I try to find another place to go where I know for sure there's opportunity guaranteed?

If that makes sense.

How old are you?

I'm 24.

Okay, so like dudes that were 19 founded the country.

I'm pretty sure you're old enough to do whatever the fuck you want to do.

Let's be real.

I would agree.

Yeah.

All right.

What do you you think you should do?

Kind of think that

it's worth looking.

Like, I've kind of started looking around and kind of talking to other companies and seeing what's out there.

And

I kind of feel like it's not a bad idea to get kind of some exposure to other companies and see what they offer and make sure that it's not me thinking wrong

and seeing if the opportunity is there.

You mean like

the grass is always greener type scenario?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let me ask you this, Deb.

I'm kind of.

Go ahead.

No, go ahead.

I was going to say, I'm kind of leaning towards recently leaning towards staying and just kind of just being completely honest with them and opening up and saying, like, I know this is why you guys make a lot of decisions because of my age.

But, I mean, if you give me a chance, like, I'll prove it kind of, kind of deal.

Yeah, bro.

I mean, I was running my own shit at 19 years old.

Not that I was very good at it, but I mean, we got to be be bad at things before we get good at them.

Yeah.

Let me ask you this, dude.

Do you want to, is this the job you want to do for your whole life?

Yeah,

I think so.

That's the thing.

Like, I feel like

I've been at the company a little over four years.

So, like, I enjoy the people I'm around.

I enjoy what I do.

That's a big deal.

And I just don't know if I've, if I've had enough time in it to say, like, okay, this is exactly what I want to do the rest of my life.

But I do enjoy what I do.

Well, that's a huge deal, bro.

A lot of people do things they hate for money, and they end up ruining their lives.

So, um,

yeah.

So,

all right.

Here's what I would do if I were you.

I would go to your

company and I would say, hey, look,

I love what I do.

I love, I love what I'm doing here.

I want to progress.

I want to build.

I want to be a more important part of the company.

I want a career path.

I'm 24 years old.

I'm very hungry.

I want this company to win.

What can I do more to be more involved?

What do you guys need done?

And then listen to what they say.

And if they say something, you know, that

sounds like they're not down with that.

I think it's important for you to have an open mind about finding a different career path because the last thing that you are with another company, the last thing you want to do is get trapped in some company that's stale and isn't wanting to grow or do things

because somebody else is comfortable.

That's not what you want to do.

Yeah.

All right.

So

I would clarify that.

I think, you know, just being honest with them, being direct with them, being professional with them will probably garner you a lot of respect and help diminish that

feeling they have about you being too young.

A lot of times when

young men

make it known that they've thought about their careers, they are serious about their careers,

it garners respect from the leadership.

They stop looking at them as little

kids and start looking at them as grown men.

And those things come from honest conversations

that you should never be afraid to have, especially when it's in terms of your career.

So it sounds to me like you have a pretty good grasp on this, bro, but you just need to communicate a little better and a little more directly.

And I bet with a little bit more communicating directly, these guys are going to have a little more respect for you, which is probably going to open some doors.

The one thing I will say, when you first

started talking about this, you said something about waiting for the opportunity to come.

Don't fucking do that.

Okay.

Opportunities are never coming.

You have to assume they're never coming.

A lot of people will wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for an opportunity that never comes.

The whole idea of opportunity is you have to take it.

You have to capitalize on it.

You have to develop the skill set that is needed to capitalize on that opportunity.

And to be honest, dude, you're going to have to break the motherfucking doors down on your own because nobody wants to give the new guy opportunity.

They see it

as a threat.

They see it as, you know, Hunter's going to take some of this or some of this of mine or some of my hours or some of my salary.

And the only types of people that really value ambition when it comes from young people are the ownership and leadership of the company that wants to grow beyond where they are right now.

So like, dude,

don't wait.

That's the biggest thing.

Do not fucking wait.

Go in, assert yourself, be a leader.

Don't be afraid because you're young that they're not going to take you serious.

They're not going to take you serious unless you go in and force your way in.

So

that would be the one thing that I would say, you know, you need to tweak your thinking on a little bit from what you said.

Yeah.

And I've, I've kind of sort of already done that where I've explained to them that I'm not happy with exactly what I'm doing.

I want to do more.

I'm hungry.

I'm young.

I got the time.

I got the motivation.

I got the discipline.

And they've kind of sort of brushed it off.

So I did sit down with a couple other companies and kind of talk to them.

And I just don't want to sit around and wait and hope that, you know, this other company gives me a better offer.

And then, like you said, grass isn't always greener.

I show up there and I hate it.

And I'm like, man, I regret that.

Yeah.

For sure, dude.

I mean, it's a big decision.

No doubt.

The best bet that you have is to come to some sort of

an agreement.

About where you're going to go in the company that you're in.

You already have investment in for sure.

Yeah.

But if they're closed, bro, sometimes they're not open to that.

So you just got to be prepared, which it sounds like you are.

Yeah, and I think it's hard because, like you said,

their exact mindset is they have guys that are afraid to have somebody trained under them because they think they're going to take their job or kind of push them out of the way.

Yeah, well, that's a them problem.

You know what I'm saying?

That's not a you problem.

You got to worry about you, bro.

Nobody's going to worry about you.

They're not, you have any kids?

no okay but are you planning on it someday

uh hopefully soon yeah yeah so you better start you know thinking of when these people do that they're taking food off your table you know what i'm saying like bro nobody gives a shit man they just don't And a lot of times, because we're nice people and we're good-hearted people, we think that other people are going to like let us eat, but they're just not, bro.

It's not the way the world works.

And so you have to fucking remember that it is your job as a man to go out and make shit happen for yourself.

And dude, none of these other dudes are going to want to give you anything that they have.

So you've either got to go in and fucking take it or you've got to make your own

lane to where you can become very valuable and be able to take care of you and your family, which dude, you know.

At 24 and you're already thinking the way that you're thinking, I don't think it's going to be a problem for you.

Most dudes at 24 are still sitting in their mom's basement fucking video game headset on.

You know what I mean?

Drinking hot pockets.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, unfortunately, that's the truth.

So,

yeah, bro, I think you got to figure it out for the most part, dude.

Go in there and fucking tell them what you're going to do.

And if they don't agree to it, just go take it anyway.

I love it.

Yeah.

Well,

I appreciate your guys' time.

Yeah, brother.

I really appreciate what you guys do for this country.

And

it's just, I think we need more people like that.

And I'm glad you guys are taking your time and energy to do that for this world.

You're doing it.

That's the reason we do this.

So young men like you will go out and take their lives seriously and kick ass.

So thank you.

Love it.

Yeah.

All right, brother.

Appreciate you, brother.

Have a good one.

Thanks, Andy.

Thanks.

All right, Jay.

See you guys.

You got to be like, and I don't want to say be careful, but like, it's cool to say, hey, I'm going to come and do all of this and do all of this, do all of this.

But isn't that like a piece of that, too, where like maybe the leadership is looking like, well, I mean, we've had a bunch of 24-year-old kids that all said the same fucking thing.

Dude, look.

That haven't done anything.

Yes.

The thing isn't

say you're going to do this.

It's do the shit, create the value, and then ask later.

Right.

That's the thing.

You know, everybody comes in and says, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to be great.

I'm going to blah, blah, blah.

And they want the pay up front.

They want the opportunity up front.

That is not how it fucking works.

Them dudes hurry that shit at the end.

It doesn't work anywhere.

It doesn't work anywhere.

Think of it if you work for yourself, dude.

And you said,

you know, you're going to cut grass and you show up to someone's house.

You've never cut their grass before.

And you're going to charge twice as much.

And you're, and, and, and then you tell them, they're like, dude, it's twice as much.

You're going to say, yeah, I'm doing twice as good of a job.

They've never seen you do it.

Right.

Right?

No one's buying that.

Okay.

But if you go in there and you mow the grass, and the stripes are perfect, and the everything's trimmed nice, and there's not a blade of grass out of place, and all the leaves are picked up, and everything's perfect, okay.

And then you hand them the bill, and the bill is twice as much,

they're going to say, Why is it twice as much?

You'd be like, Look how great of a job I did, and then there's going to be at least a thought process there, right?

You know what I mean?

For sure.

You might not get twice as much, but maybe you get

a 50% increase.

you know what i mean yeah um so you have to do the job and then

have the ask for the for the opportunity or the money that's that's how it works you know like

i can't think of a situation that it doesn't work that way yeah yeah dude it was just ringing through my head man because like i mean you've told like we've had you know plenty of conversations on this but it's just like you know well they don't believe why would they believe in you yeah why right you know what i'm saying like

here's the reality there you here's the reality dude if they were to pay you up front you wouldn't do that great of a job.

Oh, man.

That's human fucking nature, bro.

Everybody knows it.

Yeah.

You think you're going to be the one guy that like

transforms the way humans have been for, you know,

12,000 years?

You're not.

People know.

So, like, do a great job.

Show what you can do.

Then go in.

If I was Hunter, bro, I would, I would be doing, I would put myself in a position inside that company where the company really legitimately couldn't run without me.

That's what I would do.

I would work myself into that position.

Then I would say, hey, by the way,

here's the deal.

I would like to do this and this and this.

And I would like to get paid something more like this.

And have a conversation after you've displayed the value.

That's how it fucking works.

Pay us what you owe us, right?

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll talk about that tomorrow.

That's tomorrow, guys.

I do love it, though.

Man, sick.

Let's keep this.

Let's keep it moving.

I got to write it in for you.

Okay.

Let's go.

Question number two.

Hey, Andy.

Hey.

So I worked for a very small software company for 12 years.

And about eight months ago, I was offered the opportunity to buy out the owner who had basically just given up and was ready to move on.

We worked out a very reasonable deal and just wrapped up the transition.

I have six employees.

All of which have been here for less than two years and all are under the age of 26.

Saying that to say this, I'm an old school tech guy.

I love what I do, but never really took the responsibility of leading seriously or put the time in to better it.

But after a few months of now running the business, these kids have lost their minds.

And I see why the old owner left.

Typically, this line of work is independent teamwork.

So we all have our parts to play, but it's not day-to-day real group teamwork.

And we will need that to move forward.

I know my employees know how to do their jobs, but they are just lazy.

And it's excuse after excuse to get things moving and done on time.

And I simply don't have the patience for it.

My mind is saying fire all of them and start fresh, but my heart is saying to try to get them realigned, but I don't have the skills of real leadership to do so.

I really respect your advice and would love to help here.

There's two parts to this question.

Number one, it's important to understand, and I give you credit for this, that just because you're skilled at one area and just because you own a company does not make you a leader and certainly doesn't make you a great leader.

All right.

And you already recognize that.

And that's a huge, huge, huge thing because most people that have companies, they call themselves the CEO.

They assume that they're a great leader because they have employees, not if their employees are actually productive or working as a team or developing as individuals.

They just say, I'm a leader because I'm CEO.

And that's just not the case.

So I give you a lot of credit there for recognizing that.

It's very similar to like guys that go to medical school for 12 years and then think that they can run a business because they went to fucking become a doctor or people who are lawyers that think they can run a business because they went to law school.

It's a different skill set and leadership is one of the skill sets inside that skill set.

So you're going to have to learn it.

And it sounds like you're committed to learning it.

And you will commit to learning it your entire life if you want to be any good at it.

So

that being said,

there's a lot of things to consider with the reality of how your employees are performing.

Number one, is it you?

Is it your leadership, your lack of leadership, your unskilled leadership that's creating a scenario where these people are not performing the way that you want.

You have to answer that question up front.

Yes or no?

If

that's not the case and you feel like you are dealing with people who,

you know, like you said, have lost their mind.

Look, man,

here's the reality, dude.

Sometimes you got to burn motherfuckers' asses, okay?

Sometimes you got to get all the way up on them to where they are fucking super uncomfortable to get people to perform.

And sometimes people won't take you seriously until you get like that.

Nobody likes to get like that.

I don't like getting like that.

But sometimes when people don't believe, especially in the early days, when you're trying to do something great, you are going to have to do it by fucking force.

And that is by any means necessary.

So a lot of things today, people are like, well, I don't like the way he talked to me.

Well, how about this?

You're fucking fired.

How about that?

You like that?

You like the way I talked to you there?

You like that.

Okay.

Because, dude, here's the reality.

There's not much opportunity out there.

There's not as much opportunity out there as a lot of people think.

We're moving towards AI.

Jobs are getting eliminated.

If you're not of high skill and you don't contribute, you won't have a job anywhere because it's going to sweep across the entire fucking job market.

So,

especially in tech, okay?

You got these tech guys who have for years and years and years and years and years hid behind their magic knowledge of code.

And,

you know, you ask them about when things are going to be done.

And they say, oh, well, I don't know.

And we don't, it's just, you know, it's a little harder than we thought or it's not realistic.

Dude, these people have lost their leverage.

They don't have the leverage you think they have or that they think they have.

So the reality here is this.

You hold all the cards.

They hold none.

If you have a clear mission, a clear vision,

and you paint that for them and you continue to lead that way and people still aren't doing what they do.

And you've made it very clear this is going to happen regardless.

Yeah, maybe sometimes it is.

You know, what you need to do is get rid of them.

I don't know if you have six.

I don't know if you need to get rid of all six.

You might need to get rid of one or two.

Find out who's causing the cancer.

Find out who's causing the

cultural infestation of laziness because you're probably not dealing with six people that are fucked up.

You're probably dealing with one or two that are infecting the rest of them.

And I bet it would be the one or two people that you think are probably the best.

And the reason I say that is this,

because inside that little culture of six people, there is a leader.

Okay.

And the leadership inside

those little bubbles usually comes from the person who has the most skill.

So if you want to dig deep into where the cancer is,

you should look at the person with the most skill first.

Because in that little six-person group, those people naturally look at that person as the, as the ringleader.

Okay, sometimes it's not, but from my experience, that's where

we usually find it.

But yeah, man, you know, we live in this politically correct society.

I think it's actually over now.

I think people are back to their fucking sanity.

And,

you know, here's the truth, dude.

You're not doing anybody any favors by letting them coast.

You're not doing anybody favors in their life by letting them fucking slack.

You're not doing people any favors by letting them walk all over you or think that they have the leverage.

Sometimes you just got to fucking become a motherfucking monster and let these motherfuckers know who the fuck is in charge.

That's the truth.

And people don't like that.

People will say, oh, that's not how you do things.

Well, here's the reality, bro.

What's the scoreboard say?

Because the scoreboard says a lot to a little for every motherfucker that leads that way.

I don't know what to tell you.

Do you want to win or do you want to lose?

Okay.

And that's that.

and if they don't respond to that then fucking get rid of them and reality is you could find apps that'll program for you now so a lot of employees for the last 15 years

have been coddled have been made to believe that

Their opinions or their political stances or the pronouns in their fucking bios or all this shit matters and it doesn't fucking matter and it never mattered.

All right.

Here's what matters.

Do you put points on the motherfucking scoreboard or don't you?

And that's it.

And we're back to that.

We're back to that legally.

Okay.

This idea that we have to put people in positions because they are

diverse or they're a woman or they're this person or that person.

That's over.

You can, without guilt and should, for the interest of your company, yourself, everybody that's in your company, play the best motherfuckers on the field.

That's it.

Okay.

And all this other shit doesn't fucking matter.

And you say, well, I don't, you know, I don't know about that.

Okay.

Well, are you helping the families of those five other people by playing someone in that sixth position who's not as good and shouldn't be there?

No, you're hurting all of them.

So you have to understand, dude, this happens by force.

Every fucking company that ever won anything or did anything great.

Legitimately,

their leader was a fucking tyrant sometimes.

That was the truth.

Because you have to fucking force it.

You look at fucking what people say about Elon.

You look at what people say about Jobs.

You look at what people say about Bill Belichick.

You look at what people say about Saban.

Yeah, he's calm until he isn't.

Right?

What you see.

Yeah.

Dude, you got to have the fucking monster in you, bro.

And people got to respect it.

And, you know, I don't like bringing that out.

But in the early days of our business, I had to bring it out a lot because people didn't believe.

They didn't think I was serious.

They thought that we were going to fucking coast our way there.

And you know what?

Almost every single one of those motherfuckers has, they're still my friend.

And they tell me on a regular basis how grateful they are that I was hard on them because now they're doing something real in a different area of their life.

So you're not doing anybody any favors by being fucking, you know, their buddy, quote unquote, and letting them slide by.

Yeah.

I was thinking about this too, because, you know, there's an age-old saying of like pressure makes diamonds, right?

Like, how many times, I guess, have you seen it?

And I'm not saying it happens every time, but like where you have to apply that fire to, you know, a couple of people or whatever, have you, and they end up becoming your best fucking people.

Absolutely.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, so what's the reality of that?

I mean, look, dude.

That's saying, I guess.

I think there's a lot of truth to it.

I think you can overpressure people and break them for sure.

But,

you know, I think in most cases, people only do their best work when they have to do their best work.

You know, no one does their best work when there's no pressure.

No one's just sitting around and, you know,

creates this amazing, you know, piece of

or this amazing innovation and business or product or this or that under no pressure.

It doesn't happen like that.

It happens under pressure.

So,

yeah, I mean, I think it's a big, huge part.

And, and, uh,

you know, if you don't apply pressure, you're going to have people that don't really produce.

And that's that, man.

Yeah.

You know, like, do you really think you're going to get the six employees who want to run the score up to a hundred just on their own?

That's not how the fuck it works.

You're the fucking leader, bro.

You set the standards, you set the expectations, and it's their job to meet them or get the fuck out.

And that's that.

That's how the world works.

That's how the world works.

And if you're a good leader, you will figure out that when you allow them to grow their position, their role inside of those wins, you start to get a team that buys in.

And when they buy in, everybody wins because the company grows.

They grow.

It's way more fun when things are winning.

And

yeah, that's that.

But sometimes, bro, it's not that fun.

Sometimes it's not fun.

You know, like a lot of people think that when

a coach or

a CEO or somebody has to get like, you know, a manager has to get fucking rowdy.

They think that that person likes that.

They don't like that.

They would much rather not do that.

They would much rather walk in and just say, hey, can you please do that?

But the problem is, is if you're honest with yourself, you don't.

So

if you don't want to get fucking,

you know, it's like they say, if you don't want to fucking smoke,

you know, do your fucking job.

Yeah, right.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's interesting today how we deal with people who think that like showing up on time and staying till fucking, you know, the last minute of the day is somehow like, like, that's it.

No, that's the standard.

No, they think that that's worth celebrating, bro.

Like, I can't tell you how many times I've had people in my career come up to me and say, I deserve more.

I work hard.

I show up on time.

I stay till five o'clock.

It's like, yeah, that's called your fucking job, bro.

You know, so so we have this, this issue with a younger employee, especially who've never had to compete, never had to like go hard, never had any pressure, never told that, you know,

you don't get a trophy for 17th place, you get a trophy for first fucking place.

And we're, we're dealing with in the job market with the younger people, a situation of

bad parenting choices over the last couple decades, you know and uh

that's what we got so at the end of the day bro um

there's plenty of people out there that want to win yeah you know last little piece on this because you know he's you know talked about leadership too do you have a couple of book recommendations that i guess what would be a good place to start bro i think one of the simplest things of the lead the simplest bro there's two books that i like a lot about leadership okay

actually three books one is called the Lombardi Rules.

It's very short.

It's easy to read.

The rules are very clear and they are very, very accurate.

Two, there's a book on John Wooden.

I think it's just called Wooden.

It's a black book with his face on it.

If you don't know who John Wooden is, he's one of the most famous, successful

NCAA basketball coaches of all time.

Yeah, Wooden on leadership.

That's the name of the book.

And then the third book is Extreme Ownership by my friend Jocko Willick.

Those three books give you a really good understanding comprehensively of what leadership's about.

But none of them will say you have to crawl all the way up someone's fucking ass to get him to move.

And sometimes that's reality.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the Andy book.

Yeah.

I love it, man.

I love it.

We got one more question here.

Let's do another call-in to finish things off.

We have Andrew.

Fancy.

Good guy.

Let's give him a call.

Good afternoon.

This is Andrew.

Wow.

That was very fancy there, Andrew.

Is this who I think it is?

Yeah, what's up, man?

It's DJ.

Holy shit, dude.

You know, I'll tell you what, I stayed up late last night and I woke up and I see this text message.

I'm like, he's been selected again for Andy's show.

I got one on Friday.

I'm like, man, I think I stayed up too late last night watching UFC fights.

I got to be confused because there ain't no way the boss man is making them work on the Sunday, huh?

Oh, yeah.

Every day, 24 hours.

I don't even let these motherfuckers sleep.

Yep.

Yep.

Man, got to win, man.

That's how it works.

Yeah.

What's up, brother?

How are you?

Hey, I'm doing great, man.

How are you?

It's very nice to finally meet you guys.

Truly believe Manifestation is Real.

And

honestly, it's a complete honor to be here.

It's a little weird.

I've been listening to you guys every day for probably too long now.

I want to say at least the last four years.

Well, did you start a revolution?

Did you start a revolution yet?

You know what I mean?

I'm working on it.

My girlfriend's on my side now.

She's on the show.

She's listening to it.

And,

you know, doing the best I can to share it every day.

I swear I'm not a hoe.

Love it.

All right.

Well, as long as you got one person, I know you're doing the work.

So what's up, bro?

What can we help you with today?

Oh, man.

All right.

Yeah.

Where do I get started?

I guess first off and foremost, honestly, I'm a little bit of a gapper, so please feel free to shut me up.

But I just want to thank you guys.

I mean, like I said, I've been listening for years now.

And this has been not only a great source of entertainment, but also education.

I know many people my age, younger, older, kind of all feel pretty similar.

Also, I got to feel bad.

I got to be honest, I feel a little bad how many times I have to hear you repeat yourself, Andy, with the constant, constant similar questions.

So, I really hope this isn't it.

Also, I wanted to congratulate you guys on winning Le Man.

That is absolutely incredible.

Yeah, I mean, I've been a motorsport fan my whole life.

So, motorsport first, and then kind of came into business, and then followed you guys.

And then,

obviously, through following you, I started following Ryan Hardwick.

And then, through that whole journey from a few years ago saying you were going to win to now, that's just honestly incredible.

And watching it, I had goosebumps the whole time.

And I woke up and saw the results.

I just, you know, it was amazing.

As a fan, not only of the sport, but as of the brand, it's such an incredible accomplishment.

And just wanted to congratulate you guys.

Thank you, bro.

That's awesome.

Thank you, bro.

Yeah, man.

Right.

So, my question: I mean, I had it typed out, you know, under 60 words, and I guess I can mock that.

But long story short,

you know, in the

60 frames or less, I'm 28.

I just got laid off for my first six-figure job.

I got brought on.

I was actually poached from my last firm, and I got brought on to this bigger firm.

I'm pretty much a sales rep, business development rep for a custom integration firm.

we do high-end residential construction lighting projects a v projects home theater things of that nature

and yeah so I was working for this company for about six months you know I had a bunch of initiatives and targets to hit and I was kind of crushing it all it was nothing but praise for my management for the full six months

And then last Friday, I got called into the office kind of short term.

And long story short, they kind of ran me through.

The company had a really poor first quarter and second quarter collecting cash that was outstanding from previous proposals.

And they had to let me go.

And

to be honest with you, man, it crushed me.

You know, I take my work very personal.

You know, and not only that, I've kind of forged this path completely on my own.

And I'm really proud to be where I am.

I mean, four years ago, I was in a ditch digging holes to pull wire.

I mean, I was signed up to be a union electrician and I was going through an apprenticeship program.

And,

you know, honestly, after listening to your show every single day in the ditch, I just

knew I wanted more for myself.

And I knew that, you know, the union wasn't going to provide for me what I personally wanted to achieve.

And, you know, obviously nothing against anyone who's chasing that dream.

And I'm sure it can still provide a great career and a stable life for many people who want to live it.

But I just wanted to chase more.

you know and i listened to episode 208 um i did my first live hard program and um unfortunate to be completely transparent i i didn't keep it going as long as i probably should have um

you know and back then i had wrote down all of my goals and i had mapped out what i wanted my life to be um you know and i think kind of the biggest problem i had with that exercise is i just the the the main thing that I couldn't identify is what I wanted to do.

So I just figured out that the best thing I could do from the union was to get back into sales.

So I need a few years to kind of forge my way through and I finally found this little industry.

And to be honest with you, since last Friday, a lot's happened.

I've already had five interviews in the industry.

I have two second round interviews scheduled for next week.

You know, I have to travel to Long Island to go ahead and meet one of the big firms as a competitor.

And I even left my last firm with letters of recommendation from both my CEO and my sales manager.

So,

you know, this was just a big shock.

And I take my clients very personal.

I mean, these, these relationships that we build, you know, we're dealing with a lot of private clients, high-net worth individuals, celebrities.

I mean, kind of you name it, you know, we do it.

And, you know, building that connection with these clients and advising them over the years of

you know, what technology to use in their new projects or whatever it might be, you know, although it might sound simple to me, I took a lot of of pride in it.

So, to kind of have it stripped away from me, I just felt totally lost.

And

I guess my ultimate question to you

really would be: with the few years' experience that I've developed in this field, it seems like it would be somewhat transferable

to take this kind of high-stakes, high-net worth, high-net worth, high-ticket sales experience, you know, and transfer it into another industry if need be.

But, you know, kind of since last Friday, obviously, you know, I know what I have to do short short-term is, you know, get back on my feet and establish, you know, income again.

But, you know, my only thought about this and chasing this industry was that I don't know if it would ever be able to achieve my long-term goal, you know, my big goal.

And,

you know, I know everything has to happen in steps.

And I know I got to start somewhere.

And I'm very proud of the short-term success I've gained in this industry.

I just kind of don't really know what to do from here.

And I don't know if I'm wasting my time.

How old are you?

28.

Okay.

Look, dude, there's basically three skills that are required to be successful at anything that will transfer anywhere.

All right.

And your job is to build these skills within yourself.

One is sales.

Okay.

You're already working on that.

You're already doing that.

Number two is management or leadership.

I don't know if you were running guys or if you had a crew or if you had a team under your own position or not.

But if you did, great.

If you didn't, that's okay because that will come along the better of a salesperson that you come.

Eventually, you will find your way into managing other salespeople.

Number three.

You said you kind of created this little avenue for yourself, which

sort of goes into the third category of people that become successful, which is people who can identify a problem, take the initiative, solve the problem without ever being told, and that report the findings or the results of the solution of that problem with their own initiative.

All right.

So

what you're learning and what you're doing in your previous, you know, up until last Friday situation is definitely transferable into other areas.

But you've got to make a decision on where that is.

And that decision can be made around a lot of different things.

How much money do you want to make?

How much time do you want to spend with your family?

What's the trade-off for that?

Do you like the people that you're working with?

Do you not like the people that you're working with?

There's all kinds of things that go into this decision.

But the good news is, is that you're learning the fundamental skills to transfer over to any of those things.

So,

you know,

in the short term, like you said, you're going to have to, you know, get some income coming in.

But in the long term, you know, 28 is still very young, bro.

And I know you probably feel like it's old, but dude, at 28 years old, I was living with my dad.

Okay.

I had to move back in with my dad at 27 years old because I was so broke.

Okay.

So don't think that you're behind.

You're making way more money than I was making at that age.

And if you continue to develop your skills and take your

work seriously, like for example, you said, you know, I take my relationships with my customers very serious and personal,

dude, you're not going to have any problems getting where you want to go.

You're already way ahead of the game.

And I know it doesn't feel that way because you're probably thinking, I should be here, like we always think.

But like I say on the show all the time, dude, if you're ambitious, if you're driven if you want to achieve you're gonna always feel like you're behind you're gonna always feel like there's more to do you're gonna always feel like there's more skills to learn and that's a great thing because that hunger is what forces you to develop and pushes you into the realm of the next level so

dude I don't think

you're as lost as you think you are I think you're just in a natural position in life where you've learned a really valuable lesson.

And the valuable lesson should be, bro, that when things aren't going well, it doesn't matter how much you contribute, you could be on the block.

And,

you know, the fact that your company wrote you letters of recommendation, a couple of them, speaks massively to how valuable you are.

So,

yeah, in the short term, dude, I would get it where you can get it.

And in the long term, I would, and by the way, in long term, I mean the next like two years, I'd be working towards creating something or building something or getting in somewhere where you're going to meet your long-term

goals for yourself.

You know, I talk to a lot of you guys as intrapreneurs all the time.

You know,

a big part of being a successful entrepreneur is getting yourself

on the right team, right?

If you're on a team of a company who's been run three generations and the third generation doesn't give a shit about growing the company, it doesn't matter how good you are.

You're going to lose.

So you've got to be smart enough and aware enough to put yourself into a place where there's tremendous upside.

And if you can't, if you're not ready to do that right now, what I would do is, you know, pay the bills with the skills that you have right now and then

start to create this, you know, new path of where you want to be.

But I wouldn't fucking wait.

I wouldn't get the job and then say, oh, one day I'm going to do this.

I would get the thing that's going to pay the bills and I would immediately start working on your nights and weekends to figure out a scenario that's going to get you where you want to go.

Because, dude,

regardless of what people say on the internet, we only have a limited amount of time.

That's the reality.

And as a 28-year-old man, you probably have 12 more years to really set your path in the right direction for the rest of your life because the truth of the matter is is once people are in their 40s and 50s they don't get the same opportunities as people in their 20s and 30s so

that would be what i have to say to you um

what do you think

no i mean it makes a lot of sense i i think my my main concern you know, kind of with all of it is making sure, like you said, I have those 12 to maybe 15 years to put in, you know, to really get my roots in the ground.

And I just want to make sure that I'm doing that, you know, in the right place.

And, you know, when I started back in this, you know, little niche industry, I was definitely not in the right place for my first year and a half.

And I knew that.

So when the time was right and I got poached, it was okay.

And I was ready to go.

And I was really happy where I was at.

Right.

Now that that was kind of taken away, I'm really trying to be picky, I think, of, you know, where my next firm is going to be if I'm staying in this.

But like you also said, you know, I already acknowledged internally that I am an entrepreneur as opposed to an entrepreneur.

And I read Tim Grover's book, you know, and

through reading that, I found, you know, it was a little polarizing from one side to another, but I definitely think I was more of a cleaner than I was a closer.

And, you know, kind of where I'm at in life, I don't have kids.

I'm not married yet.

It's just me and my girl.

We're kind of free to go where we want.

You know, I'm really pitching myself to these new firms for growth and development in terms of expansion.

You know, I think that's a good play.

But unfortunately, I think where I'm at, I just only time will tell if it's going to be a good place.

And, you know, hearing your words of encouragement and not that I think I needed the reassurance that I'm kind of doing a good job and I'm not far behind, you know, it's great to hear, especially coming from someone like you.

I do greatly appreciate that.

But at the same time, I, you know, I need to make sure I'm doing absolutely everything I can do to make sure I win.

And, you know, Oh,

I'm not saying that to make you feel good.

I'm saying that to tell you, like, you better fucking go right now.

You know, you're doing good,

but don't go sit on the fucking bench.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Like, don't get a job and say, oh, I'm making $150, $200,000 a year.

And

you know in your heart that you want to make 2 million.

or 5 million or whatever and just sit there and wait.

It's not going to happen.

You got to go fucking do it.

So I know.

Yeah.

And I think that's, that's kind of like the next phase of my worries is figuring out what that is.

And, you know, I think I've always struggled with that internally.

Bro, you're fucking listening.

You're fucking 28.

Of course you're going to struggle with that.

Of course you're going to struggle with what to do with my fucking life.

Bro, I am 45 years old and I fucking think about it all the time.

I'm like, fuck, am I doing the right thing?

All you guys look at me and you're like, fuck, dude, Andy's got it figured out.

the fuck i do bro i come in here every day with these guys you you could ask any one of them and i'm like hey what should we do this maybe we could do this maybe we could do better at this i don't know what the fuck i'm doing i just never quit and dude that feeling that you have of uncertainty is a tremendous asset to you because most people your age don't have that they don't they don't get anxious or urgent until they're fucking 38 years old and they're like, holy shit, this isn't what the fuck I wanted.

Okay.

You've already recognized that, brother.

You've already recognized that early on.

So that's a great thing.

The anxiety, the worry, the concern, these are great things for you because most people don't have them.

And the world will tell you, Andrew, you're very fucked up for feeling anxious.

And you have, you know what, you should probably take a pill.

Maybe.

Maybe you should just say, this is what I want and I'm going to fucking do it instead.

You know, like, bro,

look, man, the point I'm trying to make is

it's normal.

If you're an achiever, if you're a winner, if you're someone that's going to build something or become something, worrying about making the right choices is a very fucking good sign that you are aware enough.

And because you have that awareness, you will make the right choices.

Where people really fuck up is when they don't think like you're thinking.

They think they have all the time in the world.

They find another job in the realm of what it is that you do, telling themselves that I'm going to make $2 million one day, or one day I'm going to live this life, and changing nothing, and then being surprised when they're in their mid-40s that the shit that they wanted never materialized.

All right.

And then they're in a big fucking problem because now

you are

kind of out of range in day and age for a lot of things and it becomes much harder.

And no matter what, Gary Vee says, I love Gary,

when you're 45, you have less options than when you're 35.

And when you're 35, you have less options than when you were 25.

And

fucking away your 20s and your 30s doing shit.

Yeah, I mean, you can recover, but it makes it a lot harder.

And that's just the truth of the matter.

So you're in a good spot, bro.

And what you're thinking and what you're analyzing in the way that you feel is that's how winners fucking think, brother.

Like, I'm just telling you, that's how winners think.

I hear you.

I got nothing to say other than I got work to do.

I mean, I know exactly what I have to do, and I appreciate the reinforcement.

Yeah, brother.

Listen, thank you.

Sales, management, and taking the initiative to identify a project, see it through without having to be told.

If you could develop those three skills, you will write your own motherfucking check, whether it's in your own company company or somebody else's company.

It's real shit.

So people are always starving.

Companies are always starving for skilled individuals.

The job market is always amazing, always amazing for people who have real skill.

The job market is not always amazing for people who show up, hide in the corner, don't contribute, and, you know,

watch the clock all day.

The job market is fucked for those people.

But bro, if you're, you know, if you're a killer, you're always going to have a place.

It doesn't matter if AI or it doesn't matter.

It's, it's, it's, it's going to be in demand.

So just keep working on those skills, bro, and you're going to find your way.

I have no doubts about it.

Most dudes that are 28, dude, they think they got all the time in the world because they got all these dudes on the internet telling them, yeah, Colonel Sanders started at 63 years old.

Bro, Colonel Sanders was frying chicken for 30 fucking years before he even started.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, people don't talk about that part of it.

You know, fucking.

So anyway.

All right.

Listen.

Well,

when I get to that point, then

I'm coming down to St.

Louis and I'm

the best goddamn sound system you've ever heard in your house.

Dude, I don't even give a fuck if it's sound.

I don't care if it's sound.

Learn how to fucking lead.

Learn how to sell and learn how to see projects through from beginning to end.

And you'll have a place anywhere.

I fucking plug you into any.

I got a bunch of companies.

I can plug people like that in at will anywhere.

that's the point i'm trying to make it's not exclusive just to putting in sound systems it's a skill set that can be transferred from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing because those skills are always in demand bro so you know yeah go fucking develop your skills and come down here and i'll plug in somewhere and we'll beat some ass

how about that that sounds good to me in the meantime you got to get first form on the east coast man i tried contacting your team two weeks ago all i got is vitamin shop and they don't have anything new i talked to the store managers bro.

They don't want to give anything in here yet.

Trying to get them in gas stations, fucking everywhere.

I go.

I want to see first form.

Well, I mean, by the end of the year, we will be everywhere.

200-something thousand

doors.

So we don't want this bullshit.

It'll be there soon.

It's coming.

Yeah.

It's coming.

All right, bro.

I appreciate you, thank you so much.

All right.

All right, brother.

Have a good day.

Thank you, Andy.

Thank you.

I appreciate it, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you, bro.

Yeah, bro.

You know, it's so reassuring to get a lot of the younger guys in and like excited about fucking winning, dude.

They're not just excited.

They're worried.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like, look at that.

Just concerned.

Being excited about winning is way less powerful than being terrified that you're not going to win.

Okay.

When you're terrified that you're not going to win and you're going to be broke and you're not going to be able to eat, you're not going to be able to pay your bills.

That's when the fucking dog comes out, bro.

That's when you figure out who the fuck you are.

Okay,

so I'll take someone who has massive anxiety, massive worry about winning and is fearful of losing over someone who wants to win a thousand times out of a thousand because that urgency and that fear will drive them into producing.

Okay, I don't have anybody backing me the fuck up.

I've never had someone in my entire fucking adult life back me the fuck up.

Okay.

So what did it do?

Oh, it made Andy crazy.

You're right.

It made me fucking crazy.

Made me crazy competitive.

It made me crazy detail oriented.

It made me look at every single thing, every single day, even though I'm 26 years in business, as a plus or a minus to whether or not we're going to win or not.

It made me look at every single detail from the fucking top of the...

List to the bottom of the list.

Big, small.

Like, bro, you come here to first form.

There's no fucking water droplets in our sink.

There's no piss droplets on our toilets.

Every fucking place in here is spectacularly, perfectly clean.

You can eat off of our fucking warehouse floor.

Do you know where that came from?

That comes from years and years and years of getting your ass beat and realizing that the only way to win is by being fucking better than everybody else.

And so, like, dude, once you figure that out,

Because you're terrified of losing everything, winning becomes really easy because you're willing to do anything.

You're willing to do whatever it takes.

And that is what it takes to win.

There's this, there's this false expectation that you can coast and you can cut corners and you can have the right relationships and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all these things.

And that's where people's minds are.

People's minds are.

How can I get the most while doing the least?

But that's not where my mind is.

And my mind isn't there because I didn't have anybody to fucking rely on.

So my mind is to get the most, I got to do the most.

And it's funny because people will say, well, Andy's not very humble.

Actually, I'm extremely humble.

Let me explain to you why.

Because I know that if I don't do the best fucking job in every motherfucking detail of my life, I'll fucking lose.

I know I'm not good enough to win without giving my best.

How is that not fucking humble?

You see what I'm saying?

So like, dude, just because I drive a fucking nice car or every day of the month, all right, doesn't mean I'm not humble.

What it means is, is I'm living the rewards of actually being extremely humble by knowing that I have to be perfect and then moving that culture of absolute fucking attention to detail, being perfect the best I can down through our people, which our people do a tremendous job at it 99% of the time.

So, you know, fuck, dude.

I will take those people who are fearful over people who just think it's fun to win.

I mean, dude, legitimately, a thousand times out of a thousand.

They got something to fight for.

They got something they're afraid of.

Like, bro, there's nothing worse for me than thinking about like

going back to where I was.

I mean, dude, it's, I'll fucking do whatever I got to do.

If I got to sleep up here every fucking night, if I got to, if I got to eat.

two tons of fucking dog shit one bite at a time, I fucking sit there and do the whole thing.

It is what it is.

That's what it takes.

Whatever the fuck it takes, bro.

It's whatever it takes it doesn't matter what that is does not fucking matter if you got to hike across the fucking saara desert then you do it if you got to fucking swim down the nile full of alligators you do it whatever the fuck you got to do bro whatever you got to do that's what the fuck it takes and dude people who want to win casually don't do those things because it's like well i don't feel like doing that because i you know when you want to win but i do yeah but now i'm not doing that alligators though yeah and the guy the guy who's afraid of losing that guy's fucking like, fuck.

All right.

Well, I could either lose this or I could fucking swim down the river with some alligators and hope that I don't get fucking eaten.

Fuck.

And then I get in the river.

Alligators, it is.

Yeah.

That's what I'm saying, bro.

I fucking love it, man.

I love it, man.

Guys, Andy,

that's a hell of a way to start a Monday, man.

Yeah.

Yep.

Whatever it takes.

All right, guys.

Well, listen.

It is whatever it takes.

That's the fucking lie of society.

Okay.

The lie of society is that you can win without doing whatever it takes and you just can't.

You're not that good.

I'm not that good.

Nobody's that good.

Nobody.

Okay.

So to think that you can get by and build a career as an entrepreneur or build a career as an entrepreneur doing what you feel like doing as opposed to what the fuck it takes is a false expectation.

There are too many people who are high skilled, have tons of experience, have tons of resources and have come from nothing and are willing to do whatever the fuck it takes that you cannot beat them unless you at least at a bare minimum do everything perfect and that's the disconnect between you know people what they think it takes to win and what it actually means to to be a competitor and win and uh

You know, I think I'm grateful that a lot of people don't get it because it makes it easier to win.

But, I mean, if you're listening to this show and you want to win and you think you're going to half ass, there's people in your industry, whatever you do, whether it's sweeping the fucking warehouse floor or running a multi-billion dollar company that quite honestly are willing to probably do way more than you're willing to do.

And unless you're willing to fucking literally like fight them and fucking kill them to win, you won't win.

You won't fucking win.

It's that competitive.

It's the most competitive thing on fucking planet Earth is your career and your fucking business.

I don't don't know how to explain it any any different any different than that.

It's a it's a false expectation, bro.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely, man.

Absolutely.

We'll go out there and fucking do it, man.

That's it, man.

Guys, Andy, that was three.

All right, guys.

Don't be a hoe.

Let's try the show.

Roof was sleeping on the floor.

Now my jury box froze.

Fuck a bowl, fuck a stove.

Counted millions in a cold.

Bad bitch, booted swole.

Got her own bank rope.

Can't fold.

That's a no.

Headshot case cloak, close.