
848. Q&AF: Getting Your Fire Back, Handling Anxiety & Managing Ego In Employees
On today's episode, Andy answers your questions on how to get your “fire” back when you feel monotonous on your journey to success, how to handle anxiety when you have too much on your plate, and what’s the best way to manage ego in high-performing employees.
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Full Transcript
What is up guys, it's Andy for selling. 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 Q and AF. That's where you submit the questions and we give you the answers.
Now, you can submit your questions a few different ways. The first way is, guys, email these questions into askandy at andyfricella.com.
Or go on YouTube in the Q and AFs, ask your questions in the comment sections, and we'll choose some from there as well. Other days, we're going to have shows within the show.
This is not a single format show. We're going to have CTI tomorrow.
That stands for cruise the internet. That's a society, culture, comedy, all mixed together.
Try to deliver the news in a different way. We speculate on what's going on what's true what's not true and then we talk about how we the people have solved these problems going on in the world other times we're going to have real talk real talk is just five to 20 minutes of me giving you some real talk and then we have 75 hard verses 75 hard verses where people who have completed the 75 hard program come on the show.
They talk about how their life was before, how their life is now and how they used the 75 hard program to transform their mental state, which transform the reality. All right.
If you're unfamiliar with 75 hard, it is the world's biggest, most popular mental transformation program. It is the initial phase of the Live Hard program.
And you can get both of those programs for free at episode 208 on the audio feed. There is also a book available at andyfrusella.com called The Book on Mental Toughness.
It covers the entire Live Hard program, plus a whole bunch of chapters on mental toughness, why it's important, how to use it. And has some case studies on some famous people as to how they got to be famous using these skills.
So go get the book if you want. It's for people who, I don't know, like the ins and outs and the ups and downs and all the details like me.
I have to know everything before I start things. Or you could just go to episode 208, get the whole thing for free.
It's your choice. Book is very popular.
We're always sold out. So if we're sold out, that sucks for you.
I mean, it does. One thing about this show, we don't run ads on the show.
Okay. We're the biggest show in the world that doesn't run ads.
I am an actual entrepreneur. I run actual companies, and I finance the show myself.
And the reason for that is because I don't want anybody telling me what I can and can't say. And in exchange for that, I ask very simply that you help us grow the show by sharing it.
A lot of you guys listen. You habitually listen.
And you don't help us. You don't share the show.
Okay? So don't be a hoe. Share the show all right and you know buy our shit you know i'm saying we'll just throw that in there that's the sd as a reminder uh yeah and by the way if you do want to support us you can buy these first form energy drinks uh at your local convenience store grocery store if they don't have them ask them what the fuck is going on kind of operation are you running here can't be a good one clearly not um let's see mf ceo project coming back i just want to remind you guys of that uh we'll have some announcements on that very soon if you're unfamiliar with the mf ceo project it is the first podcast before real af that i did it was the number one business podcast in the world.
Not much change there, but also it was the number one overall show for a long time. So we're bringing that back.
And the reason I'm bringing it back is because I feel that I'm needed to teach the younger generation, the skills of winning. And we're going to do that.
So if you're interested in getting the new MFCEO project, it will not be available on iTunes or YouTube. It's going to be available on an app.
When I launch that app, I will announce it through my email list. So go get on my email list, subscribe to the Andy Graham.
You get a little motivational writing, a little tactical knowledge every day to your inbox. Plus, you'll get notified when the MFCEO project drops.
So I'm excited about that, bro.
Yeah, I'm excited about the things we're doing different.
And we're lining up testimonials of people who have built seven, eight, nine-figure companies
with the skills of the first series.
That's going to be cool.
I mean, a lot of things are going to be different. Well, I mean, the coolest piece of it too man like outside looking in is like i mean you talk about like you know that's going to be the interviews and the guests yeah right like it's going to be cool man because it's going to be you know not just the real entrepreneurs that that i know it's going to be people who have used you know like bro fucking i talked to a guy yesterday who's got a 300 million dollar company that was talking about how he used to listen to mfceo when he was fucking you know hustling back in in the day so stuff like that you know what i mean well you you talk about what i'm what i like about it most is like you know you've talked about this before like how business has its cycles and its evolutions and like you're in a new phase of business new to you right yeah being able to apply all the shit that you've learned even yeah most recently well i mean look dude building a business to a million is is a set of skills building a business from a million to 10 million that's a set of skills now a lot of those skills overlap but there are skills you need to have building your business from 10 to 50 million that's a different thing building your business from 50 million to 500 million completely different thing um so you know all of these skills overlap but it's gonna it is gonna be a lot different it's gonna be a lot more uh a lot more knowledge to bestow you know i'm excited about it word of the day right, bestow.
So let's bestow them with a little appetizer of knowledge.
Let's do it.
Just to get people through the week.
Well, I got some good ones for you.
I know you do.
You got three good ones for you.
As usual.
Let's do it.
That's a new one for today too.
The what?
Usual.
What?
Usual.
Usual.
Usual.
What does that mean?
Usual.
Okay. Let's bestow.
Guys, Andy, question number one, man. Let's get into these, dude.
Andy, I am in college, and I'm doing excellent, especially compared to last year. I used to party all week long, was able to maintain good grades.
I changed it up and I am 20 years old and I have completed 75 hard back in November for the first time. I haven't had a sip of alcohol since August.
I'm actively doing 75 hard again and I'm giving it my all. I have aspirations to become a firefighter and a tattoo artist on the side to fill in my days off.
But I often feel like I've been spaced out or that I have little to no interest in doing things. I used to dream of cars, houses, solid family.
Now I have a hard time focusing on my purpose and my why am I doing the things that I am? How do you recommend getting that fire back? And is it normal that it will get monotonous, right? Like, did you ever lose that fire of like what you want it to get and why you want it to get and how did you get it back? Of course, this is a long, hard, intense, brutal journey. You are going to feel like not doing it way more than you're going to feel like doing it once you start to do it.
The way you feel about doing it is irrelevant. And every championship person, every successful entrepreneur, every person that you've ever looked up to and said, fuck dude, I want to be like that.
All of those people have learned a very specific skill. They have learned and understand that how they feel about doing the critical tasks that need to be done on a day by day basis is irrelevant.
All that matters is that you do it. So how you feel about doing it does not matter.
There's no trophy for it. There's no reward for it.
There's no monetary gain. No one cares.
No one cares how you feel. You're the only one that cares.
No one cares. So with that being understood, do you want to achieve your goals or do you want to stay where you are and potentially and most likely go backwards from where you are those are your choices so you can choose to understand that you have to execute at a high level especially when you don't feel like it and you will eventually get where you want to go or you could say i just don't feel like it like everybody else does.
And your life will fucking suck. That's it.
It's going to be hard either way. Either one of those paths is difficult.
There's no path in life where you get to skip through the fucking field of daisies with the hummingbirds and the bees and the sun shining on your motherfucking face and everything's going to be great. There's no path to that in real life.
Now, how many of the people that live this carefree, skip through the fucking daisies lifestyle actually remain in that position? Very few. If you pay attention every year, they're trying to reinvent themselves.
You know why? Because the internet gives people that don't know what the fuck they're talking about a platform to spread things with certainty and so when they're when they are skipping through the field even though they have no money coming in and they have nobody around them and everything is they pretend to know that what they're doing is the right thing for sure okay and that certainty then sucks people in and quite honestly ruins their fucking life because that person will be on to the next thing next year. And the next thing, the year after that, and the next thing, the year after that, and they talk out their ass and don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
So here's the thing. Of course, you're not going to feel like it most of the time.
This is why you have to train yourself to execute, which is called discipline, when you don't feel like it or when you're lacking motivation. This is the entire point of the Live Hard program.
It's the entire reason that the Live Hard program exists and why it's the most popular mental toughness discipline training program in the world. It's not because it doesn't work.
It's because it trains you to make the better decision Not the harder decision the better decision When you don't feel like making it, okay, and that's another thing Why don't you reframe the decisions that you are making from? This is the hardest decision to this is the better decision. This is what's going to move me forward.
This is what's going to get me what I want. When you think about it like that, it makes it a lot easier to get off your ass and go fucking do it.
So yes, it is absolutely normal to not feel like doing it. There is not a single person who has ever achieved anything that you want to achieve that has felt like it every single day.
It's hard. It's frustrating.
There's things that are going to happen. You're going to get punched in the face.
You're going to get sick. You're going to have breakups.
You're going to have people let you down. You're going to have people steal from you.
You're going to have friends let you down. You're going to be embarrassed.
You're going to make mistakes and everybody's going to see it and laugh at you. All of these things are going to happen.
You have to build yourself into someone who can continue to execute regardless of what's happening around you. And if you can do that, it doesn't matter what's happening around you.
It doesn't matter if they're laughing. It doesn't matter if they're making fun.
It doesn't matter if the weather's bad. It doesn't matter if the economy's bad.
It doesn't matter if your parents don't approve or your wife or your girlfriend or your husband. It doesn't fucking matter if you keep executing because eventually you will find yourself in the place you set out to be.
Okay. That's the game.
And I don't know how to explain it any better. Like if you are going to be a slave to your emotion, you are going to lack control in all areas of your life forever.
You cannot be a slave to how you feel. Decisions made about your life have to be made with the outcome in mind.
And you have to commit to taking those actions with the outcome in mind understanding that if you don't take them your life is going to be shitty and you're going to be frustrated and you're going to be be fucking disappointed and unfulfilled and and dude it's it's just uh it's the way it is yeah let's let's tie this into materialism because he mentioned he had these dreams of cars and houses and stuff. And I know for you, it was a Lamborghini Countach, right? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. How important was that for you? We talk about motivation, right? It's hard to, on those days, you don't feel like doing shit.
I mean, is that really what you look towards? You know what'm saying like what do you listen this this game is so fucking hard you got to use whatever the fuck you can okay yes material goals are an amazing motivator especially when you don't have anything when you can't go to dinner at the nice restaurants and you're driving a fucking rusted out beater and you're embarrassed to get out of the car and all these things that that sucks okay your life is much better when you're driving a nice car that's reality dude and anybody who tells you different hasn't driven a nice car it's just the facts all right a lot of people like to say that shit doesn't matter it's just transportation a to b well have you ever gone anywhere in a bugatti because it's pretty fucking cool a to b is pretty cool yeah and you get lot faster. All right.
So don't listen to motherfuckers that have never experienced the experiences that you
want to experience because they have no perspective or standing to comment on it.
Okay.
So anything that you can do to drive you is a good thing.
Some people, it's money.
Some people, it's cars.
Some people, it's lifestyle.
Some people, it's watches and suits. And by the way, it was all those things for me for a long fucking time.
Okay. Because I was young and I lacked the understanding of how to drive myself without those things.
And once I got all those things in business, once I accumulated some cool stuff and I realized like, well, fuck dude, there's only so much cool shit you can get. Okay.
And then I did some searching internally and try to, you know, like I probably going through a lot with this young man's going through where he's thinking like, well, why am I doing this? And what I started to realize is that, you know, I looked around and I'm like, well, there's, there's at that time,
there was probably, we probably had 80 guys total, 80 people. And I looked around and I'm like, well, this guy depends on this.
This guy depends on this. That guy's not driving a nice car yet.
That guy hasn't bought a house. And I started to realize my obligation was not just to myself, it was to else and so as i progressed through the process my drive and and purpose changed and it became from a what you probably most people would consider a selfish purpose i want this i want that which is natural when you don't have shit You got to take care of yourself to solve that problem Okay, but once you have it a lot of this is why you hear a lot of people go broke Once they get some success because they lack the ability to redefine what their purpose actually is and so I Got to a point where I had all this stuff.
I started looking around and then I expanded my purpose.
Okay.
I expanded my purpose.
I realized, well, dude, you still got a long way to go.
You got to scale these companies so that the people who helped you get where you are can
have opportunities to get what they want.
Okay.
So that became like a second purpose and a new wind in my sales, which pushed me down.
Now, by the way, still love the cars. I really don't care about watches anymore.
I like suits, but the point is none of that shit really gets me that excited. Okay.
Once in a while it does, but that's really not it. Okay.
And by the way, now I have companies built to where really anybody that's in these companies has unlimited opportunity and upward mobility if they want to dedicate themselves to it the proper way. Right.
So there's that. Okay.
So I did that. And I'm continuing to do that.
So what's my bigger purpose past that? So what am I supposed to go home at 42 years old and fucking sit on the couch and fuck off? You know, that wasn't very fun. So then I had to redefine my purpose again.
And what my purpose became then was, all right, well, what's going on in the world? Well, for the last five years, and really now that I've become more aware, it's been the last 100 years, we have lived in a country that isn't what it should be. And the reason it isn't what it should be is because the individuals allow it to be that.
So what's that problem? Well, that is a problem that I can help solve. Because if we can make the people great, and we can make the people skilled, and we can make the people high achievers, that makes it harder to control them, and they have a better life.
If they have a better life, that means the standard is raised. If the standard is raised in the household, the standard can be raised with the neighbor.
If the standard can be raised with the neighbor, it can be raised in the community. If it can be raised in the community, it can be raised at the state.
If we can raise all the states, we can make the country great again by individual success and accomplishment and the holding of standards. And so when I say personal excellence is the ultimate rebellion, that's what I mean, because our country is only as good as its individuals.
So now my purpose has expanded where I feel the need to teach what I know about business and success in a more pointed fashion so that we can help solve that problem. So these are, this is the scaling of, of your purpose, which is just as important as scaling your business.
Because if you scale into a big business and then you're there and you don't have any purpose, you're going to be miserable. You're cause dude, human beings, especially men, okay, no disrespect to the women at all, but men and women are different.
And men inherently have a drive to provide, contribute, create, and build things, all right? Protect things and people, okay? And when you take that away and you make them ultra comfortable and you give them all the food they want and you let them live and they don't have any purpose, bro. They're fucking miserable, which is why we have such a mental health crisis with the men in this country.
They don't have enough problems to solve. And the problems that they're committed to solving are just them chasing the cheese in the fucking hamster wheel, bro.
So we have to acknowledge and become aware of bigger problems that we can solve that will bring us ultimate fulfillment. Okay.
So yeah, in the beginning, when you're 20 years old, dude, it might just be, I want cars and I want a watch and I want girls to like me. Then it could be, you know, when you're 30, it could be, you know, hey, I've I've gotten here.
Now I got to bring people here. OK, and then when you're 40, you're like, well, fuck, I brought some people here.
And if if they're not here, it's on them because they haven't committed. Then it's what's a bigger purpose and a bigger purpose.
And like for me, dude, you know, that's just how it's played out. And everybody I know that is ultra successful and doesn't end up losing it or going crazy or having so many mental health issues.
They need to be committed.
The reason that they're able to function over the course of their life is because they're continuing to redefine what their mission is and what their purpose is i mean is it i mean because i look at like you know you talk about that beginning motivation but even just to get you to that point where you can start worrying about other people how much good has come out of having a fucking aspiration of that coontosh bro a lot that's i you know what uh people like oh you just wanted the coontosh but that's selfish as fuck yeah so you guys know gary v i love gary um gary has been a massively influential person in my life for the last 15 years yeah um awesome dude he's a great dude and he's and he's hyper intelligent and people do not realize how tuned in that dude is one of the things that gary now we've had a couple disagreements over the course of you know the 15 years we've been friends um one of the disagreements was he made a post one time laughing at like people that buy nice cars and i messaged him i said hey you know i understand you're from new york and and you guys don't drive cars and shit up there but like let me tell you about cars and i told him you know that and and dude he he admitted it he was like well that's different you have a passion for cars you're not just trying to keep up with the fucking Joneses. Right.
Okay. Which is true.
But the point of the matter is, you know, you got to be careful not to shit on people's material goals. Don't take those dreams away from people.
Like when people have dreams of material shit, don't shit on us. Don't, don't say, oh, that's, that's stupid.
Or that's bullshit. Or you're just just a clown for wanting that because dude That might be the thing that drives them To the next thing and then that and then drives them to the next thing and then all of a sudden dude like me You've got Do thousands of people that are providing for themselves and their families because of the companies that these people have created Which started with just a simple want for some cool shit So like dude, you can't Quantify What could actually happen bro? Elon Musk? Let's talk about Elon right now as an entrepreneur, okay? Elon Musk as an entrepreneur Bought a million dollar McLaren f1 in 1999.
And to spend a million dollars on a car in 1999, huge deal. He loves cars.
Huge car guy. But I don't know that he's into cars anymore.
You know why? Because he decided that his purpose was going to be to go to fucking space. He likes space.
Yeah. Expanded his purpose.
But the point is, now this dude employs, I mean, hundreds of thousands of people in his different companies Because he continued to expand What his purpose was and I believe his he's you know expanded again, uh, you know, which is similar to in line with what my purpose is so, you know, he's looked at the world and he's like well fuck we got to fix this, you know, and uh You know, that know that's that's how it goes bro and if you want to actually win long term um you have to redefine what that purpose is going to be over and over and over again and you know if you want to be a responsible role model and leader i don't think you should shit on people's goals because you never know what that's going to lead to i love it man i man. I love it.
Guys, Andy, question number two. Hey, Andy, I've listened to nearly every episode since 2017, and I want to thank you for being the main source of my business growth over the years.
My question is this, Andy. You've talked on the podcast about severe anxiety before.
I'm 24 years old, and for the first time in my life, I've started to have the exact same problem. Some days it's to the point where I want to stay in bed, take a loss just to be able to function for the rest of the week.
With so many depending on me to succeed, I don't want to slow down. In fact, I want to do more.
How have you built up your resilience to these issues? And what do you do when that stuff happens now? Talking about anxiety specifically. All right.
I got a lot to say here. Number one, when you consume content on the internet as an entrepreneur, as an ambitious person, as someone who wants to succeed, you have to consume it with the filter of this is not for people who are doing what I want to do.
This is for everybody else. Entrepreneurs, driven people, ambitious people have a different set of rules to the game that apply to them than everybody else.
And so when you consume all of this shit, it's telling you, you have to do this and you have to live like that and you better feel like this, all of a sudden we start analyzing ourselves and we're like, well, fuck, dude, I'm not really any of those things. And then you end up in a situation where you feel anxious about it.
You feel like you're fucked up or there's something wrong with you. And, dude, that shit will drive you crazy.
So that's point number one one stop consuming all the data on the internet written by motherfuckers who haven't done anything near what you want to do and let me explain something to you that includes people who have just have a podcast that includes people who just have a coaching business i'm talking about people for entrepreneurship who have built actual companies. Listen to them.
Read what they say. And everybody else can get the fuck out of the way.
Okay? That's what you have to understand. If you consume the rules of the game written by people who have never played the game and who have never even come close to winning the game you're gonna feel crazy and that's most of the information on the internet most of these people writing the the therapy memes and most of the people who are writing the you know these these uh feel good shit yeah there's first of all most of those people are stealing the writing they don't even know know what the fuck they're writing.
And it just doesn't apply, bro. To be a successful entrepreneur, it takes a different path.
That's it. And so if you're on a path and you're reading about all the other paths, you're going to be confused.
And you're going to start analyzing yourself. Because, dude, we want to be the best as entrepreneurs, as ambitious people, as people who want to build and create and become things.
We want to be the best. So when we lack these little things that, you know, other people say that they should have, we start feeling bad and we get anxiety and we judge ourselves.
And the reality is, is those are the rules for everybody else. The rules for us are different.
And once you figure that out, you have far have far less anxiety number two we need to realize that people need people like us they need people that are hungry they need people that want to build they need people that are obsessed they need people that are going to create and become and do the things for the world that the world fucking enjoys. Okay?
That's building companies, building organizations,
achievement that creates careers and jobs and innovations and cures.
These things are needed, and guess who they come from?
They don't come from all those people.
They come from people like us.
All right?
So you are needed, and you are a fucking different breed than all of those people.
And by the way, that's okay.
Because without people that thought like us us they wouldn't have fucking anything all right so understand your obsession is needed your imbalance is needed your drive is needed your ambition is needed all of it is needed so that's point number two point number three is when ambitious people do not have a detailed plan to work they feel they feel anxiety okay so i would ask yourself do you have a detailed plan to get up and work every single day and do these things every single day? Or do you just have some abstract vision that maybe one day you want to create? Because if you had a fucking day by day detailed plan of the execution that you would be too busy to feel anxious for real. So those are the three things that I think, uh, really help me when I start to feel anxious.
Usually the reason that I start to feel anxious is because of the first part where I'm consuming information. You're supposed to be consuming.
Yeah. Or the third part.
I'm not clear on the steps I need to take. Whenever I have a problem that needs to be solved, I get the most anxiety when I don't know the answer or don't have a plan.
When I create the plan and I know that the plan will equate to an answer, even if it takes a year, I don't have the anxiety about it anymore because I know the solution. All right.
So with that being said, you have to realize that warrior mentality, builder mentality, creator mentality, intense mentality is needed. It's a fucking need of civilization and society.
It's always been there and it's a very important role. And we have dealt with the condemnation and villainization of these traits for a very long time.
All right.
Intentionally. Why do you think they don't want you to achieve anything? Why do they think they want you to be? There's multiple reasons.
But the point is, none of them are valid. And you are definitely in the right for wanting to go create shit.
But other than that, dude
You know, anxiety typically
Is
Is in the right for wanting to go create shit um but other than that dude you know anxiety typically is is a normal ebb and flow of just being a human being and if you learn how to listen to it what it usually tells you is get off your ass and go solve this problem okay so that's it's a flag of like yes it's a signal it's a signal bro back's a signal bro Back in the day, you know when you would have the caveman will get anxiety The reason he would get anxiety is because he had me fucking food Right, and he's like fuck. I don't know where my food's gonna come from So guess what he had to do he had to go get some food, okay? These are triggers that cause us to Understand that there's a problem identify a a problem, and then go solve it.
All right?
But we are now inundated with all of this shit in the world that tells us it's wrong to feel any anxiety. Okay? Dude, if you start focusing and living your day to feel zero anxiety, you are going to feel a multiple effect of anxiety because you are, you are ultra sensitive to anxiety when it creeps in.
All right. If you go through your day and you're like, fuck, dude, I'm just going to try to get through my day.
I'm going to get through, get through my day. I'm going to try to get through my day.
And then something happens. Okay.
And then all of a sudden you're like, fuck, fuck fuck i can't get through my one day without feeling this and it causes an overreaction because you have an unrealistic expectation of a normal human emotion which is anxiety dude so what's it telling you bro yeah it's normal what's it you? What's it telling you to do? If you're, if you're, if you're not where you're supposed to be, you're probably going to feel it. If you're not doing what you're supposed to do, you're probably going to feel it.
If you're not living how you're supposed to live, you're probably going to feel it. It doesn't mean there's something wrong.
You got to go fix that shit. All right.
So that's my answer on that, dude. Like it's,'s it's something that everybody goes through it's something that is fairly normal for most entrepreneurs but it typically comes from not understanding what to do not having a plan uh having unrealistic expectations about anxiety uh consuming the wrong information and then thinking it's wrong to be a driven, ambitious human being,
letting people convince you that it's wrong.
It's not fucking wrong.
It's required in society.
Bro, even just thinking about that for a second,
like the people who tell you like,
oh, you know,
you're not supposed to have any anxiety.
They're telling you to ignore all of that fucking warning signs to do it,
which creates more,
like, bro, it's so wild.
Listen, it's the predatory therapist industry
at this point, okay? they have convinced people that Having any kind of anxiety means that there's something wrong with them Yeah, and that they need and by the way, what are they trying to do? They're selling you something and I Can't think of a more Disgusting way to make money than to convince people they have
a problem that they don't actually have and then charge them money to solve it.
Okay.
Or convincing someone that they are mentally broken when in reality, they're just not doing
what a human's supposed to do and then charging money forever to pretend like they're broken.
Like, dude, I can't think of a more scummy low-life way
to make a living it's just my opinion yeah you're not broken bro you're fucking built for it and you
need to go do it i love it man i love it guys let's get to our third and final question question
number three hi andy i just like how they put their hello.
Yeah, greetings. I love the show and I've been listening to it for years and I've taken so many lessons from it.
My business partner and I opened up our practice in December of 2023 and have been collecting north of one hundred thousand dollars a month. great growth but hungry for more with that we've begun
hiring people to help with the day-to-day operations and tasks. Unfortunately, one employee brings a lot of personal issues to work through her mood, effort with tasks, and sometimes messages saying she won't be in into work that day out of the blue.
We rely on her to take stress off of our plate.
When she is there and on point, she's the best worker ever.
But when she isn't, it frustrates both of us and puts more on our plate.
We do the best to lead by example, discuss expectations, but these issues do present.
She's our first hire, so we are new to having someone work with us.
Any help on what to
do? Fire her. Don't give up on her yet.
Need some advice. Okay.
First of all, it's important to understand why this is happening. If that's your first hire and that person, as you say, is an awesome employee, which I would have very strong arguments against this, but you, because you don't have experience
say that this person is awesome.
She's awesome, right.
So let's just go with that okay this person is the best employee ever i would bet that you have pointed to that person with the rest of your team and built them up many many times and now you have a problem of hubris and ego in that person, and they are leveraging you and your goodwill thinking that they are untouchable. So you have a big problem here.
The reason this is a big problem is because if that person is your highest performing person and you have pointed to that person as your highest performing person, then your other employees are going to adopt the behavior of this person. And in reality, you don't want any of your employees to adopt the behavior of this person, regardless of how well they do the thing that you hired them for.
Because just like you said, now you're dealing with all this this other bullshit you created this out of your inexperience and that's no fault of yours you don't know what you're doing most people don't when they make their first hire but let me let you into this person's mind that person thinks this they need me i was their first hire i'm the best at what i do i get away with not showing up sometimes. I can get away with not doing the certain things like everybody else.
That's what they think. So what are your options? Well, your options are you can either get that straightened out and you can explain to them why it's important.
And the reason it's important and the reason it is important is because that person has been made an example for the other employees to follow. And if that person isn't doing things the way that you require people to do things, nobody else will either.
And if you can explain that to someone, sometimes they will correct their behavior because they're not aware that they're actually a cancer to the culture and the operation of the business. But more than likely, that person is going to continue to believe they need me and I can do whatever I want.
And they will eventually go back to their old ways. So my recommendation would be to fire them and then get everybody in a room and tell them this, I don't give a fuck how much you sell.
I don't give a fuck how good you think you are. I don't care what you, how much you think we're going to do things a certain way here and they're going to be done that way and if you don't do do them this way you won't be here and what that does is that shows your team that it doesn't matter who it is if they don't contribute and they aren't a cultural fit and they don't do the basics they're not going to be here okay which what do you think the rest of the team will do now? They're going to say, and the conversation will go like this, well, fuck, if they're getting ready to get rid of Michelle and she's killing everybody, I mean, fuck, dude.
We better do what we're told and we better do it right. Yeah.
Okay? So you're dealing with a lot of conversations and a lot of thoughts and things that you're not actually getting to see. But if you've been in business long enough, you know how it goes.
So this is a normal thing that you're probably going to deal with over and over again as a business owner. You're going to have people that come in, they get so much better than everybody else that they think the rules don't apply.
And the problem with that is, is that it destroys your culture. Because if you let them do that and don't let anybody else do that, your team's not going to respect you.
They're not going to respect the company. They're not going to respect the mission.
They're not going to go to bat for you. They're not going to work hard.
They're going to say, well, fuck that. That's a different standard.
People like to play by the same set of rules. And the reality is, if that person's doing that now, do you want them doing that when your business is 20 times bigger right you see what i'm saying so my advice would be if i was uh you know if you were hiring me to consult your company um i would say remove this person explain to the team why use it as a culture culture building lesson.
And the reality is, dude,
your other employees probably hate that person
because they got to come in and do all this shit
and that person's getting away with this other shit.
They're probably like, fuck Michelle, fuck her.
You see what I'm saying?
Right, good riddance.
Yeah, and then if you don't do anything about it,
they say, well, fuck Michelle and DJ.
That's DJ's little pet.
Fuck him, he's letting her.
So they lose respect for her and you
and the company and the mission
and I'll see you next time. If you don't do anything about it, they say, well, fuck Michelle and DJ.
That's DJ's little pet.
Fuck him. He's letting her.
So they lose respect for her and you and the company and the mission and things don't go well. So that's my answer.
I wouldn't fucking put up with it. I have put up with it in the past.
And every time I've ever put up with it, I got fucking burned every single time. So from now, I don't put up with it anymore.
It is what it is. I was going to ask you that because I feel like that also leads into, I guess, just emotions in business.
As an operator owner, how hard was that to have to get your heart out of these emotional – because, bro, you want to care about people, right? How hard is that? It's harder when you don't have degrees of separation between you and the people in your company because people will pull on your heartstrings and your uh good nature they'll know that you have a good heart and they'll use it against you dude every time yeah bro i i had a person one time uh come to me and i'm just going to give you an example of the kind of shit that you'll deal with. I had a person one time come to me and I'm just going to give you an example of the kind of shit that you'll deal with.
I had a person come to me one time and tell me that they were sick and they couldn't afford their medical bills. The medical bills were $8,000.
Okay. And $8,000 from where I'm at in life can make a big impact on their life.
Not for me.
I don't, I don't even notice it. Okay.
I paid the medical bills and a week later, the person quits. Okay.
And then I call over to the department that they were in and i said what what happened here and uh the person had missed or left early in the last 12 months 60 days 60 days okay which i was infuriated why that was even tolerated in the first place so i walked into my brother's office and i said you're never gonna fucking believe And I told him the story and he said, no fucking way. And I said, I said, why? He goes, that person came to me and asked me for five grand and I gave it to him two weeks ago.
Oh, shit. Yeah.
So and because we're good people. Yeah, bro.
You understand? And we care about people. That's the kind of shit people will do to you.
They don care they don't give a fuck about you they you know now in my case i think that's a very rare uh you know exception the rule from the people that we work with for sure but it happens no these listen i can tell you this shit happens all the time bro you can't allow people to have an inch because they'll take fucking they'll take a fucking mile and um you got to be careful you got to be careful who you let in your dude i was talking to my buddy earlier today um in the car world and he has a guy who won a billion dollar Powerball.
Okay.
Um,
and I fucking commented back.
I text him back.
I said,
well,
dude,
I hope he understands how to fucking push the scammers and the crooks and
the,
this and that away.
Cause they come bro.
They come.
And,
uh,
people,
you know,
when you're a
good person and you want to help people and you want to do right by people and people start to figure out that that's genuine they will line the fuck up to take advantage of it and uh it's disheartening it's frustrating it makes you feel like a fucking idiot but at the end of the day you know when i die i want to be able to say i did the right thing yeah you know and uh that's how i look at it when i look back and i say god you're stupid for doing those things but really dude that's on people like that yeah it's not on you yeah you know what i'm saying like it still pisses you the fuck off especially when these people go out in the real world and pretend like they're such great people you know what i'm saying but um it is what it is and uh you know getting back to the original question i you you can't tolerate bad behavior just because people produce high value uh when they're there um and when you said oh that's a perfect employee that's not a fucking that's a terrible fucking terrible. You think it's good because they can sell some shit or they can do some shit.
That's a terrible employee that will ruin your fucking business if you allow employees like that to exist in your company. So my advice to you would be to walk in and say, thank you for everything that you've done.
But these things are unacceptable and they're unacceptable for this reason and if these things can't get fixed and by fixed i mean never ever fucking happen again and you can't step up and lead the rest of the team with your actions and how you perform then we are going to have to part ways right now and that person's going to be blocked they're going to they're going to get defensive they're going gonna be i'm your best blah blah blah and if they do that fucking fire them out right yeah immediately now if they say hey i never thought about it like that man i'm sorry i made you i'm making you look fucking stupid aren't i if they say something like that now they're getting it okay and you could give that person a chance but if they automatically go to oh i'm the best fuck you i don't give a fuck i'd rather work with fucking i'd rather work with people that are good people that aren't as skilled and teach them the skill than someone like you who fucking thinks they're the best and acts like a fucking dong bag yeah you know what i'm saying so yeah that was real shit was real shit, man. I love it.
I love it, man.
Well, guys, Andy, that was
three. Yeah.
Don't be a hoe.
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