Transcript of 838. Q&AF: Overcoming “People Pleasing” Behavior, Pursuing Greatness & Hiring Great Team Players

What is up, guys? It's Andy Frasella, and this is the show for the realest. 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 bring you the answers. Now, you could submit your questions for the show a couple different ways. The first way is, guys, email these questions into askandy@andyforceller. Com, or you go on YouTube in the comment section, drop your question down there, and we'll pick some from there as well. Throughout the week, we're going to have Cruise the Internet. We call that CTI. That's where we put topics on the screen. We speculate on what's true and what's not true, and we talk about how we, the people, have to solve these problems going on in the world. Sometimes we're going to have what's called Real Talk. Real Talk is just 5 to 20 minutes of me giving you some real talk. Then other times, we're going to have 75 Hard Verses. Now, 75 Hard Verses is where people 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, for lack of a better terms, fix their shit.

If you're unfamiliar with 75 Hard, it is the initial phase of the Live Hard program, which is the world's most famous mental transformation program ever. You can get it for free at episode 208 on the audio feed. Again, that's 208 on the audio feed only. There's also a book. The book is available, Andy It's called The Book on Mental Toughness. It includes the entire Live Hard program, plus a whole bunch of chapters on mental toughness, how to develop it, why it's important, and how to use it in your life to increase the quality of your life. Now, we do something different on this show. We don't run ads. You're going to find that we're the biggest show in the world that doesn't run ads. In exchange for that, I ask very simply that you help us grow the show. If the show makes you think, if it makes you laugh, if it gives you a new perspective, if you learn some new things, do us a favor and help us spread the word, all right? We like to say it like this. Don't be a hoe.

Show the show.

All right, what's up?

Hey, good morning. Good looking.

Yeah, that's right. I am good looking. What's going on with you, brother? Nothing, dude. Yeah? Yeah, just counting down the days for the launch of the new MSCEO project. We're down to days now. We're not going to talk about when it was launched or when it's going to launch. You're going to have to be on the email list to know when it launches. If you're not on the email list, you should go to andyprusela. Com, subscribe to the Andy Graham, which is your daily, I don't know, pep talk. You'll find out about when the MFCEO launches, where it's going to be and how you can get it.

I'm excited about that. Let me ask you, how excited? Let's be real, no fruit for you. How excited are you for that coming back?

Very, because it's more than just teaching people how to make money at this point. The first time we did the MSCEO project, it was about how to become successful. Now, it's about not only how to become successful, but how to become successful in all areas of your life, accompanying with the idea that it is our duty to become the best that we can be in order for this country to become the best it can be. There has been an abandonment of personal responsibility and obligation because we have been, free for so long that people think they are free to live a shitty life and that America will just exist if all of our people here live less than the standard of what it should be. That's just not how works. The goal here is for me to teach people who are young, not just young in age, but young in experience, how to build a life, how to build a company, how to make money, but also understand our obligation to becoming the best people that we can be so that we don't have what just happened for the last 10 years in this country, or 12 years, or 15 years happen again, which is the removal of personal responsibility and ambition, where we started to get into a situation where people started to see ambition, success, and winning as some negative thing.

That is all programming. It is not negative at all. It is your obligation to go pursue the best possible version of yourself because other people are going to follow you, whether you understand that now or not. There was a time in this country where people understood that sacrifices were made and that citizens had an obligation to try their best to be their best. That's something that we need to restore with the younger generation and all generations. I'm excited because it's not just about, Hey, let's go out and make some money. You know what I mean? It's about, Hey, let's go make some money and become the best that we can be and set the right example and show other people how it's done so that we can create a movement of citizens that stands for personal excellence. Because when we are personally excellent in all areas, other people notice, they start to pick up the pace, they start to join the group, the standards raise, and the standards of this country get better. It's a big mission, but I'm not actively the CEO of First Form anymore or really any of the companies anymore. I've moved into chairman roles and investment roles, and I have the time to dedicate to this.

I'm really excited about it, dude.

It's going to be awesome. I feel like there's a lot of people out there now who have gotten on that page of understanding the obligation. It's just okay, but like-Now, let's give them the tools. What do I do? Right. A lot of new entrepreneurs, I people can come out of this, too, bro, which we need.

Well, I mean, bro, there's tens of thousands of entrepreneurs that started with the old MFCEO project that are now 8, 10, 12 years in doing well. There's no doubt of the impact that it makes. But I just think that there's so much misinformation, and there's so many liars, and there's so much bullshit that the lack of real entrepreneurial experience and information is just lacking. The principles that make up an actual successful life in business, it's a little more complicated than just getting ripped. You know what I'm saying? I'm sharing my 26 years of experience building a portfolio that's worth 10 figures with everybody else. I'm excited about it.

I'm excited to get to it, too, man. Well, it's Q&A, so let's make some people better today. Guys, Andy, I got some good ones for you. Let's knock these out. Question number one, Andy. Andy, I've always been a people pleaser, and it's exhausting. I want to set boundaries and prioritize my own happiness, but I'm afraid of upsetting others. How do I begin to change this mindset and stand up for myself? I don't want to go another year being a people pleaser. How do we do that?

Well, look, there's nothing wrong with pleasing other people or servicing other people. A lot of times when we talk about entrepreneurship and we talk about serving the customers, we get into this mindset, which isn't bad, by the way, of trying to please everybody. But the problem is we can't please everybody. It's impossible. A lot of times when we try to please everybody, we end up abandoning our own self in that pleasing. That's where you have to draw the boundary. You have to realize that when you're serving or you're giving, it's not being reciprocated. It's time to draw a boundary of some sort. In a business environment, you serve, serve, serve, they give you money. In a friendship environment, you serve, serve, serve, you get nothing back. Well, you should probably stop that because you're pouring in and getting nothing back. We are energy beings. When we pour all our energy into one person or two people or people in general, and we don't keep any for ourselves or don't get any back, we end up in a situation where we feel drained or feel exhausted like he's describing or she's describing the question. How do you do that?

Well, saying no is a It's a skill that people have to learn. You don't have to just give this long explanation about why you're not doing things that you wouldn't normally otherwise do. Or other people want you to do. That's right. Dude, at the end of the day, dude, you do have to look out for the best interests of yourself because no one else is going to look out for you. It's the truth. There's a very fine line between being a team player and also making sure that you are in the spot that you need to be in. Most of the time when people can't set boundaries, it's because they have a hard time saying no, because they're so used to pleasing everybody or trying to please your body that it feels unnatural of them. Just like anything that we have to get good at, you have to practice saying no and then just letting it be. No is a complete sentence. It's a skill to practice. When you mean no, you should say no. When you mean yes, you should say yes. Sometimes that is going to be uncomfortable because people have been used to you saying yes to things that you were now saying no to things.

But reality is once you move away from those people and you just start operating like a normal human, nobody has a problem when people say no. You know what I'm saying? This is just something that you need to work on saying no without overly explaining yourself. Now, if there's people in your family or close friends, they might be confused by this. You might have to sit down and have a conversation. Hey, look, I'm pouring all this. I don't have that energy, dude, and I'm not getting anything back. Maybe they just don't realize that that's the dynamic.

They're innocently ignorant to it. Correct.

Well, they become accustomed to it. When you start putting silk sheets on your bed and you sleep in them every night, you stop appreciating those silk sheets after a while. It's important that you realize that maybe some people are doing this just because you've been so over-accommodating for so long and they're not aware. Communication is a big deal. The ability to say no is a big deal. You have to understand that you have the right to make decisions, and you should make decisions that are good for you. There's a balance in life. Sometimes you make decisions that are good for other people that may not be as good for you, knowing that that's going to create a better situation long term. There's all different ways to think about this. But at the end of the day, most people have a problem with boundaries because they've not... Maybe they have a fucked up parent or somebody that's made them feel guilty for everything, and you end up having a hard time setting a boundary because you feel guilty every time you say no. Dude, you're going to feel better when you set those boundaries. And those people that try to guilt you, those people are manipulative.

You just cut those people out, bro. I don't deal with that shit no more. I personally used to have a really hard time with that. I used to let people make me feel guilty when I didn't give them what they wanted in the moment. Honestly, dude, it was one of the hardest things I had to get over. Sometimes I still struggle with it because I am that a person. You have a good heart, man. Well, yeah, and people take advantage of it, and especially when you have financial means.

You got a money tree in the backyard. Yeah.

I mean, dude, look, to be successful, you have to learn to set boundaries and say no, otherwise, you won't be able to keep your money. This is not just a skill that's going to make you feel better. It's also a financially advantageous skill to learn.

Yeah, 100%. I I was going to ask you because I heard you say this before. I forget where we were, man, but you were like, Other people's reaction to your decisions is not your concern. Was the gist of it. I think that could come me saying, no, that's a hard thing to do.

That's true. In some situations, if it's your family or your brother or your wife, it's not as cut and dry as that. There's nuance, sure.

Correct.

But overall, you can't get hung up on how somebody else is going to feel something that you're trying to do for your betterment of you. A hundred %. But also, dude, is like, if you have those conversations and nothing changes, then you can't let that bother you either. You just have to say, well, it is what the fuck it is.

I want to ask you this final little piece on this question, too, man, because I think it's important, too. We've talked about accountability on this show. We talked about you can't hold somebody else accountable if you're not holding yourself accountable. Does that same mindset apply to this? It's hard to take care of other people if you're not taking care of yourself. You know what I'm saying? I think a lot of people exhaust themselves out like that because it's like, Bro, you're not even caring about your fucking self.

I have something that I say all the time, dude. You have to be selfish to be selfless. If you're not where you need to be, if you don't have the proper energy that you need, if you're not in shape the way you should be in, if you're not living the standard that you know you should live, you don't have as much to give to other people. It's just reality. For you to be able to truly serve other people, you have to get to a point where you are taking care of yourself and your own shit is in order. Otherwise, whatever you give them is going to be less than what you could give them anyway. Quite honestly, you're doing both yourself and them a disservice by not holding these boundaries that we're talking about.

Yeah, I love it, man. I love it. Guys, Andy Question number two. Andy, I appreciate the work you have done to elevate everyone around you. My question is more of a general question about success. I'm 19, and I think that even the idea of just pursuing doing greatness excites the shit out of me. Being able to write your own path, build something crazy. I know it's something that I want to do. My question for you is, though, on the journey, you've mentioned this hockey stick thing being the visual to what success looks like. But are there times on the journey where you have to intentionally take one step back to take two steps forward? I feel like people would call sacrifices, I guess. But what were some that you had to take to stay on the path and keep moving forward? How do you make sure that that one step back doesn't become two?

Well, first of all, it's only a step back if there's no step forward later, and it's only a sacrifice if there's no payoff later. Really, the only way you lose in those situations, if you're doing it strategically, is by not following through on the other part of the deal. It's easy to take the step back and then just say, Oh, well, I don't want that anymore because I changed my mind because it got hard. This is a normal... This is normal. There's been a number of times in my career where I've had to take steps back, but we're actually investments in my future. I'll talk about a couple of those in just a second, but let's talk about the hockey stick thing because not everybody fucking understands that. When you start out to do something, imagine you lay a hockey stick, the handle, the long part on the ground, and then you let the blade point up to the sky. That represents what has been the pretty standard curve of success for me. Now, I know there's other people out there who maybe they had investors or they had big things happen quickly Basically, right?

But for me, it's grind, grind, grind, grind, grind You make mistakes, you learn lessons, you make mistakes, you learn lessons, you make mistakes, you learn lessons, and eventually you accumulate enough lessons, skills that allow you to make the right decisions. When that starts to happen, the curve goes up dramatically. It's not that the curve just goes like that dramatically. It's that now you've built the skillset inside yourself that you didn't have before. If you had those skills in the beginning, the long part would be much shorter, but most Most of us don't. I started off complete rookie, like a lot of you guys. It just takes time for us to get our asses kicked and then learn the lesson. That's the reality of how it goes, and that's the reality of how it goes for any self-made entrepreneur. Now, there's been times where... For example, there's been times in business where we were working on something and we had a lot of money invested in it, and then we had to cut that because it wasn't working out. Then we had to cut loose big investments and time investments, energy investments, because it wasn't going to work.

You take a step back, you learn a lesson, you keep moving forward. That's happened. I That's happened a lot. It's going to keep happening. Yes. A lot of times of business, in fact, most of the things that we've tried didn't work. Most. That's what people don't see. You don't see all of these failures, these micro failures that happen in someone's success stress because they're not getting on the internet and teaching you all that shit. Because nobody wants to talk about it. You get your balls kicked in. But the reality is, dude, more things go wrong in business than go right. All those things that go wrong teach you lessons, and they become very valuable. There are situations where I had to give up equity or partnerships in certain deals because we had to bring someone else in who was also skilled. While that may seem to be a step backwards, it's not because the people that have come in are highly skilled and allow us to grow to that next level, next level, next level. There's all kinds of situations like that, dude. There's all kinds of situations where you're going to take a step back and you're going to be like, Shit, is this the right thing or should I have done that?

But it's always the right thing if you keep going because you're going to get a better result in the long term.

I feel like for a lot of youngsters, man, this is something we talk about a lot, fear of missing out. You know what I'm saying? For a lot of them, that step back might be you not going to go to that fucking party with your friends this weekend. You know what I'm saying? They're not looking at it. They're looking at it as truly something they're actually missing out on or stepping back away from. But it's the reality, it's what's the payoff for missing that? You know what I'm saying? What were some early times? I guess, when did you start changing your mindset in your path of success here?

When did that change? In the early days, dude, I didn't change. I still went out and partied. I still went out and did all the shit. I drank all the time. Our business I can grow. When I stopped doing that, when I started taking everything serious, and I started getting serious, it grew very fast.

That's when the luck kicked in, right?

Yeah, right. Exactly. But I wouldn't trade it. I I have a lot of good memories. I've got to experience a lot of things. I just would have been where I am now, I think much faster. But I don't regret it because all those things made me who I am now. The last thing you want to be is some fucking business nerd with no life experience. You know what I mean? A lot of those out there. There is. I feel like I got-They're successful guys. Yeah, I feel like I got both. We got a long way to go in business, and we're going to take it there, but I think the more serious you take it, the quicker things are going to go. The less serious you take it, the slower things are going to go. If you're in a hurry to really change your existence, that's where you go all in, bro. You don't play video games, and you don't drink alcohol, and you don't go out with your friends, and you'd fucking… There was a time, five or six years from 2009 to 2016, that time frame, where, fuck, dude, I didn't leave my office.

You know what I'm saying? I didn't fucking leave. I was in my office all day, staring at a computer all day. I'm talking like 20 hours a day. Up, take a nap, get back up, work. But I believe that that's the time when the company was truly built. Now we've brought in all these other smart people like my brother and Jason, and we've got all these other guys here that are a little older than us that have experience.

Now it's just 19 hours a day, right?

No, I mean, look, man, I'm surrounded by people that are much smarter than me at this point. It's a different game at this point. You know what I mean? By the way, you should always surround yourself with people smarter than you. Always. Only dumb people with big egos don't do that. It's not about who gets the credit. It's about did you win or not win?

That's real shit. Yeah, that's real shit. Guys, Andy, let's do our third and final question. Question number three, Andy. I just started a life insurance agency, and I'm working on hiring some people. But I don't want to hire just anyone. I want to build a team that is success-driven and willing to continue to grow into amazing, badass people that want to win at a high level like I do. What are some questions I can be asking or points I can be making to make sure people will be a good fit? Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Yeah. I mean, look, dude, here's the thing about building a team. Okay, look, dude, let Let me explain it like this. When college football, Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, they're all recruiting the same guy. They're all coming in and they're all saying, Hey, come see us. You go on three visits, and one of the visits is going to feel better than the other visits. The reason that it's going to feel better than the other visits is because that place has a culture that aligns with that individual. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. When we think of an organization, it's very important to understand that there is no employee tree. There is no place where you just... There's no secret website where you go out and hire these people and they show up and they're fucking amazing. Now, sometimes you're going to get lucky and you are going to have someone. But the reality is, most people think of it backwards. It's not go out and find these people. It's build what you want internally in terms of the culture that you want, and find people. The people that align with it will find you. Most businesses, especially small, medium businesses, are the opposite.

They pick these employees from random places based on experience from all different areas, they stick them in a fucking organization, and then they wonder why they don't have a good uniform culture or good teamwork. This is most companies. The great companies, the ones that are the greatest companies in the world that have ever existed, they have a very defined culture. Apple runs things a certain way. Amazon at the office level, C-suite and management runs things a certain way. All of these companies, all the biggest companies in the world, Anheuser-Busch, fucking Google, you know what I'm saying? They all have a culture. That culture has either been established by the founder and passed out, or it's been intentionally intentionally built, where they said, Okay, this is what we stand for. And by the way, the best companies are those companies that intentionally build it. That means they have a set of core values that the management and the C-suite and everybody, the owners, live by. They make decisions. They hire by these. They fire by these. They live by these. They correct by these, by these rules, core values of the character traits that we're going to embody as individuals.

This is just like when I talk about personal excellence being the ultimate rebellion, and that culture will change once the individuals change. This is the same thing in business. You set the culture as an organization, and then people will either fall in line with that Some will and some won't. Then you're going to find as the company expands and as you get more people that are in line with the culture, more people begets more people. What will happen is your company will to attract these people because they can see from the outside, I want to be a part of that. I don't work there. But this all starts with an intentional construction of a culture that represents who you are as the decision-maker, operator, founder, CEO of the company. It's very important to listen to what I just said, who you are. Because if you try to go out and make a set of core values and cultural boundaries By the way, this is something I could teach in a workshop for a week. We could talk about it. I'm summarizing this down into an answer, right?

It's also something can make you a fucking bazillion dollars if you do it right.

100%, dude. But the point of this is, is you have to be aligned with the core values that you set, because if you don't live those core values, your employees won't, your team will never catch, and the culture will never actually created. It's very, very important that the core values that you set for the business are authentically who you are or who you make a very strong effort to be, all right? Genuinely, not making shit up, and then you pretend like it's some sign that we see on the wall. That's what shitty companies do. By the way, how many companies you walk in, you see these motivational posters, right? Bro, or you go to these teams, and they got a fucking saying on the wall, play like a champion today, and everybody touches it, but nobody actually lives it. It doesn't mean shit. And by the way, that's Notre Dame. We know that they all live it. So I'm just using that as an example. But we have to understand that as operators, founders, CEOs, the culture stems from us. We intentionally define it. We live it. We have the people that work with us live it.

And then we will attract not the people who fit, just like the guys who want to play in Michigan are going to go play in Michigan. The guys who want to play in Alabama, they're going to play there. The guys who want to play in Tennessee, they're going to play there. And the reason they pick that 100% of the time is because the culture fits them. So So it's a very, very powerful concept. It's a high-level concept. Not very many people know how to do it. But if you set that up and then build questions, because now I'm going to to answer the question, and then build questions in your interview process that dig out. There is no standard questions. You have to make them up. But what questions could you ask to find out if this person will align with the culture that you set? What can you dig out of them? How can you get them to tell you stories about their life or situations that reflect the cultural standard that you're looking to reflect inside your company? These are things that we teach in Arte. These are things that I'm going to get into on the MFCEO project.

But like I said, this is a week-long workshop that I could probably charge seven figures for for companies to come learn it. This is more involved than a Q&A question. Yeah, for sure. But that's the gist, okay? Who are you? What do you want your company to stand for? Define that, develop questions that reflect that, interview people, and do your You're not going to hit 1,000, dude.

Hall of Fame is 300.

That's right. If you hit 300 in the interview process, you will be in a fucking Hall of Fame. Real talk. No shit.

I want to touch on this piece, though, that you mentioned about building people. There is no- That's a whole another.

I'm glad you brought that up. You have to become the coach, the mentor, the leader of these people. Both their skillset at work, but also their character.

They take home.

Yes. How can you be better? Why do we do certain things this way? Dude, it comes down to a very simple question. Do you want a decent organization that does okay, or do you want a great organization that you enjoy going to work at and that makes a lot of money and it makes your customers really fucking happy? I want the second. I want to be around people that are like me. I want to be around people that I want a cultural fit. I want to be around people that work hard and do the right thing. That's what I want to do. I don't want to be around a bunch of people I got to drag down the fucking road. You know what I mean?

No money does.

I know, but most people do. Most What do these people do? The biggest question that I get when entrepreneurs come visit here is, Dude, and that's what they say, Where do you hire your employees? Where do you find all these people? That's just the wrong understanding of… It's an oversimplified old thinking about how you could build an organization or a team. It's just what it is. No one goes to nick Saban and says, Where the fuck you find these people? Because everybody knows that nick Saban builds these motherfuckers through a certain culture and standard when he was the coach of Alabama. You understand? So no one says, Hey. They just say, Well, fuck, he's good at picking them, and then he molds them. As an operator, you have to take on the role of not just CEO or founder, but also big brother sometimes, uncle sometimes, dad sometimes, right? Mom sometimes. Yeah, right. Best friend sometimes. You have to become a true coach That's something that I think the leadership here at First Form does a really good job of not just me, but everybody. Yeah, 100% man.

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

Yeah. All right, guys. Well, let's get out there. Let's kick some ass. Don't forget to go get on that email list because that's coming in days. It's not coming in weeks anymore. The new MSCEO project. So go get on that email list at andyfersala. Com, and then we'll see you tomorrow with CTI..