Transcript of 848. Q&AF: Getting Your Fire Back, Handling Anxiety & Managing Ego In Employees

What is up, guys? It's Andy Fussella, 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 Q and Q&A. F. That's where you submit the questions, and we give you the answers. Now, you could submit your questions a few different ways.

The first way is, guys, email these questions into askandy@andyfussella.

Com, or go on YouTube in the Q&A fs, 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. 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 5 to 20 minutes of me giving you some real talk. 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 transformed their reality. If you're unfamiliar with 75 Hard, it's the world's biggest, most popular mental transformation program. It is the initial phase of the Live Hard program. You could get both of those programs for free at episode 208 on the audio feed.

There's also a book available at andyfercela. 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. 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. 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. We're the biggest show in the world that doesn't run ads. I am an actual entrepreneur. I run actual companies, and I financed this show myself. The reason for that is because I don't want anybody telling me what I can and can't say. 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. You don't help us. You don't share the show. Okay? So don't be a hoe. Share the show. All right. And buy our shit. You know what I'm saying? We'll just throw that in there. As a reminder, yeah, and by the way, if you do want to support us, you can buy these first-form energy drinks at your local convenience store, grocery store. If they don't have them, ask them what the fuck is going on. What operation are you running here?

Can't be a good one.

Clearly not. Let's see. Mfceo Project coming back. I just want to remind you guys of that. We'll have some announcements on that very soon. If you're unfamiliar with the MFCEO Project, it is the first podcast before Real AF that I did. It was the number one business podcast in the world. Not much changed there. But also, it was the number one overall show for a long time. We're bringing that back. The reason I'm bringing it back is because I feel that I'm needed to teach the younger generation the skills of winning. We're going to do that. 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. 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. I'm excited about that, bro. Yeah, I'm excited about the things we're doing different. 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.

I think the coolest piece of it, too, man, outside looking in is like... I mean, you talk about business.

That's going to be the interviews and the guests. It's going to be cool, man, because it's going to be not just the real entrepreneurs that I know, it's going to be people who have used... Like, bro, fucking... I talked to a guy yesterday who's got a $300 million company that was talking about how he used to listen to MF CEO when he was fucking hustling back in the day. So stuff like that.

You know what I mean? What I like about it most is you've talked about this before, how business has its cycles and its evolutions, and you're in a new phase of business, new to you, right? Being able to apply all the shit that you've learned even most recently.

Well, Look, dude, building a business to a million 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. All of these skills overlap, but it is going to be a lot different. It's going to be a lot more knowledge to bestude Bistow. I'm excited about it. The word of the day right there. Bistow. That's where you live. 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.

Wow. Let's do it. That's a new one for the day, too. The what? Usual.

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? Did you ever lose that fire of what you wanted to get and why you wanted 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. But 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 humming birds 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 care-free, skip 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. 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. That certainty then sucks people in and, quite honestly, ruins their fucking life because that person will be on the next thing next year and the next thing the year after that and the next thing the year after that.

They talk out their ass and I don't know what the fuck they're talking about. 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. 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 pushed 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 me. 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. 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. That's the game. I don't know how to explain it any better. 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 fucking disappointed and unfulfilled. Dude, it's It's just the way it is.

Let's tie this into material because you mentioned he had these dreams of cars and houses and stuff. I know for you, it was a Lamborghini Countash, right? Yeah. How important was that for you? We talk about motivation. It's hard on those days, you don't feel like doing shit. Is that really what you look towards? You know what I'm saying?

What did you- Listen, this game is so fucking hard. You got to use whatever the fuck you man. 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 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. That's just the facts. That's true. All right? A lot of people like to say, This shit doesn't matter. It's just transportation A to B. Well, have you ever gone anywhere in a Bugatti? Yeah, Because it's pretty fucking cool. A to B is pretty cool. Yeah, and you get there a 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? Anything that you can do to drive you is a good thing. Some people, it's money. Some people, it's car. 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. Because I was young and I lacked the understanding of how to drive myself without those things. Once I got all those things in business, once I accumulated some cool stuff, and I realized, well, fuck, dude, there's only so much cool shit you can get. Then I did some searching internally and tried to… Probably going through a lot with this young man's going through, where he's thinking, well, why am I doing this? What I started to realize is that I looked around and I'm like, well, at that time, we probably had 80 guys, total 80 people. I looked around, I'm like, well, this guy depends on this. This guy depends on this. That guy is not driving a nice car yet. That guy hasn't bought a house. I started to realize my obligation was not just to myself, it was to everybody else. As I progressed through the process, my drive and purpose changed. It became from 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.

But once you have it, 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. 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. So that became 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. Once in a while, it does, but that's really not it. 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. There was that. I did that, and I'm continuing to do that.

What's my bigger purpose past that? What am I supposed to go home at 42 years old and fucking sit on the couch and fuck off? That wasn't very fun. Then I had to redefine my purpose again. 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. The reason it isn't what it should be is because the individuals allow it to be that. 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, they have a better life. If they have a better life, that means the standard is raised. If the standard is raised in a 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. When I say personal excellence is the ultimate rebellion, that's what I mean because our country is only as good as its individuals. 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. This is the scaling 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. Because, 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? 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. 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 when you're 30, it could be, Hey, I've gotten here. Now I got to bring people here. Then when you're 40, you're like, Well, fuck, I brought some people here. 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. For me, dude, that's just how it's played out. 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.

Because I look at, 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 Kuntash?

Bro, a lot. You know what?

People are like, Oh, you just wanted the Kuntash, bro. That's selfish as fuck. Yeah.

You guys know Gary Vee. I love Gary. Gary has been a massively influential person in my life for the last 15 years. Yeah.

Awesome dude.

He's a great dude, and he's hyper intelligent, and people do not realize how tuned in that dude is. One of the things that Gary and I... Now, we've had a couple of disagreements over the course of the 15 years we've been friends. One of the disagreements was he made a post one time laughing at people that buy nice cars. I messaged him. I said, Hey, I understand you're from New York and you guys don't drive cars and shit up there. But let me tell you about cars. And I told him that. Dude, 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, which is true. But the point of the matter is, you got to be careful not to shit on people's material goals. Don't take those dreams away from people. When people have dreams of material shit, don't shit on Don't say, Oh, that's stupid, or that's bullshit, or you're just a clown for wanting that. Because, dude, that might be the thing that drives them to the next thing, and then drives them to the next thing.

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. Dude, you can't to quantify what could actually happen. Bro, Elon Musk. Let's talk about Elon right now as an entrepreneur. Elon Musk, as an entrepreneur, bought a million dollar McLaren F1 in 1999. He's in a car in 1999. He's in a car in 1999. He's in a car in 1999. He's in a car in 1999. He's in a car in 1999. 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. You like space? Yeah. Expand his purpose. But the point is, now this dude employs hundreds of thousands of people in his different companies because he continued to expand what his purpose was. I believe he's expanded it again, which is similar to in line with what my purpose is.

He's looked at the world and he's like, Well, fuck, we got to fix this. That's how it goes, bro. If you want to actually win long term, you have to redefine what that purpose is going to be over and over and over again. 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 love it. Guys, any questions? 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. That's point number one. Stop consuming all the data on the internet written by motherfuckers fuckers who haven't done anything near what you want to do. 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. 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 going to feel crazy. That's most of the information on the internet. Most of these people writing the therapy memes, and most of the people There's a lot of people who are writing these... The feel good shit. Yeah. First of all, most of those people are stealing the writing. They don't even know what the fuck they're writing. It just doesn't apply, bro. We live To be a successful entrepreneur, it takes a different path. That's it. 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.

When we lack these little things that other people say that they should have, we start feeling bad and we get anxiety and we judge ourselves. The reality is, is those are the rules for everybody else. The rules for us are different. Once you figure that out, you 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. That's building companies, building organizations, achievement that creates careers and 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, 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.

That's point number two. Point number three is when ambitious people do not have a detailed plan to work, they feel anxiety. 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 detail plan of the execution, you would be too busy to feel anxious. For real. Those are the three things that I think 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.

That you're not supposed to be consuming. Yeah.

Or the third part. I'm 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. 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. We have dealt with the condemnation and villainization of these traits for a very long time. 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 He's definitely in the right for wanting to go create shit. But other than that, dude, anxiety typically is a normal ebb and flow of just being a human being. If you learn how to listen to it, what it usually tells you is, get off your ass and go solve this problem.

Okay?

That's-it's a flag of like, you're not doing something.

Yes, it's a signal. Bro, back in the day, when you would have the caveman would get anxiety, the reason The reason he would get anxiety is because he have any fucking food. He's like, Fuck, I don't know where my food is going to come from. So guess what he had to do? He had to go get some food. These are triggers that cause us to understand that there's a problem, identify a problem, and then go solve it. But we are now inundated with all of this shit in the world that tells us it's wrong to feel any anxiety. Dude, if you start focusing and living your your day to feel zero anxiety, you are going to feel a multiple effect of anxiety because you are ultra sensitive to anxiety when it creeps in. 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 my day. I'm going to try to get through my day. And then something happens. Then all of a sudden you're like, Fuck, I can't get through my one day without feeling this. It causes overreaction because you have an unrealistic expectation of a normal human emotion, which is anxiety, dude.

What's it telling you, bro? It's normal. What's it telling you? What's it telling you to do? 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 I got to go fix that shit. That's my answer on that, dude. 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, having unrealistic expectations about anxiety, 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, the people who tell you, Oh, 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... Bro, it's so wild.

Listen, it's the predatory therapist industry at this point. They have convinced people that having any anxiety means that there's something wrong with them. 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. Or convincing someone that they are mentally broken when in reality, they're just not doing what a human is 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. 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 you our third and final question. Question number three. Hi, Andy. I just like how they put there. Hello. Hi, Andy. Hi, Andy. Yeah, meetings. 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 $100,000 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 to work that day out of the blue. We rely on her to take stress off of our plate. When she is there and on At some 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 to 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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 can 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. What are your options? Well, your options are you can either get that strained 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. If that person isn't doing things the way that you require people to do things, nobody else will either. If you can explain that to someone, sometimes they will correct their behavior because they're not aware that they're actually a cancer 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.

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 how much you think we're going to do things a certain way here, and they're going to be done that way. If you don't do them this way, you won't be here. 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 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. We better do it right. Yeah. Okay? You're dealing with a lot 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.

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. The problem with that is that it destroys your culture. Because if you let them do that and don't let anybody else do that, your team is not going to respect you. They're not 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. The reality is, if that person is doing that now, do you want them doing that when your business is 20 times bigger? You see what I'm saying? My advice would be, if you were hiring me to consult your company, I would say, remove this person, explain to the team why, use it as a culture-building lesson. 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? Good riddance. Yeah. 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. They lose respect for her and you and the company and the mission, and things don't go well. 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, right? 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 good nature They'll know that you have a good heart, and they'll use it against you, dude. Every time. Yeah. Bro, I had a person one time come to me. I'm just going to give you an example of the shit that you'll deal with. I had a 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. $8,000 from where I'm at in life can make a big impact on their life. For me, I don't even notice it. I paid the medical bills, and a week later, the person quits. Then I called over to the department that they were in and I said, What happened here? The person had missed or left early in the last 12 months, 60 days. Shit. 60 days, which I was infuriated why that was even tolerated in the first place. I walked into my brother's office and I said, You're never going to fucking believe this. I told him the story, and he said, No fucking way.

I He 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, dude. Yeah. Because we're good people, you understand? We care about people. That's the shit people will do to you. They don't care. They don't give a fuck about you. Now, in my case, I think that's a very rare exception of the rule from the people that we work with. For sure. It happens. No, 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 a fucking mile. You got to be careful. You got to be careful who you Letting your... Dude, I was talking to my buddy earlier today in the car world, and he has a guy who won a billion-dollar powerball. Shit. Okay. I fucking comment it back. I texted him back. I said, Well, dude, I hope he understands how to fucking push the scammers and the crooks and this and that away, because they come, bro. They come. 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.

It's disheartening, it's frustrating, it makes you feel like a fucking idiot. But at the end of the day, when I die, I want to be able to say, I did the right thing. That's how I look at it when I look back and I say, God, you're stupid for doing those things. But What do you do? That's on people like that. That's not on you. You know what I'm saying? 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 it is what it is. Getting back to the original question, you can't tolerate bad behavior just because people produce high value when they're there. When you said, Oh, that's a perfect employee. That's not a fucking... That's a terrible employee. 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. My advice to you would be to walk in and to say, Thank you for everything that you've done, but these things are unacceptable, and they're unacceptable for this reason.

If these things can't get fixed, and by fixed, I mean never, ever fucking happen again. 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. That person is going to be they're going to get defensive. They're going to be, I'm your best, blah, blah, blah. If they do that, fucking fire them. Get them out. Right. Immediately. Now, if they say, Hey, I never thought about it like that, man. I'm sorry. I'm making you look fucking stupid, aren't I? If they say something like that, now they're getting it. 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 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.

You know what I'm saying? That was real shit, man. I love it. I love it, man.

Well, guys, Andy, that was three. Yeah. Don't be a hoe.

Share the shop.

We're from sleepin' on the floor. Now my jury. Don't be a ho. Share the shop.