749. Q&AF: Is Hard Work A Skill?, Discipline Vs Focus & Setting Bigger Goals
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What is up guys? It's Andy Frisella and this is the show for the realest. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society. Welcome to Motherfucking Reality. Guys, today we got a little mid-week get better session. We

That's where you submit the Q's and we give you the A F's. Now you can submit your questions to be answered on the show a couple different ways. The first way is guys email these questions into ask Andy at Andy for seller.com or you go on YouTube in the comment section, drop your question in there on the Q and a F episodes. We'll answer some from there as well. Guys, we are going to start doing live call-ins. So I'm going to let you guys know we've got that coming up. So the Q and A's we're going to start having you guys call in live and

And that should be fun because I'm sure some of y'all want to be assholes. Guess what? I could be asshole too. So we're going to start doing that. So I'll keep you in a loop on that. We're setting up right now. And don't forget, we do have a fee for the show. I'm not going to go through the whole intro. The fee is very simple. We don't run ads on the show. I don't waste half of your time listening to ads.

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that you share the show if it makes you think if it makes you laugh it gives you some good information good perspective please share the show okay we're constantly battling traffic throttles shadow bans censorship of all different kinds and we need your help to get the message out so if you could be so kind as to do your part of the deal which my part is to give you free information your part is to share the show so don't be a hoe share the show yeah what's up what's good oh not much

Bro, I drank a diet soda last night. Fuck. My stomach is fucked up. Well, you don't drink soda at all. I know. I never do. Yeah, that's why. Yeah. You know, I love Diet Cokes. Bro, I used to love Diet Mountain Dew, but dude, I drank like one and my stomach is just fucked. Yeah. I'm glad I got away from it, though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like Diet Cokes. Anyway, so I heard this thing. Shit. So I heard that- Fuck.

You and Madat and Zeeshan all went and got sushi and didn't invite me and Joe and Joe. Call it United Nations. I feel like there were some lines drawn in the sand. It was all Madat's fault.

What? I was hungry. There really was, bro. We were just talking about sushi. Was that yesterday, Joe? Yesterday, we were over here talking about Sushi AI, and you fucking assholes go. I can't eat any anyway, but I would have liked an invite. Joe, would you have liked to have been invited? Yep. What it was, I actually did an advance on the location. Oh, that's what it was. So I can go next time for you. That makes sense. To make sure that it's safe.

It's safe. Is it safe? It's safe. That's what it was. You guys are so thoughtful. Yeah, I got you, bro. I got you. I appreciate you. All right, man. Enough fucking around. I'm trying to be serious today. Put on your game face. We're going to make some people better. That's the same face. That's the same face. Bro, I got tagged in a story today. I thought it was pretty good.

This guy, he follows me and you, and I don't follow him. I never saw him before, but it showed up in my tag stories. And he wrote, you know, I disagree with about half of what these guys say.

But I believe they're trying to do the right thing and they're super entertaining. Oh, I love it. And he shared the show. Love it. I thought that was cool. Oh, that is cool. You're still wrong, but you're cool. Yeah, you are wrong for sure. Yeah. But you know what I love, dude? I love that our listeners are, they're not like typical, you know, unprofessional.

Oh, he said one thing. Fuck him. Unfollow. Like they're reasonable people that critically think and have disagreements and, you know, say, hey, you know, I understand where you're coming from here. But what about here? And I like that. You know, that's what that's what this is supposed to be. Yeah. You got to be out of the box thing. Yeah. And as long as people are cool about it, you know, cool and respectful. Yeah, I agree, man. It's cool. Are you still wrong?

Definitely wrong. Yeah, man. Well, let's make some people better today. Let's do that. Let's see what we can get done here. I got three good ones for you, Andy. Do you? Let's knock these out. I'm shocked. Guys, Andy, question number one. Andy.

Is being a quote unquote hard worker, a skill or a trait? I've always felt like I've always took my time and took the slow and steady approach to deliver quality work. I feel like the I'm a hard worker gets overused a lot and it's associated with like balls to the wall or speed and quickness.

So can you give us some insight? What is the proper definition of a hard worker? What does that really mean? And how do you not fuck it up? Well, do you think Michelangelo worked hard on the sculpture of David? Do you think he worked hard? I think he worked hard and long. Okay. Do you think that he worked hard to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Do you think that was hard work? Yeah. Do you think he did it fast?

No? No, he was just diligent. He showed up every day. He did what he needed to do. He did it at a high level. And he's highly skilled. Okay? So...

You have to understand hard work doesn't mean speed. It also doesn't mean slow. It means I'm showing up. I'm relentlessly giving my best effort to produce my best product. All right. And there is a speed factor there, right? Like if you're a hard worker and you produce a good product, but other people produce as good of a product and half the time they're better than you. That's a higher skill set. All right. So hard work.

is the prerequisite. It is the foundation. You will never find a successful person that doesn't have that as their foundation. They show up every single day. They give it everything they have. They do diligent work, which means they put in massive amounts of effort at a high level. They are consistent with that.

Now, there's lots of people that work hard that never, ever, ever become successful financially because they don't apply an in-demand skill to the hard work. All right. There's lots of people that work really hard digging ditches every day and that are digging ditches when they're 70 years old. There's lots of people who work really, really hard that

For a long time and never make it and that's because working hard is just part of the puzzle the other part of the puzzle is How high your skill set is how developed your skill set is and so we have these people that say these things like Work smart not hard. All right. Well, you're a fucking moron All right I'm gonna tell you that right now because it takes both it takes hard work and it takes smart work so

While you have to be putting in the work and you have to be showing up and you have to be giving it all you have you have to consistently be aware and conscious of The intentional skill set that you are building along the way if you do not have the skill set and you just work hard you're gonna get paid a Fraction of what you could get paid if you actually intentionally built skills to go along with it and so

Because people usually learn most of what they learn from their parents, from their teachers, from their aunts, from their uncles, and because most people grow up in a very –

you know, regular environment. They're not surrounded by successful people. They're not surrounded by people who have actually built things. They don't really even know anybody in real life that has actually built things. It's very hard for them to understand that their parents and their aunts and their uncles who haven't done anything don't know that much about how to become successful at doing things because they haven't done that. All right. So we end up listening to our family and our

in our immediate circle, our immediate network of people about what it actually takes. And what usually comes out of those conversations from the old people is, oh man, you know, you can work as hard as you want, but the system is still going to be the system and you're not going to get ahead. They don't care about you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And the reality is, is those people will probably gave it their all for a little bit, five, 10 years maybe, but they didn't work on developing their skillset. They weren't intentional about becoming better. They believe that if they just show up and they give it their effort, that eventually things will materialize. And when those things don't materialize,

They get bitter and they get pissed off and they start blaming other people. They blame their job. They blame their situation. They blame capitalism. They make up all these excuses as to why they're not getting where they want to get when in reality they're just missing part of the equation. And the reason that they don't know about the part of the equation about gaining skill as you put in the hard work is because nobody around them ever did that. All right. So how do you know something that nobody around you knows? It's very difficult. So

We have to like reframe our thinking about these statements. It's not just hard work and it's not just smart work. It's both. And if you lack both, you're going to be paid very little. And if you have both, you're eventually going to be able to write your own check in life of where you want to go.

You know, it's interesting, man, because I think, you know, when you were talking about this, it's like I have this image in my head of just somebody that's just spinning their wheels. Like the wheels are fucking moving. There is an output of some type of energy, but like you're not going anywhere. Right. And I feel like most people.

Like that's an innate fear that they have is like, I'm going to do this and not do the work. But then we're dishonest about the actual work that we're putting in. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Can we talk a little bit about that? Yeah. I mean, that's an honest fear most people have. Look, man, most people drastically overestimate the amount of work that they do. That's just the way it is. You know, this is a cultural phenomenon. All right. Everybody wants to brag about how hard they work.

Everybody wants to brag about how busy they are. But the reality is, is that success doesn't give a shit how busy you are. It cares about how effective you are. Okay. And if you're effective at a lot of shit because you work hard and you have high skill, you're going to get further in life. This shouldn't take much logic to figure out. You're working hard. You have a C plus skill set. Okay.

Okay, you're going to get somewhere. You're working hard. You have an A plus skill set. You're going to get 10 times further in half the time. All right. This is what people don't understand. So yeah, you have to be honest about what you're putting in, which most people aren't honest with themselves about.

anything. Most people look in the mirror and they're, you know, 350 pounds. And I know this because this was me. And they say, they don't say, Hey, you're a fat fuck. You need to change. They say, you know, they suck in their gut and they look from the side and they're like, you know, I look all right. I'm good. I just wore this black shirt.

You know, it'll cover me up, you know, and then they live their life that way. They live their life lying, telling themselves that they're good when they aren't good. And then they get mad about the results that they fail to produce. And this is a big problem, dude. And another thing is I noticed this with especially young people. And really, it's not even it's not a fair I guess it's not a fair thing to say, especially young people, because I think it's all people.

Most people have very tough time understanding that success and winning is something that you have to seize. You have to take it. It's not something that is going to come to you. All right? Like if you want to raise, you think you're worth more, you have to figure out how to prove that to the people above you and go sell yourself and have a conversation. Hey, Steve,

I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this. I feel like I'm worth a little bit more money or this is what I think is fair. Like you have to, and people don't even do that, right? Like people won't even have that conversation because they don't have the evidence. And what they end up doing is they end up quitting places and they say, oh, that place sucked. No, motherfucker, you sucked.

You fucking sucked. That place didn't suck at all. You didn't even have the courage to go up and ask how you could get better. You didn't have the courage to go up and say, hey, what do I need to do to get here? Because this is where I'd like to be. You didn't even have that. You just fucking stop whatever you're doing. You go on the internet. You type up some bullshit victim pussy shit about, oh, I'm going to go fucked by this place or, you know, another place, blah, blah, blah. Take it, bro. Fuck off.

Okay, there's millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of tens of millions of people who have accomplished what it is that you're trying to accomplish, who come from harder places, worse places, more difficult places than you. And we have a society. And the truth is, people don't want to hear this, but it is true. We have a society of completely soft marshmallow motherfuckers.

They're not successful in any area of their life. They're not fit. They're not mentally fit. They're not good at their work. They're not good in relationships. But somehow it's everybody else's fault that they suck. Bro, look in the mirror, bro. Look at your life. Look at the decisions you're making. Look at the work you're putting in. Tell yourself the truth and the answer will become apparent.

And once you tell yourself the truth, you are now free to change the situation. But people are so afraid of the truth and they're so afraid of confronting themselves with things that might hurt their ego that they continue to lie. They continue to tell fairy tales. And at the end of their life, nothing has materialized and they can't figure out why. So I got screwed or it just didn't work out for me or it was God's plan for me to be a loser. No, it wasn't. That was your plan. That's a result of your actions.

I love it, man. Guys, Andy, question number two. Hey, Andy, I am 25 and I am building my insurance book for business from scratch. I feel like I have glimpses of when I am hyper focused on my goals and then days and even weeks when I feel like I am not. Even when I am doing my power list, I still feel that I am not 100% focused and feel like every little thing distracts me and gets me off path.

Is this a discipline problem or do I need to do a better job at eliminating things that knock me off path? Thank you for all you do. How do you maintain that focus? Is that discipline or do you need to be trying to figure out what's happening around you? Well, look, first of all, you have to understand that discipline doesn't imply that it's going to be easy. Discipline implies that it's going to get done even when you don't feel like it. So there's a lot of times when you're exercising high levels of discipline that you're like,

fuck, I don't want to be doing this. It's extremely hard. I'd rather be doing other things. I'm not really focused on this, but the thing gets done regardless because of the discipline. So just because it's hard doesn't mean you don't have discipline. Discipline

is required to do the things that are hard when you don't feel like doing them. That doesn't mean they're going to feel less hard. It just means they're still going to get done. And if you take inventory of your life and everything you ever told yourself you wanted to be, and you go back in time and you say, what if I had been able to adhere to the plan I laid out in front of my path for me to get where I wanted to go,

and I had stuck to that no matter what, what would my life look like now? What would my life look like if every single time I told myself I was going to get in great shape, I actually followed through the first time? What would my life look like if all the times I told myself I was going to take my career more seriously, I just did that the first time? Where would I be now? Right? It's a life-changing skill set.

Being able to have high discipline that does not mean that it's easy You can't look at someone who is constantly it's almost insulting to look at someone who is constantly working hard and Think that it's easy for them to work hard. It's not easy, bro. I struggle every day I'm so dude. I am so physically sore every day like I don't want to fucking lift weights I don't want to do shit. I could barely I'm dude. I'm I'm like

A lot older than you motherfuckers most of you. Okay, like I'm sore You think I want to go train with weights? You saw me going to train with weights today The first thing I said when I got up is I'm like fuck don't get old You know what I'm saying? Like my back stiff. My knees are stiff. My elbows are stiff. I'm fucking it's not fun It hurts. I'm in pain when I train and

Don't fucking message me all this fucking bullshit about touching the grass. Joey's got some green tea for you. I know what I'm doing, okay? Like, I'm going to get all these messages from dudes who have been training. I've been training for 30 fucking years, okay? I'm going to get all these people who are new fitness influencers telling me I need to fucking do butthole stretches or some shit. Send me a video. Let me check your form. Yeah, right. I'll come over and stretch out your anus. I bet you will.

so so dude anyway my point is is that don't message me some dumb all right my point my point is is don't look at people who are doing all these hard things and insult them by thinking that it's easy just because they're doing it there's a lot of i do every single day i don't feel like doing a lot in fact most of the that i do every day i don't want to do all right it's hard what i do is very very hard it's very very stressful it's very very there's a lot of weight to carry

It's hard. It never gets easy. And you've seen that firsthand. Bro, DJs around me as much as almost anybody. And I mean, dude, just honestly, there's days, you know, that it crushes me, dude. Like fucking straight up.

But does the shit get done on the days of crushing? It gets fucking done. And that's what matters about discipline. So just because you think it's hard and just because you think that you don't feel it or you're not catching it and you're going to have off days doesn't mean that's something that's that's it. That's how it's supposed to be, bro. You're mistaking it, thinking that once you develop a strong discipline, that things are just easy. That's not the way it is. Right. I love that.

Yeah, so didn't he have another part of his question? Just maintaining the focus. So with that, so is this a focus issue, right? Like you feel like he has issues maintaining his focus on things that he knows he's supposed to be doing. Yeah, well, if you're having one of those days, dude, it's always a good thing to sit down and, you know, remember why it is you're doing it. You know what I mean? And usually if you can remember that what you're doing is not really for you, it's for everybody else.

Then you have more of a, you have more ability to sort of harness that internal energy, that internal focus to get shit done. Right? Like, yeah, I don't have kids at home, but I look at all these people here as my kids. I look at all these people here as my little brothers and my little sisters that I got to fucking do my shit or they're going to fucking starve. Okay. So there's a lot of pressure when you think like that.

And if I didn't think like that, I probably wouldn't be as effective because I would just be doing things for me. I seriously doubt I'd be here six, seven days a week working if I was doing it just for me at this point in my life. You see what I'm saying? So we got to find external motivations and external causes and take a minute when we're not focused and say, okay, well, this is why I'm doing this.

Just take five minutes and reflect and say, hey, why am I doing this? Who's benefiting from this? Who's depending on this? And that will help get you focused. And then also, I think another thing is that you can always manufacture the momentum. When you force yourself through three or four days that are hard, eventually that momentum kicks back in and it starts to get easy again. And yeah, after a while, it's going to get monotonous.

But if you force yourself for another three or four days, it starts to get easy again. So it's just it's ebbs and flows. And I would I would really caution everybody to not make the mistake of thinking that just because someone is disciplined and just because it looks easy from the outside, that doesn't mean it's easy. It just means they're just doing what they need to do. And as long as you do what you need to do,

You know how you feel about it really is irrelevant like when you're at when you're in the place you want to be and you've built the business you want to build or the life you want to build it should be very easy for you to look back and say I'm proud of that you're not going to remember all the times you didn't feel like it like I don't look back at like where I'm at now and think like.

You know, fuck dude. I remember all those days in 2006 where I didn't feel like no like I don't even think about it It's like going on a trip dude, like you never remember the fucking airplane ride You remember being on the trip, you know what I mean? And so that's that's how it is like so you're gonna have hard times I love that because and I feel like I've seen this in work too man with you because it's like What you're saying is like in those hard times kind of realign your intent. Yeah, right like like

You, for example, like I know your calendar, bro. You'll go from this meeting that's tailored for this specific department in this company and you'll walk right into another office in a completely different business. You know what I'm saying? So like maintaining, you realign that intent in that meeting. How does that work for you?

I mean, that's a difficult skill to develop. It's still difficult for me at 25 years of doing this. Because if I'm focusing all my intent, all my energy, all my thoughts, all my creativity, all my problem-solving solutions, which is really my biggest thing,

in this one area and then I have to walk into this completely different area and do the same thing. It takes, and then do it in a snap. It's a skill, dude. You just do it over and over and over again. But I can tell you, out of all the skills that I've had to learn to be an effective CEO,

That's probably the hardest one. Being able to switch my focus from this one to that one on the fly. And, you know, I don't really have a plan for it other than it's just one of those things you have to do. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Love it. Interesting. Thought provoking. Yeah.

There you go. Mixing it up. Guys, Andy, let's get to it. Lovely. Lovely answer. Yeah, lovely. Guys, Andy, our third and final question, question number three. Hey, Andy and DJ, I want to say thank you, Andy, for your spirit of giving and courage to be vocal and hashtag Real AF. My question is, how do you maintain a high level of hunger?

I consider myself a disciplined person. I don't drink. I don't party or go out. I just started 75 hard. I work a competitive sales job. I just find myself looking back in certain periods of my life and thinking to myself, I wanted it a lot more back then.

Um, or I was making way more sacrifices there and way more discipline and hunger there. I know I'm doing okay for myself, but I also am still on a journey, uh, away from my end goals. Uh, and can be definitely be doing a lot better. I'm looking for that same drive and hunger. I know I'm capable of, um, and I'm not really sure what the answer is to getting to that level and maintaining it. How do you stay hungry?

You got to set bigger goals Okay, you got to put yourself in an intentional position that you're extremely far away from where you want to be So that you understand every day I have to get up and go at it as if it's day one, right? so

And by the way, this advice I'm about to give is not for everybody. This is for here on this show, we are speaking to the most driven, the most hungry, the most ambitious people on the planet. Or you wouldn't listen, straight up. You go listen to all these other guys. They're way softer than me. They're way less intense. They want to work so they can live their life. I want to work so I can fucking win, okay? There's a big difference, okay?

I'm talking to the people who want to win. There's lots of people that get to a certain point and they do the math and they figure out, I got enough money to go live my life. Totally cool, bro. Totally get it. I'm not wired that way. I'm wired to be the best. I'm trying to be the best.

Ever. All right. And I know that's unrealistic. Like you might hear that and say, oh, but you ask why I fucking why I wake up every day and go hard because I'm so far away from where I want to be that I have to. I don't have a choice. And I'm serious about getting there. Like when I say we're going to build first form into the next, quote unquote, iconic American brand like the Nikes and the Under Armour's and shit like that.

I'm serious and we're very far away from that and so I wake up every day and I go hard as fuck when I when I wake up every day and I say hey I want to be in the top point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one percent of men my age I'm serious about that and I know there's other dudes that are my age that are kicking my fucking ass I'm serious about that not many but I'm there they're out there but I don't want to be kind of the best I want to be the best and so

For me, this is about setting bigger goals. All right, and I learned this lesson a number of times because over the 25 years that I've been in business and

There's a lot of times where I felt the way that this person is describing, where I got a little bit soft, I got a little bit comfortable, I got a little bit complacent. And that's easy to do when you've got a decent house and you're driving a nice car and you got a few bucks in the bank. It's real easy to tell yourself, man, I'm doing good. I can just relax. The problem is, is that...

eventually you're not gonna be doing so good because the whole flow of success and the whole flow of Society and progress is like a river. It's always moving. All right now if you get off the river and you say fuck I'm good. I'm kind of tired of swimming, you know, even though you're swimming down the stream I'm gonna take a break and you get off on the riverbank all the motherfuckers that were up the river a mile up the road They're gonna fucking pass by you. Okay, so

You have to stop and say, what do I really want to be? How far away am I from that? And be honest with yourself and then take the appropriate action. So I can't tell someone who is where they want to be and comfortable with

by design that they need to go expand their vision because this is their vision. Their vision is that. But there's things to be cognizant of if you stop and get out of the river. And that's this. You think you have a lot of money now, but what about 15 years from now? What about 20 years from now? What about 40 years from now? Do you have 40 years worth of money living at your lifestyle? And does that consider inflation and the devaluation of dollar or emergencies or economic collapse?

We need a lot more money than what we think we need. We need a lot more success than what we think we need. And I think it's very, very dangerous as a man, considering that it's our job to build and provide and inspire and show the way for us to think that we haven't made at any point in our lives because you don't, you never know what's going to happen. And at the end of the day, if you keep going, you'll be in a position where you can do all kinds of really good stuff for people. So to sum this up,

You have to expand your vision. You have to say, all right, I'm here.

And where I really want to be is here and I'm a gazillion miles away from that. And so I have to work hard, just like you had to work very hard on the real day one to get where you are now. You see what I'm saying? So it's about expanding vision, expanding potential. And I would challenge anybody, you know, that thinks like, oh man, I'm in a really good spot. And, and I, okay, well, if you're, you know, a lot of, a lot, most of our people, I think, believe in God that listen to the show. If you're,

the product of god and god gave you all this potential and you only decide to squeeze out half the potential do you think you're honoring god or do you think you're failing god something to think about okay so i think about that so i think it's our job and i think success is ultimately defined by us making a commitment to the pursuit of our own true potential understanding that our own true potential can never be realized because eventually we run out of time

But, and by the way, as we gain skills along the journey, the potential on the backside of it expands. If you were to take someone who was 90 years old with that whole life experience and put them back at 30, think what they could achieve because of what they know. You see what I'm saying? But they eventually run out of time and they die. But if you commit to that and you squeeze all the juice out, when you're going to die, you could at least look at yourself and say, well,

I did it. You know what I'm saying? I squeezed all the juice out of what I had. You can feel good about it. And, you know, everybody has a different path of how they want to live. And I'm not here to tell people how to live. But you asked how to get hungry again. You should probably realize that you ain't shit.

that's what you should realize and and and dude you know that's why when people and you hear this because you're around me all the time they come up to me and they say andy congrats on everything you've done man thank you for everything you've done congratulations it's amazing what you've done and i'm like bro i'm just getting fucking started i this is day one because i mean that that's legit i legitimately mean that like bit the

One of the coolest things about an entrepreneurship and business is that it's one of the only games that you can play over the course of your whole life. And the older you get, the better you get, right? Because for me to compete against a 30-year-old guy, I've got 15 years more real experience than that guy. What he's going to have to figure out, I already figured out. So if I continue to go, I could scale up my success at a much faster rate than

In my 40s than I could in my 30s because of the experience that I have. All right. So I set my goals big, bro. Like in real big. Like, you know, people like to say, well, comparison is the thief of joy. Well, it's also the driver of realizing your ultimate potential. All right. I love it, man. I love it. That was three, man. Yeah. That's a midweek drop. Yep. Yep.

All right, guys, CTI tomorrow again. We're going to start hitting you on a regular basis with those CTIs. Like I told you yesterday, we've got MFCEO project dropping soon. I'll keep you guys in the loop on that. If you want to get in the loop on that, go to my website, andyvrsella.com, subscribe to the Andy Graham. That same email address will get you notified for MFCEO. Plus, you're going to get all my posts. You know, one of the things that you guys tell me, you're like, well, you know, you should post. And I do think about posting, but

Honestly, I do post every day. I've posted more in the last four years than anybody on earth. It just comes in terms of an email as opposed to being on Instagram. So go subscribe. You'll get my posts every single day right there in the morning time. And you'll be notified when MSCO Project launches again and we start getting you guys on the road to changing the world. So I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. Don't be a hoe.

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