799. Q&AF: How To Handle Theft In Your Business, Gaslighting In Business & Jealous Mentor
47:46 Share

What is up guys, it's Andy Purcell 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

And we give you the answers. Now, you could submit your questions a few different ways. The first way is, guys, you can email these questions in to askandy at andyfrasella.com. Or you go on YouTube, drop your question in the comments on the Q&A episodes. We'll pick some from there as well. Questions can be about anything, all right? Personal development, entrepreneurship, business, success, how to win. You can also ask about what's going on in the world. We'll do a little bit of all that.

but primarily we like to keep it on how to win and how to be better and how to kick ass as that is a key part of American culture and human culture that we need to get back on top of. So I'm going to share my 25, almost 26 years of experience with you during these Q and F episodes and help you get to a place that you want to be as well. Now, if you're new to the show, we have shows within the show. It's not always Q and AF. We have cruise the internet.

And that is where we put topics up on the screen. We speculate on what's true and what's not true. And then we talk about how we, the people, need to solve these problems going on in the world. You'll hear us refer to that as CTI. Again, that's Cruise the Internet. Then we have Real Talk. Real Talk is just 5 to 20 minutes of me giving you some real talk. Usually that's just some things I think you need to hear about success. Sometimes it's about what's going on in the world. And then other times we have 75 Hard Verses.

75 Hard Versus is where people come on who have used the 75 Hard program to recalibrate their life. They talk about how they were before, how they were after, and how you can use the 75 Hard program to recalibrate your mindset and get your life back as well. Now, if you're unfamiliar with 75 Hard, it is the initial phase of the Live Hard program. The Live Hard program is the world's most popular mental transformation program ever.

And you can get it for free at episode 208 on the audio feed. Again, that's 208 on the audio feed. The entire program is available there for free. There is also a book at andyfersella.com called The Book on Mental Toughness, which has the entire Live Hard program listed

plus a whole bunch of chapters on mental toughness, a bunch of case studies on mental toughness, why it's important, how to utilize it in your life, and how to change everything using the aspects of mental toughness, okay? Again, that's at andyfricela.com. Now, we do things a little bit different in this show. We don't run ads on the show, probably the biggest show in the world that doesn't run ads, and...

We make a trade with you. The trade is very simple I'm not going to fill your ears full of a bunch of bullshit for 30 minutes and ads and I ask very simply you help us grow the show We're keeping it real here. We constantly deal with censorship shadow ban traffic throttling and all the stuff And we need your help to grow the show and if we don't get your help to grow the show the show doesn't grow all right, so

If the show makes you think, if it makes you laugh, it gives you a new perspective. It's something that you think other people need to hear. Do us a solid and share the show. All right. We have a little saying around here that goes like this. Don't be a hoe. Share the show. All right. What's up, dude? Hi. How's it going? Good. Yeah. Good. What's going on with you? Oh, not much. I'm looking forward to your costume change. My costume change. Since you brought it up. We talking about your workout. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to wear, uh, Dean Stotts here today. He brought our kilts and I am 100% going to wear the kilt during my workout. As soon as I get out of this podcast. Yeah. A hundred percent. I hope you change into it. Oh yeah. You've been looking forward to that for a long time. I've been, I mean, listen, there's only a few things that still excite me in this world. Yeah. Helping another grown man change into a kilt. I was going to say, I mean, wieners.

Yeah. Yeah. And while I'm at it, guys, you guys are always asking how to support. Very simply, go to your store, ask for one of these first form energy drinks, buy a couple of them. If they don't have them, tell them they need to have them. And tag us when you go in and get those. You can pick out all the amazing flavors. I like orange. DJ likes grape. Right? I like grape too. So tag us. Don't be a...

Difficult person. Yes. Indeed. Anyway. Oh, man. It's Monday. It is. What's happening? Let's make some people better today. Let's do it. Guys, I got three good ones. Shocking. I got three good ones for you. Yeah. So let's knock these out, guys. Andy, question number one. What's up, Andy? What's up? Andy, for a long time,

I have been wondering what is going on with the finances inside our business that I started, that I helped start. I was starting to wonder if the owner was making, taking some of the money out that he claimed to not be making because the finances just don't add up. But I think there may be something else going on. This company is still a very small business done around $2 million in sales, but there is something that isn't adding up.

It looks like there is a possibility that several hundred thousand dollars has somehow been lost, mistracked or stolen from us.

Have you ever dealt with embezzlement inside your companies? And if so, how would you suggest we handle the situation? Just to be clear, we are still investigating the situation and don't know for sure that it is theft yet. But if it is the case, we want we would want to catch them and hold them accountable and get the money back. Wondering if you have any ideas on this as an older guy with more business experience.

Yeah, for sure. There's lots of things you can do. One of the main things that you do, they teach in basic accounting class in terms of controls, which is to force people to take vacation so that you can operate their role when they're not there to see what's actually going on. Forcing people to take mandatory breaks away from the company, especially in the finance industry.

The people who handle the finances is a smart move. Other things that you can do is you can handle and hire outside auditing companies to come in and dig into your company and figure out what's going on. I mean, with $2 million of sales, you're probably running slightly less

business. And I know that means, you know, to you it's complicated, but it should, what I mean by that is it shouldn't be hard for a trained professional to dig into what you're doing and figure out what's actually going on. And whether, you know, it's coming from,

or whether it's coming from, you know, an employee or whether it's coming from things like, you know, dude, sometimes, and this has happened, this happens to lots of companies, you know, companies get used to paying invoices and companies that are sending the invoices know that they automatically pay them. So what they'll do is they'll slide in extra invoices,

assuming that they're going to get paid no matter what. That happens all the time. And it does. Oh, yeah. If you do not keep an eye on the detailed financial health of your company,

You are a failure of an operator, all right? And I have failed operations because I've done that at times during my career where I haven't known the numbers or it's grown too fast or there've been things that have happened. And look, dude, every single one of those times where I took my eye off the ball, something happened where money went from us to someone who shouldn't have had it. Lots of different ways. Sometimes it was an employee. Sometimes it was business. Sometimes it was...

taxes that weren't paid. There's all these things that have to be managed and you have to stay on top of them all the time to make sure that the money gets where it's supposed to go. And so,

So there's lots of ways to do this. Yes, I've dealt with this. And yes, any business that is, you know, have grown from zero to seven, eight, nine figures has dealt with these situations before. And there's lots of ways to solve them. But the best way to solve it is to dig in. If you don't know how to dig in, hire a company that can dig in. That's from the outside. That's a professional. It's going to cost you a little bit of money. They're going to come in. They're going to find out what the fuck is going on and then create systems that

that make sure that that doesn't happen again, right? And if it is a company that's, you know, over-invoicing you, you know, they can do this a number of different ways. I don't think people realize this. They can charge you more on the invoices, which happens all the time. If you don't keep an eye on your pricing from your vendors,

They're going to fucking raise the prices without telling you. This is a common business practice amongst most shit bag companies. And then if they're really unethical, what they'll do is they'll start sending extra invoices. Like I said, that need to get paid because they figure that the accounting department will just pay them. And that happens all the time too. So you have to know where this money is going, how it's getting, you know, quote unquote stolen from you, um,

And hiring an outside firm to do that is usually the best way to do that because they're unfamiliar with their business. And it's like a child asking for the first time and they'll find out everything you need to know. And on top of that, they will point out a lot of areas where you need controls and you need systems and you need, uh, new ways of doing things that will prevent this from happening. So having an outside audit company come in and voluntarily audit your, your shit, um, is a great idea. We've done that a number of times. Um,

you know at your level you might be able to get you know a one person to come in and do that you know at our level it's a fucking major expense a huge fucking pain in the ass operation yeah but uh the important thing is is to know is yes this happens to every business at some point in time um fingers get sticky when money starts coming in um people do make mistakes

Sometimes these situations where money is missing is a mistake. Sometimes it's a miscalculation, but usually it's not. Usually it's someone who's doing something unethical somewhere along the line. And if it happens to be your owner who's taking the money, it's his right to take the money. But if he's putting the company in a bad position, that's a bad thing too for you, right? And sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes owners make mistakes. Sometimes...

you know, the information that they're fed from someone in their system who might be not on top of it or who might be unethical and they make decisions on that. So I've seen all these things. And you're going to see all these things too, no matter what. You're not really going to be able to prevent it other than doing what I'm saying, which is getting on top of it early, making sure there's no holes in the bucket, creating systems that prevent that money from, you know,

magically disappearing and moving forward and that's going to take the buy-in from your owner by the way right right well i was going to ask you on that point too because like you know the other thing too it's like you know sometimes it doesn't even have to necessarily be physical dollars right it could be product it could be fucking time like employee time well you know like there's plenty of ways that that shit could happen let me tell you a story one hot listen i have caught

Over the course of 25 years, I have caught people stealing every motherfucking way that you can catch someone stealing. I caught someone stealing one time who was where our plant is, where we make our products, was taking product off the line, selling it out of the back of his car at the gyms. No shit. Yeah. So it wasn't even making it to us. And he was actually stealing from the manufacturing side and then selling it out the trunk of his car.

Okay. So like, dude, there's no limit to what people will do to make a few extra dollars. If you're not on top of the fucking controls and dude, I, I would make your controls as if you don't trust anyone. I would make them so locked tight. It doesn't matter if it's your mom. It doesn't matter if it's your brother. It doesn't matter if it's your dad. It doesn't fucking matter. Nobody has the ability to fuck the system and that's required for a healthy company. And where it's really required is that when you go out to market,

At some point, you're going to want to build a... You're going to want to get money or you're going to want to create a strategic partnership or you're going to want to exit. And your books and your ability to show that you have the proper controls in place and the proper books in place are really...

how your business is valued. Okay. Yeah. It's valued on what it sells, but you could sell a trillion dollars worth of shit. If you don't have the proper controls and the proper books, they're not even going to fucking look at you. So it's important to have that upfront. It's also important to consider when you suspect someone is stealing, you have to look into their, their, you know,

mindset, right? There's usually a few key things that someone who steals from you, what they have in common. Okay. And I'll go through a couple of them. One, alcohol and drug use. Okay. If they're alcohol, struggling with alcohol and drugs, and you suspect them stealing, there's a good chance they're fucking stealing.

at-home problems, okay? If they have major problems at home, they're going through a divorce, they're going through some sort of shit at home, that's a red flag, all right? If you suspect them of stealing.

perceived injustice. All right. Meaning that they believe and they have expressed that they deserve to be in a different position or that you don't deserve to make the money that you're making. Okay. If they've expressed that fucking fire immediately because they will eventually steal. All right. Those are three things. Yeah. Those are three things that you have to look out for all the time.

Now I'm not saying that, you know, people who have problems at home, you just want to fire them. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that everyone who has problems at home or everyone who smokes a little weed or drinks a little drink is stealing. What I'm saying is if you suspect them of stealing and you find one or more of those things involved, they probably are. Okay. So, uh,

Yeah. I mean, that's real shit. Oh yeah, bro. Those are shit. Those are real things that you have to look out for. Okay. Uh, you know, their past doesn't always equal their present, right? People do weird things for money, bro. I've seen people, I've had people in my life, not for me, but I've known people in my life

Who I, I, I knew, I knew them, you know, some of them too, from being around me who have turned out to be complete fucking thieves, complete fucking frauds. Okay. Money does weird shit to people. And, um,

When I do business, this is why I don't really fuck with anybody. It's why I stay at home. You guys are like, why aren't you out doing this and this? Because, dude, I've been fucked by so many people that I don't care to be around anybody. And like, I don't need any new friends. My friend roster is full and it's high quality. So unless you're higher quality, which is unlikely because the circle I run at is a pretty high circle.

you're not going to get on the roster, dude. So I don't need new friends. I don't need new business deals. I don't need your services. Everything that I do, I've already figured out the best way to do it. You know what I'm saying? Like,

I don't fuck with people, dude, because I've seen too many people from the outside. Hermosi talks to me about, we talk about this all the time, no new friends. Like, bro, we don't make new friends because we got everything in line, we have the people we want, and almost every single person that comes in our lives at this level wants something from us, and it's usually money. Let me ask you on this last piece on this too, because I feel like, especially for those newer, younger, in-the-game entrepreneurs,

you know, specifically the bleeding heart ones, right? That like, you know, oh, everybody's good. There's good intentions for everybody. I think a lot of this show is about addressing the expectations that people have and like how that's not real. And so is it safe to,

To say that as an entrepreneur, you should have the expectation that somebody at some point is going to steal and handling that situation is more looking at it as more of an investment. It's just a reality. Yeah. Like it's just part of the cost of doing business. It's going to happen. Yes. A hundred percent.

all the bad things that you think are going to happen. People laughing at you, people stealing from you, people messing with you, people hating on you. They're all going to happen, dude. But if you stick it out and you keep going and you keep building and you show up every day and you give it your best,

It's still worth it. I mean, that's what you got to understand. So a lot of people won't go because they're so afraid of all these things that might happen. When, if you just realized, yes, they're going to happen, but it's going to be worth it anyway, you would just go. Okay. So like none of this shit that I've had to go through and I've had to go through a lot, bro. Like,

I don't remember any of that shit. I don't fucking care. Yeah, in the moment, it's hard. But my life as the result of me waking up every day and continuing to go is awesome. So when I get frustrated and I look at like the amount of stress and pain and betrayal and frustration that I've had to deal with as an individual, if I stop myself and I say, okay, this sucks, but it's pretty awesome here.

Then you understand you're paying a more of a price than the average person would pay in terms of, you know, how people actually treat you. And you have to be careful, man, because it can make you super bitter, dude. There's times where I get real bitter about people in general, but how I fix that is I come here and I hang out with you guys and all these wonderful people that I get to be around every day. And it restores my hope and faith and trust that humans are generally good. Right. And that's the truth. They are, um,

And one thing you got to remember, dude, like you said, the bleeding heart thing.

Uh, like this has never happened. Nobody's ever going to listen. Here's the other thing that happens. Okay. The other thing that happens is you get like a guilty conscious. Okay. Especially when you start making money and people will nickel and dime and do shit. And you like give them a break because like you're living life, right? And you know that they're, listen, you have to handle those people the same way you would handle someone that stole fucking $20 million from you. Because if you don't, they will.

all right and that's what you have to understand these people who take a little here and do a little there and do an inch becomes a foot becomes a meter becomes a mile becomes a thousand miles and then when you stand up for yourself at a hundred miles they you're they're the victim right you see what i'm saying right so like dude you cannot allow your personality you cannot expect the same thing from other people that you have

and give to other people. You're just not going to get it. And if you go around thinking that everybody's your friend and everybody has your best interests in mind, that shit will get you killed. It will get you fucking killed. Young Dolph has a verse in one of his songs. He said, be careful who you call your friend that turn on you. That's the fucking truth. That is the truth. Not everybody's your friend. Not everybody's your brother. Not everybody's on the team. And the ones you know that are on the team, they will show you what their actions and the ones

that you know aren't on the team will also show you what their actions. You cannot give grace to people who do unethical things like stealing.

That is a character flaw that will follow them from here to there to there. No one who steals goes through life and stops stealing. It doesn't happen. Okay? That is one character flaw that you cannot fucking overlook. If they steal a fucking dollar, fucking get rid of them. If they steal a quarter, get rid of them. It's a fucking fundamental character flaw that you cannot correct. I would fucking love it, man. That's some real shit, man. Yeah, I love it.

Guys, Andy, question number two. My question is, how do you deal with people who tell you they will do something and ultimately don't? I hired a sales rep about eight months ago for my brand and have sunk some money into this guy about 10K, and I've not seen any return on investment. My business coach and I think that he's just gaslighting me and promising orders down the line, but in his industry, men's apparel, I wouldn't have –

I would have expected something by now. It almost feels intentional that he hasn't done anything yet. It seems like there's too many old assholes in the business world and they're taking advantage of a 28 year old guy, me trying to get his honest business off the ground. It feels demoralizing. How have you handled sales reps or people in general telling you they'll do something, but they don't follow through on it? How do you handle that? Uh, I get rid of them.

What the fuck you mean how I handle it? Like, we make a deal, you shake a hand, you say, this is what I'm going to do. I put out a little piece of paper that says, these are your responsibilities and you don't do them. What the fuck? See ya. Okay?

Okay. That's, that's how you do it. Business. But yes, it's business. Like, dude, what the fuck do you guys think? Like, and by the way, who the fuck is your business coach allowing you to fucking hire some old retread salesperson? Okay. You are far better off unless that person comes from like, you know, a top level C-suite position at a major company that you want to be at, which by the way, you wouldn't be able to afford that person anyway. Okay.

But unless that's there, that's the person you're hiring who can pick up the motherfucking phone and bring you this business and that business and this business. That is the value of an experienced sales rep. It is not their ability to sell. It is the relationships that they have procured.

Okay. So if you're looking for someone to go out and sell and they don't have relationships to sell your shit to, then you shouldn't fucking hire them. You should train them. All right. So instead of hiring some old dude who we call a retread, we don't hire retreads here. Okay. If they've been at some other company and done some other shit, I don't hire them.

You know why? Because they bring their fucking weak ass culture and their bad habits into my shit and fuck it up. So you know what I do? I take people who are young and I say, hey, let me teach you how to sell. And I start teaching them how to sell. And that person who is young and hungry and wants to learn how to sell will sell 10 times more than the guy who you've hired who wants to come in, get his paycheck, pretend like he's doing shit and not really do shit. Okay? Even if...

That young person lacks the credentials and the experience. As long as you can paint the vision, give them the plan, show them how to do it, and they're hungry enough, they will outperform that old guy. Now, that old guy will outperform the young guy every time if he's one of the guys that I explained to you. When you get to a certain place in business, you're going to need to hire people who are

have the relationships in place. That's what you're paying for. That's why those people cost so much money. It's not because they can sell so much shit. It's because they can pick up a phone and call their friend who they've been in their wedding and say, hey, pick this shit up or sell this shit or buy this. And they will.

Okay. So that's what you're paying for at that level. That's why those guys cost a lot of money. You're not in that position yet. And I can tell by you paying that guy 10,000 because those motherfuckers make a lot more than that. All right. So what you've done is you've hired a retread lazy salesperson who thinks you're some young fucking punk kid. That's why you feel the way that you feel because your feelings, right? By the way, that intuition, that, that offensiveness, that bitterness that you're feeling you that's justified because that's what he's doing.

You've hired this old guy who's not hungry, who doesn't give two fucks about your company, who doesn't care about growing, he cares about getting a check in between, okay? When you should have been training a young guy, taking that money and investing in them and letting them go out and be hungry and procure your new business, okay? That's how you should be looking at it. There are very few retread salespeople that are great. There's very few, okay?

When you hire someone from the outside who claims to have this skill and this skill and this skill and this skill, you better make sure they have those skills because there's a likelihood that they're lying and there's a likelihood that they're exaggerating and there's a likelihood that they are going to bring bad habits and bad culture. Because here's the other thing to consider. You're bringing in this sales professional in front of the rest of your staff. Okay.

Okay. Now, if I go hire a sales professional who's 40 years old and the rest of the staff is 25 and it's been a guys, guess what? We just hired this awesome sales guy. He's coming in. His name is Steve. He's 40. He's done this and this and this and this and this. That guy, you've already built that guy up to your younger people. Okay. So now you bring this guy in and he fucking coasts. What does that tell the rest of your people?

You see what I'm saying? So it becomes a big culture disruptor and demoralizer to everybody else and makes your job ultimately harder. By the way, your business coach should know this. And if your business coach doesn't know this, you should fucking fire him and join Arte Syndicate because this is the shit we talk about. Okay? So just keeping it real.

None of these motherfuckers out here that are business coaches could tell you any of the shit that I'm telling you because they haven't done it. Yeah, they might be able to hypothetically draw some sort of shit on a screen and it might make sense to you. But the reality is, unless they've done it for 25 years and built multiple fucking seven, eight, nine figure companies that are worth 10 figures, I wouldn't fucking hire that motherfucker because there's people that have that are teaching business.

Okay? And your business coach should know better. If your business coach isn't already telling you what I just told you, you should fucking get rid of him. I don't care who the fuck it is. To that point, you said, yeah, it probably makes sense to you. But like, fuck, if you don't know anything, everything makes sense to you. That's right. That makes sense. That's what I'm saying. That is the whole thing.

We have this culture of business coaches who don't know business, who don't have experience, who don't really know shit, making courses, making this, and that's how they make their money. I didn't make my money that way. I made my money fucking doing real business. Okay? And I've been doing it for almost 26 years. Now, I know I look like a young, hunky motherfucker, but here's the reality, and that's not honky either. All right?

- All right. - Hunky and honky. - Hunky both. - All right. - Yeah. - Hunky honky. - Chonky, that's right. So I'm a honky honky. All right, but here's the deal, okay? If you fucking, there is a huge massive fucking divide between hypothetically talking about things and actually having experience. That last question, not a single one of these motherfuckers could answer it because they haven't built a real business.

Okay, so stop paying people who haven't done what it is you want to do to teach you how to do what it is you want to do. It's really fucking simple. I'm not going to hire a fucking skateboard coach to teach me how to play fucking football. Okay, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to hire someone to cut my hair who's never cut fucking hair. And instead, you know, they build chopstick houses like,

What the fuck are you guys doing? Like the fact that some people are so stupid to pay these people who have never done what it is they want to do means that you're probably not smart enough to make it in business anyway. Okay. Cause that should be common sense.

Now, if that applies to you, I'm sorry to hurt your feelings. But the reality is unless you can look and say they did this, they did that, they did this, they did that. This is where they do it. This is their employees. Here's their customers. Here's what it's like to do business with them. You should not be fucking listening to them. Period.

How the fuck has this become this thing? Like, how has it become this thing? How are these fucking people out here who have never built a fucking thing selling courses? What the fuck is going on in the world? Yeah. You wonder why you're getting your ass kicked because you're listening to someone who's never been where it is you want to go. If you want to drive to California, are you going to listen to someone who's driven to California? Are you going to listen to someone who's never driven but just studied it on the internet and regurgitated some shit?

You see what I'm saying? Like, bro, it's common sense to me because I've done it. I've done it. What these motherfuckers pretend to be, I am. Okay? I've done it. So how can you fucking learn from someone who hasn't fucking gone down the path? They're probably charging you a fuck ton of money, too. RTA syndicates a few hundred dollars.

You get what I'm saying? Yeah, it makes no sense, man. Like, fuck, dude. I mean, that's the thing. And I love cars, bro. But just because some motherfucker has a cool car, that means shit. What's his business look like? Where is it? What products they sell? Where are their employees? What's their reputation? What's it like to do business with them? Can I order their products? Where are these magical companies that they say they own? Where are these things that they said they built? Can I see it? Can I go to it? Can I touch it? Can I feel it? Can I talk to people who go there? If not, don't hire them.

Yeah, let me ask you this because it kind of goes into that too. Because, I mean, I feel like obviously too it's a lot more of a younger generation who falls for that stuff.

Yeah, because they don't want to listen to people who have really built shit because they say something they don't like. And then something goes like this. It's hard as fuck. It takes all your effort. It takes all your energy. It's going to cost you half your friends. Probably all of them. It's going to cost you relationships. It's going to make you miserable. It's going to fucking be the bane of your existence for a long fucking time. And then you're probably going to get rich. That's what it sounds like. And it's going to take a long time. They don't like that message. And no one can sell that message.

But the faster that people accept that message, bro, the faster they get where they want to go. And that's just the truth. And most people spend all their fucking lives going to gimmick, to gimmick, to gimmick, to gimmick, to gimmick, get rich gimmick, get rich gimmick, get rich gimmick. And then when they're fucking 35, they figure out, oh, that guy, that guy, Andy, he wasn't lying. You know, like.

You wasted fucking 15 years. Just accept the path. Do you fuckers really think that everybody out here who's made some money made it quick or easy or fast? If you think that, bro, you're playing the wrong game. It's a lifetime commitment, dude.

I want to ask you this because just for reference, so the younger entrepreneurs understand this too, man. When you started in your journey in the early years, bro, you were 19 starting off. Yeah. How much faith did you put in other people? Just on the face of everything. You know what I'm saying? New business, like vendors come to you, new business relationships. How much faith did you put in them versus the amount of faith that you just put in the work yourself? Yeah.

Well, in the beginning, I put a lot more faith in other people because I believe just like these young kids believe, like I just said, that other people that were older than me had the answer, you know, but what I figured out is that these older people didn't have the answer. Not only did not have the answer, they were willing to pray on me to get a few extra dollars because I was stupid. And that's what's happening to a lot of the people that I'm referring to in this business coaching space. Okay. Y'all are fucking learning from the wrong people.

You're learning from, this is why I quit fucking college. This is why I quit college. Cause I was smart enough to recognize that I did my business major in college was entrepreneurship and finance. I owned a business when I was in college. I owned our first store. I started when I was 19. So I'm going to business school as I'm running a business. And I remember the day I fucking quit. I'll tell you exactly what happened. I'm in the class.

Then business class, which was rare because I never went to class. This day confirmed to me why I didn't go to class. The professor was up in front and we were in a business law class or something. I forgot what we were. No, we were in a marketing class. And this guy starts talking about some shit that I had just went through in business. I can't remember, dude. It was 20 fucking six years ago. But he said something and I raised my hand and I said, but what about this and this and this?

And these are things that I had just experienced. You just went through this. Yes, in my business. And he said, well, that's blah, blah, blah. And he basically said, well, that's bullshit. And then I asked, I said, well, how many businesses have you owned? And he said, well, I'm a professor. I'm not an actual business owner. So then when we got out of class, I fucking followed him, okay? Because this is how fucking petty I am.

I followed him to the fucking parking garage because I want to see what the fuck he drove. Because I'm a car guy, right? And dude, I do judge people by what they fucking drive. Okay. Most people do, by the way, just so you know. You can say whatever you want. It's basic transportation. Blah, blah, blah. You pull up in a bad motherfucker. People look at you different. That's just reality. They treat you different. Okay. You pull up in nice clothes. They treat you different.

It's reality. You get there in shape and you're fucking jacked up. You fucking look good. They treat you different. All you motherfuckers that say all this shit like, oh, it doesn't matter. It's all that matters is in your inside. That's not true. Just not. And they might charge you more. Well, look, bro. That's a different story. I'm just telling you, dude. Like, your perception, the way you present yourself matters a lot. Okay? Yeah.

And so I followed him to the car garage, bro. And he drove away in this like dirty rust bucket piece of shit. And I fucking never went back to school. I quit. I never went back ever.

And then that's what made you put the more, more faith in yourself. And I'll just figure out the fucking lessons and learn them. Yeah. Because I realized that all these people that were teaching me shit didn't know shit. So I'm like, fuck, I'm all right. I'm going to go learn from people that know. And from that point forward, I read books of people like Dave Thomas, people like Sam Walton, people who had done real shit. Now remember at that time we didn't have the internet. There was no people out here putting out courses on how to run a business. It wasn't happening. Okay. But the people were,

People that ran businesses were doing books. And the reason their books sold is because everybody knew what businesses they ran. Now we have this situation where none of these fucks have done shit. Remember, their books wouldn't sell unless people knew who they were from the businesses that they ran. But now it's not that way. Now it's everybody can make a course. Everybody can charge for a course. But nobody has the proof of rolling out their dick and saying, this is what I built. None of them.

Okay, so I don't like if you can't understand that most of these people are taking advantage of your misunderstanding Of what the game is about meaning you don't want to hear that. It's going to be hard You don't want to hear that. It's going to take time So you listen to the people who tell you the opposite of that and then you don't go anywhere And then you do that again and you don't go anywhere and before you know it You've wasted a decade looking for the fucking thing that doesn't exist, which is fast easy quick doesn't exist just doesn't so

So yeah, man, I read books. I talked to people who own businesses. I got on airplanes and went and met with people who own bigger businesses than mine that were in the same space. I did everything I could to learn from people who were actually doing. And that's where I learned a lot of what I do.

And then the rest of it is through trial and error. You know, like I say, dude, you can know nothing and still succeed in business as long as you're gritty enough to not quit. And as long as you're intelligent enough to learn the lesson when you make the mistake.

If you can learn a lesson when you make the mistake and not make the mistake twice, and you're gritty enough to not quit, you have what it takes to succeed, but it's going to take time and it's going to be hard. And you're not going to live the same life as all of your friends and all of your family. And they're not going to understand it. And they're going to criticize you and they're going to laugh at you. And they're going to make jokes about it because that's not the path that they are on. They're going to talk to you about things like balance. Balance is different for entrepreneurs than it is for everybody else.

Okay. So it's very difficult in the beginning for a young person to go down the path because once they step into that path, they meet resistance from literally everywhere they go. They're meeting resistance from their friends, their family, uh,

they're getting made fun of on the internet. They're, they're being asked like, are you sure? Are you sure? And they're being told, don't forget where you came from, man. Don't forget to be humble. You know, you're getting a little too materialistic. You know, you're getting a little greedy there. Like we get all these resistance points. And then on top of it, we get people who are older than us trying to take advantage of us. Like we're talking about here where they're showing up and they're giving half ass effort and they're charging you a lot of money because you don't know any better. All right. So,

entrepreneurship is an extremely difficult path to take in life. It is, I believe it's the hardest path of any profession that exists. And the statistics show that, all right, you have to build yourself into someone who can tolerate it or it's not going to be for you. And we have a big problem on the internet right now of a lot of people marketing entrepreneurship as if it's like some fucking easy, free, worry-free existence where you just, you know,

fucking get money show up in your mailbox. You know what I mean? It's not, it's not what happens, dude. It's not the reality. It is. You have to be tough. You have to be gritty. You have, and if you're not, you got to build it. Uh, and you got to be smart on who you take your information from. I love it, man. I love it guys. Andy, uh, let's get to our third and final question. Question number three. Hey, Andy, I've been a, I'm a huge fan of the show.

I've been with my company for three and a half years and I have worked my ass off to double my salary and gain two promotions. This last promotion I received put me at the same level as my mentor and made me the youngest person in the level or role ever.

I expected to be congratulated by my said mentor, who is twice my age for all my hard work, although I expected that it was not what I actually received.

My mentor did not congratulate me at all. Instead, he told me I would fail at my new position for failure to produce results, even though I have done his job for him over a year and gotten him great notice for my efforts and never asked him for a single thing in return. I was then told that it was my ship now and not to fuck it up or I would be out the door. Now, the office seems very tense and unwelcoming.

I am unsure how to handle this mentally because he has taught me so much. I just need to know if accepting this promotion was the right move. I'm having a lot of internal struggles with this. Please lend me some advice. Would you rather be broke? Would you rather be poor? Would you rather go backwards and pay because you make this fucking guy feel weird? Welcome to the big fucking leagues, bro.

When you're competing, people don't like you. They'll like you up until you're doing as good as them, and they don't like you anymore. That's the reality of life. All right? Your neighbor, your dad, your fucking cousin, your friends, your mentor, everyone. Everyone treats you different when you're on the up. When you pass them up, all the bets are off, bro. Okay? So what you are realizing is called reality. And reality is this.

People will help you and they will, when you're the underdog, they will help you. They will root for you. They will clap for you. When you're on top, they automatically go to hate you. Okay. That's why there's the saying you either die a hero or

Or you live long enough to become the villain. Okay. Because when you get tall enough and you get big enough, the world tries to hammer you to fuck down. And you're learning this on a minimal scale right now. You have a person that you care about, who you probably love a lot, who you're probably very grateful for, who's taught you all this shit. And now you're getting a different treatment because now you're a threat to them. All right. My advice to you is to not give a fuck.

My advice to you is to realize that you are a grown human being now, and this is the way that it fucking is. And this is why I try to tell you guys over the last 10 years of doing podcasts, life is a competition. You cannot opt out of the competition. If you opt out of the competition, your life is going to be very hard. If you opt into the competition, your life is going to be very hard with a reward. Those are your options, okay? So you can't help that someone's not secure enough to root for you.

So what can you control? You can control your continuing down the path of becoming successful, learning new skills, doing exactly what you've done with the exact same work ethic that has gotten you to this point to go to the next level. And eventually you'll be that dude's boss. And if he gives you the same fucking attitude when you're his boss, guess what you can do? Fire him. Okay. So that's called reality of competition. You

You're the people to your left and your right. You should want to help them. If you do help them and they get better than you, you should look at them and say, okay, well then I need to do some of what they're doing and get better as well. But not everybody looks at it like that way. That person who was your mentor does not have a championship mentality because championship mentality goes like this. I have my friend over here to the right of me. By the way, this is all my friends, all my friends. I got my friend over here to the left of me.

This guy over here to the right, he starts doing way better than me. I don't fucking hate on that motherfucker. I'm thankful he's doing better than me because it does a couple things. One, it drives me because I'm competitive with him. And even though he's my friend, I still want to do better. Okay? Two, he's showing me the path.

of how to win bigger through his example. I'm grateful for that. Championship people, they can be competitive without bitterness, without hate, and actually replace those feelings with gratitude because it's actually teaching you how to be better. There's a lot of truth to the saying,

A rising tide raises all ships. Most people just can't handle it because their ego is too big when they're not the number one ship. Okay. So you have to fucking be able to be friends with people who you are grateful for when they win, because it teaches you something. And it also grateful for, because it drives you to do better.

That person does not have that quality. And because they do not have that quality, they will never operate at the highest level. Every single person I know that operates on a very high level, and I'm talking nine figures and above, okay? I'm talking who the fuck you want to be.

All right. These people do not hate on their friends for doing better than them. They're excited when their friends do better than them. They surround themselves with people who do better than them for the reasons that I just mentioned. It motivates them. It drives them. They want to win more, but also they can learn from watching them win bigger. And that is when you know you have an amazing friend circle. And by the way, every single fucking champion that I've ever met, and I've met a lot, I

I've interviewed a lot. I've been around a lot. My friends, if I showed you my Rolodex on my cell phone, you'd be like, holy fuck, everybody's like that.

And everybody below is like how you're describing. They get threatened. They work on scarcity. They're afraid that, you know, now this person's on my level, so they're going to beat me. You know, they start doing toxic shit, like trying to sink their shit or take their credit or do fucked up shit. Don't fuck it up. Yeah, bro. That shit. Well, that's a fair statement. I mean, yeah, it is. Don't fuck it up. Yeah. But, uh,

You know, and by the way, this is another lesson. Not everybody's going to cheer for you, dude. Who fucking cares? I was going to ask you that. Yeah. Who does he really owe you fucking? Is that why you did it? Did you do it because people are going to cheer for you? Because if that's why you did it, you're not going to be able to maintain success for very long because eventually you become so successful. People stop cheering and they don't like it.

And it starts rubbing them the wrong way. And you know, that happens to me all the time. But you know what? I don't think about those people. I think about the 20-year-old Andy or the 30-year-old Andy that needs to hear what I'm saying so that they can push through and create greatness and create thousands of jobs like we've done. You see what I'm saying? So you can't put stake in these people's inability to progress based upon their own understanding of what competition is about. Bad competitors, weak competitors, losing competitors,

They are negative towards people who are on the level or above champion competitors. They want to crush your fucking balls, bro, but they don't like go do it. They want to win above board by being better. Like I don't want to win by sabotaging someone. I want to win by being better. That's what champions think. And they are very grateful for anyone who can push them to a higher level.

And not everybody's like that, dude. Most people aren't. That's why most people aren't champions in their life. They're not the best at anything. They're not high earners. I mean, look, bro, most people don't make a million dollars or more in their life or a year, you know, or a day. Like, these are the anomalies. Like, a lot of these people you look up on the internet, you got to realize this is a fucking tiny minority of humans that has a very specific behavior pattern that you're trying to learn and adopt so that you can get to that level.

It's not everybody. You know, winning is special. Being great is special. Earning a lot of money, building a big company, that's very rare and special. It's very hard. This is why I get upset when you guys listen to people who haven't done this shit.

Because it's hard enough as it is without getting your mind filled with a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. You're going 10 years down the wrong fucking path. It happens all the time, dude. I fucking love it, man. Yeah. So, dude, like, you know, the main thing here is you got to, you know, you have to understand that not everybody is on the same path as you. And it is hard enough as it is taking care of your own shit without, you know, having to pile on what so-and-so thinks or what your mentor thinks or what this thinks. Bro, listen, man.

This is a reality of success. If you have a problem or it bothers you that people don't want to cheer for you or clap for you or tell you congratulations, you're not going to make it.

No one's telling Jeff Bezos congratulations. No one's telling Emo and Musk congratulations. Those guys are expected to win, and when they don't win, everybody jumps on them and fucking crushes them. And that's how it is when you're a big enough winner. Like, when Michael Jordan misses a shot, that's when they got him, right? Like, when Peyton Manning throws an interception on the game on the line, that's where they hammer him. They're expected to make those wins. They're expected to make those throws and those shots.

And that's the reality of being great over the course of a long period of time. Nobody cheers for me, bro, but they fucking sure as fuck hear from him when I fuck up. You see what I'm saying? That's reality. And if you have a problem with people being that way, you're not going to do well. I love it, man. I love it, man. Guys, Andy, that's a hell of a way to start a Monday, man. Yeah, guys, let's go out there. Let's kick some ass. Let's have a good week and we'll see you tomorrow with CTI.

We'll see you next time.