REAL AF with Andy Frisella - LEADERSHIP： The Dichotomy It Takes To Dominate, ft. Jocko Willink, with Andy Frisella

00:00:00.400 I can stack them hundreds to the roof. I ain't stopping till they stack to the moon.

00:00:04.880 Without me, my family wouldn't have food. Anybody go against me gotta lose.

00:00:12.440 What is up, guys? You're listening to the MFCEO Project. I'm Andy, I'm your host, and I am the motherfucking CEO.

00:00:19.680 Guys, if you're new to the podcast, first off, welcome.

00:00:24.000 Second off, why do we call this the MFCEO Project?

00:00:27.840 It's because I'm here to help you become the motherfucking CEO of your life, all right?

00:00:36.060 Yes, this is an entrepreneurship podcast, but it's also personal development,

00:00:40.340 and no, you don't have to own your own business to benefit from it.

00:00:43.780 We don't have ads. We don't ask for anything. I'm not selling anything,

00:00:48.980 but what I do ask is that if you find benefit from this episode,

00:00:53.000 and I guarantee you, you will find benefit from this episode,

00:00:57.000 and I'll tell you why in a minute, I ask that you share it with one friend, all right?

00:01:01.360 If you've got a friend, if you've got somebody who is like-minded,

00:01:03.620 you think that they would enjoy the content here,

00:01:07.420 I ask that you share it, talk about it,

00:01:09.520 and help us grow the movement.

00:01:13.820 As always, I'm joined by my host,

00:01:17.480 Vaughn, the pastor of Disaster,

00:01:21.400 a.k.a. DJ DJ God,

00:01:23.800 a.k.a. Vaughn the Impaler.

00:01:26.660 Vaughn the Impaler,

00:01:27.560 a.k.a. the man of many names.

00:01:29.740 The man of many names.

00:01:30.660 Yeah. What's up, dude?

00:01:32.320 Dude, I'm a very weird combination of excited.

00:01:35.720 You are very weird.

00:01:36.660 Yes.

00:01:37.680 Excited, gratified, and tired,

00:01:40.640 just like what we experienced over the last couple days.

00:01:42.620 Oh, that was cool, yeah.

00:01:43.440 This was crazy.

00:01:43.780 So we just got back from Idaho from the first Arte Syndicate Summit,

00:01:47.800 which is our high-level entrepreneurship society that M.I. Lett and I have created.

00:01:53.600 I guess this is an ad, right?

00:01:55.420 Yeah, a little bit.

00:01:56.400 By the way, it was fucking awesome.

00:01:57.500 It was.

00:01:57.760 Let's leave it at that.

00:01:58.460 Yeah.

00:01:59.280 Dude, we have an awesome,

00:02:01.160 I've been looking forward to this show for literally three years.

00:02:06.520 We have my most anticipated guest that we've ever had on the show,

00:02:12.620 and I'll tell you why that is before I tell you who it is.

00:02:19.400 Leadership is, I tell you guys all the time,

00:02:23.120 you have to have two skills to be ultimately successful in life.

00:02:26.520 You've got to learn how to lead and manage people,

00:02:28.800 and you have to learn how to sell shit.

00:02:31.200 And yes, you could find your role in life with one of those skills or the other

00:02:36.320 and be moderately successful,

00:02:38.000 but if you want to have unlimited success,

00:02:42.280 you have to have both skills.

00:02:44.120 And a lot of people look at me

00:02:45.880 and they see

00:02:48.280 someone who they think was gifted with the skills of leadership,

00:02:53.960 and that's just completely false.

00:02:56.720 I was not a very good leader for the first 10 or 12 years I was in business.

00:03:02.840 I was not the captain of my sports teams.

00:03:05.540 I was not born with leadership skills,

00:03:08.540 and I've had to learn them.

00:03:10.280 And one of the books that I've read along the way

00:03:13.320 that has really helped me become an effective leader,

00:03:17.440 I am not a great leader,

00:03:18.500 I have a long way to go,

00:03:19.820 but one of the books that has helped me become an effective leader

00:03:24.420 is Extreme Ownership.

00:03:26.600 And today I am super, super honored to have the author,

00:03:31.180 one of the authors of that book,

00:03:33.020 Jocko Willink here with us today.

00:03:35.800 So what's up, dude?

00:03:37.460 Thanks for having me on.

00:03:38.540 Oh man, this is awesome.

00:03:40.480 He just spoke to our team,

00:03:42.380 and that was great, man.

00:03:45.000 I'm like super pumped about that.

00:03:48.740 I don't know, man.

00:03:49.580 I'm like, I don't look up to many people, dude.

00:03:51.940 You're one of the dudes I look up to.

00:03:53.280 And so it's really,

00:03:54.460 and I know that's weird,

00:03:55.340 because we're like of similar age,

00:03:58.000 and we're like, you know,

00:03:58.900 we have podcasts that are similar size,

00:04:01.580 but dude, it's just an honor to have you, man.

00:04:04.360 For real.

00:04:04.620 Thanks for having me on.

00:04:05.320 I can promise you there's many things about me

00:04:07.380 that will make you not look up to me at all.

00:04:09.440 No, bro.

00:04:10.160 It's been cool to read and listen to your podcast and learn,

00:04:15.220 and I just really appreciate what you're doing for the world.

00:04:18.720 I think a lot of people in entrepreneurship,

00:04:22.720 they do what I just said.

00:04:24.340 They struggle with leadership because they think that they look at polished leaders like you

00:04:29.820 or other guys running big companies like me,

00:04:33.360 and they think, like, dude, this guy was just born with these skills,

00:04:35.700 and they think we're superheroes, and we know all this shit.

00:04:37.780 But the truth of the matter is, is that's not true, you know?

00:04:44.300 We were born with certain skills, but not all the skills,

00:04:49.640 and dude, we fuck up as much as anybody, you know what I'm saying?

00:04:53.060 Yeah, without screwing up along the way, you've never learned anything.

00:04:57.580 Right.

00:04:58.120 And also, you take risks to try and make things happen,

00:05:01.280 and sometimes they're successful and sometimes they're not,

00:05:03.180 and you can do one of two things when that happens.

00:05:05.660 If you have to do something that's not successful,

00:05:07.120 you can either let it destroy you or you can learn from it and move on.

00:05:10.060 So I recommend you learn from your mistakes and move on

00:05:12.840 and make them make you a better person

00:05:14.840 and make them make you a better leader, which they will.

00:05:17.860 And if you look at any of these, what you call a polished leader,

00:05:21.160 which is a good term because there's some people out there that look very polished,

00:05:24.100 all of them have a history of errors and mistakes that they made

00:05:28.660 that they built into their life and corrected them

00:05:31.640 and moved in the right direction, for sure.

00:05:33.840 One of the things that I'm super grateful for is your new book.

00:05:38.320 And I posted it on my Instagram story last week.

00:05:41.620 I read the book literally right when I got it.

00:05:45.060 I started the night that I had, by the way, thank you for sending me that.

00:05:48.260 I'm pretty honored to have, you know, the preview copy.

00:05:51.020 That's cool.

00:05:51.500 That's when I'm done with that, that's going to go on my shelf.

00:05:53.200 Um, the, uh, the dichotomy of leadership.

00:05:58.500 Um, I, I personally think that that book is like extreme ownership on fucking steroids, man.

00:06:05.140 Like it is, it is awesome.

00:06:06.960 Uh, I loved extreme ownership, but man,

00:06:09.560 if I had the dichotomy of leadership when I was 20 years old,

00:06:13.800 you know what I mean?

00:06:14.960 What would my life look like?

00:06:16.120 I know exactly what you mean.

00:06:17.140 Yeah.

00:06:17.460 We were talking before the show and I said that and you were like,

00:06:19.900 yeah, I wish I had it too.

00:06:21.520 People say that to me all the time.

00:06:22.720 You know, Oh, I wish I would've had this book.

00:06:24.160 And I always say, yeah, I wish I would've had it too.

00:06:26.380 Extreme ownership.

00:06:27.240 The same thing with dichotomy.

00:06:28.780 These, these books, these are, you know,

00:06:30.660 we just talked about all these mistakes and how you learn from mistakes.

00:06:33.200 You don't have to make the mistakes yourself.

00:06:34.660 You can actually read someone else's mistakes and learn from them.

00:06:37.400 And so that's another thing I would recommend.

00:06:39.340 You read a book like extreme ownership and extreme ownership, as you know,

00:06:43.500 it starts off with the first chapter, which is about a horrible situation that occurred

00:06:49.780 on the battlefield, friendly forces fighting against friendly forces, which is in my opinion,

00:06:55.300 the worst possible thing that can happen.

00:06:56.920 And I was the guy in charge of it.

00:06:58.500 So it doesn't get any worse than that.

00:07:01.040 And, and, and you can, you don't have to experience that yourself.

00:07:04.320 You can read about it.

00:07:05.300 You can understand what I learned from it, what we learned from it.

00:07:08.880 And it's the same thing in dichotomy.

00:07:10.300 It's like, Hey, these are situations that, you know, the, the, the, the fundamental,

00:07:14.440 the fundamental idea of the dichotomy of leadership is that there's these opposing forces

00:07:20.440 that are pulling you as a leader in opposite directions.

00:07:24.240 And what's really hard is that both the directions that you're getting pulled are usually correct.

00:07:28.280 So you're getting pulled in two different directions, opposite directions, and both

00:07:31.340 those directions are correct.

00:07:32.680 So being a, that's what makes being a leader so hard.

00:07:35.800 And, and, you know, some of the common examples that, you know, I was talking about before the

00:07:39.960 show, it's like, is there, is there such a thing?

00:07:42.620 Well, we, we know that a leader has to communicate, right?

00:07:44.640 Obviously a leader has to talk to his people.

00:07:46.560 Can a leader talk too much?

00:07:48.740 Absolutely.

00:07:49.060 Can a leader talk too little?

00:07:51.400 Absolutely.

00:07:52.020 Where do you want to be?

00:07:52.900 You want to be somewhere in the middle.

00:07:54.640 Can a leader be too close to their people?

00:07:57.320 Yes, they can.

00:07:58.500 But can they also be too distant from their people and not understand what's driving them

00:08:02.180 and not understand what problems they're facing on the front lines?

00:08:04.540 Yes, you can be too distant from your people.

00:08:06.580 Where do you want to be?

00:08:07.420 You want to be in the middle somewhere.

00:08:09.220 Can someone be too much of a micromanager?

00:08:10.860 Well, absolutely.

00:08:11.720 You can be too much of a micromanager, but the opposite of that is you're too hands off with

00:08:16.360 your people and they don't even know what's happening.

00:08:19.740 So these are the different dichotomies that you as a leader have to balance.

00:08:23.440 And absolutely, if I would have known this 20 years ago when I was starting in leadership

00:08:28.100 inside the SEAL teams, yeah, my, my world would have been a lot easier and I would have

00:08:32.240 been a much better leader.

00:08:33.280 For sure, man.

00:08:34.320 Dude, I, I, I'm not a very smart guy, so I didn't know what dichotomy meant.

00:08:37.680 Uh, we, Vaughn, you, I know you knew what it meant.

00:08:40.840 Um, did you?

00:08:41.800 I had a pretty close.

00:08:42.840 Are you lying?

00:08:43.420 No, I, no, I had, I thought I had a basic idea.

00:08:46.320 I was thinking more like paradox, but it's not really the same thing, but I knew it had

00:08:50.760 something to do with opposing ends of things.

00:08:53.620 You know what was cool about when I started reading the book?

00:08:56.100 Um, I, dude, it just brought so much clarity, like instantly, because, uh, like I, I text you,

00:09:03.740 I text you like right away when I was reading it, I'm like, holy shit, dude, this is awesome.

00:09:06.700 And the reason it was awesome was because it, it really validated why I had made these

00:09:12.820 mistakes in the past.

00:09:14.280 Um, like for example, like the micromanaging versus hands off, right?

00:09:19.940 You know, I was always the guy who was at one extreme or the other, and I would let guys

00:09:25.120 get so far out that I had to micromanage them to bring them back in.

00:09:29.320 And then I was like pissed.

00:09:30.740 Right.

00:09:31.060 And I'm pissed at them.

00:09:32.240 Cause I'm like, dude, you were doing it right.

00:09:34.160 But now you're so far off the radar.

00:09:37.080 Like what the fuck are you guys doing?

00:09:39.000 You know what I mean?

00:09:39.540 And I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong.

00:09:42.620 And then when I read the book, I'm like, the lights went on and I'm like, holy cow, dude,

00:09:47.040 this makes perfect sense.

00:09:49.760 And, and I mean, it's been a week, but I can't, I'm so excited about what it's going to mean

00:09:54.580 to our company.

00:09:55.380 You know what I mean?

00:09:56.160 Because it instantly made me realize, like, I know, I knew what you were saying, like,

00:10:01.460 and I understood that, but I didn't understand that it was correct to have both things be

00:10:06.540 right.

00:10:07.120 Yeah.

00:10:07.540 And that's, that's what's, that's, what's really nice about this is just the simple awareness

00:10:13.480 that this exists, the simple awareness that it exists allows you, once you see, it's like

00:10:18.800 when you're, when you're, when you don't understand it, when you don't know to exist, you're just

00:10:22.040 shooting it.

00:10:22.500 You don't even know where the target is, right?

00:10:24.200 You're just pulling the trigger.

00:10:25.240 You don't know what you're shooting at.

00:10:26.280 Once you realize that, Hey, there's one extreme, there's the other extreme.

00:10:29.400 I need to be balanced somewhere in the middle.

00:10:31.120 Once you realize that it allows you to see it and then act on it as opposed to just micromanaging

00:10:37.300 too much.

00:10:37.700 You don't know why everyone's gets frozen up and won't act, won't take any initiative

00:10:41.320 anymore.

00:10:41.640 Why, why won't they, these guys aren't stepping on it.

00:10:43.720 These guys aren't taking any, any ownership of anything.

00:10:45.980 They're waiting for me to do everything.

00:10:47.280 That's because you've been micromanaging so much.

00:10:49.100 You trained them to be that way.

00:10:51.160 And so then you go the other way where you just go, okay, I'm going to, I'm just going to

00:10:53.720 let them do whatever they want.

00:10:54.600 And then they start running in random directions because they're not sure where they're supposed

00:10:58.080 to go because they haven't been told, well, now you've got the, the, the opposite problem

00:11:02.160 on your hands.

00:11:02.820 So when you realize that both those dichotomies exist and that you need to be balanced in

00:11:07.020 the middle, it really, I think this book is going to help people.

00:11:10.140 There, I mean, it is going to, first of all, if you're an inexperienced leader, you're

00:11:15.000 going to read the book and you're going to like, you're, you're going to read it.

00:11:19.280 And it's great because how, how you format, just like an extreme where you, you know,

00:11:23.420 you tell a story and then you tell the lesson, it's going to make sense.

00:11:27.320 And it's going to help people understand that when you're beginning.

00:11:29.680 But, but dude, if you're, if you're a leader who's been leading for a few years and you're

00:11:33.560 like, fuck, dude, I just can't grasp this.

00:11:36.080 It is going to change your life.

00:11:38.300 Not just from an effectiveness standpoint, from a happiness standpoint, because I know what

00:11:43.620 it's like to be in that you're trying to run, I mean, dude, we've got seven companies, man.

00:11:48.600 And we're, you know, between Sal, myself, Chris and Jason, we're running, I mean, a million

00:11:54.000 different things at a day and being able to understand that it's not just something that

00:12:00.820 you can do once or that you can set systematically and let it run itself is going to change, change

00:12:08.060 our whole dynamic because dude, now we know how to be in the middle there and it's going

00:12:13.720 to make us happier because we're not dealing with this crazy extreme from, you know, all

00:12:17.500 the way over here and then all the way over there.

00:12:19.920 Yeah.

00:12:20.060 And now you have like a little instrument panel in your head that's telling you when the

00:12:23.760 engine's running too hot or too cold.

00:12:25.200 Yeah, for sure, man.

00:12:26.360 And that, this book, it's seriously the best book I've ever read about leadership and I've

00:12:31.700 read them all.

00:12:32.240 And I told you that.

00:12:32.940 Yeah.

00:12:33.240 That's awesome.

00:12:33.760 I mean it.

00:12:34.360 And if you guys don't buy it, there's something wrong with your brains.

00:12:36.500 A question that I had is, so I get the basic concept of achieving balance, but it seems

00:12:42.160 to me that it's also true that depending on your staff and the people around you, that

00:12:46.320 you're going to have a separate dichotomy for each person that you're leading and you're

00:12:52.400 going to have to, in some cases, you are going to have to swing a little bit more micromanaging

00:12:56.400 and others, you know, macromanaging, whatever the opposite of that is.

00:13:00.480 How do you do that without going insane?

00:13:03.960 You're right.

00:13:04.500 You do have to modulate your, your behavior and you have to modulate your leadership.

00:13:10.220 So that's, let's just talk about that.

00:13:12.160 If you got 10 people that are working for you, right, there's three or four of those

00:13:16.780 people that are go-getters that are going to make things happen.

00:13:19.960 They're firing, forget missiles.

00:13:21.280 You give them, you give them a mission and they're going to go make it happen.

00:13:24.700 There's two or three of those people that you're going to have to micromanage them,

00:13:28.500 hold their hands and, and, you know, guide them much more stringently.

00:13:32.180 There'll be some people that are in the middle. So the way you don't go insane is you're allowed

00:13:36.540 to say, okay, my guys over here that are going to make this happen, don't need to worry about

00:13:40.220 them. So I can focus on these folks that need a little bit more leadership and management

00:13:44.020 right now. And by the way, my goal is not to continue to micromanage them forever.

00:13:48.540 My goal is to get them up to speed and get them where they're making decisions on their

00:13:51.480 own and get them where they become fire and forget missiles. And then guess what I'm going to do?

00:13:54.680 I'm going to put them in charge. I'm going to build a bigger team and I'm going to bring a new

00:13:57.340 group in that I'm going to then train and lead up and get them up to speed as well until I just

00:14:02.160 keep building my organization until I'm filled with the kind of leaders that I want. And what,

00:14:06.460 what I do when I have leaders that I want working for me, well now, instead of looking down and

00:14:11.080 inside of my own organization, I'm looking up and out and I'm seeing where I can grow,

00:14:14.860 where I can move. Like you got seven companies, right? If you, if you had crappy leader, what was

00:14:20.520 the first one? A retail operation called supplement superstore. So at some point you got that to a

00:14:25.560 point. You had some people that could run that without you really having to worry about. So

00:14:29.460 then you could go, Oh, wait a second. What was your next business? Right. First form for your next,

00:14:33.780 you said, okay, you know what? We could probably have our own brand. Right now, if you would have

00:14:38.020 been sitting there trying to square away the stores, you would have never thought of that. Right. But

00:14:42.440 luckily you got some leaders. You, you micromanage them. I'm sure at first until they got to the

00:14:47.080 point where they were running it. Then you looked up and said, you know what? We can do our own

00:14:50.360 brand. Right. We can do this. Right. And then you got control of that. You built that. You did it

00:14:55.460 again. Yeah. And now you're at number seven. Yeah, dude. I think the biggest thing that I struggle

00:14:59.740 with, and I think in, in you would know this better than me because you speak to so many

00:15:03.660 different companies is thinking that a team, and I see this now, I mean, I don't do this anymore,

00:15:11.580 but this was something I made as a young leader. Uh, but looking and managing the team as a team,

00:15:17.500 as, as in saying, like thinking they're all the same, you know what I mean? That you're dealing

00:15:22.100 like kind of an, uh, evolution of your question, you know, what I think a lot of young leaders,

00:15:28.180 they look at their team and they think they're all the same. They think they think like them

00:15:31.300 and that's how they fail at leaders. They just talk to them like they're them. Right. And it goes

00:15:37.500 over their head. They don't, they don't, they don't connect with it. Um, and then great leaders,

00:15:42.060 what I observe is, is guys who, who, who have to have a pulse on the individual components of each

00:15:48.480 team. Right. Yeah. There's two parts that I'll talk about on that. Number one, if we're going on

00:15:54.720 a mission and, and I'm the leader and I can carry a hundred pound rucksack, 10 kilometers in two hours,

00:16:02.400 and I plan my mission to go 10 kilometers in two hours with a hundred pound rucksack and you can

00:16:08.560 only, it's going to take you five hours. We're going to fail, right? We're going to fail. So I have

00:16:13.120 to, I have to look at my team. I have to see what their capabilities are. And I have to plan according

00:16:17.540 to that. The other thing is, and this is a heavy one because it's a reality that a lot of people

00:16:24.480 don't recognize. You have to be, you don't, you don't get to be the leader that you want to be.

00:16:31.880 You have to be the leader that your team needs. And you're right. That different people need a

00:16:37.580 different modulation of that leader. But a lot of times we think, Hey man, I would, I want to follow

00:16:43.440 a guy that just comes in here and kicks down doors and he's going to, going to make things happen.

00:16:47.040 And that's who I want to follow. And so you think that's how I'm going to act. Well,

00:16:50.900 the problem is your team is not all like that. And, and, and this is becomes a little bit tricky

00:16:56.100 too. So does that mean we have nine different personalities if we're running a nine person

00:16:59.520 team? No, it means that it means that we carry ourselves in such a way that the different people

00:17:06.480 on the team identify with the part of us that drives them. So it's a challenge. And again,

00:17:13.680 you know what leadership is hard. Leadership is the hardest thing in the world, the hardest job

00:17:17.540 ever. Yep. I mean, I said the very first podcast I was ever on was Tim Ferriss podcast. And you know,

00:17:24.780 I said, look, he said, what's the hardest, you know, what's the hardest mission you, you planned.

00:17:28.640 And I said, the, the, the, the, the planning of missions is not that hard. I mean, it's actually

00:17:34.940 pretty, pretty damn straightforward. Hey, there's a bad guy here. We're going to take helicopters or

00:17:40.720 vehicles. We're going to get on target. We're going to go in, we're going to kick in the doors.

00:17:44.820 We're going to grab the guy. We're going to get back in our vehicles or back in our helicopters.

00:17:47.600 We're going to fly back and we're going to, that's it. That's, that's the mission. It's not rocket

00:17:51.360 science. The hard part by far is you're dealing with human beings and you've got to get these human

00:17:58.180 beings in, in that, in my old job, you've got to get these, these human beings who are also your

00:18:03.040 brothers, who are also your friends. And you've got to, you've got to get them to take these massive

00:18:08.760 risks of their lives, of their friends' lives to go and accomplish this mission. And when you deal

00:18:14.520 with that over an extended period of time, it's a challenge. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, it's really

00:18:20.120 similar to business though. Don't you think? Because if you're a good leader in business, you really

00:18:24.460 love your team. You know, you always see this, you see, you see the societies, what the portrait

00:18:30.540 of a CEO in society is a rich dude that doesn't give a fuck about anybody and steps on everybody's

00:18:36.040 heads and treats everybody bad. But the truth of the matter is in successful companies, that's

00:18:40.640 really the case. The case is the guy who's running the company really, really loves his

00:18:46.680 team and wants them to develop to the point where a lot of times they become too close to

00:18:52.280 their guys and make that mistake. You know, I've done that a million times. How, how closely

00:19:01.260 would you say is leadership in the, in the teams to leadership in business? It's the same.

00:19:11.580 Exactly. It's the same. Okay. So, okay. Are there differences? Yes. The big difference is

00:19:18.360 the consequences, right? People don't die. People don't die. Right. Now I work with businesses

00:19:22.620 where people do die. You know, you work with a big construction company, right? Your dad

00:19:26.060 was in construction. I mean like you work construction, people get killed in construction, people get

00:19:29.900 killed on the oil field, people get killed pouring concrete. I mean, so there are jobs where

00:19:35.280 there are huge consequences, but none of those jobs have, have, have a situation where there's

00:19:40.220 another human being that's actively trying to kill you. Right. Right. So the consequences

00:19:44.480 are definitely higher. And, but what, where, where those, where those differences come together

00:19:50.940 is as a business leader, you've got, how many people are working here? 200. You've got 200

00:19:58.480 people working here. There's 200 people that are feeding their family, putting a roof over

00:20:04.780 their head, paying their vehicle, saving for college based on your decision making process.

00:20:11.160 Use responsibility. And so you might, and I say this all the time, you might not be dealing

00:20:15.960 with their lives, but you're dealing with their livelihoods. Right. And if you don't feel the weight

00:20:20.800 of that as a leader, like you said, if you don't feel the weight of that as a leader, you're not

00:20:24.360 going to do a good job for that company. Right. You've got to care about those people and you've

00:20:28.420 got to want to make the right decisions to put them in the right situation. Yeah. Now what makes it

00:20:32.600 hard and it's the same thing, you know, that's the opening chapter of the dichotomy of leadership

00:20:36.340 and I call it the ultimate dichotomy. And it truly is. There's no greater dichotomy than what

00:20:41.300 a combat leader feels on the battlefield, which is this. You've got these guys that you care about

00:20:48.460 more than anything else in the world. You've worked with them. You've trained with them. You've drank

00:20:53.620 with them. You've eaten with them. You've gone through difficult situations with them. You love these

00:20:58.360 guys. These guys are your brothers and you would do anything for them. And what makes it even tighter

00:21:04.660 is that you see and you know, and you feel that these guys will do anything for you too. They will

00:21:10.200 lay down their lives for you. And so you take these guys that you care about so much and what you're

00:21:17.720 going to do with them as their leader is you're going to send them on missions that can get them

00:21:24.720 wounded or killed. And that is, there's nothing there's for me, that is the ultimate dichotomy.

00:21:32.820 And it's something that, you know, when I was on deployments and facing that every day,

00:21:38.440 and then when I lost guys, I mean, there's nothing more challenging as a leader than to go through

00:21:45.780 those situations. Because guess what? When someone gets hurt, someone gets wounded, someone's get killed

00:21:51.160 and you're on deployment, the deployment doesn't stop. The deployment's not over. The enemy doesn't

00:21:57.580 take a break. Things that you have to continue on with your mission. And so being able to do that

00:22:04.480 and, and, and having to do that as a leader and having to balance these, these incredibly strong

00:22:10.800 forces that are pulling you one directions, you want to take care of your guys. And the other,

00:22:14.820 the other is you have a duty and you have a mission that you have to get accomplished.

00:22:18.300 that's, that's the ultimate dichotomy. It's, it's, it's a, it's a ridiculous amount of

00:22:26.060 responsibility. And, and I think any good leader, if you don't realize, and I like how you talk about

00:22:31.720 it in the book too, how you talk about the, the differences, their lives versus their livelihood.

00:22:36.600 I mean, dude, if you can't recognize that as a leader, there's something wrong with you as a

00:22:40.880 person, because you, like you said, you've got people who are supporting their family, paying for

00:22:45.800 their kids to eat, you know, and your decisions affect all of that. And I see a lot of guys that,

00:22:50.780 that, that really disconnect with that as, as an owner of a company, but dude, their companies are

00:22:56.240 never good. Their companies always suck. They always have high turnover. They always have people

00:23:00.800 that aren't happy. They always have people saying stuff about them on social media and they can't

00:23:05.420 figure out why. And the reason why is cause you don't give a fuck about your team, dude. And if you

00:23:09.660 don't want to, if you don't want your, your people to care about your company, you've got to

00:23:13.880 care about them first, you know? And I think that's something that, you know, people buy into

00:23:19.160 because right now, entrepreneurship is the hot thing, right? Everybody's an entrepreneur.

00:23:23.160 Um, but they think that being an entrepreneur is getting a widget and selling it via Facebook ads

00:23:29.520 and this and that. And dude, that can get you some good success. And I am getting somewhere with this

00:23:33.440 that could get you some good success. You can make some cash, but if you really want to become

00:23:39.600 successful longterm, you have to know and learn and develop your leadership skills. And I think

00:23:46.060 I talked to these guys all the time and they're like, dude, I want to build a brand, but I'm just

00:23:50.200 not a good leader. I'm just not a good leader. You know, that's not for me. I have guys in my own

00:23:55.480 company. They said, you know, I, I like to sell. I'm, I'm good at selling, but I just don't want to

00:24:01.040 manage people and I don't want to lead people. And I'm like, well, why not? And they're like,

00:24:04.720 cause I'm not a leader. What would you say to someone like that?

00:24:10.640 Well, as you pointed out earlier, there's, there's no one where there's very few people

00:24:15.280 that just feel out of the gate, like, Hey, I'm going to step up and start leading.

00:24:18.820 And what, what bothers me the most about the statement that you just made is it's people

00:24:23.780 that are saying, Hey, look, I'm not comfortable in a leadership position. Therefore I am not going

00:24:30.000 to do it. And to me, that's the, that's like a, just a giant cop-out. You're throwing up the white

00:24:35.920 flag, dude, in life, you know? And, and, you know, we were talking earlier as well that it, you know,

00:24:43.540 like you said, you can reach some level of success because you can sell well, you can reach some level

00:24:48.280 of success because you have some individual skills that are, that are good. But if you want to actually

00:24:54.220 achieve something meaningful, you can't do it alone. You can't do it alone. So

00:24:59.880 you need to learn how to be a leader. And there's, there's no, really no two ways about around

00:25:05.120 that. I mean, okay. I guess there is, there is one way around it. You can just stay where you are,

00:25:09.540 where you are and be an individual contributor. And some people like that. Yeah. They're great.

00:25:13.160 And that's fine. Yeah. You know, you need, you need, you need those, you need cogs in the wheel,

00:25:17.060 man. But your goal should not, should be, your goal should never be to be a fucking cog. It should be

00:25:23.400 to help the team win and to help the team win. That means you've got to constantly be developing. I mean,

00:25:29.200 dude, that's why you write the books, right? You write the books, dude, if everybody was born a

00:25:33.220 good leader, you wouldn't have books to sell. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's the truth.

00:25:37.600 And like so many young kids, especially you guys listening and you're thinking, dude, I'm not a

00:25:42.280 leader. Guess what? I wasn't a fucking leader either. Now I get paid a lot of money to go talk

00:25:47.500 about being a fucking leader. Just like you do. You know what I'm saying? It's crazy. I was the worst

00:25:52.640 fucking leader ever, dude. I told you outside. I've ruined a ton of good people because of decisions I made

00:25:57.600 because I thought I knew what I was doing when I did it. And, uh, and then, you know, it's funny

00:26:04.400 because it's like the, it's like the, the Dunning Kruger effect. Like when you think you're good,

00:26:08.240 you actually suck. And then when you actually get good, you realize how much you don't know.

00:26:12.440 Yeah. And we both said that when we were talking privately, you know, I said, dude,

00:26:15.520 I've got a million miles to go. And you go, your exact response was dude, so do I. And I thought

00:26:19.820 that was cool, man. And that explains a lot about you as to why you've been successful where you are.

00:26:24.240 We used to, I made up this, when I was running the training for the West coast seal teams,

00:26:27.880 I made up these self evaluations where you could grade yourself on what your tactical prowess was,

00:26:34.720 how well you're interacting with your troops, how well you could simplify plans, how well you could

00:26:38.700 assess dynamic situations. And the guys would grade themselves one to five, one being the worst and

00:26:43.900 five being the best. And, and I just had the leaders fill out these forms and didn't think much

00:26:48.500 of it at the time. And then we had this guy that was really, really not a good leader and real

00:26:55.640 arrogant, fought. He knew everything. And I went and said, you know, let me look at these forms that

00:26:59.780 I had these guys filled out. So I pulled out his form and no kidding. He graded himself fives across

00:27:04.760 the board. He was, he was an expert, the highest possible grade in every category that was in his

00:27:09.720 mind. And, and he was one of the worst. In fact, he ended up getting fired.

00:27:13.900 Fake it till you make it.

00:27:14.600 Yeah. And so once I saw that, I decided, you know what? And I pulled up another guy who is a great

00:27:20.600 leader, who is just doing a fabulous job, really respected by his guys and by up the chain of

00:27:26.600 command. I pulled out what he graded himself and he gave himself like 2.3, you know, 3.1. And I actually

00:27:35.160 pulled him aside and I said, Hey man, you gave yourself really low grades. What, you know, what are you

00:27:40.840 thinking? And he said, well, you know, like, like the tactical decision. Like I always feel like I'm

00:27:45.600 a little bit hesitant and I think I could do a better job with that. And I was listening to him

00:27:50.260 and it was like the, the, the switch or the connection got made in my head. That was one of

00:27:54.720 the, the strongest connections, you know, cause I, I mean, even extreme ownership, we talk about ego.

00:27:59.240 That was one of the strongest connections that I made between humility being a, a positive thing

00:28:07.860 and ego being a negative thing. Now I have to clarify this cause there's a dichotomy with that

00:28:13.620 as well. Do you want to have people working for you that are just all humble and no ego?

00:28:18.940 They won't do anything. They don't care if they lose. They're just like, Hey, I'm not, I'm not that

00:28:22.740 good. It doesn't matter what the score is. We just, we, we, you get a participation, participation

00:28:26.920 trophy. We're fine. No, we want people with ego. We want people that want to win. But when

00:28:31.640 that goes too far and you give yourself 5.0 on every single category, you're not going

00:28:36.900 to do, you're not going to, you're not going to make any adjustments. You're not going to

00:28:40.200 improve on anything. You're not going to even listen to anybody. That was the thing you'd

00:28:42.880 see with, with these egotistical seal leaders that we would fire because they wouldn't take

00:28:48.380 any advice. You'd have a guy that would done three or four combat deployments and you get

00:28:52.680 this other inexperienced person saying, ah, now the, I, I'm going to do it my way.

00:28:56.460 Right. And, and you just, you need to hear that two or three times and you, you realize they've

00:29:00.380 got a giant ego and you realize that they're never going to listen to anybody. And most

00:29:03.620 important, you realize that if this individual goes over into combat in a leadership position,

00:29:08.700 he's not going to listen to anyone and he's going to get people killed.

00:29:11.860 Sure. And dude, not only like, and what's funny is, is the overinflated ego is actually

00:29:17.000 projection of insecurity. You know, it's, and dude, a lot of leaders talk about, you know,

00:29:23.460 they think they got to have all the right answers and they think that if they ask their

00:29:27.000 team anything that that's showing like, oh dude, I'm weak leader. But the truth of the

00:29:31.940 matter is it's actually showing that you're very secure in your authority and you look

00:29:39.020 to your team for the answers because dude, it doesn't matter how smart you are. There's

00:29:42.680 going to be shit that comes up that you don't know, especially when you're dealing with,

00:29:46.500 well, when you're dealing with your subordinate leadership, they're on the front lines every

00:29:49.840 day, right? They know and see things that you don't know and you don't see. So when

00:29:54.080 a dynamic situation occurs and you haven't been in that sector for a little while and

00:29:59.720 now you're supposed to have the answer or you jump in and you start giving orders, well,

00:30:03.400 people are thinking, well, you haven't even been here. How do you know what's going on

00:30:06.340 down here? Whereas if you came in and said, Hey, listen, guys, haven't been here in a while.

00:30:10.220 I know this is a dynamic situation. What do you think we should do here? Like you just

00:30:14.380 said, that's not a sign of weakness. It's actually a sign of strength.

00:30:16.580 Yeah, dude. I always tell people, I'm like, look, dude, being a great leader is not about

00:30:19.840 having the answers. It's about figuring out what the best answer is and putting it into

00:30:24.100 play. And guess what? A lot of times the best answer is not going to come from your

00:30:27.500 own fucking noggin. It's going to come from the dudes out there doing the work.

00:30:31.700 So in real practical terms, how do you, when you take the people who are, you know, have

00:30:37.680 the big egos, but maybe not so much that it's, that it's not correctable. And then on the

00:30:42.560 other end, you have the people who are really second guessing themselves and maybe overly

00:30:46.440 humble describe for us, like how you get both ends to the middle.

00:30:51.560 You know, this is a remedy that I have. That's a, that's a common remedy that I use to cure

00:30:57.160 a lot of leadership problems. And that is when I get someone in a situation like that, I put

00:31:02.960 them in charge of something. I will take someone. And, and so with, when I have someone that has

00:31:08.060 their egos get, maybe get a little out of control. They think they're a little bit better

00:31:11.080 than they are. They need to get put in check. I'm going to put them in charge of something.

00:31:14.400 And what I put them in charge of is going to be something that is outside their capacity

00:31:19.140 to execute properly. It's above their skill level. So when they go and they take charge

00:31:24.200 with it, they're of course beating their chest. Like, yeah, I should have been running this

00:31:26.620 the whole time. And then they, then they actually get in that situation where they're supposed

00:31:30.540 to be running it. And they, they fail because they don't know what they're doing. And it was

00:31:36.800 all in their head that they were so great. So there either there's two things that's going

00:31:41.220 to happen. Either they're going to fail and they're going to come back with their tails

00:31:43.800 between their leg. And, and you'll explain to them, Hey, it looks like you weren't quite

00:31:48.280 as good as you thought you were. Or before they fail, you're going to come up to them.

00:31:52.120 They're going to come to you and say, Hey, listen, I'm not quite as good as I thought

00:31:54.920 I was. Can you give me some help? And, and in either one of those situations, they just

00:31:59.020 got put in check. Their ego got put in check. They got humbled a little bit and that's

00:32:02.600 positive. Now, if I get someone that's not confident, so other end of the spectrum,

00:32:05.840 what I'm going to do is I'm going to also put that person in charge of something, but

00:32:09.700 I'm going to put them in charge of something that I know that they can do. And I know they

00:32:12.580 can do well. And they're going to, they, you might actually have to kick that person

00:32:16.880 in the ass a little bit and say, Hey, look, no, you can do it. Come on. You can make this

00:32:19.800 happen. And they come to you and say, Hey, what do you think I should do here? Hey, go

00:32:22.200 figure it out. You, you might have to urge them along, but when they get done, they'll

00:32:28.220 do it, they'll do it successfully. And then their confidence will be increased and you

00:32:31.720 keep, keep them on that track, keep building their confidence, giving them harder and harder

00:32:35.320 things along the way. What's cool about those two things is as I'm sitting here, listening

00:32:39.900 to that, that I really like about that method is that both a lot of times when guys who are

00:32:46.400 leaders and they get someone who's too egotistical or too confident and they start causing, you

00:32:51.140 know, issues with that, they'll just fire them. What I like about your solution on that

00:32:56.080 is that it's actually development of both sides, right? Like, you know, you know what I'm

00:33:01.460 saying? Yeah. Like a lot of leaders will just fire that dude who's getting too egotistical

00:33:05.140 and too cocky or they'll fire that guy who just can't make a decision. And the truth

00:33:09.380 is that's your failure as a leader to see where they can develop. And what I like about

00:33:14.320 that solution so much is that, cause dude, your, your goal, your goal as the CEO of a

00:33:20.340 company where you have employees should be to develop them as much as you can. And a lot

00:33:27.400 of guys won't develop people cause they're like, well, dude, I don't have a place for that

00:33:30.560 guy. Well, guess what? That's okay. Because if he comes to your company and he progresses

00:33:35.480 and he, he outgrows your company and goes and takes a better job, guess what you did?

00:33:40.740 You just created an advocate for you and your company that will talk positively to every

00:33:45.980 single person at that company. Guess what? You just gained a whole bunch of new customers.

00:33:49.740 And so what happens and that's worst case scenario, but what's probably going to happen is he's

00:33:55.680 going to progress. Your company's going to do better and you're going to be able to afford

00:33:59.180 to keep them. I mean, AKA your company grows, you know? And I think that that solution that

00:34:04.680 you have is so great because it, dude, it perpetuates growth. You know what I mean? And even if

00:34:09.020 it's, I truly believe, dude, if you do right by people, good shit happens to you. And, um,

00:34:14.640 people will, you know, they like to poke holes and say, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but that one

00:34:19.740 time, but we're talking about the fucking average here. The average of shit is that if you do the

00:34:24.860 right thing and you treat people good and you have their best interests in mind and you help them

00:34:28.860 develop, they 99% of the time are going to pay you back with goodwill. For sure. Question. What

00:34:35.880 about somebody that is in the middle in that hat that you see a lot of potential in, but they're

00:34:40.360 okay with being like a cog in the system. If that's, if that's where someone's at and that's

00:34:45.040 what they want to do with their life, then I'm going to get the most out of my can. I'm going to

00:34:48.680 try and develop them as much as I can. And they reach a point, you know, that happens, right? There's

00:34:52.580 people that they've got, they settle in, they settle in and you know, I'm going to talk to them

00:34:57.980 about it and I'm going to say, listen, here's where you're at right now. And you know, a lot of times

00:35:03.140 people don't think about the future as much as they should. And so I'll have that conversation with

00:35:08.240 them as well and say, okay, you know, I understand that you're comfortable right now. You're working

00:35:13.600 nine to five. You don't want to put in the extra hours. You don't want, you don't want any more

00:35:17.340 responsibility because managing people is hard. You just want to keep doing what you're doing.

00:35:20.440 I get that. I know your kids are young or your wife is sick. I mean, people have things going on

00:35:25.440 in their life and they need to focus on other things. Hey, I just want to let you know that if you

00:35:30.740 work hard right now for the next three years and you step up and you take this leadership role,

00:35:37.160 that means five years down the road, you're, you could be financially set for life.

00:35:43.820 That could have built a real career. You could build a real career. You could be at a position

00:35:48.440 of authority where you won't have to do as much and you can spend more time, but you're going to

00:35:52.940 have to invest in your, in, in what we're doing right now. So I just want to make sure that you

00:35:57.200 understand that. And you know, and then people will say, look, I get it, but guess what? I don't want

00:36:02.400 that kind of stress in my life. What I want is to get my paycheck. I want a nine to five. I want to

00:36:07.140 go home to my kids. Yep. And you know what, dude? Respect. That's fine. Right. Exactly.

00:36:11.480 I don't, I don't unlimited potential is not for everybody. Right. Right. So when I have somebody

00:36:16.500 like that, what I'm going to do, I'm going to get all I can out of them. And like, like you just

00:36:20.560 said, Andy, I'm still going to take care of them. Right. I don't, I don't know. You don't look

00:36:23.880 less on. Yeah. Don't look less on. I actually respect that. Totally. I respect when people are

00:36:27.940 honest with me about that because dude, what, what happens is, and this happened, this happens,

00:36:32.020 you know, a lot to us, dude, I'll see potential in someone. And I said, dude, this guy could run

00:36:37.840 this. This guy could take this, this guy could own this. And I, and I try to get them to do it.

00:36:42.600 Right. And they're not doing it. And then the guy comes to me and he says, um, you know, Hey dude,

00:36:50.360 look, I got kids here. I got this. I'm at this point in my life. And they're honest with me about

00:36:55.320 it. Dude, I respect that. But what I don't respect is whenever I say that to them, they're like,

00:36:59.600 yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Go. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And then they don't

00:37:02.720 fucking do it. That makes me hate them. And then I'm like, dude, fuck this guy. And I'm

00:37:07.140 getting a new guy. You know what I'm saying? That's a definite problem. Cause there's,

00:37:10.020 there's a trust issue. Cause I'm relying on that, dude. I take people at their word.

00:37:13.040 Like if you tell me you want that, then I say, I believe you. So let's work on it. And then

00:37:17.360 I'm putting energy and, and, and coaching and all this stuff into them. And they're just

00:37:22.140 dragging their feet. Yep. Yeah. So what do you do with a cock that you have to constantly

00:37:25.080 micromanage? Well, this is where, well, this is where I was just going to go with this. Cause there's a

00:37:28.680 dichotomy with this as well, which is, and it's a dichotomy with extreme ownership of

00:37:33.420 people say, okay, if, and you just said this to Andy, Hey, if I get someone that's not doing

00:37:37.300 what I need them to do, that's my fault, right? That's a great attitude to have. What can I do

00:37:40.940 to fix them? What can I do to mentor them? What can I do to coach them? That those are great

00:37:44.680 things to think about. Now, sometimes you invest in someone, the coaching, the mentoring, the training,

00:37:50.480 you do what you can and they don't, they, they are not capable of doing what it is you need

00:37:55.780 them to do. And at a certain point you're investing into them. You're, you're expending

00:38:00.520 your time on them instead of on someone else. And they're detracting from the success of the team.

00:38:06.600 Now, this is a problem. And this is where your loyalty to that individual. Cause we build loyalty

00:38:12.540 with our team, right? We're loyalty to them, to each individual on the team. We build loyalty with

00:38:17.020 them. But if we have somebody that's dragging down the team, our loyalty to the team trumps the

00:38:23.220 loyalty to the individual every time. Yes. And, and by the way, as well, if Andy's working for me

00:38:31.000 and Andy's slacking and Andy's not pulling his weight and I'm letting it slide and I'm letting

00:38:35.360 it slide and I'm letting it slide. What does the whole rest of the team lose respect? The rest of

00:38:39.820 the team loses respect for me. They, then they start to slack. I mean, it's just a, it's an, it's a

00:38:44.360 dysfunctional situation. So you have to, and these are hard conversations to have. That's a hard

00:38:49.900 situation because people, you can literally ruin the culture of your company by letting

00:38:56.340 someone stay who isn't doing their job is a, it is a culture killer. Right. For sure.

00:39:02.040 Cause then nobody trusts you as a leader and then they start taking advantage of you. Oh yeah. Yeah.

00:39:08.200 And they're like, fuck it. I don't have to do it either. And then all of a sudden, dude,

00:39:11.120 you got a whole group of otherwise high performers performing at the lowest common denominator.

00:39:17.700 It's an awful situation. So there comes a point where as a leader, you've done what you can,

00:39:23.680 you've, you've invested as much as you can and you have to be straightforward with that person.

00:39:27.480 You know, that's what makes us feel guilty as a leader is when we go and fire someone and we

00:39:31.180 haven't given the right counseling, we haven't been straightforward with them and we're just

00:39:34.940 going in and firing them. Like, no, look, man, I talked to you for the last four months or whatever.

00:39:40.140 Different businesses have different time cycles. You know, I work with construction companies

00:39:43.660 there. If they miss a date on a job, they're going to, they're going to, it's going to cost

00:39:47.440 them hundreds of thousands of dollars. So they have three, four or five days to figure out,

00:39:51.800 you know what? This guy's not working. Here's your warning. Here's your, okay. Here's your

00:39:54.880 warning. You need to fix this by like tomorrow. Right. And then tomorrow they don't fix it.

00:39:58.880 Okay. Look, I told you yesterday to fix this. It's not fixed. You got another day and you're

00:40:02.560 not going to be working here. So that happens. And other companies like a, like a sales type

00:40:07.320 company, there's a longer window usually to get someone up to speed, to try and train them.

00:40:12.660 And, and hopefully they can get up to speed that that might take six months. But if after six

00:40:17.900 months you're still pouring, you know, assets and resources into this person and they're not

00:40:22.640 performing where they need to be. Yep. It's time for you to make the hard decision as a leader,

00:40:26.800 talk to them and say, look, man, a sales isn't for you. This isn't going to work. Is there anything

00:40:30.640 else that you think you might be able to do here? Cause this isn't going to work.

00:40:32.920 Right. And dude, the dichotomy there too, as a leader is when to pull the trigger for

00:40:38.060 sure. You know what I'm saying? It's like, how long are you going to coach this guy versus,

00:40:43.360 you know, cause some leaders come in, they're just fucking fire the dude, you know? And then

00:40:46.560 if you do that, the problem is, is that you never develop anybody and you're constantly

00:40:50.400 spinning your wheels at the base level. Right. You bring in the new guy, the new guy

00:40:54.680 doesn't have any skills. You fire the new guy for not having any skills. You bring in

00:40:58.680 another guy, the guy doesn't have any, and it's just constantly repeating itself. But then you

00:41:02.520 have the other kind of leader who lets the dude who isn't developing stay because dude,

00:41:07.940 he really cares about his people. He cares so much that he doesn't want to have that

00:41:12.340 conversation. And then that guy, the leader lets that guy do exactly what we just said,

00:41:18.200 where he, he, he brings down the skill level of everybody else, the care level of everybody

00:41:23.480 else. And now you've got a real fucking problem because you just fucked yourself by loving this

00:41:29.120 dude too much. But what happened? I got this big smile on my face. It was like,

00:41:32.400 I can see the light in your head. It's just like so bright. You know why, bro? That's cause I've

00:41:36.340 done that. I've done both of those. And what's awesome is as I started off talking about the

00:41:41.080 dichotomy leadership, when you realize this, once you see it, now you go, okay, I've let this person

00:41:47.660 be here too long. This is not good for me. I'm not being a strong leader. I need to get rid of this

00:41:52.620 person. And you can make that, or you can say like, look, I want to fire this guy right now,

00:41:57.260 but I haven't put any effort into it. You can, you can scale it back and you can look and you

00:42:01.940 can balance these two dichotomies because that's what they are. It's so, I would say that that

00:42:06.440 dichotomy is the one that I've struggled with the most knowing when to say, Hey dude, this just

00:42:12.380 isn't going to work. And you know, what helped me figure that out was, uh, looking, well, first of

00:42:17.620 all, I made that same mistake like 10 times in a row. Okay. So let's just be real. Um, and, and I think

00:42:24.440 what figured it out for me, what made me become the, cause I was the guy who like, just let the

00:42:29.300 guy stay too much. You know what I mean? Now I was never a quick fire. The first time I had to fire

00:42:33.920 someone, dude, I fucking cried. Like I fucked. Cause dude, I love these dudes. You know what I'm

00:42:37.520 saying? But this guy, I remember his name was Eric and he was just never going to make it. Like it was

00:42:42.220 just never going to make it. I couldn't, dude, I didn't have the skills to develop them. And I don't,

00:42:46.840 honestly, I don't think I could have developed them to be effective here. And I remember,

00:42:50.640 dude, I felt fucking terrible. Like I cried on the way home, like for real, like big 260 pound dude

00:42:55.520 with a beard crying in his fucking truck. You know what I'm saying? Uh, but, and I'm not ashamed to

00:43:01.080 say that because dude, I care about my people. Yeah. But, um, what made me realize to quit doing

00:43:06.320 that was that cause I do truly care about them was that I was holding those individuals back from

00:43:12.940 finding success elsewhere by keeping them. Yeah. And that's, that's another point is where, again,

00:43:19.620 I talk about these hard conversations and a lot of people in leadership positions have trouble

00:43:25.400 telling people what they're doing wrong and, and counseling them and letting them know.

00:43:29.940 And that is actually, so having a hard conversation is the worst thing you can possibly do is,

00:43:33.660 is not tell someone like if you're screwing up and I don't come and tell you, Hey Andy,

00:43:37.440 the way you're doing this isn't working. And I just let it go and let it go and let it go.

00:43:41.480 The reason I'm not, the reason you're not telling me is cause I'm your boy and we hang out

00:43:45.460 and you care about me. But the truth is, is that you're not telling me because you care.

00:43:51.400 And if I truly cared about you, I would tell you exactly. So you could fix yourself.

00:43:55.820 Dude, I have this saying that I say all the time is like being nice is not being nice.

00:44:00.220 Being nice is telling the fucking truth. You know, everybody thinks like being nice is like

00:44:05.940 letting someone get away with something or letting someone slide or letting them get away,

00:44:10.240 uh, with not developing their skills or a million other things. But the truth of it is,

00:44:14.020 is if you really care and dude, some people will hate you for this, by the way, you know,

00:44:17.940 this like dude, some people you tell the truth to because you care, we'll fucking hate you back

00:44:24.020 for it. Now here's the dichotomy, right? Here's the dichotomy. Can you be too direct with people?

00:44:33.080 Absolutely. And the answer is yes. And so what, you know, if I come in, I'm like, Andy, you suck.

00:44:39.160 This is horrible. And now you get pissed at me. Right. And now there's animosity as opposed to

00:44:45.980 me saying, Andy, look, man, the last project that you just ran, I mean, you got it done and I

00:44:51.900 appreciate it, but I think there's a lot of things that I, and this is where, this is where taking

00:44:56.200 ownership is a little bit of a jujitsu move, right? I come in and I say, Andy, you know, that last

00:45:00.320 project that you ran, you got it done. And, and I appreciate that you did get it done. But when I look

00:45:06.160 at it overall, I think it could have been done a lot more efficiently. And I think I let you down.

00:45:11.180 I don't think I gave you the right type of guidance from your perspective. And you're looking back

00:45:16.080 at it now. What do you think you could have gotten from me that would have made it run smoother?

00:45:20.460 And now you open up, you feel like I'm, I'm asking for criticism myself. Right. And what you'll,

00:45:27.000 you know what normally a person says like that to that, they go, look, man, to be honest with you,

00:45:30.480 you gave me what I needed. I dropped the ball here, here and here. That's right. And you go,

00:45:34.280 oh man, okay, well let's get you trained in that. And instead of me just attacking you with the

00:45:39.000 truth, which is like, you dropped the ball and you suck. Right. Which is what I'm thinking in my

00:45:43.540 head. Right. Right. Right. Instead, I'm saying, Hey man, where did I let you down? Where could

00:45:47.780 always own it? They always own it. Because dude, there's enough rapport there. Like they care,

00:45:52.780 dude. They do care. There's times where, uh, there's times where people say, well, you know,

00:45:58.480 if you take ownership and like, if I said to you, Hey Andy, I think I dropped the ball and didn't give you

00:46:02.980 the right guidance, what could I have done better? And you're like, yeah, you did drop the ball.

00:46:07.840 And some people are like, what do I do now? Right. And I'm like, you actually are saying that

00:46:13.160 not, not to set the person up. You're saying it cause you believed it. Right. If you, if I give

00:46:16.880 you a project and you fail, whose fault is it? It's my fault. Actually, it's my fault. I'm the guy

00:46:21.620 that's in charge. If I give you a project and you fail the project, I need to look at it and say,

00:46:26.500 I was asking that as a leader, dude, everything is my fucking fault. Exactly. Yeah. But when I say

00:46:32.540 something's my fault and you, you know, as your leader, if I'm your leader and I say, I work for

00:46:36.860 you. Yeah. All right. I say, Hey Andy, you screwed up this project. It's my fault. And you go, yeah,

00:46:43.540 you're right. It is your fault. I shouldn't be offended by that. I just, because that's your fault too.

00:46:48.120 Yes. Right. I'm not. That's the whole point. Right. The whole point is like, I'm saying this was my

00:46:52.540 fault. And if I don't actually believe that and I'm full of shit, well then that's, that's, that's,

00:46:56.900 that's, you're going to see right through that. Right. Right. Right. But if you, if I say, Hey man,

00:47:00.260 this is my fault, here's the mistakes I actually made. That's a real, that you have to, you, the,

00:47:05.320 you have to be in a place to fucking really own that shit. You have to believe it. You don't,

00:47:09.760 you're not just saying it. The weak leader will come in and fucking try to set their dude up to say

00:47:13.580 some shit and that's how they get thrown off. Right. Exactly. So like, but dude, I, I just,

00:47:18.580 I know everything's my fault. You know what I mean? Yeah. So like, it's

00:47:21.700 I think that's the biggest quality of a leader is being able to check yourself and, you know,

00:47:27.140 seeing if you're doing everything you need to be doing on your end. If you're in business long

00:47:30.040 enough, you're going to figure this shit out. Like everything is your fucking fault. Otherwise

00:47:33.640 you won't be in business long enough. That's the truth. Yeah. You know, leaders that don't

00:47:38.280 understand that they don't make it that far to figure it out because you fucking, your business

00:47:42.320 goes out of business. You know, dude, you deal with all kinds of successful leaders. You know,

00:47:47.940 what, what would you say just to switch gears a little bit, man, like a well-intended leader.

00:47:54.660 I mean, cause dude, I, you guys that can afford to pay what you charge, they're, they're successful,

00:47:59.300 you know, leaders. So what would you say a well-intentioned leader, the common mistakes

00:48:06.700 that you see made of a well-intentioned guy, right? Not, not a guy who's like a dictator,

00:48:11.620 but a guy who's really making an effort. What would you say the most common things are?

00:48:15.460 Yeah. So this is a question I get asked a lot because people want to know, like, what's the

00:48:19.660 thing they should work out, look out for. And the bottom line is it's the same thing that we've

00:48:23.820 been talking about where you and I were talking about earlier, which is different people have

00:48:26.620 different strengths and weaknesses. So when you go into a company, that company will have different

00:48:31.740 strengths and weaknesses. Usually they're based on the strengths and weaknesses of the leader itself.

00:48:36.460 So if you've got a leader, that's not a very good communicator and he's not getting the word

00:48:42.000 out to the front line. That's a, that's a real problem. And so that's one type of person.

00:48:47.540 You've got somebody else that's, that's a great, great communicator, but guess what? They're not

00:48:51.260 great at. They're not great at understanding their strategy. They don't even know what their

00:48:55.260 own real strategic vision is. And so when you go into a company, you, it could be so many varieties

00:49:01.000 of things. I'm not so many. There's like, there's like a dozen things, right? Like a guy's not a good

00:49:05.480 communicator. The troops on the front line don't know what's going on. It seems complicated,

00:49:08.340 but it's not. Yeah. It's going to be, but it's going to be one of those things. And usually they

00:49:11.820 have complimentary strengths and weaknesses. So they're really good at something, but they're

00:49:14.660 not so good at someone else at something else. Like you get a guy that's a great visionary,

00:49:17.880 but he's not good at any of the details. So he's got this great vision, but none of the stuff is

00:49:22.280 their operational execution is weak. Right. So what do we do in a situation like that? Well,

00:49:26.460 I like to tell that guy, guess what? You need to hire someone as your number two that has

00:49:30.680 operational execution as an expertise and boom, that's going to bolster you up and we'll,

00:49:35.180 we'll get this problem solved. Cause it's not training somebody that's a visionary that,

00:49:40.280 that has that type of mindset to become extra executional operational expert is very challenging

00:49:46.060 to do, especially in a short period of time. Yeah. It takes a long time. Right. But bringing

00:49:49.380 someone on board that has that different attitude. So the common problems are just those. There's a,

00:49:54.140 there's, there's a variety of common problems. So it's awareness problem. It's well, yeah,

00:49:58.020 people definitely have to be aware, but we're going to find the different problems. We're going to

00:50:02.740 figure out what, how to, how to solve that problem. It's going to be a little bit different

00:50:05.920 at every company. Yeah. The reason I say an awareness problem is a good leader who's got

00:50:09.300 to figure it out already knows like, Hey, what the fuck am I weak at? Like I know what I already

00:50:13.480 know what I'm bad at. Right. So I surround myself like I'm bad at understanding technology. So I have

00:50:19.260 guys that I talk to every day that, that are great at that. Right. Um, so I, I already know to fill

00:50:25.940 that in. So, uh, so aware leaders are going to know that. Right. For sure. Be like, and dude,

00:50:31.160 they're secure. Right. Cause a lot of people don't, a lot of really, uh, guys struggle with,

00:50:36.620 with doing that because their own ego. They're like, well, I should know that,

00:50:39.480 you know, and they won't, they won't bring anybody in that knows what they know.

00:50:42.460 Yeah. Well, that's, that's an interesting point with my company is that, so we get it brought into

00:50:47.880 companies for a variety of different reasons. Most of the time we get brought in because someone

00:50:53.360 inside the company is saying we need to get better at leadership. And when that's why you're getting

00:50:58.800 brought into the company, that means right out of the gate there, there's some humility inside that

00:51:03.920 company. They're thinking, you know what? And, and this is also interesting, which means they have

00:51:08.560 the skills to get better. They have the skills to get better. They have the open mind to get better.

00:51:12.500 They have the humility to get better. And by the way, normally those companies that are

00:51:16.700 voluntarily bringing us into, they're already doing, they're already successful. Like you wanted

00:51:21.300 me to come and talk to your team today. Right. I came and talked to your team. Your team is

00:51:24.800 already kicking ass, but you're thinking, Hey, how can we get better? Right? So, so that's what

00:51:30.220 happens when a good companies bring us in, their minds are open. They want to get better.

00:51:34.360 The bad companies are like, dude, I'm not paying that shit to bring it. Yeah. And this is, so what

00:51:38.520 happens sometimes is let's say for instance, the board that owns a company hires us to go in and help,

00:51:47.400 help fix the leadership inside the company. So the attitude inside the actual company is, Hey,

00:51:53.020 we don't need help. Why are you here? And, and by the way, the reason that the board is bringing

00:51:59.620 us in is not because the company is doing well. The reason the board is bringing us in is because

00:52:03.700 the company is failing. So this is what it tells you a company that is humble. The first companies

00:52:08.360 that I talked about, the companies, most of the companies that we work with that are doing well,

00:52:11.560 the re one of the core reasons that they're doing well is that they're humble and they're constantly

00:52:15.200 looking to where they can improve. One of the reasons that companies are failing is because

00:52:20.520 they're not humble and they're not looking to where they can improve. And also on top of that,

00:52:25.480 the companies that are doing well, they take ownership and they say, you know what? We could

00:52:28.420 be doing this better. The companies that are doing poorly and failing, it's never their fault. We go

00:52:33.400 in there and say, Oh, what's the market? It's the economy. It's the market. It's the economy.

00:52:36.880 It's the competitors for 50 years. Yeah. It's the guys in the front line are lazy. Yep. It's every,

00:52:41.720 it's millennials. It's everyone else's fault, but it's never the leadership fault. When the fact of the

00:52:46.040 matter is, and I tell this to companies all the time, every single problem that you have at a

00:52:51.240 company or any organization that you, that you deal with, every single problem that they have

00:52:55.880 is a leadership problem. All of them. Absolutely. All of them. Absolutely, dude. Absolutely.

00:53:01.840 Can I circle back to your remedy of giving things, uh, giving people things to do? So it seems like in

00:53:09.020 order to execute that, you have to really, really know your people. So I, I, the question that I had,

00:53:14.380 as you were talking about it earlier was what is your method for sort of breaking down the game film

00:53:20.280 of your, of the people who work with you, of the people who are under your command? I mean,

00:53:24.180 do you have specific habits? Like how do you make your observations? How do you, how do you evaluate?

00:53:29.120 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, interestingly, it's also the remedy. Like if I, when I'm starting to

00:53:35.860 figure out what people are like, when I, when I bring someone onto my team, guess what they're going to do?

00:53:39.780 They're going to run something and we're going to see where that they're going to run something at first.

00:53:43.780 What are they going to run? They're going to run something that's pretty small. They're not going

00:53:46.580 to, I'm not going to send a guy like right now with echelon front. I'm not going to send a guy

00:53:50.180 out on his first gig with a, with a, a fortune 500 company that's already signing a big contract with

00:53:56.260 us and say, Hey, you take this. Cause that's an important client. And I don't know where the guy's

00:53:59.860 at. What he's going to do is he's going to go, you know what he's going to do? He's going to

00:54:03.260 volunteer and do something for free with a boys club in, in Minnesota. That's right.

00:54:09.380 And we're going to send up out there and see how it goes and get feedback. And I might go with him

00:54:14.240 and watch and, and see where he's at, or at least get video and then talk to him. Hey, what had

00:54:19.160 happened? Hey, you got asked this question and it stumped you. You got asked a question by a 12 year

00:54:23.140 old kid and it stumped you. That's not a good sign. We need to work on it. We need to, we need to train

00:54:27.780 you more. So when I get people coming on board, what I'm going to do is I'm going to, I'm going to give

00:54:32.660 them small tasks in the beginning that are less important. I'm going to assess and evaluate how

00:54:37.980 they perform. I'm going to, I'm going to make adjustments, course corrections on their performance.

00:54:43.080 And then I'm going to give them something a little bit bigger and I'm going to give them

00:54:45.640 something a little bit bigger. And then you know what I want them to do? I want them to take my job

00:54:49.740 from me. I want everybody that works for me to be, get to a point where they can take my job from

00:54:55.320 me. Just like you did at supplement superstore, right? Like you probably, maybe you weren't

00:55:01.460 consciously doing this, but some part of you was going, okay, well there you go. You're going,

00:55:05.080 you know what? Somebody's going to have to run this for me because I'm going to go do something

00:55:08.680 else. I'm going to take one more step up. There's people that through their ego, they don't want to

00:55:15.000 let anyone else run their program. Right. They're going to go as their little baby. Yep. It's their

00:55:20.060 baby. They don't want anyone else to touch it. And you know what they do? They stunt their own

00:55:23.780 growth. Right. So I want everyone that works for me to get good enough to take my job. That's my goal.

00:55:28.060 Me too, man. Me too. A hundred percent. You? Well, yeah. I mean, dude, this is an interesting

00:55:33.580 topic because you know, you got to actually come to work to do that, right? Yeah. I have to actually

00:55:37.160 come to work because you know, I'm at this place to where, you know, a lot of people that, you know,

00:55:42.040 I don't want to say success because I'm not successful one bit, but you know, I've, I've made

00:55:47.920 it developing. I've made it to a point to where a lot of people didn't think I would, or, you know,

00:55:52.900 I don't have a formal education or anything like that, but you know, I'm definitely working on my

00:55:58.640 leadership and that is, you know, for anybody out there that's listening that, you know, might look

00:56:02.720 up to me, like you're going to run into the ceiling of you have to be a good leader to take that next

00:56:07.980 step. You have to develop the people underneath you to take over your job in order for you to move

00:56:13.320 up. That's just, that's the way it works, especially inside an organization.

00:56:16.020 You see a lot of that, you see a lot of that, um, at like the retail level where managers,

00:56:21.980 managers of a retail store, they don't want, they don't want to develop the guy cause they're

00:56:25.100 afraid to take a job. But what they don't realize is that that's the only way you're going anywhere.

00:56:29.340 It's the only way. It's the only way. I had a situation like that working with a company and

00:56:33.580 one of the leaders was not developing his people. And I said, Hey, you know what? And the CEO is kind

00:56:39.980 of like, Hey, what, you know what? This guy's just not, he's just, he just keeps everyone below him and he

00:56:43.340 won't develop them. And I said, you know what? Next time you promote, don't promote him and tell

00:56:47.160 him why you don't promote him. And he goes, well, why? And I said, you tell him that there's no one

00:56:51.300 to take your place. So I can't promote you. It's the truth. It is the truth. It is the truth.

00:56:56.400 You should have three or four guys ready to take your place. Yeah, bro. I can't fucking take,

00:57:00.540 you know, a lot of these guys in our, our retail company, they're hungry to move. They want us to open

00:57:04.800 more stores. They want us to do that. I'm like, all right, dude, like I could take you and put you

00:57:09.080 over here, but what am I gonna do with your store? You know? And then they're like,

00:57:12.560 well, you can find, no, dude, I got to take one of your guys and put them in that spot.

00:57:17.820 You know, until that's, until that's done, I can't, you're there. People fail to realize that

00:57:22.500 like how to me, that should be obvious, you know, but especially if you're looking at the bigger

00:57:27.240 picture, I mean, dude, like I'm holding your brand, your personal brand back right now by not

00:57:32.260 being good enough to develop. I fucking tell you that all the time. Hey, but at least I'm aware of that.

00:57:38.100 Complete your statement. You're holding the brand back by what?

00:57:41.940 Because I can't put as much effort into Andy's brand as I should be able to.

00:57:46.160 Because we use the same, the same guys for first form and my brand. So like Tyler has to run first

00:57:52.220 form. So if he can't get the guys to do all the shit that he was doing for first form, we can't

00:57:56.940 do as much stuff for personal brand. Gotcha. What are you saying? Makes sense. Which the truth of the

00:58:00.440 matter is, is we're getting to the point where we need two teams. That's, that's the bottom line. Yeah.

00:58:03.940 But, uh, that's neither here nor there. Well, that's also because we still have a lot of room

00:58:10.520 for improvement on, on our team side. How many people do you have on your team? Uh, five.

00:58:16.840 And are they ready to step up and take your place? No. And that's on me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you,

00:58:23.380 you should have, you should be ready to split off those five guys into two teams that hire one more

00:58:28.760 guy each. You got two teams of three and you got one work and one element and one work and the other

00:58:33.240 one. And guess who's in charge of them both? You, you should be. Yeah. If you have like, if you want

00:58:38.940 to be, if you would have asked him a year ago that, okay, if he would, he would not have said that a

00:58:43.760 year ago. He, what he would have said is those guys don't want to fucking do work. They don't want to

00:58:48.180 do this. They don't want to do that. And I'm, I'm not, that's a compliment to you. Not enough. No,

00:58:51.960 I get it. It's a, yeah, it's a growth thing. And, and yeah. And if your team, the people on your

00:58:56.900 team don't want to do work, whose fault is that? It's mine. Of course. A hundred percent. Yeah.

00:59:03.280 Yeah, dude. I, dude, you're making progress. You know what I'm saying? Well, I know I can

00:59:09.700 actually feel that. A year ago, I shit you not, he would have for sure said that's cause they're

00:59:13.680 fucking lazy or some shit like that. So, and my brother's been working with him a lot. So it's,

00:59:18.020 it's been showing the growth, the showing. Oh yeah. So dude, what do you think? Uh,

00:59:23.360 like, I think I know the answer to this question, but I want to know what you think.

00:59:32.560 What do you think the most underrated quality of leadership is?

00:59:40.660 Most underrated it's, it's, it's, to me, it's the most important quality to say. I give

00:59:44.160 this answer all the time. It's humility, right? Dude, I knew that's what it was going to be.

00:59:46.740 And it, that's just what it is. Right. And, and if you, if you're not humble.

00:59:51.080 Why do you think that is? Do you think it's cause like the way, the way a CEO or a leader

00:59:54.520 is painted in the, in like in movies and shit like that? Cause they're always painted as

00:59:59.120 a dude who has all the answers. Like dude, Captain America comes down and he's like, do

01:00:02.980 this, do that, do this, do this. And everybody just does the shit. Right? Like that's what

01:00:06.780 people think it's like, or they think it's like, you know, the CEO sitting in a mile

01:00:11.000 long, uh, wood table. And he's like, Stevens, you go do this. Uh, you go do this, Bob, you

01:00:19.460 go do that. And like, he's just got all the answers, but that's not what it's like at all.

01:00:23.340 No. And you know, this was an answer that I even, again, the first time I ever got interviewed

01:00:28.460 was on the Tim Ferriss podcast. And he asked me what's the most important quality for a leader.

01:00:33.280 And I said, humility and people were really, I guess, kind of surprised that that's what I said

01:00:38.660 for the very reasons that you just stated is because most people, most people that are striving

01:00:45.100 for leadership, they, you know, this is what we talked about. You have an ego. Like you got an

01:00:49.740 ego. I've got an ego. Guess what? I want to win. An ego is not a bad thing. No, it's not a bad thing.

01:00:54.860 It's a good thing. And that's what drives you. You wouldn't be where you are. I wouldn't be

01:00:57.640 where I am right now. If I didn't have an ego that didn't want to win. Right. And that's why,

01:01:01.840 that's why for a leader, that characteristic is, is underappreciated because most people look at it

01:01:10.040 and they go, that guy wants to win and he's going to do everything. And he's going to make these

01:01:13.600 things happen. When reality, a really good leader, the reason they're winning is because they're

01:01:18.480 looking around going, what can I do better? Now I'll tell you what was interesting. I went up and

01:01:21.800 talked to some underprivileged kids and I actually had to flip this because as I sat there and looked at

01:01:31.420 these underprivileged kids from the inner city with broken homes, guess what I saw? I saw just

01:01:38.440 total lack of confidence with all these kids. Dude, wait, I talk about this. So I, I have a pot where

01:01:45.060 I talk about humility is overrated. Okay. And people are like, what the fuck does that mean? Blah,

01:01:50.680 blah, blah. You're, you're an egomaniac. And it's for the exact reason that you said, dude,

01:01:54.900 there's a, there's a dichotomy between ego and humility, right? Dude, I'll fucking love this

01:02:02.020 because when I say that people don't know what I mean, that humility is underrated. Like they think

01:02:06.820 like, Oh, you're a huge egomaniac. No, but you got to have an ego to fucking work and go try and do

01:02:13.080 things. And you got to have confidence to, to, to dream that big that you can do certain things.

01:02:18.140 And dude, I find that people are either, there's very few people in the middle of that. There's

01:02:23.280 lots of people who think they're awesome, you know? And then there's lots of people who think

01:02:28.640 they're nothing and can't do anything. And so that's what I mean when I'm saying like, dude,

01:02:32.920 humility is overrated. Like believe in yourself, you don't know you're the shit, be a bad motherfucker.

01:02:37.640 You know what I mean? And I think for me from working with companies, like you said,

01:02:41.880 I'm working with companies, these companies, these CEOs of these companies, male and female,

01:02:47.020 they didn't get where they were by having a small ego and by being humble. And that's why,

01:02:53.780 again, when people ask me about it in the SEAL teams, you don't, you don't become a leader in

01:02:57.500 the SEAL teams by being a, you know, a little tiny dude, a little person that you've got to be able

01:03:03.200 to step up. You've got to be at a minimum, you've got to be confident with what you're talking about.

01:03:07.160 And that's why it's surprising to people. But like you're saying, there's, there's people out

01:03:12.500 there that are at the other end of the spectrum that that's why it's a dichotomy. There's people

01:03:16.320 that, and when I saw these kids, I mean, just, just a bunch of kids, you know, between the ages

01:03:20.820 of like eight and 15, there was not a shred of confidence. They've never even seen success

01:03:26.900 in any way. Exactly. And so what I was telling them, well, it's just like the simple things like,

01:03:31.900 okay, Hey kids, stand up. And I was making them talk loud because people that aren't confident,

01:03:39.140 they, they don't feel comfortable talking loud. And, and you know what, just like we talked

01:03:42.980 about earlier in this podcast, you can get more comfortable talking loud. You can get more

01:03:47.460 comfortable talking in front of people. You can get more comfortable standing up straight

01:03:51.740 and looking people in the eye. Those are things that, that especially younger kids that haven't

01:03:56.640 really developed yet. That's a big deal. So when you say on your podcast, like, Hey, don't be humble.

01:04:03.240 Those are the people you're talking to all day long and they need to hear it. And there's some

01:04:07.980 people that don't have the confidence to step up and do a job. Those people exist. The people,

01:04:13.220 you know, and then there's some jackass out there that hears you say that. That's like,

01:04:16.500 that's right. I'm the best ever. Right. And, and, and Andy just told me I was the best ever and that

01:04:20.820 I should go with that. Right. Like that person is going to lose situational awareness. Isn't going

01:04:26.020 to see the mistakes that they make. Isn't going to know that they need to listen to other people

01:04:30.240 and they're going to end up getting crushed. Yeah. Dude, the, the, the way to look at it,

01:04:34.640 like, this is how I look at it. Right. Like I literally look at it as like a fuel gauge in

01:04:39.660 your car. Okay. Like it looks like, you know, uh, it's a, it's a, it's a, it looks like a half

01:04:43.740 of a circle. Okay. And on the one side you got E and on the other side you got F. All right.

01:04:49.500 And that needle, let's just say on the left, you know, it's E not for empty, but for ego.

01:04:55.660 Okay. And then on the right it's H for humility. All right. And, and dude, you should be,

01:05:01.380 this is where aware you said situational awareness. This is where you have to be aware. This is where

01:05:06.740 you have to know where your needle is at all times. And so, you know, it's okay sometimes for

01:05:14.060 your E for the needle to go towards the E. Like for example, dude, I go and speak in front of 20,000

01:05:20.360 people. My fucking needle. When I go on that stage is pinned to eat. Okay. But I let it get there and I

01:05:29.720 try to get it there on purpose because dude, if you can't go out with that, with your needle

01:05:34.420 pinned to E, you are not going to fucking move people and get them excited and get them want to

01:05:38.900 change. It's going to be impossible. You're going to go up there. You're going to be scared. You're

01:05:43.320 going to be, you know, stumbling over your words, you know? So I let it get it to E. There's other times

01:05:48.860 when I'm sitting in a room with you who is the best in the world at what you do, in my opinion,

01:05:54.340 and it's becoming more and more of a fact every day. Dude, you know what I do? I don't sit here and think

01:05:58.840 about how great of a leader I am. I let that needle go all the way over to H and I shut the

01:06:03.240 fuck up and listen. You know what I'm saying? And that's, that's what you have to do, man.

01:06:07.700 It's gotta be, I mean, it's funny, dude, because we're sitting here talking and literally everything

01:06:12.640 we talk about is a dichotomy. And like, before I even got your book, I didn't know what the fuck

01:06:16.320 that was, you know? So it's, it's a, yeah, those, that's, you just explained one of the key

01:06:23.220 dichotomies of leadership. Right. That you can have too much ego. And if you brought that attitude

01:06:28.160 of, if you pinned out the E and you went to a meeting with some of your team and they had

01:06:34.220 feedback for you and you were like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. We're going to do

01:06:38.480 it my way. That, that ego would kill you. Yeah. And at the same time, if you went, if you pinned it

01:06:43.580 out on the H and you went into your team and said, Hey guys, I'm thinking about rolling about out this

01:06:47.800 new product, but I don't really know if it's going to be successful. I don't know if we have the,

01:06:50.900 the, the wherewithal to make it happen. Well, that's not going anywhere either. Oh,

01:06:54.600 so you gotta, you gotta modulate and you gotta stay balanced. That's, I think that's the hardest

01:06:58.740 thing, not just as a leader, but as a person, you know what I mean? Like people, people like you guys

01:07:05.160 who are listening right now, you know, there's time, this is like the imposter syndrome almost like

01:07:11.260 there's times, and this is no bullshit. There's times where I feel like I'm fucking faking it.

01:07:15.980 Right. There's times when I feel like maybe I don't know. And you know what? Guess what?

01:07:20.900 All of us feel that way. We all feel like, Hey, we don't, maybe we don't know. Sometimes

01:07:25.820 you just got to fucking guess. But the truth of it is, is that being aware of where you

01:07:30.740 are and what situation and what's applicable and how do that's the key, man. Like that's

01:07:35.760 the key to growth of a company. It's a key to growth of your personal development. I mean,

01:07:41.080 dude, and I feel like from, and dude, you speak to so many people as well. You know,

01:07:47.900 I'd be interested to hear what you think, but I feel like people are way more towards

01:07:55.240 the H than they are the E and that's what's keeping them where they are. That's what I

01:07:59.780 see. Like I meet so many of these guys who, dude, they've got a little business going and

01:08:04.760 they're doing pretty good. And like, dude, I just heard this this weekend. This guy who's

01:08:08.620 making everybody in our groups making a lot of money, dude, this guy's making over a million

01:08:11.900 dollars a year. And he's like, he's telling me right to my face. He's like, he's making

01:08:17.660 a million, not the fucking company selling a million. This guy's making a million dollars

01:08:20.940 and he looks at me. He's like, dude, I just don't know if I have what it takes to get the

01:08:25.220 next level. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about, bro? You've already built

01:08:28.180 this to a million dollars. Why can you not make it a hundred million or a billion? You can

01:08:31.620 fucking have it. Most people say that at like 50 K. I know, but that's the reason

01:08:35.420 he's been able to make a million because of that attitude. But so I got to give him

01:08:38.480 a little kick and be like, bro, you need to get over a little to the E a little bit.

01:08:41.040 Right. You know, it's the, this is exactly what we're talking about. This is the dichotomy.

01:08:45.580 This is the dichotomy and, and there's situations, there's people that get to a certain point.

01:08:50.840 And I know you've seen this too. And I have too. Like there's people that are maniac,

01:08:54.960 ego maniacs, and it gets them going. Oh yeah. I mean, they get, they make, they make

01:08:59.160 a bunch of money. Right. And they, and then what happens when it comes time to go to the

01:09:02.900 next level, they don't make it because somebody comes along and says, Hey, instead of selling

01:09:07.420 this, you should also sell that. And they go, I've been doing this for 14 years. You

01:09:10.760 don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Right. Or, you know, maybe you should, I mean,

01:09:14.120 look at, look at, look at Blackberry, right? Look at, uh, Blockbuster. Blockbuster could

01:09:20.200 have bought Netflix at some point and they didn't kill them. Yeah. Yeah. Because they were

01:09:24.540 like, Hey, no, we're going to have, we got people coming in. Blockbuster. Yeah. So we're,

01:09:28.800 we're, we're America on Saturday night, bro. Like you can't fuck with us. And like, that's

01:09:33.880 what killed him. Dude, I was sitting in a room. I did the math. I was sitting in a room, uh,

01:09:39.480 at Dan Fleischman speaking event with, uh, in a group and that we were in the green room

01:09:44.700 and in the green room, the collective net worth was about $3 billion. All right. And

01:09:49.460 I'm sitting in the room and dude, everybody is crushing everybody. And dude, you would not

01:09:56.320 believe the shit that they were saying. Like everybody would think like they were in there.

01:09:59.400 Like I believe it, but like everybody else would think like they were in there, like telling

01:10:02.680 everybody, like how good they were, this or that. Everybody in there was like, look, I

01:10:07.080 don't know, man. I kind of feel like I got lucky. Like, like, I don't, you know, like they're

01:10:11.500 totally, and it wasn't fake. It was like, you know, I had a guy, I had a guy who sold this

01:10:15.860 company for a billion dollars asking me, he's like, Andy, I don't know, man. Like, I know

01:10:19.980 we did this, but what do you think about this? And I'm like, fuck dude, you shouldn't

01:10:22.960 be asking me, you know what I'm saying? Like, but it's just an example of what we're talking

01:10:27.060 about. The people who, who, who are the most successful are able to learn and they're, they

01:10:32.340 become students of learning. And the only way to learn is to put that needle over to

01:10:36.500 the H man and shut the fuck up.

01:10:38.780 And something to tie into that, one of the best leadership qualities and in team development

01:10:43.300 qualities I've ever learned from you was even if you do have the answer and someone comes

01:10:48.180 up to you with a question, what's, what's the question you, what's the answer you give

01:10:52.660 them?

01:10:53.520 Always, 100% of the time I'll say, what do you think? What do you think? You know?

01:10:58.960 Same exact thing I do.

01:11:00.160 Yeah.

01:11:00.620 In fact, my guys would come to me and say, Hey, Hey Jocko, here's this mission. You know,

01:11:03.960 how do you think we should do it? I'd be like, go figure it out. Come back and tell me.

01:11:06.980 Yeah. Dude. Cause that's a confidence builder. Right. Because most of the time they know.

01:11:11.780 Yeah. They're going to get it somewhat right. They're going to get it close and maybe give them

01:11:14.400 a little adjustment, but we'll be, we'll get close. Yeah. I learned that from my dad, by

01:11:18.540 the way. That's you met my dad. Yeah. So my dad's like, Oh gee. Uh, but, but dude, it's

01:11:23.520 funny because, um, you were mentioning the hit, how it doesn't change over, over time. Like

01:11:29.000 this is one skill that does not evolve and it does not change. We're dealing with human

01:11:33.100 beings. So human beings. And it's interesting too, dude, because like you said millennials earlier

01:11:41.040 and I am like super pro millennial and, and so many guys, they make doodle. You've heard

01:11:48.100 all this shit. Millennials are fucking lazy. They are this or that do. Well, how the fuck

01:11:51.620 do you explain my company? Because I have 200 employees here and five of them, you saw

01:11:55.940 them are not millennials. So how do you explain that? It doesn't change. You know, that's just

01:12:01.760 an excuse that people lose. But my dad, you know, he was, um, he would, he would do my dad

01:12:06.940 would like, tell us this. He's like, look, like he would tell me this, you know, when we first

01:12:10.860 started getting employees, he's like, dude, the best thing you can do. Let me tell you the secret

01:12:13.840 to leadership. This is all it is. Just ask them what they think. That's what, that's what he told

01:12:19.200 and I'm like, dad, that is not a leader. I've seen leaders. That's not what they do. You know

01:12:23.160 what? He was right. Your dad was right. Yeah. Your dad was right. You know, when people, people ask me

01:12:27.740 how to get buy-in, which is a big thing. Oh, I can't get people to buy-in. Well, ask them how they want to

01:12:32.580 do it. Yeah. And then it's their plan. They bought into it. Yeah. Done. And you know what's interesting about getting

01:12:36.600 buy-in too is that you don't always have to do their plan. A lot of times I would say most of

01:12:42.880 the time, you tell me what you think, but I would say most of the time they just want their idea

01:12:45.900 heard. They don't actually need to have their idea chosen. They just want to be heard. They don't

01:12:51.020 want to be directed like, you know, uh, like a bunch of little thing, like a little robots.

01:12:56.940 They just want to be heard. So like you ask your team, you got 10 guys there. You ask each one,

01:13:00.760 Hey, what do you think we should do? What happens is, is you start at chair one. Hey, what do you

01:13:05.120 think you should do? And the guy says, well, I think we should do that. And you ask the next

01:13:07.900 guy, well, I think we should do most of that, but I think we should change this and this.

01:13:11.920 And the third, you ask the third guy, he's going to say, you know what? I like both those

01:13:14.520 ideas, but you know, what about this? By the time the motherfuckers get done and they go

01:13:17.960 all the way around the table, the idea is there. The idea is there. And now everybody's bought

01:13:21.580 in, you know, it's not that hard. Absolutely. Absolutely. I see people fighting all the time

01:13:29.080 over, they have, you know, my idea versus your idea. Both the ideas are fine and they want

01:13:33.980 to fight over it. Right. And, and it's totally worthless. Yeah. Messes up the relationship.

01:13:38.080 And finally, when I say, you know what, Andy, I'm in charge. You do what I told you to do.

01:13:41.360 It's a disaster. You go in the field and you just, you're going to, you're going to sabotage

01:13:45.280 it. Right. You're not even going to do the idea because you want the idea to fail to shove

01:13:49.040 it down the other dude's throat. Exactly. Yeah, dude. And that's, that really is a culture

01:13:53.620 problem. Like now what we're talking about is two guys who, dude, I do this, Sal and I do

01:13:59.340 this sometimes like, cause we're brothers. All right. People ask like, what's it like to work

01:14:02.920 with your brother? This is what it's like. We both want to win so fucking bad. And we

01:14:08.720 both believe that we're right, that we actually lose sight of the, of the bigger mission sometimes.

01:14:13.740 And usually it ends in a fist fight. So it ends like two gorillas fucking beating each

01:14:17.340 other up in the, like it was about a month ago. A month ago. Yeah. So like, what the fuck

01:14:22.020 was that? Yeah. By once a year, it gets into a, we're getting into a fight. And, uh, but

01:14:26.400 really the truth is, is that's a time where we should step back and say, look, dude, we both

01:14:30.440 want to win. All right. Your idea is good. My idea is a good. Which one are we going

01:14:33.580 to do? You know? And you know what I'm going to do in those situations? I'm going with the

01:14:37.060 other person's idea. If I, if I'm even, if I have that opportunity, if you're, as long

01:14:41.720 as your idea isn't just garbage, if it's close, if it's going to get the mission done, we're

01:14:45.580 doing it your way. And that, that's a good way for me to prove to you that like, Hey, I

01:14:48.740 trust you. Yeah. I'm humble. I listened to you and you have buy-in and, and you're going

01:14:53.540 to work so hard, especially if we went, if we, if you know, I didn't really a hundred percent

01:14:57.400 agree and I want to do my way, but I gave it to you. You're going to get out there

01:15:00.360 and bust your ass to make it work. That's right. And that's what I want. Yeah. That's

01:15:03.920 awesome. I love that. That see, that helps me just now for real. Like you just helped

01:15:08.420 me become a better leader. Anytime I can, anytime we can, anytime a subordinate comes

01:15:12.660 to me that has a plan of any kind. And that's my goal is to get that thing executed the way

01:15:17.540 they're doing it because it's just a win across the board. Yeah. Because they, like you

01:15:20.920 said, they are going to make sure, you know, that it works. Not to mention, but the leader

01:15:25.440 might not actually see the full vision that the other person has. This is true. The leader

01:15:30.820 sometimes doesn't know the details that are happening in the front lines. And so that's

01:15:35.840 why it's important to pay attention to what they're saying. Also dichotomy, the frontline

01:15:40.380 troops don't always see what the vision, the big, the big picture. And so you have to marry

01:15:46.620 those two things together. And that's why you come up with not just whose idea you come

01:15:50.920 up with the best idea. That's something that I think for us, um, I, people ask like,

01:15:57.900 how have we gotten first form to do what it's been able to do? Uh, because dude, we started

01:16:03.880 with nothing. I mean, I, I was picking up product literally in the back of my pickup truck and

01:16:08.860 storing it in my garage. That's, that's how it was. Um, you know, we didn't have investors.

01:16:13.340 We didn't have, you know, people who, you know, by that time my dad had made and lost his money.

01:16:18.000 We didn't have people to give us money. It wasn't, wasn't an option. Um, the, the best

01:16:24.600 thing that I've been, I think that we've been good at and people ask like, how have we done

01:16:28.520 this? I think that's this I've been, I, and I'm going to give myself some credit, which

01:16:33.620 I don't usually do, but dude, I've been really good at painting the fucking vision, like making

01:16:38.220 sure these guys understand what the big vision here is, what the scope of it is. And so many

01:16:43.240 leaders, um, and I don't even like to call them leaders. I call them business owners.

01:16:48.000 Because they're not leaders. All they care about is how much money they're making. And

01:16:52.300 they can't figure out, like they look at us and they say, well, dude, how the fuck are

01:16:55.620 you guys doing this? And I look at them and I'm like, dude, it's pretty obvious. Like

01:17:00.660 all you give a shit about is how much money you make. And you haven't painted a big enough

01:17:04.800 vision to where every single other human that works for you can find a place underneath

01:17:10.380 that vision to be successful.

01:17:12.000 Yeah. Just like, just like life. If you're in life, if you always go for the short term

01:17:18.120 gratification, then your longterm goal is going to be, is going to suffer. It just like in

01:17:24.680 business, if your immediate gratification is we want money and you're not looking at the

01:17:29.300 longterm strategic cause cause let's face it, the decisions that you make today for immediate

01:17:34.080 gratification of cash are not generally in the best interest, the best interest of the long

01:17:38.940 term strategic, uh, movement of the company, dude, what was cool. And I know you probably

01:17:43.000 thought this was cool too. When you were talking to the team and you said, dude, our goal at

01:17:47.140 echelon front is to help people. I don't care that the book is called dichotomy of leadership.

01:17:52.460 And Andy doesn't understand what that means. What I care is that the material in that book

01:17:57.600 is going to help people. And what did I do?

01:18:00.540 Yeah. You turned around, looked at, you looked at the team and said, what are we here to do?

01:18:05.080 And everyone said, we're here to help people.

01:18:06.520 That's right. And if that's your goal, the other things are going to fall into place. In this case,

01:18:11.180 the, you know, with echelon front, like we write a book, we are, our purpose in going out and working

01:18:16.100 with companies is to help those companies win. That's right. What's a by-product. We get paid

01:18:20.280 money and paid. And you go out and help people get in better, better physical condition and make

01:18:25.160 them healthier. What's the by-product. You get paid. We get paid. Dude. I thought I, I'm so glad you

01:18:31.080 were here to witness that because I talk about that concept so much and people will hit me up and

01:18:35.260 they're like, dude, you're just saying that shit. Cause it sounds good. No, I'm not. I literally,

01:18:40.400 all I talk about within these walls and, and a lot of people, they don't believe it because they're

01:18:45.680 not here to see it. But all we talk about is how we can help people get better results. How can we

01:18:50.720 help people lose that weight? How can we help people become more confident? How can we help them in any

01:18:55.320 way? Anyway, dude, we had a, we had a guy call in these spark plugs. Our dude fucking got him

01:19:00.540 spark plugs. You know what I'm saying? How can, that's true. How can we help them? And dude,

01:19:05.560 that's why we're successful. And that's it. That's any business too, you know? But dude,

01:19:09.660 it is business. That's all you're doing. All you're doing is trading some sort of help for money.

01:19:15.140 That's it. You're trading, you know, uh, cleaning someone's house. You're trading, uh, somebody

01:19:21.560 designing a logo that there's going to help you. I mean, dude, it's just trading. It's boring.

01:19:26.460 It's fucking simple. Like I am not a smart person and I understand this concept. The only reason I'm

01:19:32.960 able to execute this concept is because I don't complicate it. You know what I mean? Yeah. The

01:19:38.040 first 10 years I was in business, I wanted money. I want to make money. I want to be rich. I want to

01:19:41.820 be a baller, blah, blah, blah. Guess what? I was fucking broke when I had to figure out how to,

01:19:48.440 you know, I had, I had a little time where I'm like, fuck dude, I'm not making any money doing

01:19:51.540 this. I had to think about what I want to do. I could go back and work construction. I could pour

01:19:54.440 concrete. Ah, fuck that. I want to do that shit. You know, I can make some money doing that. I

01:19:58.160 don't want to, I literally made less money than, than I would make at McDonald's working at our

01:20:01.900 company. And, um, I was like, you know what? I do like helping people. It's pretty cool when

01:20:07.800 someone leaves and they come back six months later, I've lost a hundred pounds. That's cool. I like

01:20:12.000 that. You know what? We're going to do more of that. And guess what? Guess what happened? We

01:20:16.220 started doing more of that. We fucking made money, man. It's not that hard, you know?

01:20:20.500 Uh, people complicated, man. I just, I don't know, dude, like I could sit here and talk to

01:20:27.520 you for fucking days about business and life and you know, all this shit. I just, dude,

01:20:35.300 I just want to tell you, man, you really are helping people. Appreciate it. Like this building

01:20:38.880 that we're in, uh, the people that you met, they would not exist if it wasn't for the shit

01:20:43.460 that you're doing. That's the truth. I appreciate it, man. It's, uh, it's awesome to come to this

01:20:49.100 company, come to other companies that I work with and, and meet people all around the world.

01:20:53.020 You know, they, they read the book, they listen to my podcast and they reach out and they get,

01:20:58.560 they get helped. And so that's, to me, that's the reward.

01:21:01.500 Yeah. I know you get to see it, you know? Um, and people tell you that, but like what you just did,

01:21:06.440 like those, those were all younger people, you know, like you're truly helping people, bro. And I'm,

01:21:12.820 I'm just super grateful for it, you know? And I know like, you know, we have competing podcasts and

01:21:18.620 like, you know, we're all, you know, I want to win. I want to fucking beat you in podcast ranking.

01:21:23.540 You know what I'm saying? And I know you're the same, but the truth of the matter is, dude,

01:21:26.800 if you listen to the show and you're not listening to his show, you're missing out, dude. You guys

01:21:30.100 should all go to his show and subscribe. You should all be, you know, participating and bringing

01:21:34.480 friends to his show and doing the same thing you do for this one, because it is, it's real shit.

01:21:39.320 It's a real life, how to win, how to be successful, how to move people. And, uh, we're just saying a

01:21:44.480 little bit different way. And I, and I love that about you, bro. Indeed, man. Well, I appreciate

01:21:48.640 it. Yeah. So, uh, dude, with that being said, um, guys, if you're listening, please do what I just

01:21:56.320 asked and go to his show, give him a follow on Instagram and make sure you're consuming his

01:22:00.380 content and make sure that you buy, uh, the dichotomy of leadership when it comes out. And I'm not

01:22:06.600 just, you guys know, I don't pitch shit. I don't, I don't ask you to buy things unless

01:22:11.340 they're good because I don't want to violate that trust. Um, this is a book that you have

01:22:15.640 to read. Uh, when does the book come out? September 25th. Okay. So we got like a couple

01:22:19.880 weeks. Can you preorder? Yeah, you can preorder. Yeah. In fact, if you want to get it when it

01:22:24.520 comes out, you should preorder it because otherwise it'll be sold out. That's right. So, uh, dude,

01:22:29.680 thanks again, man. I appreciate it. It's been one of my absolute favorite shows, uh, that we've

01:22:34.340 done. And, uh, just thank you. Thanks for having me on. And thanks for what you're doing,

01:22:40.040 kicking ass in the world, giving stuff away for free, giving away as much knowledge as you can

01:22:44.540 trying to help people. And I can see that's coming back, but the real reward is seeing that

01:22:49.020 you're helping people all over the world. So keep kicking ass, brother. I appreciate it, brother.

01:23:04.340 I appreciate it.

REAL AF with Andy Frisella - September 18, 2018

LEADERSHIP： The Dichotomy It Takes To Dominate, ft. Jocko Willink, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO264

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