In this episode of the SME Project Podcast, I sit down with my good friend, Vaughn Kohler, to talk about the importance of a good peer group. We talk about how important it is to have a good one, and why it's not about the number of people you have around you, it's about the quality of your product.
00:00:00.000Hey guys, what's up? This is Andy Frisella and you're listening to the MSCEO Project
00:00:14.860Podcast. If this is your first time listening, I'm an entrepreneur. I started 16 years ago
00:00:21.680with $12,000. My business partner and I, Chris, we started a nutrition store. Our first day
00:00:28.700in sales, we sold $7. It took us eight months to have a day over $200. We lived in the back
00:00:34.820of that first store and we talked about conquering the world together. Today, 16 years later,
00:00:40.880we do over $100 million in sales annually. We have over 100 employees and this is my way
00:00:48.980of cutting through the bullshit, getting you the facts, and bringing you the truth of entrepreneurship.
00:00:54.800I'm here with my co-host, Vaughn Kohler. How are you doing? And today we're going to talk
00:01:00.800about what, Vaughn? Well, we're going to talk about your peer group. Peer groups, huh? Yeah,
00:01:08.900peer groups. Sounds exciting. But before we do that, I noticed you were passing around a book
00:01:14.260earlier. I was. Yeah. You're a Gary Vaynerchuk fan. I am. Yeah. What was the book? The book
00:01:21.020is Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Yeah. Tell me why you're passing that around. I'm fascinated.
00:01:26.020Because we have a, here in the office, I like to educate the young fellers. Yeah. And when
00:01:33.100the young fellers don't listen to Andy, sometimes they listen to actual books. Right. Even though
00:01:38.560I may have already read the book and took the lessons and tried to teach them. Right.
00:01:42.980They might hear it better, you know, straight from the man. I like Gary. Yeah, I do too. He's a great
00:01:47.540guy. Yeah. I've never met him in person, but I'm a big fan of the work that he does. Passionate
00:01:53.400dude. Definitely. Yeah. You know, no bullshit guy. Yeah. And I can appreciate that. And you
00:01:59.200said you have read Crush It? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Great book. That's a great book. I would recommend.
00:02:03.180He's one of my favorite authors. Yeah. You know, Gary, Jeffrey Gittimer, Seth Godin. I don't
00:02:11.820see how, you can't really can't be in business and not read those guys' books. Right. I mean,
00:02:15.180that's it. Every single one of them, too. Not just like one of them. Well, Gary's a lot
00:02:18.540like you. I specifically remember watching a podcast of his, a video podcast where he talked
00:02:24.280about how everybody obsesses about what you name your product. Yeah. And he's like, it's
00:02:28.620ridiculous. If you have a good product, just name it whatever. It doesn't fucking matter.
00:02:32.380It will be a good product. Right. Yeah. People will find out about it. He's, I think his point
00:02:36.960was, you think naming things Google or. Or Amazon. Or Amazon. Right. It's the quality that
00:02:42.660you bring. Yeah. I find that to be true. I feel like people stress far too much on. I
00:02:47.960actually just made a post about this on Instagram last night. They stress far too much on the
00:02:54.620marketing and the idea of trying to quote unquote trick somebody. Right. Into buying
00:02:59.060their product. Right. And whenever they should put that energy into creating a tremendous value
00:03:04.540and awesome product that solves a problem better than anybody else. Right. You know, if they
00:03:08.780didn't spend so much time worrying about where this period goes and where these, this underline
00:03:13.980goes and what paper the labels printed on, I mean, all of those things are important because
00:03:18.140you don't want your product to look like shit. Right. But how about spending the same amount
00:03:22.720of time talking about the quality of the product or how it's going to solve a problem or how it's
00:03:26.520going to help a customer. Right. You know, and those are the conversations that the winning
00:03:31.200companies are having and the losing companies are not. The losing companies are having the
00:03:34.540conversations that you just mentioned, you know, Oh, what should we name it? Right.
00:03:39.020Should we name it? Uh, unicorn meat, you know, three, five, seven. Oh no. I think it should
00:03:43.520be unicorn meat three, five, six. No, nobody fucking cares. Right. Make a great product and
00:03:47.980people will learn the name and it will brand itself. Yeah. Another, another company that whose
00:03:52.400name doesn't give any indication of what it does is Zappos. And I know you're a huge, uh,
00:03:56.720aren't you a huge Zappos fan? Yeah, man. Tony Hsieh. He's a fucking innovator of modern
00:04:01.580business. In my opinion, you know, you talk about, you talk about somebody who has dissected
00:04:06.680the, the key to, to, uh, you know, growing a business through, through cultivating good
00:04:13.160culture and belief and values. Uh, I mean, he's the man. I mean, if you haven't studied
00:04:18.280that, if you own a company and you have employees and I don't care if you have one employee, 10
00:04:22.700employees or a thousand employees, and you haven't read that man's book, uh, delivering
00:04:26.280happiness, you're missing out. Yeah. He's, he is a, uh, he's a true genius. And I'll be honest,
00:04:34.140man, that book, that book, reading his story, watching him, learning from him from a distance
00:04:39.440has made me millions of dollars. Yeah. I mean, great endorsement. Yeah. I mean, and if, but I'll
00:04:45.380bet you half the people listening won't read the fucking book either, you know, but because they
00:04:50.060think I'm exaggerating, I'm not exaggerating. The book made me millions of dollars. Right.
00:04:53.220Fucking read it. Right. Well, you know, we, uh, we mentioned that we're going to talk about
00:04:57.440peer group, uh, the, the people that you surround yourself with. Um, in many cases, that's going
00:05:03.160to be the friends you surround yourself with. And I, you know, I was thinking about our friendship
00:05:06.320and I know how much you, uh, you like to razz me about being a former pastor and it just
00:05:10.420dawned on me why we're friends, you know? Why, well, why is that? Well, well, I'm a former
00:05:17.220pastor, so, you know, I'm a lot like Jesus and Jesus was a friend to sinners. Hey man. So makes
00:05:22.280sense to me. Well, what do you want to talk about when it comes to you? You're always saying
00:05:28.080Andy that, uh, your, your, your peer group largely determines your success. Let's, uh,
00:05:34.760let's unpack that next couple of minutes. So you know that what the cultural hot term now
00:05:42.520is on, on social media, right? Right. When it comes to like, you know, Oh, I'm doing something
00:05:47.620and people are what they're haters. Okay. Everybody's a fucking hater, you know? Okay.
00:05:53.020It's you against the world. Yeah. I can appreciate that mentality. Yeah. Right. And sometimes you
00:05:57.360got to lie to yourself and like everybody hates you just to get motivated. I get that. Right.
00:06:01.080All right. But here's the reality. If you're going through life and you're being a normal
00:06:04.280person and you're not really trying to do much of anything, you know, I'm a, we're in the
00:06:08.320fitness business and a lot of people are like, Oh, I've, I work out. So I have these
00:06:12.060fucking haters. No, you don't have any fucking haters. Cause you work out, dude, you're, you're
00:06:16.380mentally creating limits in your own brain and criticism in your own brain that do not
00:06:20.960exist in reality. Right. Nobody's fucking hating on you. You don't have haters. Now, if you're
00:06:26.940actually doing something, if you're creating a business, if you're creating a culture, if
00:06:32.200you're creating a project, a product, and you're doing something, you're seeing some success,
00:06:36.000you are going to have people that don't like that success. They're not going to be comfortable
00:06:40.300with that success because of a couple of reasons. One, you're any of any success that you have
00:06:47.400reminds people of what they could have done had they just done the work that you did.
00:06:52.060Right. Okay. And by the time you've achieved any, any success, you're in a situation where
00:06:57.260they can no longer go back and do that. You know, there's that saying, uh, that, uh, what
00:07:02.920is it? The, the, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time
00:07:08.260to plant a tree is today. Right. Right. But people that, people that aren't willing to
00:07:12.620do the work don't think like that. Right. All right. They think like, Oh, look at Vaughn,
00:07:17.160you know, he's doing well, he's done this and this and this. And you know, he's just greedy.
00:07:21.900He's, he's a self-centered, you know, he's just, uh, you know, he thinks he's too good
00:07:26.520for us and blah, blah, blah. Well, yeah, you know what? Um, there's nothing wrong with
00:07:30.820that. Right. Right. What's wrong with not wanting the same thing that you've always had.
00:07:36.500Right. There's nothing wrong with that. You know? And so you are going to make people
00:07:40.280uncomfortable when you have big dreams and you have big goals and big ambitions, you're
00:07:44.600going to make people uncomfortable and people are going to criticize you. They're going to
00:07:47.860say, Oh, why are you doing that? Oh, you don't have to do that. Or you're wasting your time
00:07:52.000or you, you know, you're a dreamer. You're, you're unreasonable, dude. That's part of the
00:07:59.500fucking deal. Right. You know, anybody who's thought anything big has heard those things.
00:08:06.100Right. You know, you know, I wonder if there's a little bit of intelligence and you were kind
00:08:09.700of talking about this, but a little bit of intelligence in trumping up the idea that,
00:08:13.680Oh, I have haters because I think people inherently know, even if they're not super smart that it,
00:08:20.380well, it's kind of like Winston Churchill said, you have enemies. Good. It shows that
00:08:23.800you stood for something. That's right. So they, people want to act like they have haters
00:08:27.200to sort of give the impression that they are accomplishing something. You think it's that,
00:08:32.040you think they think that deeply about it or maybe I'm giving them too much credit.
00:08:35.740Yeah. I think you're giving them too much credit. I think most people, most people invent,
00:08:39.560invent resistance. Right. They think they're letting their own internal voice, which Seth
00:08:47.480Godin calls it the lizard brain. Yeah. But they're letting their own internal voice that we all have
00:08:52.600dictate and create boundaries for themselves mentally. Right. Okay. Right. So like,
00:08:57.700you know, for example, I'm into cars. I have, you are, I have a nice collection of cars. I'm,
00:09:09.420I love cars. I've loved cars since I was a kid. Yeah. I'm not apologetic for it. And if people
00:09:13.720don't like it, I really don't give a shit. Right. But I take pictures of my cars and I post them
00:09:18.340online and all that shit. Cause I think it's cool. Right. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that.
00:09:21.860Yeah. All right. Now were you a Hot Wheels guy when you were? Oh yeah, I did. Yeah. Okay.
00:09:24.940Okay. Micro machines, Hot Wheels. Do they, I, I, you know, I have a, I have a little girl,
00:09:29.360but she's not old enough to know if it, I'm not, she's not old enough for me to know if this toy's
00:09:33.820still around, but do you remember those Tyco sets that you, like you put the, you put the cars on
00:09:38.760these tracks and they were like electric tracks. You put, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the trigger
00:09:43.540thing. Yeah. Do people do that anymore? I don't know. Those were sweet. Those were awesome.
00:09:46.740Anyway, sorry. I got you off. Do you remember the tracks, the orange one with the orange ones? Oh yeah.
00:09:50.420And the glow and the dark ones? I used to get my ass beat with those. They had GI Joe and Transformers. That's what my dad used to spank me with.
00:09:54.720That's. Yeah. Now if dad spanked their kids with those today, end up in jail. That's true.
00:09:58.500You know, but yeah, the, the, I know there's people out there listening and got their ass beat with the
00:10:02.600orange racetracks. It's true. But, uh, but, but, uh, you know, here's the deal. I have a theory on
00:10:08.960Hot Wheels, by the way, we're going to get off subject. I have a theory on Hot Wheels that dude,
00:10:13.240successful kids play with Hot Wheels because they get into cars, cars are expensive. It gives them a natural
00:10:18.180goal, you know, through life. Yeah. I've never met a successful guy that I know that didn't play with
00:10:23.040Hot Wheels personally. Yeah. So I should want your kid to, to get in the entrepreneurial mindset,
00:10:28.400buy him some fucking Hot Wheels. Yeah. I should mention to, uh, our listening audience, if there
00:10:31.900are any executives in Hot Wheels, we are very open to a corporate sponsorship. So contact Andy at
00:10:37.760Andy at MFCEO.com. I just want some Hot Wheels, man. Yeah. Well, that'd be great. Um, but no, man,
00:10:43.040you know, I don't think people, I think, you know, I used to be very reserved about posting pictures
00:10:48.700and letting people see what I did because I always thought that people would hate me because
00:10:53.500of it, you know? And I'm like, man, if I post that, nobody's going to want to shop at my businesses.
00:10:59.320Everybody's going to fucking hate me and blah, blah, blah. Right. And dude, you know what? I had
00:11:04.940a conversation with my buddy who is very successful guy. He's also a car guy. And I said, and he's,
00:11:10.100he owns a couple of different, uh, high-end cars. He's got a few Lamborghinis. He's got a McLaren
00:11:14.300and he's, and I'm like, man, dude, you know, he was just driving wherever. I mean, he drove him
00:11:18.680everywhere. You know, he drove him to the gym. He drove him to get coffee. I mean, that's what he
00:11:21.940drove every day. And I'm like, Todd, dude, don't, don't you employees like get really fucking pissed
00:11:30.120at seeing you drive those cars and your customers? Like, don't they like, you know, think that's
00:11:34.600like bad and blah, blah, blah. He goes, he looks me like dead in the eye and he just goes, do you want
00:11:40.940an employee working for you that doesn't aspire to be successful? Good response. And I'm really
00:11:48.400like kind of unlocked my thinking like, Hey, I'm, I might be just imagining this shit. And so, you
00:11:54.540know, I took my time and I posted a picture or whatever, one of my cars and dude, people fucking
00:11:59.660loved it. So like all the things I was telling myself were total bullshit, you know, and I had
00:12:05.780imagined that everybody would hate it and, and then they did it. They loved it. You know
00:12:11.400what I mean? And so when you have to think about like, um, you have to think about, are,
00:12:17.980are you really having haters or are you hating yourself? Right. Are you putting own thoughts
00:12:22.660in your brain? Do you have any concrete evidence that you have somebody that's hating on you?
00:12:28.880Dude, hating on you is like trying to fucking sink your business strategically somehow. Right. You
00:12:35.260know, like it, it's not like, Oh fuck that guy. Dude, here's the reality of life. It's, it's 50,
00:12:43.14050, it's Republicans, Democrats, it's fucking Ford Chevy. All right. You're not going to appeal
00:12:49.580to a hundred percent of the people. The most people that you're going to appeal to is 50% of the people.
00:12:55.200You are far better off spending your time appealing to the 50% that already like you and making them
00:13:01.020love you. Then you are trying to appeal to a hundred percent and making them like you because
00:13:05.300the most you're going to get there is fucking average. Right. You're going to get vanilla.
00:13:09.120You're going to be nothing. You're going to mean nothing. You're a Stanford nothing. You're going
00:13:11.920to make nothing. Right. Right. So where do you want to be? Right. You know, and, and dude,
00:13:18.560people spend too much time thinking like, I've got to please everyone. I've got to make everyone happy.
00:13:23.020I've got to make everybody like me. And when you do that, a, you're dulling down your shine.
00:13:30.320You're dulling down what you stand for. You're choosing to stand on the fence and be in the
00:13:34.700middle and be like every other fucking sheep out there. And the reality is, is that that's
00:13:40.160not what life is about, man. You it's okay to have your own beliefs. It's okay to stand for
00:13:46.140things. It's okay to have an opinion, you know, and those are things that make you, you. And I feel
00:13:52.360like people spend so much time worrying about what everybody else is going to think that
00:13:57.420they end up not even living their life. Right. You know, they end up living a life that's
00:14:01.300not even theirs. They end up living the life that, that they think everybody else wants
00:14:04.840them to live. They get to be a hundred and they're on their deathbed and they're like,
00:14:08.920fuck dude, I didn't do anything. Right. And taking, taking what you were saying about
00:14:13.600the 50, 50 thing, it basically there are, you know, you could, there are people who are,
00:14:19.140are going to see your car and they're going to celebrate your success. And they're going
00:14:23.120to be people who see your car and resent you for it. And there's nothing I can do to those
00:14:26.880people. Right. I can't, I can't do anything to those people. I can't affect their thought
00:14:30.280process. They're so far gone. There's nothing I can say or do to fix it. Right. So it doesn't
00:14:34.160make a difference. And I know you, you brought this up a while ago, you and I were talking and
00:14:38.280you were saying, you know, you, you used to be really self-conscious, kind of like what you were
00:14:41.600saying. You used to be self-conscious about, about driving these cars around. But now that you
00:14:46.080aren't, you, there are all sorts of stories where you're running into, you know, you're pulling up
00:14:50.660into a gas station and little kids are running up and they're just amazed. And it provides a great
00:14:55.020opportunity to brighten some little kid's day. You have no idea how much of that it is. It's 10
00:15:00.440times more of that than it is any negativity. I have never one time had a negative experience in
00:15:04.560one of my cars ever. Not once. Right. Now, maybe when I drove away, somebody said, Hey,
00:15:09.700fuck that guy, but I don't know that for sure. So if I were to think that I'd be making it up
00:15:13.460my head. Right. Right. Right. And honestly, do I really give a shit? No, no. Cause it doesn't
00:15:17.700matter. Right. You know, I'm fucking driving away in my Lamborghini smiling and having a
00:15:23.280good fucking day. Right. If you don't like it, tough shit. Right. So do the shit that I
00:15:27.180did for the last 20 years. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. So, so dude, let's, let's
00:15:31.960be real here. It doesn't fucking matter what other people say and see, and that's where
00:15:36.320this gets dangerous. Where it gets dangerous is, is that people listen to what other people
00:15:41.140say and they take into consideration what other people say when they're not even saying
00:15:48.120it. All right. So people mentally create quote unquote haters in their mind, pretend they're
00:15:54.360saying shit and then don't do shit to appease people that aren't even really saying negative
00:15:59.820shit. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. It doesn't. Do you understand what I'm saying?
00:16:04.440Absolutely. So you're, you're basically talking yourself out of being great. Right. Right.
00:16:10.360You know what I mean? That's what it is. It's you talking yourself out of being great.
00:16:13.400Absolutely. Now that I, I can imagine there's people out there in the, uh, in the listening
00:16:18.060audience who maybe they were dropped on their heads when they were kids or they had one too
00:16:21.700many, uh, I don't know, sniffs of, do you sniff, do you sniff glue or are you still, I was
00:16:26.640going to say sniff marijuana. See, I don't even know if you, do you sniff marijuana?
00:16:29.780I don't know, man. I, you know, I, I, I don't know. Anyway, my comment. Anyway, my point
00:16:38.280is, is that they're probably thinking, what? Okay, wait, I thought you were going to talk
00:16:41.020about peer groups. Why are you talking about haters? And, and what the rest of you don't
00:16:45.140realize is that you guys are playing checkers and, uh, we're playing chess because what we're
00:16:49.580talking about here is the very foundational truth of your peer group. It's either going,
00:16:55.380you're either going to be surrounded by haters or you're going to be surrounded by people
00:16:58.280who want you to succeed. That's right. So flesh that out a little bit more. Look, here's
00:17:01.300the thing. You only have so much daily energy. You don't, you've only got a hundred units
00:17:05.540of energy. And if you spent 80 of them trying to appease people that are negative and pulling
00:17:09.420you back and telling you things like, you don't need to be doing that. Why are you doing
00:17:13.240that? Constantly questioning your dreams, making you doubt yourself. You know, I don't know
00:17:18.060if I, you know, I don't know if I should really do that because mom and dad think that
00:17:21.020that's stupid, blah, blah, blah. Like dude, all this shit, you spend your time dealing
00:17:25.020with that. You don't have the proper energy it takes to move forward. So people think
00:17:30.600that they can maintain a peer group that's negative because they have these weird, these
00:17:36.820weird feelings of like loyalty. Like, Oh, I've known him my whole life. So what?
00:17:40.540Right. Oh, I, Oh, they're related to me. So what? Right. If they affect your life in a
00:17:45.480negative way, it shouldn't be fucking in your life. Right. So they tell these stories themselves
00:17:50.280about being loyal to these people who have nothing good to offer these people. Don't
00:17:54.520support them. Don't encourage them. Don't push them forward. And they feel like they
00:17:58.020need to be around these people. Right. Because of obligation. And maybe they need to be in
00:18:02.540their lives per se, but they certainly don't need to be the primary influence. I mean, dude,
00:18:05.880I'm pretty cutthroat. Like, like dude, if somebody fucks with me in terms of like what I'm trying
00:18:11.140to do, they're out. Right. That's it. I look at it as a sports team. Right. All right. You're
00:18:15.680cut. Yeah. I've got my own sports team. I'm trying to win the fucking Super
00:18:19.040Bowl. Right. And if you're on the team and you're, you're hindering that you're
00:18:22.820fucking cut. Right. That's how I look at it. Right. And so not everybody has no,
00:18:28.220that's something I've grown to do, you know, and any, any person who is truly built
00:18:36.140something from zero to big, and we're not even big. We're what you would consider,
00:18:40.560I think like small and medium, you know, but like I'm talking billion dollar
00:18:45.080companies, those, those people don't surround themselves with the people they grew up
00:18:48.100with just cause they grew up with them. You know? So the idea that you can surround
00:18:52.600yourself with people who are negative and hold you back and still be successful is
00:18:56.940total bullshit. You can't do it because you only have so much energy and that energy
00:19:03.000has to be spent on being creative, on being productive, on talking about moving
00:19:05.980forward, on working with people who are also like-minded on moving forward with
00:19:10.600projects. I mean, there's just a multitude of things that you have to do to be
00:19:14.500successful. And spending that time worrying about what Aunt Susie said about your dream
00:19:21.000or your friend from kindergarten said about your new car is fucking not one of them.