Struggle Is Your Privilege, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO280
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
158.93808
Summary
In this episode of the MFCEO Project, I talk about the benefits of putting on a tuxedo or a fancy dress, and how it can make you feel like you re a better person when you put it on.
Transcript
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I can stack them hundreds to the roof. I ain't stopping till they stack to the moon.
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Without me, my family wouldn't have food. Anybody go against me gotta lose.
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What is up, guys? You're listening to the MFCEO Project. I'm Andy. I'm your host, and I am the motherfucking CEO.
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Today, I just got done having our 20th anniversary banquet and awards ceremony.
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We call it the S2 in first form, which S2 stands for Supplement Superstores, awards dinner.
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What do we call it? We call it the Leadership and Core Values Banquet.
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It was really cool. Had a bunch of people in town.
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We got both of our public companies together, all of our employees, all of our team members from inside St. Louis
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to get together to celebrate the things that we value here in our companies.
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And what we value more than anything is our core values.
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We value the character traits that we instill in our team over the course of time,
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Now, a lot of companies will reward people for, you know, all kinds of numbers-oriented metrics.
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But the truth of it is, is that if your core values are solid, the sales are going to be there.
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Because you're going to have productive people. You're going to have happy people.
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But let me tell you, because that could be a totally different podcast.
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I want to talk to you about something a little more simple than that,
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and a little bit easier to implement than that, that you can start right now,
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and will actually help you over the course of time, starting immediately.
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And what gave me the idea to talk to you guys about this is that I have a lot of young employees,
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and I have a lot of employees on our team that, quite honestly, come from meager backgrounds.
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They come from lower middle class or even poor backgrounds.
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And this event is a black tie event, which means you wear a tuxedo.
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And I just got to tell you guys, man, we gave out some amazing awards.
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But the thing that stuck with me the most about this event was seeing our young men and women
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who had, some of them never put on a tuxedo in their entire lives.
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But to see the look and the confidence and feel the energy that these young people had
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by putting on the tux, it struck me, man, because I take that shit for granted.
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You know, I've been to a lot of events where you wear suits and tuxedos and things like that.
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And is there a better feeling on earth than when you put on a suit or a tux or a dress
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and you're just looking good and you're feeling good and you are ready to go out and let everybody see you?
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It almost makes you transform into a different person.
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Kind of like, you know, when Superman puts on his tighty-whities, you know, his fucking blue tights
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and Batman puts on his uniform and, you know, all the superheroes, they all have an alter ego
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and that uniform, they put it on and it somehow gives them superpowers.
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That was what it was like to see all these young people wearing that.
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I spent a lot of time reflecting on how, you know, much different these guys and girls looked.
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Not physically looked, but the energy that they were putting off looked.
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And so this morning when I saw all of our team again,
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I said, how many of you guys felt amazing when you put on that tux or that dress or got dressed up?
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And literally every single one raised their hand.
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And I asked him, I said, do you feel like that every day?
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If you feel like that every day, raise your hand.
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And that guy I know feels like that every day because he has a contagious energy.
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You could tell he's very comfortable in his own skin.
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So what I want to share with you guys is the idea of that feeling.
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And I want you to think about what you feel when you get dressed up
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or you put on a tux or you put on a nice suit and you go to an event.
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I want you to think about how powerful you feel, how successful you feel, even if you're not.
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You know, even when I was broke and I put on a suit, I felt like a fucking baller.
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And I want you to think, what if you woke up every single day with that feeling?
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What if you woke up every single day with that confidence?
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What if you woke up every single day feeling like the baddest motherfucker in the room
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and you walked around with that everywhere you went?
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How much better would you advance in your career?
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When you can embody those feelings in your day-to-day life,
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you've figured out something extremely special.
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And that something extremely special is special because most people can never figure it out.
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And let me tell you why you feel special when you put on that suit or that tux or that dress.
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It's because you're paying attention to the details.
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Your every single detail of your physical appearance is at its maximum.
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But how do we translate that into day-to-day life?
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Because even people who wear suits know that if you wear a suit every day, it loses its luster.
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If you wear a tux every day, they call you a waiter.
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It's not the suit that makes you feel that way.
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And this is how successful people cultivate this feeling over the course of their everyday life.
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You ever know someone who's successful that radiates that energy?
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Who radiates that energy whether they're wearing a tuxedo or whether they're wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt like I'm wearing right now?
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And this is one of the most powerful things that you'll ever cultivate in your life.
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You have to understand that you feeling that way is a direct reflection of how you're living up to the standards that you know in your heart you hold for yourself.
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If you miss a workout, if you miss meals, if you do a half-ass job at your work, if you do a half-ass job at home, guess what?
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You are not going to have that crazy feeling of superpower.
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It starts with taking pride in your appearance.
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It starts with taking pride in your discipline that you know you need to have to become the person that you want to become.
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When shit gets hard, I talked to a guy today in the gym who was asking me some pretty serious questions.
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An excavating business with Skid Steer slash Bobcat.
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And he was asking me some stuff about, you know, he's going through a rough time.
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I think he's getting a little bit depression, which really, after we talked about it, was typical frustration that entrepreneurs feel when things aren't going well.
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So we had a little talk while we were doing our cardio at the gym.
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He's like, dude, do you ever just want to quit?
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But one thing I share with him that I think I need to share with everybody here is this.
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You should take pride in the feeling of wanting to quit and not quitting.
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When things get really hard for me, when things have been really hard for me, the hardest in my life, whether it be in my fitness, whether it be in my business,
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whether it be in any area of life, the one thing that I've always taken pride in is this.
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When things get hard, I don't look at it like, oh, dude, things are so fucking hard.
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I reframe my thoughts to think about it like this.
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Right now is when everybody else is going to fall behind.
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Right now is when everybody else decides to do something that's easier or faster or not as hard.
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Because those struggles, those feelings, those things that are difficult, they are there to test you.
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And if you want to hear more about testing, you can go listen to Test Day's podcast.
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And when we test ourselves on a consistent basis and we pass those tests, you have to think of it that other competitors.
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I actually visualize people that compete with me or try to be like me or try to take money off of my table or business away from me.
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And I think about them and I said, dude, would they quit now?
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And when I think of all those people quitting, I get energy to push through my struggle.
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I get ready to take more struggle in and chew that shit up and spit it right back out.
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You have to understand that struggle is a privilege.
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There's a lot of talk about privilege right now.
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And you can hear it from all different sides of the socioeconomic, you know, political talk, white privilege, socioeconomic privilege, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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Because the real privilege is the one that you have.
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The real privilege is how long it's taking you and the lessons that you learn.
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Because those struggles, those hardships, those things that people face will usually cause them to quit.
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So if you want to create the type of energy that is magnetic.
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If you want to create the kind of energy that attracts other people.
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If you want to create super high confidence, super high self-esteem, super high momentum, okay, for lack of better words, for yourself.
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You have to take pride in not quitting when other people are going to quit.
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You have to take pride in executing your job to the very best of your ability.
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All of those things are what truly create what we're talking about here.
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That beaming energy and confidence that other people can just feel.
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That presence that they can feel when you walk in the room.
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That comes down to taking pride in your discipline.
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Most people can't figure out why they don't feel good.
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Most people can never figure out why they only feel good when they dress up once in a while.
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They never figure out how to create that day in and day out for themselves.
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That's why they create situations of frustration that just hang on and stick with them for their entire lives.
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Those are the things that create the energy that I'm talking about.
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Those are the things that are going to create your superpower so that you can go through life being a badass motherfucker.
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You can sit there and say, oh, well, you know, I'm a little reserved.
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The only reason you say that shit is because you think you're incapable of being that.
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The only reason you're not that right now is because you let all the shit slide that you shouldn't.
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Every other blind, lost, confused, frustrated human being in this country is that way because they are not taking pride in their opportunities to be disciplined.
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They are not taking pride in the opportunities to be better.
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They are not looking at frustration and struggle as something to be proud of versus something to despise and be more frustrated about.
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Negative emotion, negative frustration is compounding.
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If you can't figure out how to create a good situation out of a situation where you're having difficulty,
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Your whole life is going to be a fucking train wreck.
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And most of all, learn to look at your hardships as a privilege.
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Learn to look at every single thing that you have that's negative in your life as a privilege because it's going to teach you what you need to do.
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See, part of knowing what you need to know is knowing what not to do.
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The only reason that people know is because they've been through it without quitting.
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And you guys are out there searching for the miracle fucking thing.
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You think it's going to come to you in somebody's fucking meme.
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You know, all the spiritual gurus out there right now posting their stupid fucking memes that don't mean shit in real life.
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That's what you think is going to make you feel good?
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Doing the things that you know you're supposed to do and taking pride in it.
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And taking pride in the fact that when things are tough and you don't quit, you know that other motherfuckers are quitting.
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Which means your competition is getting less and less.
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I talk about this a lot if you listen to the podcast.
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We talk about how the competition is the greatest at the bottom of the pyramid.
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The reason the competition is the greatest at the bottom of the pyramid is because it's easy.
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But as shit gets progressively harder, when you have to go one, two, three years without a paycheck like I did.
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And then seven more making $695 fucking dollars a month.
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Working other jobs to keep your fucking place open.
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So, by default, 10, 12, 13 years in, I'm standing higher than everybody just because I didn't quit.
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It's learning how to reframe struggle and seeing it as a privilege.
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It's learning how to reframe frustration and seeing it as a driver for your success.
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You can read all the feel-good fucking memes you want.
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But not one of those motherfuckers, not one, will be as powerful as you, not just enduring your struggles and enduring your frustration,
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but turning them into a privilege, knowing that they're teaching you a lesson,
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knowing that other people who aren't as gritty and tough as you are quitting while you're sitting there suffering.
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A lot of you motherfuckers say, oh, what do you know about struggle?
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Motherfucker, I've struggled more than you will ever possibly know.
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You guys have to learn that if you're going to be confident, if you're going to be success,
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if you're going to have swag, if you're going to have that energy that attracts people,
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not just mates, but friends, positive relationships, great culture, great employees,
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you are going to have to understand how to see every single thing that every other person on the earth sees as negative,
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And when you do that, when you figure that out, and when you execute it,
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You are going to see your level of relationships go up.
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And most of all, you're going to see your fucking income go up.