1014. Q&AF: Regaining Your Edge, Rewarding Yourself Responsibly & Working In Vs On The Business

Summary

Episode Summary: REAL AF with Andy Frisella

Episode 1014: Q&AF – Regaining Your Edge, Rewarding Yourself Responsibly & Working In Vs On The Business
Date: March 30, 2026
Host: Andy Frisella
Co-host: DJ

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Overview

In this Q&AF episode, Andy Frisella and his co-host DJ answer audience questions on three key topics: how to regain your edge after initial success, making responsible decisions about rewarding yourself financially, and navigating the inevitable shift from practicing your craft to running the business as it grows. Andy delivers no-nonsense practical advice, drawing from personal experience and keeping the discussion lively, relatable, and real.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Regaining Your Edge After Success

[04:41 – 13:56]

• The Problem:
  A listener asks how to stay motivated after achieving a level of success, especially when the "chip on your shoulder" or "dark energy" that originally drove you begins to fade.

• Andy's Perspective:

  • Early on, it's easy to be fueled by doubt and negative energy from yourself or others ("shove it down motherfuckers throats until they fudgeing die" [06:08]).
  • As you prove yourself, negativity fades, creating a risk of complacency.
  • High achievers must "expand your purpose and mission" to create a new, bigger mountain to climb ([09:46]).

• Actionable Advice:

  • Don’t get comfortable; reassess and renew your goals as you grow.
  • Make your plans public—to regain external pressure and fuel.
  • Remember: winning once can breed complacency. Stay in motion, as "an object in motion tends to stay in motion" ([08:30]).

• Notable Quotes:

  • "All the paths lead to hard. All of them. Once you understand that, your perspective changes. Now it becomes, what kind of hard would I like to have in my life?" – Andy [11:24]
  • "The easier you're trying to make your life, the harder it's going to be, okay? And if you just accept the hard up front, the easier it's going to be once you're down the path." – Andy [13:43]

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2. Delayed Gratification & Rewarding Yourself Responsibly

[17:10 – 31:25]

• The Problem:
  A young listener, excited about new earnings, struggles to balance upgrading lifestyle with Andy’s message of delayed gratification.

• Andy’s Take:

  • Admits to being financially irresponsible in youth—“I fucked off a lot. But a lot of that fucking off cost me a long time. Cost me a lot of opportunity, too.” ([17:56])
  • Encourages small, incremental rewards for achievements—don't deprive yourself completely or splurge recklessly.
  • Advises against purchasing “to the point where it… pulls back your ability to move forward in the business” ([23:18]).

• Tactics & Stories:

  • Andy used to “window shop”—drive through dream neighborhoods and visit car dealerships to taste success and fuel motivation.
  • Even now, he sets rewards for hitting goals—sometimes cars, sometimes smaller things.
  • Maintaining a sense of financial hunger: “I have a set amount of cash...If I go below that, which is an absurd amount of money still...I'll be running around like I'm broke now.” ([26:04])

• Responsible Stretching:

  • Some discomfort is healthy; it maintains drive but should be done with caution.
  • “Deploy your cash into things that are making money and bring your cash down to a point where you’re like, I need some more cash. Because it keeps you moving.” ([25:28])

• Notable Quotes:

  • “If I stay paralyzed, what's my life going to look like? ...That's usually what'll get you to move. Stop thinking about...just know. What if you don't?” – Andy [41:24]
  • “A poor person talks about every logical financial decision from a financial aspect and then makes every single buying decision on emotion. Every single one. That's why they stay poor.” – Andy [31:04]

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3. Transitioning from Working In the Business to On the Business

[31:25 – 41:47]

• The Problem:
  A listener feels pulled from their craft into business operations as their business grows—asks if this is necessary or if there's a smarter way.

• Andy's Framework:

  • No matter your skill, building a business requires learning a new set: leadership, operations, systems.
  • Many professionals (doctors, lawyers) fail because they try to run a business relying only on their craft skills and egos. “Doctors are the worst business people I've ever fucking met. Because their egos are so fudgeing big, they won't fudgeing listen to anything...” ([33:11])

• Growth = Letting Go:

  • Temporary sacrifice of craft is a necessary phase; mastery of business allows scaling and, eventually, returning to the work you love, as illustrated by Jesse James (West Coast Choppers).
  • Andy’s own example: loved working the retail counter but had to step away to let the business grow, ultimately learning to love running companies.

• On Fear and Hesitation:

  • Growth is scary—most hesitate because “they don’t know what they don’t know.”
  • “There’s very few mistakes that you make in business that will actually put you out of business.” ([40:33])
  • The real risk is not making the leap and never realizing your vision.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “Your craft and the skill of business are two different things...as you bring skilled people in...you could go back sometimes and do what you do.” – Andy [33:32]
  • “You need to think what your life is going to look like if you don’t do it.” – Andy [40:07]
  • “It’s scary. It's a natural progression. It’s natural to be scared, it’s natural to hesitate. But just realize that if you don’t do it, you’re never going to get what you want.” – Andy [39:50]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Keeping Your Edge:

  • "Winning once... people start to believe it's them... they get to a place where they don't feel like they have anything else to prove." – Andy [07:11]

• On Choosing Hard:

  • "Being successful is hard. Being broke is also hard as fuck. Choose your hard." – Andy [13:12]

• On Stretching Yourself:

  • "Some people, if they get too much cash, they start to get real lazy. That’s why I think it’s always good to deploy your cash into things that are making money and bringing your cash down to a point where you’re like, I need some more." – Andy [25:28]

• On Emotional Buying:

  • "A lot of people are programmed to think that emotional buying is a bad thing. It's actually not a bad thing... there's a value to that. And that value is not always dollar and cents." – Andy [28:11]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Q1: Regaining Your Edge – [04:41 – 17:10]
• Q2: Rewarding Yourself Responsibly – [17:10 – 31:25]
• Q3: Working On Vs In the Business – [31:25 – 41:47]

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Tone and Language

Andy delivers with his signature mix of blunt honesty, humor, and big-brother practicality. The dialogue is frank ("No matter what you choose, every path leads to hard" [11:24]), self-deprecating, and layered with stories from his own journey—making each answer personal as well as universal.

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Takeaways

• Never settle—keep expanding your vision to stay motivated.
• Reward yourself in healthy ways; don’t let rewards undermine your long-term growth.
• Embrace the uncomfortable shift from doer to leader—it's a rite of passage for every entrepreneur.
• Recognize that discipline, mental toughness, and perseverance are built, not born.

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For those who haven’t listened: this episode distills years of entrepreneurial experience into direct answers and actionable insights, with laughter, candor, and memorable metaphors. If you’re seeking clarity on sustaining success, handling money, or scaling your craft, consider this a must-listen.

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Share the show, and as Andy says: "Don’t be a hoe."

Transcript

[Unknown Rapper]

Yeah went from sleeping on the floor now my jury box froze up Bow up stove Counted millions in a cold bad booted swole Got her own bank roll can't fold that's a no head

[Andy Frisella]

shot case Cloak, cloak what is up guys, it's Andy Purcella and this is the show for the realists. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness and delusions of modern society and welcome to reality. Guys, today we have Q&AF. That's where you submit the questions and we give you the answers. D.J. go ahead and tell them how they could submit their questions to be answered on the show.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah, guys, you can email your questions into ask andy4seller.com you can check the link in the description below and submit them there or drop them as always in the comment section of these Q and A videos right here on YouTube.

[Andy Frisella]

Guys, if this is your first time listening, we have shows within the show. We don't just do Q&AF. We have CTI. CTI is called cruise the Internet. This is where we put topics on the screen. We talk about what's going on. We make fun of everything that's going on. We talk about how we the people have to solve the problems going on in society. If you want to catch that show will be tonight, 7pm Central live on YouTube and X. Or you can catch replay on YouTube whenever you want. Other times we're going to have real talk. Real talk. Just 5 to 20 minutes giving you some real talk. And then we have 75 hard verses. That is where people who have completed the 75 hard program come on the show. They talk about how they were before, how they are now and how they use the 75 hard program to take control of their life. You're unfamiliar with 75 hard is the initial phase of the live hard program which is the world's most famous mental transformation program ever and happens to be free. You can get that at episode two zero eight on the audio feed. The entire live heart program for free at episode 208 on the audio feed. There's also a book. The book is called the book on Mental Toughness. You can get that book at Andy for. Com. It covers the entire live hard program plus a whole bunch of other chapters on mental toughness, why it's important, how to utilize it to create your best self again. You get that Andy priscilla.com lot of you guys been asking about the MF CEO project. MSCO project is now hosted on the Operator Standard app and that is closed right now because we have a MVP group minimal viable Product group, testing the app and working out all the kinks. And so that will be available to the public shortly. So for those of you guys asking, now, we do something different on the show that most shows don't do. We don't run ads on the show. We're the biggest show in the world doesn't run ads. And we. We have a trade that we like to make. So instead of us like filling you with a bunch of. Regarding advertisements, we just asked very simply, man, you help us share the show. So if you listen to the show, it makes you think, it makes you laugh, it gives you new perspective. If you enjoy it, if you think it needs to be heard, it's a message we're sharing. Do us a favor and don't be a hoe.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Share the show.

[Andy Frisella]

All right. Yeah.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

I gotta yell at him.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah. What's up?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Make them scared, you know what I'm saying? What's going on with you, Doc?

[Andy Frisella]

Nothing.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another beautiful day.

[Andy Frisella]

Doing the thing.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yep. Thing is being done every day. Yeah, do that thing, dog. Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah. Everything's good, though, man. I got a nice day. We're in that bipolar phase, man.

[Andy Frisella]

98 yesterday or whatever. Today it's like 50, bro.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah, it sucks.

[Andy Frisella]

What is that, dude?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

I don't know. I'll tell you this, though. I'm sick of it.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

All right.

[Andy Frisella]

You know, write a letter.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yep. I don't know to who. I'm gonna probably write. I'm gonna write the governor. Fix this stuff.

[Andy Frisella]

Tell them. Use some of that weather control.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

That's right, man. Like, dude, it was like 100 degrees when we walked out last night. Yeah. At like, what, 10 o', clock, right?

[Andy Frisella]

Y.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

And now it's like. I can't stand it, bro.

[Andy Frisella]

By midnight it was like fucking 45.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah. I'm tired of it, dude.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, it was crazy.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

I'm tired of it, bro. I'm over it, in fact. No, man, all is good, dude. It's for Monday. We got q and A F lined up here to get people starting their week off on the right foot. So let's do it. I got three good ones for you. All right, let's get it, guys. Andy, question number one. Andy, I appreciate you more than you know. I've been able to create a better life for myself, my family, my people, all because of your free game that you've been putting out here. A lot of us are listening, brother, so thank you for that. Problem is, I used to have this chip on my shoulder. I wanted to prove people Wrong, Prove myself right, prove I wasn't average. And now life is good. I'm not struggling like I was. And I feel. And I can feel that chip fading. If you lose the anger or the edge that used to drive you, what replaces it?

[Andy Frisella]

That's a great question, dude. You know, it's very easy for us to have that chip on our shoulder when we're just starting out. It's very easy for us to collect all the negativity when we're just starting out because you don't have anything to show. Nobody actually believes in you. They say they believe in you, but, you know, they don't. And there's all these like, dark, doubtful emotions that sort of come from that time. And if you don't know how to use them properly, they. They will crush you. So in the beginning, it's very easy to collect the negativity and then, you know, put it up here on your shoulder, draw from it when you need to push yourself down the track. When you do get to a point where you are in a place of a little more comfort and you've proven yourself a little bit and people are no longer doubting you the same way that they did, and they're not. They're not like, you know, putting that same negativity into your mind the way that they used to. It can be hard to operate from a place of negativity when you're in that position. Okay. And we call, you know, the dark energy, not. Not negativity, so to speak, but just dark energy. Right. Like you're not doing it because, you know, I want to go run through the field of roses. I want to shove it down motherfuckers throats until they fudgeing die. Okay? That's easy to have when nobody believes in you.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Okay. But once you're proven and once you've stepped out of that, there's a transition that naturally occurs with most high achievers. And they go from this place of letting the dark energy to drive them to this place of they're more confident in themselves and that no longer works. And so what you have to do at that per. By the way, it doesn't no longer work. You just don't have as much of it or the same amount of it. But if you want to get some more, I'm going to tell you how. All right? So when you get to this point in time, it's very important that you realize the way to really move down past that point is to expand your purpose and mission from where it was all right? A lot of businesses come and go because they have this initial vision of where they're trying to be, all right? And once they hit that first vision and they get to that spot and they haven't, like, thought about the. A bigger mission or a bigger path to take, it's very dangerous. Because what happens is people get in a place where they're comfortable, they get complacent, they stop doing the things. They stop being driven, they stop pushing themselves down the track, and you slow down, and everybody else is still running full speed, and you end up losing that way. This is why I tell people all the time, you know, people that win once are actually more susceptible to losing and not regaining it than the person who's never won at all. Because the person who's won once. A couple things happen. One, they start to believe it's them. They believe, okay, I'm gifted. I'm doing this instead of saying, I am the result of the actions that I took. Okay? Two, they get to a place where, you know, they. They don't feel like they have anything else to prove. Okay, so what happens then? They stop getting better, they stop learning, they stop moving forward, and it ends up crushing them, dude. So you have to understand that at some point in time, you have to combine this initial, you know, you. With a bigger purpose and a bigger mission and a bigger goal. And when that goal expands and then you start talking about it, you say, I'm going to do this and this and this. Now. Well, the same process repeats itself as when you first started out. Okay? Everybody will start saying the same negative shit, but they'll say it in a different way. They'll say things like, man, are you sure? You know, you got something good going on? You don't want to fuck that up. You know, like, they'll start to talk the same way and kind of put the same things, and that will give you more of the negative, which allows you to utilize it again. So when you're in this spot that you're in, you got to be very careful, okay? You don't want to sit there and get comfortable and feel complacent. The time now is to think about, okay, I'm this age, which I'm assuming they're younger. I've got all this life in front of me. What am I gonna do with this business from here to there? All right? And on top of that, what would I do if I didn't have the business? What would my life look like? What do I want it to be? And you Kind of have to reassess where you are and what you are. And by the way, you might get to be 60 and you might say, well, my goals have changed and my life perspective has changed, and I would like to do these things, and that's okay. But if you stay still and you get in the spot of being comfortable, you are setting yourself up to get killed. And a lot of people who have won once because they think that it's them, they think that, like, they could just catch it right back anytime they want, right? They think they can just flip the switch. Well, I did it once so I could do it again. Dude, you've forgotten how hard it was to get the ball moving. Okay? An object in motion tends to stay in motion, all right? You want to keep the. The motion moving so that it doesn't stall out. And then you end up trying to restart this and, you know, do what you had to do in the very beginning of what. What you were doing anyway. All right? So the short answer is this. Expand your vision. Expand your goals. Expand what you're trying to do from this point forward. Make it big so that you can have a big mountain to climb, which will give you lots of purpose and lots of drive. Think about the people that are going to benefit from that. Think about the obligations you have. Think about all these things. And then once you form that plan, make the plan public. Hey, we're going to do all this and let everybody talk shit? And now you've got the. You've got what you needed again. You've got fuel, right?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Hell, yeah. So, dude, I want to ask you this, and I feel like I know what you're going to say, but I feel like this needs to be said for all of those people out there that might be assuming that they're gonna get to a place and the negative energy will just. No more. They'll have no more of it. They don't have to worry about that no more.

[Andy Frisella]

Why would you not want. Why would you not want it?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Well, I mean, I guess the question, like, will it. Does it ever go away?

[Andy Frisella]

No, but why would you. Why would you. If you had a fucking high octane, you know, race car and you're driving down the road and, you know, don't. Don't you want to put gas in the car? You know what I'm saying? You're going to run out of gas at some point. So, you know, I think it's a misconception amongst people. I think people, you know, they don't realize that all the Paths you choose every single path that you choose. No matter what you decide to do, no matter where you decide to go, no matter what you think it's doing, no matter how easy you think it's going to make things, all the paths lead to hard. All of them. All of them. And once you understand that, your perspective changes. Now it becomes, what kind of hard would I like to have in my life, okay? Would I like to have hard with a bunch of money or would I like to have hard and no money, okay? Because it's going to be fucking hard either way. So it's. What hard do you want? And you have to realize, you know, I think a big eye opener for people is for them to sit down and realize, okay, man, here's what I want to do. But this is gonna be hard. And realizing that if you don't become that, it's gonna be hard too. And no matter what you choose, no matter. And what's cool, what's. What's crazy about this is that the more you try to make it easy, the harder it gets, okay? That's the fucking part that people miss. So every decision that you make in your life leads to hard. They're just different kinds of hard, okay? So there's no escape. There's no easy. There's no. There's no easy street. There's no beach with the Coronas and you just sit on it and chill out. That is okay. Every choice you make leads to hard. Every single one. And if you grasp that and accept that, then you have a much easier time going after the things that you actually want. You see what I'm saying, bro?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

So being broke is just as hard, right?

[Andy Frisella]

Dude, dude, I said that like 15 years ago on a meme and it's been hijacked by the Internet, okay? I made a meme that went viral like 15 years ago about choosing your heart. Okay? Being. Being successful is hard as. Being broke is also hard as fuck. Choose your heart. That was something like that. And now like everybody's hijacked it to where it's like their thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like putting the shopping carts back and all this other fucking shit. But that's fine. That's what I do. I set the trends.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So it's fine.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

But the point is, is that it's true, okay? You. The easier you're trying to make your life, the harder it's going to be, okay? And if you just accept the heart up front, the easier it's going to be. Once you're down the Path.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

It's only ease of it.

[Andy Frisella]

There is no there there. It's a myth. Yeah, it's a myth. It's like, it's like what's a planet and avatar, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's a. It's made up place. It's not a real thing.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

It's Wakanda for me. But yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, okay, well, yeah, Wakanda, right? Like you ain't going to Wakanda. It doesn't. It's a fucking fairy tale.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Like this easy life shit that is like people everybody's chasing for one reason or another doesn't exist. It's a myth. It's a mythical thing. Tell me a decision that you've made in your life that wasn't hard, that was worthwhile. Tell me a decision that you made that you thought was easy, that ended up. That didn't end up making things harder. All right? Everything leads to hard. So you have to equip yourself to become the kind of person that can tolerate hard things. This is why it's important to build your mental toughness. This is What Live Hard and 75R were created to do. They were created to create the skill set, not the traits. The skill set of grit, fortitude, self esteem, self confidence, perseverance, discipline, mental toughness. These are things that you have to invest in to create in yourself. The biggest lie that's told about these qualities is that people are born with them. They are never born with them. They are cultivated through habitual actions taken over the course of time that create a resiliency inside of someone to be able to handle the hard things. If we really think about what all of you listening and watching, what your problem is, your problem isn't that you don't know what to do. You know what to fucking do. Everybody knows what to do. We live in an era where you could figure out what to do in three seconds. That's not your problem. Your problem is you can't fucking do it. So you got to develop the ability through those skills to be able to adhere to a plan. And when you can adhere to a plan, no matter what that plan is, it actually makes you limitless on what you can create. So you have to understand that everything that you're trying to do starts with these, these skill sets. Discipline, mental toughness, grit, fortitude, perseverance, self esteem, self confidence. Right? These are the things that create the foundation of successful achievement over the course of one's life. Nobody does it in an easy way. It is. It's Just you have to equip yourself for the hard. That's the point. Okay, Once you do that, once you've built that, yeah, you've got to maintain that. But the truth of the matter is, is that it becomes easy to maintain because you're seeing how much it produces in your life. So when you. When you start to understand, okay, if I do this and this and this, I'm winning, and you believe that now, your. Your light bulbs going off in your head, you're starting to realize, oh, you know what? I am in control of my life. I am in control of the things that matter. I am in control of the 99.9% of the outcomes. I'm choosing to abandon the responsibility of creating those outcomes by being lazy and not doing what the I'm supposed to do.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Amen, man. I love it, dude. I love it, man.

[Andy Frisella]

Let's.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Let's hit that next question. Guys. Andy, guys, question number two. Hey, Andy. I'm 24 years old. I've noticed that every time I get a little money, I want to upgrade my life. Better clothes, better car. Just feel like I'm progressing in general. But at the same time, I've heard you talk about delayed gratification. How did you think about spending money when you were young? Did you sacrifice everything to build, or did you allow yourself to enjoy some of it along the way?

[Andy Frisella]

Oh, man. I mean, obviously when I was younger, I was way more irresponsible with money. I mean, that's just like a young person thing, right? Like, you see the thing, you're like, I got the money. It.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

It's. Right. It's a deal.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, it's a deal.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Right?

[Andy Frisella]

Like. Like, that's the thing, man, is, like, when you're young, you know, that's just a normal part of growing up, dude. Financial irresponsibility. So, like, for me to sit here and tell you guys, oh, yeah, I saved every penny, and I did. No, I didn't do that. I fucked off a lot. But a lot of that fucking off cost me a long time. Cost me a lot of opportunity, too. All right? So I think there's a balance to be had there. And the balance is this. You want to. You want to touch it, you want to feel it, you want to know what it's like. You want to feel a little bit of the reward, but you don't want to put yourself in a situation where it's, like, financially damaging. Right?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Okay, so.

[Andy Frisella]

And you also don't want to deprive yourself of any of the reward. Because if you do that, you get to a place where, like, what the fuck am I even doing this for? Okay? So there has to be some sort of reward along the way, right, Depending on where you come from. You know, some people don't come from much, and it's very exciting to have a few bucks to be able to go, you know? Like, you have a couple thousand bucks, dude. Like, that's a big fucking deal, right? Like, I remember what that was like. And, dude, I got to be real.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Couldn't tell me.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, yeah. I was balling, bro. So. So I. I think what I learned to do was I reward myself incrementally in little ways, okay? I. I still do this to. I'll give you an example of this right now. So, like, you guys all know I'm a huge car guy, all right? And I will straight up buy cars at will. Like, if you leave me to my own devices, four other cars will show up. You've been there? Yeah.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Like, tractors and fucking tanks.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah. Like. Like, DJ will show up at the house. The guys will show up, and they'll be like, what the fuck is. Are these two things? I'm like, I fucking.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

They just came last night.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

It's like fucking Amazon. Look, look, I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's awesome, too, right? Like, I was. It wasn't always like that, so. But now that I can afford anything I want, it takes the fun out of it. It takes the fun out of it, okay? It's not the same as what it was when I really had to grind to earn that thing. Like, my first Lamborghini, bro, was a huge deal for me. Huge deal. I dreamed about it since I was 8 years old. I took my brother, I took my dad. We all went to get it together. It's huge thing now, these getting dropped off in the middle of night, you know what I'm saying? And I'm call. I'm calling. I'm calling tj, and I'm like, hey, man, can you meet this dude and drive the thing up the house? Like, so it changes. It's different.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

It's different. Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So you have to realize that you've got to reward yourself. The. The dopamine that comes from the reward doesn't necessarily have to be, like, this expensive thing. This massively expensive thing. So, like, for me, dude, like, when I wasn't, you know, balling out, you know, I was making a little money, okay? But I wasn't, like, being able to buy cars and shit, right? I'd buy dirt Bikes, or I'd buy a fucking four wheeler, or I'd get a cool something that was cool and I really enjoyed, but it wasn't putting me in this spot.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

And that was after a goal was met for milestone.

[Andy Frisella]

That's a whole thing. So I don't buy anything for myself ever now where I don't have a reason for it. So I make up little games, you know, like, hey, if I get to this, I'll buy this. If I get to that, I'll buy this. It's not always monetary, dude. Sometimes it's other things. I think it's a balance. I. And I think it's what's more valuable than even rewarding yourself. And like, bro, by the way, that reward might be a new pair of Nikes.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

It might be a nice dinner.

[Andy Frisella]

It might be a nice dinner.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

And at some point in time, it was that for me.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Okay, so don't take like, oh, I gotta go out, spend five grand on this. No, it could be 200 bucks, it could be 100 bucks. It could be whatever, man. Whatever's relevant to where you are. I've been there, bro. I've been to the exact same spot you guys are at. Like, I've been. You can't get any worse than where it was. So I know what the fuck I'm talking about. Like, you know, it doesn't have to be this thing. Like, as you progress, the rewards get bigger. But I think the more important thing for people is to get themselves in a situation to, to. To taste the success. And what I mean by that. I used to do this thing called window shopping, all right? And what I did, because I didn't really know any successful people, bro. Like, I knew two dudes growing up over my first 15 years in business that had like, cool, right? It was like, not the, The Internet wasn't like the way it is now. Like, you know, where everybody's renting, all their faking, all this, the. So, like, what I would do is I would do things like I would go to the car dealership and like walk around and look at all the exotic cars, right. Or I would drive up and down the streets of, of. Of the streets that I would like to live on. Funny enough, my last two houses were houses that I actually had dreamed about living in when I was in my teenage years.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

We'll go to and see.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah. I would literally drive up the street and be like, I'm gonna live on this street one day. Yeah, right?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So I think that's more important than the buying of the thing. But it's okay to buy some once in a while. You just don't want to fucking do it to the point where it, like, pulls back your ability to move forward in the business, and that's where people make the mistake. Yeah, right. And I made a mistake before, too. I made the mistake before where we started making a lot of money. I started spending a lot of money, and that money could have been used for other things, and. And it cost me time, and I had to learn that the hard way. So you guys have to understand, like, the way I'm telling you now is not the way I did it when I was fucking 25. But I'm telling you, as somebody who is not 25 and been doing this for a long time, that's the way I would have done it. You know what I mean?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah. Yeah, dude. There's something about it, dude. You know, we talk about this stuff all the time together, and it's like, you know, one of the things that I always found super helpful that you've told me was, like, sometimes it's okay to kind of be a little uncomfortable.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, absolutely.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Just to keep track.

[Andy Frisella]

Absolutely.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

You know what I'm saying?

[Andy Frisella]

That's a real thing.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

How important that is.

[Andy Frisella]

That's a real thing. Yeah, that's a real thing.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Just to break up that complacency.

[Andy Frisella]

I hate. I don't like talking about this. People hear it the wrong way. It's like when I talk about luck.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah, okay.

[Andy Frisella]

I don't like to talk about luck, because when I talk about it, the first thing that people will say is they'll succeed.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

There it is.

[Andy Frisella]

Fucking lucky.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

See?

[Andy Frisella]

Lucky. I'm not lucky.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

That's right.

[Andy Frisella]

Right. You're not lucky. Like, that's first thing they'll say and think, is there luck? Yeah, there's. That happens that you're like, holy, I can't believe it happened. But you can only capitalize it on it if you're ready. Okay. You got to be in motion. Right. The luck doesn't happen when you're not in motion. So. So when we talk about, like, this idea of stretching yourself a little bit financially, that's a really strong good thing for some people. Some people have the ability to do that. Some people. Because what happens is, if they get, like, too much cash, they start to get real lazy. They start. They don't want to get out of bed. They don't want to get up and do. And that's why I think it's always good to deploy Your cash into things that are. That are making money and bringing your cash down to a point where you're like, I need some more cash.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Right.

[Andy Frisella]

Because it keeps you moving. So I think it's a good idea to stretch yourself a little bit. But you guys who are young, you need to understand an emphasis on a little bit. All right? You don't put yourself in a fucking. Where it's going to be a real problem, but you can ride that line of where you're uncomfortable.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

You know what I mean?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Like, for me, like, I have a set amount of cash that I like to have, Right. And if I get below that point, I'm like, all right, I act like it's zero. I act like it's. That's my zero.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

That's your new baseline.

[Andy Frisella]

That's my zero. If I go below that, which is an absurd amount of money still, because, like, I want to. I want to make sure I'm secure, right?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

But if I go below that, bro, you. You. I'll run in here, and I'll be running around like I'm broke now. You guys have all seen it, you know? So it's a good way to. It's a good way to create urgency in yourself by. By by mentally training yourself to have that discipline.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Around that.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah. I love that, dude.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah. It's a. It's a real thing. But you gotta be very careful with. Bro, so many people hear that, and they're like, all right, cool, I can go out.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Let's go get the Lambo. Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

That's not what I'm saying.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Get the Lambo.

[Andy Frisella]

That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying get the Lambo if it's going to improve your quality of life and it doesn't put you in a serious bind. Okay? And that's the other thing. Remember this? You're going to be dead. Okay? Like, you're going to die. All right? I. I've been fortunate enough that I. I've. I was kind of a little irresponsible that I did a lot of really cool. You know what I mean? I'm not sorry about those experiences, but I never let it handicap me.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

You know what I mean?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So you got it. You got to do things that you enjoy. Like, a lot of people don't like for cars, Right? Like, they don't understand the car thing. They think it's about, like, showing off on Instagram. They don't get it, dude. Like, first of all that's a. I spend. So how much time do we spend in our cars? Quite a bit of our life.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Right. Like the average person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you should.

[Andy Frisella]

When you. When you rather spend that time with something that you felt good about and you enjoyed and that you liked.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

The AC smells different.

[Andy Frisella]

I'm just saying, you know. Right? I'm just saying, dude, like, that's a real shit. Yeah. It's not about the stuff. It's about the quality of life that the stuff creates in the experiences that it creates and the memories that it creates. And there's a value to that. And that value is not always dollar and cents. You know what I mean? It's not. Oh, it doesn't always make sense. This gets into the conversation that we talk about, like, you know, logical buying versus emotional buying.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

All right. A lot of people are programmed to think that emotional buying is a bad thing. It's actually not a bad thing. There are certain things that you should be emotional about when you buy. Like, do you really love your house? Are you're gonna live your house? You're gonna live in that house? You gotta spend all kinds of time there. I used to never be this way, by the way. I was the guy who did not give a. About his house. I loved cars. I didn't care.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

You sleep in the car.

[Andy Frisella]

I didn't care.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

When I got my. The house I live in now, I got it. It made sense to me because the house is so awesome and it's such a cool thing to come home and like, just see the grounds and see everything and like I'm. That's an. That was an emotional purchase for me because like, dude, here in St. Louis, you know, we don't have hundred million dollar houses. Right. Like, that's not a thing.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

No.

[Andy Frisella]

So the amount of money that I've put into my house, I'll never get back. I'll never get back. Okay. I'll probably lose. If I sell my house, I'll probably lose $10 million. But I knew that when I built the shit because that's the quality of my life.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So I said, okay, if I'm going to live here for X amount of years, am I willing to pay this much money for this experience? Yes.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yes, I am.

[Andy Frisella]

Right.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah. Right.

[Andy Frisella]

So that's. That there are certain things in life that are emotionally okay if you're aware of the actual logical financial sense. Right. So you can evaluate all the metrics and all the data and then you could say, all right. But I really Want it? Okay. Do it.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

You know I'm saying. But you can't be emotional about everything you buy. It's about things that are going to add to the quality of your life.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

See what I'm saying?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Would you say that's important?

[Andy Frisella]

Because, like, dudes like you, you see this, and this is totally untrue, but, like, people get on the. You know, they'll. They'll see a post of one of my cars or something, they'll be like, ah, stupid. You know, this is just depreciating asset. First of all. Dumbass. Not my cars, okay? My cars go up in value.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

He lost 50% when you pulled off a lot.

[Andy Frisella]

No. Yeah. So that's. That's ideally, like, if you can make an emotional decision, an emotional buy, and it goes up now you're really making smart decisions.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

All right.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah. Yeah. Would you. Would you say, too. Because I feel like this is important. On the sense of, like, you know, having those things that increase the quality of life. Sometimes that's all you got. When shit is going crazy, when shit's hitting the fucking fan, when it's hard out there, sometimes that's all you got. You know what I'm saying? You might have had a shit day, but at least my house is all right.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

You know what I'm saying? It's like, that's the importance of having those material goals, I guess people would call them.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

You know what I'm saying?

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, man. It's your life.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

You know, you just got to. You got to think, like. You can't think like a. Like a poor person, bro.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

You know, that's real. Yeah. A poor person talks about every logical financial decision from a financial aspect and then makes every single buying decision on emotion. Every single one. That's what they do. So they could talk all this shit, but they don't practice it in real life.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

No.

[Andy Frisella]

And that's why they stay poor.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

I love it, dude. I fucking love it, dude. We got one more for you, dog. Let's bring her on home. We got question number three, guys. Andy. I started my business because I believed in the work. Now I spend most of my time selling, negotiating, marketing, and dealing with people. It feels like I don't actually get to do the thing I'm good at anymore. Is that just what growth requires, or is there a smarter way to structure this?

[Andy Frisella]

Does. Does it say what he does?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

It does not.

[Andy Frisella]

All right. Okay. So. You got to understand something. Whatever your skill set is, let's say you're a A. A woodworker. And you're fucking the most amazing woodworker on the fucking planet. And you want to turn this woodworking into a business. Obviously you have a great product, and obviously you're skilled at it. Once you start to turn something that you really love into a business for at least temporarily, it will pull you away from that craft. Okay. And you'll have to learn this whole new set of skills, which is business. A lot, a lot of doctors, a lot of lawyers fail to understand this because they go to school for so long, their egos are so inflated that they think they know how to do everything. And that's why you see them open a practice and go out of business or open a law office, go out of business because they. Yeah, they might be great at being

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

a doctor, at the craft.

[Andy Frisella]

They might be great at being a lawyer. They're fucking terrible at running business. And if we're being honest, dude, I'm going to be totally honest. Doctors are the worst business people I've ever fucking met. Yeah. Because their egos are so fudgeing big, they won't fudgeing listen to anything and they think they know everything. I went to so and so for 12 years, I don't give a fuck, they gave me these letters. I can't sell a motherfucking thing.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah, okay?

[Andy Frisella]

So you got to understand these are two different skills. Your craft and the skill of business are two different things. And if you want to actually turn this into a business, you're going to have to pull away. And instead of working in the business, you're going to have to work on the business until you are able to learn how to operate a business to the point where you can bring people in to help you with that process. And as you bring skilled people in and as you build a culture and as you build systems and start to scale, which, by the way, this doesn't happen overnight either. Okay, then you could go back sometimes and do what you do, Right. A really good example of this is. Is. Is my buddy Jesse James. Okay, so Jesse James, you guys know him, he did Monster Garage, West Coast Choppers. You guys have seen his apparel. He sold more apparel than most apparel companies. But Jesse is a craftsman. Yeah, he's a artist. And I don't know anybody that loves his work more than Jesse. Yeah, okay. He loves it. And he loves it for a lot of different reasons. It's not just because he loves to do the thing. He understands the value of the work for what it does for your mental, your. Your. You Guys should read his book. He's got a fucking awesome book. It's on Amazon. But when he first started out, he's building fucking bikes, okay? Then he started having to sell bikes. So he had to create a business. Now he has a whole team that helps him run the business. And guess what he gets to do? He gets to go build bikes.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Build the fucking.

[Andy Frisella]

He builds the sickest in the world bikes and guns. He, bro, Jesse's got his own shop. He walks in there in the morning. He works, he does what he's doing and he gets to do what he loves. But that didn't happen in one day. You know, he had to go through that transition of, I'm building. I love this. So I'm building a business around this to. The business is very well run to back to doing what it is that he does that drives the brand. You see what I'm saying?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

What did this look like for you?

[Andy Frisella]

Well, you know, funny enough, like, this is appropriate for me too. You know, when I was. When we first started, we started in retail stores, I worked the counter, okay? And I fudgeing. Loved it. I loved working the counter of the retail store. I love talking to different people, you know, 40, 50 times a day. Like, dude, I can't tell you. Like, I get there 9 o', clock, we close at 9 o' clock at night. And it would go by like that because I'd be just do like, I loved it. Yeah, right? 2006, when we started to really expand, I. I couldn't. I couldn't work the counter. And at first it made me feel really guilty because I was like, I can't even. These guys are. I wasn't on. I was uncomfortable with it.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Like, these guys are doing the work and like, they probably think I'm out here off. But, dude, without me out here, quote, unquote, off, the business can't scale, all right? Which means they don't have jobs, which means they can't build careers. All right? So what it looked like for me was I worked the counter, I went over and started building the business. I became, you know, pretty fucking good at operating a business. Built multiple businesses. And what I found out was that I actually like that a lot too. So now that the business runs without my minute by minute input, I'm able to do more of the things that I like. So for me, like, I may not work in the store anymore, but, like, we always have guests here, right? We always have people here that are training. We always have people that are in town. I'LL go spend my time talking to them. Right. And I enjoy that.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

You're able to scratch that.

[Andy Frisella]

Yes, for sure.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So it's, it's a little bit different for me because I was never able to like, go back to the store counter to work. But I do it in a different way now. And, and to be real, dude, like, I'm so conditioned to the, like, craft of running companies now that, like, I, I couldn't do without that at this point. You know what I mean? I'm not a craftsman, though. I'm not a. I'm not a. I'm not a. I'm not that kind of a person.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

You know what I mean? So the, the, the art of building companies is. That's my craft. Yeah. That's what I like. That's what I love.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Now, now would you say most people that are, you know, maybe going through that transition phase and are hesitant from having a transition from in to on, what do you think that that fear or, or that hesitation comes from?

[Andy Frisella]

Well, they.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Was it there for you originally? Like when you were making that, like.

[Andy Frisella]

Oh, yeah.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

You said it like, no. Yeah, I got to.

[Andy Frisella]

Well, not only that.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

I think I'm off.

[Andy Frisella]

It's scary.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Okay. You don't know what the you're doing. You never ran a company before. You don't know what. You don't know what all these things mean. You don't know any of this shit. It's scary. I think the reason people hesitate is because they don't know what they. What they don't know.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Right. And it's uncomfortable to do things you don't know. So a lot of businesses will stay a one man or two man operation forever because they never break out of that fear to go out and scale it out. Right. This happened to me too. You know, when we had our first store, it took us five years to open our second store. The reason that we wouldn't open the second store was because we didn't know how to run a two store operation. We didn't have the systems. We didn't even know what systems were. We didn't, we didn't fucking know anything. You know how we learned it? By just doing it, opening up the second store. And then we figured it out.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

And, and dude, we thought about doing that like our second or third year in, but it took us five years to like get over the fear of doing it. So. Yeah, it's scary. And you're, you're vulnerable and you're like, oh man, I know how to do this, but I don't really know shit about this, and I can't trust any. You're right, you can't. That's why you got to learn it. All right? And then when you become an expert at that, now you're able to know all of this shit, and you're equipped to be able to have people that work in there that are competent so that they're not just lying to you about all the bullshit that you don't know.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah, right.

[Andy Frisella]

You got to know your shit.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So, yeah, that's the point of the question, is that's a natural progression that all people make, typically when especially whatever they're doing is some sort of craft. And by craft, I mean, like, has a creative, artistic aspect to it. Right. That's a very hard transition for people to make.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Or the trades fields.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah. A lot of people just start a business and they sell a widget and they don't ever go through this process. They're just running the business.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So. But for somebody like this. Yeah, bro, it's a natural progression. It's natural to be scared. It's natural to hesitate. But just realize that if you don't do it, you're never going to get what you want, you know?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Accept that. Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah. You need to think what your life is going to look like if you don't do it. You can't get fixated on, if I do this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and who gives a fuck? All that shit's going to happen, dude. All the bad shit that you think is going to happen, it's going to happen. And guess what? It isn't that big of a fucking deal. Right? There's very few mistakes that you make in business that will actually put you out of business. So, like, you think you're the only one ever that, like, did this?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

You know, it's like when women have children, right? Like, and they have. They have a kid and all of a sudden, like. Like everybody in the world's talking, like it's the only thing, you know, only person who ever did it. It's like, dude, people have been having kids for millions of years.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

That's right. How you think you got here?

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. Yeah, it's okay. You know, like, people who have kids in caves, bro, they turn out all right, you know, like, you're going to be all right. It's the same in business. Like you. You are going to be all right, man. This isn't that hard. Like, it's hard, but it's not like something you can't do. You know what I mean?

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah. Well, plus, you might get into the. The. On the business and love that.

[Andy Frisella]

That's what happened to me.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

That's what happened to me.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

Yeah.

[Andy Frisella]

So I. I just think it's a natural progression. That's a natural fear, and you need to start analyzing. Okay. If I stay paralyzed, what's my life going to look like? And if. And you're going to know the answer right away, and that's usually what. I'll get you to move. Stop thinking about, like, you know, if I do this. Just know. What if you don't? What if you don't. Okay. That's how you need to be thinking about it.

[DJ (Co-host or Producer)]

I love it, dude. I love it, man. Guys. Andy, that was three.

[Andy Frisella]

Yep. All right, guys, we will see you tonight. CTI live, seven o', clock, live on YouTube and X. And other than that, don't be a hoe, share the show.

[Unknown Rapper]

Yeah, we're from sleeping on the floor now my jewelry box froze up Bow a stove counted millions in a cold bad boy booted SWO got her own bank row can't fold just a no head shot case close.