688. Q&AF: Starting Your First Business, What "Alpha" Really Means & Dealing With Depression

Yeah went from sleeping on the flow now my jury box froze fuck up bow fuck up stove counted millions in a cold bad bitch booted swole got her own bank roll can't fold dust a no head shot case clo clo. What is up, guys? It's Andy Purcell, and this is the show for the realists. Say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society. And welcome to motherfucking reality, guys.

Andy Frisella
Today we have Q an af. That's where you submit the questions and we give you the AfS. You could submit your questions a couple different ways to be answered on the show. The first way is, guys, you can. Email those questions into ask andy@andyforsella.com.

Or you can go on YouTube and drop your question in the comments section on the Q and a f episodes, and we'll pick some from there as well. Other times, you tune in if it's your first time listening. We have CTI. That stands for cruise the Internet. That's where we put topics on the screen.

We talk about what's going on. We speculate on what's true and what's not true, and then we talk about how we, the people have to solve these problems in society. Other times, we're going to have real talk. Real talk. Just 520 minutes of me giving you some real talk.

And then we have 75 hard versus. 75 hard versus where someone who's completed the 75 hard program, which is the initial phase of the live hard program. They come in, they talk about how their life was messed up before, how they got it corrected using the 75 hard program, and how you can do the same. If you're unfamiliar with live hard and 75 hard program, you can get the program for free at episode 208. It is the world's most popular mental transformation program in history.

And it's free and you can get a book. There's a book on my website called the book on mental toughness. It's not required, but if you're somebody who likes to know the ins and outs and the ups and downs and all the details, I'd recommend the resource. It gives you the entire live hard program, plus ten chapters on mental toughness, why it's important, why you need to cultivate it, and how it can change your life. There's also case studies on some very famous people who you will recognize who talk about how they use mental toughness to become the people that you recognize.

All right now, guys, we have a fee for the show. The fee is not monetary, although we do appreciate when you support my companies, you support what we got going on. That means a lot. But what we say. When we say, pay the fee, it means share the show.

Okay? We don't run ads on the show. And in exchange for that, I ask very simply, if you like the show, if it gives you perspective, it makes you laugh, it makes you think. If you. If you think it's something people need to hear, please share the show.

We talk about controversial subjects here on the show, as you guys know. And we get censored and shadow banned and traffic throttled everywhere we put post. So if you. We want the message to get out, we need you guys to share it. So don't be a ho.

Share the show. What's up, dj? What's going on, Andy? What's going on? Not too much, man.

DJ
Yeah, yeah. You know, just doing the thing. What's the thing today? I actually wouldn't. What much today?

Andy Frisella
No thing, then? No. No, thank you. We're doing this thing. Yeah.

Yeah. What's going on with you, man? Anything new now, man? What's cracking? What's.

What's crack? A lagging? Mm hmm. I was gonna say something else, but we can't say it. What?

DJ
We gotta save it for CTI. Okay. That means. That means it was likely racist. Probably.

Andy Frisella
Maybe. No, man. Everything's good, dude. Just, you know, like we talked about with the Michael Chandler episode. I'm going hard, trying to get my body finally back from this injury that I've had, and everything's going good.

I'm definitely on track, and I feel good, and just. Just. Everything's firing, man. Dude, how about just such a good, genuine good, like, just good, dude? Yeah.

He's awesome, dude. I really like. I mean, I like Chad. Chad Wright's always gonna be. I think he's always gonna hold that number one spot for me, man.

DJ
But, like, fuck, man. Mike, Michael Chandler made it. Made it hard. Yeah, dude. You know what's cool about that, too, is like.

Andy Frisella
Like we talked about on the podcast. You know, he comes. He has built this. It's not this thing that he was naturally gifted at, you know, like, he talked about. He wrestled 103 in high school, right?

He was 411. And he's built this, you know, like you said, brick by boring brick. And I think that's an amazing story, and I think it's a testament to what you can accomplish if you're willing to, what we call here, master the mundane. Right. Most people lack the ability to master the mundane tasks.

They get bored very easily. They don't feel like doing things. They don't understand that to build a life, it is mundane. It is the same things day in and day out, operating at a high level, holding a high standard, executing with discipline. And most people just can't do that because they don't have the endurance to do that.

They don't have the fortitude to do that. They don't have the perseverance to do that, which is why it's important for you to build yourself into someone who does. That way you can follow the path to success, because there is only one path, and the only path there is is day by day by day by day over the course of a period of time. So, and depending on how big your goals are, that could be two years, it could be five years, it could be ten years, it could be 30 years. We don't know.

But at the end of the day, it's all built the same. It's one day at a time, one win at a time for life. And there is no opportunity, if you're going to operate at a high level, to deviate from that really at any time. Yeah, I think the coolest thing, too, man, it's like, you know, it's what you talk about there is an equation for success. Yeah.

DJ
It's very, very simple. It's time or it's inputs, right. But plus the time variable. Right. And I think the most, the coolest thing is like, being able to see people and talk to people who have practiced and actually put in that fucking equation, right.

You look at a guy like Mike Chandler. Cause he got in the UFC in 2020, right? And four years later, here he is fighting the fucking biggest fighter of the fucking sport you could possibly think of, right? And it's like, that wasn't luck. That wasn't, you know, anything other than the inputs that he put in.

Plus the time. Right. 21. 2021. Three years.

Andy Frisella
Yeah. Three years. Yeah. And he's just beating people's asses, you. Know what I'm saying?

DJ
Like, to me, I think that's the coolest thing about that. Dude, man, it's like, it's like there's a real world, there's real evidence right there. It works. It works. Man, I thought that was just.

Man, it's crazy to think. Yeah, man. Anyt, it just, you know, I feel like after doing this all these years, you know, people get used to me saying the same things over and over and over, but that's because there's only so many things. Right. But to have someone who's also done something, you know, built it from the ground up.

Andy Frisella
Anytime we can bring someone on, you know, like James Lawrence or, you know, you know, Michael Chandler or Mi let, like, these guys, they confirm what we're talking about. And it's frustrating to look out into the Internet world and see all these people trying to shortcut it, trying to hack it, trying to supersonic speed their way to success when literally every person they look up to is telling them the same way. And, dude, it's just indicative of people's impatience and need for instant gratification that they continue to search for some sort of shortcut. Do you not think that Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or any of these people that you look up to in business or life, do you not think that if there was another way, they would have found it? Right, right.

Like, there is only one way. These are smart, hardworking, badass motherfuckers, bro. And I'm telling you right now, there is only one way. And it's day by day by motherfucking day over the course of your life. You don't get to do it for five years and then never do it again.

Like, that's the fallacy, right? I'm going to retire at 40. I'm going to sit on a beach. No, you're not, because you don't have the right mentality to get there in the first place. If that's what you're doing it for, you're never going to get to that point, you know?

Oh, I'm going to. I'm going to. At 35, I'm never going to have to work again. Yeah, let's see that. Show me that.

Show me that person, right? That person doesn't exist because the people who actually build things, it's in their fucking blood. These are builders. These are creators. These are contributors.

These are people that have to have a mission and have to have a purpose, and that purpose is to build and create and contribute into things that materialize. And if you are trying to materialize this life against those kinds of people, when your whole goal is to get to 35 years old and sit on a fucking beach with a corona, you're going to lose. Okay? Because these motherfuckers are doing it because they love it. They're doing it because they're competitive.

They're doing it because they want to change the world. You're doing it so you can have a couple coronas and fucking Riviera, Maya. It's a different kind of want and skill set and, dude, people just don't understand the competitive landscape. There's, you know, people talk about abundance, right? Abundance mentality.

Yeah, there is abundance mentality, but the abundance is shared amongst the most competitive, most skilled, most disciplined people. It is not shared with people who do not possess those traits and skill sets. So, yes, there's plenty of abundance for hardworking, discipline, high skill, high drive, high work ethic people. Plenty of abundance. That abundance does not spread to you if you're not doing any of those things.

And that's what people think. And while I'm on it, I want to say something else. You know, I look all over the Internet, and I see all these people writing about their journaling and their cold plunges and their fucking touching the grass, and they're getting in nature and the fucking therapy and all this shit. And you know what the problem is with most of you motherfuckers? It's that you don't have a purpose.

You don't have a mission. And it doesn't matter how much therapy you go to. It doesn't matter how many cold plunges you do. It doesn't matter how much you spend grounding. It doesn't matter how many months you spend in the van.

It doesn't matter any of this shit that, how many journal pages you wrote. It's never going to make you feel good if you're leaving it on the table, if you're not exercising your potential, if you don't have a purpose, you don't have a mission. The reason you feel like shit is because you know that you're letting your potential die on the vine. You're letting your potential go to waste. And that is an underlying condition that's causing you this anxiety, causing you this stress, causing you this uncomfortable place that you're trying to fix with all this modern day.

And by the way, the shit might work, okay? It might help. It might make you feel a little bit better. But the reality is you need to solve the underlying problem, and the underlying problem is you're not exercising your potential. And for that reason, you fucking feel like shit.

That's it. So, you know, maybe, maybe instead of journaling some more and cold plunging some more and touching the grass some more and fucking whatever the fuck else you guys do, maybe you should get the fucking work. And maybe you should try to build something great, and maybe you should try to do something that fucking matters, and you won't feel like shit all the time. Oh, what? Love it.

It's the truth. I'm so sick of seeing it. Dude, I'm not against any of that shit. I'm not against it. But so many people are out here trying to optimize.

And what are you trying to optimize? You don't do anything. So what's. What's five times zero? Zero.

Okay, so if you go out and you do five self care things, and then you're leaving your potential on the. On the table as a zero, that means you go zero. Yeah. There's no multiplier. Yes.

DJ
Yeah. Like, fuck, bro. We're here to create. We're here to live. We're here to build.

Andy Frisella
We're here to contribute. That can look a lot of different ways for a lot of different people. It doesn't mean build a business. It doesn't mean. It means doing your fucking best and leaving none of your potential on the table.

And, dude, if you don't do that, guess what? You're gonna feel like shit. It's just reality. True shit, man. That's real.

DJ
Only thing I would ask, bro, is, like, next time, just make sure you give me a heads up when you doing the math. Math questions. Why? You know that shit can get me sometimes. Yeah.

Andy Frisella
Well, everything times zero. Zero. That's true. Yeah, I thought about that quick. I'm like, fuck, yeah.

All right. Yeah. Sweet, man. Well, uh, I got some goings for you, man. Let's keep this heat moving, guys.

DJ
Andy, question number one. Hey, Andy. Just wanted to say I love your content. I came across your stuff on Facebook and tick tock and start listening to your podcast. My question for you is, I want to start a business in my trade.

I've been a machinist for the last 15 years, and I want to open my own shop. How does a person like me, that is barely scraping by, do that? I've heard many times in this trade that you have to have money to make money. I feel that's a bunch of bullshit, but I could be wrong. I don't know jack shit about opening a business and only have a little knowledge on how to run it properly.

I thought a few times about just running something small out of my garage and then eventually working my way up the ladder. What are your thoughts on this? First time getting going. Very simple. One, bring your lifestyle way down.

Andy Frisella
Okay. Whatever your lifestyle is, if you're serious about starting a business and you're serious about building a business, sell your fucking house, sell your fucking nice car, sell all your luxuries, and downsize into something that you can tolerate. Not that something that is ideal. Okay, that's number one. Two, work to save as much money as you can.

All that money you're paying over here work to fucking build some capital. Three, you're on the right track. Start out small, start in your garage. A lot of people go out and they try to borrow money, or they try to have this nice shop with their name on the door and their business. That ain't business, bro.

That's called playing business. Business is actually doing work and trading a good or a service or information for people's money, okay? It doesn't matter how nice your office is. It doesn't matter how cool your business card is. And a lot of people get caught up in that shit.

They think that's what matters. It doesn't fucking matter at all. It's a zero factor. Okay? You need to do good work, and you need to exceed customers expectations and allow the word of mouth of your service, of your good, of your product to spread.

All right? So those are the three first steps. After you start the cash flow, after you start to make more money from doing this small in your garage, which you've already figured out, then you're going to start to make investments. You're going to continue to save money. You're going to.

You're going to continue to take the money that you make and you're going to invest it into more equipment. You're going to invest it into more resources to produce more goods. You're going to invest it in all the things that make a business run. This is totally doable. Lots of people do this, but most people do not have the dedication to actually execute it, but because they refuse to make the cuts in their lifestyle.

So they would rather live a slightly above mediocre lifestyle and not have a business than they are to take a step back, humble themselves, maybe look a little silly to their friends and family and just start the business. But you're going to get the last laugh because in ten years, you're going to have a machine shop that's doing. That's kicking ass. That's doing. And by the way, you're going to be doing what you want.

You're going to. You're going to be building things. You're going to be creating things. I imagine you like to work with your hands. So this is, this is how you do these things.

You take a step backwards. And by the way, you might not be able to sell your house, but my point is, downsize your life, downsize your financial commitments. Take that money, invest it into what you're doing as you make more money, continue to live as small as you can for as long as you can as long as you can, okay? Don't be the fucking Internet dumbass who goes out and tries to buy a fucking Lamborghini after two years so he could show off on the Internet, okay? Be the guy who, like me, lives well below his means for the first ten years in business, okay?

Does everything at the lowest possible denominator of cost, all right, which will allow you to scale your business. A lot of people, when they hear my story and I talk about how the first seven or the first three years, we made no money. The next seven years, we made $695 a month for a grand total of $58,000 for ten years, right? Combined. They hear that and they say, holy shit, dude.

How did you endure that? How did you get. Because, man, I wanted to scale, and I didn't have any financial resources. And now here we are, a company that does hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, and we don't have any debt. You know why we don't have any debt?

Because I learned to operate on our own cash flow long ago. And the way that we got to this was we were able to, when we started making money, see people here, oh, ten years, but what they don't realize is that, like, six years in, we were making money, and we just kept all that money in the business and continue to live below our means over the course of the next four years, right, until we got to be a little bit older and we were making quite a bit more money. And then we started, you know, doing some things. And then when we started doing really well, you know, our lifestyle increased. And you'll know when that point is, but the point is, you should be go.

This is how, you know, these. These entrepreneurs on the Internet are fucking dumbasses because they start a business, and the next thing you know, you see them driving a Lamborghini Urus suv, which is the biggest fucking poser car on the fucking planet. If you have one, you should fucking sell it because you look like a fucking clown. Okay? So the reality is they go out and buy this shit so they can pretend to be successful, and they're cutting their fucking nose off despite their face.

They want people to think they're successful, but their business isn't actually growing at the rate that it should be. And they think that fake it till you make it means look the part of success. And so people believe. Fake it till you make it. Doesn't have anything to do with other people.

It has to do with this. Pretend you're already that successful person and then emulate their behaviors. How does the hundred millionaire, how does the billionaire live their life for real? How do they do it? What do they do?

What's their systems of operation? How do they run their life? So you, how do they treat people? How you fake that? Right?

That's not you. You behave that way and then it becomes you. That's what people don't get. When you want to change your life, bro, you can change it today. You can become a different person today by changing your behaviors today.

Now, the results of those behavioral changes take time to materialize in reality for everybody to recognize. But as long as you're not behaving like that fat piece of shit from fucking the last six years, you're a different motherfucker today. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. So it's adopt the behavior, not adopt the lifestyle.

And when we talk about fake it till you make it, so many people misunderstand what that means. That doesn't mean what people think it means. And sell your fucking Uris. Holy shit. Wasn't it.

DJ
Was it Apple or Microsoft that also started in the garage? Was it Apple? Yeah, lots of companies did, bro. Lots of companies. And I think people just like, they will hear that or they see that.

They don't understand. Like, that's what the real sacrifice looks like. That's what real success. Oh, first form. Started my garage.

Andy Frisella
Yeah, started my garage. I used to drive. So we had a deal with a manufacturer to consult. And then when we consulted with them, then they started to. That deal fell through.

We have made an agreement for them to make product. They allowed us to make small little runs. I used to pick it up with Scott Halsey in the back of our fucking pickup trucks. We didn't have a warehouse. All we had was the.

We had like ten or eleven stores at the time. And we go put it in my garage. And then as the stores need it, we would distribute it through from. I would distribute it. Scott would distribute it.

He would take half the stores. I would take half the stores. We'd put the shit in the back of the pickup truck. We drive it to the stores as needed. Right?

And when we started doing that, bro, each store would need like two cases, which is fucking six bottles of protein or it's twelve. Right? So a lot of people start like this. And dude, it just. It's a very simple equation.

Downgrade your lifestyle, increase your available cash, make the investments that you need to make to start small, do a great job, make a great product. Over serve the customer to the point where they're talking about it and they're spreading the word and then scale up as you go and you make more money and that's how you do it. And then live small for as long as you can. I love it. I love that, man.

DJ
Guys, Andy, question number two. Hey Andy and DJ. I'm 23 years old and I am number nine of twelve kids in my family. Damn. Yeah, that's a big deal.

Andy Frisella
Like to do it?

DJ
I'm also married to plant some fucking seeds. Yeah, he's a farmer. Im also married to my perfect girl the whole time we dated in high school. She liked me because I was sweet, forgiving and patient. I think growing up as number nine, I was often overlooked and forgotten.

So I was never very confident and thus became sweet and easy to forgive because I was afraid to speak my mind. That being said, ive been listening to your podcast for a little over a year and I loved it instantly. Ive been trying to develop the fuck you mentality for the past six months or so. Looking back the last six months as I've been more assertive and stern in saying what I mean, I've noticed myself being much more pissed off, easily annoyed, and honestly being a dick to everyone around me. Unfortunately, that has unconsciously included my sweet wife who loved me and married me for being sweet, loving and non judgmental.

I took a deep look at myself this past Sunday and realized I really want to be that Alpha guy who speaks his mind whenever I enter a room. But I can't find the right way to do it without ruining relationships around me. After realizing this, I talked to my wife and she started crying, saying that she has missed the real me and she still loves me, but I'm not the same man she married and not in a good way. So my question is, how can I remain patient, loving, forgiving, and kind while still speaking my mind in a stern manner? I want to be that alpha guy, but still be gentle to my loved ones.

Andy Frisella
First of all, congratulations on your wife and you. Sounds like you have a great family. It sounds like you're a really good dude. There's nothing wrong with that. No.

Like, what's. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, bro. Like, and just because you have an idea of what alpha is, Alpha is not running around. Just because I have an aggressive disposition does not mean that you have to adopt that. That's just who I am.

I'm. That's my authentic self. And by the way, I think if you ask the people around me how I am. Most of the time. Most time.

Pretty fucking nice, bro. You got the biggest heart I've ever known. Yeah. So, like, dude, this. You have to retrain what you think Alpha is.

There's a lot of fake alpha fucks on the Internet who call them. First of all, if anybody calls themselves Alpha, they're not Alpha. Okay? Second of all, yeah, it's true. So you got to understand, alpha is not about being a dick.

Alpha is not about being mean. It's not about saying curse words. It's not about any of that, dude. Alpha is about being a man, standing up for what's right, telling the truth, protecting the people around you, providing for the people around you, and being kind and being caring, and then having a. Having some boundaries.

When people step on your toes, you might have to stomp on somebody's throat. Okay? So that part of it is little 1% of your life, right? And you have to. You have to understand, we're fed.

Especially someone who feels like, hey, man, I'm trying to figure this out. Right? We're fed this idea of alpha male that is, isn't real, right? Alpha male is like my brother, okay? Who treats his family really good, who handles his business, who takes care of everybody around him.

And, yeah, sometimes he'll fucking let you know when you're fucking up. But isn't that real love? Isn't real kindness, telling someone when they're stepping in the wrong hole or they're fucking their life up and being honest about it? Because being kind and loving doesn't mean letting people mess up their lives. It means, hey, man, this ain't cool.

That's not good. It's holding a standard. And so when you think of, like, what alpha means, brother, that doesn't mean you got to change your whole personality, dude. In fact, it sounds like you got a great personality, and it sounds like you got a great wife. So, you know, let's.

Let's keep in mind here what. What true alpha is, is being your authentic self, man. And then, you know, it sounds like what you're struggling with is that you don't have a boundary, okay? And so what you need to work on is. And the only change you need to make here.

I wouldn't change my personality. You don't have to be a dick. You don't have to just go out of your way to let people know that you're an alpha. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is being prepared when someone steps on your toes.

What does that look like, for you, and I bet for most of your life, you kind of just say it's no big deal, and you brush it off, and I bet because, you know, it's wrong and it's violating your own integrity with yourself. It's lowered your self esteem, and it's lowered your confidence. And the reason you're struggling with confidence is because, you know, the. That there are things that happen to you that you are not okay with, that you pretend to be okay with. And you have to understand that it is 100% okay to let people know when you are not okay with things.

That's just called communication. And when you have a boundary and you do all the other stuff I talked about, that's what makes you an alpha dude. An alpha is not one of these dudes. And it fucks me. It fucks me up, because I know a lot of you guys, like, you hear me talk, and, you know, I got a beard and I got scars and I got tattoos, and you're like, oh, fucking yoked, bro.

That's not. That's has nothing to do with it. That's just handling my business. You know what I'm saying? That's just being me, and I'm an authentic human being.

And, dude, I think being authentic and just, you know, having boundaries and being kind and being respectful, having manner. Bro, there's nothing more alpha than having manners, you know what I'm saying? And treating people right. There's nothing more alpha than that. So, like, dude, look, man, I feel what you're saying, but don't try to emulate someone else.

Just identify the little problem that you have, which it sounds like is just boundaries. Start holding that boundary when necessary. And even when you hold the boundary, it doesn't mean you have to be an asshole. Now, if they escalate it, you can be, but you don't have to be. In fact, some of the ways to enforce boundaries are very simple, very calm, very, very, very simple con.

Hey, I don't like that, man. You're supposed to be my friend. Friends don't do that. You see what I'm saying? Very easy.

Yeah. And that sticks with people a lot more than screaming at them, you know? Yeah. So, bro, it sounds like you're doing good, man, and it sounds like you're just reading too much into it. And I think you.

I think your wife is right. You know, you need to pull back a little bit and just realize your problem is letting people do things that you don't agree with and then pretending like you agree with them. That's what's hurting your confidence. And if you just fix that little aspect of it, you're going to feel a lot better, and you won't feel so guilty about the way that you're behaving. Yeah, I think Jordan Peter.

DJ
I love that, man. I think Jordan Peter Peterson also said something on this. It's like, you know, somebody asked him, like, oh, you know, being a man, that means you have to be violent. He's like, no, you have to be capable. Yeah, that's right.

That's all it is. Yeah. Right. And so, like, you not have to walk around ready to fucking, you know, kill everybody, but you have to be capable of it. Yeah, for sure.

Andy Frisella
Yeah, right. And I think that's ultimately what it comes down to, man. Like, that. That's a. That's a big deal.

DJ
And there's so much, like, I see these reels and shit on Instagram of, like, you know, bro, oh, my God. Get the fuck out of here. Like, dude, bro, let me get my man bun. I'm gonna fucking, you know, grub a beard. Like, come on, man.

Andy Frisella
Let's. Like, I saw this one last night. Like, I see this one all the time, and it just irritates the shit out of me. I'm gonna make moves in silence. Real bosses make moves in silence.

You realize that you're putting this on the Internet, right, which makes it not silent. Yeah, it's not silent at all. And by the way, if you were actually making moves, the results would tell the story. But you're not making any moves. You're just trying to tell people you're gonna make moves so you could feel good right now, when in reality, what you need to do is let your results do the talking.

Stop talking about all these moves you're not making, and stop embarrassing yourself saying, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna make these moves. You'll never see what's coming. I got. And never.

Nothing ever happens. You look like a fucking idiot, okay? So stop making yourself look like an idiot. Shut the fuck up and go build something. And then come back and say, all.

DJ
Right, I made some moves inside. God, dude, I get so tired of these young kids saying this dumb shit. You're fucking 20 years old. You don't know shit about life. You shouldn't be life coaching anybody.

Andy Frisella
Fucking 22 year old course fuckers.

I'm life coach. I'm gonna teach you how to make moves in silence. Fuck up. Fucking build something, dude. And what they don't understand is they're gonna ruin their reputation, and then they're not gonna be able to build anything real.

But what the fuck do I know, you know? Yep. I'm just a podcaster and a youtuber. I love it, man. Guys, Andy, our third and final question.

DJ
Question number three, Andy, in the last. Fucking 22 years old, dude will fucking make $7 million and fucking every week from my basement. Yeah. Fucking drive a Lamborghini, urus moves in silence. Yeah, do it all in silence.

Andy Frisella
Fuck out of here. So fucking sick of these fucking clowns, dude. I do it. All right, guys, any question number 380. Andy.

DJ
In the last four years, ive lost my dad, my sister, and cousin to suicide. Im no stranger to depression, and Im having struggles of my own. I feel like depression might get me unless I find the strength to get back on track. I have a wife, four amazing kids, and a high paying job, and I still find myself in dark mental struggles from time to time. My question is, do you still have times of mental darkness even though you have amazing things in your life?

And how do you get yourself back on track when you're not in a good place mentally? Man, this is a tough question to answer because everybody's so different in what they struggle and how they struggle and what their internal dialogue is. And while I believe that therapy has become very predatory, I believe in certain cases, there is a need to talk to someone and kind of work through what the root cause is with the understanding that you're not going to talk to them for fucking ever. Okay? If they start trying to get you there for the next seven years, they're just milking you for money.

Andy Frisella
There's a lot of predatory shit about therapy, all right? They try to talk, get you to talk about, and focus on your problems so hard that your problems actually just stay at the forefront of your mind, which makes you more miserable than what you would actually be. Okay, so there's that, too. Stop focusing so hard on how bad you feel and start focusing on what your mission is in life. What's your purpose?

What are you trying to build? What are you trying to create? Who are you trying to become? And when you take that focus off of all your problems and you start focusing on moving forward, this turns the noise down on how bad this seems to be. Okay.

When you look at a problem and you stare at a problem and you get obsessed with the problem, and this is what a lot of these people do with the self care, right? They're trying to eliminate all problems from their life. They call it optimization. They're trying to eliminate all anxiety from their life. Let me tell you something and save you years and years and years and years, because I went through this myself.

You cannot eliminate all the anxiety from your life. Anxiety serves a purpose in your life, and that purpose is to remind you when something needs to be addressed that you're not addressing. Okay? Now, can anxiety become overwhelming? Sure it can, but guess what cures anxiety?

Action towards the thing that. That you know needs to be done. So my question to you would be, what is it that you think needs to be done? What is it that you are putting off? What is it that you are afraid of?

What is it that you are thinking about doing that you're not doing? What do you know you should be doing that you're not doing? That's where you're going to find the answer of the direction that you need to go, to move away from this place of constant focus and constant dwelling on your depression so that you could turn the volume down on that. Okay? That's the first thing.

The second thing is, bro, there are medications for this, and I think that. I think that there is. I think that these things are way over prescribed. I think they're over prescribed by 95%, but there are situations where they're appropriate, and you need to talk to someone who's got a reasonable mind, who uses common sense to. To decide if that's an option for you.

And I don't like to recommend that. You guys all know how I feel about those things, but there's still a purpose for these things in some cases. Okay? But my opinion on this, with all that being said, is that we live in this culture right now of victimhood. We live in this culture where everywhere we turn and everywhere we look on the Internet, we see people talking about mental health, we see people talking about their depression, their anxiety, their frustration, their stress, their negativity, etcetera.

Bro, when you surround yourself with that, it's like swimming in a swimming pool full of negativity, all right? And when you look around and all you can see is people that are talking about how fucked up they are, your natural reaction is to start looking at yourself and say, well, fuck, what's fucked up about me? Right? Which is okay, if you look at it and you say, all right, I could improve here, I could get in a little better shape, I could treat people a little nicer, I could do more productive things, I could read a little more, I could do a better job at my career. That's okay.

But when you start analyzing yourself so deep and looking for problems. Guess what's gonna happen. You're gonna fucking find them. Because every single one of us has a past. Every single one of us has things that we regret.

Every single one of us has situations that have happened to us. Every single one of us has things that bother us from our past. And when we constantly dwell and we constantly focus and we get obsessed with those things and we start telling ourselves this story, well, I can't feel good because this happened to me, or I can't feel good because of that happened to me. Well, that happened to you, bro. How the fuck can you change that?

Guess what? You can't. So what you have to do is you have to come to terms with the reality of. Of what has happened. You have to give yourself some grace.

You have to forgive yourself. You have to let yourself understand. That thing that happened to me, while it wasn't ideal and it wasn't great and it was very painful, and I might have handled it wrong, I learned a lesson from it. And by the way, then after you learn your lesson, you move forward and don't do the same shit again. All right?

And if it's something that happened to you, what did you learn? If it was something out of your control, what did you learn? I got stabbed in the fucking face, bro. My whole face is fucked up, okay? I got one here, here, all the way across here and in my back, all right?

I could have lived my whole life saying, fuck, dude, I got stabbed in the fucking face. I can't do anything. Everybody looks at me weird, you know? To this day, people come up to me, they're like, fuck, dude, what happened to you? Right?

It's been 20 years, 21 years since it happened, all right? I've lived my most of my life with that. In my life. I would have. It would have been very easy for me to say that traumatic event happened to me, but I couldn't do anything.

Instead, I said, hey, that traumatic event happened to me. And because of that, people remember me. I'm memorable. And I'm going to leverage that into building the life that I want, and here the fuck I am. Okay?

So we have the power to change the perspective about the events that have happened to us and either use them for us or against us. There's a famous story about a man who was an alcoholic, and he had two sons. One son grew up to be an alcoholic. They asked him, why are you an alcoholic? And he said, well, that's what I learned.

Because my dad was an alcoholic. The other son never drank a drink in his whole life. And they said, how come you never drank? And he said, because my dad was an alcoholic, okay? And that's what we get to choose when hard things happen to us when they were out of our control.

Now, if it's you that did the hard thing, you have to learn a lesson. You have to forgive yourself and you have to move forward. How do you forgive yourself? It's very simple. Okay.

How would you talk to your friend if your best friend came to you and said, hey, dj, fuck, man. I fucking did this. I did that. I fucked this up. What would you say to your friend?

You would say something like this, bro, come on, dude, like, everybody fucks up. Yeah, right? Yeah, that's not good. You shouldn't do that again. But everybody has something like that, dude.

DJ
So, like, just get into the fucking world. Yeah, just don't do it again. And move forward, bro. And that, that helps you get rid of the shame, get rid of the guilt, and get rid of the weight that you're carrying, which causes all of this negative feeling, right? So, and then on top of it, dude, you know, you need to get yourself in the best mental shape possible, you know?

Andy Frisella
So, like, doing something like live hard or 75 hard is a great idea for you because it's going to get your mind right, it's going to get your body right. It's going to get you feeling great about yourself. It's going to build trust with yourself. It's going to build confidence, grit, fortitude, self belief, self esteem, the ability to endure. And when you can follow through on the things that you set out to do, when you say, hey, I'm going to do this, and then you can go do it without any hesitation, bro, you believe in yourself, you trust yourself, you start to love yourself and you say, damn, dude, I'm a bad motherfucker, okay?

And guess what happens to your confidence? It goes up. All right? So, yeah, dude, I do struggle with these things, but I've also learned how to manage them and how to move through them and how to manage them and move through them is by getting everything else in order and by focusing on what my mission is, what my purpose is, executing against that, and then making sure that I'm doing all the things that I know I need to do to move me forward. And by the way, if you're doing all those things and you're focused on your mission and you're focused on your health and you're focused on improving, and you're focused on moving forward and you're focused on moving your body and all these things, bro.

You don't got time to worry about your fucking past, okay? So, yeah, that's. That's what I would say, bro. I think it's a normal thing that people struggle with. I think it's way overblown and way over exaggerated because of the culture that we live in.

You know, in the fucking 1990s, bro, nobody was talking about this. No. Nobody came out and said and said, you know, oh, I need a mental health day. You know what I'm saying? Like, dude, it's way.

It's way overblown. And the reason that it's way overblown now has a lot to do with how society is. In the nineties, there was no Internet. So you know what people had to do? They had to go fucking work, okay?

Or they starved. Now we have a situation where people can stay home, they can scroll all day, they can get a check from the government. They could fuck. And, bro, that removes their entire mission, their entire purpose in life. And just like I was talking earlier, if you don't exercise or draw out the potential in yourself, you are going to feel depressed.

You are going to feel anxious because you know in your heart that you are leaving everything that you could potentially do and potentially become on the table, and that is going to bother you. That is going to fucking make you feel depressed. That is going to make you feel dark. So what is it you're trying to do? What is your mission?

What kind of shape are you in? How do you eat? How do you train? What are you reading? What's your environment like?

Are you spending all this time scrolling? Are you spending time moving forward? All right, so those are the things that you can do to manage it. And by the way, you know, I think it's, if we're getting down to brass tacks here, I think it's as simple like, and people are going to hate that I say this, but I think it's as simple as this. Look around at all these soft motherfuckers crying about their lives and realize that you don't want to be one of them.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? When I look around at all these people crying about their fucking sad story when honestly, they haven't had shit happen to them, right? You never hear the people who've had real shit complaining about their lives. You never had the burn victim complaining.

You never heard the physically deformed person complaining. You never heard a guy who lost an arm or a leg complaining. All you hear is a bunch of fucking pussies complaining about basic shit that's called life. And when I look around and I see all that shit, bro, it just makes me not want to be like him. So I'm like, fuck that.

I'm not doing that. I'm not a victim. I'm not a bitch. I'm not a pussy. I'm going to go fucking do this no matter how I feel.

And that fixes the problem for me. Yeah. Okay. That's real shit, man. I love it.

Yeah. I fucking love it. Well, guys. 80. That was three.

Yeah. Don't be a ho. Share the show went from sleeping on the flow now my jury box froze? Fuck up bow, fuck up stove counted millions in a cold, bad bitch booted swole got up on bank row, can't fold just a no head shot case close.

Fuck up bow, fuck up stove counted millions in a cold, bad bitch booted swole got up on bank row, can't fold just a no head shot case close.

688. Q&AF: Starting Your First Business, What "Alpha" Really Means & Dealing With Depression

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Episode Summary

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Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Starting a Business

3: Redefining Alpha

4: Managing Mental Health

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

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