Sixteen years ago, Andy Frisella, “The MFCEO,” and his business partner, Chris, started a company called Supplement Superstores with $12,000 they earned from striping the stripes on parking lots and now, along with their second company 1st Phorm, do over $100 million a year in business. He started this podcast basically for three reasons.
Andy’s main motivation here is to help people realize what it takes to A) be successful. B) stay self motivated and C) hopefully for people to give back to others as well.
In this episode, he talks about why making money matters.
In this conversation of The MFCEO Project podcast, Andy Frisella, “the MFCEO” of Supplement Superstores and 1st Phorm International, shares his manifesto on money. He talks about why making money matters. He also dispels myths about money and shares principles for earning more of it. Money is not the root of all evil, he explains, and pursuing wealth can be a noble goal. When it comes to business and entrepreneurship, however, how much money you make will be directly connected to how much value you bring to the world. Joining him in the studio is his co-host Vaughn Kohler.
That’s definitely something that people think. Most entrepreneurs out there think that “when I make X dollars, I'll be happy. When I make $10 million or $1 million or a $100,000 or whatever it is, when I purchase this material object, when I have this and that and this, they think that they're going to be happy.” The reality is "No." It will not make you happy. It will accelerate what your thoughts, and views and standards are of life. It's not going to create purpose for your life. That's a big misconception that people have.
Andy says that's another belief that people have. If you have all this money you're going to be miserable. Well, yes: If you define yourself by the amount of money you make and being successful and that's all you ever shoot for and then you get it, and that's all you're ever to find yourself by, you are going to be depressed because you're going to feel like there's nothing left to accomplish. It's not money that ends on making somebody happy; it's the ability to affect people with that money that brings value to your life.
According to Andy, when he used to hear the statement "Follow your passion and you'll be successful,” he used to think it was like hocus-pocus pie in the sky fluffy shit” that he honestly just hated. But “the reality is this: if you're not passionate about what you do, especially when you're not making any money, it's very hard to dedicate the time it is to be great in what you do. If you hate what you're doing, are you going to really put in that extra time at home and would be great at that?” Not at all.
It just really it comes down to creating value for people and solving problems. It's very, very simple. When Andy and Chris started Supplement Superstores and 1st Phorm sixteen years ago, they didn’t have money to spend on marketing and advertising. So they focused on simply helping people. Creating an amazing customer experience. And that is why they were successful.
According to Andy’s co-host Vaughn Kohler, a former pastor, "It’s the love of money--not money itself--that is the root of all evil," and the greater context of that is basically saying, "If you love money above anything else i.e. people or God, then yeah, that's evil," but it does not say that "Money is the root of evil." Andy agrees, saying, “That's a misquote. That is not true. It's not in the Bible.”
According to Andy, “The reason we're talking about money so much is because I want people to understand this: If you're a young man and you're a young woman and you want to be successful there's nothing fucking wrong with that. People are going to try to make you feel guilty. They're going to try to make you feel selfish. They're going to try to make you feel like you're doing something morally wrong and that is not true. It is totally okay to want to earn money and be financially successful.”