A short team-facing podcast (Sept 29, 2020) in which Mike Andes, founder/leader, tells his team they must not become complacent despite early traction with new franchisees. Core messages: the company aims to change the industry (not merely reach a numeric franchise goal), team members should be 'deaf' to both excessive criticism and praise, avoid comparing themselves to others, maintain strong work ethic, and stay focused on long-term goals. Austin echoes this with the metaphor: "don't compare your planting season to someone else's harvest season."
Chapters
A couple things I wanted to go over real quick and it kind of has to do with the fact that, like, we're getting a lot of franchisees, we're starting to get some traction right now. I want everyone to remember this, and this is that we are not anywhere close to where we want to be at. And we're not getting content at 25 franchisees. We're not even starting. And like, especially if you've been here for a while and you know, like, hey, this was always the goal and now we're a year into this and, like, we're getting somewhere, we're not anywhere close. The goal is to change the industry, it's not to get 25 franchisees. And so the reason I say it is because especially if you come to conference, especially if you're around here, you're like, hey, we're winning. I'm very aware that we're winning the game right now. And what we've been working on for a long time is starting to come to fruition.
And I know that there's a certain part like, hey, we gotta step back and realize we're doing a great job. And we are. And I appreciate that. And I probably won't say that enough to all of us who work so hard, but on the flip side, we are nowhere close to where we wanna be at. And so when we go to conference and things, you're gonna get a lot of praise. You're gonna feel like, oh, you guys are doing so fine. But, like, if we're gonna be. If we're gonna be deaf to all of the criticisms which we've played with for the past five years of having this massive goal and people like, oh, it's never possible. You'll never get landscapers to change. Whatever, whatever. And now we're starting to get some traction. If we're gonna be deaf to all the criticism, we have to be deaf to all the praise, alright? And so, like, if you come to the conference and you see, especially between sessions, you'll see guys come up to me and they're like, just heaping on the praise. And you'll notice I'm quiet and I say thank you and stuff like that. But, like, in this is, we're not done, we're not done. You gotta keep telling yourself that. Cause otherwise you'll just be like, oh, yeah, we're doing good. Like, time for a victory lap. Like, this is great, we've won the game and we're not even close. And this is like, why college athletes, they do so Good. They get the Heisman Trophy or whatever and then they go to the pro sports and they just fall flat in their face is because they've been told they're great their whole career, right? Oh, you guys, you're so talented. You're so amazing. They get to the college and they can't put in the work, they can't put in the extra effort. Austin's laughing.
Yeah, Baker Mayfield.
And then who is it? Johnny Manziel? Like, those guys just flop. And it's because they are so.
But a lot of it is like, they're so talented, they're told their whole life that they're amazing. And then it comes to like the professional, like, they don't know how to like, work ethic, they don't know how to push themselves. And we don't want to get there. And so I just encourage you, whether it be in business or here or whatever, you want to be deaf to the criticisms and the praises of others and know why you're doing something and just stick to it and realize where you're at in the process of getting there. Right? Like early in the process, you're gonna have a lot of resistance. You're gonna have people saying you can't do it. They're gonna say, oh, you're only gonna be ever be able to make dollars per hour. You're never gonna be own your own business, you're never gonna be able to be anything great. And your parents, your grandparents, you've never had an education, they're gonna throw all that junk at you and then you're gonna flip at some point in your life and you're gonna have to switch to where now you tune out all the praise. Alright? And so I've dealt with the five past years of the criticism and now we're switching to the praise part. But the.
And like not comparing ourselves to other people. Like when we drive down the street, we're not comparing ourselves to any of these other companies. Like as an employee, as a business owner. Like, nothing. Like, if you see other guys, like slacking off, we're not comparing ourselves to them. Like, we're not even trying. We're not trying to. Their goals are not ours. Like, why would we compare? Like, oh, we're so much better. It's like, who cares? I don't compare myself, like, in terms of money or like, how many employees or trucks or anything like that know why we're doing what we're doing and we're striving towards that and we're just deaf to Everyone else's opinions about that. So I just encourage you, like, don't. Don't compare yourself to anyone else. If you're like, oh, I'm a great worker here. Okay, well, we have a small sample set here. Go be great. Forget about this group of people or me. Supersede what I've done. Give to other people, your family. You can do better than that. Stop comparing yourself. It limits what you can do in life. I think it's really, really damaging to compare yourself up or down the ladder. In other words, when I say down the ladder, I mean, oh, look at me, I'm so great, all those people down there. But it's also very toxic to look up the ladder and compare your with all these great people and be like, oh, I'll never be that. Like, just lock into what you're doing in life and know why you're doing it. Show up every single day to kick butt. Like, stop trying to think about what people above you are doing. Like, oh, they're so amazing. Like, I'll never be able to attain that. Or looking down like, oh, I'm so much better than all these people. Like, you're just always going to go towards the average. Because if you look at the great and you're like, oh, they're so. I can't. You're gonna come down below them. If you're looking down, you're like, oh, I'm so much better. It'll prevent you from reaching your full potential. So, like, that was my sermon for the. That I thought of for the weekend while I was running. Just don't compare it. Like, whether it be here in your personal life, whatever. Don't compare yourself to other people. And it's like, get deaf to their opinions. And then you'll wake up one day like, oh, I accomplished something. And, like, I've got to where I want to go, but you got to be patient, you know, and we're not anywhere close to where we want to be. So that's my $0.02 today. Anything anyone want to add to that?
I saw a quote that's like, it says along those lines, it says, like, don't compare your planting season to someone else's harvest season. So, like, you can't judge. Look at someone else's results they're getting right now and not realize where you are at, your process of the grind. And then be like, man, they're doing so much better. But you don't see when they're in that exact same phase as you before. And so you just can't compare. Yeah, like Mike was saying.
Cool. I noticed, Josh, you were so diligent about your mask, and now you don't have a mask on.
Okay, thanks, everyone. Have a great day. Appreciate it.
