In The Loop With Andy Andrews

On this week’s episode, I answer two questions in response to our previous episode, which discussed utilizing attention deficit disorder as an asset.   If you like yourself, and so do others, then what’s the difference between ADD and a God-given personality with strengths and weaknesses? Not much. Learn to be positive with how you are. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. You may think Seabiscuit was the greatest horse of all time, but he would be horrible if you needed him to plow your field.     Try to catch your kid in the act of doing something right. I’ve had teachers and others say, “You need to be more like this,” or “You need to work on this.” If you wanted to pick out all the things your child doesn’t do like everyone else, you could talk to them about it all day long and destroy their belief in themselves in the process. Just because someone operates on a little different plane, it does not make them inferior. I think it’s very important to make a distinction with teenagers that being diffe

On this week’s episode, I answer a listener question on reigniting your passion when obligation gets in the way.   We’ve all been in a situation where we were doing something we thought we were passionate about, but the results are not what we think they ought to be. When I feel like I’m doing something out of obligation, I first ask myself, “Who am I obligated to?” If the passion is not there enough to carry the activity in and of itself, I think of the people relying on me for something and remind myself of their value. Are they valuable to our country? Their families? Would I be willing to honor my family, or God, by helping someone else I don’t even know? Because I’m not doing it for them specifically. I’m doing it because I’ve been given the ability to do it.   To not use your gift in ways that can help other people is dishonoring. I can talk to myself and give myself a great opportunity to look beyond myself, the income, and even the people I’m trying to help. It’s important to realize you’re working

On this week’s episode, I answer listener questions on how to encourage and teach protection to a church congregation, and the top three things that influenced my life.   People tend to think, “Trouble’s not going to happen here or happen with me.” Unfortunately, sometimes church people say, “I’m not worried, God is taking care of us.” Well, God gave you a brain, too. You might have heard the old story about the guy on his roof during a flood. A boat came to save him and he said, “Nope, I’m fine. God will save me.” Then he declined another boat and eventually a helicopter. After he drowned and went to Heaven, he asked God what happened. God said, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more do you want?” We have to use some common sense, here. Ask questions that will allow people to explore the truth.   The list of the top things that have influenced my life is very fluid. It’s often according to what’s going on in my life at any given time. My relationship with God, many books, and many important peo

On this week’s episode, I answer two listener questions on how to lead a more balanced life, and what to do if you don’t believe in yourself.   We feel more balanced in life when we’re learning and moving forward in what we’re becoming. I learned dramatically more and gained more wisdom when I started looking for something and reading with a highlighter in my hand. The primary reason for reading with a highlighter is to find something worth highlighting. When you’re actively looking for something, you read in a totally different manner.   A lot of people get into a situation where they don’t believe in themselves because they’re operating way outside of their purpose. If you don’t see any purpose in what you’re doing, write down a list of both the aggravations and the benefits of doing it. You need to look at where you are and what you’re doing. If you can’t figure out any benefits or can’t picture those benefits guiding you to your purpose, you need to shift gears and allow your passions to give you a clu

On this week’s episode, I answer a listener question on how to deal with resentment from a husband.   A struggling marriage overrides the good things that have happened. It affects the income, work and family relationships, and the household the kids are growing up in. You’ve heard of “fight or flight”—well, guys get into fights over feeling disrespected. When a man is disrespected, his first instinct is to want to hit something. So when dealing with his wife, flight is the only answer to him and he withdraws.   You may have heard of the M1 tank. It can literally be going 60 mph over crazy terrain and put a shell in somebody’s pocket 3 miles away. This thing has been created to withstand missile strikes, but if anyone gets inside it, you can destroy it with a hammer and screwdriver. Your husband is an M1 tank, and disrespect from the woman who has his heart is like swinging a hammer around inside him. If you want to make things better than they ever were, you’re going to need to ask for forgiveness. I’m su

On this week’s episode, learn why honoring your current job (even if you’re planning to leave) can create a wave of opportunity.   What you’re aiming at determines your destination. I would be careful in how you express what you’re doing in your own mind. As an entrepreneur and someone who wants to do more, there’s some stuff that we have to leave behind. Leaving behind a job so you can build your own business doesn’t mean you should denigrate the job.   It’s important to be very sensitive as you move from one level to another. When you leave your job, you want them to cry and give you a party because you’ve been the greatest employee they’ve ever had. If you’re not careful, talking down on a job will catch up with you in other parts of your life. Moving on with honor will pay dividends in the future.   Questions for Andy   Would you like to run something by Andy? Contact us and your question might be featured on the show! Phone: 1-800-726-ANDY Email: InTheLoop@AndyAndrews.com Facebook.com/AndyAndrews Tw

On this week’s episode, I talk about how you can help your children learn how to treat people with respect-—which will serve them well when they get into the business world.   If you want change to occur in your child or your world in general, two things have to happen: Answer for them the question of “What’s in it for me?” and prove what’s in it for them beyond a reasonable doubt. You want to connect with your child and have them explain what they want.   If your child has an entrepreneurial mindset, explain that they have an opportunity at a young age to learn to deal with people in a “practice game.” What happens if you start a business and are always getting angry at your employees? If you wait to learn how to deal with difficult people until you try to start a business, you’ll probably go out of business before you figure it out. If you go into the game already knowing how to play it, you’re going to get much better results.   Tune in to learn the personality type I think is best, and why I had to ma

On this week’s episode, I’m answering a listener question on how I stay focused at accomplishing tasks while dealing with Attention Deficit Disorder.   There are so many people who move slowly, and when they see somebody that’s energetic, they think something is wrong with them. It’s crazy how many famous people, inventors, and leaders have ADD. I think ADD is a benefit for entertainers or speakers because it makes you act faster. Adults with ADD have generally learned how to deal with it and learned its benefits. But when it comes to children, I would be very careful with anyone saying something is “wrong” with them.   I have to make a choice just like everyone else does, but I make it from a different side. A lot of people are prone to do nothing. They have to discipline themselves to turn the TV off and go write, make phone calls, or work on something that will make their life better. Everyone struggles with making themselves do what they want to do right off the bat. A benefit of ADD is that, because y

On this week’s episode, I’m answering a listener question on the value I found from reading the same book, three times a day, for 10 months.   Somebody got Robert Smith started on the book The Greatest Salesman in the World in high school or early college. The story is about a wealthy person and a young boy who heard he was the greatest salesman in the world. The boy went to the man and asked how he could be like him. The man gave him 10 scrolls and instructs him to read each scroll three times a day for a month, then move on to the next one. Robert did the 10 months, and then did it again. He told me how huge of a difference it made, and said he would do the ten months again with me.   If you’ve read The Traveler’s Gift, then you know the inspiration for the form of that book. Jones was the old man that got me reading the biographies and that’s how I found those Seven Decisions. When I presented them in story form using the David Ponder character, I wrote about the same kind of process where he was instru

On this week’s episode, I’m answering a listener question on how to ask exceptional questions to facilitate great conversations.   If you can figure out how other people make subconscious choices, you will stand out. You are competing. I don’t care if you have an hourly job—you’re an entrepreneur. If you don’t think you’re an entrepreneur, then you’re closer to getting fired than you should be. The competition that really makes a difference is not the obvious kind that’s sitting right in front of you.   Most people are only concerned with how to tell people something, but communication is a two-way street. Ask questions that really pertain to the person you’re talking to. Find a way to edify and encourage. Somebody who is a great communicator and question-asker is more valuable.   Chart your path. Write down three or four questions whose answers you likely know already and prepare a response that will immediately connect the answers with somebody you know. For instance, ask someone where they’re from and

On this week’s episode, I answer a listener’s question on how to determine when, how, and how often to use your “best story.”   We all hear, “Your worst times can become your best times.” Your worst times really can write the ticket for the rest of your life. My worst time is something I never would have chosen in a million years, and yet it was the time that the rest of my life—and my best story—was really built upon. Picking your best story has a lot to do with relatability, which is key for me when telling my story of living under a pier. I’m trying to use my story to help people understand that even though it might look like the world is ending for them, it’s not true.   Your best story may not come about because of anything you’ve ever chosen or done. However, it may be the doorway to a mine you can dig things out of that are relatable and valuable to other people. So many of the topics I’ve talked about in my books and speeches have come from a single event in my life. Lessons of persistence, humilit

On this week’s episode, I’m addressing a listener question on how you can become impervious to insult and keep the attention of your audience.   I realized by watching other comedians that some would have more problems with hecklers than others. Generally, hecklers keyed in on the performers who had a more arrogant attitude or a pushy demeanor. I’m not saying they were that way, but that was the perception of the audience. They were also more likely to put out a vibe where people wanted to challenge them. I decided that I wanted to be friends with the audience.   There are things in your profession that you will always have to deal with. The same rules of comedy apply to great teaching, for instance. Keep a list of things that could occur during your presentation and decide in advance what you’d say if they happened. Take a good, close look at how you present. What do you do physically? Moving unexpectedly to a different area of the room will grab listeners’ attention.   Tune in to hear Andy’s secret for

On this week’s episode, I’m finishing the discussion of my career pivots and how I transitioned out of comedy into what I do today.   I was on a bus with Kenny Rogers and we were talking about how we had grown up and sharing times in our lives. At some point I told him about the Seven Decisions, living under the pier, and Jones. He said, “You ought to start talking about that on stage,” and I’m like, “Where on stage? It’s not funny.” He told me I wasn’t a joke teller but a talker and a storyteller. I starting throwing it in and transitioning back into comedy, but people were telling me that the serious part was their favorite part.   I realized more people asked me to speak on serious topics than were asking for the comedy. This odd thing developed where I was funny, but it had a point. I realized that God has used all these crazy things in my life to make me into a very different kind of speaker. As I transitioned into speaking, I put together the Storms of Perfection books. Then The Traveler’s Gift came

On this week’s episode, I’m continuing to talk about the events that have shaped my career and how I learned to be willing and ready to pivot.   I wasn’t clear on my direction when I started—I had no clue this was in the cards for me. I was willing to endure some things I thought were useless or miserable and look for what I could learn from them. There are things that happened to me 40 years ago that I can now use as stories to help other people.   I never thought that living under the pier would be anything good. I was just trying to endure and get out of there. Normally, people don’t want to be under pressure. But I can show you evidence over and over that peoples’ best work happens under pressure. The proper perspective trumps almost everything.   I was able to tour with Joan Rivers for two years. Opening acts normally don’t get paid much anywhere—but the huge benefit is the exposure. I learned how to treat an opening act from Joan. Joan’s manager also managed Cher. So I got the opportunity to work w

On this week’s episode, I’m talking about how I got started in comedy and some of the events that have shaped my career in the first of a three-part series.   Tune in to hear about: My first public performance in a Pizza Hut Opening for Muse as my first paid performance, and why they asked me not to come back How working on a cruise ship caused me to pivot my career, but taught me to perform at my best no matter what my job was   Questions for Andy Would you like to run something by Andy? Contact us and your question might be featured on the show! Phone: 1-800-726-ANDY Email: InTheLoop@AndyAndrews.com Facebook.com/AndyAndrews Twitter.com/AndyAndrews

On this week’s episode, I’m discussing why everyone should think of themselves as an entrepreneur.   We tend to live our lives and make our decisions on the surface, where we can see what everybody is doing. Knowing “why” will get you to what I call “the bottom of the pool.” People only ask why when things go wrong. Nobody ever asks why when something is working. You can live your life as it is, accepting the slop on your plate, or you can eat that slop on your plate thinking in couple weeks you’ll be eating chicken, a month from now eating steak, and a year from now nothing but lobster.   People who are entrepreneurs seem to have more hope for a life they can control. They are creating a situation and value. They have a longer lasting, more controllable level of hope than people who think of themselves as, “I have a job.” I don’t believe we’ve been created with some of us having the lucky lottery ticket in life that gives us a better imagination or allows us to be able to get up earlier. People can do wh

 On this week’s episode, I’m discussing why we are all in sales—even if you don’t consider yourself to be in a traditional sales position.   I am absolutely convinced that anybody who would like to make a living outside of a regular job structure, can. If they can manage to think of themselves as an entrepreneur, their lives will improve dramatically. People can be much more effective in every part of their lives by thinking and learning those entrepreneurial principles and thought processes, because they are very different from the way normal people think.   We are all in sales. We walk around every day wanting to sway somebody to our way of thinking. If you’re a mom or dad, you’re not only in a sales position but in an advisory position for other sales people. The essence of leadership is influence, and the essence of influence is agreement. The principles of entrepreneurship are controllable in a way that your job never will be; they supersede whether you’ll have your own business and carry over into a

On this week’s episode, I’m talking about the importance of having a child start their own business and how it opens them up to communication as a teenager.   I had a conversation the other day with Joe Bullard and his son Ty who run an auto dealership “empire.” Joe took over his dad’s Oldsmobile dealership, and now Ty has recently taken the reins. I asked Ty what the smartest thing his dad ever did was, and he said it was taking a step back from City Council and other things so that he could spend time with his son. It occurred to Joe as he looked long-term that the best thing he could do to continue to expand the business for generations was to invest time in the person who would likely take it over.   I have had a lot of parents of teenagers say, “My teen won’t talk to me,” and the typical response is, “Well, that’s just a teenager.” One of the huge benefits of prompting Austin to have his own business was we put him in a position that he had to talk to us. Since age 12, he knew we weren’t buying him a

On this week’s episode, I talk about the importance of having a coach and how to increase your life results.   I think cool people have an innate desire to get better. They want to learn more, increase their effectiveness, be worth more. They’re ambitious and want to make more money for their families so there’s less stress and more that they can give. They want to have influence so they can make their community better.   For a long time, people have wanted me to coach them personally. I had to come to an understanding in myself that I know some things and have the ability to convey them in a way that could help people increase their life results. I want you to be fired up when we get through talking, but I don’t want you to be fired up by some emotional thing that I put on you. I want it to be real. The only reason you would be fired up for real is if you learned something that made a ton of sense to you.   Tune in to hear about a demonstration I do on stage with audience members that proves how coaching

On this week’s episode, I finish up last week’s discussion on how to decide who to vote for in this year’s election.   When we vote, we generally vote based on two things: Perceived integrity. Economics   Integrity doesn’t really mean anything. Integrity means “capable.” What we should vote on is character.   People say, “I want a moral person,” but morality can be defined as simply not doing anything wrong. You can lie in bed all day and be moral. Your kid can come home from school and say, “Everyone was picking on John today, but I didn’t do it.” It takes character to step up and say to those bullies, “You are not going to do this anymore.”   You can walk through a forest and tell what kind of trees are above you without having to look up. The leaves on the ground can tell you the kind of tree, if it’s healthy, and what time of the year it is. People drop leaves, too.   Tune in to hear the two ways your money can be taken from you, and why “third-party purchases” are less invested in quality and p