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 different is not a bad thing—in fact, it is desirable.   Tune in to hear about my trip with Adam to the doctor, and how Henry Ford declared his competence in court.   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 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 for something bigger and longer-term.   Tune in to hear the bottom-line answer for hanging in there when the passion seems to be gone.   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 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 people have been the sandpaper that has shaped my life.   Tune in to this week’s episode to hear about all the famous folks Andy has consulted with in just the last three weeks, including the second man to set foot on the moon!   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 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 clue.   Stop just listening to yourself and start actively talking to yourself. If you can’t remember the last time you wholeheartedly believed in yourself, you’ve begun to see yourself in the light the world would have you see yourself—average, ordinary, just one of the masses. Really talk to yourself and you’ll be listening to what you are purposefully saying.   Tune in to be reminded of a simple gesture rarely used these days that will show friends and family just how important they are to you and so many other people.   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 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 sure there are also things he needs to ask forgiveness for, but you can only control your own actions.   Tune in to learn what Andy believes is by far the best book on marriage relationships that’s ever been written—one he urges every married couple, struggling or not, to read.   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, 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 Twitter.com/AndyAndrews

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 make a change early in my career to keep people from feeling uncomfortable.   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 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 you’re thinking in a bunch of different directions, you connect dots and make sense of some things that will help other people.   Tune in this week to hear an amazing example of Andy’s son Adam connecting the dots to create a logical story of how “noodling” got started.   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 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 instructed to read these things.   I have gone through that book and done the 10 months four times. A lot of people ask, “Why do you have to do it again?” If you’ve read something multiple times, at some point you go, “Wow! Okay. I understand that now.” I heard someone say the reason you read a book again is because if you put a couple years in between readings, you are a different person. You’re reading and understanding it from a different perspective and you can gain more. Obviously this is over the top, but it’s only a couple pages that you’re reading. It really shaped me.   Tune in to hear Andy reading the fifth scroll from The Greatest Salesman in the World.   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 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 have something to say about the answer. Read about the different states and find out what the most visited places are, what the big football teams are, the biggest problems, myths, etc. It’s not faking it if you’re learning and getting better.   Tune in to hear a surprise interruption from one of the young Andrews boys, which offers up a good example of how they speak to their father. 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 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, humility, seeking wisdom, how to act, how to take action, entrepreneurship, and so much more came from the mine that is my best story.   Tune in to hear how an old boss’s mistake almost got me thrown in jail—and how that mistake did and did not affect both our lives for the next quarter-century.   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 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 handling a situation where someone is nodding off or focusing on something else, and find out how he gets their attention and keeps them from being a distraction.   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 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 along and I started writing the story that was born from living under the pier, and that developed into being more of an author. The writing forced me to think. To sit there and think, read through something, take notes, and ponder is not too hard, but people think it is and they choose not to do it.   Tune in to hear about the process of “getting to the bottom of the pool” and how that’s forcing me to learn new ways of explaining the topics in the next book I’m writing.   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 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 with her as well.    Tune in to hear about: My experience touring with Joan and the extreme generosity she showed me. The night Howard Stern watched me perform.   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 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