Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Brains vs Brawns with Tony Kassei & Steve Kuclo Ep 82

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Brains vs Brawns Ep 82Have you ever wondered what the difference between brains and brawn is? In this podcast we explore the lives of two highly successful men who prove that brains AND brawns can take you far in life. You'll discover that these "opposite" personalities have more in common than you think - they're not so different after all, its about the commitment and drive.💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below!On his podcast, he discusses all sorts of topics, including what made him successful and some of his core tenants for living life and managing successful businesses.➡️ He is often joined by Chris Connel and Colt Amidan who are dear friends and successful business people in their own right.The Power Move podcast stands to be one of the top sources of knowledge and insights, specifically into real estate and entrepreneurship out there! Not to mention tons of coverage of topical events and insights into our non-commercial lives as well…➡️ Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. If that sounds interesting to you, make sure to subscribe to my channel and don't forget to hit the bell icon to never miss a Podcast! 🔔💯 About John Gafford:After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space. ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production.Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual salesClear Title, a 7 figure full service title and escrow company.➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers.The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages.✅ Follow The Power Move with John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/thejohnmgaffordFacebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/gafford2/🎧 Stream The Power Move Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=70ad5ca4f51e4acc Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-power-move-with-john-gafford/id1582927283☑️ Featuring:Chris Connel - Esquire - https://www.connelllaw.com Colt Amidan - Director of Commercial Real Estate at Simply Vegas - https://www.amidangroup.com#ThePowerMoveWithJohnGafford

from the art of the deal to keeping it real live from the simply vegas studios it's the power move with john gafford back again for another episode of this week's power move today joining the studio man i got some ballers up here today i'm not gonna lie i got some ballers no colts no. I'm not going to lie. I got some ballers. No Colts, no Chris, but, you know, can't always, every day can't be Halloween today. You just got me. And yeah, but I brought in some friends, man, to spread some knowledge, spread some joy, spread some wisdom to the people out there. So two special guests today in the hot seat.

First of all, I want to introduce one of my friends, one of the guys I met at Mastermind that I love, and he's just such a great dude. And he's the guy that if you want to invest in something, if you're like, hey, let me take a look at something, this is the cat that you kind of run it by. And he looks at it in two seconds and goes, that was bullshit. Don't do this. And that's Mr. Tony Kasai, who runs his mastermind. We'll talk about that, which is your deal. So, Tony, welcome, man. Welcome. Thanks, man.

Thank you for having us here in Vegas, man. This is a cool little spot. It's a very cool little spot. Sorry, we had an additional camera in front of a camera, which was not good, so I had to do that. Yeah, thanks for having me on. And you brought with us a new friend of mine that I met yesterday at a dinner last night. You know, once a friend, always a friend.

You go to dinner, we're good. And that's Mr. Steve Kuklo, who is a five-time IFB bodybuilding champion. Yes, sir. Which means you eat good and you pick up heavy stuff. Pretty much. That's how it works. But again, man, you know, that's one of those things

where it's the lessons you learn through all of those things, through both of those. And you guys both have some stories of some struggle and coming through some adversity and things. And I think that, you know, obviously there's lessons and there's clues that get left behind that we like to help the people out as much as we can. So I'm going to start. We're going to do a double up today. We're double up. And just for you guys out there, a little secret behind the scenes. We're just pinched for time. was supposed to be two uh two podcasts but we're doing a two for

today is how it works both of these guys totally worthy of their own segments in their own well but uh but we're doing the two for today for for time's purposes in a non-sexual way it's early so you know we know. And we're in Vegas. Who knows what's going to happen? Who knows what's going to happen? But, Tony, let's start with you, dude, because I know that you've got a killer story, man. And you had some serious adversity. Things were good, then things were bad, and then things are good again.

So, walk me through, man, your, you know, we don't have to go back to kindergarten. Let's start where, you know, it picks up in the business world. When did you first get started in business? What was your first question I ask everybody? What was your first hustle, man? This can't be a good answer. Dude, I loved selling that lemonade stand. My first dream was that little Fisher Price machine

that you put in a little plastic coin. I just loved money as a kid. All the movies about Wall Street, from the very first Wall Street movies, just anything about money excited me. We immigrated to this country moved to dallas there actually was back then it was a whole car from iran yeah you came from iran yeah back when before like it just back then it was a cool country and now you know lunatics have taken over but you know uh but yeah man growing up you know watching your parents kind of put every last diamond to their children and sacrifice a lot

so you really appreciated that moved to cal socialist republic of california when i was 15 uh and i still live in california but that first hustle as a kid was the lemonade stand the lemonade stand that was the first one what about you steve what was the first hustle what was it cutting grass and killing bugs killing bugs yeah my football coach in high school had a pest control company and uh he brought me on and i i kind of mentored under him worked under him for many years so he kind of gave me that entrepreneur spirit i could contribute a lot to him did you did you take it to like the huckleberry finn thing where you started recruiting your friends to like hey dude i'll pay you three

bucks an hour to cut this grass when you're making six did you pull that off no no no scale no i know didn't have that i didn't have tony in my side i didn't have the power move to listen to yeah tony would have taken one tony would have taken one look at that business plan and be like no this is bullshit you want to do this you know killing bugs is for for no money but uh but tony man so so you started in finance relatively young right yeah so we uh if you ever seen the movie pursuit of happiness with will smith very accurate depiction of my life and the movie was actually one of those movies that was really dead on. He gets started at Dean Witter, which was Morgan Stanley.

He gets his test. He goes to the World Trade Center. I was in the building about a week before the planes came in, and I was supposed to move there. I got my licenses. I was pumped. I was the youngest kid at Morgan at 21. And I was a superstar.

I was the youngest one there and met my future business partner there. And we stayed partners for about 15, 20 years and kind of went to LPL, Citigroup, went to mall and then started my own firm. Wow. All right, cool. So how old were you when you started your own firm? How old were you then? I started Morgan at 21, started my own firm probably about 31. So 31. So 10 years. So you did 10 years into the big thing and then you went you're on your own way yep so things were going pretty good for you at 31 yes doing pretty well i went through the recession i made you know just like everybody else i bought a restaurant thought it'd be great to own a bar it wasn't why why do people think restaurants are fun like i

spent i spent a solid 15 years in the restaurant business man i promise you there's nothing there's nothing well here's the deal nothing glamorous about it well here's the problem this is what this is what i found if you own a restaurant a bar and i own some cool stuff the cooler it is the less money you make it's kind of how it works if it's just you know the ones that are just like the rundown kind of place with the board that says hamburger cheese they're making money they're printing money but fancier it is hard to make money no way to enter next door right yeah because you either got to be although we'll say one of the smartest things I ever saw anybody do, and this is a funny story real quick. I'll digress from our conversation. So a buddy of mine named

Jeff Hanson in Tallahassee, Florida, a million years ago, he was one of the bar owners there. I owned a bar there. And Jeff, who wound up later in life becoming the manager for Creed, which was funny, but Jeff had the best hustle ever. So we had two locations, right? And all the Florida State College kids would go home for like the summer, right? And then Jeff would like move all of his crap from one location to the other one. And then they would come home, they would come back for fall and do a brand new bar. Just you open it up, brand new bar. And the kids would go, oh my God, there's a new club. And it was just the same light and sound, everything else, paint the walls a little different and just be the new bar. And then right towards the end of the semester,

it'd be like, ah, start leaking it out. Things aren't going so well. We're going to close down. And then right before the semester was over, he'd be like, it's the last three nights ever of Metropolis or whatever. And they would be packed for like the three nights before they went home. They would go home for Christmas. He'd move all his shit to the other building.

They'd come back for spring, brand new bar. So he was always, brand new bar. So he was always either brand new or about to go out of business. And he just was packed and just bounced back and forth between these two spots for years. It was genius. Like those furniture liquidation places that are always going out of business. The day they open, they're going out of business. Yeah, the day they open, going out of business is how it is.

So you took off on your own firm, and that's doing well at 31. That's going well. So everything was going great. My business partner at the time, he had a, right after the recession hit and in Southern California, you know, you were getting these $700,000 houses being foreclosed for one 31 50. So he had this vision to start buying them using first trustees, using some of our old clients, brought them self-directed IRAs. He resigned his licenses. I still had a passion for the business. Kind of went our separate ways. Fast forward a few years later,

dude's got like $30, $40 million worth of real estate. And I'm like, shit, I should have been doing that because I was breaking 300, 400 grand. Back then, I didn't really know how to market. You couldn't use social media. And I didn't have wealthy family or network to tap into. So I was really just grinding to make it into that industry. And the average financial advisor is only making 300 to tap into. So I was really just grinding to make it into that industry. And the average financial advisor

is only making three to 400 grand. I mean, to get to the upper echelon, you really got to put some time in. So long story longer, one day one of our employees comes to us. And during that time period, I'd refer him business, he'd refer me. And I started kind of my mom, you know, half her life savings.

She's like, I'm like, well, fuck, invest it with Francisco. I call him fuck face, but invest it with fuck face. Can we curse you? Sorry. Not as God given, not God given name. That wasn't on the, that wasn't on the actual. Funny story on that, the grand lady. So this grandma who lost buddy with them,

she was 86 years old. She goes, Tony, I've never cursed in my life, but I refer to him as fuck face. She's on the stand and refers to him as fuck face. Yeah, when you get an old lady, Kurt Carson, you're a winner. That's a challenge. So refers to him as fuck. Yeah, when you get an old lady, Kurt Carson, that's a problem. You're a real winner. That's a challenge.

So yeah, man, so we started doing some business together and I thought I had about five, six million dollars worth of real estate with them because we'd be buying shit together. Families referred to him, referred to him about five, six million bucks worth of clients' assets. And one day one of our employees comes to us and says,

hey, comes to me and says, I need to talk to you. And usually when an employee says that, they want to borrow money. In this case, he starts crying, and he says, it's a Ponzi scheme. I'm like, how is that possible? I've seen the tenants. He's like, yeah, but 10 people think they own the same house. So, yeah, if you've ever had those moments where you just want to throw up, I literally threw up.

I just went to the bathroom. So, okay, so you get that piece of news. And, you know, I mean, that's, that's a level 10 issue I would say, but I think in business we all get problems. How do you process, how do you process that information and get to a point where you can make a logical, decent decision-based path forward? Like, I like, what is that? Like, do you take it? Do you, did you, did you wallow in it for like a day or two? Did you fucking booze yourself to pieces? I mean, like, what was the process of getting to where you can make a logical

decision? No, I wish I could say that it was that quick, man, that it was one or two days. But when you came from nothing and then you thought you had it, and when you grow up poor, you don't know you're poor. Everybody's playing stickball on the street, you know, but when you have money and then you look back, you're like, oh shit, we were poor. But then when you lose everything, then you're like, oh shit, I don't want to be poor. But I do remember like, you know, when it happened, I just knew if this is true,

I need to find the tallest building and just jump off because it's not just me. It not losing your own money is one thing but when you have to look into people's eyes and to know that they're just you have to deliver this news you lose money to bad investment like we've all done it's a bad investment well it's just fraud and pure greed and evil that shit really hurts my soul you know and so for to know i knew that if that was true it wasn't just my clients because my clients maybe lost 10 20 with them he took every penny from some of his victims like every penny and this shit was devastating dude so no man there was about three four years really dark times uh i was we were talking about this last night with a good friend of ours tommy vex who's a more of a sober coach

now and and he was you know he confided in me a lot kind of just gave me some things that really made me realize like the the trajectory that'd went through. But now I'm at for three or four years, I did everything I could to hurt myself physically. But I always have a army of guardian angels that I owe because I would put myself in a car, drive 130 miles an hour, blasted, hoping that I would either die or get pulled over and shame on me that I was putting other people in jeopardy. Nothing ever happened. So, you know, somebody out there was looking out for me.

And now that's kind of the mission to share. Let me ask this. And you don't have to get too deep if you don't want to. But did you find some redemption in making some people whole out of that? In two ways. Because you and I have had conversations about the importance of even if you're the mouthpiece it's your responsibility to make people whole and we we both taken some pretty decent hits from that so there's certain clients that i knew you know they're 89 years old this 500 a month that he promised him was everything that yeah so there's

to this day you know there's some times that i would drive myself all the way down to make those payments for me even though i didn't have, that was not required to nobody sued me. None of that stuff happened to me, but I think the path forward for me, my, my mom one day said, you know, how do you get out of bed every day? Knowing you just lost everything plus 5 million of your own. And I said, maybe God did this to me today. So one day it saves me $50 million in a bigger lesson. Now, while that hasn't manifested in stuff and those big of a numbers,

it is in this movement between inside investor club, partnering up with, with people like Steve spreading a message of just, man, these you and I see right now on Facebook, Facebook automation, Spotify automation, all this bullshit that you just look at.

I'm like, dude, these are scams and people are handing over billions of dollars to these assholes. So that's my, sometimes I get called, I call out big people and I'm like, dude, that's bullshit what these guys are doing. Well, I love that.

We talked to last night about, we won't name names, but you and I were at an event where quote unquote, you know, real estate guru, which is, you know, that's my house. That's my wheelhouse. You take that shit personally. I take it personally.

And you know, I don't have a tv show yet but you know it's one of those things where i'm like yeah and this guy might not actually know what the fuck he's talking about and you called him out you've literally stood up in the stage and called him we're not naming names no names the shows on tv that you see like yeah you know flipping shit yeah but those guys don't know shit about real estate yeah and they're educating people you called this dude out from the stage and he didn't know what his own offering was and it was uh it was pretty funny man it was you know i i find personally and this is always my first red flag you said something a minute ago that that you hear a lot especially like in real estate

with some of the creative stuff when it's like well it'd be better if you didn't have a license. It's like, when I hear that, that's a little bit of a red flag that jumps up and you're like, wait, I kept my security license. My other guy let it go. So he,

it's like, that's like, that's if anybody ever says to you in a business deal, like, don't worry, I gave up my license. So it's fine. That's probably a problem.

Would you agree with that? Did you give it up or was it taken? No, no, no, exactly. Exactly. that did you give it up or was it taken no no yeah exactly exactly did you voluntarily dig it up or was it just marked you know deleted one yeah i will be honest with you guys though man i uh i i want i had the hardest licenses to get the 724 66 like i could license you to be a financial advisor on anybody and uh another thing and this is another show another segment we can digress but all these organizations the three-letter acronyms sec finra they're not there to protect the investors this is

all some bullshit pyramid scheme of hierarchy of you know the five top firms merrill morgan goldman it's just one big financial mafia as i called. All the things that I'm talking about right now, I'd be banned or I'd get fired, I'd get censured. So I literally told FINRA to fuck off in a meeting. And I said, you can have my licenses because I want to be able to share this message. Because otherwise I'd write a book and it would come back censored from the firm. Like, dude, it's like Susie Orman wrote the book.

It's not even me, you know? And you couldn't talk about those things that I wanted to talk about. Yeah. So, you know, obviously couldn't you couldn't talk about those things that i wanted to talk about yeah so you know obviously being in that place man you know part of a big part of the messaging here is trying to help people escape the drift so when you've lost something you've done that i mean i know we talked about you talking to tony vexton and that and him kind of getting back in the path what are you know we talked a lot about depression on the show as well as about how

you get out of those funk moods and those, those, those periods of time when you're in a funk, it's like, what did you start to grab onto to start building momentum to putting this back together? You know, as, as cheesy as it sounds, this whole concept, especially when now people say, what do you invest in? If I have $10,000, what do I, I'm sure people have $50,000, what should I buy? Like, if that's all you got, invest in yourself. And it sounds weird to say, but personal development, putting myself in the right rooms, proximity is power. These are all little buzzwords we hear in our industry, but man, it was true. And one of my first mentors, Ryan Steumann, who we both know, he said something to me that really resonated. When he first heard

my story, and I didn't know who the hell he was, God put me in a moment that I ended up on a private jet in Cabo with the last few thousand dollars in my pocket. You stayed at Casa Cabo? Yes, in Pedregal. I love that house. It was a beautiful house. I've stayed in that house twice.

I love that house. Dude, imagine. I've just lost everything. These people think I'm ballers. The requirement was to be a millionaire. Somehow I end up, and that's a whole other story of how I end up on the trip i'm on the trip i'm there with steve weatherford super bowl chair i meet him for the first time on the plane i got steven who had no idea who he was so i'm starting to realize like you know these people are interested in my story

i still had lessons to teach but he said something to me he says man after he listens to it and in steven's way he's like oh i'm a double felon divorced three times if i can i can't get a fucking job at mcdonald's what's your excuse and i was like fair enough like yeah i couldn't i couldn't debate that so i think i think that the path out of uh depression path out of like what do i do now what's my next chapter uh we talked about this on a podcast with Ulysses today. Waylon said something to me on one of those Cabo trips too. And he says, man, I just turned the page. And what if your whole life's a story and you just turn the page and you can write a

new book tomorrow? Yeah. And that shit was so simple, but it resonated. Yeah. It was a line from him. You know what? I know where it's from. Not necessarily that version of that, but it was from young guns,

man. Uh, Kiefer Sullivan says at one point to the, the, uh, the, the Asian lady, that's the concubine to the bad guy or whatever.

He says, you know, your past is like a paper book novel. When you're done with it, you throw it away and buy a new one. I didn't know that. That's the same thing. Yeah.

So not to say that we'll plagiarize. We all take each other's shit. Exactly. Exactly. exactly um you know it's funny that you say that in in and i talk about frequency a lot with people and frequency with who you listen to because at the end of the day it's funny you said we all steal from each other because it that is true you know you hear the same thing there's stuff that you know there's days when i've posted stuff and then two days later I see it essentially come up Reword it a little bit from somebody else and I'm like, hmm, you know and everybody kind of borrows

But I think it's okay because I think in the in the and the framework of trying to help people You find a frequency that works with you. You find a frequency that resonates with you and like You can kick somebody the nuts all you want, but if you're not resonating with them, like you probably had people tell you, Tony, you need to turn it around. You need to pick it up. You need to pull this together. But for whatever reason, it just happened to be Stuman that was on that frequency with you that you heard that. Correct. And I think the authentic gurus, for lack of a better word, right? If they're intentional or if their intention is to do good, they don't mind if you spread the same

message. Like you were talking to Waylon and he started in his thing and he says, I'm really following your path. And he says, take my shit. So if you're not afraid, like your integrity and what you do with your real estate business, you want to share it. You're like, fuck it. I know how to make money. Let me show other people how to do it. Right. Well, I think, I think that's the mentality of understanding that it's not a zero sum game, right? Like I don't have to lose for you to win. It doesn't have to work that way. And I think, and I think it's funny when you look at a lot of people that come up from humble beginnings, you know, they, they, they go through this process where it's this, this mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. And I've seen some people go and make a shit ton of money in real estate and do very, very well. And it's like, but what are you doing for somebody else? Like, are you,

are you giving, are you reaching back as you strive forward? You know, are you doing that? And, and I've seen people that make a lot of money in this business that are very unhappy. Right. They just, they never get fulfilled in it because they're not reaching back to help somebody else get forward. So, and I think that's anything I think, I think the people that are really trying to help in this, you know,

education, investment, you know, health, whatever it is you're doing, there's people that are out for a quick buck and there's people that really want to help people. And I think that's,

that's a huge difference So, how do you tell the difference Tony? You're that you're the you're the bullshit sniffer How do you tell the difference? I think there's a lot of red flags, you know And I think when you've been around the block a few times it's you know, when somebody's constantly telling you they're not something There's no pitch at this event, but run to the back and buy five of them and I'll give you six free. Get the fuck out of here.

So there's a lot of that. I think there's a lot of, I also see, I always tell, I have a lot of girlfriends who are single or going through a divorce and always got sob stories. And somehow I become the therapist. My therapist said I'm on white knight syndrome. I'm like Captain Save-A-Ho or something.

I don't know. Tell me you bleached the red flag red flag but no i always tell people if you look at someone's life their socials or yeah whatever they are in their public persona and they don't have a lot of friends from 5 10 15 20 years ago that's a fucking red flag because that tells you that these people are recycling and churning their business friendships relationships i like first time i met you you know he's introducing his mom dad his cousins childhood friends uh you look at my lifestyle like i got friends from when i was 5 to 15 20 you like like you guys got a core group and that's why i was really aligned to you know fleischman i look at him like one of the dudes that i've idolized fanboy from when i was like 20 years ago playing commerce casino and i didn't know who the hell he was funny story about him but he went playing poker with the

guy didn't know who he was thought he was some nerd at a table he's telling us to buy ethereum at 37 cents who the fuck would buy a coin for 37 cents? Rode him off. 20 years later, I hit him up about it. He remembered the exact hand that he cracked me on, dude. Dude, I will say that. I'll say that about Fleischman, man. His memory is terrifyingly good. It's terrifyingly good. The answer to your question is the people,

you are who you surround yourself with. You hang out with five alcoholics, you'll be the sixth. I've learned that. I've tried to really align. Steve's showed me that a lot, too, faith and and being around good people that are spiritually grounded yeah i think it's funny you say that because you know the the five friends and you talk about people that are around new people and that's a red flag for me too like like i've been to parties with very successful people where i got invited and they're like oh this is my best friend you're

like oh what's up bro and you're casually off oh, this is my best friend. You're like, oh, what's up, bro. And you'd seen your casualty off to side, like how are you guys? You know, high school,

like how he's like, no, bro. I met him like six months ago. And I'm like, huh? He just described himself as your best friend. And you know,

for six months, like my best friend, like went to camp with me. It's like, that's kind of how that went. Right. And he saw me do some really stupid shit as an adolescent. the other guy we spoke about last night too on the crypto side same thing if you think about it in hindsight they have a lot of friends from the old days yeah yeah that that's think about it no that that's that's true that's true i think well you know

i tell you another one that i hang my hat on. This. And this is a little controversial with some people because I understand maybe some shit happens. I don't like to do business with people that cheat on their spouses. Because I think if they'll fuck them up. And literally, almost every single person that's ever fucked me over in business cheats on their spouse. And did it in front of me in some cases. And we supported it at the time. And for me me fuck face i remember you know the dude had been married for 20 years yeah

his wife was an attorney she put him through school he got here as a dishwasher worked at denny's and he had two beautiful boys and i would see him have this life and then go out we go to strip club he's banging hookers in the back has a mistress and at the time i was just like oh it's just a guy being a guy maybe it's just this culture but if you're gonna cheat on your wife of 20 years with two young boys who the fuck am i of course you're gonna cheat on yeah of course of course you're a boy of course so yeah man and it sucks when when people you know that comes out that happens because you know you're like try to do the ah you know i'll walk in another you know i'm not gonna i don't i don't

know what their life is like i don't know what's happening with this but at the same time it's like you gotta gotta throw that caution flag up pretty hard oh yeah yeah so um steve man let's talk to you a little bit bring it yeah because you dude you're just sitting there looking swole and whatnot it's so funny because normally when i have two people on the couch like this they're both kind of in frame but you're just ginormous stuff like i got half the tony's face on because he just keeps leaning farther and farther away i think it's like you have a gravitational pull he's trying to resist so let's talk about your story bro what's. So I know you were a firefighter. I know that's where it kind of started.

So is that what you always, when you were a kid, like, I want to be a firefighter? Was that the goal? Was that the dream? No, I was actually, loved athletics growing up. Very successful in athletics. National champion in hockey. Actually got in the Hockey Hall of Fame as a youth. Where did you play?

Up in Michigan. I grew up in Detroit area. Really? I lived for a very short amount of time. I lived in Detroit. Okay. That east side. I lived at 13 Mile and Ferris in Royal Oak.

Okay. Yeah. I got transferred in a much younger version of me, in a mid-20s version of me. I was upper management for Hooters of America, which is a fucking great job when you're 24. It's a great job when you're 24. Again, didn't make a lot of money doing it, but it was a great job. And at one point, I got moved up to Michigan

to run all those restaurants there. And I was from Florida. First time I'd ever lived anywhere where it snowed. Not fun. Sky went gray in probably September and stayed gray until april seven months of depression yeah i spent the i spent i spent cyclical i spent the winter there i called my boss who was the vice president i said let me tell you a story about a guy john you said what's that and i said uh i'm moving back to orlando or atlanta in two weeks and he goes you're quitting

i go that all depends on you but i'm telling you and i'm moving back to Orlando or Atlanta in two weeks. And he goes, you're quitting? I go, that all depends on you. But I'm telling you, I'm moving back to one of those two places in two weeks. And he's like, fuck, let me call you back. He's like, Orlando. I'm like, I'm out of here. And normally it was funny because I went all over the country with that company.

And when I would leave a place, I'd be like to the girls, I'm like, oh, come back and visit you guys. I'll see. When I left Detroit, I'm like, I won't book a fucking flight over this city. If the flight path is going over this, I'm going to take a connection site and get around it.

I've heard it's changed a lot. I heard there's a lot. It's a lot different in Detroit. A little bit. But we'll go, okay. I heard you wouldn't even recognize it. It's a beautiful place now is what I hear. I mean, it's still the gray skies,

but I hear that they built it up for minutes. Okay. It's like waxing your armpit. It's still an armpit. It's still an armpit. Okay, fair, fair. I had good times in Windsor. That was fun.

Over the bridge in Windsor was good. There you go. Anyway, so grew up in Detroit. Played hockey. Yeah, I was big in athletics. I mean, fuck, doesn't that kind of tell you everything you need to know right there about the guy just going into it? Yeah.

And very successful in that. Could have pursued professional sports on that route. Loved training. Training was kind of, that became a passion, a true passion of mine. I loved like being the biggest, strongest, fastest guy, no matter what I did. I played football in high school and hockey.

I loved being. You couldn't have been this big playing hockey though. No, no, no, no. I mean, I was still a big, I was genetically a big kid. So it wasn't like I was 150 pound kid that got picked on in school and decided like, I'm going to take a bunch of steroids and get huge. You got the ad in the back of the magazine where they're kicking sand in your face.

You're like, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. No, I had a purpose and an intention of why I wanted to do it. I just responded really well. I was one of the strongest guys. I just had success in that area. I was actually going to school to be a mechanical engineer in the automotive world back up real quick you mentioned the east side of st louis st or detroit okay of detroit sorry so you're talking about like 13 and grass you said 13 and grass okay all right so you're

talking about like roseville you're talking about like okay there you go all right so so not exactly the mean streets the roll them up no i actually i went to high school on eight miles so a lot of people are like oh yeah but way was in East Detroit in that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So East Detroit, nicer part of Detroit, Sterling Heights. I moved to Dallas 20 years, almost 20 years ago.

And they, you know, the ghetto parts of Dallas, I'm like, this is really nice. You know, the nice parts of Detroit are like the ghetto of Dallas. I could like, this is really nice. The nice parts of Detroit are like the ghetto of Dallas. I could tell he's somewhere. So you're in school for mechanical engineering? Yeah, mechanical engineering. Did your parents work for the automotive? No, no. Blue collar. My mom was a hairdresser. My dad was a chef.

Well, can I ask you a question? Because one of the things that was fascinating to me about Detroit, and we have talked about this at length on this podcast is the hamster wheel trap that seems to happen to people in that area where it's like midwest you are born you literally go to the same high school that your parents went to you marry your high school sweetheart work you play golf you buy a house you buy a house you buy a house three three streets away from your parents next door to your buddy from high school and you just enrich wash and repeat and they get people from detroit are gonna hate us right now because we're spilling tea out of detroit yeah but you know it was the hardest place i ever lived to make friends it really was because like people are like i already got fucking friends i got my

friend from high school you know i don't need more friends i already got friends it was it was like the most difficult place to break into great people it's a blue collar to a t you know and but how did you get out i just decided to make the move well so so i'll finish my story about going to school to be a mechanical engineer my grandfather was in the automotive industry a designer draftsman i was like i love vehicles love you know race cars i had that passion too um during that time the automotive industry was just tanking it was when they were laying off three five ten thousand people at a time and i'm like why am i going to school for to try to fight for a job that i'm not gonna have it's not gonna be there yeah so i went to my parents one day i had some friends in the in the fire service and i loved learning

about the body as well and i know i said to my mom i said i want to go be a firefighter paramedic you know so then i put myself through school uh applied all over the u.s it's still a difficult time because it was kind of reached going into the 2004 or 5 where everything was just starting to decline yeah you know um ended up getting hired in the city for the city of dallas in uh 06 so moved down there started a career you know it was at the same time pursuing bodybuilding at higher levels. Started off in winning some pretty big shows as a teenager, teen nationals.

That led into some national level shows, winning the overall at a very young age. Don't skip over that because I think here's the deal. Dude, look, obviously you can tell I know everything about bodybuilding just from the fucking ribs. You're like a great guy over here come on but no but the point is like the level of dedication that you have to have to that to i mean dude ice cream tastes good brownies are good you're right fried delicious. But to just have the dedication to even, I mean, forget the hours in the gym and everything else, but just the complete dedication to the diet. That is a level of commitment that most people just don't possess. Right.

So the question is, you know, is that innate or is that learned or is that decided? Like, how do you get to that level of commitment to, I mean, fucking anything? I think it's a little bit of a little bit of each one of those. It's definitely decided because you have to make the decision to do it or not. Yeah. It's kind of in you. I think if you have that drive and that discipline, I think it comes from your childhood. Were you disciplined as a kid? Did your parents discipline you to not do something stupid or not hurt yourself?

I think there's a few aspects of all those into becoming ultra-disciplined or being willing to make sacrifice to have success. Were there moments of great adversity through your life as a kid, or were they manufactured adversity through sports? Which is why I love youth sports. That's why love it it was more sport driven like i i had a very promising future in sports if i wanted to pursue that route my parents and family were huge supporters of me and to this day still come to my bodybuilding shows i mean biggest fans everybody knows me in in the in the industry any competition to go to that i'm competing in i mean i have a huge fan base my families are screaming like it's just i've always had that support system love it um but yeah there's been adversity i mean you know you don't win every show you don't win every title you don't win every championship and well you hear you hear stories like you know i came home when i was 10 and my parents were gone and i had to raise myself and

you're like fuck well that didn't happen to me. What's my excuse? You know, but you know, that's why I love, cause I mean, one of the hardest things and you guys are, you're about to be a father for the first time. And I'm telling you, you don't even realize how much you're going to worry about this, but you are going to worry every day about screwing your kid up by just letting them tag along with your lifestyle. Right. Like it's going to be such a concern of yours. And like, I'm so concerned every day that we're screwing our kids up. I'm like,

Oh, we're going to the beach in Newport. Oh, we're going to take the jet. It's like, Oh my God, am I screwing these kids up? Right.

So I love sports. I love athletics because in situations like us where dude, my kids are never going to worry about where their next meal is coming from. They're never going to have to worry about it. Are we going to lose the house? They're just not going to have to worry about these things. but if i can manufacture any type of adversity to put in front of them through sports i think it's a good plan and i think probably some of you had a good upbringing there's no you know crazy stories of you know dad comes home and smacks you right this

doesn't happen so i think by your early involvement with sports at a very high competitive thing probably developed that level of commitment that you were able to take into bodybuilding. Correct. A hundred percent. All right. So you start, you're doing well in the shows. Yeah. So you're fighting fires, but dude, like you're like a superhero.

You're like all jacked up and you're like fighting fires. Okay. Yeah. I mean, from my first show, people were like, were you doing it a mask or just, just no cape? Just no. Okay. There it is. People see you you a little speedo that's all i have you google me you'll see the speedo awesome um anyways no we everything kind of led into um into the into my bodybuilding like i like you said the sports the discipline it's all kind of funneled into there and having from my first show, I had people come up to me like, you have something. And I always thought you had to be the top of the game to get on stage.

I always thought you had to be Mr. Olympia to compete. But obviously, there's a starting point, entry point in everything. Every industry, every sport, you have a starting point. For me, it was success because I did do well. I did win. And that just kind of steamrolled um in the industry at the time there wasn't social media it was very magazine driven very there was like internet forums and stuff like that and and and i got a lot of notoriety at a young age from my

success you know and people ask me today how do i how do i get you know sponsored or how do i do this well let's back what age like 19 like 20 1920 all right so dude you're yoked you're 19 people talking about you how do you or was there a phase of complete asshole steve you know no no you never got there no i never was asshole okay because some of the best advice and i owe this a lot to my football coach who i told you i worked for in high school and um i saw the way he treated his wife and i and i had a lot of great examples that i'm more of an observer than i am like just do something off the off the whim you know i like to watch people and and not overly talk and um definitely like to absorb a lot more so never had an asshole phase because some of the

one of the best advice i ever heard and i carried this through my career, because I've been on Flex magazine, the magazine's all over the world, been on covers and big titles and all this, and the advice was the same people you see coming up are the same people you see coming down. And when your friend from high school, they always say, don't forget about us. And there's some truth to that,

because you know what? You may get to a point at some time that you're not going to be riding that wave and being like the top of your game and you know you're going to come down a little bit you're going to have that success story but you're not going to be like in the spotlight yeah and in sports especially you see as soon as somebody stops competing or retires people forget about them they're like you know fuck them like who who is it until they show up in bankruptcy court yeah it's a shame that it's like that but but you know though if those people treated a lot of those people bad along the way if the if the if the athletes if the if the you know popular person however you want to say

influencer was an asshole along the way like why somebody that you treated like shit gonna bring you in and be like yeah that's fine like you treated me like shit but we could be friends now like if somebody did it to me i'm not gonna be cool with them is it let me ask you is is there big dollars in professional bodybuilding doesn't seem like i mean it seems like you probably have to work way harder than a lot of the other sports i think the way you explained to me from a business model standpoint that whole industry has shifted now right it has it has changed because of social media a bit and and you know you don't have to you don't have to have accolades now to get sponsorship by companies you know if you have a big following you can get a a sponsorship and they'll pay uh you know six

figures for doing stuff but back in the day you you know you were a guy that showed up in expos you shook hands you traveled made appearances and i did that to the last uh until a couple years ago probably pre-covid was i mean every weekend i was making appearances you go to expos you don't have to do that to keep yourself out there was that it's it's not necessarily a requirement but it's it's a requirement in a way to keep you you know your fan base building and to keep you know when people get to meet you like man you're really nice i'm like what'd you expect like just a a big muscly asshole like it's funny like people really think that that's i mean i didn't think that i'm not saying i thought toby told me you were an asshole that's funny at lunch today his wife says you know

when i first met steve i was like i don't want to date an asshole buddy i also i also believe if any woman you ever meets doesn't think you're an asshole when you first met him you're not going to do your job right they gotta hate you a little bit when you first start out so it's kind of work um so now you've taken the idea so you took all the bodybuilding took the dedication took all of that stuff and you've now kind of turned it into a a program and it's not just about health and fitness. It's not that I love that when you were telling me about that last night, you're like, look, bro, this isn't just another, let me show you how to get a six pack. Cause we all know the 90 day challenge. Yeah. Look, I mean, my buddy

Bradley says that all the time. I, everybody knows how to get a six pack. It's don't want to do the work to get it. Right. And that's just how just how it is um but you've turned it into a an event a mastermind group that is about more than just fitness so i want you to talk about that so my my vision with things and and being in in an industry where i've helped people in bodybuilding it's crazy because it's a very selfish sport but at the same time when you'd meet people and people would come up to you and say man you saved my life or you inspired me to get back in the gym and i lost 100 pounds like you think man that's really rewarding and also being on the fire side you save somebody's life and they thank you you do something

you know you may not even get thanked it's a thankless job most of the time and but you know you did something to help people and to me like that generosity is a core value of mine and i believe in that and i'm very much a giver. I love to connect people. But I don't expect anything out of doing those things. So to me, it was like, I want to create something bigger than me. And I want to be able to pour into people, bring value to people that are going to help them level up all areas of life. Because like you said, somebody may be super rich and doing great in business, but they're miserable at home.

Their wife hates them. Their kids hate them. Or their health is deteriorating daily those kind of things and it's like okay how do we level up those areas you know and an example i i was as i was telling this to a friend of mine when i was kind of pitching this idea in my vision with this he's like you know i see it he's like it's a it's actually steve weatherford who's actually speaking at my event amazing amazing human being he's like it's like it's like a decathlon he goes you may you may be great at one event but you may suck at all the other ones and you're never going to win it but you may get third or fourth place in all the events and you're going to dominate you know one of the things that i don't know where i got this i i

know i i stole it because i didn't come up with it but one of the things that i do for my team is i have this exercise where i've got nine spokes on a piece of paper, right? And I say, okay, here's what I want you to do. You take this and I'll tell man, I don't know what they all, all nine of them are, but it's like faith, family, you know, relationships, you know, spiritual health, you know, all the, all these things. And you write a number between one to nine for each of them, nine being the highest and one being like a suck. Right. And then I have a piece of paper that has all of them out on a thing. And then you draw a dot, however far it is away from that and then you connect all the

dots to make a wheel and it's amazing and you look at your and everybody's wheels are flat you know they have flat sides and it's like it's a metaphor for life like your life won't roll properly if if you're not balanced in all areas yeah so I think what you're trying to do and bring balance to all of that stuff. Yeah. Correct. It's helped. It truly is helping people create the best version of themselves and leveling up those areas.

I think we all need help. I think if you're well, like Tony just said, the best investment you can make is in yourself. If you're willing to pay the price to be in the room, to meet somebody aligned with people like, and I spoke on that a little bit last night like the alignments in my life have led me to where i am right now yeah it's not based on what i've thought about in my my own vision and everything like that it's been the alignments that i've established in my life that have led me to where i am right now yep yeah i never say no when when you know i tell my wife all the time and you know one of the advantages of living here is there's always somebody coming into town to do something

There's always somebody and if we get a lot of calls like like the one tones like hey come to dinner I I just always say yes, because I just always assume there's gonna be cool people there, right? Never and it never disappoints. That's a cool dinner. It never does it never disappoints. It never does So if I'm somebody that you know is looking, you know, man, just maybe change my room a little bit, you know, I, and I like this and I talk about masterminds a lot and I'm a member of several and I've drifted in and out of several of them. And you know, it's good to change the room sometimes, man, it is. So if I'm looking at somebody like maybe, maybe I'm not getting everything. Maybe I'm not feeling like I'm getting everything out of life. You got an event coming up.

Yeah. Talk about the event, dude. May 26th. It's called Upgraded Human Mastermind. And that's the mastermind that I'm creating, that I'm launching into my group training stuff. It's called Upgraded Human. So, again, you know, we all need an upgrade. I think if you're okay with where you're at in life, like, you're going to decline. And people are just going to pass right by you. So, to me, it's like, let's make a, even if it's just a one degree shift into into something new or something better those

small nuggets each day that are going to just build up over and over and over and go just help you so may 26th uh tony's going to be one of our speakers i've i've established again i'm a relationship guy and i have uh seven amazing, including myself to be eight and my wife speaking. Sean Whalen's a speaker. Jesse Lee's a speaker. Steve Weatherford. Jesse's awesome. Jesse's amazing.

I got an anabolic duct. So I got a health aspect of things. I got a business aspect of things. I have faith, relationship. We're going to hit on all these areas, and I want people to walk away and be like, man, that was the best three-year $800 I spent to be in a room with people and just really walk away, feel like a new person. Man, I got to tell you, all those guys are great. And I'm going to go deep on Jessie Lee right now. If you don't know who she is, Google Boss Lee.

Look her up, dude. Watching her, who is such an incredible baller, deal with her very public battle with colon cancer right now is amazing yeah it's it's it's amazing to watch she's she is an amazing human being and uh i i think we both are i mean i'm a huge huge fan of hers yeah um i think it's a testament to the level of event this is going to be yeah for this being i mean he's this is also his seventh year that he's thrown the Kukla Classic, which is a qualifier for the Schwarzenegger, which is the next day. So all our event attendees get to come to that event as well.

So it's kind of a way to kind of mesh these cultures together, if you will, right? Yeah, I know how much you love rolled up guys. Oh, sure. For fuck's sake. In Speedos. But no, man, I mean, I think it's really cool to, you know, you and I both met in a mastermind

we've been involved in several different ones and each one of them has a strength and weaknesses but i think what we're doing a little bit different if i could give you a little bit of credit on this one like he hits me up yesterday i mean we've had a three-day long kind of long session started in frisco came out here but he says hey can i come to your room and talk like i'm tired man and he comes in with the notebook and he's sitting here and for two and a half hours it turns into like deep conversations about you know let's just make this the most powerful event that anybody could come to and i think the biggest differentiation this is going to be when you look at the caliber speakers

and you just nailed it that's why i'm elaborating on this is jesse lee's vulnerability tommy vex talking about coming from like you know brother murdered him to homeless to now triple platinum recording artist to being canceled by you know mainstream media can't get a recording contract but he's got trump on speed alley just because he wanted to sing a song and bro and bro i'm not gonna lie i did some tommy vexed googling this morning on the on the google machine i watched i watched some i want dude his shit is great isn't it like i've seen him sad no you're listening to this like my wife walk in and she's like what are you listening is what is that like is what you listen like godsmack i'm like no it's just cat i was at dinner with last night that you know this

is his only outlet for his artist to put it here because nobody will sign him because he said some political shit the number one song on itunes and right now if you go to spotify and you say play me this song by tommy vex it'll play you something else like he's so canceled at such a high level yeah that it's really all because he said he supported trump yeah you know what i'm saying and it's crazy you know the vulnerability there the vulnerability that he talks about you know my story isn't like hey man i'm this rolex driving mclaren dude it's like um and i'm still trying to figure shit out. I paid a bigger tax bill last year than most people make in a year, you know?

But that's because of the fucking hole I put myself in. So the vulnerability, I think, that somebody can speak at from stage, whether for the first time I heard him in Cabo brought me to tears. You know, dude wins the Super Bowl, puts a gun in his head that night because his father didn't tell him, like,

was like, hey, didn't even say good job. You know what I'm saying? So when you have an event that you can actually pour into people, but leave them with an actionable manual, here's the things you're going to do. Finances. Here's, you're going to do if you want to improve your faith with your family.

So I'm excited, man. May 26th, May 25th is going to be a VIP night at Jerry Jones. If they want to find out more about the event, how do they find that? Website upgraded human mastermastermind.live. Upgradedhumanmastermind.live.

And if they want to find you guys, how do they find you guys? Throw the gram out there. Yeah, yeah. For me, it's theinsiderinvestor. That's on Instagram, probably the easiest, theinsiderinvestor. And if you guys want more info on our private mastermind, it's just insiderinvestors. We just try to provide value to people.

I don't sell shit. We invest in things together. If you and I are going to buy this building together, let's get a good group of people together, cut out the middlemen, cut out the bullshit. No finance, acquisition fees, disposition fees, and all this bullshit. Don't get me started.

And how do they find you? Well, if you're not blocking out started. And how do they find you? Well, I mean, if you're not blocking out the sun, how do they find you? Same way, social media. I think that's an easy way to access people now. Yeah, always.

It's kind of great. At Steve Kuklo, K-U-C-L-O. They can follow, send me a message, anything like that. And then Upgraded Human Mastermind is the way to go. Well, gents,

I appreciate the time so much today, man. It was a good conversation. I wish we had more time. Unfortunately, I gotta go. John, one more thing. We're gonna come back. Yeah, gents i appreciate the time so much today man it was a good conversation i wish we had more time unfortunately i gotta go john one more thing we're gonna come back i actually just i always forget about it because i'm so excited about this shit so i just got a deal on iheart radio uh my boys who've been on ct 101 out now cali on power 106 with big boy in mornings and ryan secret i mean these guys are legends in the scene. But they started a movement about 15 years ago talking about legalization of cannabis when cannabis was illegal everywhere.

So they have the number one show on iHeartRadio for 13 years running, 164. They've now honored me to be on every Friday, Financial Fridays, talking about shit like this. I'd love to have you on there. Yeah, man. And we can smoke a fake doobie for all the people in Texas.

I gotta tell you. God bless you if you want to smoke it. Smoking dope makes me tired and hungry. I'm already tired and hungry. I don't need any help with that, right? I need no help with that. Anyway, well, Jen, thanks so much for coming in.

I appreciate it. It was an awesome episode. If you like this, man, give us a like and subscribe. That's my pandering. Give us a follow. Hit the notifications. Do all that stuff. you know four star five star whatever the highest star thing you can do do that that's fine anyway we'll be back next week with another episode of

the power move thanks guys thank you brother hey it's john gafford if you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. We'll share any links of things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here.

Give me a shout.