Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Finding Strength in Service and Relationships with Kevin Davis

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast. And big news, my new book, Escaping the Drift is coming out. November the 11th, you can pre-order it right now at thejongaford.com. There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways. Get the book. If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you. If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you. Available everywhere, all bookstores, everywhere, Amazon, Barnes & Noble's, the whole nine yards.

Starting point is 00:00:29 But pick your copy up. right now at the john gaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses i've thrown out because i promise you i put my heart and soul into this thing i want it to help you change your life pick it up everywhere what's the most unalpha habit you have that actually makes you a better man uh self tanner and now escaping the drift the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness.

Starting point is 00:01:08 So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of the show that, like it says in the opening man, gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, ladies and gentlemen, beaming live into the studio from just outside of Bozeman, in Montana where apparently it's already snowing. Not here, 12 inches of sunshine in Vegas today, but already snowing in Bozeman. This guest today is a dude that's built over 20 brands. He's currently got four companies across, I'm sorry, four companies with eight active brands

Starting point is 00:01:46 across industries, including automotive, off-road, janitorial RV, but mainly what we're going to talk about today is his men's coaching business, which has taken out. He is on a mission after 25 years of entrepreneurship. to save the American mail. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Kevin Davis. Kevin, how are you, man? I'm awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

Starting point is 00:02:10 I'm excited to be here. This can be a lot of fun. Yeah, dude, I love it. So maxed out, or sorry, yeah, maxed out, man. When did you start maxed out, man? Let's start with that. So it's been a couple of years, but I actually had this kind of God-given epiphany about 12 months ago that I needed to scrap the entire thing and start over.

Starting point is 00:02:28 and so that that's always fun when you have a have a growing brand but um the story goes originally i was targeting guys like me i'm in i'm in my early 50s i'm fit happily married good business all of those things but over the course of this weekend that i had was down in miami speaking of sunshine um i had 13 conversations 12 of those were with men under the age of 35 and 11 of those were about marriage. And so it was a, it was kind of this like, dude, these guys need to hear from you. They don't have men in their lives to tell them how to be married, how to get fit, how to do you be successful in business. You need to be that guy. And so that's, we re-engineered, rebranded, did everything brand new in Max Out Man. So that's kind of where we're at right now.

Starting point is 00:03:17 So let's go backwards. Tell me a little bit about you growing up that gave you, was dad a super influence on you? We're mom and dad together? Are you the poll? Are you the poll? or opposite deal. I'm it's it's the opposite you know either do either do what you see or or do the exact opposite because you of what you saw and I'm kind of I'm kind of the second one my parents divorced when I was six. Hey we got a we got a match nice yeah and you know it's funny because I always credit this to Dan Martel I know he wasn't the first person to say it but almost every successful entrepreneur between six years old and 12 years old had some sort of crazy traumatic event happen. It just, it kind of sets that recipe and sets the stage for, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:00 building self-reliance and task management and figuring out how to solve your problems and all that. And that was kind of me. I kind of raised myself after the age of eight. My mom was into drugs and alcohol and we moved every six months depending on what guy she was shacking up with at the time. And at that point, this is 70s in Texas. And at that point, your mom could be a literal crack whore, and mine wasn't, but they could be the worst mom ever and they would still give her full custody. This is, this is kind of how life went back in the 70s for us. And so, uh, when they had the open container laws in Texas that you could just drive around drinking a beer. That's right. That's right. Which from the sounds of what your mom may

Starting point is 00:04:42 have done from time to time. Yeah, she was, she was probably the, uh, the poster child for that. I'm sure. Um, and my dad, I love my dad. Um, great. guy, but he ended up marrying a woman that was not the best stepmom in the world. My dad's not a strong guy. He's a really loyal person. And so he didn't necessarily kind of fill me with, hey, this is what you need to do as a man, and these are the things to deal with. And I had other men in my life that I relied on. I'm a big car guy. So every weekend, I was over hanging out with the guy that had a 67 Corvette, you know, and then his daughter had a Camaro. My girlfriend had a Malibu. I had a Malibu, Chavelle. So those were, that was kind of the men that I, that I learned stuff from.

Starting point is 00:05:28 Yeah, learning to turn a wrench at an early age. That's right. And learning how to throw them when you, when you bust your knuckles. That's, that's another quintessential learning. Yeah, there's always that fear that you get from your father of holding the flashlight if, you know, when she's fixing a tire or something. That's right. Yeah. He wasn't there, so you just got it from somebody else, which is yeah for sure so what so are lifelong entrepreneur did you come out and have jobs i mean what's what's the story i so my degree i have two degrees one in exercise physiology and one in business um i started my early career as a personal trainer and then ended up i was a really good as a personal trainer and really good at sales so i got my own club when i was 22 in phoenix and so

Starting point is 00:06:10 that was kind of like the you know i was dude i didn't know jack squat 22 years old i'm the operations manager of a 50,000 square foot facility doing 20,000 workouts a day. Crazy, right? And I figured out that if you want to have a family, the fitness industry is not the place for you because your hours are 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. And so those are not exactly family conducive kind of hours, right? Yeah. So an opportunity back, this is the dot-com boom days. People were throwing money at everybody.

Starting point is 00:06:44 had an opportunity to work for a startup at that point and ended up helping to grow that company from, I think I was number 27 or something to over 200. From in sales or? I was in operations and I did corporate training and program management, project management stuff, kind of a little bit of everything when you start out. And so that was kind of that journey is.

Starting point is 00:07:08 And then from there, so I kind of had this entrepreneurial thing and then I started my own business. First business was a web company. And then it's just been, my wife basically just accuses me of just my business. My hobby is starting new businesses. So that's kind of, in addition to cars, she's not wrong. Well, what made you a great salesman? I think it's just, it's a, it's a, so the way I describe it.

Starting point is 00:07:34 And it's just like this, right? And I feel like you probably have the same thing. I feel like I was given a gift that I can open what I call a conduit to almost, to pretty much everybody. So whether it's a custodian at a high school, a 10-figure business owner, billionaires, it doesn't really matter. I was given this gift, I feel, to where I can find whatever that thing is to connect the two of us. And so, and so that is, it's really the connection part of sales that makes it about sales. I'm not a high pressure guy. I'm not a, you know, I don't, I'm not a car salesman kind of guy, any of that kind of stuff. It's really just making a

Starting point is 00:08:13 connection, giving an offer of how I can help them. And then, you know, if they take it, they take it. And they go up there. But that those same skills, the high EQ, the people skills translated to all of those places. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's, you know, I was thinking the other day about like, what does that journey look like? And it's really, it doesn't matter what industry you're in, what business you're in, what offer you're making. It's all about networking, networking, leadership, and communication. Those are kind of the things and you can, can build your teams that way. You can build businesses that way. And that's kind of my story overall. When you were that kid at 22 years old and they put you in charge of that gym,

Starting point is 00:08:51 what do you think they saw on you that they figured you could do it? I'm the one of, I kind of just give that vibe. And I'll, I even did at that point. And I don't know if it's overconfidence or stupidity, probably a little bit of both. But I'll give you an example. I went to a car show that my buddy had invited me of that he was putting on and his wife was putting on Southern California, about 300 cars, huge car show, famous guys like Chip Fuse and Andy, you know, I'm trying to remember his last name. Anyway, guys like that, big in the industry.

Starting point is 00:09:23 And I showed up and literally 15 minutes later, I had a clipboard and a golf cart and I was running the show. Somehow, because I started telling people what to do and trying to organize things that I just kind of been, that tends to be my methodology. I try not to, Michelle, my wife, she'd be like dude you were way too much you need to slow down don't always have to be in charge you know those kind of things and so uh i try to be a little bit more gentle but yeah at 22 i was

Starting point is 00:09:52 probably a little bit more forceful i they knew that i knew that i could do it well also just i mean obviously you're not in studio you're being you're beaming in today but you look like you're a tall dude how tall you uh i'm actually six foot okay all right yeah six foot i i i look taller on the internet which is nice but i'm not i'm six foot about about 205. So I have a fair amount of muscle on me. So, but I do, you know, I do have that presence, right? Like I feel like that. And Michelle calls it resting bitch face, which I probably do have. But it can intimidate a little bit, but not, I'm actually pretty nice. You know, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a funny story. There's something about being tall. And I'm a tall guy. I'm,

Starting point is 00:10:33 I'm, I used to be six four. I'm probably shrinking now, which you can probably appreciate that. Yeah. And, uh, but yeah, when we went. to many years ago. I was on a reality show and it was the apprentice and my sister and I went to an open call because she's 510. We're both dressed in black suits. There's thousands of people there and everybody's coming up to us asking us where to go. What should I be doing? Where should I be in this slash? But that line's like, we're here the same as you. So there's something to be said about being able to put out a presence that people just resonate to and are willing to follow. So hopefully that's part of your program that you're teaching some of these guys. Yeah. I mean,

Starting point is 00:11:11 The physicality of it makes a big difference. Fitness makes a huge difference, people, especially when you start getting into our age group, right? Like the difference between a fit, 50-year-old or 55-year-old or 50, almost 53 and a not-fit one is so striking that you become, you know, that pool of people that you have to compete with gets really small. And so people, and if you're, you know, moderately attractive, you carry yourself well, you can have great conversations and smile a lot, you actually get better treatment. And people could call it privilege if they want or whatever, but like, dude, I work hard to make sure I have this privilege. So, but like whether it's flight attendants or, you know, the airport people or TSA or anything,

Starting point is 00:11:55 you can kind of prove it to yourself. It's, it's amazing for those of you know, much younger. It's if you, if you told me at 35, the stuff I was willing to do at 53 to stay in shape, I mean, dude, soon as somebody said peptide, and now my stomach is like a damn pin cushion from all the peptides that I shoot myself every day. And I'm a needle like phobia. Like I hate, dude, I hate it. And now every day I'm shooting needles in myself with these damn peptides to stay ahead of the game, man, because it's, you know, using that science to stay fit.

Starting point is 00:12:31 Yeah, I haven't gone down the peptide right, but I'm on, I've been on TRT for a couple years and literally changed my life. So that's a big-ass needle. I shoot in my butt twice. Yeah. Yeah, I do that. Do that too. You do that too.

Starting point is 00:12:42 There you go. Yeah, do that too. Big, little litos. No. No, I'm on. So right now I'm on the glow, which is BP 157, GQU for your skin and stuff and your joints. Because being tall, I'll tell you the BP 157 made a huge, huge difference in my joints. Because when you lift and you get, as you get older, it's just your joints just hurt when you work out.

Starting point is 00:13:04 But that, that's good. So I'm good there. And then it's got something else in it. GKU something and then something else in it that makes it. Oh, Td-T-B-500. Oh, okay.

Starting point is 00:13:12 And then that and then Tessamorlin and like a microdose of terseptitide, but just for my brain, not for like losing weight on it. Yeah. For that. So yeah, dude, it's just, but it's just constant little needles just jumping in every direction.

Starting point is 00:13:25 It's a disaster. And being sore. I told some of the other day, I started lifting when I was 14, so I've literally been sore for 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's the problem. Like, I got some friends. See, again, 53. I got some friends that are in their 40s. And these morons are still working out like I did in high school. They're like, like, I'll come work out. And it's like, what are we doing today? And I'm thinking like at this point I'll do, I work out. I lift weights four days a week. Two of those are functional upper body. Two of those are functional lower body. And it's a lot of mixed stuff. It's a lot of multi angle like payloff press where you get a lot of different parts of the body. body involved. These idiots are like, oh, we're going to work out shoulders today. I'm like,

Starting point is 00:14:09 oh, I'm sorry, what? One body part? Those days are long gone for the kid. I'm not, no, long, like, there's nothing about a thousand reps on my shoulders in one day that I need to do anymore. Yeah, 100%. I'm good. Yeah, I'm like, I'm going to go. My whole, my shoulder hurts just thinking about what you're talking about. Who does that anymore? It doesn't make, it makes no sense to work out like that well let's talk about when do you think because obviously you're teaching masculinity and how to be a good man when do you think what when when is the when did the decline in masculinity start in this country oh man i think it's probably i mean it's got to be in the last 10 years i would say and it's it's kind of it's one of those slippery slopes right it's like the frog and the

Starting point is 00:14:54 boiling pot of water a little bit with um gender politics honestly pellies into it and i think not in the way that most people would probably think, but I think that our biggest issue right now and the things that scares me the most, speaking of testosterone, our cumulative testosterone, the average testosterone in 17 to like 22 year old men, guys, is lower.

Starting point is 00:15:17 It continues to get lower, which is really scary. But then you couple that with societal pressure and some of that things. The way I describe it is that I think boys who are, let's say 15 to 18, they are afraid to be men right and that and that can mean different things you know i'm i tend to be a little bit more alpha you were talking about working out you probably a little bit more alpha in

Starting point is 00:15:40 that way if you're not like a alpha guy then that's totally okay but i think what we have what we are teaching these young men is that the worst possible thing you can be is a guy you know that's where it's toxic masculinity yeah that rhetoric and all that right like it's you know it's you know it So because then it's, it's not only from a political standpoint, gender ideology and all that, but it's actually in the presence of young women. It's like I, if I, so I've did this thing where I literally opened my wife's door every time, both in the car and wherever we go, unless I'm physically unable for the last 32 years that we've been together. Unless it's shoulder day.

Starting point is 00:16:22 Yeah, less it's shoulder day, right? And so, but just the act of opening her door, some woman, well, especially young ones, we'll interpret that, that you're saying I'm less than or whatever, right? And that's the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying to my wife, I value and care enough for you to show the respect of opening your door for you. Not because you can't, she's a boxer, she's a welder, she does off-road rallies. There's nothing weak about this woman. Yeah, right. But I think what we're teaching these young guys is that I don't even know what I can do and what I can't do like as my my natural inclination is to teach this young is to treat this young woman with tons of

Starting point is 00:17:01 respect adoration put her up on a pedestal whatever but i think if i do that i'm going to be rejected i do you think that's regional that kind of behavior being the reason i say that is because like i grew up i grew up in the south like as south south is where i grew up yeah and we spend a lot of time in new orleans and i got a lot of good dear friends there and you still teach your kids manners in new Orleans. You still teach him to pull. I mean, my wife always jokes at the first time she met a bunch of my guy friends in New Orleans. We were at a formal lunch at a very famous restaurant there. And she got up to leave the table and everybody stood up. And it freaked her out. And it freaked her out. And it was just like, well, that's just kind of. That's what you do. I guess. Yeah. And so we've done a good job of trying to. And in Vegas, it's, it's hard, you know, because here it's a melting. It's a melting pot from all over the place. But, you know, holding doors for people. and yes, ma'am, no ma'am, and that kind of a thing, you know, we've done our best to instill that in our kids, but I can tell it's definitely an anomaly here without question, which is good because you want them to be the anomaly, right? Like, that's the, that's, that's a, that's a big part

Starting point is 00:18:04 of it. Yeah, I didn't even know adults had first names until I was like 13. But literally, I was on a trip this weekend in Napa with one of my good friends who's 55. And he said to me, hey, because my son is 17. He's going to college next year. And my buddy said, Hey, do you think we can get away from the Mr. Gorton with hate? I mean, I've known him since he was a kid. Do you think we can get away from the Mr. Gorton thing? And I said, absolutely not. Yeah. Nope. What I mean? I said, I said, in my father's funeral, me as a mid-40s man, there were men there that I had, you know, Mr. Knudson, Mr. Russell. That's just what we got. And I still, I'm 45 years old. And that's what I called them because that's how it is. So I said, well, Eric, is Hayden ever going to call

Starting point is 00:18:50 you Eric? No, he's not. No. Because that's not, because it's not appropriate. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, yeah, that's, I think that's just good manners and it shows respect. I know one of the things in the South, you'll hear like Mr. Kevin, Miss Michelle. Yeah. The little kids, but it's still, there's a, there's a part of respect there that it's not. I'm not on a first name basis. My daughter's dating a young man now that I hope she's going to marry. Awesome dude but he still calls us mr and mrs davis he's 28 29 years old and that's you know he doesn't that's just and i respect that and i like that you know no i i like it too let's get back to talking about men being broken um your program uh max out man really focuses on three pillars uh

Starting point is 00:19:37 which you know man marriage and mission tell me about that so and my thing just went crazy again Can you hear me? I'm sorry. It keep, it, point. All right, good.

Starting point is 00:19:48 So, sorry. There's your cut right there. Oh, you're good. So, Max I'm man, we describe it kind of as that three-legged stool,

Starting point is 00:19:58 which is a fairly common analogy, but it's usually man, marriage, and mission. Those are the three things we talk about. Man is mindset. Health and fitness is a huge one. Spirituality and faith.

Starting point is 00:20:08 Marriage is fairly obvious, how you treat your wife, you know, all of the different things about being married successfully. And the mission, typically as your legacy, finances, entrepreneurship, tons of business-oriented things. So most of the time, men only get one or two of those right and usually one or two very wrong.

Starting point is 00:20:27 And so as an example, you'll have a guy that's, you know, seven-figure entrepreneur, eight-figure entrepreneur, his kids hate him, and he never talks to his wife, right? And maybe he's 50 pounds over there. I think if your kids are teenagers, don't feel too bad. They're going to hate you for a couple years ago. Between 14 and 22, you get a break, right? Yeah, I'm going to age. Or, like, in my case, I'll admit that my marriage is solid.

Starting point is 00:20:56 The way I describe it is it's better today than it was last year, and it'll be, and it's worse today than it'll be next year. So, like, it just keeps getting better. And I don't know a lot of men that can say that after over 30 years of marriage, but it literally gets better all the time. My fitness is dialed in, workout six days a week, Pretty dialed in there, but I can always be, but my business side of it, I typically am a little more frazzled with my business. I could be more successful in that area. So I know those things to

Starting point is 00:21:24 work on. The, well, let's let's, let's, well, the first one obviously is your man, which is focusing on your first thing. I don't know how you could be good at the other two if you don't have that first one straight. Well, I mean, people prove it all the time. There are a lot of really overweight, unhealthy men that are successful business people, you know, I don't see how you can't have that one dialed in and be effective anywhere else. But at the same time, the same thing goes for marriage. You know, you're miserable at home. That will transfer out to every relationship. Yeah. I mean, you look at like Jeff Bezos, right? He was not exactly a stud when he got Amazon going. And now the dude rolls around. I'm not when he's financed like one, but he looks like a bond villain.

Starting point is 00:22:08 I do well I mean he he he hits that TRT pretty hard yeah well and let's let's face it if you literally had unlimited funds I mean unlimited funds if you're not in great shape there's something wrong with you which is honestly when you see like and man we're gonna get hate for this but I don't care I'm gonna say anyway but like I think that's where people have like a problem with like Lizzo right like yeah no you're not everybody's beautiful in your own way like you're rich now you can have forward anything. And I think you've seen her lose some weight because of that. And I don't think it has any do with the pressure of people saying she's not attractive in her current state. I think it has to do with when you're rich and you can forward a chef and a trainer and

Starting point is 00:22:52 all of that other stuff. Suddenly it becomes much easier to get in shape than when you're trying to count points on a Nutra System app on your phone and maybe make it to Orange Theory after your 12-hour shift at the plant. You know what I mean? It's a little harder to get a little harder to get in shape then, you know, but when you're wish, if you got a personal chef that you give them your macros, look, I would be way, I would be way more ripped than I am right now. I would, I would not be, you know, doing my own food prep every week and all of that kind of stuff, right? It's, it's, I always, I do actually think about that. I'm like, why is this rich guy or rich girl? Why are you fat and unhealthy? Like, it's not that hard to call people that can come help you. Like, where's your

Starting point is 00:23:36 assistant. I think there's no one in their life to tell them, look, you're fat. This isn't good for you. Well, I think it's not all about the visual. Yeah, I think people, I think people that are heavy are well aware that they're heavy. I think probably there's, they need to deal with the underlying issues there. Yeah. I think is probably most of it. Um, I, dude, I know me, I know when I get super, super, super stressed out, I'm heading to the pantry and I got a fight. That, that is a bad battle that I fight all the time. I'm like, bro, you do not need a handful of peanut butter pretzel things. You just don't need it. Just because you had a stressful phone call that's not going to make the world better. And that's, you know, I constantly battle with myself over that.

Starting point is 00:24:18 Well, if I live with a pastry chef, she's an amateur, but she's professional level. And I love, I'm addicted to sugar. She literally, we have lockboxes and a lockable freezer so that she can keep my, and I call him kevy, my inner fat kid who gets up at two in the morning. And, wants to eat, right? Like, that's my, you know, similar struggle. But yeah, it's, it's rough. Yeah, I kind of can't wait, you know, because I, my thing is, if it's in the house, I'll, right? And so with the kids, we always have all this really, like, crazy junk. And I'm just like, why do we have this? You know? And then, I mean, you're like, this is terrible. We have this. But it's like, why do we have this? I'll kill my wife all the time. It's like,

Starting point is 00:24:59 I will miss our kids when, when they're gone and off the college. But I will not miss what my pantry looks like. There'd be nothing in it. Yeah. And I mean, the question goes is, is it healthier for you? It's not a healthier for them than it is for you. No. No, but dude, when you're, no, my son, he's 17. He can eat 8,000 calories a day. Yeah, right. And it'd be, you know, 2% body fat. The rest of it's crazy. He's got a spoon. I got a spoon with M&M's. That's all it makes no sense. Well, let's talk about what builds a healthy marriage. I want to talk about that. Well, what in your opinion? You said he'd been married 30 years. What's the secret in your opinion to a healthy marriage. There's a, I mean, honestly, it's, there's a guy named Dr. Gary

Starting point is 00:25:39 Chapman. If you're familiar with the five love languages, that's, that was his thing. And he, he started that, he developed all that stuff. But he talks about one, you know, the five love millions are great. I love that stuff. Go look that up. But one of the big things he talks about is that marriage isn't 50-50. It's actually 100, 100. Okay. So the way that it should work is that if I do everything I can to make sure that my wife's needs are met and she does everything she can to make sure my needs are met, everybody's needs to get met. That's the, that's the end equation. Honestly, you know, it's not that simple. For me, I, I basically put, you know, it's God, my wife, kids. And what I think happens a lot, especially typically more with moms than dads. Kids. Kids. Yeah, it's, it's, and I, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:30 I've seen women say, I'll do anything for my kids and like they could care less about the husband, right? And that's why when you see people, you know, you're coming up, your son's 17. When you get to an empty nestor phase, that's when a lot of people get divorced because they realize they've invested absolutely nothing into their relationship over the last 15, 18 years. And, you know, it's not surprising that they're, that they don't know each other. Well, the one thing that in common just walked out the door. Absolutely. That's the only thing you have to talk about. I mean, we're huge into date nights.

Starting point is 00:27:02 We did a date night on Friday, went out. Nothing crazy. We just went out for Chinese food, which don't tell my trainer, but went out for Chinese food and just kind of hung out and talked. And we have these little conversation cards that we use and that connection. But it's little simple stuff. I had an experience Saturday morning. I went down and worked out.

Starting point is 00:27:25 She wasn't doing weights today, but I'm listening to my playlist. And there's a song called The Good Stuff by Kenny Chesson that came on. And the premise of the song is it goes to the bar, says, give me the good stuff and thinking that's alcohol. But he goes on to describe all of these little moments and these little things that make up a happy life with your wife. And so love that song. Michelle loves that song.

Starting point is 00:27:49 I came upstairs. I started playing that song. And I grabbed her and we slow danced in our kitchen for three and a half minutes. Right. When we pulled away from each other, both of us were crying. And it's just this like tenderness and this tender moment that was completely unplanned, but it's a deliberate act to feed into my relationship, right? Because it's so easy for me to just to not do that, right?

Starting point is 00:28:15 But it didn't take much effort and didn't take much time. See, wait a second. But wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang out. Not so fast. Now, but see, isn't that not work with the alpha lifestyle? I think, you know, when you talk about, what a masculine man is, he loves, serves, and protects the women in his life and his friends,

Starting point is 00:28:35 but in particular, his wife. Alpha has a bad name. The point, exactly. That's the point that I was trying to get to. I think you've got a whole generation of guys coming up that watch certain social media influencers and stars. Mr. A.T. Yeah, there you go. You can be thinking of.

Starting point is 00:28:55 Yeah. Yeah, and just, and watch this, that's who's educating a generation of men, how to be men. Yeah. And that's what I'm trying, you know, that's what people that are in my space, we try to combat that, right? Like, I want to have, I want to teach a young man how to treat a woman in a way that they, that they feel loved, cherished, and protected. Because if you look at, I don't care what, you know, feminism and all that stuff, but, but if you look at the, of what most, if not, you know, 95% want, it is those three things to be loved, to be cherished and to have safety and security or to be protected, right? Dr. Jordan Peterson talks

Starting point is 00:29:39 about the propensity for violence. And if you ever heard him talk about? Oh, yeah, of course. You know, women want to know, not that you're a violent person. You're capable. You're capable of doing it. Right. And that's, but that's not the same. Like, you should have. have like I have my wife has I have gorilla hands is what she says she actually calls me her gorilla because I'm the guy that breaks glasses on accident in my hands it's just from years of working out working on cars all that might be a depth perception issue as well could be that could be that but like I but I can have that tenderness that when we lay in bed at night if she wants her black back rubbed I can tenderly do that that's kind of how I see masculinity in its purest form is

Starting point is 00:30:25 that it's based out of love and based out of caring, not based out of authority or somehow proving that I've got a big unit or whatever. Whatever drives that kind of behavior, that's not what masculinity is all about. When guys come to you, what's the biggest problem with most of them have that you see consistent? Self-identity is a huge thing. And I suffer with it, too like the imposter syndrome or like i'm not good enough or i'm i'm kind of putting on this mask and no one really knows the real me those are big ones and that gets coupled with bad relate you know no relationships with other men that's our that's our go to right as guys is it's really hard for us to have relationships with other guys and to and to be friends with other

Starting point is 00:31:16 guys um i talked about this morning on a on a call we kind of did these wins today and and I had two wins on Friday at a morning conversation and a end of the day conversation before date night with two guys that I've been meaning to connect with for about six months and we finally got connected and had like a 40 minute conversation but it started because I thought of them I texted them to say hey just want to let you know I'm thinking about you I love you I hope you're doing well let's connect and then that you know then they then they call so those kind of activities that is missing in a lot of men I think, whether it's fear, not understanding, or a whole host of different reasons.

Starting point is 00:31:57 Well, I think as you get older, and it's, you know, people get families, people get this, people wait too long. They wait for, they're like, well, I don't have any friends because nobody reaches out to me to do anything. But in most cases, people just start thinking about you because they're probably not thinking about much outside of themselves. And, you know, I tell people at the time, if you want something to happen in your life, you've got to be responsible for that. And if that means reaching out to other people, to be happy, you have to do that. It's also interesting you were talking about itself identity with people. Because with the people

Starting point is 00:32:30 that I coach, one of the things I find is the biggest mistake is they wrap their identity to something that's fleeting. Their identity becomes their job. It becomes their profession. It becomes something that could change several times throughout their life. And sometimes, especially in this climate, could change unwillingly. And if your entire identity is wrapped up in something that you don't control like a job, then you're setting yourself up for a major problem. I mean, you should identify as nothing more than things that are within your personal control in my opinion. I think it's a mistake. The way I have described it to people is that men, and I made this mistake, I almost cost me in my marriage and miss the first six months

Starting point is 00:33:13 out of my daughter's life. Tony Robbins talks about, you know, the human condition is to avoid avoid pain and seek pleasure, right? And what men typically do is whatever, wherever they get the most reward, and it may, you know, we'll use pleasure as the main thing, but whether they, wherever they get the most pleasure and have the least amount of pain, they will gravitate towards that. The example I'll give is in my own life, I had no idea how to be a dad. Kind of, you know, had really no example of how to be a husband, a good husband at that point. And so, but I was super freaking good at my job. And people loved me. at my job. And so I gravitated towards career instead of gravitating towards my family. And by the grace

Starting point is 00:33:58 of God, my wife said, look, I don't know if you want to still be married, but if you do, something needs to change. And so I made a complete 180, changed my life. And 30, it's been almost 30 years. And I got, you know, probably 27 years. And it changed everything for me. But it's that perspective on what's what the priority is in in your life and and like you said make the priority things that you actually can control those you know those are those are good yeah how often do you do like the check in with your wife to make sure everything's going okay pretty much every day i mean i i talked to you know you know and it's those little moments it's just really understanding because i can you know after this amount of time i can just look at her and know that

Starting point is 00:34:42 she's frustrated i can look at her and know that she's just having a rough day or whatever you know i've got the quintessential it is it is law that if i walk through the kitchen my so my office is right here the kitchen is literally you know six feet away we have a decent size house we she's always in the kitchen doing baking all that if i walk through that room and i don't slap her on the ass something is seriously wrong so that by by the way man that is a that is a quintessential dude rule like that's you have it is see it's honey what where are we at we're at 34 36 minutes honey i'm gonna make you listen to this because she doesn't believe me. She thinks it's just me.

Starting point is 00:35:18 No, it's not. It's a rule. And, you know, I saw this video the other day of a woman basically saying, women, stop complaining that your husband slaps you on the ass or make sexual advances or whatever. You literally have a guy that loves you and is attractive, attracted to you enough to put that effort. Yeah. Be happy.

Starting point is 00:35:38 So stop complaining about it, right? Like, be happy for it because you could be the exact opposite. Yeah. My wife and I are very practical in. And in the assessment of our marriage, we have a thing that we do where we'll say, I love you today. And if the today is on there, you don't get it, you don't get it every day, right? But if the today's on there, it's legit.

Starting point is 00:35:57 Because what happens is when you're married for a long time in passing, it's like, yeah, good night, love you. Yeah, oh, see, I'm leaving, love you, and just becomes goodbye or hello. There's nothing to it. So on those days, when you get the, I love you today, it's like, oh, really? You do? Today? You know, because, because look, I.

Starting point is 00:36:16 I tell people to get married, I tell everybody that I know that's getting married. I tell them that story because I'm like, every day is not sunshine and rainbows. There's going to be days when you're just sitting there and you're like, could she eat out of that Tupperware any louder? I mean, is it even humanly possible to scrape the side of that Tupperware with that spoon any louder? And you want to murder this person. And then there's days when it's like, I love you today. But we do that a lot. We have a, I've been married four times.

Starting point is 00:36:43 Always to the same woman, though. We get married every five years. Is a check-in, and I think you're about to throw this interview for a whole loop. No, no, no, no. That's always the same woman. But, yeah, we do that every five years, and it's my way of, like, hey, man, she'll go through with that again, and probably do it okay. So at least every five years, I know exactly where I'm at.

Starting point is 00:37:03 If she's ever like, yeah, I think next time, just to throw some spice into it, I might ask her for a pre-nump. I don't think that's going to go over really well. Yeah, I don't think she'll like that. I will give the audience a little bit of a, here's a trick going back to you. I love you today thing. What I did one year, I started in January, and I started with three, but I bought a pack of three by five index cards.

Starting point is 00:37:24 And every day I would write, I love something I love her, I love about her, right? We have a pretty decent size master bathroom. She has her own sink on one side, mine's on the other. I began to tape them up around her mirror. And so, and so she'd see a new one every day and kind of knew where, knew where the new ones would go. And so imagine 360 of those, 365 of those all around her bathroom mirror, right? So you got all of these five by three by five cards. I got nerdy about it.

Starting point is 00:37:55 I actually put in an Excel spreadsheet to make sure I didn't repeat any. Yeah, that would have made more sense to me. You know, make sure I did that. But I actually just hand wrote them out. And then at the end of the year for Christmas, I made one of those, you know, photo books that I had different pages of us. So wait, hang on. They're just randomly placed around the mirror.

Starting point is 00:38:12 literally like they're taped but just just randomly kind of no I mean I'm pretty pretty anal so they I'm saying my ADD like all I'm hearing is my 80s screaming they were organized okay all right not my topic or anything

Starting point is 00:38:28 they were they were aligned a random hodgepodge of cards stuck on the wall in your house this is my worst nightmare well we'll have to find a different way to do it yeah that's it okay now you spreadsheet you're speaking my love language now you know my love language.

Starting point is 00:38:42 I used the spreadsheet in order to make sure I didn't repeat any of the year. I made her a book and gave it to her for Christmas. That's awesome. A coffee table book. And so, and I, you know, some of them got a little spicy,

Starting point is 00:38:52 but, so that was those, that's a great thing to do. That is. So if a guy's coming to you, right? Yep. How quickly,

Starting point is 00:39:03 and again, this is almost like an infomercial question. It's not. I'm just curious. So because what is your expectation when you bring somebody on that they should see some results or see some advancement? I mean, really, it's not, nothing that we're not, we're not curing cancer here, right? Like, we're trying to help men get better.

Starting point is 00:39:20 And all I want these guys to do is to take deliberate action to improve a little bit at a time, right? And actually, most of the guys within a few weeks to a month, they should see some sort of forward progress. And it's simple crap, like we talked about, opening the door, you know, making sure you check in with her. Those are some of those marriage things, you know. And from a fitness standpoint, you're going to be sore after the first workout. So you start to see that happen. And obviously it takes six, eight, 12 weeks for you to see some real progress. But you're going to see progress just from the commitment to yourself.

Starting point is 00:39:57 One of the big words I use is integrity. And my buddy Marcus Collius, who became my mentor and just an amazing guy, he talks about integrity in a different way that really changed my perspective. We always think about integrity as my promise is to. other people right like that's kind of our outward measure integrity but integrity is a measurement with yourself sure do what i'm so i tell myself what i'm going to do and when i don't do it i'm breaking my integrity yeah you lose self-confidence right and so just the fact that you now are doing what you say you're going to do for yourself instantly elevate your your entire world in my mind let me ask you this in a world of fast clicks and just the internet and everything else and everybody's

Starting point is 00:40:40 heads down is in their phone. I think, you know, we catch ourselves doing it sometimes. We're sitting there and I look around. Everybody's on the couch and, you know, staring at their phones. How much do you think dopamine addiction is causing this mass reduction in masculinity with men? I mean, is there a bigger factor right now? I mean, because then, because here's the problem, the dopamine addiction that you have allows the algorithms, and this little tin hat, you know, tinfoil hatish, but the algorithm is feeding you stuff based on the behavior that you have. The behavior you're doing is to get the dopamine hit. And when you see something about that, that reinforces your predisposed biases,

Starting point is 00:41:27 then you get the dopamine hit and then it continues to ingrain that, right? So like if it's telling you that masculine men are rapists or whatever, the message is for the day, you're going to continue to get that. Right. So you're using the dopamine to reinforce untruths in your life. And so I, you know, it's crazy that it works that way, but it's like, it's literally like this, you know, self-fulfilling prophecy to where the more I do it, the worse it gets, the more I want to do it. And it's on and on and on. The reason I'm laughing is because as far as algorithms goes, you know, my son was getting his, news from Twitter, and I'm like, buddy, you can't, you can't do that because if you look at

Starting point is 00:42:13 one, like, if you look at three articles that lean this way, everything you're going to get is going to be that way. And that was starting to happen with him. And I said, I'm going to prove a point. I grabbed his Twitter and I think I typed in, like, big booty college girls or something in a Twitter. Watch your algorithm change now. This mom was not thrilled with that lesson. She didn't, she did not think that was the right way to go. I thought it was very effective. I proved that to my wife because she had seen one of my, you know, on my TikTok account, there's girls on my TikTok account. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:42:44 And so I said, all right, I'm going to prove this to you. I want right now, we're going to start a brand new TikTok account where I say I'm a 53 year old male. Brand new. Feed is full of nothing but young girls. Like I had literally never interacted with TikTok under that account. Like they be, they serve you what they think you're going to like. Yeah. And you have to retrain it and all that.

Starting point is 00:43:06 it's it's crazy all right well let's let's bring this home with something i like to do which is i go on the old chat gbt and these are the only prepared questions i ever ask ready i say just give me 10 random weird questions that would be appropriate for this person that they've probably never been asked okay so it's unique to you it's a little unique to you but it's ready you're going to we're going to we're going to go fast you ready number one if masculinity were a meal what would be on the plate steak steak of potatoes i mean i think that's the common answer. Okay, perfect. What is one non-negotiable you do before 7 a.m. That would sound crazy to most people. Uh, cold plunge. Oh, yeah, I don't do the cold.

Starting point is 00:43:47 What's the dumbest thing you've done that still somehow made you stronger? I have multiple times created situation with ladders that should have ended in my death, but have not so far. But made you stronger because you didn't learn not to do it again? I mean, I don't understand how that makes you stronger, but okay. Maybe stronger because I keep working out so I can do stupid, stupid things. Okay. If discipline had a smell, what would it be? Wow, that's a weird one.

Starting point is 00:44:19 I'll say gear oil just because it's the worst smell in the world. Okay. What's the most unalpha habit you have that actually makes you a better man? Self-tanner. That might be. beat the start of this podcast. That might be how we start this out. Okay. Oh, God. If you could go back and give your 21-year-old self two-piece, a two-word piece of advice, what would it be? Can I have three? Don't be an asshole. That's four. Okay. Number seven, you can only keep one forever. Physical strength

Starting point is 00:44:58 or emotional control. Oh, definitely physical strength. Okay. You're like the Hulk. You can be like the Hulk running Eight of yourself, you'd expect the Hulk went on crazy. That's a nice answer, but yeah, it's a physical streak. All right. Number eight, which animal best represents the kind of man you're trying to build through maxed out men? A bear. Okay. Number nine, what's the quote you think is absolute garbage that everyone else seems to love?

Starting point is 00:45:27 God doesn't give us more than we can handle. Okay. And last one. It's not in the Bible, by the way. Okay. Last one, if you had to max out one area of your life that has nothing to do with business, faith or fitness, what would it be and why? It would be continue to grow my marriage because above all else, I want to be 105 years old

Starting point is 00:45:49 and have been married for 80 years. Like, I want to get to that. And that's the wrap. Kevin, how do they find you if they want to find you? Go to maxoutman.com. I also have a little digital product if you're interested called the datenight blueprint.com. super cheap super digital download take your wife on a date this weekend it's ready to go love that all right brother I appreciate it man anytime you want to come back on you let me

Starting point is 00:46:13 know all right appreciate it thanks man guys so man I'm assuming men because I don't know how many women are still around after that hopefully a bunch I don't know but listen here's the deal if you're drifting through life chances are I mean the three pillars that he teaches are really where you need to start because they're all based on one thing which is self-accountability. If you can't be honest with yourself, you can never hold yourself accountable. If you don't do what you say you're going to do, you're never going to build self-confidence, and you will continue to drift. We'll see you next time. Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast. And big news, my new book, Escaping the Drift is coming out. November the 11th,

Starting point is 00:46:54 you can pre-order it right now at the johngaffer.com. There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways. Get the book. If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you. If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you. Available everywhere, all bookstores, everywhere, Amazon, Barnes & Noble's, the whole nine yards. But pick your copy up right now at thejohngaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses I've thrown out because I promise you. I put my heart and soul into this thing. I want it to help you change your life.

Starting point is 00:47:26 Pick it up everywhere. what's up everybody thanks for joining us for another episode of escaping the drift hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as i did out of it anyway if you want to learn more about the show you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list but do me a favor if you wouldn't mind throw up that five-star review give us a share do something man we're here for you hopefully you'll be here for us but anyway in the meantime we'll see you at the next episode

Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Finding Strength in Service and Relationships with Kevin Davis

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