Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - How to Be a Better You:: Tips, Tricks, and Tactics EP 65

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

How to Be a Better You:: Tips, Tricks, and Tactics EP 65In this episode of The Power Move we discuss," How to Be a Better You:: Tips, Tricks, and Tactics" We cover how you can be more effective in your personal and professional life by making small tweaks to your daily routine! Small hacks including setting goals and other tips will help you become the best version of yourself.With Chris Connell and Colt AmidanWelcome to the official Youtube Channel of The Power Move Podcast - Hosted by serial entrepreneur and businessman John Gafford 📈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/☑️ Featuring:Cody Sperber - The Clever Investor -https://cleverinvestor.comColt Amidan - Director of Commercial Real Estate at Simply Vegas - https://www.amidangroup.com

From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with Jon Gafford. Back again. Back again. You know what, boys? Back again. Half a week?

It is. It's been a minute. But the good news is we're all wearing suits today of some form which i like sharp today yeah everybody's rocking the suit today just fantasizing about a guy in an ig that i'm probably start following now that guy was snappy dressed no he was and handsome dang cigars coffee john i gotta show you this guy i don't know if i need to see some guy you're fantasizing welcome to the Power Move. My name is John Gafford.

I am your host. On this show, we talk about how to become a better you. Actually, you know what's funny, man? That's what we're really going to talk about today. But first of all, welcome to the Bulgarian mongoose called Amadan. I didn't save this guy. I didn't save his Instagram. He's looking for some dude on Instagram.

Just Google desert, reading GQ in a white suit in the desert and that's it this guy something else how are you guys we're good how are you counselor welcome back good living the dream from our surf and safari that we went on last week thank you guys for uh accompanying me on surf safari which was always fun was that was that a whole week ago yeah we left yeah we was that was that a whole week ago yeah we left yeah we were we were down there a week ago today we're there two days ago yeah i know we're down there last week that was fun it time goes faster as you get older it does remember remember a little kid and like have we talked about this i don't know if we talked about but christmas would take like years to get there and now you blink and it's like a year goes by yeah

perceptive time zero to 18 is the same psychologically as 18 to 80 okay so you think that you're halfway through your life at 40 or whatever yeah you're halfway through your life at 18 to do it now because you're percept because experience speeds time up right because if you know what's coming you know what to expect you get in the doldrums you go through your life all of a sudden you whip through 25 years of your life without realizing that oh that shit just happened just in just a second yeah so you're percept there's ways to slow it down new experiences learning difficult things putting yourself in difficult situations will give you a longer life perceptively yeah did you did you may see the thing about the dana white guy that now i'm obsessed with the 10x health guy did you see this to see the dana white

thing so dana white White had this guy on, Gary Beckler, I think his name is, or didn't have him on, but he was on a podcast. He was talking about him. And this is a cat that owns, I guess Grant Cardona's not bought it. It's called 10X Health,

where this cat can come and give you a blood test and a DNA test and then tell you how, based on those results, how long you have to live. Because his main thing was he worked for an insurance company as an actuary expert. And he's like, when they're issuing these hundreds of million dollar policies on rich people, they don't care where you fall on

the chart. They want to know how many months you got left on the planet. And, uh, he was talking, Dana White was being interviewed. He was talking about this guy came and he, they were Miami and the guy came to the room and did the blood test and did this and he became obsessed with it and i called him up and said i'm gonna fly to vegas and tell you about it and uh he flew out and sold dana white he goes you got 10.4 years to live that's it how old's dana i don't gotta be 53 54 whatever it is and he goes but here's the deal he goes if you do what i tell you to do in 10 weeks i can turn it all the way around and so d Dana started doing what this guy said. And I guess he's lost 30 pounds in like 10 weeks.

He says he's had trouble with his legs. Like he could barely bend over. No doctor knew what was wrong. He said, that's cured up. No more sleep apnea. No more snoring. That's cleared up all of this stuff. So now I've become obsessed with this guy.

So yesterday I ordered the genetic test from him. So I'm going to see what happens with genetic tests, but he also three months ago, we were talking about this in Newport because this is the cat that also believes in like the oxygen training where they sell the oxygen machine, where you do like the 15 of the 93 pure oxygen to kind of really get oxygen through every cell in your body and really hyper oxygenated. And so, yeah, I don't know, man, I'm gonna see how it goes. I'm going to try to turn myself into a superhero. It's better than just drinking beer at McDonald's, I suppose. It gives you better odds. It is. It is. But speaking of making yourself a

better human. So in case you didn't know, I'm actually in the process right now of writing a book about how to escape the drifts of life, the doldrums, whatever it is, those valleys in our life that keep you down. And so one of the things we're going to start doing on the podcast here is discussing some thoughts that I have going into each chapter and just some ideas that I have. Now, they are no particular order. They're a little bit jumbled, but here's the thing. Today, we're talking about something kind of cool, because in this chapter, in the old bookaroo, we're talking about how to become a better you. And these are tips that I have and things that I've done in my life that will, if it followed, I mean, they worked for me. I became a better me. I don't know how

much better I was in before. No, I'm just kidding. I'm light years better than I was before. But yeah, you know, these are things that I do and I just want to hear what you guys think about it, which is good. I don't becoming a better you becoming a better you all these sheep start listening in. No, it's not about that. Not about that at all. Not about that at all. So, you know, again, these are no particular orders. I'm just going to start going through them.

So the first thing, all right, is this. Being impossible to be misunderstood by other people. And I think a lot of anxiety, a lot of problems, a lot of complications in your life are 100% self-generated because you become hard to understand. You don't have clarity in your requests from people. You don't have – there's a lot of interpretation that goes on. Communication. Through text message communication skills. So one of the things that I

started doing at a very early age, and it was great, especially if you're in sales, and this will make it very simple, is being very clear when you have conversations that involve relationship points, deal points, expectation points. So if I get off the phone with, say, a client, right, and we talk about, I'm going to do X,'re going to do y as soon as i get off the phone email i go right to the email and i say hey to summarize that last meeting um or that last conversation i'm going to do actually going to do y and the reason why i do this is not because i think the person is silly is because i think the person will forget in three months and when they go back and they say no that's that's not what you said you were going to do and that's not what

you told me you want to meet i'm using the bill burr, that's not what you said you were going to do. And that's not what you told me you wanted me to do. I'm using the Bill Burr voice now. That's not what you told me you wanted me to do. At this point, you can just say, hey, refer back to the email on January the 15th. And your lawyer will thank you. And your lawyer will thank you. So be impossible to be misunderstood. I love that.

People always go, you know where you lay with Colt. And I don't think i have a friend usually off of sarah no but i don't think i have uh i don't have to marry at bonvoy it's got a lot of points a lot of points no but i i don't have any fake friends around me i don't believe right like i don't have bad relationships around me and And like you, I just had this yesterday where I'm going back and forth with a couple of attorneys and didn't realize my client was on the thing. I had to get on phone like, Hey, that email is going to sound really like I'm not working for you. But that was just a stupid thing. They said, let me explain why. Right? Like you've got

to get on, like you said, when you can just sit back and say here's the email i sent you not only do they feel a little you know they feel dumb and then they're like per my last email i think it's that's such that's i don't think you'll have aggressive friends if you're if people know where they lie with you right like i don't know i feel like you're i feel all three of us are the same way if anybody meets you you know exactly where you're lying with them yeah yeah i think it's funny too because i assume that unless i think like unless i know otherwise that i'm on good terms with you yeah my baseline assumption is that i'm on good terms with you well so many people and that's why i hate the text that's why i hate the text message has become such the profound or the primary source of communication because there's

no context to it and i think key and peel have a have a sketch where it's like you want to go yes i'd love to go oh really and it's like i'll see you at ten i can't wait i can't wait i can't i can't wait and i can't wait there's no context to what's going on or no context. And you have to, so many people are so quick to assume things. So make yourself impossible to be misunderstood. I love that. Stay in your lane. Learn to stay in your lane.

I think this is what causes people a lot of grief. And what's worse is if you are a person that is a lily pad hopper, if you are a this week, I'm this next week, I'm that now I'm on this craze. Now I'm the NFT guru. Like if you are someone that hops around, right? Everybody sees that and your credibility starts to drive. It starts to drive right into the ground. And And it is one thing to pivot to something else if that pivot makes sense. Like, for example, if you think about like in basketball,

like the guy's not going to pass the ball. The point guard's not going to get the ball and pass it to a hockey goalie. It's just not going to happen. Like you can move the ball around the court, which is fine within what you do. But if you're- Stay in the same game. You got to stay in the same game. And, and I know people,

I see people that have jumped around so much that nobody takes anything they do seriously. It's funny in what I do. It's everything I do is actually very closely related. People will say, Oh, you're in real estate and car accidents. Like, how does that work? It's like, well, because I negotiate, I'm a professional negotiator. Yeah. So I negotiate car insurance accidents with insurance adjusters, and I negotiate real estate deals with real estate brokers or developers or whatever, and I also do business litigation,

which is business negotiation. But it's all business negotiation. It's the same skill set. And negotiation. It's all the same. And people go, well, I thought car accidents were something special.'m like no no it's about negotiations but setting up to have the best arguments possible in this realm so like for example though but you're not saying i'm a great weight lifter so i'm a good tap dancer yeah it's not it's not the same same set of skills are not

involved with that so it doesn't matter so listen if you're somebody that hasn't decided what you want to be what you want to do that's fine but pick a lane you got to be, what you want to do, that's fine. But pick a lane. You got to decide on something and you got to stick with it. Or at least don't pick 10 lanes. You know, I can, like, there are people where they go, I have interests in this, that, and the other. I say, okay, fine. You can have interest, but being the, like today, some guy just drilled me about roofing. I'm not a roofer. I mean, to my guy i keep saying to call but you keep calling me i don't know what you're asking me well that was jack welsh's funded that's it jack welsh's number one thing as as the ceo of ge was i want to get people around

me that can answer all of those questions about these different divisions i'm not i can't know all this stuff yeah i My lane is this. I manage the people that manage the things. Yes. So my lane is managing the people that manage the things, and I'm smart enough to know that in plastics, it's different than petrochemicals, which is different than weapons.

It's all GE. I'm the CEO of all of it, but I can't tell you the specifications of our nuclear weapons division. No. Right? It's generally electric. Generally sort of electric.

Generally lots of things going on, right? But again, that's still a lane, and I agree with that. How many times you as a business owner, your issues you come across is because people get out of their lane. How many times? We got all the time. 60% of your issues are from that? And listen, here's the thing too. I don't want you to hear like,

if you're an unhappy tortilla maker at a restaurant, I'm not saying you have to be a tortilla maker the rest of your life. I'm just saying if you pivot to something being different, you got to stay in it long enough that it makes sense. And when I was younger, I spent so much time in the restaurant business and did that. And then there was like, we tried to do this multi-level marketing business

and that kind of didn't work. And then we did this other business and then we did this. It just, it kind of felt like it was drifting. It wasn't really until I got found real estate that was kind of, okay, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do. And all of the other businesses that we have are all vertically degraded, somehow tied to this business. So I don't think it's a big leap when I say, oh, you know, when people ask what I do, and if you look at my signature, it says everything real estate, because literally at this point, it's everything real estate. So when you say stay in your own lane, what's your perspective? Because like you said, you probably gained a lot of knowledge from doing an MLM. You probably

gained a lot of knowledge from doing not just vitamins, but also restaurant. So to say, stay in your lane, pick a lane, it's like, well, you know, but you can be in that lane for a while. Yeah, be in that. I think what you said is more to the point, which was, you know,

pick one lane to be in. Don't try to drive in nine. Because when you drive in nine, you know, it's... You're spread all over the place. You're just not going to get anywhere. You know, and it just, it's a mess. But I in nine, you know, it's spread all over. You're not going to, you're just not going to get anywhere, you know, and it just, it's, it's a mess.

But I think also, you know, becoming a better you, a real good key to that is shortcut that anybody will tell you, man, is find a good mentor. And I think finding a good mentor is, is hyper important. So I want to talk about a couple of things in life that will help you find a good mentor. Now, the first thing is so many people and I, you know, I get DMS and it's like, Hey, you know, can you mentor me? What does that mean? What does that mean? Tell me what I tell me what I need to do. Yeah. What does that mean? Or what's in it for me and these things. And I've agreed to mentor people. Um, if they

have a good story, they have a good reason, or they have a good cause behind them. Like you need to tell me like, here's where I'm at. Here's where I'm trying to go. Here's where I think you can help me get there. Here's what's in it for you. Like, I loved Cody Sperber's story when he was in here. If you go back and listen to him with his mentors, his mentor was like, look, you're going to give me half

on everything you do until I tell you no. Actually, no, he didn't even say that. He said, you're going to give me what I tell you. You're going to give me out every deal until we're done. To the point where Cody got pissed off at him like two years in. The guy's like, I've been waiting for you to fire me for a year. You don't need me anymore. And it was the final lesson.

I love that. And what Cody did was find somebody that's on their way out of it. Find somebody that's retired that still doesn't want to retire, have the knowledge. Don't find somebody that's working 60 70 hours a week and you know yeah expect them to let you in on business like especially you guys right like you have nda sign on stuff you can't have people oh can i sit in on one of your meetings no you can't yeah and i have kids and stuff i'm trying to feed my own family first you know um who is

your who is your mentor if i had a mentor right now you know the funny thing the biggest mentor i had in my life as a guy was or is a guy that actually passed away it was on my buddies rick wells and he passed away years ago and he was the guy that kind of first was like you know he would say he was the first guy that would say kind of outlandish shit about what he wanted to do and you kind of believed it the kind of stems go for stupid. Yeah. You were like, wow, this could really happen. And he was kind of the guy that he was a guy that told me to get in sales. He was the guy that told me to go buy Kirby, you know, self Kirby vacuum cleaners or sell cars that have a PhD in sales. I mean, that was the guy that was it. And over the years, depending on what I'm doing, I have people I can

call and lean into. Um, I try to find people, um, that are good at what they already do. But when I call them, again, I always position the ass with them. I'm very smart with how I call them. It's always like, I have something for you. I never ask somebody to do something for me unless I can do something of value for them. Case in point, right? When I first became friends with Steve Sims, Blue Fishing was first coming out, right? So I'm like, all right, how can I get Sims to come in and talk to our agent? This is before we were friends. And I said, how can I get him to kind of come on and talk to our agents, right? So I said, he's got this book coming out. My sister has a very large radio show in Denver. So I called my sister and I said, hey, would you like this guy on your show? I think he'd be a

cool guest. He's got some great stories. He's a cool guy. Would you like him on there? And he said, sure. And so I literally reached out straight to Steve and I said, Hey, would you want to go? I've got a, I got something for you. Cause most of the time when I call people, that's, that's my standard message. I have something for you. Call me back. Now don't just say that and then have nothing, but I called, said, yeah. And then he, so he called me back and called me back. And I said, I know you're launching this book. My sister has the number one talk radio show in Denver. I, you know, I talked to her about you. I can get your spot. And he was like, great. And as soon as then it was like, can I do anything for you? Actually you could, it'd be great if you came

on and just spent 30 minutes with my agents. No problem, done. But, and even if he would have said no, it would have been fine. Sure. Because sometimes you do want to give with no expectation of reciprocation. But if you're trying to get a mentor, show them that you can bring value to their life by thinking outside the box with shit they might need.

Just connect people, yeah. Just connect people. Be the people connector. But I'm going to tell you some things how to blow out your mentor, how to blow them out. Because I had some people that I was, I was, I was mentoring and, um, and they were coming in once a week and I was sitting down with them and they got busy. And first week they're, Oh, can we cancel? Just something came up with something. We got to do something. I said, sure. Yeah, you can cancel. No problem. They did it

again. Yeah. Right. And they did it again. This is the conversation that we had. I said, and this is going to sound a little egotistical, but it doesn't, but there's a point to it. And what I said was, I said, if you had a meeting with Tony Robbins, would you have canceled it? Like, honestly, would you have canceled it? I said, oh God, no. I said, then I don't need to coach you anymore. And they said, well, why? And I said, well, listen, here's the deal. The reason that you wouldn't cancel a meeting with Tony Robbins is not because it's Tony Robbins. It's because you value the information that's coming out of his mouth so much that you would move heaven and earth to get to it. If you can't even get to my

office for a meeting, you're not going to do what I tell you to do anyway. You're just not. So if you're not going to do it, what's the point in both of us doing it? It's funny. I have a real piece of relationship advice I often use, which is what, have you ever heard people that talk to their spouses in a certain way?

And you just go, do you talk to the barista at Starbucks like that? You know, and of course, I think, I think a vet probably does. but no but that's just like in life right like you can always tell what someone does values by what they do yeah so if you don't talk to the starbucks barista like that why would you talk to your wife like that yeah no no kidding this is somebody that you share kids with a family your

business partner so just like in life right you can always tell what someone values by how they act and what they do it's important to them it'll get done if it's not it's not right we just had this conversation me and guy you thought where people are so disrespectful right now with disrespecting people's time it's the i don't know what it is but i feel like these last two years people are getting and it's not just to me i mean they're doing it i've watched a guy worth hundreds of millions of dollars someone did the same thing i'd love to have lunch with you he sat there for 45 minutes he's like i'm done he goes if they come in don't even show him where i'm at you know did you ever mentor yeah yeah norm george out of utah

he taught me commercial real estate at 18. And he just brought you under his wing? Yeah. I mean, he knew what he was doing. He got a little runner boy. He talked to me at a funeral, right? He knew I could BS. He saw you crying at a funeral?

He's like, there's easy pickings. No, no, but he straight up said, how much do you need a month to live, to pay for college and to live? And I said, and I gave out my bare minimum. minimum he's like that's what you're getting paid well i was you know bringing in big deals and stuff he'd cut me off a piece but yeah but i i've got at 18 i was doing hospital deals at 19 i'm doing hotels right like stuff i should have never and i tell people all the time you can't go learn this from watching youtube you have to learn it by being in it. That's why go cold call.

Go start at the bottom. Don't ask somebody, okay, I'm going to mentor you and just be underneath you and just want to do the big stuff. I got lucky with kind of that situation, yeah. Same thing. My ex's dad had a major real estate development company. I mean, huge. And his vice president was a developer, ex-military developer.

And I always got to go and be a part of these deals. And I'm like 23, 24, 25. I'm negotiating stuff with Walmart. Yep. And it's just like you don't get that opportunity. So you have to go make it happen. It sounds like nepotistic, but I was making like 30-some thousand Canadian. I was being drastically underpaid for a college grad.

People were making double the money, but I wanted to be – I wanted the opportunities to do big things more than i cared about the money at the time well there are people right now that if they'd let me i'd go work for them for free for a year well here's the point but see that that's a that's a good point if people listen to this and they're like oh you know where am i going to get a mentor where am i going to get somebody that you know is doing this to take an interest in me where am i going to do that i think you know one of the oldest adages that you get pounded into the end of the ground is you know show me your friends i'll show you your future but your friend group can provide some mentorship for you if it's the right friend group if it's the right and so many people look at their friend groups as just the guys I

drink beer with or whoever I hang out with or whatever, blah, blah, blah. But you've got to look at who you're hanging around with and say, you know, are they bringing value to me outside of just the laughs? And sometimes, you know, it's good to hang out with some of those people, but you've got to make sure that you're, you're, you're being around people. And here's the thing. If you feel like you don't have anything to offer some of these people or you're hanging around circles with people that have a much higher level of success, sometimes just being a good friend and not asking them for shit is a way to get in with these people. You know, like we sat here, we sat here with the snack daddy, man, Ari Golden. It was just like, how did you get in with all these celebrities? He's like, I never asked him for anything. I never asked him for shit. Not a one thing my my daughter um i happen to know this celebrity whatever and she

goes dad can you please ask this favor absolutely not under no circumstance will i ask for that favor i wouldn't ask for it for me i'm not gonna ask for you i'm not gonna ask for anybody that's just one of those things where do you want to maintain a friendship? Because if you do, don't ask people for stuff. Yeah. Now, there's some stuff where I'd say, hey, we had Jason Egan on here. And when I have people in from town, I say, hey, I'm going to bring them by saw. I'll bring them by your attraction because I want to bring them by and I'll pay.

Yeah. I just want a spot. I just want a spot. I'll pay pay just get me a spot yeah i just want to pay but just don't don't make me deal with the bullshit because i've already done it you know i've already gone through the ropes i'm trying to show other people good time and he's always no i got to cover together but it's like no no i'm not asking for that i promise you i'll say no charge me and then and good friends will have this thing where it's back and forth of who paid what. Yeah. Like, I won't let you pay. I snuck the card in before you got a chance. I mean, look, we were just all in Newport.

And it was like, I think somebody asked me, I think it might be you, Colton. Did I pay you for that meal? I'm like, I don't. My first response was, I don't know. And my second response was, I don't care. I know you don't. But I just didn't want to send it to the wrong person. But no, I am that way.

Yeah, so John Gifford, congratulations. You got the whatever it was. but i just didn't want to send it to the wrong person but no i i am that way like yeah so john gifford congratulations you got the uh yeah hey that was i don't use the venmo that's all this guy just sent me sixty dollars no but it that is i've stopped hanging out with people it's always like oh you're just always being the one pay or hey can you call this person to get because you know this person it's like no i wouldn't even ask for myself i'm not asking for i how many times can you get me a room here could i sure am i going to know could you get me a nightclub yeah no it's not happening that's that's the most important thing is when you're around that, like when I was in LA, I was at parties that I had no business being, I was the only non.

That's how you get into those parties. Yeah. But I was all, and people you saw, I always ask like, why? I'm like, cause I don't care.

I don't give a shit who they are. Yep. And I don't, I'm not a yes sir to them. And I don't, yeah. Like these guys, Oh,

you want to go to nightclub? Sure. Like, let me buy that bottle. And they'd be like, Oh, what? Like you bought the bottle you just you can't you can't be a leech to people well because people will do that they'll be oh you're an attorney hey uh let me talk to you about my case or whatever

dude i'm in a bar yeah like what do you know what are we talking about this is why i'm here so no i'm not working it's one of the advantages about being in real about being in real estate is there's a million people for people to talk to about real estate deals. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about it. But I do want to talk about this because we were just all together. And one of my points here is this.

And if you are someone that is drifting along and you don't not have a lot of success, I would be willing to bet also in this lovely day and age, I want to say two things about social media, but in this lovely day and age, number one, I'll say two things about social media but in this lovely day and age number one i'll bet two things about you i bet you're consuming more than you're producing meaning that you are not thinking about your own life you are consuming the lives of others through social media and i have found there are times when i you know we all get that compulsive going through so i mean i i've you probably haven't seen a lot of me on social media lately because honestly i just decided like i hit this point where i'm like i to get rid of things that don't bring me joy. And I just found myself not – there's no – I get no joy from social media.

There's no joy in it. Oh, I completely disagree. Oh, me and Chris. Instagram. Me and Chris have some good joys. Facebook has lost its – I don't get it on Facebook. Instagram, man.ys. Facebook has lost its safety. Instagram, man.

Wow. You get joy from Instagram. Oh, I get smiles from ear to ear. Me and Chris live on Instagram memes. But here's the thing. It's so good. The jokes and memes are good. But what I found was I found myself seeing people that,

for whatever reason, I'm connected to that are living a false life. That is just a fallacy. And I just get, I skip. Yeah, I just skip over that. The problem is it just, it wasn't bringing me, it doesn't bring me a lot of joy, but also I think because of this perceived level of success that you're just automatically supposed to have, because apparently everybody does. I think that people's ego is standing in front of the in front of them becoming successful and a great great great story of that is my buddy noel bowman who we're with this weekend and noel i think we have no one no one no one's been on yeah so yeah he was on we've had him on but again but again to recap his story you know he was at a

place where he was you know he he was broke man he he had a place where he was, you know, he was broke, man. He had a rock bottom on there. And, you know, he had to swallow his ego to take a goofy job as the manager of the ice cream scooper place with a hat. It was like a $100,000 job. But he had to swallow his pride to take that job. And I think there's some times when there's things that could get ahead, get you ahead that your ego won't let you do. And because it's perceived as bad, like going backwards. Like for example, like right now, um, I had a little wrestle with this yesterday cause we're, I'm selling out of my interest in the airplane just cause just not

penciling for me. And I'm selling out some other stuff. Cause again, it doesn't bring me joy. I'm getting rid of it. And part of me was like, uh, part of me was like, you know, Oh, in the the back of my what are people going to think you know people are going to gossip that i'm going broke because i'm selling this stuff and i and i'm like i'm like why why do i give a shit what people think like as much as i you know i try to do egos away i try to stoicism i try to pound down it still comes creeping back man but that's why we work on it's a work in progress yeah You don't read Marcus Aurelius and all of a sudden you're like, you know, completely just and benevolent. It's work.

They call it practice, right? They say showering is like motivation. It works for a little bit, right? But you got to do it over and over. Motivation is like showering. You know, it's like you can't expect to be. I'm perfectly motivated from this day forward because I. So wait, that poster i bought

that i'm gonna put my i know it's got an eagle it says freedom you got it more than just one you got four around four posters four posters one poster there's not one person on this earth that doesn't have an ego yeah not one and it will but again like you look at noel how do you not swallow his ego and taking that first job he would not be where he is today. And where he is today is pretty fucking awesome. You should have some ego. I'm not against ego. It's about managed ego. And it's about self-awareness of what your ego is.

I think ego serving you from a place of self-reflection is fine. I think ego concerned about the outward appearance of others is controlling that's a slave it's slavery yeah it is it totally is who is that well let's talk about setting some goals which one shirt you have which one oh yeah kill your master kill your master that's a killer mike thing right from run the jewels and it's the whole concept and people always look at me funny when i wear it but i'm like what's why wouldn't you why wouldn't that be your baseline kill all of your masters if you have a master right if you have any masters kill them yeah get rid of them like you don't need a master a master is different than like a mentor that doesn't listen to us but

there are masters there are mentors if your wife is if your wife is your master that's an unhealthy relationship nobody should ever control have you ever seen people like i do this for my mom because if i don't she's gonna guilt me into this that i'm like get rid of your get rid of your mom i actually mean that if you have people in your life that are manipulative and controlling you and they're not and they're not concerned about your happiness they're just concerned about theirs why do you need them in your life i don't care if you grew up together i don't care if you're biologically related to each other this is true for everyone but your children who are just monsters i don't know if this is gonna i don't know if this works but i read this the other day i thought it was interesting worth a try and said when people are manipulative and trying to argue with you

you just look at them you know do you want some sand or not? Can you confuse them? Just try to confuse them and it diffuses the situation. I don't know. I'm going to try that. You confuse people when they're so – you can mess with people. I always say, throw something stupid in a business transaction. Watch people get so upright.

You can't do that and then you go with them do you know i led zeppelin at a rider with the green m&ms to make sure people were paying attention yeah oh no yeah you're exactly right i know yeah so they'd say okay we need this because they had a bunch of contraptions and equipment and all this stuff and they could tell if they needed to go back over and fine-tooth comb the rider right if they walked into the stage there was a bowl of green M&Ms, it meant they read it. It meant they were detail-oriented enough

so that they could actually, you know. Knew it got done. Did not know that. That is actually a true story. I don't know if it's a true story, but I've heard it as well. It's either true or a very well-propried logic. The logic behind it makes a ton of sense.

It does. It really does. It really does. It really does. Let's talk about, before we get to goal setting, let's talk about self-discipline because I think that's something that's very important. And there were a lot of times in my life when I did not have self-discipline, two things. I think I've told this story before. I don't know if I have or not. But when I first did the insurance company and I relocated down to Tampa and things were going very well in Florida and my number one sales guy down

there was, uh, you know, kind of blowing off his leads and going to play golf and screwing around instead of working and doing this. And we were kind of losing money on the leads, but he was still the number one salesman and, you know, still doing well enough. But as the owner of the company, when the company starts to suffer, you got no choice. You have to do what? You got to fire them. Well, you know, you got to fire them. But the problem was the salesman was me because I was CEO. I was salesman. I was everything else in this company.

And I did not have the self-discipline to do what I needed to do every day. So, you know, self-discipline being really defined as, you know, doing what you don't want to do to get to your long-term goals. And a lot of people don't have that self-discipline. So if you're somebody that's self-disciplined, this is what works for me. This is how I got motivated, was I had to get some mental management.

And I even did this a million years ago when the phone was like, I think I had a sidekick or something, a flippy, whatever. But no, but the idea was every single thing that I had to do went into my phone, uh, as my calendar, my phone, and that became gospel. It did not matter what else came up. If it went on my calendar, it happened. Like I just, I would have to start saying no to things I can't. So I would start scheduling the things that I had to do. And if you're someone that is a procrastinator

is can't get off tap dead zero, can't do those things, start scheduling yourself and start getting going. Because if you get the ball rolling just a little bit, it makes sense. Right now here at Simply Vegas, I walked through today and it was quiet, man. It was quiet. Well, no, it wasn't today. Today was kind of busy, but yesterday it was kind of quiet. And you can feel the market, right? You can feel the real estate market and you can feel it kind of coming. Tomorrow will be the first of the real estate purges here in Las Vegas. And I'm actually going to do a video for our office tomorrow where I'm actually going to play the purge noise. Now, what I mean by that is this.

Tomorrow will be the first time we've had major constriction in the amount of real estate transactions that are closing and the MLS dues are due. So there are a lot of people tomorrow that are going to question if this is the right business for them. Should I do this? Am I going to make this? Am I going to pay this bill? Am I going to make this investment myself? So there'll be a lot of people that cease to do what we do tomorrow. Huh? A lot. I didn't even, I didn't know that. Yeah. Tomorrow that'll happen tomorrow. There'll be a lot of people that cease to do what we do. And the story, the reality of it is, is this right? You don't have to do a lot to survive

up and down this market. I've been doing this now for 17 years, 16, 17 years. And all you got to do is show up. You just got to show up one more day. You just got to pick the phone up and make one more call. You just got to go on one more appointment. You just have to send one more mail. You just have to keep pushing forward. Three feet from gold. And it's very difficult to do when everything out there is oh man the interest rates are up ah people are on the fence all that shit there's so much but here's the point but here's the point so what happens is especially in this industry is

people start to say if i just stay home i don't have to face it like it's easier for me to stay home and work in my quote unquote home office that all realtors say they have and they don't. It's easier for me to just stay here and ignore it than it is to go face it. But if though, for those people that show up and face it, for the people that come in and put on a suit and get ready and come to work and get on the phone, those are the people that are going to survive and not just survive through the downturn but do incredibly well when you have that kind of personality that that's so i'm one of those people john we're talking about what do you do i hire people now that sounds a little bit like privileged argument but if i don't want to get up and go train um i hire one i hire a trainer i get

a buddy i make myself accountable through other people. Cause I know just like you said, would you show up for Tony Robbins? I'd show up for a trainer. Cause I don't want to disappoint somebody by not being there. So I hire one. I take my excuses away through strategic. We're going to talk about that next, which is kind of funny.

Cause you talk about if goal setting is what we did last year or yearning after what it was, the $50 fit club, which we did that, which was awesome which which for those if you don't know you will move faster away from pain than you will towards pleasure you will someone knows me at dinner for that by the way i think we do i don't know who was yeah well who's got the kitty well mendoza had to mortgage his house by the time i was done

putting in there because he would skip all the time but for those of you don't know what we're talking about we had a deal where you had to work out every day just do something 45 minutes and you had to send a video to our text chat of yourself working out it could be why bris walk it could be whatever but you had to do something and if you didn't send that video it was a 50 fine per occurrence every day and that went into a kitty for us to go to dinner at the end of six weeks um but again you know there were a lot of days even through that process that I didn't want to. I mean, I didn't want to do anything, but I did it. I got my ass up and got on a trip.

I did. So, dude, if you're having trouble at life right now, find an accountability partner where the result is bad. Create some pain for yourself. Create some pain for yourself. Create some of that emotion. Go Bullworth with it. Yeah, totally. Go Bullworth.

If you don't work out today, this gonna shoot you in the head yeah maybe not quite that far but yeah but that's somewhere between that but but that's the point that's the point and you know if you're this kind of a nice little segue i guess into goal setting talking about goal setting because so many people set these goals and they say i want to have i want to make a hundred thousand dollars that's my goal and i ask them the question why and they can't answer it i don't know just sounds good like it sounds good you have got to in setting goals you got to attach a why to those goals there's got to be something you're going to do with that money or that money is inconsequential because at the end of the day money is just paper doesn't do it's what the money does that matters freedom that attaches to it yeah

you got to get there yeah it means killing your masters honestly to me like i was thinking about that we were talking about things and cars and um there was that quote i read where it says um um looking at your savings account and seeing a positive balance and still telling yourself a bro you're broke is a form of you know a strong mind yeah right and it's because i you know i want the freedom i don't want to go out and have this thing that makes me look cool i don't have the ego that says look at look at the truck i drove here like i don't mind again i don't care i don't attach certain things to certain things um and I kind of want to keep living that way because I would rather war chest

than have the things that become a liability and work for the things. As they say in Fight Club, the things you buy tend to own you. Yeah, no, no, for sure. Dude, I was watching, there's a documentary on Netflix right now about money and everybody said you should make your kids watch it.

So I wanted to watch it first just to see if it was entertaining enough. And I watched it. I mean, it's very basic financial advice. it's very i mean it is but it's but it's literacy that most people don't have when it comes to money so i would recommend everybody walk on watch i don't remember the exact name of it i just know it ends in money so if you go to netflix and search money it's it's on there to the truth about money i think is what it's called but i will say there was something from it that that i gained that i thought was pretty cool which was you know one of cool, which was one of the counselor people was talking to somebody and said, look, when you go to buy something, ask yourself, do I like it?

Do I want it? Do I need it? Do I love it? And they said, then take those answers. Two of those answers go together, and two of those answers go together. I love it, and I need it go together. I love it and I need it go together. I want it and I like it. And then she said the most profound thing, or at least profound to me.

She said, people that live in the I want, I like are never happy. Short-term hits, dopamine, short-term quicks, whatever, blah, blah, blah. If you focus everything, and I thought it was not just for stuff you buy, but if you focus in life, in life, if you focus on things you love and things you need, your existence will be much easier and much simpler.

Sure, I totally agree. Because there's stuff like, for example, when I was talking about downsizing stuff I have, like the boat, right? Yeah. I like the boat. But looking back on it? No, it's $130,000 paperweight

sitting on a lift at Lake Mead. I need to sell it. It's got to go. It's got less But looking back on it. No, it's $130,000 paperweight sitting on a lift at Lake Mead. I need to sell it. It's got to go. It's got less than 10 hours on it. It's crazy that it's sitting out there dying in the sun. It's crazy. I like it, but I don't love it. I think you had good intentions.

I did. I did. Your intentions were good. And because you've gone and done it, it'll probably dissuade you from ever doing it again in the future. And that's why a lot of times these young men, or whatever, whatever women do, you go buy, you spend a ton on a purse, you spend a ton on a car.

I don't know about the same worlds, but a young man will go out. It's like that Pearl Jam song. A man buys the Corvette trying to get the girl in with a mechanic, right? And at the end of the day, you have to go make that mistake. My dad bought a Camaro or whatever

when he was a young guy who's putting you know his entire paycheck into the gas tank he learned that lesson he drove a k-car when we were growing up because he did that thing and he learned from it but let me ask you this though and i think this is this is a husband father question because i think nothing causes me more internal anguish than when I spend a tremendous amount of money on something that I think everyone's going to like, and then no one gives a rat shit. Yep. And that's when I'm like, I started telling my wife, I go, I'm not mad. Like someone's on the sprinter.

Right. Yeah. Which I love. I love taking the sprinter down to the, down to the football. It's a blast. Yeah. Nobody in my family cares. They could care less. So why am I spending? You're doing it for you yeah but here's the thing but i can't even do it for me because i'm sitting there watching them not care and now i'm irritated about

the whole thing now it's supposed to be so enhancing your life is not taking when you buy a ferrari yes and you got to sit and put it on a trickle charger wrap it up you better love that goddamn car because it's going to cost you a thousand dollars a month just to operate. Well, no, no. My wife asked me when I was talking about selling all this stuff, she goes, are you going to keep the Maserati? I said, oh, I love the Maserati. That goes right in the I love category and it's only got two seats. I only need nobody or one to like it with me. That's all I need. I can't have three unhappy faces staring at me in the Maserati. If you live by that, you'll realize how much you do not need in your life.

Oh, my God. There are people who are like, I need this. I need that. No, you don't. You don't need 30 pairs of jeans. You don't need 100 pairs of shoes. Well, hold on. I'm sorry. I don't get the whole pairs of shoes well hold on i'm sorry like i

don't get the whole tennis shoe craze and so i don't shoot shoe for a different occasion sam get the shoe thing there's sometimes you gotta make raider for air force ones you know like you always hear people complaining oh i i can't go with you on a trip or i can't do this and you're like well i think i think i think that's that's what i'm trying to get to eventually is money is is for one thing and it's for experiences it's not for anything else yeah and how great was our trip right it was great it was keeping we all left newport house that's a love but i'm saying like everybody decided like 12 hours before to go on a three-day trip i know i don't know about all you guys that was three four days i'm like, yeah. I was too, but those

dates change. If you're spending money stupidly, you have to have a job. You can't do stuff like that. Freedom is huge. Yeah, it's just really a matter of having money for experiences and that's part of that. It's having...

But that's the thing about all of your friends are entrepreneurs. None of your friends are entrepreneurs none of your friends have an employer hmm do i have any close friends i have an employer you don't i don't none of them not a single one oh my god we're all unemployed i pay myself yeah i have an employer too yeah but you know i'm saying none of us have a boss right because check. I pay myself a W-2. Yeah, I have it a blur, too. Yeah, but you know what I'm saying? None of us have a boss, right? Because here's the thing.

I've tried to kill all my masters, right? And that's because that's what gets them in the way of my freedom. Yeah. So when you work for yourself, right, it's a certain mindset of somebody who can be comfortable not having that check at the end of the week. And you know what's funny? You'll go to get financing on something like some buildings,

units, and whatever. And when you go to get financing, they see you as a greater risk than your own employees. Like my employee is less of a risk from an actuarial banking point of view than I am, the person that actually provides them their checks, just as an interesting point of view. No, it's it's true yeah so not even banks understand how risks isn't that wild though that's beyond me

every time yeah it's not me i get it i don't know i i i just i love all this stuff about but it all comes down to freedom i think everything comes down to freedom right and that's what your life goal should be and i think and i think again but but people think you know there's somebody listening to this like oh it's easy for you guys to say because you got money i don't always have money we didn't always have money and there's a lot of discipline involved in getting to a point where you can live like this there's a lot john you're a lot of discipline you grew up you grew up divorced, right? You had a mom that didn't have a pile of money

to go do a bunch of stuff. Colt, your parents were the multimillionaires growing up? No. My dad's a teacher. My mom worked doing data entry and was a minimum wage secretary. Yeah. Not a single person is a silver spoon kid here.

Yeah. No, but the point but the point being is like there was times in my life when i was struggling i mean there's there are people that are there's somebody listening to this right now and it might be you you're listening to this and again you're caught up in the drift man you don't know which way is up you don't know which way you're going you're just going with the way the wind blows and i'm telling you with a little bit of effort a little bit of self-discipline you can you can turn it around man because fuck if i can do it you can turn around quick quick i mean if i can do it you can turn it around, man, because if I can do it and turn around quick, quick,

I mean, if I can do it, you can do it. We can all do it. It doesn't matter. But again, you know, I think the biggest pinpoint in the changer for me, and I'm going to sum it up with this thing was people ask me what the biggest change in me was. Right. And of course it was, you know, the apprentice was a great catalyst because it was getting, that was changing my room. That changed the network that changed the people I was around. And, and I started hearing how these people thought differently than the people I had been around. You know, I had been around a bunch of people that had an employee mentality, had that mentality, and then changed being around those people. And then, you know, when I met my wife, who was the first person that I perceived really

in my head, that was out of my league. You know what I mean? It was like all of a sudden like, whoa, this is, this is out of my league here. Like I got to pick it up and I got to go. So all of my, you know, success really became originally based on me feeling like I needed to be a better man for her. And now even when, you know, stuff happens and you know because sure there's there's days in all of our businesses where you just want to be like you know what i'd like to do i just want to sell off i want to take a malt off cocktail and throw it in the front window just like war of the roses just yeah i want to smash in your face i just want to i just

want to burn the whole place down i just want to do it we all have those days we all have those days and when i think about those days i hit hit it. I always think, you know, my daughter's almost 13. She's got five more years at home. I got four years of college. You know, I, I, I got responsibilities here and that becomes the why and nothing. And you know, some days, you know, everybody thinks that owning a real estate company as a glamorous love of life. And some days you just got to eat a bunch of shit. It's actually not some days, a lot of days you got to do that. There are days you learn. Well, no.

I mean, there's days when there's no learning about it. You're just shoving it in because you just got to take it in the teeth and that's what you got to do. That's like you said, though. You get up, you put the suit on, you come to work the next day. You get up, you put the suit on, and you keep going. But the next day, I don't do it. I don't do it for me. I don't do it because I want another round of getting kicked in the teeth.

I do it because I have responsibility to my family to come here and do that. And there's more good days than bad days. Of course there is. The minute there's not, maybe you want to switch lanes. No, of course there is. But the point being is you've got to have a bigger reason than yourself to want to do things in a lot of cases. Sure. And here's the best part. If you don't have a significant other, you don't have kids yet, you're not in that situation,

becoming a better you will make you much more attractive to get in that situation. I mean, I look back at me you know when i was younger and god i can think back through my 20s and through this the girls i dated and it was always like i was always a certain extent looking for some of these girls to mother me to like take care of me and like like oh this and that i dated some girls that were well off and it was like oh i'll just i'm moving with you or it was like dude what in the world i look back at that guy now and i'm like who was that guy yeah but you got to have a certain allowance for it like if you're a young guy and if you're listening to this and you're floundering and you have all these sort of things there's nothing wrong with

going through it right there's nothing wrong with taking some shots messing up go for you know do this that feeling down a lot that's totally a part of a normal existence right it's just if you believe in yourself you're just gonna be that guy that gets dressed the next day yeah you know just don't like john says you gotta you're not going together like i see my single friends i'm like dude there's no way you should be out of shape you don't have kids you don't have wife like I'm sorry like you should you should not when I was single I could have I didn't I could have had an eight pack and still gone done so much right like you should not be out of shape you're also yeah no no I'm telling you right now if you did not have kids and you did

not have a wife to go home to, you could go to the gym for two hours a night and you could do, there's no excuses. I'm sorry for not being in shape. I'm not saying that. Listen, I think, and Gidget, if you're listening to this, don't take it the wrong way, but I think about this sometimes. And I think if I didn't have my family, I'd be a mess. You're a fucking monster.

I'd be an absolute mess. Dude, I would be an absolute mess. Smoking cigars. Smoking cigars. Can you imagine? Oh my God, I'd be an absolute mess. Well, that's because you know what you have now, but if you didn't, like I said,

I find no excuses when I see single people like, oh, I can't go to work. To that point. I will say this. I don't understand. I don't understand why there are heavy super celebrities that's your paper i don't know that's your job that's your job you can hire a chef to be you can hire a chef and a trainer to live at your house that's what that was to my

point hiring a trainer hire people to do the things get you to do the things you want to do now to the other point you guys brought up something interesting too if you are in your 20s don't think that you're talking to guys in their 40s or 50s oh yeah wait wait don't get married why you are yeah kicking fucking door down uh well no because don't get into a relationship and stay in a relationship that isn't yes positive that isn't motivating you owe nobody anything get married when you're in your 35 or older do not get married in your 20s that is the only advice i would give to a young man that i think is is is true across the board i don't care high school sweethearts you need to get out there you need to go find out who you are right don't be a codependent human being well here's the here's the truest thing

you'll also hear which is i firmly believe that back when I, and I tell, you know, I used to give this advice to younger men when I would, whatever. But if you're dating a girl less than 24 years old, she will be a completely different human being by age 26. Something about that 25th birthday. I mean, it's like,

Oh, it's not close. It's 18. You're different from 18 to 23 and 27, 27. Women should get married when they're 26, men should be like 33 34 35 children until then no but they are men do not become men 20 27 year old men cheat on their girlfriends oh yeah men in their 30s don't like i swear to god okay how old are you in your how old are you in your brain right now? Oh, fuck. I'm so tired, John.

33. About 34. Yeah. 34. I'm 42 tomorrow. Turning 42 tomorrow. But I don't feel any different than 31. I feel emotionally 60 sometimes because I don't feel like I need to prove myself in that. I always mentally, 34 is my my number but here's the thing

you if you're a man though and you're not doing physical activities yeah you're gonna be you need to feel like you're 100 but you need to feel you need to make sure your body's exhausted before your mind's ever going to be worth a shit too well here's something i just had i think somebody said the same thing to me like you're so if, if you're a celebrity, you should be in shape. You're getting paid to look good. Okay. My point is, I don't care what line of work you are.

You're getting paid to look good. You're making more money. The better you look. That's a hundred percent. This is a good point. I don't care what people want to say. Find me a jack guy at the gym. Find me a guy at the gym.

Who's jacked out of his mind. I don't care if you don't like the aesthetic. This has nothing to do with advocating for that. Find me a guy who is in excellent, jacked-up shape, who doesn't have the opportunity to be with very attractive women or males of the opposite sex or the same sex. If John was 350 pounds, 5'10", balding, Simply Vegas would not be Simply Vegas.

I already said that. It's true. So you're saying you find John attractive, and that's why you work here. I could have hit that pitch. You plan on getting him to break up with his wife. I could have hit that pitch so far out. After Newport, we had a shared bunk bed. I could have smoked that pitch out of the right over the center field wall.

No, but I'm being dead serious. Do you think it would? Well, when you're taller, if you're good looking and tall. Most CEOs are 6'2", good looking, in shape. It's the truth. People don't want to think they're getting paid for looking good. Don't discourage the unattractive men. If you're an unattractive man, put a nice suit on by getting jacked. Listen, the Kardashians should prove anything. You're always be attractive. If you can make yourself, man, well, let's be attractive by getting jacked.

Listen, the Kardashian should prove anything. You're not unattractive. You're just poor. You're just poor. Jeff Bezos. Well, guys,

Jeff Bezos, Jeff Bezos. I hope that some of this helps you today. I hope you took some sense. I apologize if some of these thoughts are disinjuring because again, these are just my notes. They have not been correctly organized into a chapter of the book, which they will be very, very soon coming out to a bookstore in a year but

remember colt if they want to get in touch with you how do they find you colt underscore amadine instagram and how about you counselor for all your negotiating needs for either car accidents yeah all those kinds of stuff uh at connell law lv3 l's and connell law at connell law and of course you can always follow me at the John Gafford. You can watch this on YouTube. If you are, give us a like, give us a subscribe. And if you've seen these clips rolling anywhere else, just tell, you know, hey man, comment back and stuff that resonated with you, stuff you maybe didn't, whatever you want to know.

Just a little live feedback. I like it. And if you're going to move, keep moving forward. See you next time. 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.