Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Kicking Crisis in the Ass EP 30

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

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. This Week:How to handle crisis in your businessThe best ways to fired at your company Christmas partyIs there any place in Las Vegas you can have an affair?With Chris Connell and Colt Amidan

From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's the Power Move with John Gafford. Back again, back again, back again. Colts playing candy. I know, Colts playing candy. I'm sorry. My CPA is asking me a question, guys. Sure.

CPA overtakes everybody's time. Sure. I'm kind of feeling left out that you guys got an event tonight that I just found out about. We were debating on telling you, but then we found out it's a free event that's basically publicized everywhere. It's publicized on social media. So yeah, you probably should know about it. So welcome to The Power Move. My name is John Gafford.

I'm your host. To the left of me, Colt Big Daddy Amaden. Big Daddy. I about it. So welcome to the Power Move. My name is John Gafford. I'm your host. To the left of me, Colt, Big Daddy, Amadon. Big Daddy. I like it. Yeah. You got to throw him a bone once in a while. I'll allow that. Yeah.

You got to get a bone. I did go to the gym twice in the last month. You went to the gym twice. You're looking ripped, son. I appreciate it. You are. You really put it together. A lot of hard work.

You're putting it together. I like Green Bubble Amadon. Green Bubble Amadon. Well, I mean, yeah. It ruins your text. It does. Am like green bubble Amidon. Green bubble Amidon. Well, I mean, yeah. It ruins your text. It does. Amidon. Amidon.

I thought we were sticking with Amidon. Well, we've already gone through it. It's probably the correct way, and it does sound sexier. Amidon. It's just gone past it. Today on The Power Move, we're going to talk about, man, what to do when crisis comes up. Because I got to tell you, do I look a little tired today? No, the lighting is wonderful. The lighting is good. But I got to tell you, I'm tired. And the reason I'm tired is, man, I got thrown a curveball yesterday and I didn't

see it coming. And we lost a key person in one of our companies yesterday. And when you have a company, there's stages of owning a company, you know, there's stages of owning a company, right? You can be an owner operator where you're there and you open the door every day and you start the business. Chris Connell, Connell Law. Chris Connell, Connell Law, owner operator. There you go. You can be an owner operator or you can be just an owner where you have other people operating the business for you. And a lot of our businesses, we've gotten to that point where we have people that run these things. And you check in, we have frequent catch-ups once a week where you hit really the high level stuff, but the day-to-day stuff, you're not really that involved with.

And I lost one of the top personnel in one of my companies yesterday. They decided to take another opportunity with one of their mentors in another company because this is, it's funny, the guy that he's going to work for at this other company is actually where we got him. It's the guy that referred him to me. And then this guy went and did another company. So, you know, he's following that, which I respect the loyalty. It's good. And the guy did a great job for us and we were lucky to have him for as long as we did.

It's wonderful. But when that happened yesterday, a couple of things. Number one, I didn't see it coming. Like, I pride myself on kind of being the guy to see where the trends are going. Finger on the pulse. Yeah, finger on the pulse. I did not see this one coming, and it blindsided me yesterday. When that happens, man, and I don't care if it's losing a key employee

or something devastating happens in your life, your business, it creates crisis. There's an instantaneous gut punch that happens with that. And I took the gut punch yesterday. And how you deal with that and what you do, I think, is one of those things where it's just going to kind of become a positive going forward and how you do that. And there's stages to this, and it's going to be natural that this is going to happen when it occurs. But you need to understand how to deal with this and what you should do to get through it. Now, the first thing I'll say is if it knocks the wind out of you,

be prepared to have the wind knocked out of you. It's okay to have the wind knocked out of you. Yeah. I mean, I took that hit yesterday. I didn't sleep really well last night because I was stressed out about this. And immediately you start, you go through this, oh shit, you know, I'm going to be completely screwed here. What are we going to do? How am I going to handle this? To, you just really put pen to paper, man. I think stopping and putting pen to paper will get you through this.

And what I started doing was I pulled out pen to paper and I just basically wrote, you know, assets. I wrote holes holes which meaning holes in the business that were going to be created by this and solutions on the third part of the page that's what i did yes and that's where i started with SWOT analysis yeah and this is where i started and i said okay so i went out there today and and it's amazing that if you build a company properly we're not really it's not even really a big deal. Like I lost some sleep over this yesterday and it's not even really a humongous deal.

Well, that, so when you're doing business planning, when you're not only an operating business or starting a business, you have to understand that SWOT analysis, right? And that's NBA jargon for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So a lot of people don't sit down and actually break out an honest SWOT analysis. So right now, I think a lot of people are in that where our weaknesses and our threats are is employee migration, whether you can not find employees or them moving on to greener pastures. So you have to be ready for that. I think that you're also at a point where you guys have established this business. I think if this would have came a year ago, it would have been a lot harder.

I think once you establish your businesses a little better and they start moving, you can realize that everybody kind of overlaps, and they take on different duties, and you lose one. Does that hurt? Yes. Are you going to be fine? Sure. You couldn't be fine for four or five months, but you'll be fine for a month or two.

The truth of the matter is, is all of this person's job duties are kind of already divvied out amongst other folks within the company. And I think if you go back to the SWOT analysis, I think one of the reasons that this wound up not being as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be was because we set ourselves up for success here. And I think a big mistake that people make in business, especially when you go from being an owner operator to being just an owner of a business, is if you own a business right now, or you have anything, you need to look at that business and say, where's the kingpin, man? Where's the keystone that if this thing falls out, if this falls out.

And the Death Star. Yeah, the Death Star. Where is the, what was it, the port? The vent on the Death Star. Sorry, Colt. What's that? Colt has no idea what we're talking about. Never mind.

Never mind. The Raider Stadium? Never mind. Yeah, no. But where is that one thing that if this was to fall, this domino was to fall, like the whole thing falls apart. And you would be amazed at how many businesses operate like that. They don't have the built-in redundancies.

No. But you have to have those redundancies, right? Yeah. And that's what you're talking about. Having a business operating properly, you will have some redundancies. And this is where people who do takeovers of businesses look for that and see who they can cut. Yeah. So you, you know, sometimes you'll find yourself in a position where you think you lose a key employee. Meanwhile, Blackstone will be going, I'd have fired that guy. Yeah. We don't need that guy. Anyway, I need that guy. You don't need that

guy. Yeah. It just, it's one of those things where if, if maybe you want a business, I cannot stress this enough. There is nothing more important than identifying where you have made yourself weak by giving one person too much information. If your entire business model is in one person's head, you have a problem. Because forget them leaving, dude. They could get eaten by an alligator. Who knows what's going to happen? And then where are you if you're starting from scratch?

So right now, if you own a business, make it a priority to yourself. Make it a priority to your business that you're going to go out. And if you have employees that have key knowledge in your head that nobody else has, you've got to extrapolate them. Yes. That is more important than having no sales. It's more important than not having a staff. That is the most important thing to kill your business. That can come down to policies and procedures, too.

Totally. You say, hey, we have a quarterly kind of powwow to find out what exactly you've been working on or what do you know and how could we improve it, right? If you ask these employees, a lot of times if you just reach out to your people, they'll tell you how to improve your business and it's probably stuff they were holding back from you. Yeah. You know what I mean?

A lot of times to extrapolate that institutional knowledge that you're not even aware of as an owner. Well, that's what I said when I went. I met with everybody today, the staff there, as many as I could get to on today. I'll get the rest of them tomorrow. But I met with all the staff and just told them, hey, this is what's happening. You know, everybody's cool. There's no hard feelings.

I mean, everybody's fine with what happened. And we are going to take this as an opportunity to get better. We're going to look at our procedures. We're going to look at where we operate, where we can become more efficient, where we can get better. And that really resonated with everybody else. Two things I would say also, if you lose your manager in a business

and you have to replace them, the number one thing you got to do, and I told all of our employees this today, the number one important thing for me going forward is somebody that fits our culture and somebody that improves and fits right in with the dichotomy of the existing employees. Nothing is more important. If somebody can come in and know everything in the world about our business. They screw up your culture. It's not. Dude, if they don't get on with

my people, because here's the thing. I love all my people. My people are doing great. Yeah. So we need to make sure that we keep our people through the management shift that we have. And that's the key thing for me is how do you fit in with this? And I think a great way to fit in with that is you have to, that starts with ownership. Well, I think, you know, it's funny. You hear a lot of times at business school, everybody talks about the power of a mission statement. Power of a mission statement. What is our mission, right? What was Nordstrom's mission?

They have a mission statement in their business. To provide the greatest customer experience possible, blah, blah, blah. Right. So everything, you know, who doesn't have that mission statement, you know, who doesn't have it right in camera. Would you Chili's? You don't have it. You know what?

Sorry, Chris. I didn't mean to break it. Wait, I don't know how you're going so hard on Chili's man. Remind me if I go on a, is this going to be an RC Willis? I do want it. RC Willis, but i'm not bringing you into rc okay you know why you're just living your own little world rc no because i saw you uh on instagram this weekend you know we went to dinner and then all of a sudden the next

two days later i see you where'd you go john two days uh well you know here's why. Can I tell you why? Can I tell you why? Let's hear it. I know what you're saying. I'm like, I never have a John go on with me on protesting someone. Yes, you're going to say that I sold out and went to the Raiders game is what you're going to say, right? Sell out. No, no. Here's why I sold. There's a good reason I sold out.

Because you didn't sell out. Because I couldn't sell out. Because my tickets didn't sell. When I was looking at what they were trading for, for the good old Washington sold out. Because you didn't sell out. Because I couldn't sell out. Because my tickets didn't sell. When I was looking at what they were trading for, for the good old Washington football team. Not worth it. Dude, it was like $100. I would have taken like a $400 loss to not go to the game.

So I took the opportunity to take my son and his friends, Colt, do something for the kids. Sorry you're upset with it. Sorry that doesn't go along with your status, sir. I don't care if R.C. Willis would give me a free TV. I'm not taking it. That's how you do it. That's just stupid.

Now listen. No, no, no, no. Okay. There's a big difference between me saying no to the El Presidente margarita and the queso dip and you saying no to a big screen TV from R.C. Willis. That just makes you. Yeah. One of us makes us taking that just makes you yeah one of us makes us taking a stand of what makes one of us stupid i think it's there trust me when i take a

stand i take a stand all right when you get on my bad side it's done back to the statement back well hang on back to the raiders back to the raiders and i will i will say this i'll say this no i'll say this i'll say a the crowd was was uh i A, the crowd was very tame this time. Much improved. There were a lot of empty seats around me. I will say that it was a little less stressful for me not having my daughter there, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's big. She's younger.

Yeah. And a woman. I totally agree. She just turned 12, so it was a lot less stress I mean not having her not having to worry about her there which was good I get it

you know the boys it's like I mean I took three of them if I come home with two yeah I don't know you did good whatever

you did good there's no shortage of those no to be expected they're everywhere so who cares but yeah you know we had a good time

I'm not gonna lie the boys had a good time except for the game holy crap what a wow what an unwatchable yeah You know, we had a good time. I'm not going to lie. The boys had a good time. God, except for the game. Holy crap. What a. Wow. What a fun watchable. Yeah.

A couple hours. Here's a little message for Mark Davis, if you're listening. Sell the fucking team. No, I'm not going to say that. I will, Dave. You'll say that. The league doesn't, and they are not going to. It's going to be a rough ride for the tenure of his own.

Oh, God. Well, this is what I'll say. It's like – I said what I said. Man, the Knights got Vegas a little spoiled. We win here. We win. And that product, if you keep putting that out there, it's going to be a bumpy ride pretty quick.

Yeah, those PSLs are beautiful. Speaking of which, can we talk about – did we talk about the A's already potentially buying the Tropicana? Those and under? No, no, no. Did we talk about that? We touched on it. Oh already, potentially buying the Tropicana, those and under? No, no, no. Can we talk about that? We touched on it. Oh, boy. We touched on it.

We were talking about mission statements. Mission statements. Mission statements. You know what? Do you have a mission statement? I have a mission statement, which is I don't want any more public money to pay for an Oakland A's baseball statement. That's my current mission statement.

They simply have a mission statement that informs all of you. Yeah, like who, why, when, where, what you do. Sure, of course. So when you're talking about getting a CEO that fits in with that mission statement, is that important to you? No, it is. Is it something that is not just sort of throwaway words and corporate bullshit? No.

Or is it something that's actually informing the passion of the company? It is. It has to be passionate of the company. And I think, again again it starts with the mentality of the ownership and what i was going to say before i got sidetracked about me selling out to colt calling me a sellout um no it was i was at dinner so man it was a busy first of all busy weekend for for me totally so thursday i go so if you want to know what it's like to live in vegas this is a vegas weekend now here here comes ready thursday uh i take the kid take the boy to see the foo fighters uh and uh you know

again we had a great time we went with uh steve sims his son tim larkin his wife sasha larkin um and some other guys from the office and we went and saw the foo fighters and um and that was awesome and then friday night we went to Delilah, which we'll talk about. I do want to talk about Delilah in detail in a minute, which we will, because it was great. Saturday, Roma had a birthday party, so had a bunch of 12-year-old

girls running around the house. Sunday, then went to the football game with the boy at one, dropped those kids off at five, picked you up at six, or met you actually at the bar, and then we went to the Knights game Sunday night. Yeah, I partied with Corey Taylor

from Slipknot on Thursday. Nice, yeah. Virgin Amusements. Yeah. I had to fly to Park City for a wedding at four in the morning on Saturday. Ian, invite me? I don't know, it's a public event.

Yeah, so I went to a wedding for literally less than 24 hours. Fled to Park City. Flew back for the Raiders game in the Vegas Golden Knights. In the Knights game. Busy weekend. The old people at the country club got me so drunk Sunday. Oh, I saw that.

You went to one with the old people. So drunk. But like you said, yeah, Vegas can be. Vegas can be. No shortage of things to do. But when I was at Thursday night, we went to dinner at Bivette's, which top-notch steakhouse. If you want great steak, that's my spot, Bivette's at Park.

So we're at dinner, and it just wound up that two guys that worked for the company were there. And one of the guys is on the team of one of the other guys that was there. And at one point, somebody goes, so let me figure this out. You work for him, and then he works for you? And they were like, no, he's on my team and we both work for him. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second.

Let's get it clear. Neither one of you guys work for me. I work for all of you guys. I'm here. I provide a service. Yes, I provide a service. I'm working for, you're all my customer. I'm working for all of you guys.

And I think when you think of that mentality, that that's where it starts. And, you know, for me, it's, you know, and I told all the employees today, and we were saying, when we look for the new person that's going to take over this role there, my number one thought is a, that they fit in with all you guys. There's a smooth personality, no conflict there. It's the dichotomy is good. And number two, they understand they're coming in as a support role. You're here to support these people. That's why you're here to provide me that that sage like wisdom yeah that's it i'm having to call me yeah that's what it is when you don't make that sage like the you know decision and then it goes sideways yeah that's what you guys have spent a

lot of time and effort to create the uh environment you guys. Like there's never been a company that I've been associated with where people say, ah, you know, maybe that's not a good fit for somebody. And this company is like, ah, maybe they're not a good fit, right? Because you have to be fun. You have to work hard. You have to be professional. You have to have – you got to be at the top of your A game. Yeah, well, we –

But everybody has fun. The it factor. Yeah. it factor yeah yeah i mean you know laughing is important like do we have my team pictures in my house for my real estate team that courtney runs i look i like to think again i've got my finger on the pulse of everything that's happening i had so many people show up in my house for this photograph i was like holy shit i saw that picture and i'm like i don't know if john even knows that these people. There were people in that photograph that I met for the first time

at that picture. Wow. In your home. No, in my home, which says a lot about Courtney. Courtney running the team. She's doing a fantastic job. But I was like,

okay, who are you? You know, literally there were two people I'd never seen before. We don't know these people. We just brought them in to make the team look beefier. Yeah, to make the team look beefier. Yeah, to make the team look beefier.

Yeah. There's some models, atmosphere models. Yeah, I mean, it was like- I see Connell in the back of that bottle. It was like, wow, man, this is impressive that, you know, it's nice to see that something that I started, you know, 15 years ago now, and really Courtney is the day-to-day operator of that business, is still maintaining at such a high level. And a big part of that is because we hire based on the dichotomy of who comes in, the right people.

Employee dynamics are everything. And you've worked with people throughout your whole life, whether it was in service, in restaurants. You knew who was going to be excellent. You knew who was going to be a lifer and you knew who had ambition. You're still probably friends with the people that were cool that you've ever worked with at most jobs. Yeah. No, I mean, for the most part

unless they were working. You can have the best job in the world. If you have a horrible atmosphere, it will be the worst. I have no... I worked a year in corporate. And if I said what the job was and explained it to you, every guy on earth would be like,

that's the best job on earth. And it was most miserable. People were fist fighting in the hallways. It was miserable. You spend more time with your coworkers. You need your spouse. Yeah, that's true.

100%. So you better, you better like them. Well, at least as much as, but I i think but i think it's i think it's more up to management though to surround you with people that are quality of course you have no and we people out i mean you know we we've we've you know i'd like to say that we're perfect and everything that we've done but you know i've mishired in the past sure and you get people

in and all of a sudden it's like whoa this person's a lunatic you know we gotta get rid of them and they don't they don't stay around very long. Because I'm not going to keep my eagles by surrounding them with a bunch of turkeys. I had to drop my daughter off at her volleyball yesterday in this area. And I go to a PT's and I'm drinking a diet soda. Because it's like, you know, Monday, I'm not trying to. I just had a long weekend. So I'm drinking this soda.

But you thought about it for half an hour. You thought about it. It's just had a long weekend so i'm drinking this soda you thought about it it's just such a habit sitting there there's this older gentleman talking to me about nebraska and oh yeah i do this that and the other and you know me i'm pretty friendly and some chat with him about football and you know the the the game is on the bills patriots game on and you know all these people different people kind of there and all a sudden, this guy's ham and egg sandwich comes out. And he looks on it. And he doesn't see the mayonnaise on his sandwich. What? He didn't see the mayonnaise on his piece of bread.

Okay. The girl goes, he goes, there's no fucking mayonnaise on this sandwich. And the waitress is short-staffed. She's like, oh, okay, I can get you some on the side. And he goes, yeah, I want you to, I can get you some on the side. Do you want me to go get you some? He goes, yeah, I want you to goddamn give me some fucking mayonnaise on the side. Loses his mind, you guys.

I don't mean a little bit. So the cook comes out, and I don't, you know, English is not his first language, and he's just, you know, trying to manage a kitchen for this restaurant, for this bar. Nice guy, oh, yeah, he goes, I put mayonnaise on it. He goes, he opens the sandwich and goes this restaurant, for this bar. Nice guy. Oh, yeah. He goes, I put mayonnaise on it. He opens the sandwich and goes, oh, I didn't see that. He goes, but does that look like enough fucking mayonnaise? And he goes, I'll fucking smash this in your face and drag you around the floor, you fucking piece of shit.

Tell me he was the size that you stood up and intervened at this point. Did you intervene at this point? No, I'm watching it go. Oh, come on, Cottle. Cottle. There's a bartender. The bartender knows him. Okay.

There's a dynamic. I think this guy is just completely bipolar. And this guy is 80 years old. He's not a threat to anyone. He is literally 80. So you're saying you probably could have taken him had you guys gone. Nobody. The cook wasn't too worried about it either.

He didn't need my intervention. Okay. And I'm sitting there just looking at it going, this is about mayonnaise. This is about. Oh. Mayonnaise? We're talking about mayonnaise? We're talking about the meal.

We're talking about mayonnaise. We're talking about the mayonnaise. We're talking about condiment. And so he freaks out, starts going off, and the bartender is like, hey, well, you know, yeah, I understand. You know, mayonnaise, delicious. It's just this whole thing. And I'm going, I've been talking to this guy for 20 minutes. And he's a fucking hot job.

Total normal human being, I thought. And then the slightest thing tipped this guy. So imagine you have a job interview. I just reminded me of this because I couldn't imagine. You get this great job interview with somebody. You know, they meet all the criteria oh yeah super great and then that one thing you you know you're like sock puppets and they go no dude it has absolutely happened i had um we we had somebody that worked for us one time we'll call her tara bull because that was her

nickname um that's everybody called terrible. And this chick would come in to a 10 o'clock Wednesday meeting still up from the night before in like house slippers and like jammy pants. And that lasted once. And yeah. And it was like, Whoa, you got to go. Um, yeah, there's been a couple of, there's been a couple of occurrences over that in the year. Cause here's the problem. Everybody's fairly normal when they're sober. And if somebody has some sort of an issue with something like that, you can't really tell until that substance comes around. And then you're like, and it's banana town.

We had a lady that, she was around for three or four years as a marketing coordinator. And then one day we found her parked in the trees and passed out in the uh passed out in the stairway and we're like what the hell's going on what happened freaking out and then like like oh it's thursday it's thursday husband's like oh no she's a law firm i used to work at had a uh had a retreat let's call it i'll try to keep as much detail out because it's involves an active member of the state bar of California now.

But this individual, you know, goes to this party and was like, oh, he's a cool guy. He's the new hire. Oh, okay. Three hours in, how many cocktails just absolutely guzzled. Oh, boy. Hitting on people, hitting on the girls. You know, I think the guy took a piss indoors, not in the toilet. And it's at a rental cabin.

Oh. And it's just like, okay, so you're fired on Monday. Do not go out with me. That's the perfect thing. It is holiday season party for your company. That's a great segue. PSA. Drink. If you can't handle your drink, drink your thing.

Top five worst things you can do at a company party. What are they going to do, Colt? I've seen one where people stole from the owners. Okay. Well, that's always not the right move. Yeah, that was a bad one. Two coworkers went and slipped off in the bathroom and didn't lock the stall and everybody walked in on them.

That was a bad move. Okay. Going to the bathroom or brown chicken brown cow? Yeah, that one. So then there's been ones where people have been crying that they've left their wives at the parties and went with the assistant like just photocopier foibles yeah i've seen so much stupid shit i think i think one of the dumbest ones was was it one of our parties a couple years ago uh a girl that had been working at the company not for very long on somebody's team uh offered my wife drugs in the bathroom

my wife was like do you guys get like no who uh like do you know like i mean yeah but do you offer the the wife of the owner of the company drugs in the back. Is that a good move? No, you're shot. Yeah. It wasn't prominent in this town though. I 50, 50 chance. I've never done cocaine and it seems completely unappealing to me. Just the whole concept of it.

What was it? Somebody said, uh, I'm a, no, I'm already bored. So I'm going to be bored longer. Yeah.

I'm already like, I'm already firing on all cylinders all the time. Last thing I needed something to get me going more sounds absolutely awful but um you should know your shot and i've had a lot of people come up offer me drugs right and i go what if i would took you know real offense to this that would be a really bad move yeah and the other thing too that people come up and do to me which i completely drives me nuts i think we talked about it well they'll say some things that are beyond politically incorrect without understanding my politics.

This guy knows what I'm talking about. No, no, no. No, no, no. I don't know. I don't know why people assume that you and I were going to be on the same team on this one. That ain't it, pal.

I've had people tell me stuff that I'm like, oh my God, you'd be in jail for life if you stopped telling people that. Why are you telling me that, right? I just sit there and I'm like, what the hell? But I get offered drugs a lot. I get offered swingers a lot. I must just have a fun look to myself. I think it's the upset on pineapple.

Is that what we decided? Is that the problem? Yeah. And the rubber rings, which I saw one of my buddies wearing. I'm like, why are you wearing that rubber ring? I was questioning him after that. I don't know, man. That rubber ring thing, I don't buy it.

That's a CrossFit thing. A lot of people wear it just because we work out. That's right. Yeah, work out. I'm not trying to tell what they all say. How's that an event? Maybe fit people are more into swinging. I don't know.

It could just be correlation. I got hit on so bad this weekend. It felt good. I was sitting there like, where was this? In my defense. Where did you get hit on this weekend? I was at his house. Chris had a couple cocktails.

I offered him Coke, and he said no, but he said I like swinging. He told me he was going to be a future Olympia. Yeah, what's not to like about that? I have been told three or four times in the last five days that I should run for political stuff. I'm like, you do not know me. I went to a political event, got told there twice, went and had lunch with somebody.

They texted me and was like, you should run for some sort of office. I'm like, you don't know me. Let me give you an exhibit. This is what your wife posted earlier and tagged you in. If can read that out loud please there is no need to repeat yourself i ignored you the first time just fine wow yeah oh that's the best part is she's so it's a star wars character so you won't even know who's like who's the little green man who's this why is there an elf in this picture my wife wife ignored. My wife is like, when she's focused, she's focused. So my neighbor calls and goes, hey, do you have a wheelchair?

I'm like, what happened? And he's like, I have a friend. They broke their ankle. I'm like, oh, you're all right. Yeah. Your wife stopped when it happened, said hi. Just started talking and drove off. I go, yeah, she doesn't focus.

This poor old lady broke her ankle. My wife's over there. Hey, guys, we should do lunch. Bye. I will say this about your wife, though. Your wife is a trooper, dude. I mean, trooper. So Friday, check this out.

So we go to Delilah. For those of you who don't know, Delilah is the hardest table in Vegas to get right now. It's a very difficult table to get. Pretty neat spot, though. Yeah. Dope spot. Worth it.

It's essentially like a Gatsby-era restaurant, supper club. Yeah, it's this weird gang throwback. Kind of throwback cool. And it was dope, man. Pretty cool decor, too. Yeah, it was an amazingly beautiful room. It's the win. Yeah.

And my vice president of marketing for our title company she knows the chef so she got us a good table and all as well we went to dinner and we get there and uh and like we didn't hear from the from the amadans all day we didn't hear and we're like are they going are they not going what are we doing and i said colt's like no we're going we're going and we find out colt why did we not know if you were gonna go go, Colt? Explain why we didn't know. My wife pretty much died on Friday. She almost died around 2 o'clock. Yeah, it was about noon.

It was noon exactly because I was going in to meet with somebody at noon. I had left them, and it was a disaster. But she went into anaphylactic shock. So she's definitely cold medicine, allergic acetaminophen acetaminophen yeah she was drinking a scissor huh yeah so no she asked somebody she needed an allergy pill she goes i need just an allergy pill yeah and someone's like well here you go it was an allergy sinus bam almost died it was a whole disaster uh she sat there and i'm like at the hospital the doctor's like i think she's coming

out of it i think blah blah blah i'm like okay i'm like i should probably wait like 20 minutes ass in come and i go hey babe like still good for dinner are we still on for dinner and she's like is it she's like i don't know she's like um how's my face look so i don't know if you noticed but she was wearing my wife likes to dress pretty and everything but she was wearing long skirt long sleeve shirt she was hived up still swollen it was she was a death but yeah she likes to drink made it cocktail in hand ready to go in all fairness a lot of people have this thing where if you mention someone's country of origin they think it it's like, you know, taboo or reason. But she's a legitimate Mexican woman.

She's not. She's sturdy. Yeah. She's telling stories about them growing up on the ranch. Yeah. Like they don't have the same kind of level of softness. No. Oh, no.

I almost died. Well, I was having really bad heart stuff and i was like at 184 over like 120 heart or blood pressure like going crazy she's like i'm fuck you don't need to go to hospital and i'm i had to drive myself to hospital they're like uh hey you know we're gonna have to keep you she's like like, get home. I need you to do shit. This baby's not going to take care of himself, Cole. No, put some Vaparoo on there.

My Mexican friends are sturdy. Yeah. No, you can't. And I can't drink with them because they don't stop. It's too much. Well, let's take a quick break. When we come back, I do want to talk more about Delilah. I want to talk about some stuff that's trending.

And I want to talk about coming to Vegas for New Year's, if you haven't done it. If you are here, what to expect, guys. And the A's. And the A's. Yeah, we'll hit on that idea in just a second. Be right back. 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 the john gafford i'm here give me a shout back from the break talking about we worked on my crisis management but it kind of has dissolved into nonsense at this point but i did want to kind of get back to that a little bit because really we never really talk about crisis we got diverted i was trying we got you this is true this is true this is true so again let's talk about crisis management real quick so if something happens you allow yourself to get to take the punch. Take the punch and gather yourself, I think is the key. First thing, you got to take that second and absorb the shot, if you will. Don't make a knee-jerk reaction

because that's the worst thing you can do. Again, then sit down, make that list, do the SWOT analysis like you talked about, figure out what your strengths are, figure out where your holes are going to be, figure out what you're working with then start working the problem and i think if you can relay it from you've got to move the problem from the bigger focus to smaller problems as it is for example you've got to say instead of let's say you owned an ice cream store

right and your manager quit the ice cream store which i've never seen an ice cream store run by nothing but 16 year olds anyways i don't't think they have managers for those, but anyway, let's say 17 year olds. Yeah. Let's say that you have an ice cream store and your manager quits. Well, your problem isn't that your manager quit. That's not your problem. Your problem is who's going to open the door at nine o'clock in the morning tomorrow. That's your problem. So start listing the problems that you have that are created by this person going and then seeing where your existing personnel can plug into those problems or come up with solutions. And then you come up with in some cases, a different idea of what you need to hire. Right? Like for example, to solve our

problem with what we're doing, we're not going to replace the person that's leaving. Because as it turns out, when I did this over the course of yesterday, and then the better half of today, I realized that I don't need this person. There's a couple of tasks that this person did that I need a replacement for, but I don't need somebody at, and I guess'm more to the

point at that pay that pay rate that i was paying yeah you might have just gotten uh yeah yeah i don't yeah this is it was a huge huge savings to the company um by doing this but you know you've got to be careful not to make a decision like the decision was not is not being made on how much it costs that's not the decision because if you start thinking in those ad yeah if you start thinking in those in those frames you're gonna you're only gonna hurt your customer your clients or your employees because you're gonna start skimping but what we felt was by going through the list and being able to hand certain things off we were better off hiring two people that are probably going to be easier to hire and not as well paid as the one person combined. And those two people will actually support our existing staff and our business better than the one person could.

Right. And so I think by breaking it down that way in anything in your life, I mean, don't look at it as, you know, for example, like there's positives, there's positives and negatives, negatives in anything. Like for example, if Colton, his wife split up tomorrow, which is always, you know, could happen. She could wise up any minute. Yeah.

He'd be sad, but he'd live longer. The risk of death would be gone. There you go. She's going to kill you. You'd be safe and she won't go to prison. Yeah. Would you be more? Okay.

Let's talk this out. Would you be more? would you be more... Hold on, let's talk this out. I might be a father. Would you be more apt... Do you think if you split up, she'd be more apt to kill you or stay married to her, she'd be more apt to kill you? I don't know. It's half and half,

which I don't think... That's 50-50. That's a true fight. It's a court fight. The line is like 25. Not 125. It's just 25. If she... Well, no. The line is like 25. It's not 125. It's just 25.

If she, well, no. No, she's one of those that's like, go F yourself. If I left her for some reason, she's just like, go F yourself. She's one of those that will just absorb stuff. She's good at crisis management. Sometimes she overreacts a little too quick. She needs to absorb it a little better. But I think that's, this doesn't have to be, you don't have to be ceo of a company to have this happen this

could be something as simple in your work as a client screwed up or did something you know or you screwed up absorb the impact think it out the worst thing you can ever do is knee-jerk react yeah you know i was like you go oh i need to go rehire somebody for the same price and the same thing now you just hired somebody instead of doing it, you know, instead of doing it the right way. And I think that's also with, there's that fine line of don't react and react because you can't let shit go too long where you don't react to it and it becomes a bigger problem. Well, you have to take some action.

So you have to react at that right time. And sometimes that reaction needs to be in two hours sometimes that reaction needs to be in a month it doesn't i think that's where it comes down to understanding your business though to know how you can react i was thinking about something the other day i was in traffic and i'm like god nobody ever is going to get out of here making a left turn then i thought to myself man i've been able to make every left turn i've ever needed to make ever ever ever i'm not stick stuck in traffic right now no and so i think to myself a lot of times we tend to think of these things in terms of infinites or oh my god this is the worst traffic

light i've ever been in my whole life everything's over i'm gonna be here literally forever right what's i'm not at that trap it's like what mcconaughey was saying like referring to things as unbelievable is the dumbest thing you could do yes it's believable you just saw it like why is that unbelievable you just saw it just happened so unbelievably good no so every crisis you ever had in your whole life think about oh god i have a zit before prom oh my god my wife's gonna leave me all these things everything that's ever happened to you if you're a generally mentally healthy person and you've gotten over it you're here today not thinking about anything that used to be the

biggest boondoggle of your entire life no well it's it's everything will be fine again for for me comes back to modern stoicism or classic stoicism, amore fate, love everything. Love fate is what that stands for, amore fate, meaning that whatever happens, embrace it, love it, be happy that it did. And so I told all the employees today, we're going to use this as an opportunity to get better. And I think that's what change effectively can either cripple you or it can give you an excuse to get better.

Is there anything in your life that hasn't made you better? Like any major disaster? Like, Oh, I could have done without that in life. Like a couple of cavities here and there maybe. Yeah. But other than that,

like you think of anything, the old root canal, not really sure what that's for. Not sure. I learned a lot about myself, but yeah. Um, but they're really,

you think about like, there's, there's a, there's a couple of uh you know yeah a couple of lawsuits or maybe just piling on yeah plantar fasciitis in 10 years diverticulitis you really need that that could have gone in 10 years you'll utilize what you learn dealing with that piece of crap you'll learn you know it will it will positive i learned about z-packs from john yeah oh yeah egypt ass will call it is something i could have done completely

without that you know what it probably got you guys a little thinner towards your goal no no there's nothing that was worth took two years off my life it really really did a nice cleansing for you guys details my friend but just let but know when to pull the trigger on medicine unlike your wife who's like you got a 180 over 120 heart yeah go see somebody because we don't go see people you know what she was so well i sat there and had lunch with a guy and i go he died for like 15 minutes he had a hard deck and died on a golf course oh no no but I was having lunch. And so I was like, you know, I'm really intrigued by these stories, which he's like, I'm not afraid to die.

It was the most peaceful, most amazing thing in my life. But he goes, you know, just me being a man, you know, two freaking three, four days before I knew I was having a heart attack. I was just burning up. I couldn't breathe, this and that. He goes, and just didn't go doctor so he goes the doctor said most people die because they don't listen to their body yeah well that's why that's why men are cheaper to insure than women because men don't go to the doctor is that true absolutely if you look at actually men at higher risk no no

no no no no men men are cheaper to insure because they do not seek medical attention. I thought it was maybe pregnancy, too. No, no, no. That's part of the actuary tables. If you look at the frequency in which men go to the doctor and which women go to the doctor, it's proportionally different. It makes perfect sense, actually. Men don't go to the doctor. Let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question. Have you been to a dermatologist at any point and have something looked at? Yes. Would you have done that without your wife saying you need to go to a dermatologist? No, I didn't do it with something. I had like a cherry angioma. It's so stupid. No, it's like when a blood vessel comes to the edge of your skin.

If it gets cut open, it doesn't stop bleeding. Oh, good. Literally, it will bleed and bleed and bleed. You have to plug it up and do all this stuff. so i went to a dermatologist one time to have them cauterize it was that you was that your call yeah because okay because i do jujitsu and stuff you can see it sometimes it was there literally right there and you could see it going on it's just a red dot got it it's really nothing but it just it just bleeds so much that you're like hey i go but like the dermatologist have you been a dermatologist, Colt?

Yeah. I've never been. Did your wife make you go or did you go? No, I did because I've had cancer. So I'm the only jerk off. No, I win. I've had bad cancer multiple times. The skin killed my grandpa.

I watched my grandpa die in my head. I had a cut off in my back. I had a cut off in my head. I had a cut off. Yeah, no, I probably should have gone and seen a couple years ago. I went to the doctor. The last time I went to the doctor, I think, was to get a PCR test to go out of country. The only time I've been to a doctor doctor was when I probably did my physical for my pilot's license five years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the only time I haven't gone to the doctor. The only time I voluntarily said like i need to go to the hospital was i had uh we were in california and it turned out i had an i had a lung infection which was really weird because i wasn't coughing and i wasn't yeah like i wasn't my lungs got infected before i got the sickness i ended up getting sickness a couple days later i thought i was having a heart attack like my jay like it hurt so bad in my chest i'm like i need to go to the hospital i went i don't know but that's the only time other than that i'm like it stitches in your head when you're yeah dude because of christine my

wife my yeah my christine dude i'm telling you right now when when i when i bash my when i bash my head open because of christine whatever i i was like just gonna go to like can you explain to people what christine is in terms yes your wife's car so my wife's car is trying to murder us all um to like at one point within a three-week period it gave me a gaping head wound as i walked around the corner from the valet right before i got went to valet so i went there to go through tsa with like literally a bleeding head so that car knows the taste of your blood exactly got a taste for blood. And then within two weeks, my wife slammed her hand in the door so hard

that it broke her platinum wedding band in half. And she's got deep bone bruises. The doctor said, good thing you're wearing a wedding band. It would have probably lost your finger. So I told her, I said, hey, for marrying you, you're welcome again. Because now you'd be single with nine fingers.

Be happy, double happy. That's how you do it. She's like, I wouldn't have had that car unless we were married, though. That's a good point. That's funny because we're talking about you said leaving your wife, which we all know would never happen. But it gets to the point now where we're going out here. Because Vegas, believe it or not, if you don't live here,

Vegas is a pretty small town. Very small. It's a, you see people, you know, everywhere you go. And, uh,

and it's funny. And being in the business that we're in here, we're pretty, we're pretty visible folks. And, uh, no matter where I kind of go, people come up and say,

Hey, say hi to me, whatever that either. I don't know. And I love that, whatever, but I can just see it in my wife's face. I can just see it. Like, don't even ever dream the dream that whatever. But I can just see it in my wife's face. I can just see it.

Don't even ever dream the dream that you could get away with anything. There's nowhere you could go. You can't hide anywhere in this world. That's almost better that way. It is. I tell my wife all the time, you think I'm going to cheat on you?

How do people cheat in this town? It is so small. They were sitting there. they were talking at dinner about there was a couple in front of them making out the whole night at the hockey games like someone else's they were they were yeah they were cheating they're at the hockey game we're at 30 people around and here's well here's the worst part i just maybe you don't here's the worst part so apparently this couple took the company hockey tickets which were in the rafters but not all the way in the rafters because some other people had the other company hockey tickets that were sitting behind them and they were just

making out the whole time and they were like film you know the people that i know were filming it making fun of it and laughing at these people not knowing who they were and then all of a sudden somebody's like oh my god i know those two people yeah i know those two people and they together in uh in real life which is funny so yeah eyes everywhere sin city my ass clandestine sound like dark restaurant no there's no place dark if you live in summerland yeah you could have a mistress in Henderson. Nope. I don't think so.

This town is so small. Okay, let me ask you this. Nope, you can't. If you're from Summerlin or Henderson, and you were engaged in an extramarital affair, it's on Bar and Nellis. You'd know somebody. No, you wouldn't. Absolutely not.

Nellis? Anywhere in the Northern Triangle. Okay. Let me put it this way. Alente Station? Alente Station the Northern Triangle. Okay. Let me put it this way. Alianti Station? Alianti Station. I think I still would. I think I would still.

I think I still know somebody. I couldn't find someone to save my life by giving me a phone number of anyone I knew at the cannery if they got on the PA. You know, I think we might have to put this to a test. One night we'll have to go to like Alianti Station. Is Alianti Station even still open? I don't know, but I think Chica's Bonita's. So here's the thing. You're saying Vegas is a small town.

Now it is amongst young professionals, young-ish professionals, which I would qualify myself as leaving that designation but still, I started my career here as a young professional. So, you know, I'm 41 so I don't know what that's worth. But the people who are within my age group who are professionals, there's a good to fair chance that I know you know i'm 41 so i don't know what that's worth but um the people who are within

my age group who are professionals there's a good to fair chance that i know you or i'm very close to somebody that you are friends with too yeah i love i love how not not to flex on you a little bit what's that chris with me because you have half season on your hockey tickets right yeah yeah i share and chris sits up where your ears pop and uh oh my god but let me ask you a question sir how many people did you know in being an attorney in vegas how many people did you know in my section well right versus how many you know in your that's what i said to john i go oh it's not that i don't know that many people at hockey games i just know more people in your section i I'm the cheap asshole. In my defense, both my football tickets and my hockey tickets are cheap as shit.

But I still see the game, right? And I can sell them for more than they're worth. And they don't have to come out of pocket like six figures. They're not cheap either. Any ticket in these. The most expensive tickets in the. I don't know. I'm one of those people where, you know where it's nice to go sit courtside.

I was courtside for the last Sonics home game ever. But for me, the most part, I actually like my tickets to watch hockey. Yeah, because you can kind of see back. You kind of see the whole ice better. Do they come with one of those things like the little glasses that flip over on the stick? I've never taken you to the game in my section, have I? No. So if you go to a game in that section. I got bad knees.

I can't make that climb. You might be like, oh, this is actually pretty sweet. Because the stadium's not that big. No, it's tiny. Raiders Stadium, my seat's up to the point where I'm not reading names on G. I saw you two in that stadium from those super high seats, man. And when they were singing Vertigo, I had Vertigo. That's how I was up there.

Yeah, the Raiders tickets, I would have probably dusted off the old wall a little bit more for it. But it's nuts. They're going to start winning. You're going to be happy. It doesn't matter. You're going to be mad. That brings me to another point.

That's exactly. That was, you know, so I took the boy to Foo Fighters, right? We talked about that on Thursday. That was the Thursday thing. And we took him, and I didn't buy the tickets. Right. Because I am, look, here's the thing. I'm in for a penny. I'm in for a pound. If I'm going pound if i'm going i'm going right like i'm not the if i'm in the

building it's okay yeah that ain't it yeah i'm the opposite i'm like no no no no no no if i'm going i'm going like like i want to go and uh this was my son's first concert you know he's 13 about to be 14 and that's what he really wanted to do. And we were sitting up in the top, which again, small theater at Dolby, but you're still really high up there, and we were way away from the band. And dude, there was no energy whatsoever in that whole thing.

There was none. It was just dead, flat, no energy whatsoever. And I told my son after basically being up there, I mean, everybody's just kind of singing Foo Fighters, they're kind of just rocking in their chair, and I told my son, I said, what'd you learn about this? And his response was, well, I guess bands aren't as good live as you think they're going to be.

And I said, nope, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not the lesson because the reason you weren't there is because we let somebody else buy our seats. If you really want to enjoy a concert, don't ever let someone else buy your seats because if they suck, you're going to be bitter about it the whole time and literally there was no energy up there it was a terrible it was so bad that i almost offered to take him again to some other spot no to food fighters because i played two nights i almost took him again

saturday that didn't happen to me you know i actually didn't really love the food fighters live but that's that's neither here nor there i'm not i'm not the hugest fan i like some of their songs cool but so that brings up a good point, though. If you're truly a fan of a football game or the Foo Fighters or the UFC specifically, I'm such a fan of the UFC that I don't even want to go live. No, I'd rather watch it on TV. I want to watch the TV and I want to watch replays and I want to see the commentary and hear the commentary and see what's going on.

If you're a real fan of football, don't go to a football game. A football game is to go to enjoy the atmosphere, go out, have a couple drinks, hang out with your wife, watch a bit of football. To sit at home on my couch in front of a – I have an 85-inch screen television right now, and I got replay and I got the whole thing. So if it's a game I give a shit about, I'm watching that on television.

Plus, UFC those the price of those tickets in in vegas i cannot get my head around why it's worth that much to go watch those fights it's cool it's cool if you have really good seats well no like like you and i went to the tyson fury we saw a wilder fury fight it was good that's right i don't even know how much those tickets were but i but because you paid for them, right? Astronomical I'm sure it was fighting those tickets were you know, they're just you know what I think Couture game to me Anyway, yeah, it's a good friend of mine He's literally a UFC fighter

So, you know that if you if you're friends with Dana White or maybe like Larry Epstein or something You can get tickets to those events and go and I encourage you to go because it's wonderful live if you're friends with Dana White or maybe like Larry Epstein or something, you can get tickets to those events and go. And I encourage you to go because it's wonderful live if you're close. Do not buy bleeder tickets for the UFC. What's the point? If I'm going to go to UFC, that's where you need to either be right up front or stay at home and watch. Same with boxing.

Same with boxing. I sat really close in boxing. You're like, oh, wow. Because the ropes in the way and the rings in the way. And you're like, and those are stupid expensive and you're sitting there and you're like and those are stupid expensive you're dropping thousands and thousands per ticket and you're sitting there like that seemed like a closer fight and then you get home watch a replay and you're like god he didn't land anything that looked like he landed yeah even as close as john and i were for the tyson fury my favorite part of that was uh finding a old-fashioned that

was almost as good as the lazyazy Dog one. That was exciting. You know, Delilah had an amazing old fashioned. But I'll say, you know, I'll say this about Delilah though. The cocktails were like minute. They're tiny

and they're not worth it. It was like a shot. Oh no. Yeah, I drank, I think I drank four old fashions. I'm like,

I feel like I had just my first one. $20 cocktails are fine if they're not a thimble. Yeah, and like we were drinking, we were drinking martinis and I'm like, dude. I'm like, I feel like I had just my first one. $20 cocktails are fine if they're not a thimble. Yeah, and we were drinking martinis, and I'm like, dude, I want the big olives. We're in Las Vegas. I want a whole. Yeah, they were little tiny olives.

Yeah, just, yeah. Maybe they didn't have those back in the 20s. Sometimes restaurants get too cool for them good. You should. The cost of liquor is not a problem in terms of the sale of liquor. No, no, no, no. Liquor's free. They're making their money for sure. Liquor is not a problem in terms of the sale of liquor. No, no, no, no. Liquor's free. You know, I understand.

They're making their money for sure. Speaking of making margins, what's going on with the Oakland A's? I haven't been following it. Okay. Sorry, I got to do this to you. No. We're talking about sports already? No.

Well, back to, God, it's going to turn into a bad sports show because none of us know. But that's a real estate play. It is a real estate play. I mean, basically, because what's the Tropicana worth? It has to be worth $800, $900 million. Well, they made an offer on the Tropicana to- How much? I don't even know.

I don't know if they disclosed it. I would say the Tropicana is $500 million. But the land on Las Vegas Boulevard- But why? Land over there is probably $17 million an acre. Why are they buying that place where the Ferris wheel was going to go? I don't know. And it's not big enough.

The problem with this is we have Mark Davis who's the poorest of all NFL owners which is one of the reasons we're going to stay quagmired in the situation we're in for as long as we can. I do like that guy. I've met him multiple times. Nice guy. Multiple times and I'm telling you he was a delightful guy. Nice guy. Multiple times, and I'm telling you, he was a delightful guy.

Nice guy, but you've got to pick an owner. Are you taking Kraft or are you taking him? Who are you taking? I mean, Kraft would like it here, too, with the amount of places we have where you can go. Hey-oh. Hey-oh. No, but I'm just saying, that's bad.

I don't know where Oakland's ownership ranks in terms of financial power. They had half. It's got to be low. They saw from a movie, Moneyball. Moneyball. Yeah, but it's ridiculous. So you're going to take a team, and baseball is a sport where, man, you've got to buy a championship.

It's pay to play. It is 100% go out and buy those trophies. And, dude, look at already what's happening with the Raiders. I mean, the attendance was not that great. It was probably 80%. 80% for the inaugural season you can get in. It was 100%, 100%, 95%, 90%. It's trending in the wrong direction.

So my point is you throw a team out there that's a middle-of-the-road team and there's, what, 180 games in a season for baseball? 162. 162 games in baseball. 161 or something. I mean, you throw a Tuesday day game out there? Yeah, but we have – Who's in the stands?

Well, this is a town that middle Tuesday is somebody's weekend. It might work on that. But for baseball? No. People come in town for that. You've got to remember, don't underestimate the nerds. No, but, okay, you mentioned this the other night. You said the nerds.

Like you said, oh, I take my daughter to a game at Dodger Stadium. I take her to a Dodgers game every year. That's magic. Have you ever been to a game at Wrigley? I took her to Dodgers. I took her to Colorado this year for the Dodgers game. All right, so Dodgers. Have you been to a game at Wrigley? No. Wrigley? I took her to Dodgers. I took her to Colorado this year for the Dodgers. All right, so Dodgers. Have you been to a game of Wrigley? No. Wrigley's magical. Would you go to a game

in the Bronx and see? Absolutely. Yes. Who cares about the newest dome that they're playing? Who cares? Well, the Yankees are playing in a brand new stadium, though. Are they? Yeah, about five years ago. But it's still the Yankees. It's still the Yanke and they win so there you go it doesn't matter it's got a different

baseball culture and all that stuff but people from oakland will come down people are looking for a reason to go to vegas i just i'm okay with it as long as no yes if you want to do it i'm all for it as long as there's no public money involved um i just don't think i mean i think with the stadium with the legion with them doing you – with them being public money with that, that's a facility that has multipurpose to it. And I agree with that multipurpose. I see that they can do lots more things with it. Yeah, UNLV plays there.

And they were losing this football in our conference this year. I don't get how you cannot pick up 24 good athletes. I just don't get it. I get it. Modern college football is – Let's bring this back to John's point about talent management. Yeah, it's all about talent management. But, again, I think it's one of those things where the stadium was okay with me

because it had a large multipurpose deal to it. We've had concerts come through there. We've got all kinds of stuff. Rolling Stones come through there. I think eventually they will probably leverage that stadium to get the Cowboys back. Did it make you sad seeing the Cowboys this year? Yeah.

Knowing that they're gone? Did that make you sad? They'll be back. The Cowboys are done, man. This last year, NFR's done, man. They're not coming back. Why? They're going to Texas because they don't like what,

they didn't like what, they don't like our government's little rules. They don't like our governor's rules. So they're like, you guys can suck it. We're out of here. We're going to Texas. That's the 12th of our economy. Yeah, dude.

That's all of December. It made me sad to see the calories. And they spent a lot of money. At PBR, NFR. PBR, NFR. It's all right there. Yeah. They are in town for a whole month, and they spend a lot of money. Go to Henderson Executive Airport.

People always like to think of money in terms of some guy in New York, some woman, some socialite in Los Angeles. Those ranchers are so rich. Oh, my God. Henderson Executive Airport's private jets stacked. It was full of private jets from all over this country for rodeo. And they're all such good people. And they're great.

I love the Cowboys. I love the Cowboys. More than Fourth of July. Oh, yeah. More than New Year's Eve. Yeah, good people. And they're gone. And they're rich.

Yeah, they bring money. Because of the politics in this state. And it's unfortunate. But I think, again, back to Allegiant, I think they will eventually leverage Allegiant to get the Cowboys back. Yeah, they bring money. Because of the politics in this state, and it's unfortunate. But I think, again, back to Allegiant, I think they will eventually leverage Allegiant to get the Cowboys back. Yeah. I think the Cowboys like Vegas. They're already in Texas.

Why do you want to go to Texas again? Do more Texas stuff. No, we'll get them back. Yeah, I've always said that. They really enjoy the Vegas. The real Cowboys people I know, they enjoy coming to Vegas. You know, Nashville's a cool town. Austin's a cool town. really enjoy the vegas the cowboy the real cowboy people i know they enjoy coming to vegas you know nashville's a cool town uh austin's a cool town but at the end of the day people want to come to

las vegas for a good reason well let's talk about that though because we have new year's eve coming up and i didn't want to touch on that a little bit if you're thinking of coming to vegas because i today when i'm trying to deal with my crisis management i'm getting blown up by uh like three different people like what are we doing for New Year's? We could go here. We could do this. We were supposed to throw a house party. I'm like, I'm really not in a headspace to do this right now. I can't with this right now.

We can table this 24 hours. But if you've never been to Vegas for New Year's Eve, what are some things that you can expect, boys? We've done a house party at my house, which is nice and fine. Bring the kids, all that. Yeah. No, but I'm just saying. New Year's Eve for locals.

I can literally open up my blinds and watch the whole thing and go back to sleep. I love it. But if you're young, you're coming to Vegas. Just know that you've got to be on the strip by about what? Six o'clock, five o'clock. You have to be there. It shuts down. You can't drive there anymore. And you will be stuck there until four or five in the morning

you're doing 12 hours well that was it's cold sorry but it is cold it is cold if you go outside don't dress like don't dress like you're going to edc no no no that's like you're going new york city there's the there's the whole you know good call like we just talked about the favorite memes which was like oh vegas ain't ready for us. Yeah, they've never seen four dudes share a room. In a Macy's button-down, share a room with the golden nugget. Wait in line for two hours to get in a club to buy a $12 Bud Light and go home. And lose $35 on Blackjack.

It was crazy, bro! You better. We have seen that. The best thing to do is find a nice lounge. Thank you for that. We appreciate you. We want you to come back. But we see is find a nice lounge. Thank you for that. We appreciate you. We want you to come back. But we see it on Tuesday in the middle of the slow week.

Buy a table at a club. That's a fun time. It's going to cost you. Anything's going to cost you a lot of money. Go to a lounge. Go somewhere like that. If not, just get drunk. Okay, let's say you want to come to Vegas.

You want to go to – and I'm not talking about, let's leave out the big boys. I'm not talking about the new club at Resorts World. I'm not talking about the win. I'm going to fuck myself. Let's talk about what's the budget I should plan on for me and my striped shirt button-down friends coming to Vegas to party it up for the weekend. I mean, what do you think the budget? A thousand bucks each.

At least a thousand each. I would say. You're talking about Macy's button down guy. Yeah, yeah. I would say if you're not planning on dropping. A thousand a night each. If you're not planning on dropping 20 grand at a nightclub. I don't think.

I think that's a little. I think that's a table at a club. That's what I'm saying. That's a nightclub. Not everybody has to do that. No, but I'm saying. Dude, but you're not going to get in. You're not going to get in unless you start. On New Year's Eve, if you don't have a table reservation, you can hang out standing in that. Protocols too? I wonder what that's a nightclub not everybody has to do that no but you're not gonna get in you're not going to get in unless you start on new year's eve if you don't have a table reservation you can

hang out standing in that calls too i wonder what that's no but standing in that hort standing in that line now look here's the deal you can come here there's a i mean you can just go to red rock go to no no but see what's the point then if you go to green valley you got a red rock why even come here but my point is you can go to if you just like i'm gonna go to a bar like for example you could probably roll up in like the piano bar in new york new york and have a killer good time probably yeah yeah but you can get in if you're coming thinking you're going to i'll be day club you're going to you're going to you know excess if you think you're just gonna roll up on it you're not no that's where you're right 20 grand for a table you're not you're looking at that so to me i studied him on radar because i would want to find a place you know

what was a cool place like the ghost bar voodoo lounge on the rio and the palms because they were off the strip yep and you have the best view of las vegas from the rio yeah is voodoo even still open i have no idea because those are my two favorite views none of that stuff is open but those are beautiful rio the rio is not open uh the rio is of the city. None of that stuff is open, but those are beautiful views. The Rio's not open? The Rio's open, but I don't think Voodoo's open. But I think they have some kind of clubs and restaurants that have a view. Yeah.

And the fireworks going off is pretty cool. I think what you need to do is you need to either get there and post up at a lounge and be prepared to rack up a couple thousand dollar bill if you're going to sit there. I'm going to give you a better piece of advice. If I'm coming to Vegas, this is what I'm doing. I'm getting my buddies or whatever it is. I'm getting a one bedroom suite at Cosmo with a balcony. I think that's cool. That's what I'm doing.

It's probably going to cost you two Gs. Probably gone. Yeah. It's not. It's going to be a two night minimum. It's going to cost you a couple Gs. But it's cheaper than going to a club. You're in the middle of everything you can go down chandelier bar you're right there again you're probably not going to get into marquee unless it's late

that's a good move yeah but i love that move we've done they may have some concessions too at the hotel if you are a guest they might you know one of the funniest things we did that one year and i loved it uh one of the best was so we we throw a party and this is years ago. We get one of the wraparound suites at Cosmo and Christy goes, or Gidget goes, Christy's here. Who's her best friend? She goes, she's downstairs. Go get her. And I said, okay. So I go down and Christy has brought meatballs. Were you there at this party? I was there. You were there. Christy brought meatballs. It's like a whole crock pot full of meatballs, right? So I go down. I was literally there. Yeah. And I'm dressed normally, right? So I go down. It's full of meatballs right so i go down i was literally there yeah and

i'm dressed normally right so i go down years ago yeah it's like 10 years ago i go down to get her she's in the parking deck and we're coming up and she's dressed to the nines and i'm dressed like yeah an adidas sweatsuit right and it's macy's and i look at and these other people being get the elevator and i look at christy and i go look i know it's weird but this bachelor party's but you know they're paying extra so just do the meatball thing. And if it gets too weird, just beat me, and me and Horace will come busting in. But look, it's totally worth the two grand. And the people at the elevator were like, what the hell?

People that don't know John Gafford, don't get in the elevator. He's done that to me. I love a little elevator humor. That's it. That's great. Guys, so that's what we got for this week. Man, and again, if you like what we do, tell a friend. If you hate it, tell two because it doesn't matter if we're talking good or bad.

What is it called? Oh, as long as we're talking about you. As long as we're talking about you. That's all I know. 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 or 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