Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Reimagining Career Success and Financial Literacy with Peter Maher

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

Starting point is 00:00:28 but pick your copy up right now at the john gaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses I've thrown out because I promise you I put my heart and soul into this thing I want it to help you change your life pick it up everywhere so obviously the vision for the vision for the company is is pretty laid out that roadmap where do you see yourself in like 10 years where you want to be oh man personally yeah and now escaping the drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness.

Starting point is 00:01:09 So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast. Like I says, the opening man, gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, dude, this is a really innovative talk we're going to have today. In studio today, we have a gentleman who is a. fintech executive he's been a firefighter in his previous life and he's on a mission which i thought this was the coolest thing to kill payday loans he is the uh head operator over at a new company called float i can't wait to hear more about it this should be a cool talk ladies and gentlemen welcome to

Starting point is 00:01:49 studio this is peter mayor peter hey thanks how are you dude doing well doing well i'm excited to be here Yeah, so let's, I want to jump right into this because look, I think anybody, you know, part of our mission here, obviously with escaping the drift is to get people that are in situations where they think maybe they're behind the eight ball, maybe they're, maybe things seem a little hopeless. I mean, there was a time in my life many, many moons ago when I destroyed my credit like it was an Olympic sport. And I think anybody in that situation may be from time to time has had to go to one of these payday loan places. And they're just like, dude, it's like going. to see the old school mafia by the time they start tacking on all these fees and everything. And when I heard that you were out to kill them, I was like, okay, this is not really killed, not really YouTube, don't ban my video, but out to, uh, to end their business model as as they are. So tell me about that. Let me go back and kind of figure out your story a little bit. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's, uh, you know, I thank you for clarifying that we're not actually going to kill. Yeah, not actually going to kill anybody.

Starting point is 00:02:55 The reality is there's a better way to do things, right? The way in which things are done today, the credit system, while it started for a purpose, is antiquated, it's outdated, right? The people that need a little bit of flexibility, a little bit of float are the people that have the hardest time accessing it. And the less you need it, the more it's available to you, right? And I would challenge, I would challenge you. I think I probably had the lowest credit score of anybody I've ever met at some point

Starting point is 00:03:21 because I too tanked it when I was 19. Yeah. So we'll have to, maybe we'll see who's. got low score at some point or did yeah i mean well they hand i mean it was like first day on college campus there's all those tables at the union yep who wants a credit card yeah my uh my friends parents were paying for him to go on spring break uh i called my dad and got a nice laugh out of me asking for him to pay for me to go to spring break uh then just like a gift from god the pre-approved credit card so i went to the bahamas i had a great time i maxed it out uh not knowing anything about

Starting point is 00:03:53 how interest rates and minimum payments work. Finally, I just kind of took the mindset of I'll pay them back later. It's a couple grand, right? I spent the better part of the next 10 years of my life. Trying to pay that. I'm trying to turn that around. And like you, I experienced payday lending. So isn't it funny, man, how like your parents never taught you about credit cards and how, like, how they really work. And that's up. Like, just the financial literacy that that you got from parents back in the day is not nearly, I think, what parents do now. I mean, I'm deliberately trying to ruin my son as we speak. So both my kids have credit cards and they're teenagers and they, you know, they work and they spend money all through the month, but they have to

Starting point is 00:04:35 put everything on the credit card. Nice. And then at the end of the month, I reconcile what they spent and they have to pay it off 100%. And if they can't, I just annihilate them with like 28% interest i'm just like you gotta pay dad the juice and uh and yeah because i'm trying to i'm trying to teach that lesson or not playing for keeps yeah because so many people have made that mistake in their life and they they do get demolished by a trip to the bahamas turns into this so how are you turning this around you know it's interesting so um i've been in call it payments of one one form or another for the last 12 15 years um for me i've always had a passion about alternatives to credit right A credit score, I'm, I guess, proud to have a great one now.

Starting point is 00:05:21 It's not an indicator of affordability, right? It's an indicator more likely if it's a poor credit score, as they would say, it's more an indicator that something went wrong at some point. It could be a life event, could be a poor choice. But it has nothing to do with what they can afford or how well they manage their cash currently, right? And you and I both probably know several people who likely have 800 credit scores and live under a mountain of debt.

Starting point is 00:05:45 Oh, yeah, for sure. They've just figured out how to make the minimum payment, free up their line enough that they can fill it up again the following month. So at Float, I spent the last several years in-bye-now pay later, right? And there's several providers out there, Klarna, after-pay, Zip, Sezzle. And while they do great things, they serve a good consumer base, they're all largely built on the exact same model, right? which is soft, soft credit pulls, Bureau data scoring, right?

Starting point is 00:06:16 And then the ones who can go deeper on a credit score, it's not rocket science. They give small dollar amounts in a very short period of time to repay it. Very little risk for them. Real quick, for those of you don't know what you just, what you just said, the buy and not pay later, these are companies that can hook to e-commerce platforms where you can purchase something now, very similar to getting credit like a back in the with like a rent-a-center where you would get like a washing machine and pay for it little by little.

Starting point is 00:06:44 Correct. Yep. And then it allows them to split it up. It's micro-credit for individual purchases. Microcredit, you can purchase something today. The buy-now pay-later provider pays the business in full and then the consumer repays the buy-now pay later over a few installments, right? So what's wrong with the traditional model of people doing that normally?

Starting point is 00:07:02 Well, there's nothing wrong with it. I don't actually even think it's really like predatory per se, but it locks out a lot of people because of the model that it's built on. Right. So if you have a low credit score, think about the U.S. right now. You've got no less than 120 to 130 million people adults that have a 620 or below credit score. Right. You've got tens of millions of gig workers that don't have consistent employment data or reliable cash flow data in terms of payroll. You've got our leadership team at float. You've got expats that have had successful careers and came over to the U.S. for job opportunity, have an established credit. immigrants, new to credit, 18 to 25 year olds. When you add up this entire population, it's no less than 150 million people. And the scary thing is that's over half of all US adult consumers that for the most part can't even access buy now pay later, let alone traditional credit.

Starting point is 00:07:59 Wow. And so what we've done and the risk that we've taken is to turn our back on the credit model. So we are the first totally credit score agnostic final pay later provider where we're connected through partners with an open banking where we can look at an individual and say what can they afford and how can they afford it. We're not here to enable people to buy louis Vuittons or pelotons or a joke like any other type of ton probably. But like we can look at somebody and say like they can afford a $200 purchase but instead of eating up all their liquidity to make that, we'll make the purchase for them and allow them to spread it out over a few weeks that

Starting point is 00:08:41 fits into their cash flow cycle. And we don't use credit score as an indicator as to whether or not we'll approve them. Use cash in, cash out of their bank accounts. Yeah. So through our partners, we can pull what's called aggregate data, right? And we can get a healthy snapshot of the last 90 days or so. They're even older, even more if we need to. But what's their money in, money out frequency? How much of their money is going towards installments? What type of merchants are they shopping at? They had several overdrafts, right? And then we can make an informed decision around their current affordability status as to how much they could reasonably have outstanding with us at a given time. And then alternative to that, as we build a relationship

Starting point is 00:09:22 with that consumer and they show positive repayment history and things like that, we're open to the idea of enabling them by giving them a little bit more. But there will never be a world where we're there to help people make two, three, four, five thousand dollar purchase, right? It's just a little float. So it's just a little float. Just a little float. Yeah, don't sweat it.

Starting point is 00:09:43 Can people, now is this a, now, will this be a payment process you can use for anything? Is it strictly, is it strictly like if it happens to be used by this consumer or this e-commerce system or whatever it is? Yeah, I mean, that's a good, it's a great question. So, um, merchants find the value in what we're doing because it enables us to help the debit and cash majority transact in a responsible way, right? So there's value to them by having us on their e-commerce site because if you think about it across any merchant in any category today in the U.S., at least 30 to 50% of their transactions, sometimes higher depending on what they do, are still

Starting point is 00:10:20 debit and cash, right? And that's not because that's their preferred method of payment. It's their only method of payment, right? How many people didn't transact with a given merchant because that was their only payment method, right? And so there's huge value to the merchant and us being able to create some customer loyalty and help drive conversion at their site. But additionally, like we exist to serve the consumer, right? So in our app, which we'll be launching in the next couple of months, a consumer can go in, link their account and tell them, hey, this is what we think you can afford based on your data. It might be a couple, a few hundred dollars. And then, then essentially they can use that anywhere in store or online that master cards are using their

Starting point is 00:11:06 phone to pay yep you're essentially going to give them a debit card but you're essentially going to give them a credit line you're going to give a credit card now does this will this report to the credit bureaus to help them no we'll not nope we'll never report to credit bureaus never report because you're trying to break that system you're not trying to be part of it yep it'll never happen but the beauty of like open banking data versus credit data is as we scale this up We can become less of just a payment method and more of like financial wellness where we can look at somebody and say like, hey, here's the categories you were spending at the last couple of months. Here's where maybe you might want to set aside some cash in case of a rainy day so you don't have to use us, right? Or here's maybe where you might want to think about us for this upcoming bill so that you're not eating up all your cash flow and actually provide like close to real time financial wellness insights based on their spending habits like patterns.

Starting point is 00:12:00 Now, how are you monetizing this? Because you said earlier, you're not charging them interest rate. There's no APR. There's no juice to the consumer. So how are you monetizing as a company? It's a great question. We are a not-for-profit. No, I'm just kidding. It's a, I do. I've got a couple of those businesses, not intentionally, but it just worked out that way. I do believe that you can have an innovative fintech without exploitation, right? And so for me, we work with the merchants. We work with our partners, right? If we can convert a consumer that they may have otherwise lost, who might have gone somewhere and bought it for $3 cheaper because they're very price sensitive, right?

Starting point is 00:12:36 Merchants are happy to pay a transaction fee for that. So for us, it's one of two ways. Either without going too far into the weeds, we can pay the merchant using a card at which we have a partnership with the network, and when they pay their card processing fee, we get a slice of that. That's the master card affiliation. Yep. Or whoever their card processor provider is.

Starting point is 00:12:56 We don't control what they pay. That's between the merchant and them, but we get a piece of that interchange. Additionally, we can settle directly to a merchant, almost like a wire or an ACH, kind of, at which point we just agree to a transaction, right? You know, a couple of percentage points on the transaction, similar to their other processing costs.

Starting point is 00:13:18 So we're making money on the transaction on the merchant side. And then the goal long term is we create such a loyal user base within the app, right we can have affiliate we can have revenue share from other providers and then down the road we may even offer an option to consumers it will always be free to anybody to use us but where if we do build in all these budgeting and wellness tools and things like that that maybe we charge a four dollar a month subscription or something for those that want to opt into it but we'll never monetize the consumer off late fees APRs or installment fees I think the parent company to this is publicly traded yes Yep, small cap public company out of Australia.

Starting point is 00:13:57 Okay, so there are public, okay, they're traded because I'm thinking, how do you raise debt for this? If your lifeblood is a sliver of transaction fees, I mean, how do you raise debt when the win, I mean, the debt costs would be more than that? Well, the debt cost really isn't that much. So you have a debt facility that you use to fund the merchant settlements. So if you're the merchant, I'm paying you in full at the time of transaction, and we're making revenue off that transaction. But then the consumer enters into a repayment agreement with us that isn't months, right?

Starting point is 00:14:34 It's high volume, high turnaround. It's very quick. Yeah. So it could be, depending on where they're purchasing and how they're using it, it could be one payment a couple or a few days later, or it could be four payments over the next six, eight weeks. Okay. So your money is normally not out for longer than a,

Starting point is 00:14:51 the cycle is very short on the money so you can recapitalize quickly so you don't need that much capital sitting in account to fund all of this you really don't you really don't there's bnPL providers out there doing you know a couple of billion in transaction volume that are doing it off of a debt facility of a couple hundred million yeah um and for us we want to you know you you say that like you want your kids to pay off the balance in full right reward that habit so like we want to incentive us healthy repayment habits, right? So you may have heard about like a buy now pay later provider that integrated with one of the big food delivery services and some article came out that said

Starting point is 00:15:31 you can now pay off your burrito over six weeks. And well, well, I kind of, it's not 100% true that people are just using it for a $6 burrito. In fact, I don't think you could. There are minimums. But you still shouldn't have six weeks to pay off something that maybe you need to purchase every week. So I think about gas and grocery, which are heavily criticized categories from the lens of someone looking at it where why would you give somebody six weeks to pay off something they're purchasing every week? Well, for us, we won't, right?

Starting point is 00:16:06 But what we'll do is we want, I remember a time where the low gas light came on Tuesday and payday is Friday. Yeah. Right? Still got to get to work. You still got to feed your family. So for us, we want to incentivize the consumer to opt into things like pay and one, which is where, hey, we will get you your groceries or get you your gas and will float you

Starting point is 00:16:27 till Friday or whatever your next payday is. So are you using, I'm guessing, this is all AI data driven is what you're deciding based on, so are you categorizing things in real time based on what they are? How, like how many payments you offer on them? Is that all, that's just real time driven? Yeah. So to it, to an extent, so, yeah. we have a in our origination and management system essentially when somebody makes a request

Starting point is 00:16:52 we can look at like where they're looking to shop with us especially if it's an integrated merchant or somebody and make a decision but the biggest thing is when we have when we're using open banking data we can see is this person paid weekly biweekly semi-monthly right and we can do things like auto-aligned payday or due date to be payday plus one right yeah people will pay you back if you ask for the money when they have it generally and uh oh i felt If only that was true on some of the deals I've been in, good Lord. Yeah, and some of my friends, there's always one in every group where you have to chase them down for a Venmo. I was referred to a lawsuit.

Starting point is 00:17:26 I had been going for about seven years for over a million bucks, but that's okay. But we do want to do things like with categories where, say, for example, gas, right? Gas could be a merchant category code. Essentially, at a high level, we can restrict gas. So somebody can't just go use our card and purchase gas, right? So what they'd have to do within our application is actually let us know that they're purchasing gas, in which case we'll only present to pay in one. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:53 Right? Yeah. So that we don't take on the reputation. Those decisions change in real time? Yeah. So it can change based on their spending habits, based on what they're doing. It just, it's all run by one giant algorithm in the back that's making these decisions for you.

Starting point is 00:18:07 Several algorithms. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by people on this team that. have been in consumer finance, open banking since it started, that have worked for some of the largest retailers and payments providers in the world that have come over to join on the mission and the partners tied to us as well that are helping us create this logic, create these algorithms. But yeah, we're making the decision in real time. We're not anytime soon going to be enabling people to do anything long term unless it's for a very specific merchant or partner that needs that. But yeah, we're decisioning. We can tell when

Starting point is 00:18:50 somebody links their account if they have regular employment income or if because of the sums and the frequency, if they're a gig worker, right, in which case we should probably present a little bit of a different payment plan or give them the optionality to move up or out their due date if something arises. Does it, does it scare you at all with the advancements in AI and And every day you see this, you know, segment of people who's going to get wiped away and these jobs are going away. And, you know, all these companies are laying people off. Does it, does it worry you at all being in that business of floating that you guys could get caught behind a tsunami of all of a sudden like, oh, my gosh, we've got all these people

Starting point is 00:19:28 that now defaulting. Is that part of your equation? Like, how are you modeling that out? There's always risk, right? What's interesting is... We'll go around. Yeah, there's always risk. You know, if I could tell you what was going to happen six months from now, I'd be in a different category. That's a good call. But the reality is it's all about managing risk, right? So like somebody who's new to us, we're not going to start out like with a really high

Starting point is 00:19:55 line. Exposures, right? And it's going to be faster repayment periods and things. You know, interestingly enough, while loss rates across BNPL have crept up in recent months, I have to give a lot of credit to some of the incumbents like Zip and such who have taken a chance on the traditional model of credit underwriting, but still gone to what's deemed by many a higher risk consumer base based on credit scoring. And they've maintained loss rates that are significantly below, sometimes less than half of what traditional credit providers

Starting point is 00:20:28 can do, their credit cards. Right? And so I think it indicates a lot of loyalty amongst a consumer base that doesn't have many options. Yeah, yeah. They don't view it as this giant evil empire. They view it is somebody that's trying to help them out. Yeah. How do you guys, how do you guys? So let me ask you this now. How do you create a culture within your client base where you connect with them that way? Well, exceptional marketing, right?

Starting point is 00:20:52 So we're, but I think it's also about flexibility, giving them optionality, you know, letting them know that they can make progress without pressure. For us, it's like if somebody, somebody lets us know that, like, hey, I lost my job. I'm in a hardship. They don't have to worry about us sending them to collections or anything like that. Yeah. We might pause the account and say, hey, pay us back when you can, and then you can continue using it.

Starting point is 00:21:20 But you're not there to pile on when things get. We're not here to pile it on to them, right? There will be bad actors. Honestly, the biggest threat to us isn't necessarily some huge economic change because you tend to be able to see that coming a little bit. Yeah. Right. The biggest threat to us is just ensuring that we block out the bad actors so that we can

Starting point is 00:21:39 empower the good ones. There's going to be fraud everywhere or tempted, right? That brings me the next question. So what systems are you guys put in place to try to limit fraud? Yeah. Well, at the highest level, right, this is something that a lot of people just don't really realize or no. But if you go to the majority of the incumbent traditional by now pay later is out there today, right? The only thing you need roughly to apply or try and open an account is name, date, of birth, phone number, address. email. Yeah, it's dark web. You can have that in five seconds. You can have that information on me in 20 minutes. Yeah. If a lot less with GPT or dark web, right? Most of it's Google publicly

Starting point is 00:22:18 available. If you're a little creative, right? You don't need social or anything. So for good reasons, their fraud guard rails are high. But when you look at a consumer that maybe doesn't own a home, right? Or maybe is renting or on a lease that's not in their name or has changed, has changed addresses, has changed phone numbers. A lot of them get booted out during ID verification because those risk guard rolls are so high. In our model, it's much harder to link your bank account, right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. We need all that we don't, we're not just going to use, we're not just going to use technology to try and figure out if the five bits of information you put in are actually you, right? We're actually going to ask you to link your account and

Starting point is 00:23:01 And then we can do things in real time, like tying that account back to device ownership. Are they logging in? Yeah. Right. And if somebody had access to somebody's bank account at that level, they would just steal their money. They're not going for buying out pay later. Why are they still in your money when they just drain their account, which is good. So what's the law?

Starting point is 00:23:19 So what is the, how many users currently on the platform? How long you guys been up? So we're actually launching. Oh, you're just getting ready to launch. Yeah. So, you know, we're here in Vegas meeting with a ton of our partners that we're really excited to begin announcing in the next few weeks, both across the merchant ecosystem, but also fintechs and payments providers that have really gotten behind our message.

Starting point is 00:23:40 So it's really exciting. We're launching the app and our first merchants and partners at the end of Q1. We'll be delivering our MVP and test transactions in January. Okay. Yep. So you guys are first in your space doing this with this, where you're linked to you to think. We are.

Starting point is 00:23:56 Are you strictly going on demand? based on the people using buy now, pay later through these other companies and just think you have a better way, you have a better mousetrap? Or did you guys actually send this out into the world and say, hey, would you be willing to give us this info? Did you, I mean, did you test market it at all? Yeah. Well, so luckily most everybody on the team has been in payments either on the provider or merchant standpoint for a very long time. Just across the five leadership team. I mean, there's over a hundred years of payments experience. So very good people that I'm with.

Starting point is 00:24:33 But we have, we've tested the hypothesis across several different merchant conversations, payments providers. We validated the data. We've done surveys. Everything we can do without actually just having the product out there. Sure. But the exciting thing is like, we're at Money 2020 this conference in Vegas this week, right? It's very hard for a brand new fintech startup to have the sort of meetings that we, that we're having. Yeah. A lot of it comes from just relationships within the industry.

Starting point is 00:25:04 When they hear the value prop and they hear the consumer base that we're going after, and it's not a portion of the same consumer base that's using BMPL today, it's generating a lot of buying and a lot of support. So what's the go-to-market strategy? The go-to-market strategy is kind of twofold. Right? So in today's world, like it's not just go-to-market strategy, but you can do building and everything. We can do lean and agile, right? Like, we built our entire platform and engine and soup to nuts.

Starting point is 00:25:35 We didn't acquire another one and put, dress it up. And we're doing it start to finish in six months, right? Three years ago, that would not have been possible. No, AI's built, well, dude, you can just do your basic coding and the stuff in the back end can be done twice as fast with half the engineers. We would have needed 50 people to do what we're doing. But also with our go-to-market strategy, doesn't necessarily make. sense to bring in a huge sales force and start calling one-to-one on a ton of merchants and such. So our strategy is partnerships-first-driven approach, right? So there's very big providers within

Starting point is 00:26:11 the payments ecosystem that are already working with the world's largest merchants, smallest merchants, medium merchants that believe in what we're doing, and we've invited them to be a part of it. And so in exchange, they're doing things like bringing us into their payments ecosystem that they offer to all of their existing merchants right and then through that the merchant no longer has to find out and figure out whether or not they want to integrate us or fit us into their roadmap they can just turn us on just like they can decide hey we want to accept visa or discover right and turn it on um so that's a that's a path for us we also know that you know 15 20 percent of the consumers that see us at a merchant's checkout will be their firsting experience

Starting point is 00:26:57 with us and that they'll go on to download our app and use it moving forward. So there is a customer acquisition strategy from the merchant's checkout there that is low cack and it drives a lot of awareness while also benefiting the merchant. Because all of a sudden you're just going to be there and they'll pop up and be like, what is this? Yeah. And they'll see an advertisement maybe if the merchant's partnering with us that says pay with float. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of borrowing sales forces from partnering companies. Like, who has your client already? How can I work with you to enhance your offering and just leverage your sales force, which is essentially what you guys are doing? 100%. As soon as they just drop you in your platform and you just show up one day and all of a sudden

Starting point is 00:27:37 that's going to, that in itself creates like, well, what is this? I haven't seen this before. And people looking for alternatives that other than draining their own bank account are going to click on just about any alternative you put in front of them just from need. 100%. Somebody shouldn't have to choose free. The tricky thing is a while back I saw that 40% of households in the US would struggle to cover an unexpected $400 expense. That's insane. You shouldn't have to make the choice of all your cash flow and liquidity to get something that you want or suddenly need, right? I think about where we can add values. It's the things that everyday people want or need access to.

Starting point is 00:28:15 Whether it's tickets to take your kids to a ball game, whether it's, you know, the $500 to dollar to double. the $500 deductible that you might have to pay after you got into an accident. Yeah. Right. You know, you deserve access to those things without having to choose. Visit to the pediatrician, man. That's a visit to the pediatrician co-pays if they're lucky enough to have insurance.

Starting point is 00:28:36 You know, it's not, it's not up to us to decide necessarily what the, where and how the consumer can use us. It's just to make sure that it's within reason. Available. Yep. And it's not something that's going to put them into a bad situation.

Starting point is 00:28:48 Like they can't use us to go, you know fund their gambling account all right so well let's back up and ask a totally different question how do you go from being a fire how do you want to being a fireman and how do you go to being like how do you go from fireman to most innovative guy that that seems like an interesting story that i want to hear so if i actually still am a fireman still are fireman okay our fireman medic um my story is one that's really unique everybody's is you know i i think you know like the greatest version of yourself is out there waiting for you right and it's just just like the only way to get there is to is not just to pay attention to what other people are doing

Starting point is 00:29:25 and try and replicate it, but more importantly, learn from your mistakes along the way, right? And so, like, I tanked my credit, right? Learned from that mistake. I actually am not a college graduate. Neither mind. You know? And that is something that at the midpoint in my career, I used to have a lot of insecurity about stepping into a room.

Starting point is 00:29:45 Now I think it's very likely one of my greatest strengths, right? because my perspective is entirely in my experience. Well, let me ask you, let me ask you this. I'll tell you my experience with that, which was, you know, early in my career when I thought that that was very, very important. I never necessarily lied about it, but I never, I never clarified it either. I didn't clarify it either, right? I have a PhD in my fraternity, but did not finish, did not finish school, but I never

Starting point is 00:30:12 clarified it with people. And so how it got outed for me was I was on the apprentice and I'm sitting. there the very first day we're on that show and Donald Trump comes out and says so this year we're going to do things a little differently. Half of you have college degrees and half of you are high school graduates and I'm like, holy shit, I'm about to get outed on national like literally national television. This is how it's going to come out. And I remember like, you know, I just didn't even know what to do and got through it. And then here's, you know, months later, it's time to debut the show. And we had a,

Starting point is 00:30:49 watch party and it was everybody I was friends with and everybody that knew me and we're all there and here comes the show and it happened and they said that and then it was street smarts versus book smarts and nobody ever said a word about it and it's like something that I had built up in my head that it was going to be this heavy thing that I was going to judge for nobody cared nobody cares I always think back on you know David Goggins guaranteed yeah you know he always says like your mind is not your friend right like it knows all your deepest dirtiest secrets and it tries to use them against you i have yet to ever tell somebody that i didn't go to college and worst case scenario they didn't care but usually they actually think it's a like a pleasant

Starting point is 00:31:34 surprise a good surprise yeah or how many people have you told that then said me too you know um i i think any more i think it doesn't come up that often yep do you what do you remember uh for me it used to be you said you avoided it like did I did I go to college yes I did yes I did but I was always worried about the follow-up question yeah what was your major or what year that's okay too what year did you that's okay for me I was like anthropology anthropology yeah that's okay but then the what year did you graduate you're like yeah I felt the institution had nothing further to offer me somewhere in the year of 1992 yeah well so so I dropped out a couple years in and I

Starting point is 00:32:15 actually wanted to be a firefighter right so I went and got my I went through, in Kansas City, I went through Academy. I moved to New Hampshire and got my medic, a bunch of backcountry medicine stuff too, knowing I wanted to move to Colorado. And then I moved young and dumb to Denver, Colorado, thinking I've got my certs, Denver Fire is going to hire me tomorrow. Didn't work that way.

Starting point is 00:32:38 So in the two years that I spent trying to get on with one department, instead of going out and getting experience and volunteering, I was bartending in Denver. And it was actually one of my bar regulars over the course of months that owned a construction company and talked to me into coming into sales form. So I was like, you know what? Screw it. It's almost like a wolf of Wall Street moment.

Starting point is 00:33:00 He showed me what a couple of his sales guys were making. And I was like, I will do that. Yes, I can do this. I will go knock doors and sell roofs. Yeah, that's big dollars. Right? Yeah, you get right. That's big dollars.

Starting point is 00:33:10 It can be. And, you know, and then fast forward, you know, I don't even know what that was. 17 years is or something later. Here I am, right? But the coolest thing is I live in Golden, Colorado. Our volunteer, our fire department, the one that I'm on is all volunteer. And so a few years ago, I got connected with a few of the guys on the department, and we were just joking and talking about things.

Starting point is 00:33:36 And they invited me to come up and meet the rest of the department. And so I've been doing search and rescue, wildland firefighting, structural firefighting, and motor vehicle's response for the last five years in my, when I'm not, you know, fighting the credit institutions. Oh, that's, dude, I'm putting fires out every day here, but it has nothing to do with actually being out in the wilderness. It's kind of, yeah, my phone never stops ringing, which is how it is. It gives me a perspective, you know, there's so many times at previous companies and such

Starting point is 00:34:04 where, sure, an issue pops up, right? Like, this is not a real problem. This is not the worst day of your life, right? This is not a real problem. Like, yeah. I've got work. I don't have a problem. Dude, don't you love when people have to say stuff.

Starting point is 00:34:16 Oh, this is the worst. I'm having the worst day ever. Really? You're having the worst day ever? The worst day ever? Because I turned on and saw some refugees on a boat trying to get from one country that oppresses them just hoping to get to freedom. It's worse than that or what are we talking about?

Starting point is 00:34:32 I have a kind of big brother who's sort of taking me under his wings since I was 18, a guy named Marion back in Denver. And one day I was bitching about something like 10 years ago. And I'll never forget. he was like, Petey, the worst day you ever have will be better than somebody's best. Oh, dude. And I was just like, well, you know, it's something like, it's something like, to be in the top 1% in the United States, I think you've got to make like $190,000 or something.

Starting point is 00:34:59 It's not a lot. Yeah. Right. To be in the top 1% on earth, it's like 38 grand. And when you hear that, you're like, you know, I mean, maybe it's. It's not so bad. It doesn't really matter what the government's doing today because maybe it's an okay place to live.

Starting point is 00:35:20 My wife and I play the, we call it the worst case scenario game, right? And it's, and we back into like, what's the worst case scenario of this? And then, okay, that happens. What's the worst case scenario of this, right? And when I chose to make the decision to come over here and really try and build this thing, I was walking away from a very comfortable long-term job, right? Yeah. And the worst case scenario,

Starting point is 00:35:42 ended us back at a place where it's like, and it's not a bad job if you're doing it. But like, it's like, hey, like we ran out of money. I couldn't get a new job in time. We lost the house. We're back in an apartment where we started, right? Working in a restaurant in the kitchen or something. She's like, so that's the worst.

Starting point is 00:36:00 And I was like, yeah, I think that's about as far as I would fall. And she's like, great. What happens six months from now, from then? I was like, I'm managing the restaurant. She's like, what about after that? I was like, I'm managing the region of her. restaurants. Yeah. Right. And then I'm taking that and parlaying it. And it's just like the end of the day, like most problems aren't problems, you know. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I've got a book coming out

Starting point is 00:36:25 November the 11th. And, um, congrats. Thanks. It's a long time in the process. And through that process, if you've never written a boat before, but through that process, you get reviews from like the book buying reviewers. Like these companies that review books for the book bars. My publisher calls me up and he goes, hey, you're getting a review tomorrow from Publishers Weekly. Like, cool, I'm excited about first, first, like, review from a professional person. And I get it and I read it, and it's not super complimentary. And I was, like, super bummed about it. And I went to bed and I was like, man, I'm super bummed about that.

Starting point is 00:36:58 I woke up the next morning. I read it again. And I love this review. I love it. I absolutely love it. Here's why. Because the person that wrote it, obviously is subjective. It's one person.

Starting point is 00:37:07 Their job is to read books and then write for this thing. That's their job. I get it. And they wrote, this. this sentence made my day about this review because they said that my my um my help can come off as trite because i do not recognize the myriad systemic problems or a myriad systematic issues and i present all problems as solvable and i was like yeah i do you're a hundred percent right i do and anybody that believes that the myriad systematic issues that you're you're you're

Starting point is 00:37:42 you can't solve a problem because the boogeyman or the government or your social construct has set the world up against you. Yeah, you're going to hate my book. It's not for you. Yep. And it's like, how can I believe that? Because, dude, I've had so many people sitting in the seat that you're in, you know, that had, dude that demolished his credit, didn't graduate from college selling roofs, is now, you know, the forefront of one of the most innovative fintech companies out there. That shouldn't have happened. Yeah. Right. Wait, wait a second. How that happen? Yep. Right? I mean, guys that came here, like I said, on rafts from Vietnam, that now on a thousand doors. Yep. That shouldn't happen. Yep. But yet it does. And it's because

Starting point is 00:38:24 I think people in life, you have two choices. You can see problems is solvable and you can take responsibility for where you are. Couldn't agree more. Like, you didn't come in here and tell me that the evil travel company demolished your credit because they made you go to the Bahamas and, you know, the MasterCard made you take that card and go blow the money. That was. That was. 100% you took responsibility for that and I think that's the difference I think uh you know I am totally understanding of the fact that we don't all have the same starting line right and it's and it's not as easy for some as it is for others but at the same time it's like there's also a quote that I love right which is we're all self-made only those or usually only those who like where

Starting point is 00:39:04 they're at will admit it so you've never heard somebody say self-made average self-made yeah I like that Yeah, I like that. Self made out of shape. Everybody is self-made, except only those who like where they are. We'll choose to admit it. That's really good. And so, you know, to me, I really do believe, like, your results are a reflection of the work that you put in when nobody's looking, right?

Starting point is 00:39:28 And from learning from your mistakes, it's like, I can't change the fact that I made a dumb decision with a credit card. It's not their fault. Where do I go from here? And how do I make sure it never happens again? and honestly like with that mindset and there's moments everybody has moments where you feel underwater but like with that mindset it's it's shaped every everything I am today right and there's still a long way to go like the best version of me is out there waiting somewhere but like it it's wild to me

Starting point is 00:39:55 somebody said the other day if you could do it all over the same way would you and I was like hell yeah because it's the only thing I know it's but it's so far so good yeah that's it's the only thing for me that I kind of regret is the amount of time I kind of spent screwing around. I think, where would I be if I hadn't screwed it around that time, which is, you know, that's, somebody asked me yesterday what my book was about. I was like, it's a user's manual to my dipshit 27. It's what it is. It's like, go back and just do all this and you'll be fine.

Starting point is 00:40:22 Like, if you just do this, life will change for you. But let me ask you this, because one of the things in topics I'd love to talk about, especially on this show, is risk evaluation. And like you said with your wife, like you sat down and talked about that. I want to dive a little bit more into that. decision because I think a lot of people are scared to take leaps because they don't want to step out of the unknown from where they are. And I think what the difference between people that become high achievers and people that donas are willing to take those steps. So, I mean,

Starting point is 00:40:49 you briefly talked about it, but really at a macro level, like how do you evaluate risk for things in your life? Yeah, I just, I try to think about like, what is the upside? What is it that I'm working towards? Does it fit in to the version of myself that I hope I'm trying to become? It's not all about finance for me. Don't get me wrong, it is much easier when you don't have to worry about bills when they're on auto pay and things like that, but that's not the core of my happiness. You know, I was just as happy slinging drinks, you know, in terms of I had great friends, great family. For me, when I think about risk, it's, it's, what am I at risk of losing if the ideal outcome doesn't happen? Because while I believe you can always learn from

Starting point is 00:41:33 mistakes, not everything at all times is in your control, right? So you have to be okay. You have to be okay with the opposite of the ideal outcome to an extent and kind of be able to convince yourself or trust yourself of if that were to happen, where would I go from there? And if you're comfortable with that and if you're okay with it, like make the bet, bet on yourself. it's um you know that the the like the greatest project in my mind and i've heard it before so that this is not a quote from me but it's like uh like the greatest project you'll ever work on as yourself yeah right so like uh take the bets bet on yourself but like don't be blind to the to the less than ideal outcomes that could present themselves too so you just said this you said

Starting point is 00:42:24 the person i'm trying to become are you have a strong vision of the of where you're trying to go personally. And how often do you revisit that vision? Regularly. Yeah. So for me, once the day starts, it doesn't end. You know, and so like for me, I've got some time in the morning that is, that is my time, right? I get up earlier than my wife, usually.

Starting point is 00:42:47 That's the time where nobody's bothering me. The phone's not pinging. So I take that to reflect, right? I don't get on social media. I listen to podcasts or I pull out my wife. wellness app and listen to 10-minute meditation and just think about where I want to be. I sit on the, on the, we have a porch in golden that looks out at some of the mountains. So I like to sit out there around sunrise with my dog and just stare in the distance and just

Starting point is 00:43:12 think like, what am I putting into my cup for today, right? If things go wrong, how am I going to react? What are the, what are the one or two things that I get these things done today? It's a win. Everything else is a bonus, right? And so for me, I don't have some ultimate goal of having tens of millions of dollars. Like for me, for me, it would be great, right? I would love that.

Starting point is 00:43:37 Hundreds and it's just wild. It's some of the most unhappy people I know are the wealthiest. No, for sure. But I also know very happy. Well, because you ask them, you ask them how much more do you, you know, okay, you're here. What do you want? The answer is always the same. It's just more.

Starting point is 00:43:50 Yeah. Yeah. So for me, it's like the ideal outcome of myself is we've, We built a life that my wife and I really don't ever have to worry about important things again. You know, we can take care of those around us, you know, her siblings, her parents, my siblings. We can help others, right? Like people say it. But to me, it's like, you know, obviously, you know, Shaquille O'Neal.

Starting point is 00:44:15 Yeah, of course. You know, he doesn't go into a grocery store without ever buying something for someone. Like, I love that. Yeah, it's awesome. Like, that's the sort of stuff that, like, wealth can enable you to do. So, like, I love the idea of that. But to me, it's being somebody that others respect, being surrounded by people that will always take my call

Starting point is 00:44:35 and knowing I'll always take theirs. And then having the financial freedom to not really feel trapped ever. You know, it's like you can make that decision. You can go do what you want and not worry about how you're going to pay your mortgage, right? So with doing something as big as of what you're doing now, What do you attach your identity to?

Starting point is 00:44:59 My identity, professionally? General. In general. The reason I asked that is because one of my favorite things to do, like you're doing a networking event right now. And if you walk that floor at Money 2020 and you met in a new person, you said, tell me about you, exactly those phrases. Tell me about you.

Starting point is 00:45:17 You would get a 30-second resume. And whenever I'm in a networking situation, I always do this on purpose because I'd rather be memorable than that because my memory is terrible, so I need to be very memorable when I meet people. So I say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't, talking about you, dude. You're married, your kids, where you're from? And people are just, they're just so shocked.

Starting point is 00:45:36 What are you for fun? Yeah, they're just shocked by that question. Like, yeah, I don't care what you do if I don't like you as a person. Yep. I don't know who you are. I had a boss, Andy, once that in interviews would start with what do you do for fun. Yeah. Right.

Starting point is 00:45:48 And just because he's like, somebody has to like think of it, right? Or think about it or try and come up with an answer that you want to. I hear. He's like, I can't do it. Couldn't spend six hours in a car with that person. It's not going to work. It's my buddy, the late great Steve Sims that just passed away. He used to have what he called the beer, the beer test. He goes, and I see somebody and they were walking down the other side of the street. If I wouldn't grab him, I'd go have a beer with them. I don't need to be anywhere. I don't need to be around them. If I would duck into the store, if I would duck into a store so I didn't have to see them, I don't need to be around them. It's a great call out.

Starting point is 00:46:18 It's, you know, it's funny. So with the identity piece, it's, I've heard so much over the years, which is hilarious and, like, corporate to me. And anybody that's been working with me for in recent months or history has heard it. But it's like one thing that's come up over the years when people are like, you're just so authentic. Like, we love it. And I'm like, how is authenticity like a rare trait these days, right? It's like, I'm like, thank you.

Starting point is 00:46:43 But at the same time, isn't it a little bit concerning that that's like a pleasant surprise? Yeah. Like maybe that shouldn't be the, shouldn't be the outlier. My identity is like I keep a very close, close valuable circle of friends that I've been with for a long time. My identity is somebody who, if I'm calling, you're going to pick up the phone. I'm always going to shoot you straight.

Starting point is 00:47:06 The reason so many partners here took our call before we were even live with a product. And these are multi, multi-billion dollar global companies. It's because every interaction we've had over the years has been done so with transparency, transparency and integrity, right? Yeah. So if we couldn't do something, I wouldn't string them along. I'd say we can't.

Starting point is 00:47:27 But like the next time, the next time I call, you'll take it. I learned that very, very early in my work career, because I also came in the restaurant. I was just Santa Puddles as well in the restaurant industry. And I was a multi-unit manager for Hooters of America in the early 90s, which was a cool job. Didn't make you money. It was a cool, one of my cool jobs in my mid-20s. And I remember my boss called me one time, Vice President, Company. He was trying to have like a gotcha moment with me.

Starting point is 00:47:55 And he goes, so tell me about this. And I was like, oh, well, this is bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And I just laid, I mean, I laid myself on the tracks. Yeah. And he just goes, and I said, this is what I'm doing about it. This is why it'll never happen again. We've already sorted it out, moving forward. Yep.

Starting point is 00:48:10 And he just goes, that's why I love you, Gafford, you're a bleeder. And I thought, and I've often in my life, when people have asked me, like, what's the best comp have you ever gotten? I loved that compliment because it just says, I'm just going to stick my chin out and just you're going to smash me as hard as you can and I'm not going to squirm like it just I've mentioned like that slap contest they have now where you just take it on the chin right exactly what it is you just take it on the chin because I think honestly it's almost like a rare quality to have that so many people

Starting point is 00:48:42 want to squirm and kind of get out of things but I love that you said that that's great so obviously the vision for the vision for the company is is pretty laid out that roadmap where do you see yourself in like 10 years where do you want to be oh man personally yeah i would love to still to your firefighting right i think we got our our house entirely paid off wife and i are in a great spot in terms of maybe we've got a passion project uh outside of work my favorite thing to do uh is fly fishing right and so if i didn't have to worry about anything else did you're like the mr colorado oh yeah you're like did my my sister's in denver you're like mr college. She's the same. Same way. My like dream outcome, right, it is floats an incredible

Starting point is 00:49:28 success. We've changed the game for how consumers are scored and rated, right? And so I think our challengers three years from now are going to be the people who took our model and innovated. Yeah. Not the not the incumbents on the old model. And 10 years from now, hopefully I'm blessed and lucky enough to have stepped away and uh you know i probably own a fly shop somewhere and you know all the all the would be profit is going to the guide so i can have the best ones and i just get to be in the shop shooting the shit and hanging out with the people all day here in their stories on real conversations doing exactly what you want or doing exactly what i love doing is the definition of success yeah well dude this was a fascinating conversation i appreciate so much if they can how do they find you

Starting point is 00:50:12 if they want to find you yeah so if they want to find me they can look on on on link in. I believe my username's, you can look at Peter Mar, but Ptmr 86. Get Float is our handle across socials, getfloat.com. Yeah, then anybody can reach out to me, peter.m.m. at Ovanti.com, which is our parent company, Ovanti. So I still have an Ovanti email address, but peter.m. at Ovanti.com or peter.m. at float.com will be available probably by the time this is released. But I welcome people to reach out, you know. I want to hear from users. I want to hear from potential partners,

Starting point is 00:50:50 even if it's just somebody who didn't graduate college that's trying to figure out how to crack in. Love that, dude. Let's have a chat. I love it. I love it. Well, thanks, Peter, so much. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:50:57 Guys, listen, what an inspiring story, dude. You know, it doesn't matter if you killed your credit. It doesn't matter. If you didn't graduate from college, it doesn't matter. None of that stuff matters. Stop telling yourself some lie and go out and build that thing that's going to potentially change the world. 100%.

Starting point is 00:51:15 We'll see you next week. It's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast. And big news, my new book, Escaping the Drift is coming out. November the 11th, you can pre-order it right now at thejongafford.com. There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways. Get the book. If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you. If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you.

Starting point is 00:51:40 Available everywhere, all bookstores, everywhere, Amazon, Barnes & Noble's, the whole nine yards. But pick your copy up right. now at the john gaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses i've thrown out because i promise you i put my heart and soul into this thing i want it to help you change your life pick it up everywhere what's up everybody thanks for joining us for another episode of escaping the drift hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as i did out of it anyway if you want to learn more about the show you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list but do me a favor if you wouldn't mind throw up that five-star review give us a share do something man we're here for you

Starting point is 00:52:20 hopefully you'll be here for us but anyway in the meantime we'll see you at the next episode

Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Reimagining Career Success and Financial Literacy with Peter Maher

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