Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - What It Means To Be Centered & Balanced (And Why You Need It) EP 67
Episode Date: November 3, 2022What It Means To Be Centered & Balanced (And Why You Need It)What does it mean to be centered and balanced? In this podcast, I'll share with you what it means to me and how you can achieve that s...ense of balance in your own life. It's not about being perfect - it's about finding a peace within yourself that allows you to move forward in life with grace and ease.💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below!On his podcast, he discusses all sorts of topics, including what made him successful and some of his core tenants for living life and managing successful businesses.➡️ He is often joined by Chris Connel and Colt Amidan who are dear friends and successful business people in their own right.The Power Move podcast stands to be one of the top sources of knowledge and insights, specifically into real estate and entrepreneurship out there! Not to mention tons of coverage of topical events and insights into our non-commercial lives as well…➡️ Learn and burn Entrepreneurship from serial entrepreneur John Gafford and his band of mayhem makers. From stripper poles to the oval office, business lessons are everywhere. If that sounds interesting to you, make sure to subscribe to my channel and don't forget to hit the bell icon to never miss a Podcast! 🔔💯 About John Gafford:After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space. ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production.Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual salesClear Title, a 7 figure full service title and escrow company.➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers.The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages.✅ Follow The Power Move with John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/thejohnmgaffordFacebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/gafford2/🎧 Stream The Power Move Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=70ad5ca4f51e4acc Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-power-move-with-john-gafford/id1582927283☑️ Featuring:Chris Connel - Esquire - https://www.connelllaw.com Colt Amidan - Director of Commercial Real Estate at Simply Vegas - https://www.amidangroup.com #ThePowerMoveWithJohnGafford
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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 back again for another episode episode episode episode
of the power move my name is john gafford i am your host with me as always to the left
is the bulgarian mongoose colt amadan what's going on guys polo assassin the polo assassin
wait you won't see me back up back up back up the polo assassin are we talking about green bottle cologne polo because i like that connotation
i mean um i are just do i not look like i smell like that right i mean look we all had his kids
kids everybody else had like the tester of polo that like you're trying to squeeze the last drop
out of when you were like sixth grade or something i had that blue one you guys didn't have the blue
bottle the green one no son i'm old school they didn't have blue polo i think i'm wearing the same cologne as the first
bottle clone i've ever bought are you really yeah well ladies and gentlemen that is that is the
counselor chris connell how you doing chris living the dream john paul goatee chris one cologne
connell no i had like i got like it was those always those knockoff brands grandma will get
you a four pack or something they just like the designer the designer imposter perfume the
designer imposter perfume is what i would have as a kid so when i finally i smelled it one time
jean-paul goethe i'm like that yeah you know it's funny i i wasted an entire today show segment one
time on that because you know i'm doing this interview on the today show and they think that like yeah, I think it's gonna last like
Time is so compressed on a major on a major television network studio time gets compressed and the guy brings up
He says something about me looking like Vince Vaughn and I said, yeah that used to be my move when I was single
I'd be like I'm like the designer imposter perfume like if you like Vince
You'll love John because John's attainable.
You could have, you got no shot at Vince, but you can have me right now.
And that was one of my go-to moves.
And yet literally before I knew it, before I talked about anything of substance or business
or importance, it was over.
And I'm like, did I really just waste an entire segment on national television?
Is that wasting?
I feel like that's not wasting.
That's a good point, Colt.
That's a good point.
You know that most perfume now is unisex?
It is.
What?
It's all made by the same places.
I mean, don't you want to smell like a man?
What?
You know what?
Let's talk about that.
Do you?
Or would you rather just smell like something phenomenal all day you're smelling
it more like a man more i want to go exactly i want wood chips and biker and biker yeah i want
chain grease so what yeah i don't know i smell like a bad oh the bands are always the same though
it's always what the brindle. I will tell you this, ladies.
I'm going to tell you this right now.
If you want to know how to get a man, if you don't got a man,
I'll tell you a secret.
Here it is, because this is how my wife got me,
because I never smelled it before, and I haven't smelled it since.
When I first met my wife, as beautiful as she is and as cool as she is,
what really put it over the top,
she wore this perfume called Pink Sugar,
and then she smelled like cookies
and it's over listen you want to talk about combining a few of your favorite things
they say away to the man's heart it's through his stomach you roll up on me smelling like cookies
i'm interested she's still wearing she's still wearing that yeah she does she's like chris she
does i buy it for every christmas because yeah i want my wife to smell the cookies my wife's wedding perfume was disconnected discontinued
hanamori number seven or something hanamori and i love it like i like it right yeah and it's
discontinued so the only way you can get it now is it's like 500 dollars for like a used bottle
on ebay yeah and i'm like and i'm that idiot that's like i'm buying it
look at you though that's a that's a no that's a nice thing to do though no he's not giving it
to his wife he's keeping it oh i just he just snorts it he's got in his car dances around
like that guy from my house to the lambs oh god anyway i're not talking about sports. I'd smell me.
Definitely not talking about sports, but here's what we are talking about. This is our continued
series. I hope you're enjoying this, uh, where we kind of talk about, uh, we break down some,
some segments, uh, from my future book that is being crafted right now by myself. And we're
just kind of workshop some stuff here. And today I want to talk about something.
I'm going to do a whole chapter on staying centered because I think this is a
major problem with people.
I think,
um,
I think maintaining a sense of balance in your life is where a lot of people
fail.
And in this day and age of social media where the ego is just fed and fed and
fed and fed and fed, fed feed me see more all those
things i think it's so important to kind of understand how to stay centered how to stay how
to stay grounded how to stay balanced how to stay humble how to do those things and in some cases
like the job that we have in real estate it's hard man because you got to throw a little flash
out there to get some attention you know you got to throw the flash but it's about, man, because you got to throw a little flash out there to get some attention. You know, you got to throw the flash, but it's about not taking it seriously. And it's funny
because at the same time, right now I'm coaching, I'm coaching about, I guess the number is 97
of our agents here. Yeah, it's about that. There's a little drop off, but yeah, I mean,
they're hanging around there, but I'm coaching people every day um through a private facebook group other
agents here at simply vegas that wanted me to mentor them so i just said yeah i'll do it because
there's so many of them i'm doing just doing it in a very efficient manner but we were talking about
this book which is ego is the enemy by ryan holiday and i love ryan holiday books i'll give
you a little close-up on that if you're watching this on youtube this book right here is awesome
because it's all about that so i want to kind of talk about my thoughts of that
We're gonna blend in a little bit of what Ryan says an ego is the enemy and just kind of talk about staying balanced
And this is something that in my life. I've had times where I have had issues with it
Where I've let kind of what I do
become where I've let kind of what I do become myself, become my identity. And I think that's a problem
that a lot of people have is they start to tie their ego to whatever it is they're doing at the
time. And the reality of it is, is what you do will change many times in your life, probably.
Unless like, you know, counselor here, quick question. That's a good question. When you
became an attorney, did you think you would get a real estate license because you had a general
passion for selling real estate at some point?
Yeah,
I actually did.
You did think that?
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well then that's probably a bad example.
Yeah.
It's always in the car.
No,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
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no,
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no,
no,
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no,
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no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, pass it no no i don't be enough crashing it and cookies because i'm an economist
i'm an economist like i i think of things in terms of how much you know output can i get from how
much input yes and that was always something where i look at it and i go i'm going to eventually ramp
that up yeah that effort and to this day i probably should have done that a long time ago because
it's been successful for me when i do it yeah so but it's just a matter of prioritizing the things that i'm
able to monetize better i waste 80 of my time doing stuff that i don't get paid the way i'd
like to get paid by doing and then the 20 that provides 98 of my like you know income income
you know it's from it's from that it's from stuff you enjoy
it's from it's from those other things well for me for me like i can think of two times specifically
when i got crushed emotionally mentally whatever you want to say because i'd become so much of what
i was doing the first example i'll give you is is my fraternity in college. When I went to school, I rushed a fraternity my freshman year.
And as soon as I got that pin and got that pledge jersey, man, that was it.
Nothing else mattered.
Class didn't matter.
Grades didn't matter.
Nothing mattered except for that fraternity.
And I lived it, ate it.
I mean, I breathed that shit. I was all about it
and
The problem with fraternities is or at least it used to be I don't know anymore
It seems like now it's getting easier and easier and whatever but back then I would always say that the story was
Especially at Florida State was if you join a sorority
They're gonna make you into what they want you to be if you join a sorority, they're going to make you into what they want you to be. If you join a fraternity, they're going to take what you are and amplify it.
And apparently what I was at 18 years old was a giant asshole. Apparently that's what I was.
And I was in not only that, but I was an easily swayed, manipulatedhole as well because if somebody said you know What we should do Yes no matter what that was
And after I
Became a brother there
The first year I became a brother
I became
One of your all-time
Fucking champion
Hazers of new pledges
Which is something I'm not super proud of
The paddle it yeah I mean It was just what it was and unfortunately one of The pledges, which is something I'm not super proud of. Get the paddle. Yeah.
I mean, it was just what it was.
And unfortunately, one of the pledges that I was kind of, if you will, assigned to, to
terrorize at the time, nobody liked this pledge.
Ended up getting blackballed, right?
He ended up getting kicked out of the fraternity before he could become a brother because it
wasn't, nobody liked this kid. This kid was a legacy at this said fraternity
his dad wrote up i wrote an 11 page letter i think it was to uh sa nationals and um my name
was on every page at which point it was coming down uh to there's an investigation the chapter
blah blah blah florida state got involved i mean all the stuff and it was kind down to, there was an investigation of the chapter, blah, blah, blah.
Florida State got involved.
I mean, all the stuff.
And it was kind of the writing was on the wall.
And they come to me and they say, look, here's what we got to do.
It's just simply procedural is what we have to do.
It's a procedural event where we have to make it look like we investigated it.
We had like a hearing.
And it's no big deal.
And then, you know, we're just, we're just going to sweep it. It'll be done. It'll be, it'll be
fine. Right. So I go to, uh, I go to this procedure. I show up at the house. It's like
a chapter meeting and everybody's there. And I'm thinking this is going to be a real quick,
you know, Hey, did you, what happened? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, bro. It was like that
scene. No, it was like that scene from a few good men. It was like the Tom. Al Pacino. No, it was like that scene from A Few Good Men.
It was like the Tom Cruise on the stage.
You can't handle the truth.
I take a flame from this place.
It was a straight grilling, and I was just shell-shocked,
at which point they're like, okay, well, we need to have a vote to expel you.
I'm like, what?
Expel from Florida State?
No, no, not from Florida State state from the fraternity and i'm
like what's going on right now and anyway so they did a very quick vote and then the votes were
destroyed very quickly by a handful of leadership at the fraternity and they tell me i was booted
out and dude it absolutely demolished me because that that had become my whole my whole
ego was based on this thing right now moral of the story is in retrospect a couple things number
one i do not fault the powers that be at that time that were running the fraternity for trying
to save said fraternity by hanging out to dry i I don't, I don't, I don't
fault them at all. I'm an 18 year old kid. They're 20 year old kids. They're about to lose their
house. I get it. You know what I mean? I don't, I don't fault them at all. The, the, the, the good
story, the good part of the story is because the chapter ended up getting canned for a while.
Anyway, they never sent it in to kick me out. And 20 some odd years later, not even that, 30 years later, I guess maybe a couple of
years ago, I got to meet with a guy, Alex Groman, that was one of my fraternity brothers.
And he said, hey, I'm in Vegas.
I got something for you.
I said, sure, what do you got?
Because I know what it was.
I'd reached out to him because I never officially got kicked out.
And the whole chapter got burned.
I didn't really know what happened.
So I reached out to him and I said, hey, my son is is getting older and he may go you know he's going to go to university
soon and at some point he may want to know am i a legacy somewhere i just need to know where i stand
with sae national like i need to know where i stand and uh and the dude came rolling into town
and brought me my numbered pledge pen and a new shingle and said never got filed you're good
yeah so that was cool so that
ended well but this but the story was i had gotten so wrapped up in that one thing man it became
my ego didn't you did you ever think that maybe they were hazing you and as a fake kangaroo court
of a fraternity maybe the whole thing could be a simulation in the matrix maybe you got truman'd
i don't know i don't know dude it was the whole thing the whole thing was the whole thing but the whole thing was terrible
but but i but again i think in an effort or a desire to belong i mean you see people that get
you know codependent in relationships they get all in on something that they lose themselves in a club, in a relationship, in a job.
And I think if you do that, I think you've got to really, if you're in some situation right now
where you maybe take pause and say, have I lost myself a little bit in this situation?
I think before that rug gets pulled out on you, I think you got to take a second and
take inventory of that. I also think you've got to realize people will hang you out to dry in life yeah like i think yeah when you sat there and said
oh it's not a big deal just come in but you'll get that in you'll get that in the corporate world
you'll get that by attorneys that's why lawyers are here baby yep every single uh car adjuster
says hey do you mind if i take a recorded statement of your client? I go, nope.
Yeah.
Not happening.
Nope.
Not doing it.
Nope.
Never.
You know why?
It's not a big deal.
It's a big deal.
Because first off, when everybody's cute like that,
oh, do you mind if we do that?
Yeah.
You know what you're doing.
Say, hey, do you allow for a recorded statement?
It's cute.
Don't be cute about it.
Get it over.
Because why do you think somebody records you? Because they're an evidence letter. You think it's for training purposes know but don't be cute about it get it over because just why do
you think somebody records you well because they're doing it for training purpose yeah they
want evidence later okay in case you misstate something any inconsistencies with whatever
they look for so yep just and all of those things but again to your point it's um yeah people will
hang you out to dry and it's the people that come come in a wolf and sheep's clothing. Right. Well,
I think,
you know,
part of staying centered is part of saying balanced again is not dependent.
Like I took Kate to Colt's point.
Just don't depend too much on others.
You know,
one of my,
I,
I,
I,
I,
you say it all the time.
One of my favorite quotes from a movie,
Hans Gruber diehard.
No one is coming to help you.
And if more people,
if more people would just understand that.
That wasn't Hans Gruber.
Yes, it was Hans Gruber.
No.
Come out.
I won't touch you.
But that's one of the other henchmen.
That's one of the brothers.
Is it?
Hans Gruber fell.
No, but Hans said that.
No, Hans's henchmen said that.
No.
I won't hurt you.
We have to Google this.
Wasn't it the blonde German guy with the detonator?
He's talking to him.
He says, come out i
won't hang on hans gruber i'm telling you i'm seeing i'm glad at my computer while john's
doing that i want to point out this um uh speaking of that making something your whole identity and
having it taken away happened at this golf course i won't say who it was or which one
but uh this individual grabbed one of
the staff one of the female staff by the arm like hey i was talking to you or something right kind
of got a little too familiar a little too comfortable at the club all the time yep and
he got kicked out and now he's like going other members like hey is there any way i can get back
in like you know it's like no no no first off don't touch people right okay just first off
you know yeah and i know maybe now you oh you know this was happening in my life this was happening
in my life whatever but you can't always assume people are going to you know okay with stuff be
okay with stuff so most people are not they're not going to be i wouldn't do that to me you know
we'd have a problem and i i think as an attorney, you probably see that a lot.
You see a lot of, oh, it's not a big deal.
That wasn't a big deal.
No, things are a big deal in life, and especially work or related.
You can't touch somebody.
You can't be putting hands on.
But, yeah.
Can we talk about diehards?
It's really not that great of a can i get out of that grade of
look at it it's the scene where he's got the detonators in the backpack and he's the ho ho
ho now i have a machine gun guy that died john like i based my whole life on this no it's not
hand said it it was one of the brothers it's like a ricky bobby was like i based my whole life on
that quote i won't hurt you why you are looking it up it up, we talked about cookies today.
Let me ask you guys.
I'm not going to go down the hole.
I'll give you the apology now
because I feel like that should have been better.
I got 45 seconds
while you look that up.
When you look at a cookie box and it's like
the calories are 360 a cookie,
do you go automatically to the
largest cookie in there because you think it's 360? I are 360 a cookie do you go automatically to the largest cookie in there
because you think it's pretty uniform no no they're not they're no i'm telling you there's
some that are bigger than others man mentally you're like that's i'm 30 i think i probably
would if that if i ever noticed the size of the square you're going through right
from the mind of colt well no but here's the thing you know that those a lot of times the calorie stuff it's all bullshit they're not well
measured they're not well they're estimated they're you know so always go for the biggest
thing thinking oh well they're all basing it on the biggest cookie cult too so you're probably
right oh my god you found it yeah john found out tony tony tony the fire has been called off my friend
no one is coming to help you you might as well come out and join the others i promise i won't
hurt you tony good job wow wow i don't know which one of these is a clap is there a clap on here
give me my horn no you just get that that's the mystery sound i don't know which one does what
that's amazing okay you see there you go get the, that's the mystery sound. I don't know which one does what. That's amazing. Okay, see, there you go.
Living a lie should be the topic of today's podcast there, which is-
A parent versus actual authority.
Did you watch the making of that movie?
It's pretty good.
No, I didn't.
But back to what we were talking about.
Back to staying centered.
Back to staying centered.
I'll tell you another story about my life that was when I learned this lesson,
which is whenever I speak, man,
and I try to give little points out to the audience
and try to help everybody with what it is,
I always leave with this one, which is, again,
don't become what you do.
Stay who you are.
Because the worst case of me ever doing that
was when I was running the Cobalt Lounge in Atlanta, Georgia,
which was a very big nightclub ranked by Esquire magazine,
the number one nightclub on the East Coast at one point.
It was a big club.
And, man, we had every celebrity on the planet
rolling through this place.
We had Jermaine Dupri's party every Sunday.
It was just a crazy thing.
And when that place,
because a certain NFL player who shall remain nameless
decided to come,
and some people wound up dead, and then he wound up in trial
for murder in Atlanta but it nuked
that business nuked it
and ended up going
just down like a tank
and so I lost my gig
there and as we
went along about three
months later two months later after I lost that gig
there was a new club opening up at Midtown I keep
in mind why I had this while I was that gig, there was a new club opening up at Midtown. Now keep in mind, while I had this,
while I was running this joint,
there was no place in Atlanta
that I could not go
and the C's would not part
like as for Moses.
There was not a bill
that I had to pay,
a line I had to wait in,
a table I had to wait for,
nothing.
I just,
everywhere I went,
I got the juice
everywhere I went.
So my buddy's like,
oh,
this is a new club
that opened up in Midtown.
We should go.
This is cool.
So I go down
and we're standing in line
and actually, we're not standing in line. We walk up, there's a big long line around the planet and I'm like, oh, this is a new club. I open up in Midtown. We should go. This is cool. So I go down, and we're standing in line.
And actually, we're not standing in line.
We walk up.
There's a big, long line around the planet.
I'm like, not for me.
So we're rolling up to the front.
There's a guy there that I'd never seen before.
I don't know who this person is.
And I'm like, hey, man.
My name's John.
We're at Cobalt, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And the guy just looks at me and goes, bro, that club closed like six months ago.
It wasn't six months ago.
It was like three.
But he goes, six months. Like what? How can I help you like how can i help you you got nothing for me now
as stupid as that sounds my ego was completely crushed because it had gotten completely wound
up and not being john anymore but being john from cobalt cobalt john like right now dude
i'm not simply vegas john i'm not streamlined
home loans john i'm not clear title john i'm no longer griffin chris yeah you're right exactly
right but i'm just i'm just i'm i'm just me and my entire ethos and ego is based on who i am
and i think that's so important uh to what you. That's a fine line to draw because you need to be affiliated with what you do, right?
Like there's a time where people need to look at you as John and think that's John real estate, right?
That's Chris attorney that, you know, so it's a fine line where it's sitting there saying that's who you are.
Yeah.
But also marketing yourself good enough to know, you know, when people see
you, they affiliate that with you. No, no, it's there. And I think again, this is where you find
this fine line of ego and social media. And this is what it's coming. And look, man, I want to talk
about, you know, let's talk about the jet, right? Because the jet, which I'm selling, which hopefully will be closed
November 1st, I'm going to take my last trip in the jet as an owner this weekend, which will be
good. I have to go to a wedding, but here's the deal with the jet. I always came on and made it
very clear that to me, the jet was nothing more than an investment. That's all it ever was.
Now, my partner in the jet used the jet, admittedly, for very different reasons.
That was his flex through all of his social media to try to drive eyeballs and attention
to his auxiliaries that make money.
It was a marketing tool for him. But the problem was, I actually, that worked against me.
So like, I thought I could just like get this and be like,
oh, it's an investment and this is what we do
and this is what makes money and this and that.
But the reality was, the way that he was flexing so hard with that jet
was coming back at me.
Right.
Like, I never was the guy rolling in front of it being like what's
up everybody i'm on my jet i was never i never did i mean i sometimes was but yeah no right exactly
but i'm saying but i'm seeing and there's but here's the point here's the point there's nothing
wrong with him doing that for his audience right he knows his brand he knows right for his audience for my audience
that shit was toxic sure because then i became to my entire community of all of the people that
depend on us because you know being in the real estate business is such a is such a tough deal
because when you get too successful everybody immediately wants to be you know like well how
much money is he taking with these people not? Understanding that anymore the majority of my income doesn't come from real estate what we do anymore at all at all, but
That was such a hard thing for me because it made it really hard for me to stay grounded with that asset
So sometimes the pun intended. Yeah
But the point of it is here's the point of it the point of it is
Sometimes you've got to be careful with the way that you associate that's because if somebody else is is is to the moon and you're
associated there all sudden it's like you're an asshole too that's funny you mentioned that
because i think when you there's a double edge to that. When you say, be careful of who, what the messages of the people you're associated with,
but also know what your message is being viewed as your own message, right?
Like you could be out there.
Let's say that would have been great for you and you're out here being humble about it.
And it's not, it's not doing anything, but let's say the message would have been well
taken.
If you would have been out there flexing or whatever, then you should be doing it.
Yeah.
You know, but the inverse is true.
But it's based on the audience.
It's based on your audience.
I knew my audience.
I knew the audience would repel that.
If there's some austerity in your audience,
if there's people that are like,
hey, wait a minute,
I'm looking for a deep value thing.
You know, I don't like planes
because they're a waste of money, blah, blah, blah.
If people see that,
they'll associate it in, you know, for whatever for whatever reason well i think part of that issue is you
look at all of everybody's talking about everybody's always talking about leveling up
level up level up level up level up level up my network level up my my volume level up this
and you got to remember if if leveling up involves you estranging your entire previous network.
It needs to be a ladder you can climb up and down,
not one you light on fire and you're trying to get away from the fire.
It's like the Jennifer Garner's and Jennifer Aniston's of the world.
Yeah.
These actresses.
Relatable. People want to, because people look at them and go,
that's somebody that I can see existing.
Yeah.
Right.
Walking down the street with your kid in one arm,
pushing a shopping cart. Exactly. So it's's relatable the minute you start going to galas and
slapping waiters or whatever i'm just leveling up here people one day one day one day connell
won't be there one day buddy we'll be there but no i you've got to be careful about that about
letting your reputation and your image get dragged down by by other people
again i say dragged down i dragged in a different direction than you need to go to so any advice for
joe biden hanging around with that hunter biden guy holy did you guys see okay i got two words
for you jesus made in america two words for you i mean i had to give that one to you guys okay listen can't always be
just it's it's getting to the point now now i can make this political but bro it's not funny
it's so i thought i i told somebody that this morning so i don't laugh anymore andrew schultz
said he goes say what you want about trump but that guy was funny like every day now your text
messages chats are just dead because there's
really very little to talk about. It's just sad,
dude. The guy literally can
barely string together a thought or sentence.
How are they going to put him on a debate stage
against any... My kid
could get up there and demolish him in a debate.
I'm all for age limit.
I don't think he should be able to take off.
The difference between Bush...
I feel like it's almost like when you take
Grandpa and Grandma's keys away.
I feel like somebody needs to take the button back
from Biden here.
How is Trump?
I'm not saying he's the guy either.
Those are the options as dudes that
have been collecting...
I don't think that'll be the options.
They've been getting the $1.99 menu
of Red Robin for the last 20 years. I don i don't i don't think so what do you what do you what do you what do you want
to bet i'm not saying who's gonna be the ticket but that will not be the tickets i hope not i
don't think that'll be the ticket for the party there's zero chance that'll be the ticket for
either party bad decision for both yeah they're gonna they're gonna take grampy's keys away
and one of them might need keys for himself i don't know we'll see no no i i
there's so much noise in politics at the end of the day this is you talk about staying centered
talk about america not having any center talk about yeah talk about no you want to talk about
being centered right yeah what's the unifying message in america now you want to talk about
having a unified message for yourself if everybody did that i think we'd all be better off if you clean up your own backyard
first right this whole planet would be sure but um that's something that drags people i think to
and fro as well right having a lack of a central message especially in something like your own
country yeah i know a lot of places are divided i I'm not trying to be overly grand in your sort of theme for the day.
But think about not everybody is even remotely on the same side anymore of any issue.
It never will be.
It never will be because social media gives everybody an opinion.
Yeah.
And everybody has to have an opinion on everything.
So how hard is it to be centered if your own,
if major political parties and billionaires and donors can't find
well i agree and i and i think here is you know from ryan holiday's book this is something i saw
that i really liked um which is which is why i'm gonna kind of let me find that i think i find the
section what he talked about in center like look how extreme everybody is on social media with
everything with their flex with their flex, with their whatever.
Here's the good news, though.
I don't think everybody's actually that extreme.
I don't think most people are very polarized.
I don't either, but they go after that, right?
Because what are they going to do, offend us?
I got it.
Ryan Holiday talks about in his book the best way to control your ego because all of this is really ego-driven.
It really is.
All of the divisiveness, all of everything. They need to be right. They everything the need to be right the need to have an opinion the need to be seen the need to be
recognized this is probably the number one way if you're wondering how to control ego and i love
this from ryan he talks about the best thing you could do to control your ego is become a student
yeah because and i think about this and this is so true in what we do in real estate, because you have people that have been doing this for 15 years, 10 years, five years, whatever it is, that make a really good living, that stop learning anything.
Because they make a ton of money doing this.
They know everything they need to do about how to do this job.
So they must be good and everything.
And so their ego gets artificially inflated like crazy because they don't
learn,
because here's what happens when you start to learn something new,
you realize,
you're not,
I don't know anything.
As long as you don't suffer from Dunning Kruger.
Yeah,
exactly.
But shout out here to Marty Koshman,
a former vice president of control X company.
My,
um,
former family ran
and a very successful development company
Marty the Horn
Marty gets the horn
enjoy that lawsuit against my
former mother-in-law anyway
currently happening
he said to me one time this guy Len
and I'm not going to bleep names because they can come find me
Len would always be like
I have 20 years experience in this business,
and this is how you do it.
I got 20 years experience.
And Marty pulls me over.
He goes, that guy has at most one year of experience.
He's just done it 20 times.
That guy's never learned a nickel's worth of difference between day 31 and day 3,001.
He goes, that guy does not have 20 years experience.
When every day is the exact same.
If you wore the same black suit and black tie every single day, you don't have 20 years experience. When every day is the exact same, if you wore the same black suit
and black tie every single day,
you don't have 20 years of fashion experience.
You know what I'm saying?
So that always stuck with me.
It's like, are you actually experienced
or are you just doing the same thing over and over?
Well, I think a good barometer for you
to know how knowledgeable you are
is start teaching somebody else what you know.
Like right now, this process that I'm doing where I've basically committed to 90 days,
75 to 90 days, I'm not exactly sure how long it's going to be, of every single day I'm churning out
somewhere between a 10 and 20 minute long video for my students every day. And there are days
when I'm up till one o'clock
in the morning, studying, learning, reading, trying to figure out exactly what I want to
teach him. Cause I'm going to talk about a subject. I'm not just going to go from
the knowledge I currently have. I want to make sure I'm giving them the best knowledge I can
find and just being a, you know, consolidating that and let it run through me. So you really
want to know what you know, you want, you want to check your ego a little bit,
commit to teaching somebody what you know.
And all of a sudden, you're like, holy shit.
Maybe I need to learn a little more about a lot of things.
Yeah, or maybe just because I used to know it doesn't mean I still do.
Yeah, yeah, 100% with that too, 100%.
If you want to learn, if you want to be humbled as a student, do a martial art.
If you want to be humbled as a student.
I almost made it without sports.
No, no, no no that's that's
philosophy it's life you know martial arts jujitsu especially right it's very complicated puzzle
solving right so when you go in there thinking you're tough or strong or whatever and somebody
half your size right who's just wearing a different color belt than you pretzels you up
yeah and you're physically helpless that's humbling that is a wonderful shot for the record
i would like to quote our good friend cam who said i was pitched jujitsu as a puzzle solving
thinking man's game and instead what i got was a giant sweaty man laying on me
and apparently he said he paid double for it next time. Apparently it was good, whatever it was.
So shout out to Cam.
But that is true.
Good for him for coming and being a good sport.
Yeah, he let me pretzel him up a little bit.
But I think acknowledging what you don't know, right?
I heard somebody go, success is transferable.
You can transfer it to other stuff if you acknowledge what you don't know.
So if you go into another industry and sit there and pretend like you know everything in that industry,
your success will not transfer over to that industry.
And that's why you can go.
I mean, John, you know, toot your horn for you.
But I know when John and them started opening title companies,
first thing he's
doing is getting the best title lawyer in the country on the phone he's getting the best person
i'm okay i'm okay shout out to mark stirb cow give him a shout on that
it's halloween season john i like that but i found the bet i found the best
respa attorney in the country that's who I wanted to talk to.
Because if I ever have an issue, that's who I want to roll into court for me.
Yeah, of course.
Because he knows all these people.
Anyway.
But yeah, we've been talking about staying centered by your ego.
And I think a lot of it is not letting your ego get you too high.
And also not letting it go.
That's it.
We've got to talk about the other end of the spectrum, which is letting you get too low.
I feel like a month ago I came to that conclusion that I've let my ego you get too low. I feel like, and here's the weird thing. I came
to that conclusion that I've let my ego get way too low. Well, here's the thing though.
The same thing that's driving you high when you're high is driving you low when you're low. For
example, you look at people that fail at anything, business, sports, test, whatever it may be. If you
fail at something, if you are immediately of the opinion that this could
have been me oh my god it had to be the world going against me it will crush you so much lower
if you can take the ego out of it because that's expectation yeah and analyze exactly why things
went wrong you will learn from it and come back stronger and it doesn't hurt you expectation is
the thief of joy yes comparison and expectation are the thieves of joy 100 so when you when your
ego says no i can't fail at this i'm really good at this other thing right that's what's dragging
you down it's pure ego um your ego should be there to pop you up don't be like no no you've
you know you can do this you just need to harder. That's healthy ego. I think we talked about that a lot.
We did.
I think so.
But again, there's things that you just learn
with experience and age.
You just get older and understand this.
And one of my favorite Stoke philosophies about ego is,
for example, a fool, an egotistical fool,
thinks when someone else harms and insults them,
they're harming them.
A wise man understands they're harming themselves. And I look back at, you know, when I was a kid, you know, one of the
things that, that really, you know, I struggle with hard was when I was in, you know, again,
I, you know, I came by this, honestly, I'm not going to say I didn't, but maybe, maybe someone,
honestly, someone not. So when I was in eighth grade, call it, uh, you know, you had that mob mentality with all your buddies and we're, we're in the locker
room one day and we're all, we're all ganging up on this kid. And, uh, it's kids names, you know,
Chris was this kid's name. And, uh, you know, and we're, everybody's making fun of him and
revving pretty good. And, uh, all of a sudden Chris turns around and of the sea of people giving him
shit,
looks right at me and goes,
fuck you.
And I was like,
really?
He's like,
yeah,
I'll,
I'll whoop your ass right now.
Yeah.
And I was like,
huh?
And it,
it,
and I,
it,
it scared me.
Yeah.
I was like,
holy shit.
Cause this is not like a little dude.
This is not like a little wimpy kid.
And I was like,
it was the big kid that enough people. of a sudden it was like we can all
take down the giant but alone i am not traveling well so anyway you know dude i was like holy shit
so this dude now starts like stalking me and i'm like okay so i ducked him a little bit now i ended
up making peace with that kid pretty quick but here's the problem there was another kid steve buscemi no another
there was another there was another kid in uh his name was chad it was in our grade that began to
think it was funny because of that occurrence that every time i walked amongst everybody
or again before school at lunch everything else no he would start i smelled chicken and did that relentlessly at me to the point where i like i i was banned i was exiled man i was
banished i would go to school and just go stand right by my homeroom door and didn't want to see
anybody i'm sat by myself and it fucked me up man some kid that got picked as a kid that got
picked i love that story yeah that's a great story when it's like it's the opposite right because that's one of those things you don't know what those kids like kids
are fucking well yeah well i i made peace with the chris pretty quick but the chad kid did
fucking just stay on me and this was supposed to be one of my friends that just thought this
was cute and i and dude i got ostracized for that it's like cobra kai season yeah no no it did it mentally it mentally
screwed with me for a long time and it's like you don't know what your actions do but if i was i
wish you know i had stoicism then because i would realize that this kid probably who wasn't exactly
the most popular guy this chad guy sure you know he was fringe hanger honor of the group that became
his ticket but then you but
what you have to do at that point is then you got to punch that in the mouth yeah and honestly and
honestly in retrospect i wish i would have and i didn't and i don't know why i didn't shout out
the very next time it happened to me and somebody called me out and wanted to play that game with me
i did i did go right at him i got a fun story i had uh I had this guy try to pick a fight with me.
He had four of his friends with him.
And I was in the school and whatever, it dissipated.
There was a teacher there, break it up, whatever.
My dad was of the mentality of, if you ask me to stop, I'm not going to ask why.
So we got in the car.
Dad was driving me home from school, ninth grade.
I said, Dad, stop the car.
I saw the guy by himself. Yeah, stop. I said, Dad, stop the car dad was driving me home from school ninth grade i said dad stopped the car i saw the guy by himself yeah stop so dad stopped the car okay just pulls over i get out i start running at the kid i'm like right fucking now i got you now i got you alone one-on-one let's go
i got you alone tough guy you four of your friends with you i got you alone the guy turns around and
starts running away going i'm not to fight you without my friends there.
I never heard a peep from that guy again because at that point,
that's when his ego goes, I guarantee you.
Yeah.
Because he has to now know what he did.
Because if you got all your buddies there,
you're not necessarily confronted.
A thousand percent.
He had no one there to help him.
Yeah.
He had no one psychologically to give him buffer.
As Tony from Die Hard says, no one is coming to help buffer as tony from from diehard says no one
is coming down that's it that's one you especially like if you let your ego go like
let somebody fuck with me right like i don't care it's not really getting to me
sometimes you don't realize that is harming you as an outsider looking in right people sit there
and watch somebody keep messing with you they're like now i can put one over and that can transfer into work that can transfer in their thing so sometimes
sometimes you gotta have a little ego and a little bit of pop in the mouth well i think well
here's the thing now and again yeah now based on what we do now even now you know there are
certain people in your city that think they like to take shots at me from time to time, which I think is funny.
And I just, I used to, you know, 10 years ago, I would engage with, I get so mad.
I'd be like, oh, this fucking guy's talking shit, blah, blah, blah.
Now, I just find it comical.
It's literally comical.
There's times that, there's a lot of times you let that stuff fly because it's so stupid.
But if someone's
trying to really step on you as a business person oh sure then i would it's kind of like sometimes
i go 48 laws of power on that's it right like there's so many times that there was a perfect
example business guy knew he would take lawsuits and make them super publicly about it and i go
why do you do that goes because I settle all these other ones
just because it's easier, even though we're the right way.
But I need to instill fear on these idiots that,
so every once in a while, I'll take one,
and I'll make it super public about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wonder if I should do that.
Just really start blowing some out of proportion.
Just every once in a while.
Just every once in a while.
Just make an example of somebody. Just a note, right? Well, it's like that christopher walken speech
when you know the lion he lays there the jackals are nipping at him and every now and again he's
got to get up a ton of shit out everybody remind him he's the lion you know i mean
the terrible christopher walken temptation but no but but that's that's kind of how it is but but
you know i'm telling you that's why i love this book. And I love checking your ego and really being smart about it because for me, and again,
you talk about the reason that stuff brushes off my, on my shirt most of the time, and I could
care less. And I laugh about it is because the, since I got my ego in check, since I really kind
of put it in the, in the rear view to what it is and understand that don't get too high, don't get
too low, just take things for how it is. Um, You know, man, my life has progressed in so many ways
because there's things that I do now
that I would not have done, you know, 10 years ago.
I would never have asked anybody for help.
I would have never said,
hey, you know how to do something I don't know, teach me.
Because my ego was like, man,
well, they probably think I should already know how to do that.
You know what I mean?
It was 100%.
It was ego-driven.
You know, you look at the mastermind groups that i go to which okay can i say something else real quick
about masterminds holy shit i gotta say this every other day i open my damn email now and it says
there's the mastermind it's so and so for realtors about this okay that's a fucking meeting all right
there's a meetup it is a it is a seminar a mastermind by definition
is when you go to an event and you get to work with other like-minded people to solve problems
where you are helping them they are helping you there is an open back and forth discussion
that is a mastermind and they all know what they're doing if you go and sit in an audience
and watch if you watch somebody talk from a stage that's a seminar like sorry that's a pet peeve no that's true get the damn words right it drives me crazy
but some of the actual masterminds i go to these are high level people and when you see these high
level people just check their ego at the door and like oh my god how do you do that how hard was it
for the first time we walked into that furry convention we've been both right yeah it was a
challenge yeah well let's face it when's the last time they've seen two
six five pandas walking it's been a while i didn't know what that was until like six
insert panda mating joke
let's see if let's say there has to be at least one panda joke mating no i really didn't tell
i saw somebody sent me like a funny meme and i'm like what is i'm down i mean hey live your life
you know whatever live your best life but i like how you didn't respond i'm gonna read the first
i'm gonna literally read the first one i found. You said two, six, five
pandas. I was like, there's a joke in here
somewhere. No, it says a horse, a panda
and a duck walk into a bar. The bartender
looks up and says, what is this?
Some kind of a joke?
That's it.
That was it. Not too many panda
jokes. Not too many panda jokes.
See, look, there's an idea
for a hustle. If you can become the panda joke king, there's an idea for a hustle. You got to,
if you come,
you can become the panda joke King.
There's a lot of,
there's a lot of room in that space.
Apparently a lot of space here to make things happen.
Well guys,
if you,
if you enjoyed today's podcast and you like talking about that,
I mean,
look,
self analyzation is always better.
I always want to,
one of my famous lines that I did say on the apprentice was you need to
stop pointing the
finger and start pulling the thumb. I promise you a lot of your issues about high, low, where you
are, probably starting right within yourself. Dude, if you have trouble for something, ask for
help. If you want to learn something, open a book. Constantly strive to get better. We're all on this
path together, man. We're trying to get better better every day where you run into a problem is where you stop trying to get better you know all this
information that's free too oh it's everywhere do you watch tv shows anymore like i throw on
documentaries of business people i don't even watch i never really did like somebody was saying
oh you know that episode of friends i'm like like, I, I didn't watch anything.
I don't know.
I honestly didn't.
I would watch a lot of stuff that I'm interested in,
but it's,
you know,
typically more long form or podcasts and business or whatever.
Um,
that Ryan holiday podcast is wonderful.
Yeah.
Daily stoic is lovely.
You know what I'm telling you though?
I,
you know,
cause on the treadmill,
when I'm,
when I'm on the treadmill,
I watch a series.
I,
I,
I,
I look for business lessons in narcos mexico
you're learning a lot from the students
it's what you got it you got to take it i don't want to take you out i mean yeah that kind of
stuff i'm telling you not on a level right but it is so fucking true in business yeah i mean what's
the one about the today show that's not the Today Show?
Morning Show, right?
Yeah.
You watch how he does something bad.
They all just bam, nope.
You're not taking my paycheck, and that's why I tell you,
like your fraternity thing.
Perfect example.
When you think that everybody's going to go down with you.
They're not.
Look, if all three of us got in trouble, you know,
everybody's going to be like, hey, no reason for all three of us got in trouble you know everybody's gonna be like
hey no but i know reason for all three of us i'm the attorney so yeah yeah yeah i've learned i've
learned to be able to yeah sorry cold he's the first he's the first one he's the first one in
the lifeboat now guess what 48 laws of power john i've been holding i've been i've been studying
this for uh six years i got all my black so, on that note, we will see you next week for the
power move with Cole Tomadon.
That's a hostile takeover
of the said podcast.
I'm the captain now.
Look at me. I am the captain now.
All right, guys.
If you're watching us on YouTube, please give us a
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Anyway, thank you guys so much.
If you're going to move, keep moving forward.
See you next week.
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 that we've things we talked about on the show,
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