The Jordan Harbinger Show - 142: Jon Taffer | Raising Your Bar and Crushing All Excuses

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

Jon Taffer (@jontaffer) is the host of acclaimed reality show Bar Rescue, host of the No Excuses podcast, and author of Don't Bullsh*t Yourself!: Crush the Excuses That Are Holding You Back. What We Discuss with Jon Taffer: The psychology behind Jon Taffer's "break them down to build them up" strategy. Are you an overachiever -- when it comes to rationalizing your excuses? Why success in business always hinges on the human factor. The benefits of hiring for personality over skill. Why Jon ruthlessly critiques his own work and how this routine ego beating has been crucial to his success. And much more... Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. Now, I'm not much of a reality television guy, not even a little bit. But when I got the chance to interview the one and only John Taffer of Bar Rescue, I was definitely into it. While on the surface it may just look like John yells at people and then repaints their bar, I know there's something deeper going on. In many episodes of his show, I see John working not just to change the business, but the people in the business. And that's why he's a great fit for this show. So, In this episode, we'll explore why John believes that success in business always hinges on the human factor and why we should always hire for personality.

We'll also discover why John and myself ruthlessly critique our own work and how this routine ego beating has been crucial to each of our success. There's a lot in this episode about how we can get honest with ourselves so that we're better equipped to deal with the challenges our lives throw our way. And John's delivery is so charismatic, it's worth the listen for that alone. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships with guests, all I use systems. I use tiny habits. I've got a free course all about this.

Check out Level 1. It's free. And it's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. All right, here's John Taffer. Well, I'm fascinated by the break them down to build him up style of bar rescue. I got to say, though, where did you learn to do that? Was your dad like that? You know, my mother was great at tearing me down, but not very good at building me out again.

Okay. So maybe, you know, sometimes you do things in the last. life because they weren't done to you. So maybe I just recall what it was felt like not to be built back up again that made me do it. I wish I had a better answer for you, but it just seems to come natural to me. Yeah. I have the kind of personality where I want to leave you in a better place. You know, I don't want to leave you weakened. So if I knock you down, that's contrary to my personality, actually. So I almost have to build you back up again or I can't live with myself. Do you feel guilty saying like, you're a fool? You're screwing this all up? Or do you know you're doing it

for the greater good later? That's a great question, and nobody's ever asked me that question quite that way before. Here's the thing. Sometimes when I'm screaming or knocking you down, it's not about you at all. Because sometimes the owner in a bar rescue episode almost isn't worthy of the effort. So I'm focused on their family. Right. So it's their family that motivates me to beat and to knock you down.

So I'm thinking of your wife. I'm thinking of your kids. I'm thinking of the fact that there's a house that might be on the line. cars that might be on the line. So my inspiration is always to protect the good, not be motivated by the bad. So I'm doing this for his wife, even though I'm not saying it that way. Sure. But I have to have an inspiration. And sometimes the inspiration isn't the individual I'm talking to. Sometimes it's the employees, the family, a spouse, and a number of different things. And when you're fighting for something rather than against something, you're far more effective. So I'd rather

fight for the wife through you. Right. Then, you know, just go at you. Yeah, that makes sense. I've noticed on the show a lot of people who are really great at knowing their, they're bombing, their business is bombing. That's why you're there. But these people are overachievers when it comes to making excuses for why they're failing. Oh, yeah, because that's a lot of ego. Yeah. You know, So it could never be their fault. Of course. Jordan. Why wouldn't? It's, it's got to be somebody else's fault because, you know, they're so perfect.

And when I wrote my book, don't BS yourself. The whole premise of that was, and ego is a really powerful thing. And I always say this, you'll smile, that you ever notice a guy with the biggest ego has the thinest wallet? Yeah, yeah, of course. They're masters of self-delusion. That's right. That's right. They really are.

And, you know, I know in your work, too, I mean, we're not real that. We're lying to ourselves. It's the ultimate betrayal to yourself is when you do that stuff. Because if you're not honest with yourself, then how do you ever move your life in a positive direction? Because you're starting from a point to fantasy. Nobody can succeed if they're not honest with themselves. That's deep when you really think about it.

It is. And it's got to be really hard because people will go, fine, I'll be honest with myself. but I still want to, I still think a pirate bar can work or whatever the hell they're lying in themselves about. That word but is a powerful word. Yeah. Because the but before it is what you think I want to hear. After the word but is how you really feel. Yeah.

And it always works that way, you know? Yeah. So, you know, this is a really great room. It's cold in here, yeah. You know, whatever. That butt is an identifier that honesty flows after it typically. Yeah. Or the way you feel, it doesn't mean it's honest, but the way you feel does.

The way you feel, yeah. It's the compliment sandwich kind of like, hey, you know, this sugar coating and then real feeling, a real opinion. And it makes sense that you're able to drill down to this because you have an astonishingly high rate. I researched the rate of success for bar rescue. It's 70-something percent, which for reality TV is like, I don't know, 68% higher than normal. 30, 40% anyway. Sure. I'm really proud of that.

But, you know, the difference is, though, A lot of the other shows that are similar to mine are chefs. Yeah, yeah. They migrate into the kitchen. You know, they're comfortable around the food, the recipes. I have a chef and the mixologist, as you know, I bring up. But I'm a businessman. So, you know, I come in with a broader view.

I move to where it's bleeding. Right. I don't migrate to the kitchen. Sometimes the kitchen isn't the problem. Right. So, you know, on the other shows, the kitchen's always the problem. Sure. Because they're a chef.

Right. So I think that flexibility and movement looking at it as a business. not just a kitchen operation, I think makes it show off better. Yeah, it's that, what's that thing where you, every, if you're a hammer, every problem is a nail, so if you're a chef, every problem's in the kitchen. That's right. But if you're a business owner, if you're a business consultant, you can look at the whole picture, which I think is interesting.

Yeah, and food is, to me, you know, no different than you're selling a T-shirt. Sure. And I don't want to discount it, but food is very much a commodity. And there's a million chefs in a world. And you can, you know, bring in Italian chefs and German chefs and sushi chefs and all different chefs. And, you know, there are so many well-educated chefs out there today that fixing the food is easier than fixing the business, to be honest with you. Yeah, that makes sense. That does make sense. I know that you do post-mortem breakdowns of your shows. Is that, do you watch every

episode after you film it and then beat yourself up like David Letterman? I mean, what do you know? Well, yes, well, I have two roles. So I'm a host. I want to be a really good host. Yeah. And, you know, I get that some of it is talent. But I believe, Jordan, that 60% of being a television host's skill. For example, silence. When there's cameras on, the silence is a scary thing. When you start as a rookie host, anytime there's silence, you jump in. You want to fill it. But yet silence is a great tool. Once you build the confidence of using silence, I'll say something and shut up and the next person who talks loses. And if there's 30 seconds of silence, I'm okay with that. I wasn't in the beginning. I didn't have the courage to be as aggressive

as I am in the beginning because I wasn't sure I'd get the hug at the end. Now I know I will so I can be more aggressive. It really has been a very educational process. So to answer your question, as a producer, I watch every cut. And when we shoot far rescue, there's about 200 hours of video. And we send these producers into editing base, and they're in there for about eight or ten weeks in those editing base. And we'll go through about eight cuts. And the first cut might be 90 minutes or so. And, you know, the next cut, we'll get down about 80 minutes, you know, at 7 minutes, and we have to finish up in about 42 minutes. And I'm involved in all those cuts.

I watch all those cuts. In the beginning, I didn't watch them as a television producer because I wasn't. I watched them to make sure the facts were right. Okay. And we mixed things properly, and I was very focused on accuracy and sciences in the beginning. Now, eight years later, I am a producer. So I look at a lot more. I look at lighting.

I look at shots. I look at, but watching that is important. That's how we hone our skills. Yeah, I agree. I always ask content creators, podcast, producers, hosts, whatever, what are you doing to improve your own skills? And they're like, well, you know, I just keep practicing. But you probably have seen this.

Bars that have been in business for 10 years. They've been practicing. They're just practicing the wrong thing. Absolutely right. They're practicing how enough to make money. Right. But yes, you know, I study it. I do.

And, you know, I've learned to just sell my hair. I don't care about that stuff. I don't look at my sport jacket. I don't look at that. I focus on the content, the pause, the structure. You know, how could I have done this better? Yeah. You know, how could I have made it more authentic? How could I have brought more out from them?

And, you know, those are the things you have when you reevaluate it. I think it would be really easy to focus on the wrong thing. Because if I tell someone, hey, watch your show or listen to your own show or watch your own YouTube videos, there's a lot of self-ledulation. So beating yourself up over it. There's a lot of, oh, you know, I should have worn a different jacket and not a whole lot of, you know, you screwed up because you didn't ask a right question. Those are the aesthetics. Don't worry about the aesthetics. Focus on the content. You know, we must have compelling content.

You know, it's interesting. I wish that YouTube and channels like that provided us with the same kind of information I get from television. For example, you know, a TV show is rated by quarter hours. Really? So I know what the ratings are of the show for each quarter hour of it. So if I start with a strong first quarter hour and I drop off in the third quarter hour, it's a lousy episode. It's not compelling television.

So I watch that stuff because that's my audience talking to me. Yeah. That's telling me what they think. think. So I really watch each of those quarter hours. And I think to myself, okay, so if I'm losing viewership in a third quarter hour, you know, why wasn't it compelling? And what could I have done? I'm not going to BS. Real is real. You know, what could I have done, you know, back then as a host to drive more compelling content? But I've gotten them to speak more. Maybe there was another issue they could have resolved. Maybe there was another problem we could be discussed. But that's really important

because that's the ultimate review. What I think is one thing, what they think is everything. Of course. We've got to combine both. Yeah, it's got to be kind of hard to look at a piece of work and go, this is really good, very proud of this one, and then see kind of the, speaking of ego, taking a dent, seeing the audience drop off and going, okay, well, so something I love, how is your taste changed from doing what you think is the best to catering to what the audience wants to see on an entertainment platform at the end of the day?

Yes, and then the other fun thing is, I've never talked about this before, so I'm enjoying this conversation with you, is the throwing stuff. I don't throw stuff. Literally throwing things? I don't throw stuff. I mean, you know, this started with the compression of time and me realizing I got to impact this guy. I got to impact him so I would push some.

Yeah, like a plate of food. Yeah. Then, you know, then a couple of episodes later, I realized that that was pretty impactful and it worked. Yeah. Not only on TV, but it worked with him. Right. So next thing, I push it a little more.

Ten episodes later, I'm throwing stuff all around a room and I'm realizing this is a tool. and I'm not doing it for television. And here's why. In Bar Rescue, think about it. If this was your bar, and usually your own point, the minute you think I'm doing this for the camera, the entire thing falls apart.

Yeah, your credibility goes out the window. So the cameras are gone. This is you and me. And this is real. So you know it's real. Right, I'm covered in enchiladas. That's why you get mad at me, because it's real.

If you thought it was for the camera, you'd laugh at me. Sure. Yeah, good point. So that reality is assured. by the way people are reacting. So I love it when people say it's fake. How do you fake that?

The guy's pissed. He's really angry. So anyway, I get a kick out of that, but it's not deviating from the reality, of course. It's just presenting it differently. So it's more impactful. And if it's more impactful to you as the owner, then it's also going to be more impactful for the audience.

So it's great. They work in tandem with each other. Are you even able to go to a restaurant now without sort of dismantling what's going on in the business, a restaurant or bar, for that matter. I've got a buddy Jason Gainert. He runs really high-end events. And what he does, he's obviously a big fan of what you're doing.

He goes to, he runs these events that costs probably half a million dollars to put on. So he'll go to the hotel six months ahead of time. And he orders a bunch of drinks, waters or whatever. And he'll leave an empty glass over there. And he'll leave an empty glass over there. And he'll just sit down and he'll count how many employees walk by, or you would call him skids, how many employees walk by the glass. And if the number gets too high, he doesn't go to the hotel for the event.

Yeah, well, we'll do assessments like that as well. It's funny, I was known years ago, mall developers, when I would put my own restaurants and malls, they normally take you out to dinner. It's customary. Okay. So the landlord, if you're looking at his mall, he'll take you out to dinner that money. When I go to a restaurant, I say, if I'm building a steakhouse,

I want to go to the steakhouse across the street, but then I order one of everything on a menu. And I do that often. So I'll go into a restaurant, sometimes even by myself, I'll ask for a six-top, and I'll order one of everything. I'll say, bring it in any order you want, but I'll do you want for you want of everything. So I can see the plates, the height, the presentation, the color is how they do at the price point to

to perceive value and all in the back. I also see how they function under stress. Yeah. But it's, yeah, it's a great way to assess. And I recommend that everybody do that. If you're planning your wedding or planning a family event, you know, go to the venue. You know, experience the venue first because what they do for someone else is what they're going to do for you. What are some red flags that you've seen since you've been behind the scenes of so many businesses where you think, as a customer, you go, I'm not eating here or I'm not going to do business with this place, Just from the front of the bar, I'm sitting down and I see X, and I know I got to get out the door. There's a couple really good markers.

You know, sometimes you can see it from the parking lot. Really? Sure, I'm with the parking lot is a mess. The bushes are on manicured, the cigarette butts by the front door. Does handprints all over the glass when you walk in? I mean, if the front of their business looks that way, imagine what the back of it looks like. So sometimes I know it right from outside. The other thing is I call it three steps in.

Those three steps mean everything to you, Jordan. So step one. glance and smell. The smell isn't right. That's a step two. Glance, your eyes land on the brightest thing in the room, always, the most colorful or brightest. So if you land on something that's a mess, something that communicates confusion, this organization, that's a powerful indicator. The ultimate one is sticking this.

If you touch a menu, sit down at the table, pick up the salt and pepper shaker. If it's sticky, that's a big indicator. Next, touch the menu. If it's sticky, yeah, because if the menus are dirty, imagine what the silverware and the plates and the cookware is... But that's cross-contamination. What makes that sticky? That's bacteria.

That's food. That's protein. So now you touch that menu. You're cross-contaminated. You run your finger to fix your hair. Now it's in your hair. Oh, man. You rub your face.

It's on your face. You rub your eye. This is cross-contamination. Oh, man. Yeah, that's great. So then your wife touches your fork to take a bite of your food. Now she's cross-contamined. So what you're seeing is cross-contamination.

So if it's happening there, it's probably happening in the kitchen. Sticky salt and pepper shakers and makes a really strong indicator. Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. And I'm just now going through every place I've ever eaten in my entire life. And you felt that, haven't you? Yeah. And you go, oh, this one menu is dirty.

A little kid must have had their hands on it right before me. And the answer is that's been dirty since I was in high school. And good restaurants, that's a specific function. Cleaning menus, cleaning salt and pepper shakers at the end of every shift. So if they're not organized enough to do that basic thing, then someone's not right. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, John Taffer. We'll be right back after this. Don't forget, we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify

your understanding of the key takeaways from John Taffer. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. show. Your support is what keeps us on the air, and I'm not joking about that. And to learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And if you're listening in Overcast, please feel free to hit that little star next to the episode. It really gets us up in the rankings, and we appreciate it. And if you want more info on how to subscribe, go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash subscribe. Now back to our show with John Taffer.

In the book, don't BS yourself. You talk about a lot of people, business owners especially, are really, really busy, but they're not prioritizing. And you teach them how to prioritize. Do you have any advice on that? Because I think any entrepreneur is always really, really busy. And you find out that they did their Twitter and they answered some Instagram comments. And then they emptied their span folder. But they didn't get to any of their book writing or any filming or anything real.

Yeah. You know, to me, I believe that to me, a business project is like a ball on my. desk. And what I need to move every ball every day. So to me, moving those balls is more important in Twitter, you today, those kind of things. So I can only have so many balls. I can do about seven, eight balls to move them every single day. If I don't move them every day, I freak out about myself. So I don't start with those optional activities. I start with required activities. For me, I wake up early in the morning. A first thing I do is get a couple of coffee on my computer. I'm responding to emails and doing all that stuff. When I head to the office, like this morning when I met

you here. I've done two hours worth of emails at home. My computer's clear right now. Right. So you don't have to think about it. I am caught up. You know, I've taken care of that and now I have the time to spend with you. Right. But, you know, had I not done that this morning, I'd be freaked out right now. I got to this, worry about this, worry about that. So, you know, the question is stay ahead of it of that curve. The other thing that that I've learned so much about time management is, you know, we are never out of time. If finding a purple jacket was the most important thing, you know, in the world to you today. Would you find one? I'd have found one, yeah. You'd get up early this morning, right?

Yeah, sure. You'd stay up late tonight. It's Vegas. There's purple jackets 24-7. But you'd be on a computer for hours. You would find that purple jacket. Of course. So suggesting it you didn't have the time to find it, that doesn't mean it would be time. It means it wasn't important enough to you. So I always tell people, when you tell me, oh, John, I didn't have the time. That isn't what you're saying. What you're saying is you blew me off. De-prioritized it. Exactly right. So, you know, time is everything. That's the one thing that we can't replace. You know, to me, I'm very top-line-oriented. And I believe that that revenue cures all.

You know, when I talk to people in business seminars and they say, you know, John, my labor cost is high, my marketing costs is high, my promotion costs is high, my tech cost is high. And they shave dimes and dollars. That's taking from the customer, right? So I cut my labor schedules. I cut my product. I cut. I cut to try to make my numbers work.

But if I could raise your revenue by 30%, you wouldn't have tech cost problems anymore. You wouldn't have labor cost problems. So revenue cures all. It's the ultimate pacifier of every problem that exists in our lives. Think of the problems that most marriages have. They tend to be financial issues, right? So if we focus on top line, which means I wake up in a morning and the first thing I do is how do I monetize myself right now?

How do I drive revenue? That is the first thing I have to do today. Then I can deal with all the other things that I have to. But there's nothing more important to an entrepreneur than revenue. And if they don't wake up every morning and think about revenue first thing, probably shouldn't be an entrepreneur. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

I know you hire or you tell people to hire. And clearly you do hire for personality and then you train the skills later. I see a lot of business owners doing that backwards where they're like, look, my tech guy is an a hole, but he gets the job done. I think we've all been guilty of that. And my tech guys watching this, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about somebody else. But how do you know, well, first of all, that's a hard lesson. for a lot of us to learn. How do we know that we're going to be able to train for skill?

Or have you just seen that somebody with the right personality is going to be able to handle the job? Well, you know, if we look at our own business experiences and I ask, I said, Joanne, I want you to close your eyes and picture the best person you've ever worked with. You're not going to tell me they had the best technical skills. No. You're going to pick somebody with attitude. That's right. Work, skill, aggressiveness, passion. Those are the things that you define greatness by yourself.

Sure. So why wouldn't you hire for them? why would you put something that you don't even identify as greatness in your own brain ahead? So the resume doesn't mean anything. It's all about the personality. So the way I interview people is I break it down. So interviews are complete bull. I say to you, you're good under pressure.

You know what I want to hear. Oh, I'm great under pressure. Two hours later, you're hysterical cry. So I don't do that. I'm going to say things to you like, Jordan, what did you do in high school? Tell me about yourself. That's how you started our interview on. on your show. Because it tells me about your personality. What did you like to do? What did you not like to do?

What do you do with your free time? Those are the things that are important to me. You know, what are your energy levels? You know, what is your inquisitiveness? What is your passion? Do you love people? Do you love communicating? What are the things that are really the attributes that I know can equate to greatness? And once I get that out of the way, then I might look at your resume for experience only to figure out where I got to train you. But that's not a hiring decision. The Experience is not the hiring decision. You give me somebody who's never run a nightclub to bar a restaurant in a world, times in their lives. Never worked in one before with the right personality in two weeks. And I'll show you a great general manager. I see you go into the bars and look at the people. And of course, it's reality TV, or it's TV in general. So there's a lot of time probably between when you walk in and you see the issues. But I noticed when you walk in and the employees are lined up, there was one episode particularly. I think it was also the pirate bar. I'm obsessed with that episode because it's so ridiculous.

But you said, there's a cultural problem here. And it was kind of like the first thing you said when you walked in other than, okay, this is a weird bar. It was just, hey, there's a cultural problem here. You can see that right away. What are you looking for when you see a cultural disaster right in front of you? Like what is the identifying factor? I think, you know, a cultural problem, I could use another word.

I could use a word dysfunctional. Yeah. Right? Would be another, just phrase to communicate the same thing. if somebody is disjointed, disconnected, or dissatisfied, the this is, then it's a dysfunctional situation. And dysfunction like that tends to be a culture within the business. So, you know, I look for those disses, the disconnected, disengaged, all of those things,

and they're powerful. And sometimes you just see it in the way somebody will walk. You see it in the way they stand in the meeting. You see the fact that they won't stick up for themselves because you can tell they've been beaten down every time they do. You just pick up on these things that aren't said, but you feel them and you know. And I think that's what makes me a good TV host is I can sense that. And I'll jump on wherever that takes me first.

And that begins to expose, you know, the biggest of problems. You know, if you had a business transaction with somebody and now the transaction is over and you say, you know what, I'm not paying me. This isn't about your money. There's an underlying reason to this. Sure. And sometimes a surface problem. isn't a problem at all. It's that underlying problem that is making you not do it. To them, they're mad that you didn't do it. To you, it's not about not doing it. It's about what made you not

do it. So we have to get to that place to try to resolve anything. And that can be ugly sometimes. I see that. And I've seen when you walk into the bar and you confront the first, you know, guy who's resistant. A lot of times they quit on the spot. It's kind of funny to watch you shine a light on a kind of proverbial shine, the light on the floor and the cockroaches just run away and everybody else that's left is either willing to shape up or is kind of already in that position to do so. And you see this a lot. They're committed. They're committed. Yeah, they're committed. Or they're at least willing to give it a college try. But usually the person who's like, I'm not changing anything. They're in the parking lot before the first commercial break.

Because I don't have time for that. Yeah. And they know that. You know, in life, we use the term get on the bus. You know, so what I'm not. You get on the bus. You know, so what I'm going to do is the next three weeks, I'm going to get everybody on the bus. I can work with you, talk, you motivate, you, inspire you, yeah, I'll get you on a bus. I don't have the time. You know, you got to get on the bus right now or I'm going to run over you. Yeah. Because I don't have the time for that.

I got three days. So that time is a ticking clock in my brain. I can't tell you how powerful that is during a shoot of our rescue. I'm in trouble before I even begin. Yeah, you're out of time already. Before I even start. So it creates this intensity. in me that that is unnatural, right? Because of that time compression, but yet everything that happens

after it is, in fact, quite natural because of the time compression. If you had more time, you would handle things differently, or you think the way you got it going now is effective? If I had more time, I would put forth more of an effort to win you over than force you over. Okay. So less plate throwing more. Oh, I would be much more of an inspiring. Let's get to get, let's, you know, blah, blah. But when you don't have the time for that, it's, you know what, either get on board or, because I can't, I will sacrifice you for the greater good. When I have more time, I'm not as quick to sacrifice you for the greater good. I'm much more inclined to try to pull everybody in.

But think about it, I got on time. Yeah, you have time. Yeah, the weakest link, goodbye. Absolutely. You see, we've talked a lot about terrible employees and you see plenty of them. Every episode has one or two or owners, usually. What do you look for in somebody who you think? This person is very promotable.

This person is underutilized because that's maybe less, common, especially on the show. You know, it's interesting. Sometimes the greatest managers are the ones that bubble up on their own. Right. Right? That just take the responsibility before it's even given to them. You know, they do the cleaning.

They do the, suddenly they're helping train people, and, you know, they're just natural at it. And it's a leadership skill. You're that way. You know, you just have this ability to slip into that role naturally. And if you work with 10 people on a project, you know, and you weren't paid more than anyone else, you would probably assume more responsibility. and you would have, that's just the way we are. Those are the people who should be promoted.

And I'm going to say something that's going to upset some people. Sometimes when I go to these businesses and I see a bartender, people say he's been a bartender for 10 years. He should be the manager. No. If he's been a bartender for 10 years and he hasn't bubbled up, then he's the last guy who should be the manager. And that's where owners make a mistake.

Interesting. Some people are comfortable where they are and you promote him right out of the company. Yeah. So that guy who's been a bar. bartender for 10 years, has been comfortable being a bartender for 10 years, leave him alone. The person who's not comfortable who's bubbling up on their own, that's the one who should be promoted, even if they've only been with you for a couple months. When you say bubble up, you're looking for somebody who voluntarily takes on responsibility,

not just somebody who's trying to be the leader by telling other people what to do. No, no, somebody who inherently cares. Right. You know, and starts doing things and becomes a leader. Not a jerk, but a leader. Sure. Yeah. And not killing bodies to advance themselves.

Right. You must see a lot of actually really successful businesses, especially working here in Vegas, businesses that don't need to be on bar rescue because they're trying to get from 90% to 100% not we're going out of business next week to survival level. When you see those businesses, what is the primary difference in leadership that you see there? Obviously, there's more skill involved. The leaders are better in some way, but how? You know, you find in a great operation like that, everybody's a leader. And what I mean by that is I'm not saying confusion.

There's no levels of management. Even as a server, you're acting like a leader. You're resolving problems as you're going. You're anticipating. You're staying ahead of things. You've been trained to be empowered in your world. And that empowerment makes you better at what you do. Makes you anticipate.

Makes you grab a glass from a table that's not even yours on the way. It makes you help each other. There's something that happens when everybody has that attitude. That's what drives greatness in any business. and when you have people that are working for you that aren't there for a job, but are there to accomplish something, then that's really powerful. And this city is a great example of that in Las Vegas, because people move here to be in this business.

And there's no other industry in this city. Las Vegas is only hospitality. You know, farming, no manufacturing. You know, there's none of that kind of stuff here, unless it's supporting gaming equipment. But that hospitality nature in the city cultivates that attitude where people want to get ahead. in this city, this huge opportunity in hospitality. You can be a server today and run one of the greatest venues in a world in five years. Yeah.

That's aspiring to people. But my point is that leadership exists at every level. Is that something you think you can train, or do you think that you, again, have to hire for somebody who's willing to take leadership at every level? Yeah. I disagree with almost every book ever written on this topic. I don't believe that you can make a leader. Really?

I don't believe you can train a leader. I don't believe you can make a leader. You know, the Pied Piper, you would have, you would have, followed them off a cliff. Great entrepreneurs that are failures, complete failures. Sometimes they're idiots. But people follow them. They come on board. They work for free. They take stock deals. This guy by textbook doesn't even know what the hell he's doing. Sure. He shouldn't be leading anyone, but he is. Leadership is a trait, not a skill. When my daughter was six years old in daycare. The daycare center called her the little general. And that was their nickname for her

because she was the one who lined everybody up and who warden. She was a leader at six. I was that way when I was a kid. Leadership is born. It's not given. That's interesting. I was a bossy kid. I don't know if I was a leader, but who can tell now, right? Because of course, your friends call you bossy. Your mom calls you a leader. You don't know who to believe. Well, there's a fine line between aggressive and ass. Yeah. You know, and that line, you might say that I'm an ass. I might say I'm aggressive, and that line changes person to person. Do you apply some of the concepts from bar rescue to your personal life? Because there's a lot of people who watch this.

We were watching it last night and we're like, I would love to just have John Taffer talk to, you know, everybody's got somebody they want you to talk to and throw a plate at who's not working at a restaurant or a bar, and they just want you to straighten them out. But you must be applying some of this in your personal life. Yeah, it's interesting. Since I'm young, I've always had friends come to me and talk to me about problems and issues, and I've always had this ability to have people want to be. talk to me. I've never betrayed people. I always am honest with people, and I think they know that.

Yeah. And I'll keep a secret as well. But I've always had this thing about talking with people. My whole life, I never thought it would turn into this. You know, I never thought I'd be on television. This was never anything I ever considered doing. It was somebody said, you should do it. I wrote something up and wham all, here I am. But no, connecting with people has always been, you know, a large part of me. Who told you should be on TV? Were you doing similar things to Bar Rescue? And they're like, this has got, we got a film. No, I was actually. I'm a public speaker, and I give about 30-40 speeches a year, and I have done it for 30 years. And I'll speak at major industry conventions and trade shows and things like that, and I've spoken

all over the world. I was giving a speech, and at the end of the speech, somebody came up to me and said, you should be on television. So I said, you know what? I wrote something up. It was called on a rocks. I don't tell the story often. It was called on a rocks.

It was a three-page write-up. And this will inspire your listeners. And I used to work with Paramount as a consultant in a television project. So I went to my friends at Paramount. and he went to the head of television of Paramount, I showed him my right off, I said, what do you think? And he looks at me and says, John, you will never be on television. Ouch.

You're too old? Oh, man. You're not good-looking in us? Forget it. Shows like this have, you know, hunky young guys, guys like you. And I'm not guys like me. So, you know, I drive out of the Paramount Gates, it's completely demoralists.

But I'm not that way. When somebody says, no, I'm going to make it a yes. So when I shot my own three-minute sizzle reel at a friend's bar, sent that sizzle, real to four production companies that I didn't know, but people told me, I tried this one. I got the email addresses. I got four offers. Really?

Wow. Every offer was a good offer. So now I had a hiring entertainment attorney and reading contract. I've never read anything like this before. I have no idea what I did. So I hired an entertainment lawyer, and I chose a company called Three Ball Entertainment because they had a great show on TV at the time called Biggest Loser. Oh, yeah.

Really good quality reality production company. So they weren't the best deal, but they were the best company. So I went with them. When I signed with them, the network picked up the show four days later. So they pre-sold it before they signed me. And it premiered in less than a year. From the day that guy said to me, you will never be on television. And he didn't say it quite that nicely.

He had an F-Bomb in there. You will never effing be on television, John. In less than a year, the show premiered. Like that was the John Taffer of television. And now 189 episodes and eight years later, every new season I always send them a note to make sure he watched the season. Yeah. And he's probably going, yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, passing up an opportunity like Barr Rescue as a producer or whoever did the acquisition, it's got to be rough. It's like not signing a band.

And there's a couple who didn't offer me the right deal and this and that, but it's a sense of real pride for me. Yeah. But that's television. You know, one person hates it the next person signs it and it becomes a big hit. We talked about ego taking a beating and things like that. You had a whole life before television, obviously doing the speaking, consulting. and things like that. How have you dealt with being, now you're a media personality. Now everyone recognizes you in at least the Western world where they serve alcohol. How have you dealt with that? Because I do a YouTube video and someone's like, what, you couldn't sit up straight? And I'm thinking, oh, man, you must get a thousand of that every day. But it's people are pretty awful when they don't

know you. And you're in the spotlight. How do you deal with that? I don't. I let the fans deal with it. You just let people argue. Oh, yeah. No, if somebody said that taffers a real. all the fans will take care of it. That'd be the nicest thing we'll say on YouTube. I'm really lucky because my fans, you know, feel very positive about me. And I don't see a lot of negative posts and stuff on my channels. When they do, I ignore them, because I don't take it personally, and they can certainly feel that way.

When 91 million people watch you, you know, those couple hundred thousand who insults you, you really don't care. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But I find that it self pleases itself. You know, fans will disagree with them and fans will defend me. And so I let the ecosystem take its course. I'm not a casual individual. No, that's for sure.

I'm not one to turn on Facebook and do some casual post in a morning sitting in my bedroom. I'm more deliberate than that as an individual. So I don't get caught with my pants down very often, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Because I'm not quick to do those types of things that aren't, you know, more deliberate in nature. So I think that that insulates me from a lot of that negative stuff that other people, because they're too loose. That's true. In their approach and that looseness is exposing.

I'm not that way. I'm more deliberate, so I don't have that exposure. It's funny because you're really authentic, as we've had a couple conversations now on tape and off. But there's a difference between authenticity and, like you said, that looseness where you're just kind of the casualness of media. Well, I'm me, but me is deliberate. Right, right. And then when it's off camera, you're the same guy, but you're not like, let me do a selfie of me walking into my office. Absolutely, with my hat side, right?

I'm not going to do that stuff. Yeah. You know, I just don't go there. You mentioned that entrepreneurs are a specific breed of people. Some people aren't that, but they think they are, if I'm sitting at home right now watching us and I'm thinking, well, I want to be a business owner, I am an entrepreneur. How do I know if I'm BSing myself and I'm just pretending? Because an entrepreneur is a term now because somehow it's not cool to have a job anymore.

I don't know when that happened, but it did. And I never thought of myself, I never even used the word entrepreneur. I just started a business and then people started using it, I don't know, 10 years later. How do I know if I'm BS? myself and I'm not cut out to run my own shop. You know, there's really several types of people, and we fit into these categories, into these buckets, unfortunately. Entrepreneurs think a certain way.

Managers think another way. And accounting process people think another way. Yeah. They're very different mentalities. Process people don't make good entrepreneurs. Sometimes management people don't make good entrepreneurs because they're inherently operations and risk adverse. Right, yes.

Whereas the entrepreneur is a completely different. There's a book that I recommend. It's a short book. I didn't write it. I have no involvement that was written by a person who I've since met,

developed a friendship with by a name of Michael Gerber. He wrote a book called E-Mith Revisited. And it's a short book. And, you know, the last thing in the world that a new entrepreneur

wants to do is buy themselves a job. So you make $80,000 a year now as a technical guy somewhere. So now you open up your own company, you're working 10 hours more per day, right? You got the burden of taxes. And now you're making 60 grand. Right, if you're lucky. So you bought yourself a job. You know, you had the same income without the liability before. So that's what entrepreneurs really need to. And E-Mith really, it categorizes people into these buckets really well. And I think it helps people identify if, in fact,

they fit that entrepreneurial model or not. Now, if you're one of the process or technical people, And you don't fit into that entrepreneur box and you want to get rich, that's easy. Team up with an entrepreneur, put together a great product and process and get rich together. Exactly. And that's the Silicon Valley story. It is. Because people that write programs are typically not great entrepreneurs, but that entrepreneur needs that programmer. Oh, man.

And that's not even just the technical skills I think we need. I, at least from my own experience, I need people around me that go, calm the hell down. We're going to do this thing first that we planned last week. Great idea, Jordan, but slow down. We'll do that next quarter. Because if we didn't have that, I'd be running all over doing everything and probably be out of business pretty quickly with a bunch of great ideas, though, and a bunch of great execution.

I'm just saying, I won't put yes people around me. Yeah. That's that, we're back to that whole ego. We're back to ego. Yeah. Yeah. Being an entrepreneur is almost like, or a business owner is like an exercise in hiring people to make sure that you don't ruin your own life and then also steering the ship somewhere in

between. Celebrity works against me in that regard, though. I bet. What happens is the celebrity and that bigger than life television image makes people intimidated to disagree with me. So I can sit in a room with people where I want open discussion and they're all scared to say, you know, I think you're nuts, Stafford. You know, I disagree with you.

I think that's something I'm combating all the time because I want that free-flowing communications. But, you know, the imagery of television makes you bigger than life and people are scared to do that. I'll throw something. Sure, yeah. Corey doesn't want to tell you to change the lighting. He's going to get fired.

He's going to get a plate thrown at him. He doesn't want enchiladas in his face. But, Corey, you know that's not true, right? Okay. Just making sure. That was a long... That was a long one. John, there you go.

The people that were actually surprised by the fact, yeah, because I want everybody to be successful. Yeah? Come here, Corey. Come here. Get in front of the camera. This is my fault. I take responsibility for this.

Are my different than you thought I'd be? Oh, yeah. In what way? Yeah, the best way he explains me. me was there's a tapper and there's John and tapers, you know, it's celebrity TV personality. Then John's the cool, heart, loving guy that... Have I thrown anything at you yet? Not yet. Not yet.

There's a couple of objects here. It's his first week. No, you know, it's all about team building, you know, and surrounding yourself with great people. He's a great guy. Yeah. He has the personality, the attitude. He's really committed. You know, he wants to be better every day.

When we surround ourselves with people like that, we can't go wrong, buddy. And that starts from the time. from what I've learned from you in the last few days. John, thank you so much. There's a lot of fun. Let's do it again sometime. Yeah, you got it. Okay.

Take care, buddy. All right, thank you. Great big thank you to John Taffer. He's got his own podcast called No Excuses. And if you want to know how I managed to book great guests like John Taffer and manage my relationships with hundreds slash thousands of people, I use systems and I use and I'm giving you those for free. So check out Level 1 over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one.

And don't procrastinate. I know you're thinking you'll do it later. You can't make up for lost time when it comes to digging the well before you get thirsty. You've got to build those relationships before you need them. Once you need them, you're too late. So go to Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. And I've been making that available to people, and it's what I wish I knew 10, 15 years ago. So go and check it out.

Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. And speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from John Taffer. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. This show is produced in association with Podcast 1. and this episode was co-produced by Jason Barback to Philippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes by Robert Fogarty, worksheets by Caleb Bacon,

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