Creating Atomic Habits Ep 37
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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 Jon Gafford. Back again, back again, back again. For another fun-filled episode of The Power Move, my name is Jon Gafford. I am your host. I am joined this week, as always, by Colt Lightning Boy Amaden. Just like the android. Yeah. Oh, God.

Lightning fast. Lightning fast to get you kicked out of text groups. Lightning when you can't charge your phone. That's it.

And of course, Chris Connell, Esquire. How are you, counselor? How are y'all? So today, man, what I want to talk about is last week we talked about when we were going over the book and stuff on stoicism, we talked about creating better habits. And one of the things that I did mention on that podcast was the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. And a lot of people hit me up in the DMs or hit me up talking about messages saying, yeah, I love that book. You should talk about that book.

Have either one of you guys read this book? Have you read it? No. You haven't? Atomic note. No. It's not a coloring book, Colton. Well, then you lost me. Yeah, I lost you. There's no coloring. Do you know they have adult coloring books now? I just found that out. That's freaking amazing. Well, is it an adult coloring book? All books are adult coloring books if the adult knows how to color. Yeah.

Never thought of that. That's a solid point. Good, solid point by the counselor. Any coloring book is a book. I feel like now I'm getting ripped off. Charge double. But before we get into that about atomic habits, we'll kind of tell you, hopefully the reason you should want to know about this if you haven't read the book is we're going to give you some tips, tricks,

advice on how to build better habits in your life. They'll help you because really your habits, you know, somebody says, show me your habits and I'll show you your future. And yeah, anything we can do to kind of help you improve that, we want to. So we're going to do that. But there's, hey man, lots of stuff going on. Lots. The way you talk about it. So let's, you know, I'm a cabinet. Well,

You know, let's dive right in. The first thing I saw, I mean, let's talk about the big story that's going on right now. The big one, which is Rogan. I think being in the podcast space, I feel like we owe it to ourselves to at least discuss this a little bit. And I really thought about what I was going to say about this a lot. And I really did. And here's what I'm going to say about it, which is this. When it comes to Joe Rogan, number one, I don't care if I agree with what he said or not agree with what he said. I don't care if you agree with what he said or didn't agree with what he said. I 100% support his ability to say it.

He has, this is the United States of America. He has the right to say what he's going to say and interview who he's going to interview and talk about who he's going to interview. And let's be very clear. I don't think this is about, I don't think it was about COVID. I don't think it's about race. I think it's about power. And I think Dave Portnoy hit it right on the head when he said, you know, this is what it's about. The guy has too much power and people don't like it.

And they want to tear him down. Too close to the sun. Too close to the sun. And I saw today where somebody wrote something I thought was great. It's funny how, what's his name? R. Kelly. R. Kelly, who is in jail for what? Peeing on children. Peeing on children and all his music is still on Spotify. Nobody has an issue with that. Michael Jackson. Yeah, exactly. How quickly we forget those sorts of things. Yeah.

And the fact that he's still getting attacked like this. Now, number one, I don't think I think Spotify kind of did the right thing by saying, look, we have our we have our code of conduct. We have our things. We have our stuff. But we've pulled the episode of contention. But I want to say something else. And I think this is this has gotten real, real quick. And here's the deal.

If you are someone that has said, we should cancel this person because we, we should, they should kick them off and ruin their job because I don't like the way they think or the way they say, fuck you. If you are somebody that has said, we should boycott this place because they wanted me to wear a mask. Fuck you. Yep.

People have a right to run their business. People have a right to think the way they want to do on both sides of the aisle. There are just as many people on the right that want to cancel people as there are on the left. This is not a right or left problem.

This is a desperate for people to agree with my opinion problem. So if I say, oh, we should all not go here. We should all not do this. This person should get fired. We should all do this. And it validates you somehow as a human being for tearing down somebody else. And you know what? From the bottom of my heart, fuck you. It's a low frequency behavior. It is. It's a low frequency way to understand things. But I understand why people do that, right? I don't. I understand why people go,

hey, this is bad, therefore we should all bandy about and make it go away, right? Because I don't really want to think about it. I don't want to have my, you know, the two seconds of a snippet I heard one time challenged in my brain. I made up my mind already. That's how we vote in this country. That's how we operate. I understand why people do it, but it's low frequency. Very low. It's very low frequency. It takes a moment of time to go back and hear things in context. Now, I will go on the record very clearly that,

the n-word and it's progeny and see i don't even talk about that because i don't think yes it's it's not something right that i take lightly or that that i have an opinion on in terms of well how come this guy gets to say it's not about that it's but here's what happened

A lot of that stuff is specifically taken out of context. Now, I would never choose to do it, but in an academic sense, one of the books we were talking about the other day had it in there in context. It was a quote from a powerful black leader, right? So in context, he was reading it. So would you rather people avoided things? What happened in 1984? What was the big thing? You control language, you control thought. The minute you start doing that, I understand that

It's now become a mental game of chess where, oh, that's a word. It's made up of syllables. Those ones are off limits, right? No matter what context, regardless of context, right? And you go, wait a minute. Context has to matter. Yeah. Well, you know, I just think that if you saw, and I love Dave Portnoy last night. You probably didn't see this, but he actually got the three dudes. There's three dudes that run some kind of a left-leaning team.

Super PAC or whatever it is, or PAC. And they've kind of done these little hits. And they were some of the guys that sort of retweeted some of the stuff about Portnoy.

And he kind of put some pieces together like, wait a second, these are the same guys that are now kind of pushing this out front against Rogan. You know what I mean? So he actually got them on a live YouTube chat, which I thought was interesting. They got them with Portnoy, which I mean, look, love Portnoy, hate Portnoy, whatever. You got to have some balls to get on with that dude because he's pretty quick on his feet and he's a blazer. And yeah, and it was like, and he's like, look, here's the deal. I don't care.

That you're calling attention to these things. You're trying to put them to the forefront. None of that matters to me. What matters to me is you only do it to people who have opposing views to you. You don't do this with impunity. And selectively. Yeah, don't paint yourself as a justice warrior. As a freedom warrior because you selectively target who you attack. That's right. And I thought that again is the problem because...

It's like anybody that doesn't agree with what I say, you're all wrong and I'm going to do anything I can to do that. And if you want to watch us, we talked about this before the show, that's how I got down the rabbit hole of –

of good public discourse. That's how we got to it. And if you want to watch two people that think polar opposite, there's a YouTube clip out there of Russell Brand and Ben Shapiro debating some things and watching those guys talk. Now, granted, you think it's mental gymnastics with this guy linguistically, but holy crap. Yeah, you better get a dictionary if you're going to watch that. But watching those guys have a conversation from total polar opposizing views is how it should be. And nobody said...

Russell Brand should lose his podcast. Ben Shapiro didn't say, you know, he didn't say, nobody said that. Nobody's trying to cancel anybody. It's like, okay, I respect the way that you think. And, you know, we just think differently and we'll move along. Let me ask you a question. Who do you hear saying the concept, hey, respect the office?

Whoever's president is in power. Right. The minute that switches. Oh, yeah. The minute that switches from one party to the next. Fuck that guy. Hypocrisy is so bad. Fuck a piece of shit. I hate him. Dance on his grave. Yeah.

Oh, no, no, no, no. You guys, you've got to respect the office. No, it makes sense. I hate that. I mean, I know me and John have had this talk. We respect the office. It doesn't matter who's in there. We respect it. We don't agree with it all the time, but we respect it. But the whole cancel culture, they're not even coming after them for the N-word. That's honestly...

90% of them are coming after him because he's got the views of the COVID and because he is getting, what, 100 million people listening to him? Yeah. The top CNN person is getting a million for two hours. When you have 1,800 podcasts that are three, four hours long.

dude you're bound to say stuff that if you agreed with everything he said you are also part of the problem yeah you're blind or whatever i agree so the guy puts out a ton of content right take it or leave it and he's come back and said hey i've i haven't done a great job balancing this i want to take a look at that and do better at it yeah that should be the end of the conversation that's it that's it well again again i don't i don't care what he says that's what i'm saying but i just i care that he has a right to say he came up

publicly says, hey, that is a valid criticism. That is fierce ownership. Do you know how many people say things in public? I mean, dude, look at the Alex Jones guy. How many blatantly offensive things does that guy say? I mean, they're just so bad, John, that he's been found guilty in the court of law for spreading for saying absolutely offensive things. But unfortunately, in this country, he has a right to say whatever he wants.

Sure. As long as you realize I have the right not to listen to you. But I have the right not to listen. I don't listen to him either. I don't have any interest in listening to him. So you also got to realize that when you're at work, you have the right to say whatever you want, but there is repercussions off of what you say, right? There is, but I don't think Joe Rogan has come at – he's apologized –

that truly knows him. Like people have known this guy for 30 years, right? He's been a comedian for how long? 20 of them? Oh my God. He's been comedic. These guys are together. People don't realize that the comedian crowds, they travel together. They do stuff. They know it. And everybody has his back. It's like, you know, he made a mistake. None of us condone what he said, but we all condone. He has a right to say. Well, I think, I think the biggest problem for me is, is it's the, it's the, it's the cancel culture. I mean, look,

If you've never, everybody in this room is a business owner. We all own our own businesses, right? We've had the sleepless nights. We've had the balls out there. We've had the slinging it out there to understand what it takes to get to own your own business.

And then here's some person that's working at some store, getting a paycheck every week that jumps on their social media. Like, don't ever go to this place again because of X. You know, dude, how dare you try to tear somebody down? And you've never had the balls to do anything yourself. I mean, and God help you if somebody did it to your boss and you lost your job because of it.

Like it just, they never think about that. I just, I'm so over like in the other day it said like you can go to McDonald's a thousand times. I screw up every time you still go back through, but God help the small business owner that forgets to bring your salad.

you know, with the little restaurant. You go on Yelp and feel the need to expound your negative experience. It's like, dude, it's just- How much of this do you think is about power imbalance or is it just a total lack of empathy? It's insecurity. No, it's not empathy. It's not empathy. It's a lack of empathy. It is an absolute, it's attention seeking and self-validation.

It's I am so small on this planet. I am such a small speck of dust on this great cosmic whirlwind, Ron, that I've got to try to stick my chest out to do this. And let's face it. You look at the news cycles back from the beginning of news. If it bleeds, it leads. Bad news clicks. Nothing.

How many times do people say, I had a great experience at this place? Do you really click and read that? People are like, listen. Look at, dude, you want to see what I'm talking about? You know the epicenter of this? No, not Yelp. Worse. Nextdoor. That is the epicenter of this. To the asshole that walks his dog on Thursdays at 9 a.m. Dude, it's just a relentless spewing of people that have no validation in their life. No.

Other than to tear others down. So you can take that on one hand as it's people, men living lives of quiet desperation, men and women, living the lives of quiet desperation, right? Yeah. But in that is embedded in all themes a lack of empathy, right? Did you just quote Thoreau right there? I did. Okay, nice. I'm catching up with him. Smoke in the dust. So at the end of the day, if people had empathy, they'd go, look,

What did he mean? Hey, look, where did this person come from? And when you look at somebody and you say that is an ignorant person, you can go a long way in this world if you extend a bit of that olive branch of empathy and go, I don't agree with the way you do things. I don't agree with what you said. But why did you say it? How do we get you to a place where you learn from it? If you empathize with other human beings in a filios philosophical sense, the way of love,

At the end of the day, those things stop becoming so problematic, right? And when you exhibit empathy and love with others, you'll find that you won't walk around with this life of quiet desperation as often. Yeah. I think for me, just the fact that we own so many businesses, it's like, dude, you're just, you know. Everybody makes a mistake. Yeah. It's like, bro, you know, you're worried that like, ah, don't cancel this guy. And oh, cancel that business. And oh, this is crazy. But how much of that do you actually think?

Does its job. Oh, I think Spotify didn't cancel Rogan. Yeah, but that's because he's so big. Because if he was average, he would be. How many small businesses go? I mean, you saw that two or three years ago, the NFL guy that owned like a contractor business, the referee that screwed up, they freaking killed his business because he screwed up a call, right? I still think these people are louder than they're impactful. I think you'd be surprised. I think you'd be surprised at that.

Well, let's move on from Rogan. Let's talk about something else I thought. It's a kind of absolute batshit crazy. I can't wait for this. Which is, okay, first of all, which brings me to this. Number one, let's move into the world of NFL players, which is going to be a nice segue to the next thing. Dude. Al Kamara? Kamara, man. Dude, it's, okay, let me ask you a question. Here's a question, and I'm going to ask you, Colt. How many times have you been out in Las Vegas?

Too many. How many? If you had to put a number on it, you just put a number on it. At least. No. More than that. Thousands. Thousands, right? Thousands. I was out three, four nights a week for a decade. Yeah. So we'll go thousands there, right? How many times did you beat someone senseless in front of a nightclub? I'm the wrong person to ask. Jesus Christ. Okay. We'll ask. Less than five. Let's ask. No.

How many times did you get arrested, Colt? I didn't get arrested because the cops saw me arrested. You're ruining my thing. How many times have you been arrested, counselor? I've never been arrested, but about eight years ago, I did leave a guy outside of a sub-destination. They didn't find you, though. Regardless of what I'm saying, I don't care if they found the body or not. The point is, it's just not that hard to come to Vegas, go out, have a good time, and not get arrested. I do it literally all the time.

The one time I did get in a fight was because somebody spit on girls, and then they attacked me. It was 100% self-defense. But that's because you're Batman, though. I tackled a guy in a grip at one time. That's because he's Batman. Did you? You know that whole thing where guys always say, if I saw a guy hit a woman, I would kick their shit?

shit out of him we were in the Griffin one night and a guy smacked his girlfriend and I was on the other end of the bar not that that's funny I'm laughing at you at that situation I'm laughing at the look on your face clarify that before I get cancelled did nothing and I tackled the guy into the booth but I was on the other end of the bar and everybody was just watching and everyone was just standing there no way

But no, you can get out of trouble, right? Like that's the same situation. Somebody spit on a girl and then the guy came to attack me. It's not hard. It's not hard. The thing people have to realize, this goes back to, we talked about this in previous episodes, right? Mm-hmm.

Your friends do not need to keep being your friends if they're going to not change with you. You know, like you cannot – You got to leave them behind sometimes. You got to leave them behind sometimes, and that's not a bad thing, but you're going to get this guy to lose millions –

in a settlement if he's lucky and hope that he doesn't get it. I don't watch. Hopefully he doesn't get it. How much of this comes down to the reckless nature of who we're talking about? You're talking about super athletes that go out on the gridiron. But at what point are you like, okay, this is like. I think what makes you a psychopath on the field, Alvin Kamara is one of the absolute hands down greatest football players I've ever seen. And he's a super nice dude.

Everybody I know in New Orleans that knows him says he's a great dude. But it's in your genes. I think fighting's in your genes. I grew up with family that they just loved to fight, and you will never get that out of it. I think you might just bring that out of people. Maybe. Every time I walked up and threw a show. You've got to be a certain level of tough to be an NFL superstar.

Yeah, and you got ego. And your ego needs to be through the roof. Now, you may be nice at football signing day, but in there is a seething cauldron of just rage. You know, you got to look at, hey, my money. Get a handler.

You better have friends. You have to have friends, I will say. Well, here's the best part, too. I mean, talk about not taking the Pro Bowl seriously. That happened at 630 in the morning the day of the Pro Bowl. Yeah. He got in a fight that morning, went and played in the Pro Bowl. He got arrested at the stadium. Caesars? Cromwell. Cromwell. Cromwell coming out of Dre's. Cromwell coming out of Dre's. Coming out of Dre's. Nothing good comes out of five-a-year. Okay.

let's talk about other things NFL players should not do. Can we agree at this point, there is a large, there's a, there is a sample large enough that if you are an NFL athlete, okay. Or an NBA athlete, stay the hell away from the Kardashians. It's not going to end well. Number one, look,

I don't know. Kanye has officially lost his mind, if you haven't seen his. Well, he was on the brink anyway. I know, he was on the brink. But Odom. It's like a succubus of talent and fame, and they just suck it out of you. Humphries. Look, Pete Davidson's going to last two seconds, because honestly, at this point, that dude's more Kardashian than the Kardashians. I celebrate him. He is just knocking through everybody. He is, he is. But yeah, I mean, dude, just...

Don't have a gun when you travel. I feel like this should be part of the NFL pro players when they bring the new rookies in. They should be like, look, guys, here's the deal. You need to get a money manager. You need to invest your money. Don't date a Kardashian. This is just what they should do. This is just going to end poorly for you across the board. It just keeps ending poorly for these guys, and they keep getting in line. It makes no sense. Don't take a gun with you. Wear a condom. Right, right.

Right, right. If you're going to a club in Las Vegas, get a couple of bodyguards. Yeah. And take an Uber. And take an Uber. Well, here's official proof that he's lost his mind. Kanye. He's just done. So Donda Sports, the new sports edition. Do you see who's now the president of Donda Sports?

Is it Trump? Is it Donald Trump? No. What athlete do you think Kanye has selected? Antonio Brown. Yes. Is the president of Donde's? Yes. You tag Antonio because there's a solid decision maker. There's a guy that's got it all put together that's going to really take that company to the next level. Can you imagine what one of their play dates would look like? Oh, my God. Do you think they talk to each other in English or is it like kids? That just made me so happy. Absolutely hilarious. You know, have you ever seen little toddlers playing? Blah, blah, blah.

They're on the same page, but they're not saying anything. Yeah, that's how it is. I don't get the whole. I mean, I feel bad for him. That guy, he's got an issue. He just spent $2 million on an owner's suite for the Super Bowl. Dude, crazy, crazy. Oh, you know what else? You know what else? I forgot to mention this. Colt, there's prayer for you. There's hope for you. Prayer for me? Because apparently, if you guys saw this, apparently you can compete in the Olympics, Colt. And how's that? Apparently you just have to pick China. Yeah.

Oh. Did you guys? Yeah. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. I know somebody that is ice skating for God. Okay, how do you feel about this? No, no, no. How do you feel about this? So there's a girl that was born in San Francisco, right? She is a freestyle skier, very, very good. Born in San Francisco, American citizen, mother is Chinese. She is competing for China in the Olympics.

Smart business. How do you feel about that? I think that happened with a lot of the runners too, right? Ben Johnson was running for Canada, but he was Jamaican born. But here's the point. Does Canada have a record for being massively oppressive against Jamaican runners? Because I'm pretty sure China's record on women isn't that great.

That's a hard one. All I see at that, because she's a pretty girl, is money. I mean, she's got modeling contracts and stuff. I'm sure they're like, hey, come and win us a gold, which she did, and we'll slide you a couple million behind the curtains or something like that. That would not be amateurish. No, but I guarantee something like that. NIL money. You know what you got to do is go golf with the Saudis. But they're pros. They don't need to.

Yeah. I hear about that. Deschambault and those guys were offered like $25 million to come play golf. With the Saudis? Yeah. Well, you see that happen with the birthday parties. I mean, J-Lo or Beyonce got paid.

very heavily like four or five years ago to sing at a birthday party. Wow. I got to get my level of talent up to that at some point. I might be able to get the knockoff version on Fremont. I think that's got us caught up with current events. Let's actually get into the episode here. We're going to talk about the book Atomic Habits. Look, man, if your life is not necessarily where you want it to be and things are not going how they are,

Your habits is the problem. You know, everybody sets goals, but, you know, habits are what really get you there. Discipline. You know, I think one of the best quotes I heard about that was, winners and losers had the same goal. Oh, for sure. I like that. Think about that. Think about you got two guys walking into a UFC cage. They both had the same goal to win the fight. But one of them probably exercised better habits, created a higher skill level that allowed them to win.

Unless now we're going to get a jujitsu. Well, not necessarily. You could have got a weird tumble where you got a Camaro and then moved it over there. Why did I pick UFC? I could have done anything there. I can see the wheels turning when I said this. That's not exactly true. It's a little bit of opposite flavor. There was a saying that all those colored jackets of the dead bodies that were left on Everest were high-functioning. Yeah.

highly motivated people as well. Yeah. No, I agree with that, but like people do dream boards and they just put their goals on there, right? Like you should really, if you're doing dream board, you should put a plan. No, no. But if you do a dream board, you should say, okay, well for me, it's going to take me to make this much money. This much money is this many leads. This much leads going to phone, phone calls. This main phone calls is this. And it should be a whole thing to your dream. People are just like, yeah,

You should, right? Like a mini business plan. It can be as simplistic as a dream board business plan. But, you know, too many people just come and say, well, my dream is to do this. How the hell are you going to get there? You got to plan. People think that if you just, it'll manifest itself by you thinking about it. You need discipline to create habits. Well, let's talk about that. So in the book, Atomic Habits, you know, it breaks down a lot of things. You know, the number one thing it talks about when you're trying to build or develop a habit or any habit you already have really comes down to four key laws is what it is.

And those laws are cue, craving, response, and reward. That's it. Everything you do in your life comes down to those four things. Let's talk about like chocolate chip cookies. What would the cue be? You'd walk in the house. You smell the Otis Spunkin' Meyer cookie. Say, I went back to Otis Spunkin' Meyer. You smell the Otis Spunkin' Meyer cookie cooking. You smell it. No pumpkin cookie. You smell the Otis Spunkin' Meyer cooking. And you smell it. That's the cue. All right. The craving is now like, oh my gosh, I want that cookie.

The response is you eat the cookie and the reward is you sit there feeling, oh, that was good cookie. And everything you pretty much do across the board works exactly the same way. So changing your habits is understanding how they work and really breaking them down the key way. So, you know. Totally agree. Yeah, I mean, what. If your rewards are not.

I mean, like I said, people always say, I want to be rich. You can be rich if you want to, but your cues, all that, the get to that rich, the reward might not be, I want rich, I want time off. And if you don't have all those lined up, then you become, you're not getting those goals, right? People want a lot more to do the other things they do than they are to do something they're not doing. Oh, sure. Like me getting in shape. I'd love to, but...

the reward and satisfaction. Let's talk about that. Let's let's talk. We're going to talk. We're actually going to talk about that. We'll break that down and how to actually get there. Um,

But yeah, the first thing, if you look at a couple of insights from this thing, small habits can change and produce outsized effects and improve or degrade the quality of our life. People don't realize the kind of the domino effect that you have when you do things. Like for example, let's say you're a cigarette smoker, which, you know, Jesus, God help you. If you're still smoking cigarettes, let me make a plea to you right now. Stop smoking cigarettes. Good Lord, just stop. They're bad for you. It says right on the pack. It says right there. Right on the pack it says they're bad for you.

And this is coming from, I smoke, I smoke cigarettes for a long time. And when I, in my, in my younger days and thank God, my wife, when I first met her, it was like, yeah, no, that's not going to happen. And that was the end of that. But, but yeah, if you're still smoking, it's just terrible for you. But if you stop smoking, right.

You don't even realize all the long-term benefits you're going to have. And let me just walk you through this, right? If you were to quit smoking cigarettes, how much, I don't even know how much cigarettes are now. They've got to be like six bucks a pack or something. In Canada, they're like $19 a pack. Oh, Jesus. All right. So if you're, okay, let's say you're a, let's go with a pack a day smoker in Canada. Here, let's say they're $8. $8. Okay, let's say you're an $8 a day smoker. I mean, now you're talking about picking up $365. That's a lot.

times eight. Yeah. It's about 3,400 bucks. Yeah. That's under 35. Now you may not have, now that may not, you may not look at that as that much money. Over 20 years. But hang on, no, no, no, no, no. But let's say you save, you save $3,000 a year now because you're not buying cigarettes. Right? So now,

you can afford a little bit nicer car. Maybe you're not as stressed out as you were because your bills are a little easier to pay. You don't really notice it, but it's there. Now let's figure out the part where you say like, maybe now you don't reek like cigarettes. Yeah. Then people that smoke, I don't care what you do. You reek like cigarettes. Awful. I don't care what you stink. I'm sorry. You do. Apology to anybody. Oh yeah.

I'm a huge cigar smoker. Like, I was at a cigar bar Saturday, and some lady was smoking a cigarette, and everybody in the cigar bar is, like, looking at her, telling people, get her out. But you don't realize that affects your business. You don't do business. Oh, my God. But that almost makes me want to start smoking cigarettes just to go to the cigar bar and clear all those guys because I hate those. Look, I don't mind guys. Or as a cigar bar. No, listen. I don't mind that. Cigar bar, fine. You're there for that. Yeah.

I hate the jackasses in the casino walking around carrying a cigar. Don't walk through a casino with a lit cigar. It's obnoxious. It's obnoxious. Just because you're here, it's not like somebody just had a baby. You don't have to light up a cigar. Are those the best cigars? But again, let's move it. So now you don't smell bad. So maybe, maybe you attract a better mate. Maybe you go to a job interview.

Because I promise you, I have not hired a lot of people that have walked in my office because they smell like cigarettes. Yeah. It's really bad if you don't. I just have not. Maybe now you get a better job. But these are all little intangible things. When most people are just thinking about the health benefit that I have if I stop smoking. Right.

You don't think about all the other little intangible things that can happen. They think about what they're losing psychologically. Yes. All they worry about is the crutch. The real quick crutch that happens when they are going to light that cigarette or not light that cigarette. And you know what you learn? The number one thing you learn after quitting smoking cigarettes? What's that? That you don't even like smoking cigarettes. No, you don't. You're addicted to a drug that's...

- Right. - But it's not even that. No, no, no, I don't think that-- - It really is. I think reinforcing a drug all the time, you think, oh, this is what's relieving my stress, this action, this habit, this behavior. Oh, I'm social, I need to go out and do this with my friends.

None of that is true. But people are, I think people, granted nicotine is addictive and I'm not saying it's not, but I'm also going to say that I think people are more addicted to the ritual of cigarettes. That's right. I eat a meal. Now I smoke a cigarette. I get a cocktail. Now I smoke a cigarette. I take a break. Now I smoke a cigarette. I get in my car. I take a cigarette. I get in the morning. I smoke a cigarette. It's this. The ritual reinforces the drugs. Absolutely. The ritual is there. And that's why I don't miss it at all.

and i thought i would i thought i had this big oh it's a part of my personality it's not that i don't miss it i don't even think about it think about it it doesn't even occur to me other than when i'm sitting at the bar and i'm that jerk at the person next to me at the bar oh i'm that person i'll never be that person but i do understand non-smokers i am totally that person next point is uh habits are intertwined with their personal identity now what i mean by that is

You based on who you are as a human probably has a lot to do with the habits that you keep. For example, if you are someone that is Mormon, you avoid caffeine, you avoid stimulants. You try to if you are someone that is Muslim, you pray several times a day. A religion, people that are religious have an overwhelmingly impact on their life, on their personal habits and the things that happen.

So, when I went back to this in the book and I read this part, and really it was based on religion. If you are someone that tithes, it's just part of who you are, and it's people that tithe tend to be more caring about others, and it just becomes part of your habit and part of your ritual.

I am not an overly religious guy. I am spiritual, but not church-going religious. I mean, I like church. I grew up Catholic. The nuns maybe beat that out of me a little bit. Kids go to Catholic school. But yeah, I am spiritual. I mean, I believe in God. I'm all about it. We go to church. I like going to church when we go, but I'm not. I don't feel like I have to be in a church to be spiritual, if that's a good way to put it. That's exactly where I'm at. But when I say that, I also started thinking I don't have a lot of

on my daily routine that are brought about by religion. Like I don't have...

a daily prayer moment. I don't have any, yeah, I don't have anything in my, in my life. Do either one of you guys have anything based on religion? So there is, so I'm not religious either. If I, if anything, I actually once in a while go to a Buddhist monastery in town, like a hour meditation. Okay. And I like, I like yoga. I like those times. It's good to, you shut your phone off. Unplug. And you literally sit there for an hour. It's not religious, it's not doctrinal, but it's a practice. Yeah. Right. And there's this really great YouTube video called atheism 2.0.

And it's this guy that gives a breakdown of all the sort of things that atheists miss, right, in religion, that religion provides.

ritualistic behaviors right the ritual of a moon coming around that cycle of a harvest celebration sermonizing listening to somebody with pure attention as they speak now who that is we get it from podcasts we get it from audiobooks yeah but i will sit and listen to somebody who's learned it on a topic right and that's a part of sermonizing and that's something that gets missed

So church and religion and all these things have positive benefits. They have negative benefits, which aren't the point of this conversation, right? No. That's not steer into it. Let's not steer into that part. Let's not steer that far. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a mistake that people have made, right? So culturally, gatherings...

being aware of other people, things like tithing, things of being grateful for what you have, moments of reflection. Those are very positive things that it behooves everybody to build into their own life in their own way, but as a habit. - But I think it's not just about religion though, in this one, your personal DNA. I think if you look at, for example, why did I ever smoke cigarettes? Why did that even happen? And the answer is because I was in the service industry.

but he did that. And the service industry itself. Yeah. And the, and the service, I had a fire guy once because I got him smoking weed outside. He was like, he was standing there arguing with me saying, well, they get a smoke break. Why don't I get a smoke break? That's I'm laughing. Mike, Mike, Mike Duda in St. Louis, Missouri. If you're listening to this, buddy, I still think about that. And I still remember your name because of it. It was a solid argument back then. Um, anyway, uh,

Jesus, but it's true, but that tribe, but that tribe that you're in. Right. And,

That's why, because that's what everybody did. So if you don't like a lot of your habits, if you don't like a lot of the things that you're doing, maybe stop and take a look at your tribe. Because maybe your tribe you're surrounded with is feeding a lot of those bad habits, is feeding a lot of those things. And if you're not getting where you want to get, maybe it's part of that. Show your friends. Yeah, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be back in a second. We're going to keep discussing the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. And yeah, probably what else is going to get us canceled. We'll see. We'll be back in a minute.

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 have things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.

Back from the break, we're talking today. Welcome back to The Power Move. Talking today, and again, I'm going to remind you again for part two as we go into this, whatever you're listening to us on, man, Spotify, Apple, whatever podcast app you use, give us that little like, like, a little review. It'd be awesome. I'd appreciate it. Every little bit helps. But again, we're talking about Atomic Habits, the book by James Clear. If you don't like where your life is, you don't like how things are going, you don't like where you're going,

man might be time to start taking a look at your habits and hopefully some of these tips today that we're going to give you will help you analyze some of the stuff you're doing and get it better so moving right in now we kind of analyzed figuring out what's wrong with ourselves and what we're doing that might be damaging ourselves i am kind of mad that this is olympic week yeah we're just going to gloss over that i already said no we already said you could have just gone and done something for china we talked about it already i could but winter's winter olympics is way harder than no you think so

100%. Oh, I think you would have been fine in the, what is it? Did you see that? The luge? Why couldn't he be in the luge? People died.

You know, I actually. We strap him to it and send it down. I almost went to. A bobsled competition? Dude, those guys are like 6'4", 240. They're middle linebackers. Yeah, they are. And they run 4'3". Those are fast. What about when you're one of the guys that just gets in. No, on the skeleton. We're strapping to that thing. I almost went to a tryout for that. My brother was on a ski team. We're on to something. I'm more and more convinced that Colt may be on to something here. Yeah. Because the bobsled does all the work.

Yeah, but you got beat fast and big. I'm kidding. Those guys will fight you. I'm pretty sure I can beat up every equestrian out there. Anyways, I was looking at it's on NBC. The peacock is the peacock, not the greatest male version of a species. Chris, like a bad name, a better name, a better male version of that woman. Well, first, I can't go lion.

Does nothing. Yeah, nothing. Yeah, they're the worst. But have sex and come steal the food of the women that got caught. Best male version of a species. I think a lot. Male lions got it pretty easy.

No, he's saying just rock and roll. What about the mating habits of the blue-tailed skrouse? Colt, have you ever looked into the blue-tailed skrouse? That was number six. That mating dance was spectacular. You think I'm kidding. That was number six. Look at the blue-tailed skrouse mating dance. Okay. All right. What are we talking about? Oh, yeah. We're talking about habits. That's right. That's right.

- Just in case you were wondering if I didn't know what my favorite mating dance was. - It was the Pete Dunst dance. - I have to look that up now. - Number three, people that want to break a bad habit may wish to use a commitment device.

which is a preventative measure that limits future actions. Now, we have done this before when we did the Fit Club, which we never did at dinner. We should, but it worked. Where essentially, you know, we talk about all the time that you will run further, you will run faster away from pain than you will towards pleasure. So if you want to do something to monitor yourself, accountability is huge in developing new habits. I mean, get an accountability partner, find somebody else that wants to accomplish the same things you do.

Get together and say, look, every time that I don't do what I'm supposed to do, I'm going to give you $10 or whatever it is. Have a negative consequence for not doing what you want to do. I think that's perfectly acceptable. I think that I was a pretty good accountability buddy. You were? I had to put $0 in that kitty. You did. We worked out in Egypt. That was strong. We worked out in Egypt. In Egypt. I didn't join.

But do that whole process through everybody. There was, I mean, guys like Gordon, whatever, put my money in the kit, whatever. I'm not working out today. I'm like, why wouldn't you get up and walk for 15 minutes and just go count it? Just to not have to do it. Because I don't want the W. I don't want the L, I want the W. Well, I think the biggest one, the biggest one right now, and if you haven't done this, I think this is a good idea, is...

Every single app phone, I don't know, Android maybe, I'm not sure, but every single phone has screen time limitations where you can set limitations on how long you can be on certain apps. I know on my kids' phones, they're all limited. I'm just not going to do the 12-hour staring at the screen thing. I mean, especially if you have kids that have phones, do that. Do that for them today. Set up some parental controls. Limit how long they can stare at YouTube. Limit some of these things for them. I promise you, it is a gift that will pay off.

It's amazing that people, they are so addicted. I watch people flip over on Instagram. They're looking at the same shit they looked at five minutes ago. I sit there and... It's a habit. It's a reinforced habit. It is. It's a dopamine. It is. It's a bam, bam. I have found myself... And I was doing that. I have found myself at times sitting on the couch scrolling compulsively.

Like I can't put the phone down. I'm screen time too. I'm screen time myself because I didn't realize how much I was doing it. I turned that into like I got on Twitter is an amazing thing if you use it right. There is a real estate Twitter forum group and I'm telling you this thing is

you learn more in a weekend with this group than you would in an MBA class for real estate. Like there's certain ones like that. I I'm on my phone, like reading stuff, but yeah, you get on, I like a year ago. I'm like, the hell do I keep looking at this? The same damn pitchers, looking up real estate and how to improve in your profession and all that stuff. That to me,

I think it's obnoxious where we give virtue to paper books, right? We think that it's okay to sit down and play. My son plays three hours of chess tonight. No, that's excessive doing. Your son is a savant. Yeah. But my kid plays three hours of Minecraft tonight or whatever. Your kid's an asshole. Your kid's a lazy sack of shit. The kid playing chess, you're still playing games. Yeah. Right? So I don't buy into the whole...

knowledge needs to be from a dusty tome. It can be your Twitter and you can spend as much time if you're learning and improving yourself. Yeah, but I'll say this though too. Even, you know, we had the issue with my son last week. We got in trouble so he lost his electronics.

And, you know, dude, he is such a better dude when he's not plugged in, man. He's just a better human being. My oldest son went that way. I like being around him more. He's more engaged. He's more motivated. I mean, like things that I haven't seen, like musical instruments got busted out this week. And I was like, oh, yeah, dude.

Right on. Great. You know, just something, you know, it's amazing because they get so addicted to it. It's terrible. So limit your kids. But having those things that are good. But again, setting some sort of consequence on yourself if you don't perform your whatever your new task is, is good. Now, let's get more in the process. And I like this, too, which is one of the problems with Western society is we are so caught up in instant gratification.

Everything is incidents and incidents. If you are a, if you are a heavy person, you didn't get fat one day. I did not like to, I like, I have a countdown on my phone right now. Cause we're going to Cabo for my birthday and I have a countdown on my phone. I know exactly how many days to relieve, to defat myself with my weighing on it and how many days. And every time I go to eat or look at any food, I look at that countdown. I'm like, bro, I got 51 days to make weight. I got problems. You know, I gotta do this. But,

It didn't take me one day to get like this. This was a steady, you know, your bad habits add up. And I think a good way to look at it, what people understand is we're so caught up in instant gratification, you have to understand that you didn't get in the predicament you're in overnight. You're not going to get out of it necessarily overnight. And little changes either way will guide you to where it is. And how you determine the quality of a habit, and I thought this was really interesting, as you're analyzing the things that you do as you go along, how you analyze the quality of a habit is if it has...

Quick if a short-term quick good good good, but long-term bad. It's a bad habit most good habits have short-term Challenges, but long-term benefits long-term benefits, you know You're not gonna get in shape unless you go to the gym every day That might be a sacrifice you have to make you can't eat ho-hos or whatever else it is But man if you sit around any cupcakes man that instant good. Well, that was great. You know, it's so funny You talk about building up on habits. You're 100% right?

I prefer actually eating good food. My wife's an angel. She'll prepare good food every night. So we have a lean protein, asparagus, all that stuff. I feel a lot better and I start to like that food more. The more you expose yourself to good food, you're going to crave good food. The more you go to the gym, like I was in jujitsu this morning,

And I was sitting there thinking, sometimes I get up and I don't want to go do it. And I'm sitting here thinking about the privilege that I have. I get to. To be able to go roll around a jujitsu. I had a great class. Learned a couple techniques I've never really used before. I just felt so good about it. This isn't a sacrifice. No. Well, the thing is, it happens. But it's how you talk to yourself. I mean, again, that's why I love a really quick change you can make in your life. If you want to make a huge impact in your life, is change the word have to to get to. Yeah.

oh man, I said, I have to make all these calls. I have to go prospect. It's like, dude, I get to, I'm not going to Walmart to stand there and ring people out. Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. While I'm soullessly losing my life for $14 an hour. You get to do those things. You get the opportunity. You know, you get to go to the gym where there are people with screwed up discs or backs or can't, they can't do that. That would give anything. That was always one of the problems that I had, you know, when my mother-in-law was living with

us, man. When my wife and my mother-in-law, God bless her. Yeah.

But she just does nothing man. She just wants to sit there and watch television And when my dad was going through his final days and he was laying in those bed and he couldn't get up I he would have given anything just to be able to get up and just go outside You know what I mean? And I had to sit here sit there and watch her sit in her room and watch murder shows and waste her life and I was like, bro They just it made me resent her so much because of that so the things that you may be looking at is you have to go do is

You get to go to him. Other than leg day. I'm not going to preach about leg day. Wednesdays are your Wednesdays. You got to look at your business the same way as you're looking at your weight loss, right? Like you start cold calling. I had somebody go, I cold called the whole week, nothing. Okay, well. A whole week? Yeah, I'm sitting there like. 52 of them in a year. Yeah, I'm sitting there like, yeah, and if you went and worked out for a week, you would see zero. Nothing.

You'd gain weight. Which I have this week as I'm starting. But no, and that's it. So business and weight loss, like it'll take three, four months before you start seeing results of stuff. It might take three years of, I mean, you look at the Gortons, right? Like that took five, six years. Yeah. To break into that. Well, not only that, but when people start in real estate, when they first get in, I always tell people the same thing, which is like, look, real estate is like a 10 speed in between gears. Right.

Like if you get on and, you know, and we give people a solid plan of process and really what this book about is about atomic habits at its core is falling in love with the process and not the goal. Right. Like,

Like if you love the process, if you enjoy the process, you have the right to be happy right now. The obstacle is the way. Yeah, the obstacle is the way. You don't have to wait until your goal comes to conclusion to be happy. You can be happy right now if you fall in love with the process. And when people come to work for us with our team, we give them a great process to follow. We give them a great system to follow. We give them everything they need to be successful, and all they have to do is pedal.

And as long as you pedal that 10 speed, as long as you just pedal it every single day on day like 90. Now people drive that people come and pop million dollar deals the first week, but that's not the norm. What I tell people is on about day 90, the gears are going to click. And if you just keep working consistently and keep pedaling, that bike will take you as far and as fast as you want to go. Yeah. I bet you got to continue. It is hard. That's why, but that's why people shake out. If everybody was ultra motivated, yeah.

It would be a lot more difficult to compete in a landscape. Let's be honest. If everybody did what you told them to do and they followed with it and they followed the program, every single agent, there's 13,000, 14,000 agents. 20,000 in Vegas. 20,000 agents in Nevada. What if every single one of them grinded it out and followed the process and crushed it? There would be 5,000 agents. Let's do the math. Half of them don't sell one house a year. So that's 10,000. There's 10,000 of that.

Of the 10,000, 3,000 are on the way out. Yeah. So that's 7,000. Of the 7,000, probably 4,000 to 5,000 of those do maybe one. So now we're down to 2,000. Of the 2,000, I'm going to call it...

We'll call it 1,000 of them do a living, a good living. And then the top 1,000, that's it. And then maybe you got 200 that are crushing. So you got 5%, so you got 1%. That's not true. Maybe you got probably 1,000 that are really killing it. So between 2% and 5% of agents. Nothing. What would happen, though?

If every single agent was just a killer and grinded out and followed the process. No, you know what happened? People would stop cancel culture and be over because instead of trying to tear other people's buildings down, everybody would be building the tallest one. That's what would happen. So those two things honestly go hand in hand, which is 100% why. It's just like the horse race, right? That's why you put blinders on a horse so they just focus on running. It's just one of those things where...

I don't think, I don't know if anybody is really, were you given the tools? Like, who gives you the tools? Comes from your parents? Like, how do you know? So here's the thing. This is what I struggle with all the time. A lot of times people say, oh, these people pulled themselves up by your bootstraps, right? Nah, not always so. There are a lot of people that don't even know how to look for bootstraps to pull themselves up. I think there's a lot of people that would if given the tools.

good direction or opportunity right there's a mentor somebody in their life that helps them see the way right there are prisons full of people that didn't have appropriate mentorship it didn't have people that really cared about them or somebody that was at home teaching these lessons right this is where your kids are advantaged this is where your kids are well i think that and i think i think also i think that's probably true i think that you know when i was in a restaurant business forever you know it was one of my buddies it was always like bro what are you doing

you know, yeah, you're, you're doing okay, but you're murdering yourself over this. What are you doing? You know? And that's what kind of got me out. And I think again, changing your environment, man, who you're around, I think is such a huge thing, which is why, like you look at simply Vegas, like why do we guard who gets to work here so carefully? Like, why do we not just let everybody with a real estate license and a pulse? Because no, no, for this reason, for this reason, dude,

you know, my whole tribe, like my whole life was hospitality. It's what I did. You know, running bars, only bars. What we always did. And so you're surrounded by a bunch of bar people. There's nothing wrong with bar people. God bless you. Love you. Love each one of you. You're all so much fun, but it wasn't really until, you know, I'd gotten out of that. And then even starting my own companies that we did. And then I got on the apprentice and then I got around on those people. And you know, you're living around 18, super high functioning, high driven type a personalities, uh,

Well, it dwindled as we were there. How many people were there? But still, the idea is the same. And all of a sudden, it's like, wait a second. Have I not been striving for what I've been striving? So I think a lot of it, honestly, is not internal. I don't think it's internal with people. I think it's who you're around. I think it's 50-50. No, no. I would say who you are around is more important than what's inside of you. Because I think...

And inside of you, if you're, I think, look, if you're, if you go to the gym and you're the fat guy and everybody's super fit, you suck your stomach in. Whether you plan on doing a thousand squats or not, you suck your stomach in because you don't want to be that guy. Plenty of rooms I walk into and I'm like, okay, there we go. There it is. Good. You do that. And I think if you're around a bunch of people that are succeeding, I think you'll be surprised at what you're finding yourself.

It's true, but like I said, I'm a nature-nurture hybrid kind of guy. I do believe that people are kind of the way they are. You have a personality type, right, that won't be affected. So you would have bet against Eddie Murphy in training places? In training places. You would have bet against him? I would have fully won that bet. You know Thomas Hobbs? He had that old, give me, I think it was Thomas Hobbs. Yeah. Please, somebody fact check me. Yeah.

Give that poor man a 10 pence and a top hat and you'll see a completely different animal. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Give somebody, you know, an opportunity to be in this world. That's why everybody strives for that world. They know that I think at the end of the day, if you're around it, it's going to have a multiplier effect. So people crave it so much. That's why we have a Tinder swindler out there who can make people feel like they're going to get to enter this world, right? Yeah. I need to watch that. I turned it on, fell asleep. But no, I agree. Maybe it's not 50-50, but...

You need to have mentors. And if you are somebody that when you don't, if you're young and you, you have family members that maybe are, you know, government workers or work for this system and you don't want that, you can't find that within your family. So go find a mentor that's in that to drive you towards that and show you the way. But I agree when you're around people, you

people with money are like, God, I need to make more money. People with, when you're out of shape, same thing. That's why I love the real estate business. Give me your tired, your poor, your hungry. Give me whatever you got. Give me any education level. Give me what it is. If you've got a certain amount of panache to you, you got a certain amount of personality.

You get with the right people, you can make it in this business. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can absolutely... There is no... The barrier to entry is as much as you. You are your own barrier. You don't have to be big. No. You don't have to... You just have to be... You just got to... You have to have a personality. Yeah, that's it. You just got to have something about you that shines a little bit and the willingness to earn. And I've seen people... Man, I've seen this business change the lives of so many people, which is why, honestly, I love it so much. It's... You know, people ask...

you know, why do you still have a team? Why do you do that? Because at this point with all of the other crap we have, I could have gotten rid of my team years ago, but I love it because that's the closest that I am on a day-to-day basis of developing others and changing lives. Right.

And that's what I love. And that's why I keep that. So, but let's talk about new habits. So how you talk about a new habit, even in themselves affects its implementation. Again, we just talked about, I have to, versus I get to, I get to do this. If you thought a new habit, like for example, if you were like, I want to get more sleep,

- The idea-- - Get an Oura ring. - Yeah, but I'm saying, no, but I'm saying if you're like, "My goal is to get more sleep." The idea of that turning into reality is very slim and none because there's no real process in that statement. Now if you say, "My goal is to get another hour of sleep a night, "so I'm gonna start winding down every day by 9:30," that's gonna give you a high probability of actually turning then into something, of actually turning into success. And you've gotta create a relationship with your good habits

And you've got to create a bad relationship with your bad habits. You've got to be very real and understanding that as good as frozen Nutter Butters are, and really should have been my number one cookie last week. Because if you've ever had a Nutter Butter, you put one in the freezer, it's a whole other level. Oh, yeah? It's still overrated. Yeah, and we're talking about the worst part of this was creating a good environment in a minute, which my wife is against me daily when it's come to make weight, as there's two things of frozen Nutter Butters in my freezer right now. But no, yeah.

It as good as that is I got to understand where that's going I mean that you know that you know being out of shape leads to those times We've all had in the closet when you're standing there and like all of your clothes are on the ground in the closet Cuz nothing looks right on you when you're like my clothes are all terrible. No, dude. You're fat That's why everything looks bad on you. That's why it's And we've all done I don't know anybody that probably hasn't done Where you walk in and just like nothing is right today. Nothing looks good. Nothing. Nothing is gonna work and

And all of that leads to those moments. So I've, you know, you got to start attaching like,

Like my nutter butter habit with that. Like I don't want to go in the closet and not have anything to wear. I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to see the pictures for my 50th birthday when I'm showing out, you know, the GDP of a small third world country for this event and then look at the pictures. Like I don't want to see these pictures because I look like I'm fat in all these photos. I don't want to do that. To me, it's more important. Like, you know, we're not going to Mardi Gras this year because of how dangerous this is in New Orleans. And I'm super disappointed about that.

But on the flip side of that, I'm thinking I'm also not going to do a four-day Cajun food bender, which I would have. I have never come back from that trip less than 10 pounds ever because it's just not possible to do so. So in my opinion, that's kind of like something I'm really upset about, not getting to go to Mardi Gras.

I'm like, ah, you know, it's okay because I won't do that. It'll keep me on my track to get to my big goal, which is to look as good as I can on my actual 50th birthday, which is coming up in April. Speedos, right? To your other point, though, too, what helps in all that process is having your tribe help you out, being accountable by making open public statements about it.

yeah right if you if you put it out there yeah that's going to reinforce that whole process too but at the same time though you don't be one of those people that talks about it be about it i mean there's nothing worse than people that always talk about what they're gonna do here's what i'm gonna do so i'm gonna do you know don't be that person if you if you have ever told somebody you were gonna do something and then you didn't do it just stop telling them stuff just start doing stuff don't don't

Don't be that person. I'll never tell them again. No, but what I'm saying is once you do put it out there, though, like if a couple starts talking around other couples about them getting a divorce, their likelihood of divorce is very high. Right. Right? Like if you... Oh, because it's out there now. Because it's out there. So when it's out there, all of a sudden, if you do care about what people think about you and you say, I'm going to do 75 hard.

John Cole and I are, we're going to do 75 hard. We put it out there and you publish it on your face. Everybody goes and puts it on their Facebook. You are probably at a greater likelihood of high motivated people to actually follow through. If the shame, the feeling of not doing it is now you have to face public reprimand and consequences for not doing what you said you

Nothing worse than, nothing worse than. Sometimes you gotta let, let your, your tribe know what your, your goals are, right? Like my wife, I'm like, I need to lose weight. So please don't buy that crap. Yeah. You know, and she will. And she'll, she listened to you. Uh, no, no.

My wife's like, you need to have some moniker of self-control. Why should it affect everybody else? I'm like, fatty? I'm the only one that eats Oreos. Yeah, my wife will at least like, so we've cut out because like I said, January is where you start to cut. You bulk all year, December then, and I mean like intentionally. Is this year-round? Are we supposed to only do that for you? You're supposed to stop after that?

I thought you'd bulk till the end of the year. But then January you cut. So we started cutting out a breakfast. So she'll make shakes in the morning of...

you know greek yogurt spinach chia it tastes good yeah sure of course it all tastes very good so she's willing to do that so i have a very helpful partner yeah well and like and like you said you feel so much better when you eat better you don't you don't realize how crappy food like again it gives you the instant like you eat that wendy's burger and the fry you're like oh so good and then 10 minutes later you're like i'm exhausted i don't know why this is so strange this is i've

Yeah, this is so weird, but when you eat good, you know, maybe it's not as Instantly instantly rewarding is what you're about but during the day you feel energized you feel good you feel great and it goes on as it is A new habit is more likely to become ingrained if it's easy. You got to make it easy for you I mean I try to remove when I'm trying to develop a new habit on something I try to remove anything that's gonna come in coming in the way of that for me like example if

It is very important that I have a gym in my house if I'm going to work out. Because for me, I don't mind working out. I like working out. But just it's the process of getting to the gym and doing that, and life gets in the way. Like now, I get up, I come downstairs, I go to the gym. Nothing can get in the way of that. There's no side turn. There's no this. And other people are like, well, you can do that anyway. No, no, no. My phone was ringing this morning at 615 with a $400,000 problem I had to solve this morning.

Thank God it got solved and it was okay. But at the same time, I don't get a break. There's no quiet time. So you don't find that having a gym membership. See, for me, I'm a trainer. Not for me. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And it's the accountability of a trainer. Okay, that's better. See, that's a different thing for you. See, you have to hire. For you, that's your thing. That's what makes it easy. Yeah.

You're like, well, I have to go because I have to go because I'm paying this guy to be there. He's there. 100%. He's there waiting for me. I have to go. That's what makes it easy for you. So easy can be about convenience, like it is for me going downstairs, or it can be about another level of commitment that you can't get out of. Necessity. Which is what you've done. But make your hats somewhat easy. I mean, look, if you want to eat better,

buy better food. Have a plan. Have a system. Don't wake up with no food in your house and think, I'm going to eat better today. And you know, you can see leftover pizza and like, Kentucky fried chicken is the closest place to your house. You know, the probability of going there. So you've got to make it easy for yourself to achieve all those things and get that better food in front of you. And a habit takes what? 23 days of consistently doing it before it starts. What is that? What it would be? Well, I mean,

Yeah, Covey says I think it's like 27 days of consistency to build a new habit, I think is what it is. But yeah, again, I think it's just about- Do you think it's less than that? No, I don't know because again, I think it's about, I think if you look at it in the terms of trying to develop a habit that you don't like that just becomes ingrained in you, that's fine. But I think if you develop a process and fall in love with the process, I think you can do it much faster. I think if the why that you're doing it makes sense. But what happens to addicts?

Yeah. Addicts, they do this thing. They're in a different environment, right? Yeah. So they got three months at Betty Ford and they come out. They're healthy. Their skin went from green to back to bright. And they're exercising and they were reading books because they're in the bubble. They get home, start going on the same shippers that they were at and then falls apart because...

those things. So you have to permanently do a hard delete. Well, that's yeah. That can be simplistic as like, you know, we're not all on the same level of certain things. And you might have a buddy that's got a shitload of money that wants to go have two hour lunches every day or something like that. You have to remove people like that. So you don't get away from your habits. I mean, you cannot have people that are in different, you know, each

You just got to be careful. Right. Like just like an addict, you can't go out with the same people if they're not, you know, having the same goal as you sometimes. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's probably the most important part of this. It says environments can be designed to better support good habits. So yeah, you've got to design environment to foster that. I mean, you, you've got to, you got to set yourself up. You got to set yourself up for success. And again, like you said, coming out of rehab and going back down to the corner and hanging, expecting to hang out with your friends again is nuts. I don't understand how,

It's always so odd to me. My wife said this the other day. We were watching, I don't know, whenever she was watching, Vanderpump Rules or something, what it is. And one of the people who quit drinking and was hanging out dating somebody that still drinks, and she's like, I still don't understand how that works. I don't think it does. How difficult is that? If this person had a problem with alcohol and then there was this person, and this person is hammer time, I mean, wouldn't that become, it's either got to become incredibly tedious for the person with the issue. Or you have a designated driver and it's a bomb.

See, there you go, Chris. It's not a have to, it's a get to. There you go. It's a positive and light. And I'm not, look, if you're listening to this and you're somebody that is sober, God bless you. And I'm not saying whatever, man. I think that's awesome. It just seems to me that, again, being in a good environment and being in an environment that,

Is pushing you towards your goals or supporting your goals or not tempting you to go back over it is so important I mean maybe I guess you know what you know what it is. I digress I'm gonna digress look at this look how quickly I educate myself quickly. That's I'm going back to smoking I

Because I don't even, I mean, dude, because I got a lighter cigarette next to me. I could care less. I don't even think about it. So my guess would be at a certain point, if you don't drink anymore, you haven't drank in years, you don't even think about it. I spent a majority of my life not drinking. Yeah, I got to believe. Yeah, see, look at that. I educated myself in one fell swoop. I was really in my 20s before. I was too. Because in Canada, you could drink early and I was stubborn.

and all that like you know and it just was like i'm not doing that whatever they're like quinceaneras and uh what do they call it hammered get hammered like here's 15 17 angle yeah your environment's everything and i know a lot of people that are sober and they have to be with sober people to keep where it's at and but there is to a point like but everybody's different everybody has stronger mentality than others i want to ask you a question though this is something that i've always thought was

Kind of really high level as a concept, right? So you, now again, I may be completely full of shit on this one. Ultimate discipline is not quitting drinking. Ultimate discipline is to have a drink and go home. See, I think drinking is a bad example because I think people have, I think certain people react chemically with alcohol in a way they shouldn't. I'm not certain. We all know people that have drank. We know people that are drinking right now that you're like, bro, that guy should not drink. You shouldn't drink. You shouldn't get drunk. At all.

No, but I'm saying one drink, but they can't, they can't because it's a chemical reaction with the way their Brian, their brain physiology works. I think, so I'm not necessarily a different habit. Cause I think drinking is a tough science on that. I'm actually not sure if it's Bob has a drink. He it's Bob lacks the discipline. No,

I think alcohol triggers the chemicals in Bob's brain differently than it triggers yours. Of course. I think the dopamine receptors are a little different in Bob. I think that's something that is very repeated in AA and alcoholics or whatever. No.

I have a disease, right? You hear that all the time. Again, I've heard other people and chemical experts and doctors of addiction. If you look at Carl Hart, if you look at all these things, a lot of that is unaddressed trauma. A lot of it is things that are outside of... I don't know that drinking a beer ever makes anybody so chemically fucked up, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. But it makes their mentality of what that back...

Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Are there people that you know that are the general size and general weight that you are? Right. That off of the same amount of alcohol that would make you just have ho-hum, I'm going to find. And they want to wrestle drunk. There's something different. Oh, God, I hate the one I was drinking. But there's something different in that. I think that people react differently. But what I'm saying is this. There's nobody who's drunk after a beer.

Right? So to me, I think that this is a great way to be. If you're an alcoholic and it causes you problems in your life, right, don't drink. Right? The ultimate discipline, though, of human mastery, right, if you get to that mental space where you truly master who you are and have the discipline or whatever, wouldn't it be something where you go, yeah, I have a beer socially every now and then.

Because I can say no to the second cookie. I can say no to the... A lot of people can't. A lot of people can't. When it comes to food, I tell you, I struggle. So do I, man. Stress eater. I am a stress eater. Like I have a piece of pizza. I'm like, I eat healthy a lot of times. But then like this weekend, ate a pizza. Dude, I probably ate a 16-inch pizza by myself.

And then the next day I'm like, why did I do that? I want to throw up. And then I saw leftovers. What did I have for lunch? It goes down to it. For me, for example, this morning, 6, 15, whatever it was, when I got the message that we may have a $400,000 problem that we don't, what do you think the first thing I did was?

Eat? Butter. Open the fridge. I didn't eat anything because I caught myself, but the very first thing I did when I hung up that phone was open the fridge. But again... And I was like... But do you see what I'm saying? Do you see what I'm saying though about... Not everybody's disciplined like that, right? Ultimately disciplined. Yeah. You can have a glass of wine. But I caught myself opening the fridge because I'm currently in the mood where I'm trying to get somewhere. My just...

If it was over this and I was just, like what I've been doing for six months, I would have grabbed something out of the fridge and just grab a string cheese and just eat, because that's just what I was doing. Now I'm catching myself because I have a goal attached that is creating discipline. So my standard just operating procedure was just stress, eat, stress, eat, stress, eat. - The wife and I like to have a glass of wine at night, so we're trying to cut that out, right? So Monday to Thursday, you're not drinking.

Yeah, just straight whiskey. It's harder for me to have a glass of wine than it is to not drink when I want to drink. It's easier to not drink at all. Oh, I agree with that. Easier. I agree with that totally. Than it is to have a glass of wine and not have a second. No, I have to get a dinner tonight at Hank's. I'm drinking water. I already said. I'm not even going to because I don't want one. I'm just because I got a lot to do tomorrow. Because you've made a decision. Yeah. The problem is when you open a door.

The problem with discipline is the door that gets opened. If you're stuck on a thing where you, I go to the gym at 7, every day at 7, all of a sudden something happens where it's 8.30, well now the door is open, you've passed 7.

Yeah. That's the hardest part of being disciplined is to go, I'm not throwing the baby out the bathwater here. Yeah, yeah. It deviated from my hard line plan. But I'm so disciplined that I'm going to bring it back in, you know, on this next round or whatever. And I think discipline is everything. And I think that we're all pretty disciplined people. But we all know a lot of people that are not disciplined. Amen. I could rattle out probably –

75% of people I know are not that. I know Colt. I've seen you with your ammets around Japanese vending machines. Oh Jesus. Not good. All right.

All right. What you can buy in there is amazing. And with that, we've come to another end of another fabulous episode. No, guys. Again, if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you like and subscribe. If you're watching this somewhere else, give us a review wherever you are. And as always, man, tune in next week because remember, what was I going to say? My brain just scrambled. If you like the show, tell a friend. If you hate it, tell two because it doesn't matter if we're talking good or bad about you. What's it matter, Colt?

As long as they're talking about you. As long as they're talking about you. The peacock guys. See you next time, guys. 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 where we'll share any links that we have things we talked about on the show as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.