Why It's So Important to Live an Intentional Life (And How You Can Do It, Too!) EP 68
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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 for another episode of The Power Move.

i'm your host my name is john cavern welcome back as always to an episode of the power move with me to my left the one and only bulgarian mongoose mr colts what's up everybody we need to get him like method man where he's got 14 names that's like just hot nicks aka johnny blaze be like it's a bulgarian mongoose aka the polo assassin

No, that's how it was with, what was it? Old Dirty Bastard? No, no, no, no, no. It was Thomas Hearns. Yeah, like 10, the hit man, the inner city cobra. Like 10 different nicknames. But of course, you're the counselor. You just have the one. The counselor. Chris Connell, everybody. Welcome to the Power Move. This is the podcast where we talk about life, how to get better, how to do things, how to improve things.

And today, continuing our series, hopefully you're checking this out, where we talk about little topics from the upcoming book, Escaping the Drift. We're going to talk about how not to get cut off by every brand available. Well, yeah. How not to alienate yourself from $600 million. No, no, no.

Okay. Well, today we're going to talk about, yeah, a little bit with that, which is living with intent through critical analysis, which I think not enough people do well. It's something I struggle with in my life. And I guess Kanye could be considered a walking, talking kind of example of that. Do you think he thought further than two seconds to do this? I don't think he thinks further than his front nose. No, I don't think he does either. I think there's certain things that maybe you can come back from.

I don't think this is one of them. No, one of your, my, one of my Mel Gibson does not, but even Mel kind of made a little bit of a comeback. They'd make a comeback. But here's my point. My point is this ready. This is my, this is my conspiracy theory. If you will, I'm ready for it. I think Kanye wanted to get himself canceled. I think he was sick. I think he's sick of being in the public eye. I think he's like, I have more money than I ever want to spend. I think I'm just done. So I'm going to say some insane, crazy shit and,

Everybody is going to drop me and I will just be free to do whatever I want to do. John, if that was Colt, if that was you, if that was, I don't know, find me a very famous person that has all this money that one. No, no, no. He's said crazy shit for years.

It's just he's gotten to the point where he lost a lot of the cachet. He's over time denigrated his own brand because he, first off, at some point you look at him walking in those galoshes and you just go, we've all jumped the shark. It's too far. This is the Balenciaga. The Gap trash bags. $1,000 Crocs or whatever. You jump the shark at some point and you lose the cachet because you are no longer cool. You're not putting out cool music. He had a huge amount of cachet because he had so much

valuable, good content. Like when he put out Yeezus, uh,

Twisted Dark Fantasy, the preceding three, four albums were highly regarded, very good content that people wanted, right? It was cool. Then he was with Kim Kardashian, then he was all this, right? So he hit that point where he was given a lot of grace and you earn a lot of forgiveness in life if you've put out a lot of great content. If you're exceptional and you do all this stuff and it hits,

You can take swings and misses. You can be Bruce Willis singing the art of Brutus. Remember that album Bruce Willis put out? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You vaguely, yeah. But you don't... Played harmonica on it, I think. That doesn't define his career because he has content outside of that. But the problem is you do get to a tipping point where you...

lean the mixture too much and the engine starts buttering. Yeah. You know, and if you don't come back with Yeezus two or Don to whatever three and you don't adjust the mixture again, then your engine sputters. Okay. So, so how much of that is, is Kanye losing his cache and how much of that is the Kardashians just succubusing his, his skill and his talent. Ask Lamar. Yeah. I mean, those chicks are on

undefeated man i mean it's undefeated listen 12 and 0 they are they're like 12 and 0 i mean seriously i mean okay like you know they have the nfl rookie symposium where they go out and say guys seriously like you need to save for your family don't go out and blow your money don't get a ferrari day to get to your second contract invest some of your money do you think there's like a whole day now on dating the kardashians

Like just seriously, don't. Who's going to put it on? Like don't. The world loves it. Those men are sacrifices to the Mayan gods, right? You know, like the cornfields or whatever to make the baby's tears to make the corn grow. We're here as society going like, tributes.

We got to burn somebody in order to have, so they can distract from there. Those people are legitimate billionaires now, Kylie, with her makeup and all this tertiary business stuff. And we're all fine letting it go as long as we taste blood once in a while. But, you know, it's just one of those things also that,

If it doesn't affect you, sometimes people look past a lot of things, right? The decision makers of Hollywood, of businesses, or all of that. Don't say it. No, no, no. No, I'm not saying it. I'm not going to say it. We don't have Adidas as a sponsor, but we would like to have Adidas as a sponsor. I would like to go on record saying that I have a two-year-old grandmother

No, no, no. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is how long do people get pushed off? For the record, we know that's not what you meant. No, I know. I was not going that. No, but my point is there's so much going on in life that people kind of just don't realize it. And then you'd start thinking, holy cow, this guy for 10 years has been saying stuff that should have gone.

But he had enough cash to stand out. He's welcome. He just now wore out his welcome. And now it's going to be a pile-on session. Oh, yeah. It's been 10 years. It's going to be trendy to cancel him. Well, it already was when he wore White Lives Matter a little while ago. I'm wondering why it was...

Yeah. Today. Or, or when he talked about what, that the African Americans chose to be slaves or whatever, he said something crazy like that. Like, yeah. Yeah. How did this guy not? I thought for sure that'd get him canceled. People go, Oh, well, you know, it's like, there's,

in life, here's the thing about women that I've, I've learned over time. And this is not when a woman's done, she's done with a guy. Oh yeah. Like, because it's my theory. Maybe I'm wrong, but a woman, a woman oftentimes in a, in a sort of a prototypical heteronormative relationship, a woman often looks to men who are a protector role. And that's just the way the patriarchy is currently set up, not for good or for bad or whatever, but

Once a woman has lost that feeling of like that guy is the guy I want to be with and truly lost it, that is over. There is nothing that you can do. It's just over. Nothing. Men will go back, right? As long as the... Well, they never got... Guys don't get pushed over the edge, right? Most of the time, they kind of cut it quick where women want that. That's our last resort. And they'll put up with some bullshit for a long time. But that moment and it's...

Day one, day two. When it's over, it's over. And I think Kanye was on that. It had nothing to do. He could have said. Society was just forgiving him. No, it just. He could have gone after any type of class, anything, and it would have been over the edge. He was already teetering. That was a last. You could flip-flop anything he said, whether it's about Jewish. Maybe not the people that Hitler killed. And then to say to a German company, and you can't say nothing about it because you're German.

Yeah. Like I think, I think it's literally like, okay, let's see. I insulted my own people. Didn't work. No, no,

Well, he insulted everybody. John's theory makes sense. And then they're like, where can I go from here? The only way you can rationalize this, John's theory, if he wanted to be canceled, now nobody would ever want to be canceled. But I mean, at this point, if it didn't work, like if he didn't get canceled, at this point, it's going to be like, okay, the Jews didn't work. You know who's unfairly prosecuted? Child molesters. You're like, where do you go? Free child molesters. But he has. He's pretty much offended everybody if you look.

back over the last 10 years. Not like funny, like a standup comedian. It's just like boring. He truly believes it, right? Like that's what's boring. But I think, you know, we can all agree on what we want to talk about today is critical thinking in your decision making and your understanding. And I think where a lot of people run into trouble or what holds them back is they don't critically think very well through a situation or they don't look at a situation for what it is.

And I think that is a skill set that a lot of people really need to develop. So I wanna talk about just some different things through that ideas, through those ideas. Now, first of all, I'll talk about a lot of people don't understand and downplay their success

is sometimes really, really because of those around them. And this is a mistake I see a lot of people in companies and say middle management make when they start to believe their own hype, not realizing that their strength is really coming from someone behind them or underneath them. They don't appreciate their teams in the way that they should.

The Russell Wilson effect. Yeah, the Russell Wilson effect. I mean, when I was coming up in the restaurant business, it was funny when I worked for the corporate restaurant chain. I had a guy that worked for me named Dave Levins, and Dave kind of went with me everywhere I went. And I always said when they would move me to a different place or take me to a different place, I said, I'll go, but I'm taking Dave.

And eventually he ended up getting his shot. I'm happy to say he was done very well for himself later in life. He owns his own restaurants that do well. And so he's done well. But the point being was I was always very cognizant that my success was innately tied to his ability to fill in the holes

He was better at some things that I was, and I knew that. So, you know, I think that's about being honest with yourself where your blind spots are or where you lack skill and understanding that leaning into the people that surround you is sometimes there because a lot of people just try to bowl their way through those blind spots. And I think that's a recipe for success. Jack Welsh talks about that in his book about leadership and management. He said his greatest ability was to find those people smarter than him. Yeah. To have surrounding them. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, it doesn't even say, I mean, smarter than you. He says it's smarter. What he meant was more adept at whatever task. Yeah, they're terrorists. You know, that's Jack Welch in his own ways. He was a bold, confident man, but he was self-deprecating. And I like leaders that are self-deprecating, you know, amongst their, like, you know, when I'm around my paralegal and we're talking to a client, I said, well, the boss, you know, whatever. You got to ask her. She's the one that knows it, you know. And, you know, because it's...

Makes you feel good too if you're, if the person that is in charge or who's hired you, right, defers to you and recognizes your value, you're also going to build up a lot of positive goodwill. No. I mean, for sure. It just, I think too many people just misjudge their own talents or more importantly, they

they just don't seek to surround themselves with the right people. They can compliment what they do to get them to the next level. I mean, there's an old saying that says,

If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go with others. And I think that was always one of the things that I was always able to do was go further because I was able to surround myself with others that fit in where it was. That are smarter than you. Yeah. As much as you say, oh, maybe not smarter, whatever. People are smarter than you in certain things. That's right. Right? Like that's not to bring them up again, but like a couple of months ago, Kanye goes on blast. Like I'm not listening to somebody poorer than me. Right. Right.

for gap. I know you're sitting there saying just because they got less money doesn't mean they're not smarter on how a design should be. A lot of people with a lot more money. We could do like a whole hour on Kanye. Is there anything? But that bothered me a lot because you should surround yourself with smart people. And I've always said that's what's wrong with our politics is we expect one guy to have all this knowledge of everything. Like, no, separate it out. Well, that's the power between like, say, a parliamentary system and a presidential system is the ability to appoint your cabinet.

- Right, so. - Yep, yep, yep. And I think also situational awareness, one of the things that drives me crazy with people is they paint themselves into a box. Like they just assume that because of their personal experience, there's no difference to what they do. - What do you mean? - What I mean is like, I'm poor because my parents were poor.

I am this way because I was raised this way. And I know that that is incorrect because if you look at some of the list, well, some of the best parents that I know had shitty parents. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, but, but rather than, rather than perpetuate that cycle, they chose to break the cycle. Have you heard that? That saying that you shouldn't,

you shouldn't seek to be a good descendant. You should seek to be an amazing ancestor. Yes. Like you owe your parents nothing. You should want your kids to be looking, you know, to be remembering you. I don't, I don't need to impress my, you know,

The generation before me, I need to worry about the generation after me. Right. Yeah. No, I think, well, I think people just get so quick to want to label themselves based on prior experience or what they didn't have or what they did have. And it becomes an excuse. Do you think they remember you as John the bridge builder?

exactly exactly well you can you can google that joke i don't know if we're gonna quite tell that that's why i just i'm not gonna tell that one on the old podcast colt's already trying to get his you know finish my statement on that i was not going where where you thought it was no but i'm saying if you're one of those people that has put a label on yourself based on previous experience i mean one of my favorite sayings is the past is like a paper book novel when you're done with it you throw it away and you buy a new one i don't even know where i picked

that up. I think it was a line in a movie, but it's always stuck with me. Like it doesn't matter how you were raised. It doesn't matter anything else, especially now, dude,

anybody that says like, I didn't have the money to go to college. I'm the money to do the wealth of human knowledge is sitting in YouTube. There literally is almost, you know, short of, yeah, short of something you have to have a professional license for. There's nothing you cannot learn from YouTube. There's literally nothing, nothing, nothing, but, but more to that point. When people say that to you, do you ever hear that in a context of,

I don't know that because I haven't gone to school or is it, I haven't advanced in my career because I don't have the paper. No, I, I, what I feel like is I don't even hear it in that context. I hear it in his, his,

people want to make excuses for where they are in life. They want to make excuses for where they are to a certain extent. And in that, what I'm saying is the thought process that you are stuck in a certain place because of circumstances that happened to you is more poisonous than the situation you're actually in the thought process that gets you there. Because that thought process is a prison that you're locked in. You can't get out of it.

And the only person in the world that has a key to that is you. Because until you see yourself able to escape your current situation and aspire to something more,

You're screwed. Which is all about surrounding yourselves with other success of where you want to be at, right? Yeah. Where you can sit there and see somebody else broke out that mold or whatever it might be. Have we talked much about free will? I mean, here and again, speak up, counselor. So the older I get, the less I believe in free will. I don't believe in free will. Okay. Here's what I mean by that.

I'm not free to go play like a most dangerous game and go hunt and eat a human. There's no part of me that could do that. I'm not free to go do that. I am. I am the culmination of all of my experiences, including exposure to teratogens in the womb, the genes that I was born with that combined all the experiences I've ever had up to this moment in time.

I believe that there are like choices that I may make depending on my day and hormonal balances and whatever. There are things I'll do differently within a set though. So,

To your point, when you introduce things to people that are positive, when you introduce information, when you introduce people that are going to sit here and consume this podcast, you're going to change your outcome based on basic deterministic principles that you've been, you've created new synaptic connections in your brain about how you view the world, right? The more things you consume experientially, the different the person you are.

People see free will. It's like, I'm just this free will person that I can make these random things if I want. It's like, no, you're not. You are literally the culmination of all your experiences. John, you're not going to go out and do a million things. There's a million things you're never going to do because you're not free to go do them. No one's preventing you from doing them, but you're never going to do them. So how free are you to do those? Well, I think, well, sort of, sort of, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to refute that a little bit by saying that I think at any time,

And anytime you do have the free will to just make a choice to do something completely different than what is within every fiber of your body. Cause I've done that. I've done that. I've said, you know what, man, I'm not happy with where I'm at right now. So it's like, have you ever seen the episode of Seinfeld where, where George was just like, everything I do is wrong.

So what I'm going to start doing is just going to do the complete opposite of everything that I ever do. Everything got better. Got a girlfriend, got a job with the Yankees. I mean, literally opposite George became like super happy. But the point is...

You do have the free will to make a choice that is completely outside of your comfort zone or completely outside of your belief system. Are you saying like you have less of an ability to achieve that, right? Like me, I'm not going to...

But being a question, right? Because I'm afraid of horses and genetically I'm afraid of horses. But you're afraid of horses, right? Is that what you're trying to say? But I'm not saying you couldn't be taught to learn how to like them. Or try it. But here's the thing. When people say, where does free will come from? And I always kind of viewed it as there's this Chris who's like just a biological entity. And then there's this me. And I just think these free thoughts. And I'm just so open to whatever. Then you look back on it. You go, every single thing is a culmination of all prior experiences.

Like the Chris Connell today isn't the same Chris Connell 20 years ago. And the freedom I thought I would have had then, I now recognize that I don't or do or would have made those choices, right? You're going to have preferences within a set. You're not biochemically the same all the time because you have different hormonal levels.

So you may do this thing, one thing. But are you ever going to go home and beat and murder your children? Well, no. There's literally nothing in your fibers that could do that. You have to act within the parameters that make up your psyche, that make up your mental health, that make up your biological health, that make up all these things. So you're not free. You can't just go out and do anything. Listen, I think everybody has a code of...

Ethics and conduct that does govern to a certain extent your belief system, which is why you know Some people put the shopping cart back some people don't right? Yeah, but that's probably because you had ethics you were raised a certain way You taught certain lessons you saw certain things So you are a culmination of all of the prior experiences of your life and what I mean by that No, but it's like but see the difference is I think that's like jordan peterson says I could I could choose

To leave to leave the shopping cart out. I choose not to because I want to live good It's like Jordan Peterson saying you a pacifist man is a weak man You have to be you have to have the ability to go to violence and the control to hold it down That's right, right But all of that though, there are people that don't have the control to go down and that's why they go to prison You could choose to leave a shopping cart, but have you out but do you leave the shopping cart? No, okay, so

you're free to do it i am but you don't choose but it's my free will you're saying mentally i could like i just think that concept is overplayed i think people overvalue and this is where this comes into the learning lesson the teaching lesson of this it's overplayed to think oh i'm just free to do all this stuff i'm not free to go do certain things i don't want to go and do all these things i'm free to and i never would so really am i free to go do it

Yeah, because it's a choice not to. It's one of those things. It's still a choice. Well, no, it's not a choice if I never do it. In the immortal words of the great Neil Peart.

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. But again, if you are, like I said, you're going to make choices within a set. I get what you're saying. I'm never going to just go quit my job and go be a pre-K teacher in Poughkeepsie, New York. Okay. Well, can we talk about some interesting choices? Let's talk about some free will interesting choices, which is this.

So last night at the Knights game. He bet on the Patriots. No, no, no. Last night at the Knights game, sitting behind me, I'm like texting Chris, is Toronto the equivalent of Arkansas? Yeah.

Because, oh my God, I had the funniest people sitting behind us. And this was, and it was like, I had the most Canadian hockey experience I think I've ever had. It's the equivalent of, and you said it was the New York, which is worse, which is funny. You said Toronto's like New York. Toronto's like New York, but you got to remember, New York is still surrounded by. Oh, yeah, I get it. By yonkers. But the people behind us, the people behind us, so I had these people behind us that were Maple Leaf fans. And they had a friend with them that they obviously came with that was an Oilers fan.

And I knew this cause he was wearing head to toe Oilers gear and he was rooting not so much for the Knights, but against Toronto. That's pretty solid. Right. And he was very loud and very vocal about it. And his friends were getting so mad and all I could think it was like that. Fuck you shorty. Yeah. Shorzy. Shorzy. Whatever it was, they would do. They were yelling each other when the guy got hurt last night, like went down.

No, this guy, he was, it was a very high rate. Oh my God. Get up. You bum. What'd you break your fingernail? This guy out. And it was relentless. He wasn't from like, like back.

Bay and Bloor Street. He wasn't from Charles. No, no, no. That guy was from Ajax and he just says he's from Toronto. Yeah, yeah, no, no. It's like the closest major city. Oh, God. It's funny how fans get so... Oh, my God. What do you think about people that wear other teams' shit to a sporting event? Like, you know the Yankees aren't playing, right? Yeah, yeah.

Why are you wearing a Yankees jersey? They're not playing. Well, I loved it because, like, dude, by the end of it, right, the Maple Leafs fans over here were like, we hate Vegas. I wish I could get a flight right now. This guy's like, yeah, get out of our town, you idiots. You lost $300 playing.

last night that's like 40 bucks canadian i just yelled like i mean it was they were literally picking a fight kind of with each other it was so funny we were just we me and gage were dying laughing at that which was which was a little canadian politics though yeah edmonton's a west coast

Right? Yeah. And when you talk about the South, not like in the North, the West, not like in the East. Not like the East. That's how it works. Because the population is all very concentrated in the East. Yeah. It's Ontario and Quebec. Yeah. So Saskatchewan, Manitoba, BC, Alberta, those provinces feel disrespected by the East and that their opinions aren't taken. It's valid.

because they can't vote out the East. It's like the Midwest. It's like the Midwest. If you're from Chicago and you're like, Oh, you know, those New York guys think they're so cool or whatever. So that's it. It was so funny, but you know,

Obviously, this guy had well thought out his approach last night to the game, which was funny. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Exactly. But I think critical thinking and where my life really got better was when I started living with intent and critically thinking through situations. And I'll give you some examples of some stuff, lessons that I learned the hard way, things that I didn't. One of which...

I was in a partnership a long time ago and it was a tech firm that I was a partner with. And basically,

I didn't, you know, truth be told, looking back at it, I could have done a lot more. This is right around the time I was on the apprentice and it was, you know, this is before social media and it was really bizarre at the time to have, you know, tens of thousands of people talking about you in chat forums. Oh, it was a really bizarre thing. Well, chat. Yeah. And it was constant and it was really bizarre and I kind of got sucked into it. So I didn't necessarily do the best job here, right? Holding up my end of the deal there at that tech firm. Anyway, I had a little bit of one of my best friends, uh,

was the main partner that brought me in. His dad and his best friend were the investors, right? And when we kind of started to go bad with me and Dan right before I took a buyout there, Dan had gone away on a trip or something and I was, and for some reason, I don't know why, like this is checkers thinking, not chess thinking.

Like, look, his dad and his dad's best friend are the major investors in this company. The die is cast. There's no winning this war, right? But I took it upon myself to send an email to the main investor like, I don't know what's going on with Dan. I'm a little worried about it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was not a well thought out move. It still ended up with me kind of getting bought out from the company and then Dan going on to great things. God bless. And I'm so happy for him that he did that and very apologetic. I didn't do well there. But

The moral of the story is not thinking through the situation. And so many people play checkers with decisions they make and not chess. They don't look at how this decision is going to affect that decision or this domino is going to make that one fall down. And they don't take the time to really explore their decision-making process. So I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about that.

You know, you're an attorney, so critical thinking is so important. And game theory. And game theory of how you walk through these decisions when you make them, how I do it and how we all do this. Because I think if you just get an idea of how...

successful people think, like the process that goes into it, really can help you on a daily basis. Oh, that's all law school is, by the way. When you talk about leaving with a piece of paper, it's irrelevant. Yeah. It's what it is, is how to think in a certain way. Law school is there to prepare you how to think.

And people, that's not, that is in a very practical skill-based way. It's not this ephemeral, like philosophy, right? When you say, how do you philosophize? What is good thinking? Well, you can fall into the pedantics. You can get into this, that. You're not necessarily good at it.

good thinking but with very strict regimented socratic method where you're responsible you have to go through this free-form discussion and debate where you have to question your own thoughts yeah and a law professor what they do is you have you know there's cases and so one day it'll be you know just follow along that's all law school classes are they follow along and you're up so when it's this you know um they'll ask you a question and then you answer it and

and say, well, what about this? What about this? What about this? And you're just keep answering the same question. And they'll say, well, why would it be this and not that? And you have to go, well, I don't know. Sometimes then you get stuck. Right. And then, or if you're wrong, they'll literally just go to the next person.

Yeah. So there's this huge social pressure of not looking like a moron. Cause you don't want to get clipped by the professor. Bad. Like you're just like, Oh my God. Okay. Mr. Connell, that's enough from you today, Mr. Smith. Well,

Well, no, hold on. Come back to me. Oh, my God, my ego. Yeah. Right. My ego is completely. Thank you for those thoughts. Yeah. No, but it's so you have to be prepared. And that's why everybody in law school is crammed and reading or whatever. They need to be prepared to answer those questions outside of just rote memory. Yeah. Because it's not rote. It's you have to interpret it. You have to. Well, I think one way or the other. I think, again, you know, when it comes to making a decision, I try to look at, you

I try to go out at least five steps, right? Especially, obviously, it's not which taco am I gonna order off the menu at Tacos El Gordo. I'm talking about when you're like, okay, I need to, I'm gonna fire this person, or I'm gonna change this plan, or I'm going to pivot to this arena, or I'm going to get in business with this person. Now, the problem I think most people make, and I've been guilty of it in my younger years, is,

What is the best case scenario? What is it? Wow. What's going to happen? What does the performance say? That looks great. Let's do this. Yeah. And here's the thing, man. And I'll tell you, I am a sucker. I dude, I get, I've been caught up in the, in the glitz and the flash. I've been caught up in the quick proposition, the quick dollars. I've been caught up in that man where I'm like, this looks great. I see this. Let's go for it. I only see the best case. I only see the best case scenario and you've got to stop.

and get rid of that quasi just completely rose-colored glasses thought process. And you've got to start thinking almost like the scientific method. You've got to break it down to, okay, what am I really working where? So for me, if it's a human being, if I'm dealing with a human that I don't really know,

I'm looking for people that I know one step away that have done business with this person. I'm trying to find somebody that I can vet them through that is going to, is going to stamp them and say, this is a good dude or whatever else. High character, high character, not even necessarily a friend, right? I always tell people don't, I wouldn't go after somebody's friend.

Because most people don't have the guts to talk bad on their friend, right? Yeah. Like you said, if you found somebody that's done some one-off deals or some stuff like that, they're more inclined to tell the truth about somebody than their best friend. Do you guys look at best-case scenarios? Because I never do. I mean, the only reason I'll do it if there is a best-case scenario. Yeah. You have to have a high end. You have to. For me, all of these things come down to this. Risk and reward. Risk and reward. That's all it is. And mitigating damages. Yep.

minimizing potential for loss. Well, that's that whole, you know, when you look at what production possibilities frontiers, when you look in game theory, when you look at all these things, it's culmination. So in the Harvard negotiation course, you go through these things and you set yourself, you know, high, low, what's my walkaway number? What's my, you know, whatever. And when you're in mediations and alternative dispute resolution is a whole process of this.

you can set a high low. I'm willing to take this. I'm willing to sell you for this. I want to give you for this. Uh, you know, yeah. And that's nobody wants mediation. Everybody's met a good mediation. Everybody should be late. Everybody should be, should be equally angry. Everybody should be equally angry when they walk away. That's a good idea. But yeah, no. So that's how now I make decisions for other people because I'm oftentimes put in a position to advocate as an attorney.

You people think you just go in there and start yelling at people and change the law It's like well the other side has an attorney to that knows the law what you need to be is persuasive Yeah, and you have to find solutions right the best attorneys out there can find solutions where? Everybody's better off for doing business or everybody's better off in the settlement. They will be without it Yeah, I mean But the idea is to stay away from a settlement by vetting the person right up front. That's right what you want to do and and

and and papering it yeah front just yeah jesus i got a call today and i'm not gonna get into it because it was a referral from a friend and they're like hey can you get me out of this deal i'm like well who got you into the deal she's like well me like with who well the seller like well did you have an attorney look it over did you have agents working on it no no

i just walked face first in this thing and just started signing and it's like what like what how do you have how do you operate like that and have the money to purchase commercial property

It's people think they're smarter than what they are, right? I'm smarter than this. I'm a better negotiator than my agent. I'm a, I don't need an attorney. And that's why I told some of the other, I had this talk last night. I go, you're nuts. I put, you're going to double. No, I did because they're trying to do stuff and they have not a clue. They couldn't purchase a car on themselves by themselves. They're left their dad's stuff and they're trying to do stuff to their current place right now. And I'm like, you're nuts. Well, that's,

It's going to be costly. So vetting the person. Yeah. Number one, you got to vet number two, but yeah,

Also, if you're dealing with a situation where you're going to do something that's going to affect somebody else and you don't know how they're gonna react You've got to take Stock in what you've seen that person do before mm-hmm if you are dependent, you know, we're determined Here's a real quick way to become constantly disappointed it just it just is is to depend on the integrity of others or

or holding someone else to the same standard of what you will. That's right. Right. That is, that is an excellent way for you to constantly be disappointed because you

Even today, you know, like, like today I had a deal where, you know, I'm doing this coaching thing for a bunch of our agents at the company and the prices, you know, loyalty to the brands, that's the price. And I made it very clear. I value my time. My time is very expensive. If you figure out what I actually earn per hour of work, work, it's just a lot of value that I'm giving. And it's a lot of work to coach these guys. And I look today and some of them were still marketing like other coaches.

title companies and their listings and I was thinking to myself I'm like so I reached out to a bunch of them and it was like they're like oh they had that before this I'll change it right now blah blah blah blah blah but there was a couple of a man that I'm like you knew what you were like you knew like you knew like I know that you knew right and I'm like

At the end of the day, like I've told them all, if you have relationships you value and this isn't for you, fine. You don't have to be in this. I'm not mad at you if that's the choice you make. But if you're in here, you're in here. It's what we're doing. And to me, that's an easy like integrity deal. Like it's a super simple thing. Like that is a line in or out. If you say you're in, you're in. Not like I'm going to say I'm in and they won't check. Tepid water. Yeah. Like dude, like I hate it. And I made a video. I didn't post it because I

That's another thing we'll talk about, which is drafting the angry email. Yes. The best cure for anger sometimes is saying it. And kind of the gist was, it was my disappointment. Like, dude, you gotta understand if you're stealing from me, like, like if you choose not to do this, I get it. It's one thing. But if you, if you choose to say that you're going to do it and then not do it, and I'm giving you the most valuable asset I have, which is my time, you're stealing it.

- Or your hair, John. I'd say your hair. - Somebody asked me yesterday, he said, "Do you ever have a bad hair day?" I'm like, "Once in 1987." - It's a long day. - It's a bad day. - It's a bad day. - I wake up screaming. - But vetting the people involved in your decision making, you have to look at what they actually have done in the past and how they behave.

Don't project how you would think you would behave in this situation. What you think you would do. You need to look at what they have done in the past. You need to look at their track record of what they may do, because this is how you're going to come up with an actual honest idea of

of how they're going to respond. You're saying a tagger doesn't change his stripes, right? Exactly. And frankly, over time, I think that's maybe not true. No, I think to a point. To a point. But again, like I've said so much, like even on this show, I think people who are who they are. I really do, John. No, they are. We'll talk about it later. They don't change. But the point being is, for example, we talked about it before.

about not doing business with people that cheat on their spouses. 'Cause if they cheat on their spouses, they're going to bang you out, there's no question. - And I was gonna say the exact same thing. How many people are out here getting married 'cause they have all this gushy feeling and they don't get a prenup? - Yeah. - Yeah. - And that's the ultimate sign, that's the ultimate thing you should do when you get married. And I don't care that you're in love, I don't care if you have the same whatever, you should get a prenup. - Yeah. - Period. And here's why.

If things aren't agreed to beforehand, they'll become an issue at some point in time. And I don't just mean, you know, you know, spouse, it sounds cold or whatever.

And you know, obviously a lot of people don't have, let's put a happy, let's put a happier spin on that same thing. Cause I always talk about when people form real estate teams with partners, partnership agreements, I always say, yeah, what happens if this falls apart? That should be understood and agreed though up front. And it's not an affront to your relationship to say, Hey, if you start fucking the neighbor, you don't get my house.

You know what I mean? That should be pretty much. But that goes back to like partnership. You've never seen how they've acted before in a partnership green. The whole thing with the Will Smith, Chris Rock slap. Everybody's like, oh, I didn't knock them out. No, you wouldn't have because you didn't anticipate that because you've never seen somebody walk on stage and slap you. Now you've seen that. Now somebody gets angry and walks on stage. You're going to be ready to fight now because now you've seen that before, right? And that's what John's point is. Talk to an expert.

business partner right like i've always been told slot people where they're at you won't be disappointed i am very very comfortable doing that well i just don't get disappointed by people like i've had deals with people they're like how can you be around those people because i slot them as an i saw them as selfish so when they're an or selfish i'm not shocked and i run my business or my way through that you know so slotting people off of their past behaviors is

something. I know part of you watch WWF as a kid though, WWE, when he started walking at him, that maybe he should have just speared him or something. He didn't see it coming. No, I didn't see that. I didn't see it. I know. I thought, I know. Honestly, everybody in the world thought it was gonna be like one of these. Hi,

Yeah. I'm just kidding. I just, but now that iceberg slim coming from seat three F and, uh, landed across from the, the, uh, left four, I've left eyebrow to lower right lip. It's funny that you went to pimp instead of actual wrestling. Yeah, I did. I did. But again, so understand what these people will do and look at, look at the scenario. Cause again, we're talking about analyzing, making decisions.

Look at your upside understand what your upside is in decision. What do you have to win? And then what is the absolute worst case scenario? What is your walk away? Well, no, no, no not what you walk away if I do this and this everything that happens goes badly What is going to happen? Where will I be? That's what I mean. What's your blow? What is what is the catastrophe that happens and the problem with this catastrophe is this here's the thing a lot of people do this and

But they don't necessarily take it to the 10th. They don't take it all the way out. For example, they do things like they say, okay, like I'm the real estate business, right? Let's say I made a change. I did something here to the company and it really only affected like call it one agent, right? But this agent had some juice and I said, okay, if I make this change and this agent gets mad and they leave, I lose that agent.

But what if I didn't account for the fact that that agent has six best friends and now they take all of those people as well? Sure. Like I've got, I've got owning a business. I've got to take that decision all the way to the end of how bad it could be. So that's, so I can really, really be honest about, about what the worst case scenario is. So that's the value of experience though. Yeah. Yeah. So you, you would know that better than I would, right? Yeah. For certain businesses that you're in that I'm not.

There's things, right, where you would know, hey, here's why that ends up being a bad idea. That's why I try to collect information from experienced people in the industries, 'cause they'll say, there's been times when I thought I had a great idea. And someone will say, no, no, no, that would equal encroachment. - Right. - Or-- - Oh, well, let's talk about that too.

Because so decision-making analyze all the pieces, analyze all the people, look at the worst possible situation, look at the best possible situation, analyze the risk. Is the win worth the worst case scenario if it is moved forward? But what you just said is really interesting because that is also kind of a mistake that I've made many times in my life, which now there's a way to do it. No, which is this, which is, and I talked about it this morning in my coaching thing, which is,

Don't fall too in love with your own ideas, man. You can't do that. You've always got to keep the scientific thought process going through, especially with your own ideas. Cause if you fall in love with like a kid, it's a disaster. And one of the best lessons that I had them in here and I took them back was my vitamins. I talked, we talked about the hundred thousand dollar bottle of vitamins, man. You've got to make sure that there's a demand for your ideas or there's something that people want before you do them, which is why I love Kickstarter. Yeah.

Because now you have an idea, so you can fake a prototype that works. None of the stuff you see on Kickstarter actually works. They just have one plastic mold and they're faking like it works. It's a prototype. Yeah, it's a prototype to see if you actually are interested in buying it. So test your ideas. I mean, that's a big part of intentional thinking is understanding that every idea, every new idea I'm having, I'm going to test it before I dive headfirst into it. It's a weird phrase and I don't know why...

Thankfully, people understand that this is actually like a phrase, but it's called Chinese math, right? It's based on the size of the population of China. So a lot of businesses, they do Chinese math. They go, all I need is one in a thousand people and I'll have a million customers. So I just need to capture one in a thousand people without understanding cultural context, without understanding that

If you don't get one in 10 people in China, you're not going to get one in a million. Yeah. Like you're either going to get everybody or nobody. So it doesn't work like that. You don't get to split and buy for, you know what I mean? Like whatever that aside, um,

And it's not until you have true research, information, focus groups, whatever you get your information from, that you'll understand what the positives and negatives or potential outcomes are. So that's where talking to people with experience, I mean, that's where a broker is valuable. Yeah. Because you'll come up and there'll be times when I've called you, John. Yeah. I've personally called you and I'll talk to you about an interesting thing that happened very recently. Okay.

Uh, but you and I spoke about it and I took your opinion of it very to heart. So I've told other people, you can't do this for this reason. Or if you want to find out, it's going to cost you a ton of money. Yeah. Thankfully, this is a happy ending. Um, I found somebody in a scenario we were talking about and it just so happened that it doesn't matter anymore. So this is why we'll talk about experience and how you never know the outcomes of stuff. Um,

in those contracts that people were sending out all year saying 30,000 over appraised value. Yeah. You remember those? Yep. And the Las Vegas Realtor Board said those lack definitiveness. Right. They were saying those are unenforceable.

Well, the court disagreed. Yeah. The court actually says, no, that has a definitive value. There's an appraisal and it's 30 over. And you and I were talking about, I said, John, do you think I should pursue this? And you're like, it's going to be a dice roll because LVR came out and said that it lacks definitiveness. Right. And the courts haven't talked about it. And who wants to go spend $30,000 litigating the proper value, whatever. Well, I found a gentleman that was who put, um,

principle over money, which is often rare because people won't put their money where the mouth is. Sure. And he did and it was successful. Wow. So yeah, I think the big thing you said or you just said that I was going to say is focus groups, right? You don't need to go pay for a focus group, but you better ask some people that will be honest with you. Yeah, because that's the biggest thing I see people. Oh yeah, it's a great idea. It's a great idea. Find somebody tells you it's a great idea or horrible idea. Then go to an attorney, find out worst case scenario.

Like, hey, you know what? They die doing that or you get in a crash because you're doing whatever it is. There's a lot worse case scenario than you as an average human are thinking about. Probably figure what it is. You want to hear something else shocking about something like a focus group and people undervalue them. You take a jury. We focus group juries before cases, right? So you'll focus group juries. There's not a single time that I haven't been completely –

perplexed about what the jury came back with. It would, they'll say, well, no, this is whatever. And, and you have a stereotypes. I don't care who you are. Right. Everybody has stereotypes. So you're sitting there thinking, okay, this person is gonna be on my team. Cause this is a, uh, let's say I have a left-wing issue. I have a liberal issue. I have a, a me too case.

There's this woman approached by her boss and got drunk and hit on her in her car. And then he said, whatever. So I'm sitting there going, oh my goodness, I have a woman on the jury. She's going to be sympathetic to me. And then they'll come back and go, no. I don't think a manager would do that.

Really? You know, you're like everybody. You can't, you can't assume that people are on your team. Um, when Hillary didn't go a campaign in Ohio, right. It's just sort of like, no, I've got this thing. One, right. It's like, you don't know that you don't know what people are thinking, what they're thinking. So you better find out and you better be there and you better make sure that your, um, you know, value proposition is being put out there. So, well, I think, you know, it's funny you talk about that.

I think the biggest problem with people living with intention is they don't go into a scenario with any goals, with any knowledge or any thought of what's going to happen. And they just, the interactions happen to them. I mean, I think this is actually something I was always pretty good at, which was having a good angle to it.

And my sister taught me this, and this was the best thing ever. And I'll teach you how to never get a B. If you're a student, listen to this. This is how you never get a B on a subjective test again. This is how you do it, because this is what I did. This is what my sister told me to do. So if you have a test or a paper or something that is in college, especially, that is subjective, right? Like your thought process is being pulled apart in a subjective grade, and you get a B.

You go to the professor during their office hours and you just sit down and say, hi, I was just, I got to be on this. I was wondering if you could just, you know, go over with me and explain to me what your thought was as to why I got to be, and then have them go through their entire thought process. And then you say, I'm sorry, I just still really don't understand. Can you explain it to me again?

And then you do it again and again, and you burn their whole time. There's as much time as you can. You burn every second until they are literally like, I have to go home. You do it as nice as you can. You're like,

Well, I just really don't understand. And literally, as you're walking them out to their car, if you can, I just, yeah, I just, cause I made this point. I just thought this, the very next time they go to grade you, they'll be so terrified to give you a B cause they know you'll come back. They'll never do it again.

That was very successful tactic for me. It was successful for my sister. Or just write a really good paper the first time. No, because here's the point. This is about understanding the rules of the game. It's about knowing the game. And that person valued their time more than they valued their opinion. Their opinion of my work was not as valuable to them as their time was, rightfully so.

So they didn't want to waste any more of their time arguing their opinion of mine. Now, if it's a Scantron ABC test and you get it wrong, it ain't going to work. But anything that's subjective, you can absolutely do that. I've been in live people. I've caught a client that it's like everybody fires me.

And I said, because you're wasting their time by being that he's that pushy, but in work with certain things. So he can't get contractors to work with them. I got a couple. Yeah. Property management. So you got to be careful on who you push. Yeah. Time burglars. Yeah. Yeah. You start becoming getting that. I had somebody walk in my office today and they said to me two things. Um, and like, it's so funny cause they were asking me questions that we pay people to do this stuff. And

And they said to me, they go, "Hey, can you do me a favor? I want to get my banner up on your back agent site." Not me, can't do that. Talk to this person.

And I also want you to help because I want to do some videos in the studio. Again, not me. Talk to this person. Why just for that? Come right to you. Nope. Not doing it. Go to the guy. Not doing it. Well, here's a fun. Here's a funny one. We had a meeting with somebody the other day and it was funny because they told us they go, yeah, you guys, I wanted to meet with you. So I'm not going to charge you the hundred. It was like, what? He goes, yeah, like a year ago, I just started charging people a hundred dollars. They want to meet with me. So when salesman call me, anybody calls me, they want to come to meet him. I'm like, yeah, it's a hundred dollar rate.

Wow. How do you feel about that? I think it's amazing. I thought it was great. So you didn't like it when Ari Gold, when I said you should send an invoice if people are wasting your time. No, no, no, no, no, no. Fake invoice that you can't call. No, but this, you want to try to come in and sell me something? You want to come in and chit chat? You want to burn me a separate $100? You better believe in it.

Yeah, exactly. I'll know exactly. If you believe in your product enough and you're going to make, cause you're going to make a ton of money. Yeah. You know what? I think I'm going to start doing that because there are a lot of bucks. No, no. I think I say, um, for sales calls to pitch my business, it's a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars.

I will listen to your pitch. I will sit through it, but it's 100 bucks. I will listen to your pitch with open ears, and if it's honestly something for me, I will purchase it from you. It's 100 bucks. You'll weed out people that don't believe. 100 bucks. I'd pay 100 bucks. I'm doing that now, by the way. No, but I think... But here's the thing. I think you can do that. Hit the horn. What's that? Hit the horn. There's the power move. No, but I think you can do that. Teachers become a student. No, I'm kidding.

I am 100% every time I get a sales pitch. I am now doing that. - Sure, if you wanna come to the office, pitch me, it's a hundred bucks. - God, think of the value the Power Move has created for people. - Just so much, right? Just that one little tip. But here's the thing. I think if you do that, you're living intentionally. You're intentional with your time.

you know the value of your time and you're living intentionally. So there's a little tipperoo. - Like I said, I still stand behind that thing. If somebody, not Colt calls me up, yeah, let's chat about stuff. - But if I did it numerous times. - Constantly, constantly. I'm just gonna start sending invoices.

I like that. I know John didn't care for that, but I did like that. Especially when I charge for time. Well, everybody's charged for time. They might not realize it, but they are. But I sit there and think, man, people waste so much. Guy goes to me today. I'm going to say, hey,

I just saw you in the parking lot of another place. My God, we got a meeting in 10 minutes. He's like, oh, so I guess we're not doing this meeting. I'm like, I'm back already at my office. Like you were going to lunch. You wasted my time. You just didn't realize that people waste and waste and waste your time. I think, you know, what's funny about that is when telemarketers call me, you know, my wife knows when telemarketer calls me, I just hang up on them.

Right. If they like, as soon as I know they're selling me something and I'm not here, I just hang up and get, and get just like, that's so rude.

And I'm like, no, it's not. No, it's not because they're just dialing for dollars. I'm not going to buy. I think trying to save the guys. I used to be that guy that I would try to be polite and all this stuff. You're wasting their time. There's nothing. But did you check and call with me to see if I'm with my kid right now? There's nothing. You don't care. It doesn't matter. They're just, yeah, they're working business. I just,

Chambers called me, right? And I told the guy, Hey, look, this isn't from my real estate. This is nothing. This is for roofing. I just need the very cheapest thing right now because we're just starting up. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I can be on your president stuff and everything. I go, just give me the cheapest. I'll sign. Let's go. He goes,

I usually this is 45 minutes of people pretending they have all this money, you know, and he goes, thanks. And that guy has introduced me in one month. There's so many people. Cause he's like, he's a straight shooter. He doesn't waste your time. No, it's a good reputation to have. This guy will not bullshit you. It doesn't waste your time. It gets the deals done. That's it. So finish up Connell, one bit of advice for people to live in intentional with their life. What would it be? If you had to give him one piece of advice, what would it be?

know what you want to do. Know, know what's what you're working towards. I mean, you, you talk about it a lot, which is wonderful because to be conscious of the drift, now I'm drifting out there and, and it's funny too. And this stuck in my craw because you accused me of it at one point in time too. Who me? No, no, no, John. Oh. Cause, cause I have this business where it's, it's part of, it's difficult to say who's going to walk in the door.

There's a lot of variables in my business. I can't say, okay, well, I'm going to get these three people that are going to have these issues. It's hard to plan for. You can't be like that. It's hard to scale up like that. I'm going to cold call 100 people until I get two car accidents. That's not how car accidents work. That's not how real estate transactions work. It could be.

just kidding fbi uh just kidding state farm um just a mill of people like trading off policy no don't do that no don't don't do that no i take it very seriously but you know it's difficult so for me sometimes i feel the drift

wherein I'll be slammed one week and the next week, you know, I'll have time. And then I don't, I'm like, Oh God, I had all these things I was planning to do when I had the time to do it. And now it's here. And then I'll, something will happen. Then I'll have to go here. Then I'll go, I had time that day to do some written discovery. And now it's gone, you know, I got to plan this, right. You know, and you start to feel that drift because it's,

maybe you're in an industry that has a bit of built-in drift. - Yeah, some ebbs and flows. - And just minimize that if you can, and remember what you're working towards. - Yep, Colt, what say you? - I think that just there's been numerous studies, right, of people either on their deathbed or at least 80 and above, right? And everybody's biggest regret in life

not doing something. Yep. Not something they have done. Nope. Just not doing something. So I tell people all the time, read people, slot people, know where they're at, use them for you to go where you want. Right. Excellent. Just because somebody hates somebody. I mean, I'm sure there's people that hate,

all of us at some point, right? But we could utilize it. Imagine, imagine being that guy. Imagine, I mean, one out of three, but all three of us at the same time. No, but I think just, you know, doing what you want to do. And again, slot people has been the greatest advice. People have always, always given me. I love that. Yeah. People just, nobody regrets the things they do. They were things they didn't do. Well, I got two. And number one is,

You know, this morning I was working out and I was just, I don't know why I was thinking about this while I was working out, but I thought, you know, it's, I spent a great amount of my life not being in the gym regularly like I am now and not, not having a regimented gym thing. And I thought I didn't really get serious about it until I got a why, why I wanted to do it, why I wanted to do it. I was thinking to myself, why?

you know, I really wish my son would be in here with more regular now that he's, you know, is he going to be 15 and he's being here moving up, moving, wait, turn a little more often. But I realized me telling him to do it. Isn't going to make him do it. Nope. He's got to come up with a why of his own, which is why I don't even ask him to go in there. When he figures out, it becomes important to him.

He will then do it. Do you know what that why is going to be for him? Girls. What? Yep. 100%. When that becomes important, he will come in and do it. Girl he likes one day is going to be dating that big buff dude, and that's going to be a why. And here's the next thing, which is this.

Live with a sense of urgency and you know I got to tell you and I got to tell you this which is this has been Bothering me ever since it happened a couple of weeks ago Which is this ever since I saw our Egypt stuff come up and realize that was a year ago I was like I need to go to some the cool every year because I'm 50 years old man I don't know you know I'm in great health now, but who knows how many years I'd have adventure I have so I feel this mad I felt a mad

burning urgency to say, we got to figure something out. I climbed the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom in May. Yeah. Well, that's like six blocks. No, no, no, no. It was all dead. No, it was a tough climb because a buddy of mine was having a kid and getting married in Europe. And I met him over in Scotland, Ireland and what all the, but,

I get in urgency. I have urgency. I definitely live with a sense of urgency. And I, I, what happens is like my arm right now is jacked up cause I'm doing jujitsu, but I realized that I only got so many good years left to do jujitsu. So now I know I want to get to a certain place. So I do it. I play basketball tonight. I have,

you know gym monday wednesday friday because i realized my meat machine is going to break down one day yeah and i'm going to regret if i didn't climb that stuff if i didn't yeah you know whatever so i couldn't agree with you more i think that's wonderful well man i hope this helps i hope some of the tips helped you today um i hope some of this stuff helps you out i hope you start building people that want to study stuff for your time i love that john i hope you do that i mean i may cut a deal i'll say for friends and family at 75. yeah there you go

But I hope this helps you, man, live with some intent in your life. And if you're going to move, man, you might as well move forward. We'll see you next time. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com. 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.