What It Means To Be Centered & Balanced (And Why You Need It) EP 67
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- From the art of the deal to keeping it real. - Keeping it real. - Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with John Gafford. - Back again, back again, back again, back again for another episode, episode. - Episode. - Episode of The Power Move. My name is John Gafford. I am your host. With me as always to the left

is the Bulgarian mongoose Colt Amadon. What's going on, guys? The Polo Assassin. The Polo Assassin? Wait. You won't see me in Polo. Back up, back up, back up, back up. The Polo Assassin. Are we talking about green bottle cologne polo? Because I like that connotation. I mean, I started just...

Do I not look like I smell like that? Right. I mean, look, we all had his kid, his kids. No, did anybody else have like the tester of polo that like you're trying to squeeze the last drop out of when you were like sixth grade or something? I had that blue one. You guys didn't have the blue bottle, the green one. No, son, I'm old school. They didn't even have blue polo. I think I'm wearing the same cologne as the first bottle clone I've ever bought. Are you really? Yeah. Well,

Ladies and gentlemen, that is that is the counselor, Chris Connell. How you doing, Chris? Living the dream. Jean-Paul Gaultier. Jean-Paul Gaultier. You both were called Chris One Cologne Connell. No, I had like I got like it was those always those knockoff brands. Grandma would get you a four pack or something. Like the designer, the designer imposter perfume. The designer imposter perfume is what I would have as a kid. So when I finally I smelled it one time, Jean-Paul Gaultier, I'm like that.

Yeah. You know, it's funny. I wasted an entire today show segment one time on that because you know, I'm doing this interview on the today show and they think that like, you think it's going to last like time is so compressed on a major, on a major television network studio. Time gets compressed and the guy brings up, he says something about me looking like Vince Vaughn. And I said, yeah, that used to be my move when I was single. I'd be like, I'm like the designer imposter perfume. Like if you like Vince, you'll

you'll love John because John's attainable. You could have, you got no shot at this, but you can have me right now. And that was one of my go-to moves.

And yet, literally, before I knew it, before I talked about anything of substance or business or importance, it was over. And I'm like, did I really just waste an entire segment on national television? Is that wasting? I feel like that's not wasting. That's a good point. That's a good point, Colt. That's a good point. You know that most perfume now is unisex? It is. What? It's all made by the same, like,

How is it places? I mean, don't you want to smell like a man? How to add what deal? What let's talk about that. Do you?

Or would you rather just smell like something phenomenal all day? You're smelling it more. I'm smelling it more. I want wood chips and biker. Yeah, I want chain grease. I don't know. I smell like a man. I will tell you this, ladies. I'm going to tell you this right now.

If you want to know how to get a man, if you don't got a man, I'll tell you a secret. Here it is. Cause this is how my wife got me. Cause I never smelled it before. And I haven't spelled it since when I first met my wife is beautiful. She isn't as cool as she is, but really put it over the top. She wore this perfume called pink sugar. And then she smelled like cookies and over. Listen, you want to talk about combining a few of your favorite things. They say away to the man's heart is through his stomach. You roll up on me smelling like cookies.

I'm interested. She's still wearing that. Yeah, she does. She's like Chris. I buy it for every Christmas. Cause yeah, I want my wife to smell the cookies. My wife's wedding perfume was disconnected, discontinued. Hannah Mori number seven or something. Yeah. And I love it. Like I like it. Right. Yeah. And it's discontinued. So the only way you can get it now is it's like $500 for like a used bottle on eBay. Yeah. And I'm like, and I'm that idiot. That's like, I'm buying it. I know.

Look at you, though. That's a nice thing to do, though. No, he's not giving it to his wife. He's keeping it for himself. He just snorts it. He's got it in his car. Dances around like that guy from South to the Lambs. Oh, God. Anyway. I think we're not talking about sports. Well, we're not talking about sports. I'd smell me. Definitely not talking about sports.

But here's what we are talking about. This is our continued series. I hope you're enjoying this, where we kind of talk about, we break down some segments from my future book that is being crafted right now by myself. And we're just kind of workshop some stuff here. And today I want to talk about something. I'm going to do a whole chapter on staying centered because I think this is a major problem with people. I think maintaining a sense of balance in your life is

Is where a lot of people fail and in this day and age of social media where the ego is just Fed and fed and fed and fed and fed feed me see more all those things I think it's so important to kind of understand how to stay centered how to stay how to stay Grounded how to stay balanced how to stay humble how to do those things and in some cases like the job that we have in real estate is

It's hard man, cuz you got to throw a little flash out there to get some attention, you know You got to throw the flash, but it's about not taking it seriously and and it's funny because at the same time right now I'm coaching. I'm coaching about

I guess the number is 97 of our agents here. It's still 97? Yeah, it's about that. Did it drop off that much? There's a little drop off, but yeah, they're hanging around there. But I'm coaching 97 people every day through a private Facebook group. Other agents here at Simply Vegas wanted me to mentor them, so I just said, yeah, I'll do it. Because there's so many of them, I'm just doing it in a very efficient manner. But we were talking about this book, which is Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. Okay.

I love Ryan Holiday books. I'll give you a little close-up on that. If you're watching this on YouTube, this book right here is awesome because it's all about that. So I want to kind of talk about my thoughts of that. We're going to blend in a little bit of what Ryan says in Ego is the Enemy and just kind of talk about staying balanced. And this is something that in my life I've had times where I have had issues with it, where I've let kind of what I do become

become myself, become my identity. And I think that's a problem that a lot of people have is they start to tie their ego to whatever it is they're doing at the time. And the reality of it is, is what you do will change many times in your life. Probably unless like, you know, counselor here, quick question. Here's a good, that's a good question. When you became an attorney, did you think you would get a real estate license because you had a general passion for selling real estate at some point?

Yeah, I actually did. You did take that? Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, then that's probably a bad example. Yeah. It's always in the car. No, no, no. Listen, Colt's job is to crash the podcast. No, no, no. I don't mean to tell you. Speaking of crashing it and cookies. Because I'm an economist. Economist of scale. I'm an economist. I think of things in terms of how much output can I get from how much input. Yes. And that was always something where I look at it and I go,

I'm going to eventually ramp that up, that effort. And to this day, I probably should have done that a long time ago because it's been successful for me when I do it. But it's just a matter of prioritizing the things that I'm able to monetize better. I waste 80% of my time doing stuff that I don't get paid the way I'd like to get paid by doing. And then the 20% that provides 98% of my income is...

It's from that. It's from stuff you enjoy. It's from those other things. Well, for me, I can think of two times specifically when I got crushed emotionally, mentally, whatever you want to say, because I'd become so much of what I was doing. The first example I'll give you is my fraternity in college. When I went to school...

I rushed a fraternity my freshman year. And as soon as I got that pin and got that pledge jersey, man, that was it. Nothing else mattered. Class didn't matter. Grades didn't matter. Nothing mattered except for that fraternity. And I lived it, ate it. I mean, I breathed that shit. I was all about it.

The problem with fraternities is or at least it used to be I don't know anymore It seems like now it's getting easier and easier and whatever but back then I would always say that the story was Especially at Florida State was if you join a sorority, they're gonna make you into what they want you to be if you join a fraternity They're gonna take what you are and amplify it. Yeah, and apparently what I was at 18 years old was

was a giant asshole. Apparently, that's what I was. And not only that, but I was an easily swayed, manipulated asshole as well. Because if somebody said, you know what we should do? Yes, no matter what that was. And after I became a brother there, the first year I became a brother, I became one of your all-time favorites.

fucking champion hazers of new pledges, which is something I'm not super proud of. It's a paddle. Yeah. I mean, it was just what it was. And unfortunately, one of the pledges that I was kind of, if you will, assigned to, to, to terrorize at the time, nobody liked this pledge ended up getting blackballed, right? He ended up getting kicked out of the fraternity before he become a brother because it wasn't, nobody liked this kid.

This kid was a legacy. This said fraternity, his dad wrote up, I wrote an 11 page letter. I think it was to, uh, SAE nationals. And, um, my name was on every page at which point it was coming down, uh,

to there's an investigation of the chapter, blah, blah, blah, Florida State got involved, I mean, all this stuff. And it was kind of the writing was on the wall. And they come to me and they say, "Look, here's what we gotta do. "It's just simply procedural is what we have to do. "It's a procedural event where we have to make it look like "we investigated it, we had like a hearing, "and it's no big deal. "And then we're just gonna sweep it, "and it'll be done, it'll be fine."

So I go to this procedure. I show up at the house. It's like a chapter meeting, and everybody's there. And I'm thinking, this is going to be real quick. Hey, what happened? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bro, it was like that scene. Al Pacino? No, it was like that scene from A Few Good Men. It was like the Tom Cruise on the stage. You can't handle the truth. I take a flame through this place. It was a straight grilling, and I was just shell-shocked.

At which point they're like, okay, well, we need to have a vote to expel you. I'm like, what? Expel from Florida State? No, no, not from Florida State, from the fraternity. And I'm like, what's going on right now? And anyway, so they did a very quick vote. And then the votes were destroyed very quickly by a handful of leadership at the fraternity. And they tell me I was booted out.

And dude, it absolutely demolished me because that had become my whole, my whole ego was based on this thing, right? Now, moral of the story is in retrospect, a couple of things. Number one, I do not fault the powers that be at that time.

They were running the fraternity for trying to save said fraternity by hanging out to dry. I don't, I don't, I don't fault them at all. I'm an 18 year old kid. They're 20 year old kids. They're about to lose their house. I get it. You know what I mean? I don't, I don't fault them at all. The, the, the, the good story, the good part of the story is because the chapter ended up getting canned for a while. Anyway, they never sent it in to kick me out.

And 20 some odd years later, not even that 30 years later, I guess it may be a couple of years ago. I go meet with a guy, Alex Groman. That was one of my fraternity brothers. And, uh, and he said, Hey, I'm in Vegas. I got something for you. I said, sure. What do you got? Cause I, cause I know what it was. I'd reached out to him because I never officially got kicked out and the whole chapter got burned. I didn't really know what happened. So I reached out to him and I said, Hey,

Hey, you know, my son is getting older and he may go, you know, he's going to go to university soon. And at some point he may want to know, am I a legacy somewhere? I just need to know where I stand with SAE National. Like I need to know where I stand. And the dude came rolling into town and brought me my numbered pledge pen and a new shingle and said, never got filed. You're good. You're good. Yeah. So that was cool. So that ended well. But the story was,

i had gotten so wrapped up in that one thing man it became my ego did you ever think that maybe they were hazing you and as a fake kangaroo court of a fraternity maybe the whole thing could be a simulation in the matrix maybe you got truman i don't know i don't know dude it was the whole thing the whole thing was the whole thing but the whole thing was terrible but but but again i think it

In an effort or a desire to belong. I mean you see people that get you know codependent in relationships They get all in on something that they lose themselves in a club in a relationship and a job and I think if you do that I think you've got a really if you're in some situation right now where you maybe take pause and say have I lost myself a little bit in this situation and

I think before that rug gets pulled out on you, I think you gotta take a second and take, take inventory of that. I also think you've gotta realize people will hang you out to dry in life. Yeah. Like I think when, yeah, when you sat there and said, oh, it's not a big deal. Just come in. But you'll get that in, you'll get that in the corporate world. You'll get that by attorneys. That's why lawyers are here, baby. Yep. Every single, uh, car adjuster says, hey, do you mind if I take a recorded statement of your client? I go, nope.

Yeah. Yeah. You're not happening. Nope. Not doing it. Nope. Never. You know why? It's not a big deal. It's a big deal. Because first off, when everybody's cute like that, Oh, do you mind if we do that? Like, yeah, you know what you're doing? Say, Hey, do you allow for a recorded statement? It's cute. Like, don't be cute about it. Get it over. Because I just, why do you think somebody records you? Well, because it's for training purposes. Yeah.

They want evidence later. In case you misstayed something, any inconsistencies with whatever they look for. And all of those things. But again, to your point, people will hang you out to dry. It's the people that come in the wolf in sheep's clothing. Well, I think part of staying centered is part of staying balanced, again, is not dependent. To Colt's point, just don't depend too much on others. You know, one of my, I say it all the time, one of my favorite quotes from a movie, Hans Gruber, Die Hard,

no one is coming to help you. And if more people, if more people would just understand that. That wasn't Hans Gruber. Yes, it was Hans Gruber. No. Come out. I won't touch you. But that's one of the other henchmen. That's one of the brothers. Is it? Hans Gruber fell. No, but Hans said that. No, Hans's henchman said that. No. I won't hurt you. We have to Google this. Wasn't it the blonde German guy with the detonator? He's talking to him. He says, come out. Hang on. Hans Gruber.

I'm telling you, I'm seeing, I'm glad at my computer. Here we go. While John's going on, I'm hoping somebody is doing that. I want to point out this, um, uh,

speaking of that making something your whole identity and having it taken away happened at this golf course I won't say who it was or which one but uh this individual grabbed one of the staff one of the female staff by the arm like hey I was talking to you or something right kind of got a little too familiar a little too comfortable at the club all the time yep and he got kicked out and now he's like going other members like hey is there any way I can get back in like

You know, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. First off, don't touch people. Right. Just first off, you know? Yeah. And I know maybe now you, oh, you know, this was happening in my life. This was happening in my life, whatever. But you can't always assume people are going to, you know, be okay with stuff. So most people are not. They're not going to be. I wouldn't do that to me. We'd have a problem. And I think as an attorney, you probably see that a lot.

you see a lot of you oh it's not a big deal that wasn't big deal no things are big deal in life and especially work or related you can't touch somebody you can't be putting hands on but uh

Yeah. Can we talk about Die Hard? It's not that great of a movie. Look at it. It's the scene where he's got the detonators in the backpack and he's the ho-ho-ho. Now I have a machine gun guy that died. John. I based my whole life on this. No, it's not hand-setting. It was one of the brothers. It's like Ricky Bobby was like, I based my whole life on that quote. I won't hurt you. While you are looking it up, you talked about cookies today. Let me...

John, I'll come back after the break. No, no, no, no. I'm not going to go down the hole. I'll give you the apology now because I feel like that should have been. I got 45 seconds while you look that up. You go ahead. When you look at a cookie box and it's like the calories are 360 a cookie, do you go automatically to the largest cookie in there because you think it's 360? I think they're all pretty uniform. No, no. No, I'm telling you. There's some that are bigger than others. That's a great question, man. Yeah.

Mentally, you're like, yeah, I'm 360. I think I probably would if I ever noticed the size of the script. Now you're going through, right? From the mind of Colt. Well, no, but here's the thing. You know that those, a lot of times the calorie stuff, it's all bullshit. They're not well measured. They're not well, they're estimated. They're,

You know, so always go for the biggest thing thinking, oh, well, they're all basing it on the biggest cookie cold too. So you're probably right. Oh my God. You found it. Yeah. John found Tony, Tony, Tony. The fire has been called off. My friend, no one is coming to help you. You might as well come out and join the others. I promise I won't hurt you. Tony. Good job. Wow.

Wow. I don't know which one of these is a clap. Is there a clap on here? Give me my horn. No, that's the mystery sound. I don't know which one does what. That's amazing. Okay. See, there you go. Living a lie should be the topic of today's podcast there, which is sexual authority. Did you watch the making of that movie? It's pretty good. No, I didn't. But back to what we're talking about. Back to staying centered. Back to staying centered.

I'll tell you another story about my life that was when I learned this lesson, which is whenever I speak, man, and I try to give little points out to the audience and try to help everybody with what it is, I always leave with this one, which is, again, don't become what you do. Stay who you are. Because the worst case of me ever doing that was when I was running the Cobalt Lounge in Atlanta, Georgia, which was a very big nightclub ranked by Esquire Magazine, the number one nightclub on the East Coast at one point, and was a big club.

And man, we had every celebrity on the planet rolling through this place. We had Jermaine Dupri's party every Sunday. It was just a crazy thing. And when that place, because a certain NFL player who showered me in Angeles decided to come and some people wound up dead and then he wound up in trial for murder in Atlanta, but it nuked that business, nuked it.

and ended up going just down like a tank. And so I lost my gig there. And as we went along, about three months later, two months later after I lost that gig, there was a new club opening up at Midtown. Now keep in mind, while I was running this joint, there was no place in Atlanta that I could not go and the C's would not part as for Moses. There was not a bill that I had to pay, a line I had to wait in, a table I had to wait for, nothing. Everywhere I went, I got the juice everywhere I went.

So my buddies like oh this is a new club and up and up in Midtown. We should go this is cool so I go down and we're standing in line and Actually, we're not standing on it. We walk up. There's a big long line around the planet. I'm like for me So you're rolling up to the front. There's a guy there that I'd never seen before I don't know who this person is and I'm like hey, man You know my name's John rent cobalt blah blah blah blah the guy just looks at me and goes Bro that club closed like six months ago. It was the six months ago like three, but he goes six like six like what and

like how can i help you how can i help you you got nothing for me now as stupid as that sounds my ego was completely crushed because it had gotten completely wound up and not being john anymore but being john from cobalt cobalt john like right now dude i'm not simply vegas john i'm not streamlined home loans john i'm not clear title john

I'm no longer Griffin, Chris. Yeah, right. Exactly. Right. But I'm just, I'm just, I'm, I'm just me and my entire ethos and ego is based on who I am. And I think that's so important to what you do. That's a fine line to draw because you need to be affiliated with what you do, right? Like there's a time where people need to look at you as John and think that

That's John real estate, right? That's Chris attorney that, you know, so it's a fine line where it's sitting there saying that's who you are, but also marketing yourself good enough to know, you know, when people see you, they affiliate that with you. No, no, it's there. And I, and I think again, this is where you find this fine line of ego and social media. And this is what it's come. And look, man, I want to talk about, you know, let's talk about the jet, right? Because,

The jet, which I'm selling, which hopefully will be closed November 1st. I'm going to take my last trip in the jet as an owner this weekend, which will be good. I have to go to a wedding. But here's the deal with the jet. I always came on and made it very clear that

That to me, the jet was nothing more than an investment. That's all it was. That's all it ever was. Now, my partner in the jet used the jet admittedly for very different reasons. That was his flex through all of his social media to try to drive eyeballs and attention to his auxiliaries that make money. It was a marketing tool for him. But the problem was,

I actually, that worked against me. So like, I thought I could just like get this and be like, Oh, it's an investment. And this is what we do. And this is what makes money and this and that. But the reality was the way that he was flexing so hard with that jet was coming back at me. Right.

Like I never was the guy rolling in front of it being like, what's up everybody? I'm on my jet. I was never, I never did that. I mean, I sometimes was, but yeah, no, right. Exactly. But I'm saying, but I'm seeing, and there's, but here's the point. Here's the point. There's nothing wrong with him doing that for his audience. Right. He knows his brand. He knows for his audience, for my audience, that shit was toxic. Right.

Sure. Because then I became to my entire community of all of the people that depend on us. Cause you know, being in the real estate business is such a, is such a tough deal because when you get too successful, everybody immediately wants to be, you know, like, well, how much money is he taking from these people? Not understanding that anymore. The majority of my income doesn't even come from real estate, what we do anymore at all at all. But,

That was such a hard thing for me because it made it really hard for me to stay grounded with that asset. So sometimes the pun intended, but the point of it is, here's the point of it. The point of it is,

Sometimes you've got to be careful with the way that you associate. That's a really good point. Because if somebody else is to the moon and you're associated there, all of a sudden it's like you're an asshole too. That's funny you mention that because I think there's a double edge to that. When you say be careful of what the message is of the people you're associated with, but also know what your message is being –

viewed as your own message, right? Like you could be out there. Let's say that would have been great for you and you're out here being humble about it. It's not doing anything, but let's say the message would have been well taken if you would have been out there flexing or whatever, then you should be doing it. Yeah. You know, but the inverse is true. It's based on the audience. It's based on your audience. I knew my audience. I knew...

the audience would would be i would repel that if there's some austerity in your audience if there's people that are like hey wait a minute i'm looking for a deep value thing you know i don't like planes because they're a waste of money blah blah blah if people see that they'll associate it in you know for whatever reason well i think part of that issue is you look at all of everybody's talking about everybody's always talking about leveling up i want to level up level up level up level up level up my network level up my volume level up this

And you got to remember, if leveling up involves you estranging your entire previous network, it needs to be a ladder you can climb up and down, not one you light on fire and you're trying to get away from the fire. It's like the Jennifer Garner's and Jennifer Aniston's of the world. Yeah. These actresses. Relatable. People want to...

because people look at him and go, that's somebody that I can see existing. Yeah. Right. Walking down the street with your kid in one arm, pushing a shopping cart. Exactly. So it's relatable. You start going to galas and slapping waiters or whatever. I'm just leveling up here. People. One day, one day, one day, we'll be there one day, buddy.

We'll be there. But no, you've got to be careful about that, about letting your reputation and your image get dragged down by other people. Again, I say dragged down,

I dragged it in a different direction than you go to. So any advice for Joe Biden hanging around with that Hunter Biden guy? Holy. So did you guys see, okay, I got two words for you. Jesus made in America. Two words for you. I mean, I had to give that one to you guys. Okay. Listen, can't always be just, it's, it's getting to the point now. No, I can make this political, but bro, it's not funny. It's so, I told somebody that,

this morning. So I don't laugh anymore. Andrew Schultz said, he goes, say what you want about Trump. But that guy was funny. Like every day. Now your text messages, chats are just dead. Cause there's really very little to talk about. It's just sad, dude. I mean, the guy literally can barely string together a thought or sentence. I,

How are they going to put him on a debate stage against any... My kid could get up there and demolish him in a debate. I'm all for age limit. Holy smokes. I don't think he should be able to take office. The difference between Bush... I mean, it's like, I feel like it's almost like when you take grandpa and grandma's keys away. I feel like somebody needs to take the button back from Biden here. We need to have a talk. Donald Trump is...

I'm not saying he's the guy either. That's not both. Those are the options is dudes that, that I don't, I don't think that'll be the options. They had been members. They've been getting the dollar 99 man. Red Robin for the last 20 years. I don't, I don't, I don't think so. What do you, what do you, what do you, what do you want to bet? I'm not saying who's going to be the ticket, but that will not be the tickets.

I hope not. I don't think that'll be the ticket for the party. There's zero chance. That'll be the ticket for either party. Bad decision for both. They're going to, they're going to take Grampy's keys away and one of them might need keys for a cell. I don't know. We'll see. No, no, I, there's so much noise in politics at the end of the day. This is, when you talk about staying centered, uh,

Talk about America not having any center. Talk about, no, you want to talk about being centered, right? Yeah. What's the unifying message in America now? You want to talk about having a unified message for yourself. If everybody did that, I think we'd all be better off. If you cleaned up your own backyard first, right, this whole planet would be clear. But that's something that drags people, I think, to and fro as well.

Having a lack of a central message, especially in something like your own country. I know a lot of places are divided. I'm not trying to be overly grand in your sort of theme for the day. But think about not everybody is even remotely on the same side anymore of any issue. It never will be.

It never will because social media gives everybody an opinion. And everybody has to have an opinion on everything. So how hard is it to be centered if major political parties and billionaires and donors can't find a center? Well, I agree. And I think here is, from Ryan Holiday's book, this is something I saw that I really liked, which is why. I'm going to kind of, let me find the...

I think that's why you won't see it in center. Like, look how extreme everybody is on social media with everything, with their flex, with their whatever. Here's the good news, though. I don't think everybody's actually that extreme. I don't think most people are very polarized. I don't either, but they go after that, right? Because what are they going to do, offend us? I got it. Ryan Holiday talks about in his book the best way to control your ego because all of this is really ego-driven. It really is.

All of the divisiveness, all of everything. They need to be right. They need to have an opinion. They need to be seen. They need to be recognized.

This is probably the number one way if you're wondering how to control your ego. And I love this from Ryan. He talks about the best thing you could do to control your ego is become a student. Yeah. Because and I think about this and this is so true in what we do in real estate because you have people that have been doing this for 15 years, 10 years, five years, whatever it is that make a really good living.

that stop learning anything because they make a ton of money doing this. They know everything they need to do about how to do this job. So they must be good and everything. And so their ego gets artificially inflated like crazy because they don't learn. Because here's what happens when you start to learn something new.

you realize you're not i don't know anything as long as you don't suffer from dunning kruger yeah exactly but shout out here to marty koshman a former vice president of control x company my um former family ran and a very successful development marty the horn here we go here you go marty marty koshman there you go marty gets the horn enjoy that lawsuit against my former mother-in-law anyway it's currently happening um

But he said to me one time, this guy Len, and I'm not going to bleep names because they can come find me. Len would always be like, I have 20 years experience in this business and this is how you do it. I got 20 years experience. And Marty pulls me over. He goes, that guy has at most one year of experience. He's just done it 20 times. Yeah. Oh yeah. That guy's never learned a nickel's worth of difference between day 31 and day 3001. Yeah. He goes, that guy is not, does not have 20 years experience. When every day is the exact same. If you wore the same black suit and,

black tie every single day, you don't have 20 years of fashion experience. You know what I'm saying? So that always stuck with me. It's like, are you actually experienced or are you just doing the same thing over and over? - Well, I think a good barometer for you to know how knowledgeable you are is start teaching somebody else what you know.

Yeah. Like right now, this process that I'm doing where I've basically committed to 90 days, 75 to 90 days. I'm not exactly sure how long it's going to be of every single day. I'm churning out, you know, somewhere between a 10 and 20 minute long video of,

For my students every day and there are days when I'm up till one o'clock in the morning studying learning reading trying to figure out exactly what I want to teach him because I'm gonna talk about a subject I'm not just gonna go from the knowledge. I currently have I want to make sure I'm giving them the best knowledge I can find and just being a Consolidating that and let it run through me So you really want to know what you know you what you want to check your ego a little bit Commit to teaching somebody what you know, and all sudden you're like, holy shit. I

Maybe I need to learn a little more about a lot of things. Yeah, or maybe just because I used to know it doesn't mean I still do. Yeah, yeah, 100% with that too, 100%. If you want to learn, if you want to be humbled as a student, do a martial art. If you want to be humbled as a student. I almost made it without sports. No, no, no, that's philosophy. It's life, you know? All right. Martial arts, jujitsu especially, right, is very complicated puzzle solving, right?

So when you go in there thinking you're tough or strong or whatever, and somebody half your size, right, who's just wearing a different color belt than you, pretzels you up. Yeah. And you're physically helpless. That's humbling. That is a wonderful shot. For the record, I would like to quote our good friend Cam, who said, I was pitched jujitsu as a puzzle-solving...

thinking man's game. And instead, what I got was a giant sweaty man laying on me for an hour. For an hour, yeah. And apparently he said he'd pay double for it next time. Apparently it was good, whatever it was. So shout out to Cam. But that is true. Good for him for coming and being a good sport. Yeah, he let me pretzel him up a little bit. But I think...

acknowledging what you don't know. Right? Like I heard somebody go, um, uh, success is transferable. You can transfer it to other stuff if you acknowledge what you don't know. So if you go into another industry,

and sit there and pretend like you know everything in that industry, your success will not transfer over to that industry. And that's why you can go. I mean, John, you know, toot your horn for you, but I know when John and them started opening title companies, first thing he's doing is getting the best title lawyer in the country on the phone. He's getting the best person. I'm okay. I'm okay. Shout out to Mark Sturbkow. Give him a shout out on that.

Wrong one. It's Halloween season, John. I like that. But I found the best RESPA attorney in the country. That's who I wanted to talk to. Because if I ever have an issue, that's who I want to roll into court for me. Yeah, of course. Because he knows all these people. But yeah, we've been talking about staying centered by your ego. And I think a lot of it is not letting your ego get you too high. Yeah.

That's it. We got to talk about the other end of the spectrum, which is letting you get too low. I feel like a month ago I came to that conclusion that I've let my ego get way too low. Well, here's the thing, though. The same thing that's driving you high when you're high is driving you low when you're low. For example, you look at people that fail at anything, business, sports, tests, whatever it may be, if you fail at something.

If you are immediately of the opinion that this could have been me,

My god had to be the world going against me It will crush you so much lower if you can take the ego out of it because that's expectation Yeah, and analyze exactly why things went wrong. You will learn from it and come back stronger and it doesn't hurt you Expectations the thief of joy. Yes comparison and expectation are the thieves of joy 100% So when you when your ego says no, I can't fail at this. I'm really good at this other thing. Mm-hmm

Right? That's what's dragging you down. It's pure ego. Your ego should be there to pop you up though and be like, no, no, you know you can do this. You just need to work harder. That's healthy ego. I think we talked about that a lot. We did. I think so. But again, like there's things that you just learn with experience and age. You just get older and understand this. And one of my –

Favorite Stoke philosophies about ego is, for example, you know, a fool, an ego, an ego, an egotistical fool thinks when someone else harms and insults them, they're harming them. A wise man understands they're harming themselves. And I look back at, you know, when I was a kid, you know, one of the things that, that really, you know, I struggle with hard was when I was in, you know, again, I, you know, I came by this, honestly, I'm not going to say I didn't, but,

Maybe somewhat honestly, somewhat not. So when I was in eighth grade, call it, you know, you had that mob mentality with all your buddies. And we're in the locker room one day and we're all ganging up on this kid. And this kid's name's, you know, Chris was this kid's name. And, you know, everybody's making fun of him and we're having pretty good. And all of a sudden Chris turns around and of the sea of people giving him shit, looks right at me and goes, fuck you.

And I was like, really? He's like, yeah, I'll whoop your ass right now. And I was like, huh? And it scared me. I was like, holy shit. Because this is not like a little wimpy kid. And I was like. It was the big kid that enough people could pick on. All of a sudden, it was like, we can all take down the giant, but alone, I am not traveling well. So anyway, dude, I was like, holy shit. So this dude now starts stalking me.

and i'm like okay so i ducked him a little bit now i ended up making peace with that kid pretty quick but here's the problem there was another kid steve buscemi no another madison no no no no there was another there was another kid in uh his name was chad it was in our grade that began to think it was funny because of that occurrence that every time i walked amongst everybody or again before school at lunch everything else no he would start

I smell chicken. And did that relentlessly at me to the point where...

I was banished. I would go to school and just go stand right by my homeroom door and didn't want to see anybody. I sat by myself and it fucked me up, man. As a kid that got picked on, I love that story. That's a great story when it's the opposite. Because that's one of those things you don't know with those kids. Kids are fucking brutal. I made peace with the Chris kid pretty quick, but the Chad kid did fucking just stay on me.

And this was supposed to be one of my friends that just thought this was cute. And dude, I got ostracized for that shit. It's like Cobra Kai. It fucked me up. Are you Cobra Kai season? Yeah, no, no, it did. It mentally screwed with me for a long time. And it's like you don't know what your actions do. But if I was...

You know, I had stoicism then because I would realize that this kid probably, who wasn't exactly the most popular guy, this Chad guy, you know, he was fringe hanger-on-er of the group. That became his ticket. But what you have to do at that point is then you got to punch that guy. Pop him in the mouth. Yeah. And honestly, in retrospect, I wish I would have, and I didn't, and I don't know why I didn't. Shout out to it. The very next time it happened to me and somebody called me out and wanted to play that game with me, I did go right at them.

I got a fun story. I had this guy try to pick a fight with me. He had four of his friends with him. And I was in the school and whatever, it dissipated. There was a teacher there, break it up, whatever. My dad was of the mentality of, if you ask me to stop, I'm not going to ask why. So we got in the car. Dad was driving me home from school. Ninth grade, I said, dad, stop the car. I saw the guy by himself. Yeah, stop. I said, dad, stop the car.

Okay, pulls over. I get out, I start running at the kid. I'm like right fucking now. - Eyes this big. - I got you now. I got you alone. - Right now, one on one, let's go. - I got you alone tough guy. You have four of your friends with you. I got you alone.

the guy turns around and starts running away going i'm not gonna fight you without my friends there i never heard a peep from that guy again because at that point that's when his ego goes i guarantee you yeah because he has to now know what he did because if you got all your buddies there you're not necessarily confronted a thousand percent he had no one there to help him yeah but he had no one psychologically to give him buffer as tony from from die hard says no one is coming down

That's it. That's one you, especially like if you let your ego go like, let somebody fuck with me, right? Like, I don't care. It's not really getting to me. Sometimes you don't realize that is harming you as an outsider looking in, right? People sit there and watch somebody keep messing with you. They're like, now I can put one over and that can transfer into work. That can transfer into everything. So sometimes...

Sometimes you got to have a little ego and a little bit of pop in the mouth. Well, I think, well, here's the thing now. And again, yeah. Based on what we do now, even now, you know, there are certain people in our city that think they like to take shots at, at me from time to time, which I think is funny. And,

And I just, I used to, you know, 10 years ago, I would engage with it. I'd get so mad. I'd be like, oh, this fucking guy's talking shit, blah, blah, blah. Now, I just find it comical. It's literally comical. There's times that, there's a lot of times you let that stuff fly because it's so stupid. But if someone's trying to really step on you as a business person, it's kind of like sometimes... I'd go 48 laws of power on myself. That's it, right? There's so many times that

There was a perfect example of a business guy I knew. He would take lawsuits and make them super publicly about it. And I go, why do you do that? He goes, because I settle all these other ones just because it's easier, even though we're the right way. But I need to instill fear on these idiots that so every once in a while I'll take one and I'll make it super public about it. Yeah. I wonder if I should do that. Just really start blowing some out of proportion. Yeah.

It's like that Christopher Walken speech where, you know, the lion, he lays there, the jackals are nipping at him. And every now and again, he's got to get up a ton of shit out of everybody to remind him he's the lion. Terrible Christopher Walken temptation, but no, but, but that's, that's kind of how it is. But, but, you know, I'm telling you, that's why I love this book and I love checking your ego and really being smart about it because I,

For me, and again, you talk about the reason that stuff brushes off my shirt most of the time, and I could care less and I laugh about it, is because since I got my ego in check, since I really kind of put it in the rear view to what it is and understand don't get too high, don't get too low, just take things for how it is. You know, man, my life has progressed in so many ways because there's things that I do now that I would not have done before.

you know, 10 years ago, I would never have asked anybody for help. I would have never said, Hey, you know how to do something. I don't know. Teach me. Sure. Cause my ego was like, man, well, they probably think I should already know how to do that. You know what I mean? It was a hundred percent. It was ego driven. You know, you look at the mastermind groups that I go to, which, okay. Can I say something else real quick about masterminds? Holy shit. I got to say this every other day. I opened my damn email now and it says there's the mastermind. It's so-and-so for realtors about this. Okay. Okay.

That's a fucking meeting. All right. There's a meetup. It is a, it is a seminar. A mastermind by definition is when you go to an event and you get to work with other like-minded people to solve problems where you are helping them. They are helping you. There is an open back and forth discussion. That is a mastermind. And they all know what they're doing. If you go and sit in an audience and watch, if you watch somebody talk from a stage, that's a seminar. Like, sorry, that's a pet peeve. No, that's true. Get the damn words right. It drives me crazy.

But some of the actual masterminds I go to, these are high level people. And when you see these high level people just check their ego at the door and like, oh my God, how do you do that? How hard was it for the first time we walked into that furry convention? We've been both. Right. Yeah. It was a challenge. Yeah. Well, let's face it. When's the last time they've seen two, six, five pandas walk in a room? It's been a while. Yeah.

I didn't know what that was until like six months ago. Yes, you did. No, I really didn't. Yes, you did. I really didn't. I didn't know what it was. Insert panda mating joke. Ha ha ha.

let's see if let's say there has to be at least one panda joke mating no i really didn't tell i saw somebody sent me like a funny meme and i'm like what is i'm down i mean hey live your life you know whatever live your best life but i like how you didn't respond i'm gonna read the first one i'm gonna literally read the first one i found too bad

I said two, six, five pandas. I was like, there's a joke in here somewhere. It says a horse, a panda and a duck walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, what is this? Some kind of a joke. That's it. That was it. Not too many panda jokes. Not too many panda jokes. It'll make them. Look, there's an idea for a hustle. You got to, if you can become the panda joke king, there's a lot of, there's a lot of room in that space. Apparently.

a lot of space here to make things happen. Well guys, if you, uh, if you enjoyed today's podcast and you like talking about that, I mean, look, self analyzation is always better. I always want to, one of my famous lines that I did say on the apprentice was you need to stop pointing the finger and start pulling the thumb. Um,

I promise you a lot of your issues about high, low, where you are, probably starting right within yourself. Dude, if you have trouble for something, ask for help. If you want to learn something, open a book. Constantly strive to get better. We're all on this path together, man. We're trying to get better every day.

where you run into a problem is where you stop trying to get better. You know, all this information that's free too. Oh, it's everywhere. Do you watch TV shows anymore? Like I throw on documentaries of business people. I don't even watch. I know.

I never really did. Like somebody was saying, Oh, you know that episode of friends? I'm like, I, I don't know. I honestly didn't. I would watch a lot of stuff that I'm interested in, but it's, you know, typically more long form or podcasts and business or whatever. Um, that Ryan holiday podcast is wonderful. Yeah. Daily stoic is lovely. You know what I'm telling you though? I, you know, cause on the treadmill, when I'm, when I'm on the treadmill, I watch a series and,

I look for business lessons in Narcos, Mexico. You're learning a lot from Colt. You can't trust anybody. It's what you got to do. You got to take them out when they take you out. That kind of stuff, I'm telling you, not on a level, right? But it is so...

- Fucking true in business. I mean, what's the one about the Today Show that's not the Today Show morning show, right? You watch how he does something bad. They all just bam, nope. You're not taking my paycheck. And that's why I tell you like your fraternity thing. Perfect example. When you think that everybody's going to go down with you. - They're not. - Look, if all three of us got in trouble,

You know, everybody's going to be like, hey, no reason for all three of us. I'm the attorney. Yeah, that's true. I've learned to be able to at least create one. Yeah, sorry, Cole. He's the first one in the lifeboat, not you. Guess what? 48 laws of power. I've been studying this for six years. I got all my black. So on that note, we will see you next week for the Power Move with Cole Tomadon. Yeah.

That's a hostile takeover of the podcast. I'm the captain now. Look at me. I am the captain now. All right, guys. If you're watching us on YouTube, please give us a like, share. If you're listening to us on your podcast device, give us four stars. Make sure you click that you want to get notified when a new podcast comes up. Subscribe, do all that stuff. Anyway, thank you guys so much. If you're going to move, keep moving forward. See you next week.

Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we've 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.