November 4, 2025 • 16 mins
MY BROTHER IS ON THE SHOW TODAY AT 2:30 He's got a new book coming out THIS week called Escaping the Drift: How To Make The World Happen For You, Not To You and you should buy it. Other than the fact that I only get a glancing mention, it's a fantastic book. If you've got someone stuck, who can't get out of their own way, who makes excuses instead of decisions, you should buy it here. Listen to his podcast here. I'm very proud of my little brother so if you all are mean to him I'm going to have to beat you all up. Oh, his name is John Gafford.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
His interview is with someone I've known for my entire
well almost my entire life, and he has known me
his entire life, and unfortunately for me, he has gone
on to do great things and has now got me
in his shadow because he wrote a book first, and
the book is called Escaping the Drift. And the guest
is my brother, John Gafford. John, Welcome to the Mandy
(00:21):
Connell Show.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, first off, I just want to start out by
saying how proud we all are of you from Lake City, Florida,
because we just you know, anytime you just done so
good for yourself and you know, it's amazing, and I'm
just kidding. I don't want to talk like that.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
You guys, you have to understand John, that my long
ago accent is something of its own character on this
show because I've ever gotten I've never actually played the
audio of me and I don't even know if you
know this, like Chuck. Right after Chuck and I got married,
I found one of the videos from this and Lusty
Festival and I showed it to him. And you know,
(01:01):
my husband, he's not a man of few words. When
I got done showing him the talent portion, he sat
there and it kind of looked like he had just
watched me murder someone. It was so crazy and unfortunate.
And he said, I don't know what I was expecting,
but it wasn't that so for you to bust on
the scene right now with that, it's just a little
taste of what we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, well, the only the only time I used that
accent anymore is when I try to sneak through your
passion producers on your birthday with that exact accent yearly.
And I figured, you know, this is a freebie. I
didn't have to seek past anybody today, so I would
just go for it.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So what about you made you want to write a book?
Where did the book come from?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, a couple of things. Number one, As you well know,
I didn't have a lot of success in my life
until I was in my early thirties, and I spent
so much of my early life, uh, drifting along just
with the currents, and and much of my life was
decided by the whims and just what other people wanted
to happen to me. And that included when you know,
I for a corporate restaurant chain that would just pick
(02:02):
up the phone and move me all over the country
every three months. It seemed like it. You know, it
was always me wanting somebody else to kind of save me,
jumping from girlfriend to girlfriend where it was like, Okay, yeah,
we've been dating for two weeks, Yes, we should move
in together because that seems like a good idea.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I mean, John, I stopped learning their names at some point.
It was like, I'll just when one sticks. And one
finally did, and she is a stellar human being, so
the right one stuck. But yeah, you did scharn and
burn through some you know girlfriends then.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Now they did. So if I could go back, you know,
everybody says what are your regrets? And I love when
you hear Hilo entrepreneurs say, I have no regrets because
everything that happened to me in my life has gotten
me to the place where I am now, and I
love that. I don't subscribe to that. I look back
and I say, Man, if I wouldn't have spent so
much time just drifting along, where would I be now?
(02:52):
Like if I would have gotten serious in taking control
of my life prior to when I did, where would
I be? And so this is like, if I could
have a time machine and go back and smack myself
in the head. I always say this is my user's
manual to my dipstick twenty seven year old self and
just say, just do this and everything will work out
the way that you want. And not to mention that,
(03:14):
but I think feel like ever since COVID, there's been
this apathy that just runs through everybody. And I don't know.
It doesn't get talked about a lot, but I don't
know if it's just like people just like, man, if
the government can lock me in my house and just
take everything away I want to do, like when is
the other shoe going to drop? And I talk about
restaurants a lot, because it used to be, especially here
(03:36):
in Vegas, because we have every unbelievable restaurant on the
planet here, and it used to be every time you
would go out, you would just have impeccable food, impeccable service.
It was amazing. But now it seems like those experiences
are few and far between because people are just going
through the motions. And it's not just restaurants, it's everybody
you deal with, from retail to my business in real estate.
People just seem to be going through the motions, and
(03:58):
this is my mission is to wake as many people
up from that as I can, to take control of
their life. Because now if you look at what's happening
with AI coming down the pipe, if you're not completely
in control of your life, I promise you you're not
gonna like where it winds up. I mean, did you
see the new the robot thing for your house the
other day? Did you see this thing come out? What?
Did you see this? No?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
What?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Okay? There is now a show?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh go ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There's a robot you can buy shipping Q one that
you can buy for either twenty thousand dollars like flat
by it, or you can release it for five dollars
a month and it will do all your household chortes.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I want that so bad. I want it now. That's
what I want for Christmas. Buy that for your sister.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Dude, we're here, like Justin's time is here now. So
if you have a job where it's or or you're
living a life that other people get to decide what
happens to you, you got to figure it out right now.
And that's a lot of what the book is.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So the book is fantastic, although it does scamp on
significant details about the genuinely powerful. Inflame of your sister,
I feel like I got a glancing blow, but you
probably could have thrown in a couple of chapters there.
It would have really sales would have taken off like
a shot.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah. I mean, well, here's the problem, right, You've got
to have some it seems like anymore, you've got to
have some massive setback to really sell a book. And
in this one, it was everything that I did to myself.
Book two will be everything you did to me, including
hitting me with the Sears catalog, which you struck me
with that many times, walked me underneath that iron table
(05:34):
as a baby like jail, and I couldn't jailing.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You were smiling in that photos, No I was.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I was grinting my teeth in with terror in me
is what I've done. So yeah, that'll be booked two.
But yes, there it does talk about you in the book,
particularly when it comes to telling the truth, which, as
we both know, is something I struggle with a lot
a lot as a kid, right, And I'm very honest
about that because step one of kind of getting from
(06:00):
where you are to where you want to be is
radical honesty. And that's where the book starts and as
a kid, you know, you'll remember our father kind of
did a number on our mother and the divorce, and
it was kind of a weird dichotomy where we lived
in We were fake rich, Yeah, we lived in the
richiest neighborhood, but we were broke.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah we had them plenty broke, Yeah, we had no plenty.
We had a really nice house and a real nice neighborhood,
but we literally had no money. I've talked about that before,
and it creates this weird situation. And I think you
probably got it more because you were so young where
you were running around with all these kids that had
no idea about those difficulties.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, and so you start lying about stuff, and when
you start lying to other people about things, that leads
to then lying to yourself and not being honest with
where you really are. And so you know, the book
is kind of a journey talk stories from my life.
It's not, but it really is a user's manual based
on the stories from that. So starting with radical honesty.
You know, if you don't know where you are and
(06:59):
you're not honest about where you are, it's like when
you're in the parking garage and you have your phone
and you're trying to get directions, but it can't hook
up to the satellite. You can't get directions on where
you want to go because it doesn't know where you
are right So you've got to take through radical honesty,
decide where am I and what did I do? What
influence did I have to get here? You know, one
of the first things about this book being radically honestly
(07:21):
rat honesty. I love it. So when you write a
book to a publisher, you get reviews from some places,
particularly called Publishers Weekly, and I got a review. I
got a call from publisher. I said, we got a
review on the book. It's coming out tomorrow, he said,
he said, bear in mind before it even comes out.
They're normally pretty hard on nonfiction self help books. So
I was warned about this, and I read the review
(07:43):
and it was not exactly kind, and I was kind
of bummed about it. And then I went to Ben
and I read it again the next day, and I
love this review. And I'm going to tell you I
love it because obviously it was written by human being
that has their own view and their lens of the world.
And one of the things that they said in the
review is this quote. It said that my advice can
(08:03):
cometimes sometimes come off as trite because I refuse to
acknowledge the myriad systemic issues, and I present all problems
as solvable. And I was like, you better believe I
do that. Absolutely I do, because much like on your store,
your show, right, I have the podcast I've been doing
(08:24):
now for four years, and I have had people sit
in the studio with me and go over unbelievable stories
of wild success that according to the myriad systemic issues,
they have no business being anywhere near this step. So
I absolutely believe that all problems are solvable. And if
(08:44):
you don't believe that, I'm gonna be honest with this
book is not for you. Yeah, right, if you are
somebody the beliefs you can save yourself, because nobody's coming
to save you. Now. That was one of the mistakes
that I made, and I talk about a lot as
a kid, you know. It was kind of like John
c Riley from Step Brothers, where I was like, I'm
going to get in the family business. Yet I didn't
go to go to law school. I don't know what
(09:04):
the hell I was thinking when I was younger. I
don't like. No, I'm just gonna work with Dad someday
doing what He's a lawyer and you're an idiot, so
I don't know what you're going to do here. But yeah,
you know, as soon as I got to the conclusion
that nobody was gonna come save me, then that's when
I started really saving myself.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I have some questions on our text line for you.
And by the way, the book is Escaping the Drift.
It comes out when two days Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It'll be about Tuesday everywhere everywhere books are Yes, you
can buy it everywhere, including the audio book, which I
will say was one of the most difficult things I've
ever had to do in my life. Oh, you don't
what knows how quickly you speak until you record it.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You should have let me do it. I would have
added really interesting inflection to the whole thing, and I
probably would have added some stuff about me. But anyway,
Escaping the Drift you can pre order it now. I
did put a link to the Amazon and a link
to John's Escaping the Drift podcast page, so you can
listen to the podcast, even though I'm pretty sure it's
not on iHeartMedia, where your sister works. Throwing that out there.
(10:01):
Don't worry about me. I'll I'll handle it. All My
companies succeed without you. I don't know if it is
or not. Here we go, let me ask some questions.
You're ready from little to a speed round of questions
from the text line, are you ready? H Mandy? I
don't know who the heck this dude is. But does
he know you have your own theme song? Did you
know I have my own theme song for the show?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Do I know you have your own theme song? No? No,
I didn't know that. Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Here's one Mandy. Did your parents like Mandy better than you?
So that's a question for you.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Father? Yes, mother, No, that is so accurate.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
That's fair accurate?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Is that fair?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah? Yeah? Yuh? Hey, John, was Mandy really a problem child? No,
he was the problem child. He was the one who
couldn't know. And here's the thing. Let me just say
this about John, and this is he talks about this
stuff in the book. But I think you almost gloss
over the way you were careening through life when you
were younger and John started working. How old when you
(11:02):
got your first job?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Oh, I was a kid, I was young, fifteen. You're hustling. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, so he's been working this whole time. But there
was a period of like twelve years where you would
have like five different W two's every time you filed
your taxes because you have that many different jobs. So
to nowhere where he is now, and I didn't even
like sing your praises about the fact that you're one
of the most you know, successful real estate brokers in Nevada,
and that you've built this massive business and that you
(11:29):
invest in all these other companies and that you're incredibly successful.
But if you have someone in your life that is
kind of limping along, and I feel like there's so
many young people and John, I'm just going to say it,
this book should speak two young men. It should speak
to those eighteen nineteen year olds who's who's honestly their
teen years were screwed by COVID. This is the kind
(11:50):
of book that you buy them and say, someday you're
going to go, I'm sick of doing what I'm going
to do. Pick up the book and read it. It's
it's got the it's an instruction manual.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It really is. It's a user's manal.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yes, it is. Uh, Mandy, what is your favorite memory
of your brother. I'll tell you my favorite memory of
my brother. It was when he was, I believe in
fourth grade. He was in the play at Epiphany Catholic
School and he needed a costume. So my mom, being
the theater person, did what she did. She went to
Goodwill and she got a bunch of different pieces to
make this crazy professor of costume and she brings it
(12:21):
home and she's showing John here, I got you all
this stuff, and he's.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Like, this is so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Where'd you get it? And my mom said, I got
it at Goodwill? And my fourth grade brother says, did
anyone see you go in there? And I will never
forget that? But you know what done? That's because you
were one of those people that you always want the
finest things in life, and you've worked your butt off
and you've got it out.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Oh no, that speaks exactly to the problem we had
growing up as kids, which was we didn't have any
money and you and it would be mortifying for those
kids in the country club to see that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Oh oh, they would have been well, I don't know,
I mean I shocked them from you nony years.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I could carry I could carry dude. One of my
favorite things to do now is you go to the
thrift stores on Melrose in La I just look for
the most random things. That's like my fas.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I will ask one more question before we wrap this up,
and I'm not gonna Should I make him play out
the day? Do we have somebody to play out the day? No,
I've got somebody to play out the day. You're off
the hook. Oh I can't because you're you're slightly behind me.
This texter ass to hang on one second. I'm trying
to decide who talks faster, you or your brother. We
should have a speed race.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh man, Well, and they didn't get the other one
on here either. In our house, if you didn't talk
this fast, you did not get a word in x
ys ever, So this is a learned of behavior.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It was a competition in her household. No, I would
like you to sort of point out Donald Trump. You
have an interesting relationship with Donald Trump. Tell people about that.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So I was one of eighteen people that was chosen
to be on the Season three of The Apprentice. We
got through that, and again, that was probably the first
time I talk about it. A lot of book, not
a lot, because that's kind of at this point it
was twenty years ago talking about how many touchdowns you
scored for Polkai. But I do talk about how I
got on the show, and it was the first time
(14:10):
that I was ever really around a lot of people
that were just excelling at a different level. Sure, and
it was one of my biggest way to cup calls,
because I can honestly say, and this is not from
a place of ego, it's just from accuracy that I
was probably one of the top five smartest people there
when I was on the show, but net worthwise, I
was probably in the bottom three easily, just because I
(14:30):
hustled my way to get on there, right. I just
I talked my way on and being in that experience
made me be like, okay, wait a second, you're really
not living up to your own God given potential here,
and you got to change what you're doing. And I
talk about that and how to analyze and get around
the right people, and how to find the right rooms,
and how to level up by partnerships, mentors, mastermind groups, meetups,
(14:53):
I mean, anything that you can do that's like that,
And I give you really detailed instructions on how to
locate those things. But the key is you. We've got
to go locate him. Nobody's gonna if you're waiting at
home for somebody knock on the door and say, hey,
I'm going to take you to this thing that's going
to change your life, it's not going to happen. You
got to go get it.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Last question, was Mandy always as cool as she is now?
Obviously my audience invested. I'm just kidding. I made him
do this, John. I was like, you have to ask
questions only about me, and they've delivered.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, I'll tell you this. When we were many many,
many many years ago, when Manny was at Florida State
and I was high school, was in high school. Oh,
we're telling it, Oh we're telling it. Oh yeah, So
many worked at Mandy worked at a place called the
Flamego Cafe, and some guy had decided when they got
off to just buy the staff a million drinks.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
We only eight hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
That this guy was like, whatever it was, ate her books,
just buy everything, and so Mandy as with back in
the day, but you were, you know, nineteen years old
and didn't have an ID. Mandy, we could buy a
s beer. So me and my friends would go get
Mandy to buy speer. So we were to her house.
She wasn't there, and she's like she saw at Flamingo.
My friend and I went there. We went and got her.
(15:58):
She's so drunk. Carried her out of Flamingo like carried
her out like weekend at Bernie's Arm of Arm. We
walk into Mike's beer barn. I take her id, I
place it between her fingers of her right hand, and
then we I just kind of we flick it on
the counter as we're holding her up, completely pasted out.
The guy sells us the beer. And the best part
(16:19):
of the story is we're trying to get your get
her upstairs into her apartment after this fiasco and get
her home, and we can only get her halfway into
the door. So for some reason we just left her there.
And she still talks to me after that, which so yes,
she is the coolest pescial.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
She left me laying in the open door of my apartment,
just left me there, all right. Buy the book by
the book John Dafford Escaping the Drift. I put a
link on the blog today. Could you talk to you
a little brother? I'll talk to you again soon
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yes, ma'am I'll see as soon
His interview is with someone I've known for my entire
well almost my entire life, and he has known me
his entire life, and unfortunately for me, he has gone
on to do great things and has now got me
in his shadow because he wrote a book first, and
the book is called Escaping the Drift. And the guest
is my brother, John Gafford. John, Welcome to the Mandy
(00:21):
Connell Show.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, first off, I just want to start out by
saying how proud we all are of you from Lake City, Florida,
because we just you know, anytime you just done so
good for yourself and you know, it's amazing, and I'm
just kidding. I don't want to talk like that.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
You guys, you have to understand John, that my long
ago accent is something of its own character on this
show because I've ever gotten I've never actually played the
audio of me and I don't even know if you
know this, like Chuck. Right after Chuck and I got married,
I found one of the videos from this and Lusty
Festival and I showed it to him. And you know,
(01:01):
my husband, he's not a man of few words. When
I got done showing him the talent portion, he sat
there and it kind of looked like he had just
watched me murder someone. It was so crazy and unfortunate.
And he said, I don't know what I was expecting,
but it wasn't that so for you to bust on
the scene right now with that, it's just a little
taste of what we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, well, the only the only time I used that
accent anymore is when I try to sneak through your
passion producers on your birthday with that exact accent yearly.
And I figured, you know, this is a freebie. I
didn't have to seek past anybody today, so I would
just go for it.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
So what about you made you want to write a book?
Where did the book come from?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, a couple of things. Number one, As you well know,
I didn't have a lot of success in my life
until I was in my early thirties, and I spent
so much of my early life, uh, drifting along just
with the currents, and and much of my life was
decided by the whims and just what other people wanted
to happen to me. And that included when you know,
I for a corporate restaurant chain that would just pick
(02:02):
up the phone and move me all over the country
every three months. It seemed like it. You know, it
was always me wanting somebody else to kind of save me,
jumping from girlfriend to girlfriend where it was like, Okay, yeah,
we've been dating for two weeks, Yes, we should move
in together because that seems like a good idea.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I mean, John, I stopped learning their names at some point.
It was like, I'll just when one sticks. And one
finally did, and she is a stellar human being, so
the right one stuck. But yeah, you did scharn and
burn through some you know girlfriends then.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Now they did. So if I could go back, you know,
everybody says what are your regrets? And I love when
you hear Hilo entrepreneurs say, I have no regrets because
everything that happened to me in my life has gotten
me to the place where I am now, and I
love that. I don't subscribe to that. I look back
and I say, Man, if I wouldn't have spent so
much time just drifting along, where would I be now?
(02:52):
Like if I would have gotten serious in taking control
of my life prior to when I did, where would
I be? And so this is like, if I could
have a time machine and go back and smack myself
in the head. I always say this is my user's
manual to my dipstick twenty seven year old self and
just say, just do this and everything will work out
the way that you want. And not to mention that,
(03:14):
but I think feel like ever since COVID, there's been
this apathy that just runs through everybody. And I don't know.
It doesn't get talked about a lot, but I don't
know if it's just like people just like, man, if
the government can lock me in my house and just
take everything away I want to do, like when is
the other shoe going to drop? And I talk about
restaurants a lot, because it used to be, especially here
(03:36):
in Vegas, because we have every unbelievable restaurant on the
planet here, and it used to be every time you
would go out, you would just have impeccable food, impeccable service.
It was amazing. But now it seems like those experiences
are few and far between because people are just going
through the motions. And it's not just restaurants, it's everybody
you deal with, from retail to my business in real estate.
People just seem to be going through the motions, and
(03:58):
this is my mission is to wake as many people
up from that as I can, to take control of
their life. Because now if you look at what's happening
with AI coming down the pipe, if you're not completely
in control of your life, I promise you you're not
gonna like where it winds up. I mean, did you
see the new the robot thing for your house the
other day? Did you see this thing come out? What?
Did you see this? No?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
What?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Okay? There is now a show?
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh go ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There's a robot you can buy shipping Q one that
you can buy for either twenty thousand dollars like flat
by it, or you can release it for five dollars
a month and it will do all your household chortes.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I want that so bad. I want it now. That's
what I want for Christmas. Buy that for your sister.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Dude, we're here, like Justin's time is here now. So
if you have a job where it's or or you're
living a life that other people get to decide what
happens to you, you got to figure it out right now.
And that's a lot of what the book is.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So the book is fantastic, although it does scamp on
significant details about the genuinely powerful. Inflame of your sister,
I feel like I got a glancing blow, but you
probably could have thrown in a couple of chapters there.
It would have really sales would have taken off like
a shot.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah. I mean, well, here's the problem, right, You've got
to have some it seems like anymore, you've got to
have some massive setback to really sell a book. And
in this one, it was everything that I did to myself.
Book two will be everything you did to me, including
hitting me with the Sears catalog, which you struck me
with that many times, walked me underneath that iron table
(05:34):
as a baby like jail, and I couldn't jailing.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You were smiling in that photos, No I was.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
I was grinting my teeth in with terror in me
is what I've done. So yeah, that'll be booked two.
But yes, there it does talk about you in the book,
particularly when it comes to telling the truth, which, as
we both know, is something I struggle with a lot
a lot as a kid, right, And I'm very honest
about that because step one of kind of getting from
(06:00):
where you are to where you want to be is
radical honesty. And that's where the book starts and as
a kid, you know, you'll remember our father kind of
did a number on our mother and the divorce, and
it was kind of a weird dichotomy where we lived
in We were fake rich, Yeah, we lived in the
richiest neighborhood, but we were broke.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah we had them plenty broke, Yeah, we had no plenty.
We had a really nice house and a real nice neighborhood,
but we literally had no money. I've talked about that before,
and it creates this weird situation. And I think you
probably got it more because you were so young where
you were running around with all these kids that had
no idea about those difficulties.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, and so you start lying about stuff, and when
you start lying to other people about things, that leads
to then lying to yourself and not being honest with
where you really are. And so you know, the book
is kind of a journey talk stories from my life.
It's not, but it really is a user's manual based
on the stories from that. So starting with radical honesty.
You know, if you don't know where you are and
(06:59):
you're not honest about where you are, it's like when
you're in the parking garage and you have your phone
and you're trying to get directions, but it can't hook
up to the satellite. You can't get directions on where
you want to go because it doesn't know where you
are right So you've got to take through radical honesty,
decide where am I and what did I do? What
influence did I have to get here? You know, one
of the first things about this book being radically honestly
(07:21):
rat honesty. I love it. So when you write a
book to a publisher, you get reviews from some places,
particularly called Publishers Weekly, and I got a review. I
got a call from publisher. I said, we got a
review on the book. It's coming out tomorrow, he said,
he said, bear in mind before it even comes out.
They're normally pretty hard on nonfiction self help books. So
I was warned about this, and I read the review
(07:43):
and it was not exactly kind, and I was kind
of bummed about it. And then I went to Ben
and I read it again the next day, and I
love this review. And I'm going to tell you I
love it because obviously it was written by human being
that has their own view and their lens of the world.
And one of the things that they said in the
review is this quote. It said that my advice can
(08:03):
cometimes sometimes come off as trite because I refuse to
acknowledge the myriad systemic issues, and I present all problems
as solvable. And I was like, you better believe I
do that. Absolutely I do, because much like on your store,
your show, right, I have the podcast I've been doing
(08:24):
now for four years, and I have had people sit
in the studio with me and go over unbelievable stories
of wild success that according to the myriad systemic issues,
they have no business being anywhere near this step. So
I absolutely believe that all problems are solvable. And if
(08:44):
you don't believe that, I'm gonna be honest with this
book is not for you. Yeah, right, if you are
somebody the beliefs you can save yourself, because nobody's coming
to save you. Now. That was one of the mistakes
that I made, and I talk about a lot as
a kid, you know. It was kind of like John
c Riley from Step Brothers, where I was like, I'm
going to get in the family business. Yet I didn't
go to go to law school. I don't know what
(09:04):
the hell I was thinking when I was younger. I
don't like. No, I'm just gonna work with Dad someday
doing what He's a lawyer and you're an idiot, so
I don't know what you're going to do here. But yeah,
you know, as soon as I got to the conclusion
that nobody was gonna come save me, then that's when
I started really saving myself.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I have some questions on our text line for you.
And by the way, the book is Escaping the Drift.
It comes out when two days Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It'll be about Tuesday everywhere everywhere books are Yes, you
can buy it everywhere, including the audio book, which I
will say was one of the most difficult things I've
ever had to do in my life. Oh, you don't
what knows how quickly you speak until you record it.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
You should have let me do it. I would have
added really interesting inflection to the whole thing, and I
probably would have added some stuff about me. But anyway,
Escaping the Drift you can pre order it now. I
did put a link to the Amazon and a link
to John's Escaping the Drift podcast page, so you can
listen to the podcast, even though I'm pretty sure it's
not on iHeartMedia, where your sister works. Throwing that out there.
(10:01):
Don't worry about me. I'll I'll handle it. All My
companies succeed without you. I don't know if it is
or not. Here we go, let me ask some questions.
You're ready from little to a speed round of questions
from the text line, are you ready? H Mandy? I
don't know who the heck this dude is. But does
he know you have your own theme song? Did you
know I have my own theme song for the show?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Do I know you have your own theme song? No? No,
I didn't know that. Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Here's one Mandy. Did your parents like Mandy better than you?
So that's a question for you.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Father? Yes, mother, No, that is so accurate.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
That's fair accurate?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Is that fair?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah? Yeah? Yuh? Hey, John, was Mandy really a problem child? No,
he was the problem child. He was the one who
couldn't know. And here's the thing. Let me just say
this about John, and this is he talks about this
stuff in the book. But I think you almost gloss
over the way you were careening through life when you
were younger and John started working. How old when you
(11:02):
got your first job?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Oh, I was a kid, I was young, fifteen. You're hustling. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, so he's been working this whole time. But there
was a period of like twelve years where you would
have like five different W two's every time you filed
your taxes because you have that many different jobs. So
to nowhere where he is now, and I didn't even
like sing your praises about the fact that you're one
of the most you know, successful real estate brokers in Nevada,
and that you've built this massive business and that you
(11:29):
invest in all these other companies and that you're incredibly successful.
But if you have someone in your life that is
kind of limping along, and I feel like there's so
many young people and John, I'm just going to say it,
this book should speak two young men. It should speak
to those eighteen nineteen year olds who's who's honestly their
teen years were screwed by COVID. This is the kind
(11:50):
of book that you buy them and say, someday you're
going to go, I'm sick of doing what I'm going
to do. Pick up the book and read it. It's
it's got the it's an instruction manual.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It really is. It's a user's manal.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yes, it is. Uh, Mandy, what is your favorite memory
of your brother. I'll tell you my favorite memory of
my brother. It was when he was, I believe in
fourth grade. He was in the play at Epiphany Catholic
School and he needed a costume. So my mom, being
the theater person, did what she did. She went to
Goodwill and she got a bunch of different pieces to
make this crazy professor of costume and she brings it
(12:21):
home and she's showing John here, I got you all
this stuff, and he's.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Like, this is so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Where'd you get it? And my mom said, I got
it at Goodwill? And my fourth grade brother says, did
anyone see you go in there? And I will never
forget that? But you know what done? That's because you
were one of those people that you always want the
finest things in life, and you've worked your butt off
and you've got it out.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Oh no, that speaks exactly to the problem we had
growing up as kids, which was we didn't have any
money and you and it would be mortifying for those
kids in the country club to see that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Oh oh, they would have been well, I don't know,
I mean I shocked them from you nony years.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I could carry I could carry dude. One of my
favorite things to do now is you go to the
thrift stores on Melrose in La I just look for
the most random things. That's like my fas.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I will ask one more question before we wrap this up,
and I'm not gonna Should I make him play out
the day? Do we have somebody to play out the day? No,
I've got somebody to play out the day. You're off
the hook. Oh I can't because you're you're slightly behind me.
This texter ass to hang on one second. I'm trying
to decide who talks faster, you or your brother. We
should have a speed race.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh man, Well, and they didn't get the other one
on here either. In our house, if you didn't talk
this fast, you did not get a word in x
ys ever, So this is a learned of behavior.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It was a competition in her household. No, I would
like you to sort of point out Donald Trump. You
have an interesting relationship with Donald Trump. Tell people about that.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So I was one of eighteen people that was chosen
to be on the Season three of The Apprentice. We
got through that, and again, that was probably the first
time I talk about it. A lot of book, not
a lot, because that's kind of at this point it
was twenty years ago talking about how many touchdowns you
scored for Polkai. But I do talk about how I
got on the show, and it was the first time
(14:10):
that I was ever really around a lot of people
that were just excelling at a different level. Sure, and
it was one of my biggest way to cup calls,
because I can honestly say, and this is not from
a place of ego, it's just from accuracy that I
was probably one of the top five smartest people there
when I was on the show, but net worthwise, I
was probably in the bottom three easily, just because I
(14:30):
hustled my way to get on there, right. I just
I talked my way on and being in that experience
made me be like, okay, wait a second, you're really
not living up to your own God given potential here,
and you got to change what you're doing. And I
talk about that and how to analyze and get around
the right people, and how to find the right rooms,
and how to level up by partnerships, mentors, mastermind groups, meetups,
(14:53):
I mean, anything that you can do that's like that,
And I give you really detailed instructions on how to
locate those things. But the key is you. We've got
to go locate him. Nobody's gonna if you're waiting at
home for somebody knock on the door and say, hey,
I'm going to take you to this thing that's going
to change your life, it's not going to happen. You
got to go get it.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Last question, was Mandy always as cool as she is now?
Obviously my audience invested. I'm just kidding. I made him
do this, John. I was like, you have to ask
questions only about me, and they've delivered.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Well, I'll tell you this. When we were many many,
many many years ago, when Manny was at Florida State
and I was high school, was in high school. Oh,
we're telling it, Oh we're telling it. Oh yeah, So
many worked at Mandy worked at a place called the
Flamego Cafe, and some guy had decided when they got
off to just buy the staff a million drinks.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
We only eight hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
That this guy was like, whatever it was, ate her books,
just buy everything, and so Mandy as with back in
the day, but you were, you know, nineteen years old
and didn't have an ID. Mandy, we could buy a
s beer. So me and my friends would go get
Mandy to buy speer. So we were to her house.
She wasn't there, and she's like she saw at Flamingo.
My friend and I went there. We went and got her.
(15:58):
She's so drunk. Carried her out of Flamingo like carried
her out like weekend at Bernie's Arm of Arm. We
walk into Mike's beer barn. I take her id, I
place it between her fingers of her right hand, and
then we I just kind of we flick it on
the counter as we're holding her up, completely pasted out.
The guy sells us the beer. And the best part
(16:19):
of the story is we're trying to get your get
her upstairs into her apartment after this fiasco and get
her home, and we can only get her halfway into
the door. So for some reason we just left her there.
And she still talks to me after that, which so yes,
she is the coolest pescial.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
She left me laying in the open door of my apartment,
just left me there, all right. Buy the book by
the book John Dafford Escaping the Drift. I put a
link on the blog today. Could you talk to you
a little brother? I'll talk to you again soon
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yes, ma'am I'll see as soon
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