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 Connell Show.
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.
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, 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.
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.
So what about you made you want to write a book? Where did the book come from?
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 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.
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.
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? 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, 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 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 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?
What?
Okay? There is now a show?
Oh go ahead.
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.
I want that so bad. I want it now. That's what I want for Christmas. Buy that for your sister.
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.
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.
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 as a baby like jail, and I couldn't jailing.
You were smiling in that photos, No I was.
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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
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.
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.
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. 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?
Oh?
Yeah?
Do I know you have your own theme song? No? No, I didn't know that. Uh.
Here's one Mandy. Did your parents like Mandy better than you? So that's a question for you.
Father? Yes, mother, No, that is so accurate.
That's fair accurate?
Is that fair?
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 got your first job?
Oh, I was a kid, I was young, fifteen. You're hustling. Yeah.
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 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 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.
It really is. It's a user's manal.
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 home and she's showing John here, I got you all this stuff, and he's.
Like, this is so cool.
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.
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.
Oh oh, they would have been well, I don't know, I mean I shocked them from you nony years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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, 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.
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.
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.
We only eight hundred bucks.
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. 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 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.
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
Yes, ma'am I'll see as soon