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