Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: The Power of Positive Thinking Ep 77
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From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with Jon Gafford. Back again, back again, back again with another episode of The Power Move. The podcast where we try to make you better, try to make us better. I don't know. I gotta be honest, Jon. What was it? That intro song kind of slaps when you really listen to that. Does it? Yeah. It just...

It's designed to get the crowd going.

That's what it's designed for. That's it. That's pretty nice. Can your band do this? Oh, my God. Could you cover the Power Boots? Could you do a cover? That's a great question. This is like Inception at some point. He's completely hijacked the podcast already. For those of you who don't know, to the left of me, the Bulgarian mongoose, Colt Amadan. What's going on, guys? Across from me, the counselor, Chris Connell. Counselor. How are you guys? And I am, of course, your host, John Gafford, who hosts Loose is a...

A loosed phrase, because as you can see, I have no control over what Colt does. Just none. Tell me that having a concert with Chris doing a cover of this wouldn't be amazing. It would be amazing. I'm not going to lie. Bring in my guitar and do an acoustic set of it while we're doing it. It's an exception. I could have been Valentine's gift for everybody. You know what? That's positive thinking. I think that's positive thinking, and it is. And today on the podcast, what we're going to talk about

is negative thinking how to escape it how to get through it there's a guy named derek howell that wrote a book called eliminate negative thinking and i went through it this week because i gotta tell you man sometimes i start to feel a little overwhelmed i start to feel like i'm getting too much of the input too much stimulus if you will and i find myself like

As it comes down social media, just this constant bombardment of feeling like, man, I'm not doing enough. I got to go faster. I got to move quicker. I got to do this. I got to go. I got to go. I got to go. And those feelings quickly develop and change into thoughts of I'm not doing enough. It's funny how quickly it goes from I need to do more to I'm not doing enough or I'm not where I need to be and I'm not there. And how quickly that negative thinking can just creep in on you. Oh, I got a weird one this week. What's that?

So I told you guys about that situation I'm involved in where I busted another lawyer stealing money. Oh, yes. Yeah. And so I'm out there effectively doing what I'm morally, legally obliged to do ethically from a state bar point of view.

I raised it with the court. I said, this is what I found. You know, he's in one of my cases. There was an order giving the wrong person money, and I raised the case. This is what's going on. And the judge was very troubled by it, had a hearing. The other attorney hired an attorney to represent him, and he pled the fifth. Oh. The whole way. Wow. Pled the fifth on everything because he's dead to rights. Yeah. And so everyone's calling me, newspaper reporters, state bar, state bar judges, other lawyers are saying, hey, great job. We need these people out of our profession, et cetera. Right.

So I get a text from a friend yesterday and it said, hey, they're like lighting you up on the law blog. There's like a gossip law website, just stuff that comes up, lawyers, and they post anonymous stuff. Yeah. So he showed me two things and one was, oh, do we believe who's this guy? You know, I know this other guy. He's been around for a long time. Which pony would you bet on? Like this guy or this guy?

and normally not the guy not pleading the yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean yeah so it's just talking about negative thinking then another person said something oh this this uh this guy better be careful what he's doing because i was in court a year ago and there was some case he said he represented somebody and he didn't or something

So normally I would let it go, but that's a direct shot. Oh, yeah, it is. And I knew which case he was talking about and dead to rights. I'm like, that is a misstatement of facts. So I get on there and I put my name in it. Usually it's anonymous. I put my name and I said, hey, you're talking to me. First off, here's the case number. If you want to talk about stuff and use my name in any breath, here's the information. Here are the facts. Go look it up.

Second, I don't care what pony you want to bet on. Just go watch the video and then you tell me because it's all public because somebody came in and taped it. It was so publicized. And then somebody else was like, what's going on? So I explain it. And then two, three people were like, hey, Chris, you don't have to defend yourself with anonymous bloggers.

And I was like, yeah, but I do because like I'm affected by that kind of negative comment. Cause there's, it's so easy to take shots and add negativity to the world. Right. I gotta, I gotta tell, I gotta tell you, I, I've nothing you're saying surprised me because one of the strangest things in, in, in the day and age now of social media, it's so odd to even mention this, but if you think about a time before.

Everybody had 140 characters to just spew out whatever they wanted. Every time everybody had in their phone to take a picture and comment on every single thing that ever happened to them. There was a time before that. And there was really only the burgeoning, you know, the beginning of the internet stuff were blogs, were chat blogs, chat places where you could chat and discuss much like your legal place. And so before all this, and man, when I was on The Apprentice,

watching thousands of people talk about me was, it was a hole that you go, I don't care who, you just go down the hole. - But this is like a legal thing. This is like a professional thing. - Oh yeah. - Like don't you ever say, I walk the line, I'm above board. - No, but see I'm gonna argue that it was not a thing because keep in mind, you're gambling your reputation when you're on,

It wasn't Survivor where we're trying to bounce coconuts on our head. You were gambling with your... It would have been horrible on survival. Yeah, it would have been. But you're gambling with... Well, you would have won because you would have eaten everybody. There's no question. Mark Burnett would be like... He just would have... I could kill people, right? That's how this works? It says Survivor. I signed up for Survivor. You're implying that people don't survive.

But yeah, dude, when things were good, it was fascinating. When they were bad, I felt the need to go on there and defend myself. You didn't see behind the scenes or whatever. I mean, it was limited to a small amount of things, but it was a shot at me, and I had the evidence to be like, that's not what happened.

Yeah. Here you go. Here's signed things from the people you're claiming. I'm like, I can't get into it. Cause that's attorney client privilege stuff. Yeah. But, but trust me, if anything had gone wrong, I'm sure I would've heard about it. Did you at least use the phrase keyboard tough guy? No, no, no. I wasn't trying to be like, I wasn't trying to get a fight so that people can escalate it. Cause that's what anonymous people do. Sure. But then the, one of the person that I took.

a shot at comment commented back and they're like okay actually I appreciate that you saying that I did see that you only said you represented one of the parties you could have said both and you didn't that's very above board but just you know just think about that you know nobody wants to be tried in the court of public opinion and I said yeah but I didn't do anything

There's nothing to try me on. I had to do, I was put in a position. I'm just carrying out. The day I steal money from people, you can hang me up from the highest shots. And there'll be maybe a time I fuck up or I do something, I missed a deadline. It happens, you're human. Mistakes, it's not that making a mistake is a problem. It's what do you do about your mistakes that you've made, right? Well, doing fraud's not a mistake. No, no, but I'm saying, I'm not saying that

There's times when I could have maybe made a different strategic decision. You could say, I saw this guy up doing a deposition. He was like a bumbling asshole. He tripped over his questions. He wasn't prepared. Those things happen. Right?

It's how do you recover? Do you have the character to face it? Do you have the character to admit it? Go ahead, Colt. I was going to say, I think you have to step in when it can affect your business and your personal life. Like if somebody's sitting there saying, hey, you're ugly, who gives a shit? If someone's like, hey, I'm sleeping with your husband, and it's not, well, you better say, I need to step in on this. Or if it's going to affect my money. I don't think your husband would cheat on you. No, he wouldn't. Yeah, he's pretty protective. He'd protect me without my shirt on. It's amazing.

- Me and Chris decided we'd be the most amazing power couple. - Oh yeah. - At your party. - No, I don't think, 'cause you can't share clothing. - Cursed. - You can't share. - Do two different closets. - If you're gonna be gay, you've got to have at least same size person. - No, I don't want to share clothes. - No, we don't. - Really? - No. - See, yeah, that's like to me one of the perks.

You have your great clothes. That'd be a huge perk of the swapping of the clothes. No, but you can share watches. That's a good point. And we certainly, if it was Gorton's kid, couldn't share shoes together. I wanted to make a comment when he walked into the party and I'm like, don't do it. I called Eric when they were skiing last week. For those of you who are listening who don't know, our friend's son,

We discovered recently has a size nine. He's a grown man. He has a size nine. She's that wonderful kid. It's just funny because John is apoplectic. Like he just couldn't believe it. I called Eric mid ski vacation. I could tell when I caught him, it was after a couple of pops. And I was like, Hey man, I got something really important. Call me back. I got something really important for you. What's up, bro? What's up, man? What's going on? I said, Hey man, I got an important question. You tell me the truth. He said, what's going on? I said,

Do they have size nine ski boots or you just got to get a 10 and shut some Kleenex in the end of it? Put a little sock in the bottom. A little Kleenex in it. He goes, I don't know, but I'm going to go ask Greg. Oh, you're a mess, man. He's a sweetheart of a kid too. He's a sweet kid. Anyway, but yeah, you know, I had a situation this week where we had to kind of put our chest out a little bit too. It's so funny the stuff that our competitors will glom onto.

So it got back to us that on a regular regular basis, our competitors have now decided to use the fact that Gavin and I were no longer the brokers of Simply Vegas. And we were just the owners to tell people that we no longer cared about the company, which was ludicrous and on so many different levels. And the fact that

you know, yeah, something I spent 13 years of my life building. I'm just, I don't care about it anymore. And that you're here every day for, and then I'm here every day in the building that my office is literally in a glass box, the middle of the lobby, same where it was like I'm on display. Right. I answered just many questions. So yeah, we had a situation where, where that had come up and one of our brokers needed some family time, unfortunately had some bad stuff happen with his family. So he needs to focus on that.

so rather than go hire somebody else me and gavin talked about it we're like let's just take away the talking point we'll just step back into being the brokers who cares you know we still we do the work anyway it doesn't matter let's just step back in and remove that talking point but i found myself really questioning later did i do that because i genuinely love the job which i do it anyway and i do like the job or do i do it just to silence the haters and it's like we you know

Which side of that coin is the right side and which side is okay? And is there a side of it's not okay? I'd answer for you. Life is about marketing. Sometimes you have to make there's this balance, right? Do you post your supercar online and be like, look how successful I am? Or do you go the humble route and say, you know, just ignore it?

Do you step into a position? Because people don't know what that means, by the way. A lot of people will that listen to this, but a lot of people won't. What that means to be a broker. That just means you're the licensed person that the things funnel through. It's more of an administration.

administrative position than it is a leadership position. - It is, 'cause the leadership never changed. - That to me would be like a really silly, like as a professional realtor, I'm a realtor. - Here's the point, we talked about this last time when we were talking about like Simply Vegas finishing as the number one busiest office in the MLS. That's great, but there's only one way to go but down. And when you're the guy on top, everybody wants to take their pot shots. And it just, it's amazing. It's kind of one of those things where I just, I didn't like the optics of hearing that.

that that that was being perpetuated by other people i didn't like the hearing it so it was just easier just take it off the table rather than fighting i think if you wouldn't have done it if it hurt your guys's business right like nothing changed you guys have always had your phones out there if you have questions call me or gavin right yeah so nothing changes it's silencing a hater for it's administrative though it really is matt it would be like if saying um

Chris Connell isn't the secretary of his own LLC or something. - Right. - Yeah, well, we kept, one of the brokers is staying on as corporate broker. They can do all the signing and stuff and all the administrative work. I think the biggest change is our names are going back on the MLS where people can see them on all the listings. - I mean, that's probably good. - That's the big difference. - That's probably good. - So who cares? It just is what it is, but it's just so funny to me. - What did you come up with?

nothing we're just going back on you said am i doing this to silence the haters i don't know i i don't know because the problem was i i thought about it for a while i'm like am i doing this because i want to do it or am i doing it because i'm i feel boxed in a corner to do it by the haters and then i decided that it didn't really matter which side of the coin it was because it can be both sides it can be both sides that's the thing and it was but again let's talk about negative thinking because you know i started this out and and i'm that guy that again i get sucked into the

Now there's AI, so I need to learn everything about AI and I gotta do this and I gotta do that and I gotta do this and we gotta get this, buying houses and just everything gets going and you just, I end up doing so many things and I get overwhelmed and that overwhelming always almost turns into negative thought.

Right? Like, I don't know how this, you know, like you see other people that are doing things well, and you're like, I don't know how they're doing this. Right. I don't know how they're pulling that. Like, how does this person pulling this shit off? When in reality, that is the worst thing you can do. You've just got to focus on what you're doing every day and put one foot in front of the other every day as you can go along.

Run your own race, yeah. Well, not only that, but like Seneca said, the definition of true wealth is not the man that has the most, it's the man that wants the least. So that's where I get kind of tangled up in this. So luckily for you guys, when I have some sort of personal crisis or feel myself slipping in a direction, I always go right to the books, man. Orange, mocha, frappuccino. That's exactly right. No, I go right to where I can find a book that's going to help me on this. And this week, like I said, is a book called Eliminate Negative Thinking by Derek Howell.

And it's pretty good, man. And it talks a lot in bullet points, which I like, in which we can kind of hit some of these things. But to get started, I think it's necessary to define negative thinking, right? What is negative thinking? It is a way of thinking in which you exclusively see the negative side of situations, people, events, or even yourself. Negative thinkers often have low self-esteem and lack confidence because they tend to focus on things they don't like about themselves. Now, again,

Think it's not necessarily low self-esteem people are I disagree with a little bit on this point our negative thinkers I think the negative thinking brings about low self-esteem it brings about self-doubt. It's the result of those things So so here's the funny thing about that. There is a time in your life there. You need to examine the negatives. I

100% he talks about that. Yeah, and we're gonna get there. It's not it can't always be sunshine and rainbows No, it's just the other side of a coin right like when you do a SWOT analysis. Mm-hmm What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses people say? Oh, you can't focus on your weaknesses It's like that's what I want to improve. Yeah, you gotta know. Of course. I got a no I gotta have a real understanding of what's negative about the situation. So to do an honest, you know self-aware

accounting of those things. You have to be able to understand the negative, but not to just dwell on it solely. - 'Cause you might not be able to change your weakness, but you can hire your weakness. - Figure a way around it. - Yeah. - Hire your weakness. - You can definitely hire through it or mask it. But here's some cool stuff that I thought we're just talking about, things you need to do when you slip into that mode of having a lot of negative thoughts, of getting that perpetuating, that boulder rolling down the hill of negativity. And the first one is clearing your mind.

It's finding a time every day to clear your mind, just to meditate. And I struggle with this. Are you a meditator? You know, it's on my, again, list of things to get better at. Now, I do do hot yoga once in a while where I do find myself focusing on the moment. Is that just you on OnlyFans or is that an actual class? No, it is. How do I sign up for that? How do I sign up to watch this? Can you –

Maybe some oldie fans. Can you get a webcam and just stream that? There may be some content creators in the room, but you wouldn't know because you're focusing on yourself. Yeah. And it's in a difficult situation. It's hot. You're doing difficult things and hard poses.

And it's in those moments where I do find a lot of clarity in my mind. I'll be thinking about something, and then I'll kind of ease off it and start thinking about nothing intentionally. I guess that's meditation, but not enough. It is. It's, again, on my list as well. And I've tried it with some apps, and I've had a little success with the apps where there's a couple where I'll do the thing, and it says it's like eight or nine minute long meditation, and it feels like it's 30 seconds. Yeah.

And you're like, whoa, that was really weird that that went by that quick. And it was good. Do you guys not start your mornings early?

Like, how do you, because I start in a half hour of nothing, just staring out a window with my coffee. Oh, God, that sounds lovely. No, I probably, I get up and I go do sports. I listen to sports talk radio. That's kind of my meditation. Is it? Because there's no. Just to zone out? I've been wondering why I like sports so much. I've developed a love and appreciation for sports. The more I get, the older I get. Yeah.

And I think it's because there are no actual consequences to me about any of it. It's a consequence-free indulgence, right? I can get interested in things. I can have opinions. I can have all this without any consequence to anyone. See, this is why you'll never be a Philly fan.

Ever because you got you know, you got to bleed for that shit. I know yeah Lose a few teeth speak speaking of which I'm gonna sign part back. It might go you had people your house for simple Yeah, I'm just walking up the street to Steve our Kansas see if our Kansas place and he is a diehard Eagles fan I'm sorry and dude, you should have seen this party, right and

He had like the printouts made with the fly Eagles fly song on it. He flew a dude in from Philadelphia. He flew a guy in from Philly to cook cheesesteaks in his backyard. And if like, if you went to AI and said, Hey,

AI, draw me a picture of a Philadelphia Phillies fan cooking cheesesteaks. It would have spit this guy out. I mean, he was like a big, over-type, heavy-set guy with red curly hair and a red beard and a red and white striped headband back there cooking up cheese.

You want whiz? You want whiz. That's a whiz, yeah? They're not good. The whiz is not good on it. I thought the whiz was good. You do it? They're good. He wasn't going to let me eat it either way. No, you can't. The Philly cheese. I like them. I like a little whiz. He said I had to have the whiz. Anyway, so that's funny. But I left before the end of the game, so thank God, because I'm sure it just changed. Because there were a lot of diehards there. Next thing, talking about it.

Talking about negative feelings. And I think this is, man, there's a post that went around on social media that I really liked. And it was like one of those, it wasn't quite into the lines not cheap stuff, but it was like a dude like, hey, man, you ever ask a guy if he's okay? And he says, yeah, man, I'm okay. Well, he's not okay. He's a truck guy. Yeah, and he's like, that dude is not okay. He's going through some shit. You need to understand that. And I think that probably this is one of...

Not to kumbaya and start hugging anybody, but this is probably one of the places where manly men struggle. Sure. Because we're not supposed to, you know, it's like, what is it? Which community was it like? I'm fine. Oh, no, it was Bill Burr. And he's like, no, no, I'm just going to say I'm fine until I have a heart attack and die on the spot. Right. He's like, guy asked me if I want a cookie.

He said, no, you don't get to ask me that. And the thing is, I wanted a cookie. That's all this hate built up over time. You don't do that? No, not at all. But talking about, man, if you're having negative feelings, this is, again, I think one of those situations where...

It's important to have a mentor. It's important to have a confidant. It's important to have somebody that you can drop this stuff on. I don't think it should be your spouse. - You know what's funny? I like that you brought that up. I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but one of the absolute favorite things about my relationship, hands down, bar none, is the fact that my wife and I have no desire to talk shit about people that are like our friends. You know how many couples sit there and go,

Oh, you know, just chirp. Kind of chirp their people in their circle or even associates or whatever. Nobody. It just doesn't happen. And I noticed that like a couple years ago. I go, that's interesting that we don't dislike any of our friends. You know how there's just the inevitability. Someone gets lumped in and you're just like, fuck that guy, but he's around. And you don't want to be around that guy. Oh, yeah.

that helps so much to be with somebody that isn't feeding into your own negative thought loops about your situation well i think you know what it is man and i gotta tell you let me ask you this i bet by you saying that i bet your wife doesn't watch any of the garbage like housewife she watches none of it none of that none of the none of the housewife none of the none of the fatties the kardashians whatever people

People watch that shit just to hate on those people. Nothing. There's no enjoyment there. They're just watching it so they can hate on them. Yeah, that's wild. That is. That's wild. I'm telling you, you tell me that. She doesn't. I don't either. And that goes back to what you feed your brain. I mean, I already know what you feed this is going to come out of this. Inputs, outputs. It's going to come straight out. So, yeah, I dig that. But what do you think about that, about not talking about your negative thoughts to your spouse? What do you think about that? You know, there's a part of me, and this is going to sound funny too,

When I was younger, I used to sit there and think, I want my wife, you know, you have a prototype wife, right? When you're single or you're whatever my wife, I want her to be this, this, this. And one of them was, you know, deeply political and opinionated because I liked that. You think, well, that's the person I'm going to be around. I'd like to sit there and get in arguments with my wife. That's how dumb I was when I was younger. Cause I thought it'd be great. Oh, she's so smart into this or whatever. What you need is someone who's intelligent that you won't ever lose respect for. Right.

but who doesn't give a shit about politics, about any of that negativity stuff. Right. Right. Because I can argue politics with you. I can argue politics. I have friends I can do that with. I don't need to go home into my sanctuary. But let me ask you a question. And pollute it with negativity. But let me ask you a question. I'm talking about voicing your negative self-limiting thoughts to your spouse. To me, I think it upsets the apple cart a little bit of the dynamic of what's supposed to be going on at home. I agree.

And that's why, like, I want my wife to look at me like I'm fucking Superman. That's what I want. I don't want her to know that today I don't feel like I'm enough. I don't need her healing here. Yeah, you know, that's probably the wrong attitude, but I have that too. Is it? Yes. I don't know if it's right. I think it's wrong. I just don't think you want to stress them out, right? Let's let Colt be the decision maker on this. I totally agree. So, like, I have another business that I have partnerships, and I talk with my wife about it, and she finally goes, you got to stop. What?

I can't deal with it. It's too much, right? That negativity. And it wasn't negative. It was just like, how do I, these problems, you know, these guys, how could I fix this? And she's like, I can't. And I think that,

It's like a real estate deal. People look at how smooth it went. If they knew exactly how many big problems there were, but why go upset somebody that's involved? And your wife is involved with you day to day. So look for an outsider that you can stress a little bit. For that reason. To not disrupt the apple cart, I think is really good. I'm just going to show you 10% of the iceberg. Right.

Right. You know, and as long as they're empathetic and know that, Hey, there's all this other shit going on. They just don't bring it home. Yeah. That's a sign of like fine strength, but like I wouldn't,

also be emotionally crippled to explain when you're having a bad day. That's probably better if you're saying, "I'm having a bad day for X, Y, or Z reasons, "and I don't wanna talk to you about it, "but I just am so you understand. "I'm not being distant." - Yeah, no, no, no. And I will let her know if there's issues, but I'm never gonna, when you have those moments that are just, and they fade, they come with the funk or whatever else and the bullshit, and you have those moments of self-doubt, I'm not gonna bring that home to her.

Because again, the last thing I need her doing is saying, hmm, maybe he is a little sub. Maybe that's not the guy that I thought. Maybe he is a little not the great in this department or whatever. So yeah, I want her, again, to me, it feeds me better if she thinks I'm Superman. Tell me what you guys think about this situation. You talk about being negative. I was trying to avoid that whole thing. So my daughter, I have my oldest daughter.

My youngest, I have full-time, obviously. My oldest, since she was two and I was in law school, I've had her 50-50, just week on, week off with her mom. Worked great. But 100% of her school absences come at her mom's house. 100%. Yeah. Not 50%, 100%. And it affects grades. You can tell because assignments are missing and then it's a whole stressful experience.

One of her friends has a kid that had this disease which was ultimately going to end up in death. A couple of them, whatever genetically they made, they had a couple kids that they found out later there's a guarantee they can't process waste or something, so they die. So one of the kids died, and it was kind of inevitable, and all the other ones I think have also passed away. So she didn't go to school.

And a part of me was going, well, you've missed a lot of school. There's always the excuse. She said, he was like a brother to me and I'm upset so I didn't go to school. Mom said I didn't have to go to school. And I'm sitting there going, how do I walk this tightrope? Not be the negative asshole because I'm the hard one. I'm the one that pays for tutoring. I'm the one that pays for club volleyball. I'm the one that tries to promote. No, you got to be responsible. There's hard parts of it. It can't just be every time you come up with conflict, you just get to avoid it by not going.

so i'm sitting there thinking and i couldn't come up with a solution can i give you an answer yeah yeah but i did come up with one i said okay now i want to hear your solution i don't know if you're asking metaphorically to leave your solution but i don't know if it was right i don't know whatever what'd you do because i because i could tell that whatever i text is going to be negative you can't text no but it was just it was just a passing thing where i didn't want to call and get into it okay so i just said i understand how it's very hard i'm very sorry

I'm your dad, I'm responsible. I need to make sure that you're taking care of yourself and these are the areas that aren't going well. No more absences going forward. Zero, zero tolerance policy now. Because you have the sniffles, all these excuses for why. Oh, I was having heavy, she's 14, she's obviously. So all that stuff just comes up as an excuse to miss school and it's just like you just don't want to go and you know that one of your parents will allow it.

Which is normal, it's not bad, but it's just now there's a zero tolerance policy. That's all that can come up with it. - This is what I did, 'cause we had a similar situation, 'cause obviously Hayden was very sick for weeks and we got to a point where he went to several doctors and they're just like, he's just gonna get better, he's gotta ride it out. And he's not physically ill, he just had this cough that would not stop cough.

and i got that he was he missed a lot of school and exceptional student as it was and finally i was like buddy you got to go to school tomorrow like now you're not contagious you're not going to get anybody else sick you're just now you just want to stay home to stay home right

At which point it was like he was kind of looking confused. And I said, look, me and mommy have one job. We got to get you prepared to be an adult. Yes. And I got four more, literally three years and two months left to do it is what I got left to do. Three years and two months. If you had a job, if you were employed by someone and you had been out this much, you would have gotten fired. And he just looked at me. He's like, well, no, I just would have worked at home.

and you forget sometimes when you're a business owner and have the freedom to do whatever we want as we all do you forget when your kids see that they don't necessarily plug into how the world works and so then gidge went through and was like no let me explain to you how like if let's say you worked at one of the casinos which he never will but let's just say hypothetically you worked at one of the casinos he's like you get points there's no

There's no reason. If you don't show up, you get a point. When you get so many points, you get written up. You get so many points after that, you get fired. And you would have had enough points this week. There's no work at home.

Like you just would have gotten fired. You've got to be responsible to get yourself up and go. - You're not a professional architect yet. - No. - One day you may be. - Right, but now you're not. - But when you're earning your stripes, you're there every day. You don't get to do anything. - So we always lean into, because I find that, and your daughter's probably at the same age. - Same age, exactly. - Wants to be an adult, like wants to be an adult. Wants to be treated as a grownup. Wants to be treated, you know, wants to be treated. Stretching those boundaries of adolescence into adulthood.

Right. I only know the half I have her. Right. But the point is, I lean, we lean into that and lever that.

If you lean into it in a way like we do, and you're like, look, adults don't act like this. You want to be treated like Mr. Big Matt. You've got to act like this. You don't get them both. Right. You don't, you don't get them both. And when we, when we lean into that, it seems to work. I was going to say, I go to my oldest kid. You'd be fired from me for that. He screws up on a chore. That's unacceptable. I'd fire you. You know, I think I've said that too. I always, I say that probably in the past, I probably say that three times a week to him. I'd,

I'd fire you if you worked for me for that. Note to self, do not hire Colt's son. No, but just like, no, but like if you say take out the trash, he takes out the trash. Three times a week, that's a lot. And he doesn't put the bag back. Why'd you half-ass it? It's an incomplete job. Maybe he needs some more inclusive management, Colt. Maybe the problem's you, right? I'm not a micromanager. What exactly would you say you do around here in a week, Colt? You say you do.

- No, I'm missing it. - But again, yeah, like you said, trying to frame the negative, 'cause it's obviously a negative situation. It's horrible. - Yeah. - It's not good, but I'm kind of going, this person's not like a brother to you. This person doesn't have like language skills because they're very severely, you know. - It's a convenient. - An excuse.

it's a tough it's a tough situation because you can't step it over but you just got to lean into you can't you can't lessen her opinion on the severity of the situation you just got to lean into how the world works she's entitled to her feelings you're entitled to your feelings but also sometimes your feelings don't matter but the boss wouldn't give a about your that's right that's what that's it I understand your feelings boss doesn't give a they're going to be adults doing that how many times I call people and they're like oh

My dad just died. All right, well, sorry, your due diligence is up. I got 50 grand of earnest money in two days. We need to sit down and talk. It's like, sorry, life doesn't stop. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

As a lawyer, no, it does. People say we can work together. We have a lot of latitude. There are very few things. And I've never denied a request to somebody that made the request. Hey, my father's got a funeral. Can I get a two-week extension? It's 100%. Yeah. 100%. But that's because we're all professionals at a level. When I was 21, I had zero...

zero flexibility with what I was doing. Zero. Not 1%. Zero. - No. Well, when contract laws state something, that doesn't stop you. You don't go in front of a judge and say, "Oh, I missed my due diligence day," or, "My earnest money's up," and that happens a lot. - Unless you're pro-sane Clark County because you can get away with murder someday. - When I was in the restaurant business and I was very young and I was working, I just started

I was an assistant manager for this company and the other assistant manager on like my second day, he called like the area guy came, our area supervisor came in right to the store randomly unannounced. Same day, the other assistant, I'd been there for two days, tried to call in and this is exactly how it went. Called in, I was like, hello, and back office and the, I don't remember his name, but the area supervisor guy was standing there and it was Chris was the other manager. He's like, hey man, I'm really sick.

can you cover for me i can't come in i'm like you need me to work you need me to cover for you and the manager heard me say that he goes who is that and i said it's chris he's really sick he goes give me the phone hey chris and he said his name whatever his name was he goes how you doing buddy he goes oh you're sick huh doctor said you should stay in bed huh did he say a hospital bed oh great okay cool we'll see you at 3 30. click and he looked at me he goes there's no sick

Well, it's just funny. No, but I don't want to sound extra harsh. So I want to clarify one little thing. This is an important lesson. When you've had 11 absences in the past for bullshit, that time you need the 12th, it's 100%. So again, so if you don't, this is going to sound dorky, but there was a year of high school where I had perfect attendance.

I didn't skip. I just always went because I played sports. I wanted to be at school. My girlfriend was there. Nerd alert. I won a super Titan award in my high school. I spent my time doing stuff. If you've earned though, sometimes you've earned the right through exceptional performance. If it was the first absence, it's

Take the week. - It wouldn't have been an issue. - Not an issue, but no, no, no. We're now at the 12th, 13th, 14th absence. - Well, because that's-- - You've run out. You don't get, your feelings have to take a backseat at some point because of the objective measure. - The answer to that is the problem is not today. - That's right. - The problem is everything that's happened for the last three months. - That is 100% what you wanna say. You've used it already. - It's not today. - Yeah, Kat's got nine lives. You're on 13. - Yeah, it's not today. Yeah, it's tough, man, it's tough.

other ways to clear negative thinking get creative it says use anxiety and frustrate frustration as forces for good by and channeling them towards creativity so i don't know paint death metal something death metal i think a lot of people use that negativity and that anxiety and start working harder and start thinking of other ways right make nirvana yeah dude i immediately thought of nirvana when i read that i swear to god i did i'm like you don't well know that i did so i didn't think it was good let's get back to ones i do agree with

Practice positive affirmations. I do love this. I mean, if you come through my coaching program, one of the first things that I do is you write out all of your negative beliefs, all of the things that are prohibiting you from getting to where you want to be. And then you flip those to an alternate statement. So if you're

If you think you're too old, your positive affirmation statement is I am young enough. If you think you don't have enough money, it's I have plenty of money. I have plenty of time. I have everything I want. And that becomes your mantra that you say to yourself every morning. You write it on a piece of paper. You stick it to the mirror. It's the first thing you see when you wake up, and it's the last thing you see before you go to bed.

I'm not old, I'm experienced. - I'm experienced, but every day it's a positive affirmation. And I do 100% believe in the power of positive affirmation to change your whole thing. If you are struggling right now, if you are out there and you're struggling, dude, if you do nothing else you've ever heard on this podcast,

Figure out what your negative limiting belief is, flip it to the inverse, and then say it to yourself in a positive way every single day as much as you can. Straight Stuart Smalley. That's it. I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And gosh darn it, people like me. You guys have stuff on your mirror? I have a Sharpie next to my car or a dry erase marker. I write on my mirror, like my weight, Cole, right? Like whatever I have going that I want to see daily, that thing's on my top left of my mirror. Nice.

I put that everywhere. That's smart. That is smart. Just like weighing yourself every day, taking pictures of yourself. Yeah. I have three things on my mirror right now that won't come off until I hit those goals. So every time I see it. Nice.

Did you, does it say somewhere on your mirror? If you find me dead, the Latina did it. Is that, is that, does it also say that's in my, uh, my, uh, bank account or what is it? Bank vault. Yeah. It's in different color and it says underneath. Yeah. DNR fool. He said DNR anyway, move. If you're feeling grumpy, get up and do some activity. I firmly believe the most positive people that I know on this planet are

are all in great shape. - Motion creates emotion. - Exactly. Get up, move, get the endorphins going, get that pump going, get that moving. I don't know, I mean how many super fit people do you know that are unhappy?

do you know a lot of unhappy super fit people um super fit yes yes super fit look i don't mean they don't absolutely terrible and grumpy because they're just a slave okay i'm not saying a slave to the fitness lifestyle okay how many okay you almost want to flip that how many very happy people do you see that are very unhealthy i think i mean i think i don't think unhealthy people are happy

- You mean, oh, you're gonna go the other way, inverse of that. - And not to be negative, what I'm saying is you can be super fit and so driven that you're a perfectionist and miserable and nothing's ever good enough. And that's where eating disorders come in. That's where steroid abuse comes in. Like all these people, they're trying to achieve something and they're never happy. They're never satisfied. - Okay, but again, I don't consider those people healthy. - Okay, super fit, like healthy, really healthy people. - Yeah, healthy people. - Goal-oriented people like the Jesse Itzlers of the world kind of? - Yeah, he's a lunatic. - Right, did you hear what his wife was saying?

it was a great this was a lovely story you want to talk about this exactly what you're talking about way to frame it so she's saying she first was starting jesse and they were getting married or whatever we were in their first dating she said she had a podcast or something with george foreman she had to go meet george form in the boxer she goes my boyfriend i may be butchering this because my boyfriend just ran a super marathon he ran 100 miles in 23 hours

george foreman says to her never try to understand that man just love him that's it just just that's an exceptional man that is an accept like that's one of those people that you know she's probably like this ultra successful guy it's like don't try to understand people like that you know you just have to love them you know what's funny i saw jesse that's her clip this morning talking about super marathons where he said like look he goes you know

People think I ran that. I didn't run that. Seven minutes run, three minutes walk. I can do seven minute running, three minute walk forever. I can do that forever. To me mentally, that was easily palatable. Could you bite-sized pieces? Bite-sized chunks. That's it. One bite at a time. So yeah. Was the Foreman Grill like one of the greatest inventions ever? What an awesome. Yeah, screw that electricity or, you know.

penicillin AC yeah alternating current George George forming jet plane airplanes mosquito netting right to the George Foreman Grill great invention greatest invention ever top five top five okay Colt what are your top five best inventions ever I mean we gotta go Snuggie number five

right into the Snuggie. I like it. You guys are laughing, so I know you never owned a Snuggie, because if you did, you'd agree with me. A Snuggie was amazing. George Foreman is right. Number four. George Foreman at four. Not him, but his grill. His grill. Okay. Him as a boxer. Yeah, whatever. Uh,

You know, I would have to say the microwave. The microwave? Okay, fair. It's a great one. Can you imagine without a microwave? Nope. It'd be horrible. Take me now, Lord. Then I would have to say the car. Then the hair dryer. I have curly hair. The hair dryer.

No penicillin. No like anti-malarials. Don't need it. Don't need it. Because then there'd be less people. Less people. He's anti-penicillin. Anti-malarials. Like a cigar cutter? No. I would just chop it off. Be a man. Be a man. All right. John doesn't know anything about that. Next. Next.

Keep a gratitude journal. And this is, it's funny you said how I start my day. This is how I start my day every single day is keeping a gratitude journal. Because every day I'm writing the three things that I'm grateful for every day. I like that. I don't do that. I do that. The Daily Stoic Journal. I got it and I write down. It's usually something about that. Every day. Something positive. Start your day with gratitude. It's hard to be in a bad mood when you start the day with gratitude. I like that a lot. I just write down my thoughts on my Netflix series that I'm going to write. Yeah. Yeah.

Colt's going to pick up Black Mirrors where it left off. If you've ever seen that, he's convinced he can get a Netflix pilot deal just by purging his brain onto a page. He could be 100% right. He could be. That's a pony I would bet on. I'm telling you, I've already got it. Since we started talking about it 30 minutes ago, I've got the whole thing.

the whole thing now yeah storyboard is going to be pretty amazing did the ending sure yep can we get a synopsis or do you have to wait it's going to have to do with ai okay okay government official okay minority celebrity okay hunting people on an island and ai messing with it all

That's all you're getting from me. That's it? It's going to be amazing. Who's the actor that gets Tom Hanks? When he gets it in? You can tell how this ends, by the way, because he gets eaten. That's not how it ends. I'm not going to say how it ends. I'll tell you all fair. Does he get eaten by the bees like Nick Cage in The Wicker Man? Oh my God, that was the worst scene in the world.

the wicker man what oh come on never saw that we know what you're talking about the movie that proved that nick cage definitely does not read scripts before he agrees to make movies just no way he read how have we not had him on the podcast i find to believe what he is right down the street let's start we need to work on that get him get him on yeah try to work nick cage figure that out colt get us nick cage on the podcast the next one on here says practice deep breathing i find this interesting um

Wim Hof baby. Yeah. The Wim Hof method has become very popular. And actually now a friend of friend of the show, we'll call her Dr. Shannon Sperber, um, is a breath work expert person. And she teaches a clinical breath work and everybody that's gone through it says it's amazing, whatever it is. But, but I heard like it's a, there's all kinds of different techniques. You can, you Google eyes on how to, uh,

Hyperoxygenate. Yeah, draw it in. I got to tell you, since I started the EWOT training with the oxygen thing at home, the mood's been much better. You pump that much oxygen into the body once a day. Because you fill it with nitrous. No. Okay. Wait, it's not supposed to have nitrous in it? No, that's not good. My bad. That's not how that works. That's terrible. It's scientifically proven that breath work does help with stress and everything like that. Mm-hmm.

but you know the number one thing that leads to negative thinking is overthinking it's when the brain is going to the brain is going too fast and too much and uh i find that this happens to me when i'm compulsively scrolling

You ever find yourself compulsively scrolling when you're on social media and you're just, you know. Of course. This is when the memes are flying hot and heavy amongst us boys. You're asking me? I'm watching some Swedish ABBA song that turns into death metal courtesy of Connell. And I'm like, what am I watching? You're welcome. That's amazing. I'm like, what am I watching? Did he say that to you too? No, but that sounds amazing. I'm going to send it to you. German Schlager turned death metal. It's straight ABBA turned into death metal.

It's so good though. It's, it's, it's out there. Electric call boy. Yeah. There it is. But overthinking is something that caused a lot of negative thinking. It's what happens to me, especially when I'm scrolling. So number one, the number one thing you do is become aware that you have that problem. And, and,

Understand the triggers. For me, I'm telling you, it's the social media that kills me. I got to limit the social media. Everybody does. It's so, that's the trigger that sends me spiraling so much because it's too much input too fast. We're not designed for that kind of stuff. You're not. You're not at all.

You're not at all. That's why our kids are on whole different levels. Yeah. Their attention spans are just off the wall. But mine is when I'm laying in bed. That's when I overthink. Like, when I'm doing stuff, don't overthink. But when I'm laying in bed, it's a freaking disaster. Yeah, but when you close your eyes, I mean, there's a chance you're not opening them. Yeah.

Find my iPhone. Yeah. No, but some of the people, you know, postulate that it's, um, some of that overthinking is, is due to overly critical parenting as you grew up. Hmm.

So one of the ways that you can help with your own negative thinking is to understand that you are a product of your environment and it's a normal thing and just to forgive yourself and be kind to yourself. That's the other thing. People are just so awful to themselves sometimes. Yeah. Right? Like you wouldn't hang out with a friend that treated you the way you internalize your voice. No, never.

You know, so it's like that guys be kind to yourself, too. It sounds corner That's what we're gonna get to that That was one of the that actually comes from overcoming worry, but it says it's an overcoming worry Where was this we're being more positive. It says practice self-love man. Yeah, just cultivate cultivate positive No, but it just it says ways that you can actually affect yourself and

change your thinking one of them is to uh to to practice self-love you got to start learning how to love on yourself a little more but back to overthinking um you know we talked about the triggers minimizing the daily input we talked about accepting your limitations i think this is something you know we can't predict what will happen in the future it's a natural part of our reality and the fact that we this should be embraced acknowledging your limitations and lack of ability to control everything can ease the pressure on yourself

and help you to achieve a state of inner peace and acceptance. So yeah, I mean, you know, accept the things we can't control, you know, forget the ones we can't. - That's probably my biggest issue I have.

I look, she's like, holy cow, you're looking like this. Four different things go wrong. How bad could it really get? Yeah. Yeah, I do that too a lot because I have cases that seem like they're going forever. And every single one of them I remember stressing out about. And then I'll look back at my closed folders because I have to keep cases for seven years. Every single case that gave me problems has been resolved and is closed and whatever. Well, I think the step on here that I like the most is where it says interrogate yourself.

And it's asking yourself one simple question when it comes, when you have it, when you have a negative thought or you have something that creeps in your brain or some overwhelming feeling of negativity, I think the best question to ask is, is this feeling useful? And sometimes it is because we have feelings of fight or flight. Sometimes your brain is trying to protect you. Sometimes, you know, it's the, it's the sixth sense radar going off about a person to try to get you out of a situation, your, your gut, your visceral instinct. But,

But ask yourself, is this thought useful? And I think if you break it down on terms of that, it's like, is this useful or is this just noise? It's just nonsense. Am I just perpetuating some kind of nonsense? Have you seen that diagram where the worry was like, should I worry about this? And it's yes and no. Yeah. It says, can you do something about it? If it's like no, it's like stop worrying about it. Yeah, stop. Yes, no.

you know, do something about it. That's pretty much it. It's literally the end of the rope. Can I, can I, can I do anything about this? No, then stop worrying about it. Well, overcoming, overcoming worry is, is probably in my household. My wife worries about everything. She's, she's a very, has a lot of worry. Mom, she has mom. And I always, you know, my, my phrase that I say to her all the time is don't bar trouble from tomorrow. And I mean, we don't know what's going to happen. You don't know where you're at and

what's gonna happen is gonna happen so you might as well not worry about it until it does okay sarah case sarah sarah and i mean you know and sometimes that's hard yeah i was gonna say that's a lot easier said than done yeah i mean like with the with the dog this weekend you know that was hard um you know my dog we started feeling not well last friday and uh

We had to take him, and it just wasn't feeling good. We took him to the vet. They looked at him. They said, ah, we think there's kind of a mass on the back of him, and then went to an emergency vet that night and another vet, and back to the vet on Monday. It turns out he's got cancer, and we don't know how bad it is yet. So we had the mass removed from him, but now we have to see how bad it is. And the dog's, he's perky. I mean, he's only nine. He's not an old dog, and he's fine. And the vet's like,

you know until we know what's going on we won't know what's going on and i've seen dogs like this live with us for three years you know it just depends he's only nine so we just don't know and you know it's hard when you have a life situation like that but i am choosing to assume the best until i hear the worst that's what i'm assuming to do and it's hard and it's you know and it's hard when you have stuff like that but you've got to force yourself to do it

The next one says create a daily worry period allocating a set amount of time for your negative thoughts and keep you to free your mind, perform the rest of the task. So I guess like, yeah, nonsense. What that, you don't like it? How do you do that? You can't even do that. I'm bailing on it. I'm so dumb. For the next 20 minutes. Don't call me right now. I'm being fucking shitty. For the next 20 minutes, I'm going to wallow in my own self pity. I mean,

I mean, it might be brilliant. I'd have to read the whole paragraph. Maybe he's got it. I don't know how you're going to do that. You can't turn it on and off like that. I agree. Right? Like if you could turn it on and off, great. Right? There might be times you need to just go fucking be mad at something for 20 minutes to get off your chest. Yeah, you may be mad. I was driving today. I had to go pick up a check from a client. We had a nice case finalized. You're mad because you made money? That's a good trip. I was going to. It was a great trip. It's a trip I'm very happy about. Yeah.

But as I'm driving in that lane that keeps getting cut off, you know the zipper merge and people are supposed to zipper merge. Yeah, you go, I go, you go, I go. You go, I go, you go. But first off, you go pound sand back there when it's an empty lane, you come flying up and cut in front. Yeah, I hate that shit. But even worse. Technically, that's what you're supposed to do. Fine. We'll argue that one. You get one car.

One car. You don't have the idiot in front of you who let 50 cars in in front of you. That's true. I hate that guy. You are the guy that... Okay, everybody... Okay, fine, Zipper Merch. I'll die on this cross that I hate you all because you know goddamn well you could have gotten that line. But fine. Fine. Dude, I'm the guy that waves at you.

Last second hitting a barrel. Just boom, right? Whatever. Okay, one. Let's say the idiot in front of me just kept letting people come in, and so I'm just waiting now. I'm not zipper merging either. So anyway. No, it's one. But I'm sitting there, and 50 people, I'm sitting there 20 minutes, and I just start screaming.

I'm like, would you effing, could you get one car? It's like a Larry David moment. And then I'm like, okay, just, I literally just, okay, you're being an asshole. Just calm down. Got to breathe through it. Yeah, this will be fine. You're 10 minutes late to go pick up a check. What are you, why are you mad? Just like, well, because you just sometimes. And if you'd have gotten out six minutes earlier, you could have gotten hit by a tractor trailer.

There's just no way to know. - So I just was like, just so I grabbed my fingers, like as a joke, being like, calm down. - No way to know. Well, let's wrap this up by talking about how to be more positive, right? Be more positive. - Hitting barrels. - Hitting barrels and doing that shit. - Yeah, but if you can. - No, but again, I think. - You're supposed to. Just get one car. - One car. - For me, what is your key to having a positive mindset every day? You're gonna go last 'cause I'm sure you're just gonna be mad.

Just being grateful. The older I get, the more grateful I am.

I was talking to my wife about this the other day, and I do have this ton of worry because I'm scared of, because I like what I'm doing. I like what I'm with. I like what's happening in my life. And I don't sit there and worry about what I don't have. I'm very grateful for what I do have. I do have that Seneca-esque understanding that I don't want for anything, right? And I'm very happy. But when you get happy, you kind of sometimes want to preserve it, right? And you think negative thoughts. Oh, God, what if, what if

what if my wife got hit by a bus i was just so devastated i would never recover from it but she's here right it's like the whole thing the glass is already broken yeah you know the glass will break one day so just appreciate it while it's here that's the right way to do it yeah so i'm just i try to be grateful when when there's situations where i realize that it could be all done one day for everything for me i would say my key to overall happiness is i try to systematize as many

monotonous type decisions as I can, which means that my morning routine, I eat the same thing every day. I drink the same thing every day. I do the same thing at the same time every day. Everything happens at the same way. And sometimes it is bad because if something goes screwy, like this morning, for example, my Fitbit died.

And my chart halfway, like right when I started working out, my Fitbit died. And I was like, oh shit, my steps are going to get screwed up today. And even though I'll know that I got them because I'm still doing everything that I normally do the same way. It won't be counted. It's not going to be in my app. And that spun me a little bit. So yeah.

- Word of warning to everybody, if you're gonna systematize your day like that in ways that everything always happens the same. I mean, you look at all these billionaires that wear the same thing every day and they do that. - I do too. - Yeah, just so they don't have to think about it. All those little decisions that tend to clog things up, you wanna free up as much of your brain power away from those things as you can. So when the things you do need to think about or the things that do become critical in your decision making,

you're free to make them. That's my key to it. So Colt, what about you? Your life is probably, that'd be boring. I might have orange juice. I might have scotch. I might have them both. I might have them at the same time. That's a great answer. A boring freaking life. John has. I might have orange juice. I might have scotch. Something. That's great. I think of all the people I cut off and how much time I save from not getting in the lane a half a mile back. Like all that stuff.

Yeah, that's great. That was a good answer. But honestly, like, you know, I saw I've seen a lot of people die.

so anytime i have a bad at your own hand at my own ass no no i i just have right i don't think we should talk about this yeah i know right you're my attorney just cut me off no i just there was like a five-year gap i saw out surfing guy next to me have a heart attack he dies on the beach right in hawaii i saw two of my friends get their heads cut off i've seen death right so anytime i'm like holy i think

You know, I still got my family. I almost lost my kid a couple years ago. I'm like, all right, cool. Grateful. Get off that, right? Think of all the amazing shit you have that it could be a lot worse. Start off with gratitude. Start with gratitude. Start with gratitude. But you're supposed to zipper lane. You're supposed to get to the top of the barrels, guys. Don't listen to Connell. This is the reason we have traffic jams around town. But you get one car. One car, I agree. One car in. I agree. One car per space. Fine. I'll live with that. I agree.

All right, everybody. What I'm grateful for is for each and every one of you that take time out of your day to listen to this podcast. Hopefully we help. Make sure that if you listen to us on YouTube, you hit the like, subscribe, notify button. And if you're listening to us on a podcast app, man, give us that four or five, whatever how many star it is, review. Cinco Australia. Every little bit does help. And remember, guys, if you're going to keep moving, you might as well move 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. We'll share any links that we have, things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.