Escaping the Drift - The Weekly Drop: Books That Transform Lives and Build Wealth
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From the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be, escaping the drift, this is The Weekly Drop with Jon Gafford. No matter what platform you're watching or listening to us on, make sure you like, subscribe, and comment. And now, The Drop. Back again, everybody, for another episode of The Weekly Drop, my solo pod from the podcast that gets you from where you are right now to where you want to be, man, escaping the drift.

Glad to have you today, man. And as you know, it's the new year. It's, you know, the new year's in full swing. And I always get the same questions around this time here. You know, what should I do for success as people start business planning and start planning everything out, doing vision boards and all type of stuff.

And, you know, inevitably it gets around to, hey, what books should I read? I get asked this question probably more than anything else, honestly, which is cool because it's a good question. I like the question. I love when people send it to me online and ask, what should I read? And this does change for me from time to time. There's

There's a lot of books that I go back to a lot. And I'm always adding new stuff as I'm always trying to read and listen to audible and do what I can to kind of fill my head with stuff. Just so you know, my little system for doing it is I,

You know, I like to use the headway app is what I like to use. And I'll read like the little synopsis of a new book and I'll see if it really interests me. And if it does, then I go back and I read the whole thing. But this is kind of a way that I can get a little taster of everything out there. But today on the program, what I want to do is I want to just try to help you as best I can by giving you my top five books.

that I would read going into this year, 2025, if I wanted to have a more rounded, successful life. These are my top five books.

And again, they do change from time to time. But these are the ones that, man, a lot of these I come back to. I've read a couple of these several times. I go back to them a lot. And I'm going to start out with my number one. Number one on the list with a bullet, dude. This is what I tell people to read this all the time. If you've listened to this program with any type of frequency, you've probably heard me say it. But my number one favorite book is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. It is a book where Ryan takes and...

takes a modern look at classic stoicism where he looks at famous historical figures like marcus aurelius seneca all of the famous famous stoics from ancient greece and takes their work and lays it out in a way where it makes sense to you this is i will say the book that had the biggest profound influence on my life as far as like reading something and having a moment where i'm like whoa this is stuff that i need to implement now

And really change the way that I look at things because I was the dude that meant I would go really high and really low. Like if you're, if you're one of those people, like when things are good, you're like, yeah. And when things are bad, you're like, I can't get out of bed. If that's you on an emotional rollercoaster about the situations that life serves up, this book is for you.

Because essentially what you're trying to do by adapting a stoic look or the stoicism type philosophy is you're trying to avoid those mega highs and those mega lows. It really comes down to just being even keel. And as problems arise and as they occur, like they always do, it presents you with an opportunity to

to say, how can I take this and turn it into a win? This is the way. And it really, it makes you dive into challenges in a way

that are different instead of maybe shucking away from the hard path or shucking away from things that don't make a lot of sense or seem scary. It's like, man, success is on the other side of that. So I cannot recommend that book enough. It will help you in like this podcast, life, money, business, life, money, success. It'll help you in all of those things, all of those things, but you're never going to have any type of success. If you got bad habits, right?

My second book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. This is really, it's a manual for how to break the crappy habits in the limiting beliefs that are holding you back and replace them with better habits that will lead to success. And really the theme of the book is learning how to implement small incremental improvements that will just compound over time.

And if you do this, it leads to significant results rather than trying to make drastic changes right away. And if you're a person that wants to focus on building better habits, there's just nothing more I can say about that book. It just is amazing. Now, if you got good habits and you understand that the obstacle is the way, well, you're going to need some people around you to maybe level up and get to the next level. And that's where probably the Bible of relationships begins.

is my number three on the list, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. If you've never read this, I read this book religiously once a year. It comes up, it's almost like on a schedule for me to try to remind me how to interact with other people. And this book has been around for a really long time for a reason. And we're still talking about it because

The concepts that Carnegie teaches in that book, things like active listening, you know, telling you to, if you want people to be interested in you, you got to be interested in them. And, you know, just walking you through how to make people feel valued. If you start implementing some of the stuff that happens, you're going to see that the success in every aspect of your life will grow because all success really depends on how well you connect with other people. Because

You're never going to get there by yourself. You need a tribe of people to go with you. So focusing on things like empathy and kindness and understanding how to deal with people and making yourself more likable. Head to Whole Foods Market to jumpstart your January during our New Year boosting event with savings on feel-good favorites storewide. Save on organic picks, wellness staples, and more all month long.

This podcast is brought to you by eHarmony, the dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. Authenticity is key in finding a relationship. That's why eHarmony doesn't allow members to copy and paste for their first messages in the app. Your conversations should reflect your uniqueness. So eHarmony is building a community of people who are also putting in the effort. It's 2025. Have conversations that actually help you and your matches get to know each other. Get who gets you on eHarmony. Sign up today.

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It's clutch. One of the reasons I want to do this is because this book made it back to the top of my list today. This is a true thing about me. I woke up this morning

At 5 a.m. I woke up this morning and no, i'm not i'm not an alarmer at 5 a.m Get up and you know run 20 miles. Yes, I did work out this morning, but that's not part of my routine The 5 a.m was one of those Rando clock goes off eyes wake eyes go super wide. Holy shit five o'clock in the morning And I just immediately opened my eyes and I had this impending sense of dread That my public persona had become incredibly unlikable

I don't know why I had that feeling. Nothing happened. I had no interaction with anybody else that made me believe that this is true. There's no story behind it, but it just, it just one of those things where I opened my eyes five o'clock in the morning with this unbelievable feeling of dread. Yeah.

And so I immediately, you know, me, because the obstacle is the way I believe in that. I'm like, okay, let's dive into that feeling. And how do we do that? Let's not let, let's not burn that. Let's use it as fuel. And so I'm immediately like, I got to go back and it's my time of the year to revisit how to influence and influence people to make sure that that.

that nonsensical 5 a.m. feeling of dread is not a real feeling. And who knows? If I've become completely unlikable, feel free to tell me in the comments. I don't know. Maybe I'll just stop if I'm completely unlikable. But my next book on the list, number four,

It's a book that actually I'd never heard of until my friend Bradley said I should read it. And it was The Four Agreements. And since I read it, I've had all my kids listen to it. They didn't read it. They listened to it in the car. Best thing about having a house in California is the four-hour drive. When you're driving, you can control what everybody listens to. When it's just me and one of my kids, we are 100% listening to audiobooks. I am force-feeding them good knowledge on the way back.

But the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is based on an ancient, what is it, Toltec wisdom. And essentially, it's just good rules for living a good life. And there's really four promises that you make to yourself. The Four Agreements are four self-promises that you make to yourself. And essentially what they are, actually not essentially, exactly what they are, is be impeccable with your word. It's don't lie.

It's don't mislead people. It's don't say the wrong things when you know you're saying the wrong things. The next thing is don't take anything personally, man. If you can agree with yourself, there's not taking anything personally. I think this is probably a huge shift for me in the last couple of years as well. When people, you know, when I maybe hear somebody says something unkind about me, I don't even react anymore. And the reason I don't react is because I realized that everybody is the star of their own movie.

And I'm just a bit player in their movie. I'm not even like a supporting actor. I'm a bit player. I'm like a background. I'm like a, what is it? A computer played player or whatever it is. That's all I am. I'm a blip. And if for whatever reason in their life to get to the next level, I got to be the villain. Okay, fine. I'm fine with that. If that's what they need to do to vilify me, then that's on them. But I don't take anything personally anymore at all. The next thing is don't make assumptions.

How many times, think about this, man, in your relationships and all those things, how many times or how many things in your relationships have gone south because you assume somebody else was going to do something. You assume something was going to be a certain way. I mean, I find this, I bet more marriages fail because spouses assume the other one is going to do something for them and they don't.

Like I found in my marriage, you know, one of the things that makes it so healthy and so good is my wife and I both, if we need something, we ask for it. We don't wait around. We don't assume the other person should just know that this is what we require to be happy. We straight up ask for it. So don't make assumptions. And the last one is always do your best. You know, like my father said,

How you do anything is how you do everything. So always try to do your best. But I think if you read this book, I mean, great. That was a very short synopsis. You're like, I don't have to read it now. I got the four agreements. I know what they are. No, give it, give it a, give it a little spin, man. Give it, give it. It is a book that is worth investing with. Not just you, but I love this for your kids. I love this for listening or reading this with your kids is amazing. And the last one is the millionaire next door.

by Thomas J. Stanley and William Danko. Unbelievable book. You know, this, I thought about this book and I added it back on the list because I had Dave Risky. I was a major league pitcher on the podcast last week. You can go back and listen to that episode. And we were talking about, you know, the dumb shit that like rookies do when they get paid in major league sports and why, you know, athletes are broke so quickly going into, you know, their contracts. And,

I think if more people read this book and understand it, how to build real wealth and how wealthy people actually build wealth, you would be much better off in life. So don't wait until you have some success to know what to do with money. Don't wait till you get some money to know what to do with money. If you really want to hang on to it,

Understand what to do with it before and I think that book on living amongst your means Prioritizing savings, you know avoiding lifestyle, you know craziness You know try not to buy stuff to impress other people all of that stuff man All of those things how real millionaires live and not the insta flash guys that are you know rolling around in rented cars and you know fake watches and whatever else I think That's gonna be the difference maker. So listen to that. So I

I hope that helps you. Those five books, again, to summarize, for mindset and resilience, I would go with Obstacles Away. For habits and systems, Atomic Habits. For relationships and influence, How to Win Friends and Influence People. For personal integrity and freedom, The Four Agreements. And for financial discipline, I would listen to The Millionaire Next Door. See you next week.

What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.

Walmart Plus. It's Walmart plus free delivery, which saves members time plus money. Yep. Plus an included Paramount Plus subscription to stream movies, shows, sports, and that can't miss documentary. Plus Burger King savings. That's right. Members get 25% off Burger King digital orders every day of the week. Walmart Plus. It's Walmart Plus. Become a member at WalmartPlus.com. $35 order minimum. Paramount Plus essential plan only. Separate registration required. Valid at participating USBKs in the BK app or BK.com for members only. $25.

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