Squid Game Business Lessons EP 19
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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 John Gafford. Back again, back again, back again for another fun-filled, exciting episode. No, I'm just kidding. No, another episode of The Power Move. I am your host, John Gafford.

With me to my left, as promised, a new nickname every week. It is Colt the Wacong Cobra. Amaden. Colt. I like Cobra. The Wacong Cobra. Or the Mekong Cobra. I guess it should be. I'll take that. The Mekong Cobra. I like it. Wow. And then also to my left. On my back.

Chris Consul Esquire. How are you, buddy? All right. Living the dream. Good to see you, Counselor. Welcome back. Glad to have everybody here again. And man, I don't know. You know, you obviously would probably have to be living under a rock at this point if you haven't heard about a little show on Netflix called The Squid Games. I know where this is going. You know where it's going. Yeah. Right. So.

They'll be here in about 15 minutes to pick you up. You weren't expecting to go there, were you? No, no, I'm just kidding. No, they're not going to be here in 15 minutes. Joke's on you guys because I'm pretty athletic. I feel like you can win it all. No, but the point. That first guy we send over the glass. I know, but the point is there's a bunch of articles out there running around about business lessons in life. Uh,

about squid game. So first of all, and foremost, I have seen the show. Chris has seen the show. Colt has seen one episode of the show. So if this is going to be spoilers, but I look at this way, if you haven't watched it at this point, we're probably not going to, and you're going to be able to pick up enough from this to at least be able to talk about it. Next time you're at a cocktail party, when people are yammering about this thing.

So first of all, before we even get into it, I mean, was it the global phenomena you thought watching the whole thing? So I'll tell you, I found that it was riveting in the middle and disappointing at the end. Slow. A little slow on the end.

Slow and... Nice twist, but a little slow. I mean, interesting. Like I said, I just found the ending was a little bit... Again, everybody's a Monday morning quarterback and 2020 vision and all that. But I just... I don't know. Maybe it was a cultural miss to me about how that ended. Maybe. Like, go get on the fucking plane, asshole. Yeah, right? It's your kid, right? I'm agreeing with that. You're selling your kid out. Yeah, no. That...

i agree they bring tom hanks out is that why no it would have been yeah he's in season two never had such a poorly thought out ending tom hanks would have gone and seen his kid like he did in uh the castaway or whatever we saw her yes he would do the right thing no he didn't go see yeah he's not going to go fight that but anyway yes i'm from first episode if you have not seen the squid games and i'm going to fill you in for the cocktail party

Oh, this is a spoiler. I'm not going to say it again. The whole damn thing. We're going to talk about the whole frigging show. So essentially the premise of this show is they take a bunch of down on their luck, downtrodden gamblers that have these massive debts and are basically dregs on society and have gotten themselves to a point in Loserville where they've convinced them to go to this event where they compete against each other for a truckload of money.

Now, what they don't tell them when they first sign up is, hey, as you get eliminated from this little contest, we're going to basically shoot you in the head at where you stand. Clip you where you are. There's a lot of gratuitous violence in this. Not something your kids want to see. But yeah, that's basically it. So let's start with the first part of it here. Let's talk about there's so many people. I saw a stat the other day that said of people that earn over $150,000 a year, which is a lot. I mean, that's a six-figure earner. Less than 25% of them have over $1,000 in savings. Wow.

Oh, yeah. The average American has $700 in savings. Yeah, but you're talking about people making $100. These are six-figure players because they're living beyond their means. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I would say the first lesson here is going to be don't live beyond your means. And I always say this. If you're parking your Lambo in a two-car garage, you screwed up. That's a really good point. You have absolutely screwed up your life. Oh, yeah.

My neighborhood has multiple of those because we have different... Unless you live in London. Or New York or whatever. Yeah. We have some tiny little apartment and condos in our community and there's $250,000, $300,000 cars in front of $200,000 condos. It makes no sense. Maybe it's like a single...

You know, a lady, she just wants a Lambo. Maybe she's really into Lambo. That's her dream. If that's your thing, fine. But don't think you're making good financial decisions. No, but I'm going to say this. Here is the one piece of financial advice that I can give people that are living beyond their means or you want nice things. All you got to do is put one step in there. You just got to add one step. And here's the step. Let's say I want to go buy a Lambo.

Right. And even with my down payment, I'm going to put down my car because if I make 150 grand, I have no savings. I got some money and put some coin together and I want to buy a Lambo. What I'm going to do is I'm going to go by and it doesn't have to be where you live. You need to find a house you can buy as a rental that will cash flow the payment of the car.

That's smart. Then go buy the car. If you buy an investment, and it could be investing in something that pays a dividend that comes back. It could be interest that comes back an investment. But as long as you invest that money into an asset that is generating the capital you need to pay for that depreciating item, you're fine. You can buy whatever you want. You just have to add that one extra step into what you're doing. If you have the money and the credit to go buy a damn Lambo, you get the money and the credit to go buy a house with a little cash flow. Right.

You can do that. There's no reason not to do that. But yet so many people are just jumping right to the Lambo. They don't buy the appreciating asset that pays for the item. How would that work? That's actually interesting you say that, but break that down just real quick. All right, let's say. Okay, let's say. So break it down on a dollar-dollar basis. All right, let's go. A quarter-million-dollar Lambo. Well, let's say, okay, a Lambo is going to cost you, if you buy a used one, whatever. You can get one for $100. No, it ain't $100. You can get a Gallardo for $100.

All right, well, let's call it 100 grand. All right? So because it's going to be used, whatever else, you're going to have to put probably 30% down. Agreed? Or you're going to want to. Or you have to buy it all. Yeah, okay. Okay, so let's call it. So you're going to pay. Or you could put, let's assume you could pay cash for it. Let's assume you could pay cash for the limo. 100 grand, yeah. 100 grand. Okay, let's assume that.

So let's, instead of buying the $100,000 Lambo, let's turn around now and go and buy a house. Go to Macon, Georgia. Wherever. $100,000 house. No, let's get a $200,000 house. Let's buy a $200,000 house in Macon.

you got to put forty thousand dollars down because you gotta put twenty percent down right you put forty thousand dollars down you have this asset you're into it 160. at 160 ballparking what do you think the mortgage is right now the mortgages are nothing two grand eight no not two grand no it's no 30 years why would you do 15 years you're sub 900 with taxes yeah it's easily sub 900 and now you can rent that house out for let's call it 100 let's call it 1800 right now so you're positive a grand

So now you put $40,000 down, you got $60,000 back. I would actually go buy another house if I could buy one there for that cheap. So now I own two, I'm generating $2,000 a month. I go put $10,000 down on the damn Lambo. And then I'm financing it for two grand a month and the houses are buying it. But at the end of it, when I'm done with the Lambo and I sell the Lambo is the Lambo is depreciating.

Now at the end of it, I have these assets that are appreciating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And somebody else is paying the mortgage. That's just good financial sense to buy assets that cash flow. But people don't comprehend that. Yeah, but people don't do that because they want what they want now. All you got to do is add that one little extra step in there, man. Go buy an asset. I like it. Living with $1,000 in your bank account, I would be absolutely mad.

Dude, I freak out. It just wouldn't happen. If we probably all said what we have in the bank and we would say, like, I still freak out. If I told people what I had in the bank, they'd be like, what? Like, yeah. Yeah, but we talked about that. We talked about it, yeah. Probably too much in the bank if it's way too much. You don't want too much in the bank because your money sitting in the bank is losing value. Losing money, I get it. You're losing value if it's in the bank. But I agree you should have a certain amount of,

a certain amount of bounce back in the bank that you save. I'm working on that this week. I got a deal that's going through, so I'll be offloading a bunch of cash on a couple deals, but not preferable because I would have rather financed. Yeah. No, no, good for you. We're getting ready to close on the office buildings that we own on the other side of town, which is great, and that's good, and we'll do, you know, accelerated depreciation on those and a couple taxes this year, and life is good.

Life is good. We want to do but again, you know living within your means and being smart about money Don't get yourself in a situation where you would ever go on a game show to get shot in the head for millions of dollars Don't do it. I mean, I you know, it's my buddy Bradley always talks about he says, you know What if I told you got a million dollars today? Would you take it people like yeah? So what if I told you couldn't wake up tomorrow? Would you still take it? No, then tomorrow is worth more than a million dollars, right?

Absolutely. But on Squid Game, I saw them play Red Light. We're getting to that. We're getting to that. Don't skip ahead, Colt. We're talking about the premise. That's the first episode. I was the first. But I think literally the number one way that people get themselves into financial trouble in this place is living beyond their means. And wanting now. Wanting now. And in Vegas. That's the number one way. Have you ever seen it? Even in LA, I never saw it worse than Vegas. I had lunch with a friend of mine today. He's a really, really successful...

attorney here in town. Really smart guy. Great. He had just gone to Africa on safari. Really interesting guy. And we were talking about that. He was talking about how he was in LA or whatever and he saw these people when the checks came out and lined up at Gucci. He was just like... He was talking about kids, right? He's a little bit older than I am, but he was talking about what the hell's going on with these kids? Why don't they... None of them have a couple of nickels to scrape together. And it got into this whole thing of

I think a lot of kids think it's really hard to exist now. I can't buy a house, I can't do all this, and there's not a lot of hope for these kids that are very young. That's kind of the message. And I'm like, yeah, but there was no hope for me when I was a kid, so I had three roommates. - No, see, I'm gonna disagree with you on that one, though. I think the smart kids took those checks and bought crypto. - Oh, oh, yeah, he's talking about the guys buying Gucci belts for a thousand bucks a day. - But here's the difference. Let's talk about the one step that makes a difference, the one step that made a difference.

The people that got the checks and lined up at Gucci, they missed one step between the check and the Gucci, which was this step. The wealth of human knowledge about how to make money is on YouTube. - Oh, absolutely. - These kids that got on YouTube, learn how to trade crypto, learn how to trade NFTs, learn how to drive that, learn this as a business,

they took those checks and made money. And then once that crypto builds and grows and grows and grows, now go buy your Gucci. But again, it's the one step between. And a lot of times- If you can't buy it twice, don't buy it. 100%. If you can't buy it twice, don't buy it. Like I said, I have a cooling off period when I want to buy something expensive. I'll look at it and I don't impulse buy anything. I'll look at it and I'll cool off for four days. If I still want it, I'll buy it. If not, a lot of times I don't. Don't you find that after the cooling off period, you talk yourself out of it? I don't want it. I've

I've done that lots of times. It was a dream of mine to have a Ferrari as a kid. And there's times when, you know, you have a couple cocktails, you get on that eBay bidding site and start throwing out some bids. Yeah, sure. They hold their value. What are you on the 360, Medina? The next day you wake up. On the 360, aren't you? 430. 430? Okay. Because it's kind of got all the good things with 430. It's got the chains, the belt and all. Yeah, yeah. Got a lot of value. Really love that car. All right. I would take an old one over a new one.

I'd rather have a 430 than a 488 or a 458. Oh, I'd much rather have a 48. No, never. No, not even close to me. 430 is the number one. But that's just my preference. Agreed. But I've never owned one. That's true. And there's a reason. It's because it is not something that... I'm actually probably a shitty owner of that car because I don't like to put in the time and maintenance. Yeah. I'm not going to be wiping it with diapers like Ferris Bueller, like Cam's dad and Ferris Bueller. So I look at it, I want it in the moment, and then I realize the effort it would take, and I go, I don't need to ask.

I had more things in my life to take care of. I took, I took, I won't talk about what kind of, I took the black car down to Circa this weekend and as I was pulling the valet, I looked how dirty my car was and I was just like, holy crap. Like, I don't know when this happened or how this happened, but I was actually embarrassed to put my car in that way. That's the thing. Sometimes, anyway, that's the cooling off period that I like where I realize, I bought myself one time on eBay a 1970 Ford Mustang. I got a good deal on it and I've been,

Put a bunch of stuff in it got all these things Now I completely wish I hadn't gotten it now. I'm selling it. No, yeah So like I went to 69 Mach 1 I want the John wick car and then you get it and I got it I'd start it up. It's my gasoline I got my drives Death traps forget it. I'm completely out of this so

Back to the squid game. So the first game they play after they sign their lives away for being financially responsible is they bring them out and they say, we're going to play red light, green light, red light, green light, big, crazy person in the back. And literally it just turns into this, this giant girl that's got machine guns on it. When she catches you moving after red light, you just get clipped with a sniper rifle. Bang, bang, bang. People are dropping everywhere. And the people that rushed in this were the ones that all got shot. The people that took their time, uh,

and kind of stacked themselves up in a row and worked together, got through it. So I think the lesson here is it doesn't matter how fast you get something done. It's just that you make steady, steady progress to move forward. If you try to go fast, bad things can happen. Step back. Don't rush into stuff without figuring out what it is. Step back, digest stuff. I mean, it's,

I always tell people in business, it's like being on a freeway. You ever get stuck behind two idiots? Driving beside each other? Yeah. And you're just trying to push, push, push. Sometimes if you get off the gas, you see there's a clear open lane over here, right? Same thing. Like when you start rushing shit, sometimes take a step back and just look at yourself. Yeah.

I would win that game. You would win that game all day. I always want to pump the brakes on that, the crypto trading thing that you said, though, John. I think a lot of people, this is a good point about Red Light, Green Light, the crypto thing you'd mentioned. Jumping into something you don't know. Jumping into something you haven't put the time into, the homework. Nobody wants to be a trader. And look, just because I say that the wealth of human knowledge is on YouTube doesn't mean it's always a good idea. One of the worst pictures I ever got from somebody was I had a guy trying to get me to invest in a cannabis operation. And the guy actually said to me,

I spent the whole weekend on YouTube. I know everything there is to know about this. I was like, the whole weekend you spent? Oh my gosh, goodness. Here's a half a million dollars. Good for you. Here's a giant investment. Yeah, he came right to my office after that. I can see that. So the next episode as they did this was the honeycomb episode.

This is where essentially what they do is, I guess it's a well-known Japanese game if you're a kid or Korean game, where they take sugar and they spin it into a flat like pancake looking thing. All right. And then they take a cookie cutter and kind of depress it into it, but not all the way through it, just so it leaves an outline. It's like a dent in the comb.

And the game is you've got to break away all of the pieces around it to where you just have the shape that was of the cookie cutter. And if you break it, guess what happens, Colt? It's right in the head. Yeah, you're done. Guess whose twisted daughter made honeycombs for us this weekend? Oh, God. You did this with a toothpick? You know what she gives me? The Canadian maple leaf. She gives herself a star and gives me a maple leaf. Sharp edges. So here's the deal. As this rolls out, right? As this game is being rolled out,

There's one guy, there's a doctor who's kind of getting the inside scoop because apparently as the people get killed, some of the guards are harvesting body parts and selling them off on the black market to China. That's a whole nother little subplot of this deal. But the doctor is getting some of the inside scoop as to what's happening. And he's kind of getting a little bit of inside scoop. And there's a girl that's climbing up in the vents and trying to figure it out. And she sees them making these things with sugar and they kind of put it together before the game starts. Right.

They put it together and they go out and there's essentially five characters that are kind of working together. There's an old man, a woman, a gangster guy, sort of the guy that was like the smart banker guy that, you know, embezzled all the money and is there for that. And then the hero is the main guy that was a degenerate. There you go. The protagonist, if you will.

And anyway, so they're working on this team. They're looking at it. And the one guy that's like the smart Wall Street guy, he like remembers the game. He knows what it is. He remembers what it is. He's like, I know what we're doing. So they have the shapes and they go, you can pick whatever shape you like. Now, keep in mind, every time somebody dies in this game, it whittles it down a little more. And there's this giant piggy bank in the ceiling. They dump more money into. And I think we looked it up. It's like a like forty five billion one or whatever. And it comes up like thirty thirty eight million bucks.

They keep adding money to it, right? And so as we're going along, the guy knows the game. And the one guy says to him, he goes, oh, you know, should we all pick something different or what should we do? Now, this guy knows the easiest shape to pick. I think it was a triangle. Was it a star? It was the easiest one? Yeah, it was a triangle. A triangle, whatever it was. So he's like, oh, I don't know. We should all pick something different because we don't know. So he kind of sold his team out a little bit because he knew what was coming. And they all picked something different. Smart move. Well, okay. Now...

all the main characters kind of get through this thing. One of them ends up, so the main character draws like an umbrella and it's like impossible. It's like the hardest thing. And he's like, oh, how do I get through this? And he's like, oh, he started licking the back of it because he realized if you hold it up to the sun and you started licking it, you could get through it. So this brings me to business points on this and tell me if you disagree or disagree. My first one, and nobody in all the articles I saw, nobody mentioned this one and I'm going to mention it.

which is one of my general rules of business is if a competitor in the marketplace is making a mistake, let them. Sure. Let them do it. I think, you know, business to a certain extent, if you've read Art of War, business, it's warfare, man. And if your competitors are making a mistake, don't be so quick to verbalize that mistake and not necessarily just to verbalize it to them, but don't talk about it to other people.

Because somebody might go back to that person and say, oh, so-and-so said you're screwing this up or you're doing this wrong. And then not only do they get the information to fix it, but it makes you look bad. If you see somebody that's your competitor in the marketplace making a mistake, let them make it. I don't think that's ruthless. I think that's business. What says you, counselor? Yeah, no, I think that's actually very reasonable.

People think it's cold blooded or whatever, but it's like, well, this isn't a popularity contest. You're out here to do good, fair business. I'm not here to help you correct. You'll figure it out. Sometimes those are the lessons you need to learn personally as well. So you're not even helping people by correcting them. Yeah. It's funny. For example, this happened to me the other day. Give me an example.

We have a space out in front of our office. You guys drive by it whenever you come here. The very first space right in front of the door. What does it say, Colt? What's that door? What's that space say? Reserve for top agent. Reserve for the top agent. Reserve for agent of the month. They get the number one best parking space out there. Went to another company the other day and in front of their business, it said reserve for broker. And I was like,

Should I say? Nah. That's off-putting. Yeah. Well, it is, but that's good, right? For you as a competitor, let it. But also, sometimes, well, you think some mistakes, not a mistake on their end, right? Like, I know people that run brokerages way horribly, and it's brilliant for the owner's part. But when it comes down to a paycheck...

It's between feeding your kids and their kids. They can be your best friend. They're going to win. That's why ruthless people...

go to the top a lot. Well, they say, you know, the range of what is it? Rain falls on the just and unjust alike. Yes. Just true. And God knows some of the people that I've been screwed out of millions of dollars with are just some of the most unscrupulous people. They're terrible people. Let's face it. And yet, you know, there you go. We continue. But the second, I think lesson of the, of the cookie was, it was, this was, um,

There's more than one way to solve a problem in business and everything. Before you make a snap decision and dive headfirst into something and do that, you've got to take a second to analyze the situation completely, look at it from all angles, and make sure that you're making the best decision on how to proceed. I think in business, especially real estate, man, realtors have what's called cats with shiny objects.

It's like somebody will call and be like, hey, I've got this new magic marketing bullet. You want to buy it? Yes. And it's just so quick to dive into that. So quick to change gears. So quick to do this without really taking an honest, slow look at their business as far as what's wrong with it to see where they can improve. Yeah.

And to your point, John, as far as that squid game goes, understand the tools you have available to you. Oh, that's a good one too. There's a girl that's got a lighter and she lights up the pen and warms it up. There is other ways to do it, but use the tools you have. That comes down to use your network. Use the things you have because other people are playing with different sets of skills than you have. If you're a tall, beautiful, whatever, attractive person,

that's going to be a different skill set than maybe you have, but maybe you have an ability to be thoughtful and send handwritten cards, right? Yeah. People think in your business and personally mine that the attractive ones are the, you know, you all know that. Well, it's all Colt's, Rich. I mean, well, hold on. He's exceptionally attractive. Exceptionally attractive. Exceptionally attractive. Check out the YouTube channel. If you haven't seen Colt yet, I mean. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. Oh, man.

Just look at them. Please just don't do nasty things in my business. You ever see that handsome boy modeling school thing? That's it. That's it. But no, sometimes people in this business underestimate what people really want. A lot of

People from the Midwest moving, if you're from Kansas, you're moving to Las Vegas, you're not necessarily picking out the drop-dead gorgeous model to sell your home. You may want the person who's giving you great customer service and going to be first, you know, whatever. Looks like you, doesn't wear, wears a t-shirt and jeans. Not going to disrupt, not going to make his wife uncomfortable by being too damn handsome or whatever. Whatever. Right. Don't use the tools you have available to you within the rules, obviously. No, but again, again, you know, let's talk about what is fair.

What is fair? And again, I go back to, again, one of my favorite movie quotes, which was Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean. He's like, look, there's no such thing as fair. There's what a man can do and what a man can't do. That's it. It's all that matters. And that's the lessons. Every time my kids say, well, that's not fair. I go, well, the fair is where you buy cotton candy and popcorn. There's no such thing as fair. What's that other one? Huh? Fair's got nothing to do with it. Oh, yeah. This isn't fair. What was that from? That's Sean Connery, wasn't it?

The only I remember from Sean Connery was the rock. No, the rock. No. And he says, when he goes, can you do this? And he goes, try, try, try. Losers try. Winners go home and bang the prom queen. They're bashed. Yeah. Losers always talking about their bash. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen. That's what it was. No. Yeah. Yeah. There was no tribe that was doing that. So yeah. Use the tools you have. Yeah. Like you said, there's a lot of successful people based on they get their hot. Yeah. You know,

They fizzle out depreciating assets. Depreciating assets. And there's a bunch of them in the real estate business. That's why you can't judge yourself against them either, right? Like, oh, they're being successful. Yeah. No, it is. So the next episode after they survived this bad boy, they did a marble game. And this was a little bit of a mind twist on anybody. Because what they tell them is. Was marble number three? Yeah, marble was the next one. No, no, no. Tug of war. Tug of war. Sorry, Dan. We got tug of war. Sorry. I skipped tug of war. So the next game is tug of war where they tell them to separate into groups of 10. Right? You got to pick 10 people.

So again, the doctor that was helping harvest organs for the, for the guards, um, finds out it's going to be tug of war. So he comes in and tells the gangster guy, insider trader guy. So he comes in and tells the gangster guy, we need a big, strong team, as many big, strong guys we can get. Cause he knows it's gonna be tug of war. So,

So they get a big, strong team. And then our hero, with his little hodgepodge of his 70-year-old man and his guy, they wind up with their team, which includes the absolute worst part of this entire series and made it borderline unwatchable. Was that like 45-year-old hooker? Oh, God. How much of that was lost in translation? I don't know, but just her voice. Yeah.

It was unwatchable. My wife was like, my wife literally who abhors violence is like, will they please kill this bitch? Please kill this bitch. Is she the one that was in the bathroom when they snuck into the van? No, no, no, no, not the one that snuck into the van. She's like a good one. No, no, no, the bathroom. She was the one going, ah, I'm going to the bathroom.

I'm going to the bathroom. Yes, that one. Yes. I grew up watching such bad kung fu movies that I have a certain soft spot in my heart where I can forgive how bad the voiceover is. Best old kung fu movie. It's Enter the Dragon.

Kung Fu? No, the best Kung Fu movie. 36 Chambers. No. Romeo Must Die? What are you talking about? Five Deadly Venoms. Five Deadly Venoms is okay. What? Okay, this is a whole other show. I'll get into this one. It's a whole other show. You don't want to go too deep on that. I don't watch that stuff. No, no, no, no, no. He makes the 36 Chambers. 36 Chambers is... No, Five Deadly Venoms. Five Deadly Venoms is good. Code style? Come on. Code style. Come on.

Anyway, so they go to the tug of war. So they're left with our little group of rag tag ragamuffins goes up there. And the tug of war is like on a tower that's like 120 feet in the air. And guess there's like you fall off. Like when you go, they chain you to the thing. You're done. That's how they kill you. So if you lose, you're going off the edge. And

They basically have a little deal where they say, okay, go, and they all lean back at the same time, and they have a strategy because the old man, when I was young, I would play this game. That was a little slow to me, too. Yeah, it was a little overdramatic for him. But he told them how to win, and they had the strategy, and they ended up winning, right? The other team had a strategy.

- Had a better strategy than just pure brute strength. - Yes, it was a better strategy than pure brute strength. - In real life would have worked though. - Absolutely not. - Absolutely not. - It would have been like Revenge of the Nerds when, what was it, the alpha betas just ran them out of the house and did the same thing. - Literally boat raced. - No, no. But I think there is something to say

- In teams. I think there's somebody with planning and strategic teams, the power of many versus the power of one, absolutely there. In business for me with real estate, with what we do, it's the power of the team. If you're not in real estate, it's really any sales business.

- Sales is a lonely, lonely, lonely business by yourself. - At the top and at the middle. - Yeah, I always say one log makes a lousy fire. I agree, and if you're around a bunch of other people that are doing the same exact thing you're doing and you're having and seeing success, you'll do well. I tell every single person that comes to work for me, it is about a 90-day window. Like it's like a 10 speed. It's just gonna spin without catching a gear for about 90 days. And in 90 days, that gear's gonna click. And as long as you consistently pedal, that bike will take you as far and as fast as you wanna go.

So I had a guy who came to work for me 90 days ago, Julian got within the team, got within the system, trusted the process of what we were supposed to do. Did not waiver from what we were supposed to do. Four closings. Trust the plan for deals in escrow this weekend. Boom. Good deal. That's solid. Good. Yeah. Solid. That's awesome. Solid deals that in just because it can be life changing. Yeah. He literally came in and just followed the process. Same thing. Work the team, work the team plan. So if you're struggling in the sales industry, uh,

Get on a team, man. Get with some other people. Get around some people that are doing what you're doing because, again, it is a lonely, lonely world to do by yourself. Yeah, I like that. It's a great point. And also to your point about how there's not just one path of winning. Like, that's why jiu-jitsu is so successful in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, right? Big gorillas fighting and then you get this skinny 180-pound... Well, yeah. Royce Gracie. UFC 1. Just choking people out. Just diving at their ankles. Just...

suffocating your neck. You know, that brute strength isn't always what you need, right? Sometimes it's a different angle. It gets there. No, I agree. So the next episode, after we go from this, as we go to, you know what? Let's take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll come back and pick up. We're going to talk about the Marble Game. And Five Deadly Venoms. 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 where we'll share any links that we've, 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. Back from the break, back from the break. And today we're discussing the Squid Game. If you haven't seen it, sorry, we're going to ruin it for you. But at this point, if you haven't seen it, like we said, does it really matter? Don't worry, the ending will ruin it for you. Yeah, just get the Cliff Notes and just go from there. It doesn't matter at this point. But you know what we forgot to talk about? What we forgot to talk about?

was this. I don't know if it was, which game was it between? Was it between Red Light, Green Light, and Tug of War? I think it was after Tug of War. It was kind of... Between, around the honeycomb. So here's what they did, Colt, because you didn't get this far in it. So here's what they did. They deliberately fed them like nothing. It was like one egg and like a drink. And some of the less than scrupulous folks got back in line, so they doubled up on the egg and they doubled up. So there's like eight or nine people that didn't get anything to eat.

And they did it purposely because they wanted them to be like start to turn on each other. Or at least they didn't stop it. Yeah, they didn't stop it. Yeah. So there was a deal where they just kind of let them go at it and kill each other. And like a bunch of people got eliminated, like 20-something people. We're doing this down pretty quick based on that. And when you look at that situation, I think there's a lot can be learned from that, which is this. Number one.

If you're, let's get it from a business standpoint. If you have clients and they feel underserved or they feel they're not getting enough from what they're going to get, one of a couple of things is going to happen. Chances are they're going to look elsewhere to satiate that need, whatever it is. So you might want to look at your client base and ask yourself, am I feeding my client base enough on a regular basis? Because if not, the results can speak for themselves. Other than that, I would just say, you know,

I don't know how often you're going to be in a prison, right? Situation. But if you are, hopefully we both looked at Colt. Yeah. We both looked at Colt. Like, uh, yeah, it's cold. Next thing you might want to watch that as a do good in prison. Yeah. It's a user thing. Yeah, no, it was, uh, it was just a whole thing where they kind of killed each other. But,

It was crazy. Who was the guy in the all black mask? Okay. That that's the front man. So I see, I had figured this out very early as well. I kind of figured out what was going on. Okay. So you've seen one episode. Let me see if you can figure this out too. You've seen one episode. What do you think the whole purpose of this whole thing is?

Did you have this in one episode? Did you know exactly what this was about? So I have read things like The Most Dangerous Game. Yeah. Just some billionaire that has a sick mind is what I would have thought. No, no. As soon as you had the numbers on them, I knew it was gambling. Gambling. This is billionaires gambling on human. Rat race. Did you ever see Rat Race? No.

I think I did. But the point being is I knew what was going on. I didn't even think it was being held. It wasn't a huge leap to get there. But the front man guy is just kind of in charge of all of the other guys. There's something else we didn't talk about, which was during this whole time that this is all going on, a

A policeman has infiltrated the game. He kind of hijacked his way into it and was kind of scooching around and he kept, because all of the guards are wearing masks, he kept kind of stealing the identity of these different guards and getting from place to place and causing a little bit of havoc as he was recording this as he's going along, right? As this is going along.

Did you find the end of that to be a little bit of a plot hole? Like what was that about? Totally, absolutely. Cool looking guards, by the way. Cooling guards. Everyone's going to be dressed up for Halloween. No, they're actually not because my son wanted to be dressed up for Halloween, but you can't buy those costumes anywhere. Because they sold out. No, but we did get, actually that's not true. I lied, I say that and it's not true. My son is going to be the front man. We found the mask and he's got the coat, so he's going to be the front man. You know what I'm saying? Called it. Yeah, there it is. Sexy front man? Yeah.

Sexy front man. That's what he's going to be. Not him. Sure. The thoughts and feelings of Chris Connell. That is a problem. Ultra Sun Crane Jones. Exactly. No, but so he's running around causing havoc and doing that. And the games are moving on. People have killed him. We've done Tug of War now. And now this is where it gets a little interesting. So now we go to the Marvel game. All right. How many people left in the Marvel game? Like now we're down to probably they started with 456 people. We're down now to maybe 50.

Yeah. They were being murdered at McDonald's numbers. It was an alarmingly how quickly these people were getting clipped. So much so that I'm like, there was 450 people here? Yeah. I think I've already seen like 800 gig clips. Yeah, no kidding. So they're down to the marble game when they tell everybody to pair off. You have to go into pairs and go into the game. And then when they get in the game, they tell them that they'll be playing against each other.

And they can play any game they want with the marbles. They can do whatever they want, but they have to play against each other. And the issue with this is you've got like a husband and wife are in there together. They want to stick together. Now they do this. And so all these different games, everybody's playing different games. Everybody's doing different things. There are people making great sacrifices because through the course of conversation, they just realize my life is worth nothing compared to yours. You have something to live for. I don't. So they're throwing it. And then, you know, it's just capping people left and right.

And as it's going along, you have a couple of situations that arise. Number one, my first thing with this is, is never assume anything about anybody. Never assume what they want from you in any shape or form. Never make that assumption. You know, you can't, these people made the assumption that they were going to be playing together and they weren't. So they were making these assumptions. They were going to be there. And I know that, you know, I've ever told you that my finest moment about making assumptions about what people want. And I don't think I have years and years ago when I was on the apprentice, um,

After The Apprentice, I get called to New York from a casting agency, calls me up. And I think it's like a prank call at one point. I'm like, well, who is this? What's going on? They're like, no, no, no, we're a casting agency. We saw you and David Flaubot, who was like Will and Grace frame. He wrote that Will and Grace and a bunch of other famous sitcoms. They saw you and they want you to come read for his new pilot.

So I'm like, you know, I was doing this before, so yeah, so you can come to New York and read for a pilot. I'm like, sure. So I said, okay, we need you to sign an NDA and then we're gonna overnight you the script. I'm like, great. So I signed the NDA and they sent me the script down and I opened the script. I have it in my office. I'll show it to you when I'm done. I keep it as a reminder. Absolutely I do.

And for this very lesson, I've never assumed what anybody wants. So I opened the script and the first page they want me to read. It's called Goodies Place. They've got Big Pussy from The Sopranos is going to be the uncle. And that's the only person they have set cast so far, they tell me.

So I opened this script and it has a description of the characters and they want me to read for the lead, which is goody. Right? So I read the description of goody. It says, uh, overweight guy in his thirties, um, uh, somewhat charming, but by no means man candy is what this is. That's the description for this character. That that's the, I swear to God, I'll show you. No, I'll show it to you. That's the description. And then below it is a description for his best friend.

And his best friend, it says, tall, loud, think Vince Vaughn from Swingers. Now, keep in mind, I had just gotten done doing a press tour where instead of talking about business, they were literally putting pictures of me up next to Vince Vaughn saying how much I look like him. In my younger years, we looked a lot alike, which is funny because now in later life, I'm actually friends with his sister. And the very first thing she ever said to me, Victoria, when I met her, she's married to a friend of mine, John Isbell. Very first thing she ever said to me was, you look a fucking thing like my brother. Right.

Which I thought was, I'm like, I'm not the one running around saying this. Other people, hey, good morning America said it, not me. And anyway, so I read this. So I get to New York and I walk into this casting agency. I'm fucking goody. Hang on, hang on. I walk into this casting, I walk into this room, very similar kind of the one we're in now, lit with a camera and a casting director sit there. And I said, I think there's been a mistake. Yeah.

And the guy goes, "I'm sorry?" And I said, "Yeah, you sent me the script and they said they wanted me to read for Goody, but I think I should be reading for the other, whatever the character's name was." And the guy looks at me just like this. I'm looking at the camera, he's like, "Look, YouTube and get the events." He goes, "You can read for whatever you want."

And I knew in that moment, this guy was like, fuck this guy. Like, who are you? And then I proceeded to give a really crappy reading for the other character. And I never heard back. And I called one of my friends that worked at NBC. And I said, I think I might have screwed this up. And he says, what'd you do? And I told him. And he goes, bro, those descriptions don't mean anything. They literally mean nothing. Yeah.

They're just there as like a placeholder. What are you doing? I don't know. So yeah. So I made that assumption. You could have been a movie star and now you're stuck here. You know what I'm picturing right now? When Michael Rapaport in True Romance was doing that thing. Yeah. Go and shoot him in the face. Right. In the face. She's like, you're very talented, Mr. Hick. Exactly. No. Thank God.

God, that show never got picked up and never went anywhere. Can you imagine like, you know, it could have been me right there. It could have been me, but I read for the wrong thing. But never assume that you know what they want you to do. Always walk in, open eyes, open ears, open heart in any situation. To add to that, here's a huge lesson from that. Don't go into business with your friends

Because they're your friends. Yeah. Develop friendships through business. Don't do it the other way around. Yeah. Guaranteed way to go broke is to invest in your food friend's bad idea. Okay. Because like I said, for example, I've kind of known you guys almost more professionally first than like as much socially. Yeah, absolutely. I've worked with you over time. Yeah, yeah. I like you more. I mean, like I would much rather have friendships develop out of business relationships than the other way around. Right. Because-

Friendships are weird. There's a lot of assumptions. There's a lot of things you go in and then what happens when shit gets weird? Yeah, everything we've talked about You're doing business your friend at the end of the day one of you has to eat shit Well, who's it gonna be? Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no because you're a good human being cuz like for example On a deal that I eat shit on north of a million bucks. I went out and raised a bunch of private equity from friends and

And you know what I did? I paid every nickel of it back out of my pocket and I took the loss. They didn't take the loss. I took the loss. I mean, that's in that if you go in and you're going to solicit money for business from friends, you better understand going into it that if something goes south, you're either paying it back or losing the friend or family member. That's it. I don't care. People like, Oh, we're, you know, we're blood. We're family, bro. You, you bang somebody out over 50 grand. They ain't calling you no more. Yeah.

They don't want to talk to you. I don't see anymore. Cause all they see when they, all they're going to see, all they're going to hear when they look at you is the lost money. That's it. So be careful. You know, exactly. Be very careful. If you're going to go raise money from, from friends and carefully play squid games with that's carefully play squid games with, uh,

If we're in the Marvel game, would you let me win, Chris? Absolutely not. No, absolutely not. That's it. I'd kill you and three dudes that look like you to make it through. And that's what I think people don't realize in life, right? Like I tell people all the time, no, you can't just go walk around, you know,

people are so naive. They think everybody, Oh, if I'm nice to them, they're going to be not bad. No, they'll cut your head off. Yeah. Right. Like you cannot go sit in the middle of Iraq and talk crap or try to hug everybody. Go me. And yeah, half of them will 90% will, but that 10% is going to cut you off. Yeah. Like going down through Mexico, but within the marble game, so they could play whatever they wanted to play. Right. And at one point, this guy was playing a game that they were playing evens odds, whatever. And, and,

He demanded from the from the guard that they play another game and the in the guard granted it whatever right and he flipped it to a game where you throw a marble into a hole Which was kind of stupid but whatever but he felt he had a better chance of winning there So I guess the business lesson would there be played your strengths Yeah, like understand what you're good like you just said earlier understand what you're good at what you're not good at if you're not good at something don't try to Force it to do that and like I always tell people when they're writing business plans, especially in real estate. I

If you are never going to go knock on a door because you just physically, it makes you ill, the idea of being a door knocker, don't write door knocking on your damn business plan. Yeah, seriously. Because you're setting yourself up to fail and it's just never going to happen. You've got to put your strengths in every aspect, especially business. Self-awareness. People that are self-aware, acutely self-aware, not overly critical or low self-esteem. Oh, everybody hates me. That's horseshit. I mean really self-aware, right? They do well because they'll play to their strengths. Like I'm not...

There's people that want to be in beauty pageants that should be in mud wrestling competition. You know, like...

Not everybody is going to be good. Is that a fix the teeth before you get the boobs comment? Is that what that was? Is that where you were kind of headed with that? That's exactly right. Yeah, welcome to Vegas. I do. I think that's good. Fix the teeth first. I tried to do something during COVID that I'm like, all right, I got to get out of my comfort zone. I'm going to try something, right? And so I put it in my calendar to do.

at least two or three times a week every time it'd pop up i'm like no that's how i ended up at sperm bank i'm like i'd rather go olympics but i finally had to take it out because i was just like i've set myself up for failure yeah i hate seeing it take it off you know you're never going to do that cold like just stop it well i mean real growth is about being uncomfortable but there's a difference between stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something that you loathe right yeah we we

We get one social media. I, we get one spin around this big, we get one spin around this big rock boys. And if you're spending your day doing things that you loathe, right? What's the point? What's like, I hate social media. I hate posting pictures of myself and stuff like that, but I'll step outside the comfort zone. You got to step outside your comfort zone, but there's different thing. If you were like, I'm going to become a social media magnet and spend my days. That's different, right? There's,

There's a part of your job. You're not always gonna love everything you do, right, but you got to do it You got a little bit, but that doesn't mean it needs to be a focus Yeah, well again within this game of the marble game at one point you had a guy There's this poor Indian guy that was really helping everybody out. It was very solid Very sweet guy top shelf guy and gets absolutely screwed over by the banker guy at the end because he essentially says okay here's what we're gonna do I have a way where we can both live and

You go this way. I'm going to go that way. Does a little sleight of hand, like, well, with the thumb coming out, those little sleight of hand. And of course the Pakistani guy winds up with a bag of rocks. The other guy winds up with all the marbles and he goes up to the guy and he says, you told me the game was to end up with all the marbles. You didn't say how we had to do it. So technically he cheated the guy, but there was nothing in the rules saying that he couldn't. That's right. So,

That's kind of a tough one for me because part of it is, you know, you should walk through life with integrity. You should try to do things the right way always. You should try to be fair dealing with others. I mean, if your life's on the line, I mean, you do what you got to do to get to where you want to be. And it's not even a life online that you'll see that from people. And I think more of the business thing to take from that is,

Assume that someone's just going to fuck you and cover your ass all the time. That's called the Nash equilibrium. Right. No, but I'm saying like people go into stuff all the time. Hey, we had a deal that the guy was trying to screw everybody. We said, all right, whatever. He assumed that we were going to give an extension. We had a backup offer ready close three days. We took a 70,000 from the guy and he just sat there and I'm like,

This isn't, we're not here to make friends. Everybody's cool until they're not. You know John Nash, the guy with the beautiful mind? He's a game theorist, most famous game theorist there I think there is, other than maybe Stackelberg. But John Nash had that thing. If you're in a multi-shot game, if you're in a 10-thing game, people will calculate when they can fuck you.

People will calculate when they're able to fuck you. So because it's a 10-player game, 10-play game, they'll fuck you day one. If I can get 70, 30 or whatever, and then it goes on. But in a game that's infinite, goes on forever, people will be less willing to fuck you. They'll corroborate. There's all these sort of things in game theory. So a lesson to learn too is understand why game theory is what it is and how to actually incorporate it into your business. Understand that if you're doing a one-shot player with some broker in Kansas City, okay,

that there may be different rules going into it and exiting it. Exiting it. That's a weird thing to say. Exiting it. Well, no. And it would be if you're dealing with a broker who's in Las Vegas that you're going to deal with constantly. Well, but the point is, if it's a long game where there's multiple transactions involved, then you're probably going to play by one set of rules. But if it's like Highlander, which I made my wife watch.

You want to piss your wife off? Oh, man. Make her watch Highlander. I feel like Highlander is a must watch for you, Colt. Okay, that's your homework, Colt. Look at Chris's face. You've never seen the Highlander. Do I shock Chris every day? You would blow my mind that you've never seen Highlander. What is Highlander? Christopher Lambert. There can be only one. There can be only one, Colt. There can be only one, Colt. Anyway, I don't want to try to explain that premise to you.

Anyway, game theory. Understand the players and understand how many games you will be playing with those players before you understand. Before you understand what they'll do. Again, because that's a good way to analyze what your competition may do or what they may not do. Is this an ongoing deal or is this a one-time shot where they're going to do everything they can to get there? So good advice. So the marble game goes off. Half the people get killed, including at this point the old man gets whacked. The girl gets clipped. A bunch of people get clipped. That's how that goes.

And they move on to what is now Game 5 as we're moving along. Game 5 is now in Highlander. Episode 7. This was Game 5, yeah. So Game 5 is a bridge, all right? It's a bridge where it moves along on a bridge, and there's two panels, left and right.

One of the panels is tempered, which will hold the weight of two players. The other panel is normal glass, which will shatter and fall. And it's like a 200-foot fall, right? So you guessed wrong on the hop, you're done. Another plot twist. Looks like you might have just broke your legs. You think? Which would have been worse. No. There was like brains hanging out of some of those people. I'm letting you know, like that fall, like the distance in the game, I'm like they should have probably gone higher. Gone higher? Yeah.

All right. Suspend your disbelief. Suspend your disbelief for a second. So anyway, it starts out in the first part before they even show them what they're doing is you have to pick a number one through 16. We're down to 16 now. I actually know how many people from that down to 16. You got to pick a number one to 16 and it's like, do you pick one and go first and go early and have a better chance of beating the clock? Like you would have read like green light or do you go 16 and go on the bat in the pack where you might run out of time? Cause all these things are timed. So blah, blah, blah. What happens? Our hero ends up goofing around too long and ends up with number 16.

So it goes up here, there, you're going in order. And these people just start like hopscotching onto these panels and smash, yeah, splat. That's what keeps happening. So then the next person goes, but because you got to see what the person in front of you did, you get a little further, right? That's how it goes.

So it's coming towards the end of the, of the little deal. And there's a, there's a guy that's like, Oh, I used to be a glass maker. I can tell the difference between the glass, by the way, that the light shines off of it. So he starts getting down and he's by now also didn't think about that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me get through it. Let me get through it by now. Also,

the vips which are the of course american and russian oligarchs just say crackers crackers have shown up to bet on these people right evil evil american billionaires have shown up to bet on the games they're there we're in these weird gold masks are betting on it but they're going along and at this point you know this guy is towards the middle he's like oh i can see and they're like in the oligarchs are like he can tell the difference in the pains so they shut the lights off

And then one of the guys, the banker guy, ends up throwing him through the last pane so he knows where it is and he falls. And then there's only three left, which is the main guy, our hero, the girl, the heroine that went up in the vents, and the banker. That's who's left. She's kind of hot, too. Yeah, she is. So that's who's left there. And as we go along, so here's the lesson there with this game. I'm going to let you start first, Chris. What lesson are you going to take away from that? Well, I will...

Take away the very most important lesson is to ride on the shoulders of giants. You don't need the trailblaze if there's a proven path. Sometimes that's the least sort of likely way to die. The other thing is why not jump on the rails? Yeah, I was kind of like, why don't you go sideways as well? I didn't understand that. That was the little thing. They'd probably shoot you, but whatever. Yeah, but I got a better point, which is this. The biggest problem I had with the whole thing was

Don't tell people everything you know. Yep, he should have got through before he told people. Don't announce people what you know. I mean, if you have an advantage in a situation, keep it to yourself. Play the advantage, but keep it to yourself. There was no reason for that guy to tell everybody what was going on. He could have done it in a way where it had the same result, but he concealed his knowledge a little better, I think.

That was my thought. See, for that, you know, the thing about corroboration, see, he didn't know he was playing within the, he would have just gotten through, right? Yeah. But again, like you said, know the players and know the game. They're trying to take for themselves. No, I get it. So you're right. He showed his hand. He did. He was benevolent. He was the kind one. But like Clint Eastwood says. But we ain't all getting out of here alive. Like Clint Eastwood says in The Unforgiven, Ferris got nothing to do with it. Deserves got nothing to do with it. Oh, that's right. I didn't deserve this. Deserves got nothing to do with it. That's right.

And at the end of the day, like you said, and then he mathematically didn't understand that the game required him to improve the odds of others. Yeah. So he was the sacrificial lamb in that, just like the Pakistani guy. Yeah. You know, thrown to the wolves, but for the greater good, apparently. For the greater good. For the greater good of the people behind you.

No, I get it. That's how they feel about it. I get it. But again, yeah, follow the path of others is smart. Find success. And don't try, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, man. Again, YouTube, the greatest, literally the greatest learning tool in the history of human existence is YouTube. It really is. I know how to play 95% of the songs I know how to play on guitar because of YouTube. It's amazing what you can learn there. So,

Follow the path of others. Keep your knowledge in situations where it will create an advantage in business to yourself. I'm all about helping out and giving back. But if I'm competing and I know something, for example, I know how to win Monopoly every single time, which I'll actually share. Would you like to know this? I'll share it with you and I'll share it with the listeners. I've heard this of you, John, and you told my wife this, and I've played her and since destroyed her, because I've read books on Monopoly. Okay, if you played your wife, then she didn't do this right. Colt, do you know how to win a Monopoly every time?

I've heard it, but go ahead. You need to tell people because let's hear it. It's very simple. In Monopoly, the game comes with a certain number of homes. Yes. Right. The little greenhouses. That's it. There are no additional houses. There's nothing in the rules. There's no provision that allows for additional, like you can't use thimbles. You can't use anything else. Once the houses are on play, they're in play.

So what you do is as you start out, you do anything you can beg, borrow, steal, trade by, I mean, you mortgage your soul to get a three, to get a three place set. It doesn't matter which one it is. It can be the crappy Baltic Baltic. It doesn't matter. A hundred percent. Start building houses.

And then never convert them to hotels. If you can do this over two spaces in a four-player game where you have two other players or even in a three-player game where they're also putting houses out, you will create an absolute housing shortage because the game will run out of houses and you just have to sit back and play it out.

So that works every time. Yeah. But there are spaces. People don't realize it's not all spaces are built equal and not all spaces of the highest probability. There's a, there's people that win the monopoly championships every single year, like poker. Yes. Based on which space it's not the probability of the space. Understanding highest ROIs per space per role. There's ways to maximize value in your monopoly game. One of the strategies, what's your favorite color then?

I think the highest land percentages are yellow, green, and orange. I think orange is also one of the other ones, or red.

have the highest land per space because it's orange because people that are coming out of jail more frequently, right? Because jail is a spot people will go statistically more than free parking. Like there's all this, you know, nerds will ruin everything. They're trying to ruin basketball. They're trying to ruin football, right? Going on fourth down. I'm enjoying it, but nerds try to ruin everything with numbers. They ruined baseball. They did. They did. They did. Did you like that movie? Moneyball? I really did.

I read the book and I love the book. Yeah. I'm not a huge Brad Pitt fan. I love Brad Pitt. Why am I not surprised by that? Cool. I'm not surprised at all.

Not surprised at all. The Moneyball, the movie was okay. I loved the book. Loved it. Good. I loved Liar's Poker, too, by the same author. Got it. All right. Well, moving on. So now we're down to three players. But Colt, to help you out because you haven't seen it, as they're done with the bridge, at the last second, they explode all the tiles that are remaining. Right? Shrapnel comes flying everywhere at the existing players.

The girl player takes one right in the abdomen. Big old shard takes it there. So they put them in the room for the final night. She's literally sitting there bleeding to death. And then they have them go to dinner. So they have a dinner at this triangular table where they're sitting there and they allow them all to get a knife. They clear all the silverware except each of them has a knife sitting there. And then night, night time, we're going to put you back in the room. They all go into the room. They're sitting there and she has the knife. They all have the knife.

So our hero is like a decent human. And I'll say this. He never killed anybody in the whole thing. Although technically he did cheat the old man out of his marbles. Cheat the old man out of his marbles. Cheat the old man out of his marbles, right? That's important to remember that, Colt. Cheat the old man out of his marbles. That's why the old man got killed. But as we go along...

They each get a knife, and then it's that night. He goes over to her saying, we should team up against this guy because he's crazy because he saw how he swindled the Pakistani guy and got him killed and saw how he threw the guy that could tell the glass through the thing. He's like, he's a psychopath. We should team up and get him. And then he realizes she's hurt. He goes to the door to try to get her some help from the guards. The banker guy comes and slits her throat. Weren't they friends as kids? Yes, they were friends as kids. That's correct. Slits her throat. She's done. So.

Two players. Two players left. Move to the final game. It's the squid game, which is... Okay. You're going to have to Google this one because I don't understand it. It fucking sounds like a stupid game. It is. It's basically run around in circles and try to get your foot in something. It's just some goofy game. It's kind of like Capture the Flag, but with your feet. All Becoming Specter Royale does is evens the playing field where you get to both use your feet. Yeah, something. I don't get it. But essentially what they do at the end of this is they say...

This is how this game works unless one player can't continue. So in other words, it's like that Star Trek thing with William Shatner where they just kind of go to killing each other in the gladiator arena while the oligarchs and billionaires from America are sitting there watching them with their thing with their thumbs up. That's what it is. The only thing that's missing is the da-na-na-na, da-na-na-na. That music is their fighting, whatever.

They fight for a while, blah, blah, blah. He gets down to where our hero finally gets the advantage where he can kill the guy and he reaches back to stab him and then stabs the dirt because he can't do it. Because I forgot a very important thing. At any point, if the majority likes, they can vote and the games will end. He's like, let's just end this right now. Let's both go home. And the guy goes, you know what, man? I can't do it. And he takes the knife, the bad guy, and stabs himself in the neck.

Killing himself. Can't live with what he's done. Can't live with what he's done. Piece of shit. Yeah. Kills himself. Would you be able to live with what you've done? Yes. Absolutely. Kills himself. Well, the problem is it is voluntary, though. That's the stupid thing about it. So, you know, I don't know that there's any life lesson there. I think I would just say, look. It's never too late for redemption. It's never too late for redemption is a great one. But I would say more to the point on that. I would say that if you live an unscrupulous life.

If you do things that are unethical, if you live a life of taking advantage of others, at some point, that bill's going to become, that bill's come and due. And it's going to come due in your head. I was going to say, and then other times you may get voted in.

No, you bleeding heart liberal you. No, I'm not. Look at the color of his tie. I know, with the blue tie. Look at the tie, everything. Jesus. But the reality of it is- That is any politician, by the way. I will disagree on that. That bill, I think, is going to become due, which is why I think-

If you look at older people on their deathbeds, have a lot of regrets about their life. - It's the number one thing they regret, not doing stuff. - Not spending enough time with the people they love.

That's it. Not telling people they love them, not spending, not letting go of old, of old harboring, old ill will. Great lesson in life. Great lesson in business. Yeah. Do not spend your life chasing money when the things that are the most important are right in front of you. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. No kidding. That's a great lesson. That's right in front of you. So that, that bill will come due at some point, whether it's you paying it yourself or all day long or in a courtroom where they actually get a judgment that you can enforce, which hopefully will be happening soon. But anyway,

Yeah. So, I mean, to tighten up the rest of the show, if you haven't seen it, as it turns out, in a weird twist, the front man, who's the main guy driving the ship, his brother was the cop that broke in. And then he catches him at the end and he's like...

you know why I did it. And then he shoots him. And zero idea what the hell they were talking about there. I don't even care. No idea. I think that one just. Yeah, I don't care either. I think they just forgot to tighten that up. Yeah, they just. Here's the other thing too. Maybe this is a business lesson. What? Sometimes there's communication barriers. Like sometimes you just don't understand what people are saying or going. Because there's a lot of times in that show I go.

that's English writers who speak Korean that are doing their best to make this fidelity to the script, but not everything translates. Yeah. I had no idea what the hell was happening there. So, and then the big twist, it turns out the old man that was playing with them the whole time, it was player number one.

He was actually the evil mastermind behind the whole thing. He didn't really get killed in the marble stunt. You never saw him get shot. Turns out he's the evil guy that's running it. Our hero that wins the all of money, he wins $38 million. He's so brain just scrambled from this whole experience that he doesn't spend $1 of the money. - Or see his daughter, which is the only reason he's doing it. - Well, no. So then, then, then he goes, then he goes. So then at the end of the thing, he's supposed to go see his daughter who's now gone to America.

and he's, you know, he come to grips with it because he found out the old man was the evil empire, and he somehow this weird thing that makes no sense about somebody getting helped and the faith in humanity, and the old man dies while he's there, and then he dyes his hair to look like Cyndi Lauper. I don't understand that part either. I mean, like, shocking. They just started jumping the shark. Yeah, just like they had a hat, and then he dyes his hair red. That's a problem with stuff like this.

It was a Family Guy episode. And then he's supposed to go to America to see his daughter. He hasn't seen her in over a year. He's going to get on the plane, and all of a sudden he's called to be the vengeance and take down the whole Squid Game, setting up Squid Game Season 2. But the guy died, and I don't care to see Squid Game. That's it.

So, man, that's our assessment of the Squid Game. If you haven't seen it, congratulations. Now you can talk about it at cocktail parties and not be like the one that's left out. There you go. Hopefully you like some of the stuff we talked about when it comes to learning lessons from this thing. And hopefully you'll tune in again next time and tell people to like and subscribe. If you like what we're doing, like it. If you're listening to us on Spotify or Apple, do me a solid. Leave me a nice five-star review and then actually write a comment down there, which is good.

We are killing it on some, like we're doing so well on the non-traditional like podcast sites. It's weird, like the little ones that people like, like Spreaker and CastBox, we're killing there. But yeah, the reviews, I'm just, if you can do me that solid, that'd be great. I'd appreciate it. But again, if you like what we're doing, tell a friend. If you hate it, tell two, because it doesn't matter if they're talking good or bad. As long as they're talking, you're all right.

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 where 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.