Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Escaping the Drift - The Weekly Drop: The Impact of Honesty and Consistency
Fri, 31 Jan 2025
Fulfilling commitments is no small feat, especially when illness strikes and life's unpredictabilities rear their heads. This week, I open up about my personal journey of prioritizing my word and the resilience it took to continue this podcast, despite the hurdles. Through the lens of my days running an insurance company in Florida, I reveal how my phone became a mental management tool that helped me stay accountable. Discover how turning my calendar into a 'religion' became my strategy for maintaining discipline and keeping promises, even when the going got tough. Inspired by Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements," we dive into the transformative impact of being impeccable with your word, highlighted by the unwavering integrity of John D. Rockefeller. Explore the essential role of trust and integrity, which are the true foundation of meaningful relationships and leadership. I share a candid experience of stepping away from a business opportunity due to my inability to meet expected standards, showcasing how honesty preserved that relationship. Learn why small lies can snowball into significant problems, eroding self-respect and confidence. Embracing reliability and consistency in commitments is not just a personal virtue but a powerful tool for building influence and opening new doors. Join me as we reflect on how these values can foster strong connections and turn life's challenges into opportunities. 💬 Did you enjoy this weekly drop? Tell us all about it in the comment section below! ☑️ If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford ************* 💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space. ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company. ➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers. The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages. ************* ✅ Follow John Gafford on social media: Instagram ▶️ / thejohngafford Facebook ▶️ / gafford2 🎧 Stream the new Weekly Drop here: Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9 Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283 ************* #weeklydrop #johngafford #Commitments #Illness #Resilience #Podcast #InsuranceCompany #Florida #MentalManagement #Accountability #Calendar #Religion #Discipline #Promises #DonMiguelRuiz #TheFourAgreements #JohnDRockefeller #Trust #Integrity #Relationships #Leadership #Honesty #SelfRespect #Confidence #Reliability #Consistency #Opportunities
Chapter 1: What is the importance of keeping your word?
Chapter 2: How can illness affect personal commitments?
i gotta tell you i'm coming off the end of yet again a wicked wicked cold i just i'm just sick sick sick sick it's crazy how ill i have been this entire winter it just i'll get over one thing and then and then some other credit it's not even like i got like little kids anymore like when the kids were small they would constantly bring stuff home from uh from everywhere and it's not like that anymore it's just it's just me literally being sick and
I thought to myself, if I'm going to go down there today and I'm going to do this podcast, and literally this is the only reason I came down here today, was to do this podcast. And normally I'm ahead. I'm ahead on the interviews, but I'm never ahead on the weekly drops because I like to keep them poignant with whatever's going on at the time.
And with this one today, I thought, what a better thing to talk about than the importance of your word being your bond. and the importance of how and why you should always honor your commitments to others, to yourself, and everybody else.
Because today, literally, I am honoring my commitment, not just to me, but the commitment that I've made to all of you guys that choose to spend this 15 minutes with me every Thursday, that you expect these things to come out. And I want to make sure that I do them for you, and they're here.
You know, when I think about keeping my word, a couple of stories from my life come to mind and things that I've done to make it important. And the first one is gonna be a story of when I owned my own insurance company with my sister in Florida. This was a business that we spun up in the year 2000. It was really successful. It did really well.
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Chapter 3: What experiences shaped my commitment to honesty?
We were selling Medicare supplements to old people in Florida, which as you can imagine is good business. And we had kind of come across this really good system for getting free medicine for old people. It was kind of a handshake agreement with the US government, with these drug companies, that if they met certain income requirements, that they would give them their medicine for free.
And we went out and essentially would say, okay, You're paying $175 for your Medicare supplement, but your drugs cost you $600. If you buy our Medicare supplement, which because you're a little older is going to be more expensive, now it's $200, we'll get all of your medicine for free. And that's what we did. And literally it was handing out free drugs is what we did.
That was the whole business model, and it worked exceptionally well. Well, as we grew, we started scaling to other markets. You know, we added some people and started adding people to the company. And we grew into Tampa, Florida, from North Florida. And my salesman down there, now, obviously, to make this work, we've got to buy leads off of mailers and just all this stuff.
And the leads come in, we've got the salespeople, salespeople set the appointments, close the deals, and that's how it worked. Well, My number one guy, as far as sales goes, was in Tampa, and he was doing very, very well. And all of a sudden, I noticed he was blowing off leads and going to play golf as soon as he started making good money, not giving the business the attention that it needed.
Chapter 4: How did my phone become a tool for accountability?
And as the owner of the business, I didn't really have any choice, even though this guy was the best guy. I had to fire him. And the problem with that scenario is the guy was me because I owned the company and I was, we were, I was, I was the COO, the CMO, the head sales guy and everybody else. So how do you fire yourself? You can't.
So I decided at that moment, and this was a growth moment for me was I had to get some middle management in my life and. How I achieved getting middle management was I just decided that my phone, which is every one of you has this tool in your pocket, my phone was gonna become my middle management. And if it went into my phone, if it went into that device, it happened.
Chapter 5: Why is being impeccable with your word essential?
It did not matter what it was. If I put that I had an appointment, nothing else mattered. It did not matter if I got free tickets to Super Bowl, I was going to that appointment. If it said I was going to the gym, I was going to the gym. If it said I was doing this, I was doing that. So my calendar became religion to me.
It was everything that I said I would do went into that phone and then got done. And the reason that this is so important in that aspect is because when you talk about being honest and keeping your word, keeping your word to yourself is so incredibly important.
Chapter 6: What lessons can we learn from John D. Rockefeller?
Chapter 7: How do small lies impact self-respect and relationships?
It was everything that I said I would do went into that phone and then got done. And the reason that this is so important in that aspect is because when you talk about being honest and keeping your word, keeping your word to yourself is so incredibly important.
We've talked about it many times on this podcast, but like the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz talks about being impeccable with your word in that book. If you haven't read that book, again, I could not recommend it more, but being impeccable with your word as a key principle.
Chapter 8: What role does consistency play in building trust?
Because when you honor commitments to yourself, you build trust with others because your actions are more important than what you say you're going to do.
You look at guys like John D. Rockefeller, who the only reason he survived the Great Depression, believe it or not, is when everything went to absolute hell in a handbasket with his business because he always did what he said he would do in business.
He was able to pull lines of credit and survive those financial hardships when everybody else couldn't because he understood that trust was his primary currency. You know, another story for me, a couple years ago, many, many moons ago, like 2017, I got brought in to start a property flipping hedge fund with a guy that I knew. And we went out and raised, he said, we gotta raise X amount of capital.
And it was a pretty decent chunk. And I went to my friends and family and raised $750,000 for our end of the seed money into this fund. wound up being a much larger raise, but I raised 750,000 from friends and family into this house flipping fund. Now, needless to say, look, I win more than I lose, but this thing was a loser and it lost. And it left me with a partner that abandoned me,
Hit the, literally hit the bricks and fled the state. Left me sitting on several lawsuits of which hopefully my lawsuit against him will come to fruition very, very soon. But hit the bricks, left me with lawsuits, left me with issues, left me with all kinds of things. And I made, I made a commitment in that moment. I sat with my wife.
And you're discussing this investment, and we were very clear to everybody that invested, friends and family, that look, this could have upside, but it's an investment like anything else. It could go to zero. And we both agreed that it was incredibly important because I plan not to flee the state and go to Texas.
I plan to stay right here and continue doing business, that it was very, very important that we make everybody whole. And over the course of the next, call it seven months. Some people got paid faster than others, but over the course of the next seven months, I made every single one of those investors whole. And I say that as a matter of pride.
And I say that as a business lesson, because nobody out there can ever say that they invested money with me that I guaranteed that I did not make right. I would rather see somebody that tells me that story and shows me that proof rather than somebody that shows me a 20% return. Because, yeah, everybody hits the lottery once in a while. Projects go good. Things happen. Markets are good.
But what happens when the market's bad? What happens when things go to hell in a handbasket? What happens? That's what I want to know. And that is what the currency is. that trust is built on. It's worth so much. And if that's not enough, you gotta remember that your word defines your character. You know, reputation is what other people say about you when you're not in the room.
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