Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Unseen Strength in Setbacks with James Catledge
Tue, 22 Apr 2025
Growing up, John learned the value of perseverance early on, and it shaped his entrepreneurial spirit. Our guest, James Catledge, knows this journey all too well, having soared to great heights in the business world before facing a significant fall from grace. His story is a compelling exploration of ambition, trust, and the unconventional paths that can lead to both triumph and tribulation. Today, James shares the invaluable lessons he's learned from his experiences, including his involvement in a $180 million Ponzi scheme and the legal challenges he faced. His insights on redemption and resilience are not just cautionary tales but powerful guidance for those seeking success without the pitfalls. Listeners will gain a unique perspective on the formative experiences that shape leaders, starting with the perseverance and communication skills honed by Mormon missionaries during their door-to-door evangelism. These skills served James well, from his early days in radio sales and the insurance industry to his remarkable rise in business. The episode highlights the role of ambition and the art of leveraging client relationships for entrepreneurial success, illustrating how unconventional paths can lead to extraordinary achievements. James also reflects on the pivotal moments that defined his career, from crucial encounters with mentors to transformative business strategies. The journey doesn't end with his downfall; it continues through a process of rebuilding and personal transformation. Serving time in prison became a profound experience for James, offering lessons in leadership and the power of human connection even in the darkest moments. As he rebuilds his character and career, James emphasizes the importance of learning from past mistakes, maintaining financial oversight, and embracing a more cautious approach to investments. His story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the possibility of redemption, offering listeners a thoughtful exploration of how to navigate adversity and emerge stronger on the other side. CHAPTERS (00:00) - Overcoming Fear and Building Resilience (10:29) - Evolution of Responsibility and Resilience (23:16) - Journey to Success and Independence (36:07) - Build Business Partnerships for Success (41:17) - Insurance Agency Success and Mentorship (52:40) - Building a Diversified Business Portfolio (01:06:39) - Life-Changing Experience Behind Bars (01:11:29) - Rebuilding Character After Adversity 💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? 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 Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode 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 ************* #escapingthedrift #jamescatledge #entrepreneurship #perseverance #ambition #trust #success #resilience #mormonmissionaries #sales #accountability #performancemetrics #businessstrategies #partnerships #insurance #mentorship #diversifiedbusinessportfolio #legalchallenges #redemption #humanconnection #adversity #personaltransformation #financialoversight #investments #cautionarytale
Chapter 1: Who is James Catledge and what is his story?
And I kind of just want to hear the story of how all that stuff happens. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is James Catledge. James, how are you? Good, thanks for having me.
Glad to be here.
See, full disclosure, I screwed up the first opening. That was word for word almost exactly the same thing. Very good, yeah, very good. See, I'm a pro here, James, I'm a pro. Yes, you are. That's how we do it. So let's back up, man. Obviously... You know, you've had quite the life.
Yeah, I have. You've had quite the life.
And yes, we're going to get to talk about some of the negative things. But I always, I want to try to find some positive here. So obviously we talked about the show. The idea is helping people get to the next level. And I believe now, obviously, you are a reformed gentleman. You're not somebody that is still looking to do anything that could be perceived as a negative in the world. No.
And you don't reach the heights you reached because you reached a lot of those heights, perfectly fine, great business, doing wonderful things. And there's a lot of good knowledge in there that you can use to help others. And I love that that's what you're trying to do now. I love that.
So let's talk about, I always like to talk about nature versus nurture first, especially with high profile, very successful guests. So tell me about young James. How'd you grow up?
What made you you? It's a great question. On my podcast, I interviewed my mother about a month ago, and I learned some things from her perspective that was quite interesting. And I asked this exact question, what was it like raising two boys by yourself? Mom was a single mom. And she gave me some insight that I guess you don't really remember who you are as a kid.
You may have the memories, but who you were is not clear yet. And she said to me that as she went to go to work, I was assigned various chores and all sorts of duties around the house. We were raised in Tennessee and my dad had left the house by age eight for me. My brother was five. So I'm kind of the man of the house at age eight.
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Chapter 2: How did childhood challenges shape James’s resilience?
And I took the knives a few more times. Yeah, just to make sure I was ready. But as a boy, I remember having to overcome, personally solve that problem. And it, for me, was a real problem. I was the type of kid that when we come home from being maybe at church or being out to eat with my mother, she would have me go in the house first.
I'm eight and identify if there's any intruders before she comes in or before my little brother. And no one's more scared than me at eight going in. Did you think mom liked the little brother more than you? Like, hey. Well, he's five.
So he's not really in a position to. She's thinking, I don't have to run faster than the break in. I just got to run faster than my eight year old son.
So this is, there was none of us that were brave enough to do it without fear. But I remember having these really visceral reactions to fear and I didn't like it. I did not like how I felt. I felt weak. I felt consumed by it. And I didn't like myself for feeling that way. So I had to go through problem solving to not feel that way.
And I think my life's been full of that problem solving, presented with something that no one else can fix but me.
Well, I think it's very interesting that even at a small age, you realized that Sometimes just changing your physiology, and you, your physical world, just by the act of holding those knives, right? Just change the whole process. And I think if you're somebody out there that's struggling with fear of anything, I think you just got to find something
You've got to find that knife to put under the hand of the garbage can.
That's right. That's right. You've got to overcome it. You've got to solve it. I'll tell you one more on the same line of thinking. I was a Mormon missionary, which was a great privilege for me. At age 19, I was called to be a missionary in Santa Rosa, California. And I remember feeling like such an imposter.
This whole thing, you know, imposter syndrome where people feel like they're not qualified for this. They certainly are not qualified. don't know enough to do this job, this task. Many entrepreneurs feel this way, and certainly as a Mormon missionary, I'm called, I have the name tag, I've got the suits, but inside me, I am not up for this.
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Chapter 3: What lessons did James learn from his Mormon missionary experience?
For sure.
Right from Utah.
Absolutely.
I can't believe I never put that together.
Now one other thing you'll like about recruiting Mormon missionaries is we're trained at the age of 19 when folks are busy getting their first bar experience and getting their first tattoo perhaps and which piercing do I want next. We are trained in nine o'clock accountability. At 9 p.m. we are to call our district leaders who are other 19 year olds like us but somehow they're in charge.
100%.
And by the way, we have in our pocket what they call the daily planner. It's a physical calendar, not a digital calendar. It's a physical calendar where we've marked all these units of activity that matter, high leverage activities that lead us to what we're after, which is baptisms. Mm-hmm. Well, people joining the church, that's what we're after.
Yeah, that's a conversion. That's it. Literally a conversion. Literally a conversion.
That's literally what we call it. How many converts? So we are calling in at night. If we don't call in at nine o'clock, they call us. If they can't reach us, they drive their bicycles or their car over to find us.
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Chapter 4: How did James start his career and first hustle?
You're like, whoa, did Delta know? Why are we on Southwest? Did Delta not have any flights here?
Yeah.
Yeah. And they had that, you know, we had a private jet for a while and they had all that stuff. And And I think they're still very well grounded, because I think we do the best we can with them. So let's, because you were very successful early, before your trouble. So what was the, so you went into what field after, because you went to BYU, I'm assuming?
Yeah, BYU.
Chalker. Not a big surprise, based on the story so far.
Yeah, what's interesting, and I'll get you to the first breakthrough for me. So I get home from my Mormon mission and all my buddies are headed to BYU. They're all missionaries. These are my best friends on the planet. We've had this galvanizing experience together as missionaries. And my friend's from St. Louis. He drives down in his RX-7 to Memphis to pick me up. We're loaded with clothes and
footballs and shoes and we're headed out. He's been accepted to BYU. I have not been accepted. My grades in high school were too low to be accepted to BYU. I'm like a 2.8 grade point average. But I know that's where I need to be.
I need to be out there, you know, and hopefully while I'm out there, there's a way to get in BYU where you're not full-time day school, but literally your adult night school. And you kind of start there, get your GPA up, and they'll accept you to day school.
Okay.
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Chapter 5: How did James develop his business strategies and client relationships?
I now have a binder and my girlfriend is good with the Macintosh. She builds me, we make up the name and trust listing services. We literally build the list, contact number, it's all in the police record. The whole thing. I delivered it to him and I said, look, you can't have this without the eight grand and I'm gonna bring it to you. every month.
I'm going to bring you four times a month the list, but every month you're paying me eight grand." And he says, I'll take this every month of the year, all year, every year. So I'm selling ads, but this little thing dawned on me by listening to this guy, I'm hearing this guy explain that you're hoping to hell that somebody walks in here and needs a thing. We know who gets in car accidents.
We know who needs their car repaired. And so I built like an email for them that they could send out with a discount, letting them know that sorry to hear about the accident. We take all the insurances and we're happy to bring you over in our town car to and from. If you've got a problem, we'll tow the vehicle. Nope. So basically I find out what he's willing to do.
I write it in kind of an email for him to use. for that list and we're hitting that list and he's got more business than he knows what to do with. I ended up selling it to a personal injury guy and a chiropractor.
See, I want to take it one step further. My favorite technique in business anymore is I call it the Tony Soprano, which is this, which is if I want to build an auxiliary business on a bolt on to something that we do here, right? I'm going to say, okay, cool, you can do this. And then I'll go get the best person I can to plug in that already has this existing business.
And then we flood them with customers. And then at the end of six, seven months, I asked a very simple question. How much of your business is our business? And when that number tips north of 50%, well, I'm going to be your partner now. Yeah. Right.
Now we're partners and that's how it's going to be because you know, once you get somebody so dependent on that source of business, they don't have a lot of choice. It's like, listen, I'll bring you more and we're going to do this, but we're partners now.
Absolutely. That's how it works. This is Carnegie Rockefeller moving the fuel around the train car. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's the exact same deal. Oh my gosh,
The men that built America literally should be required education.
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Chapter 6: What role did mentorship and partnerships play in James’s success?
We're now three years into this, and I think I made 388 my last year with him.
How many agents under you?
Six.
Just six?
Yeah, six.
Dude, my guy Sean Mikey came in here a couple weeks ago. He's in Miami. He's got a life insurance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A thousand. What's FFL? He's got a thousand agents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A thousand. We're going to get there. We're going to have more than a thousand. We're going to have more than a thousand in a second. Okay, all right. All right. So just to give you an idea, with one company, one company, I made 59 million in commissions. Okay. That's one company.
Gross commissions are over 120 million paid to me personally. Oh, okay.
when we look at the other now this that those are commissions paid to me not not some gross number we now cut into that that's that's the number that's on the records with me so i figure out with chris splitting his number that i i'm good at this i'm good at leading people i'm good at teaching people i can make complicated things simple to understand intelligible and so
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Chapter 7: How did James navigate legal challenges and personal transformation?
And like 300 grand.
Fundings everywhere.
And then two years later. Yeah. I'm sitting in Vegas selling those units that I was selling for $350,000. I'm selling them as foreclosures for $40,000, $30,000. It was crazy. So look, I'm not going to fault you for going as fast as all of us did at just a much bigger scale. Anybody that wants to throw stones at you at that time, I was living it then. We were all running.
And that was one of many things we were doing. We were still running the big financial services firm. This was a division of that company. This was extra money. This was extra. It was extra.
Good Lord.
And we were good at it. They loved us. They...
you know what i don't know how much it made me think this goes on a lot and we just don't know it as long as the project finishes nobody asked the questions see i think skimming goes on a lot i think of all these big buildings that get built in my mind i'm thinking there's probably guys like me that raise the funds to build these big structures and the guys building it have everything padded and invoiced way beyond reality and this thing's getting skimmed on the whole time as long as it gets finished nobody's got the questions rule rule number one of
any construction project is never let your contractor get ahead of you financially, ever. That's it. Ever let them get ahead of you. I don't care if you're remodeling your bathroom or you're building a high-rise. You never let your contractors get ahead of you.
That's exactly right. Ever.
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