From Drifting to Top 10: Building a 300K Download Podcast | John Gafford Part 2 DSH #968

26m
From drifting to 300K downloads a month! πŸš€ John Gafford reveals how he built a top 10 entrepreneurship podcast and escaped the currents of life. Tune in for game-changing insights on achieving success and living with purpose! πŸ’―

John shares his journey from running nightclubs to owning his first bar at 20, and how he transformed his life to become a high-level achiever. You'll learn:
β€’ The power of escaping the "drift" and taking control of your life πŸ’ͺ
β€’ How to build a successful podcast from the ground up πŸŽ™οΈ
β€’ Insider tips on networking and building valuable connections 🀝
β€’ The importance of time management and prioritizing what matters most ⏰

Don't miss out on this eye-opening conversation packed with practical advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and anyone looking to level up their life! Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly. πŸ“Ί

Join the conversation and share your thoughts in the comments below! πŸ‘‡ What's your biggest takeaway from John's success story?

#EscapingTheDrift #PodcastSuccess #Entrepreneurship #DigitalSocialHour #SeanKelly

#financialeducation #selfimprovement #realestate #howtoincreasepodcastsubscribers #howtostartapodcast

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - John Gafford’s Podcast Escaping The Drift
01:28 - Working for Hooters
04:00 - Nightclub Ownership Benefits
06:32 - Future of Las Vegas Entertainment
09:07 - Local Entertainment Scene
11:00 - Vegas Golden Knights Overview
11:52 - Real Estate Insights
13:15 - Ryan Serhant Discussion
14:29 - Navigating Midlife Crisis
16:50 - Working for Others vs. Self-Employment
20:40 - Leaving for 90 Days: Impact
22:18 - Best Time Ever Experiences
24:17 - Mardi Gras Party Highlights
24:55 - Future Plans for John
26:00 - OUTRO

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GUEST: John Gafford
https://www.instagram.com/thejohngafford/
www.youtube.com/@EscapingtheDriftPodcast

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Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/
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Transcript

Speakeasy vibe is a vibe.

Dude, I was going to join it.

You know, I got, because it was cheap to join it, and I got approved for the membership, and I got it.

And then I literally,

I went there with a couple friends.

What it made me realize, do I really need a private club membership that I feel like I'm going to be obligated to use?

And the only thing really to do there is drink in the place that's 35 minutes from my house.

I just decided that's probably a bad place for me.

All right.

Part two with John Gafford.

It's been a little over a year now.

Thanks for coming back on, man.

It's been a minute, man.

Been a minute.

Yeah, you started your own show now.

Yeah, well, my show's been going for like three years,

consistently now in the top 15 for entrepreneurship.

I think it was number nine yesterday.

Yeah, we're doing good, man.

It's averaging right around 300,000 downloads a month, which I'm very proud of.

And yeah, we're doing great, man.

Escaping the Drift.

Check it out.

What's your goal with that show?

So, you know, that show is very much like, I have a book coming out very soon.

It's actually, I talked to the publisher this morning.

uh very soon my book will come out with the same name escaping the drift and the whole idea with that is it's kind of like a user's manual to my dipshit 26 year old self

um so many people are just kind of drifting along with the currents of life and

what i try to do is provide uh you know practical advice and bring high level achievers on that drop their secrets about how to kind of get out of that just floating along with the currents of life and start achieving at a different level yeah so at 26 you were just kind of figuring shit out man i mean dude, dude I did a lot of really cool stuff, right?

I had a lot of super cool jobs as a kid.

I mean, I was running nightclubs.

I mean, in my early 20s, I was a top-level brass for Hooters of America restaurant chain.

I went to my first, you know, bar when I was 20.

Damn.

But, you know, I wasn't achieving any real success, right?

Like, I had a lot of cool jobs that I had, but, you know, I wouldn't say I was building any wealth.

You were working for someone else.

Dude, yeah, man, I was just drifting along with the currency wherever life was taking me, man.

That's what was happening.

Hooters fell off, man.

Yeah, dude, I have not been in a Hooters restaurant.

and

you know it's it's one of those things when you eat so much of something for six years which i did yeah like i never want to eat it again ever that's how i feel with chipola dude i'll tell you this though back in the day man working at hooters it was like it was like a fraternity house yeah it was the stuff that we did back in what would have been now the late 90s in those restaurants i mean

It was sheer insanity compared to what you could get away with in any workplace.

Oh, I bet.

And now all those girls are just making more on OnlyFans.

So yeah, dude,

I cannot imagine how hard it would be to staff one of those restaurants or staff a place that is dependent on female sexuality when those girls can't jump on OnlyFans and do what they want to do.

Yeah, I wonder how the clubs got affected, actually.

I mean, well, Vegas, I don't think so much because I mean, you look at those girls in Vegas that are making, you know, $200,000 a year to hold a sparkler up at a sign or carry a bottle to a table.

It's insane.

And for those of you who don't live in Vegas that hear that, yeah, that's real.

That's common.

That's common.

But yeah, I think when they're making that kind of money in the right clubs, I don't think it's affected them.

Do you go out to any clubs?

As rarely as I possibly can anymore, man.

You know, I think

these days I like to be in places and always live music.

Well, that's always the thing I'll always do.

You love music.

You know, the club stuff, you know, dude, you know, I don't, maybe it's the old man of me now.

If I can't hear, I'm just like, dude, I'm miserable.

I'm like, bro, I just want to talk to people.

Yeah, yeah.

Have you always been big on music?

Always.

You know, back in the day, the nightclub that I had in Atlanta, Cobalt Lounge, was Esquire Magazine named it the number one nightclub on the East Coast United States.

And that was in 2000.

We had all the Super Bowl parties there, which were awesome.

So, yeah, but I mean, I came up in that era of when house music and techno and all that stuff was really having its second wind, if you will, through that time of the late 90s, early 2000s.

And then house music really took over through that early part of the 2000s.

But as far as like bands and stuff, I've been playing drums since I was six.

Wow.

And one of the joys of my life has, for whatever reason, you know, one of the bars I own ran in Atlanta was a live music venue.

So I got to meet a lot of really cool people there that wound up becoming very, very famous.

And, you know.

I will say one of the greatest joys of my life is being able to be with the boys in the band.

When you can go to a show and you have that all access and you're hanging out in the green room behind it.

And there's just, there's just nothing better.

The camaraderie, right?

Yeah, dude, it's the closest thing you can be to like I don't know It's pretty special.

Yeah, no, that speakeasy's vibe is a vibe.

Yeah, you know, I like those I went to the one in Fountain Blue.

Have you been to that one?

Yeah, yeah

Are you talking about poodle room uptime?

Poodle room, yeah, dude.

I was gonna join it.

You know, I got I because it was cheap to join.

It was like 8,000 bucks for the membership and it was not that much month, not much monthly.

And I got approved for the membership and I got it.

And then I literally,

I went there with a couple friends.

And we had like

five old-fashions and then two of my guys smoked a cigar and the bill came out and the bill was egregious, which I kind of knew it would be.

But what it made me realize was I didn't, do I really need a private club membership that I feel like I'm going to be obligated to use?

And the only thing really to do there is drink and the place is 35 minutes from my house.

I just decided that's probably a bad plan for me.

I didn't join either.

I went, water was 10 bucks.

And then I loved the live cello music, but other than that, yeah.

Great, great view.

Unbelievable, unbelievable view.

Did you see like the, you saw the sushi restaurant?

Yeah, that's like 500 bucks, right?

Yeah, it's crazy.

And, I mean, it'd be a cool place to do private events, but again, it's just, it's really far from where I live.

Hopefully, have an event there.

Yeah, I love when people, you know, think because you live in Vegas that you're on the strip every night.

And it's like, dude, it's getting further every single day.

I mean, with traffic, it's literally getting further.

There's actually traffic now in Vegas.

Bro, I was telling you earlier when I came in, to get from the wind to your event at Mandalay on Friday, it took us 54 minutes on the strip.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

And well, I was, you know, the Uber driver was not not doing what I was telling her to do.

So there would have been a faster way to get there.

But yeah, it's a disaster.

Yeah.

No, I remember when I moved here four years ago, and I don't remember any traffic that year.

Yeah, I can get, you know, it's funny.

I used to, you know, we have offices on this side of town and on the other side of town.

And my partner and I, we always meet at the wind.

Yeah.

Because neither one of us wants to make the traffic to those officers.

Yeah, because Summerlin's starting to get pretty bad.

It is.

I mean, we were over there last week, and I went to watch football with some friends on the Ridges.

And yeah, man, you don't realize realize how busy it is getting over there as well.

Yeah, I'm excited about Vegas, though.

There's a lot of good things coming.

There's a lot, man.

People ask me all the time about Vegas and especially doing what we do with the real estate market and talking about the future of the real estate market in Vegas.

And, you know, nationally, you're seeing a price pullback.

You're seeing prices drop and there's going to be probably a correction in a lot of areas, but I just don't really see that for Vegas because if you look at the growth that we've had in every direction over the last seven years, name one other city you can even think of that's picked up every major sports franchise in an eight-year window.

We're going to have basketball probably announced within the year.

And then we'll have every major franchise playing here within a 10-year period.

That doesn't happen to go from zero to every single team, like that just does not happen.

And you've seen with that this massive shift in migration to Vegas because slowly but surely, we're becoming less and less dependent on gaming as our primary revenue driver.

I mean, it will always be a huge revenue driver here.

But, you know, when I first moved here, that was it.

I mean, it was, it was, gaming was the driver of everything.

And now you're starting to see with a lot of tech moving in and different things that are happening around the valley, we're becoming less and less dependent on what happens.

Yeah, you're seeing Hollywood coming in, too.

That's going to be huge.

You know, those studios,

they've announced it.

It's there.

Did you know that the tax credits that they asked for are greater than what the Raiders asked for, what the A's A's asked for?

No way.

Well, they'll probably produce more money, right?

Dude, I don't, I don't know, though, but how, how could it?

Probably wouldn't.

I mean, no, you're not selling tickets to shoot movies.

You're shooting with localized people.

Right.

They're saving monies because the unions won't necessarily be here effectively.

I'm sure they will pretty quickly, but the cost of doing business here will be much different.

Which, again, I think why that affects, you look at something like that.

How does that affect the real estate industry?

And I've had this conversation.

You know, a year ago, I was talking to some, some friends, I was talking to Justin Colby, and he's like, what should we buy?

And I said, you should buy $1.5 to $2.5 million midterm rentals is what you should buy and get as many of them as you can.

And he's like, why?

I'm like, because, dude, if Will Farrell comes here to shoot a movie for four months, he doesn't want to stay at the win.

They're going to want a place that they can stay that feels like they're living here.

So if you can get those midterm rentals for people that are coming in to work on the movies, you'll be able to bang on them.

Smart.

They're going to do very, very well.

But stuff like that is what, you know, obviously now you got that segment being gobbled up.

And it just all these little things trickle down into our local economy.

Yeah.

Dude, there's so much taking off.

Comedians.

Yeah.

Theo Vaughn, Andrew Schultz had a show the night of my event.

Concerts are blowing up here.

There is not, you know, people talk about living other places and they say, you know, New York, you know, the city that never sleeps.

Dude, if you live in Las Vegas, there is literally something you can do every single night of the week.

You know, it's funny, case in point, point, randomly,

we were at dinner on Sunday night and my wife was talking about comedians and was talking about how my son, who is 16, would love Carrotop, which is ridiculous.

It's a ridiculous show.

It's not highbrow comedy.

It's just nonsense, but it is pretty funny.

And literally, like, I made one call and we're going to take my son to see Carrotop tonight.

Every night of the week,

yeah, tonight.

Because it's just, I thought of it two days ago and then it's, and then tonight we're going.

And there's something every night, every night, which the only thing that makes it hard is if you have season tickets to all this stuff like especially which you do it gets it's a lot it's a lot man hockey's a lot football's a lot there's a lot you might be one of the biggest golden nights fans in the in the world dude i love it man um you know we sit right behind the penalty boxes which is great uh we go to almost every single game i will say the one game i went to was good networking yeah dude that section that section where i sit in those club seats is awesome yeah i met sean whalen was there there's a couple i think grant cardone might have been there yeah yeah dude we see you see so many people in that club right there.

It's crazy.

Like, the football games are too big, right?

There's too many places for people to disseminate to.

But in the Knights games, it's really kind of localized.

Yeah, it's really localized to a couple states.

Yeah, because when you go to the bar every period at the end, meet some people.

Yeah, you see everybody.

It's great.

Great networking.

Yeah.

Shout out to the Knights.

Are they good this year?

I haven't been keeping up.

They haven't started playing this year, but they're

probably going to be dreadful traded away.

Pretty much the heart and soul of our team got traded away.

So we'll see, man.

Jonathan Marcio got traded away, but we'll see.

We'll see what happens.

He took the bag.

Nah, dude, I think they just didn't want to pay him.

I think they thought he was getting too old and didn't want to pay him anymore.

Damn.

So off he went.

I don't know, man.

Who knows?

Who knows?

Have you had any of those guys on your pod?

The players?

No.

You know what?

Honestly, I've never tried.

That's surprising.

Yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I have met a bunch of those guys.

They all buy cars from Nick Dosa.

Yeah.

Owens Vegas Auto Gallery.

So I've met a couple of them.

You know, obviously they were...

were hanging around there a lot when when I was spent a lot of time over there at Nick's place.

I would meet a lot of those guys.

But yeah, I've never even asked any of them.

Again, with my show, we really lean towards

heavy entrepreneur stuff, really business building stuff is what we try to do.

I've had some athletes through.

I mean, we had Al Jermaine Sterling, who Al Joe's great,

awesome.

And that was really just about his story of overcoming and persistence, which is great, because to do what he does in the UFC, you've got to have that mindset.

Absolutely.

That was a mindset talk all day.

Oh, yeah.

I was looking at your top episodes.

Ryan Sirhan was up there.

Sir Han was great.

You know, obviously, what we do was very similar.

So we had a lot lot of stuff to talk about.

It was funny.

I accused him of ruining real estate, which was funny.

Social media?

Yeah, well, no, no, not so much him.

It was more million-dollar listing, the way that they get on the phone and

argue over deals and transactions on the phone when that's not at all really how this works.

Because you've got, you know, everything's got to be on paper and go back and forth with contracts.

But I asked him about that.

And he was essentially like, no, man, in Manhattan, that's really how this is.

That's really how it gets done.

There's no question.

Handshake deals out there, right?

Well, no, it's just they're able able to massage and manufacture things on verbal offers because the contracts go to attorneys to be drafted.

Right.

So they have to kind of massage out the terms.

That's how it is.

I mean, New York's crazy for real estate.

There's no MLS in New York.

A lot of people don't know.

There's no MLS.

That's why you find a house.

Well, that's why they go do all these open houses and go to all this stuff and do all these things because they have to kind of know this inventory.

There's so much that's off-market.

It's crazy.

Holy crap.

I wonder why they don't have one.

It's just how it's always been and it's wild.

There's so much off-market stuff and so much new.

You know, you've got to, you got to be in the know.

So it's a much more, you know, we're blessed in these markets because we have the MLS and we can just kind of, what are you looking for and go find it?

Whereas those guys, you're really paid for what you know out there.

So mad respect to Ryan and what.

Yeah, based off connections, dude.

Yeah, mad respect, dude.

Yeah, mad respect.

Shout out to Ryan.

Did you watch his new show?

Have not watched his new show, man.

Have not done that.

I don't watch a lot of TV.

I don't.

It's not something I do.

It's the only time I watch TV is if I'm on the treadmill.

That's it.

And I'll binge watch one thing.

Like I'll just start on something and binge watch it.

And then when it's done, I'll start something else.

100%.

So I'm literally watching one thing at one time.

Yeah.

No, these days in the car, I'm just listening to pods.

Yeah, man.

It's one of those things where, you know, and shout out to you for doing that because, you know, when I was your age and young, you know, you think you have all the time in the world and you think time is this infinite resource that goes on forever.

And then when you get a little older, You start to realize or more or less more when you start watching your kids grow up and the speed at which your kids grow up is what's kind of crazy You start to realize how finite that time is and you start to get real selective with how you spend your time.

I bet.

And what you do.

And I'm very particular about it.

I say no to way more things than I say yes.

Like, no offense, but if you see me at one of your events, you're welcome, brother.

And I come to almost all of them, I do, because I, because I find value in what you do.

But yeah, I say no to a lot of people that ask me to a lot of things.

No, I appreciate that for real.

Cause I know you're one of the top guys at my events, obviously.

So the fact that you're showing up means a lot.

I show up for you, my man.

I always will.

I appreciate it, dude.

Did you have like a quarter life or midlife crisis where you started realizing this?

No, dude, I don't think, I don't, I don't, I don't think so because I've always, one of the things about me is I've always done what I want to do.

I have a very understanding wife

that understands that if I'm going to do something, it's just what's going to happen.

And, you know, sometimes, well, I'd say more times than not, that works out.

Sometimes that results in seven-figure losses,

but it's always kind of what I want to do at the time of the direction I want to go.

And she trusts me to do that stuff.

But I think, again, I think the thing that hit me the most that I heard somebody say was, you know, you get 18 summers with your kids.

And I think it was, I saw Jesse Etzler say that.

And when I saw that, it really hit me.

I was like, man, you know, this is going fast.

And my son, who is 16, is a junior in high school.

I got this summer, next summer, and he's gone.

Wow.

He's off to college.

You know, when you have kids,

95% of the time that you spend with them in their entire life is before the age of 18.

Wow.

So from now until the day I die, or, you know, it's only 5% of time left.

And

that makes me very hyper-aware of what I'm doing and where I spend my time.

That's deep, man, because a lot of parents are just grinding while they have kids.

It's time you kick it back.

And I think that...

I think that one of the advantages that I had of having kids later in life instead of, you know,

there's a give and take, right?

I have friends that had kids when they were like 22 years old.

And now those kids are adults and they're great adults.

And those people are the same age as I am.

And they have 27, 26, 28-year-old kids.

And they're like hanging out together like friends, right?

So that would be awesome, right?

That would be awesome to have your kids like adults that you can hang out with while you're still young enough to like hang out with them like that.

But on the flip side of that coin, you know, I think my kids have kept me young at heart for a lot longer than you would.

I mean, we didn't have kids until I was 33.

And by doing that, it has definitely.

um definitely without a shadow of a doubt kept me young yeah um you know when you show up at the you show up at the school and you're by far the oldest guy, you're like, okay, cool.

Yeah.

And not that old, bro.

I'm not that old, right?

But, you know, when you're in there and, you know, this dad is 22 and you're 36, it's a, it's a little bit of a gap to deal with.

But I like that.

I like that they've kept me young.

And, and, yeah, and the fact that I was more financially stable with them when they were born made me able to choose my, you know, I've never, I've never had, I've never worked for somebody else.

Wow.

I haven't worked for, I haven't worked for another human being as far as punching a clock since I was 28 years old.

I think was probably the last time that happened, 29 years old, maybe.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Just I've had, I had other jobs that I did and things that I did.

But, but, yeah, but the fact that I've always worked for myself in those times has given me that freedom to be able to spend as much time as I wanted with them.

I see both sides of it because I have friends now that are living paycheck to paycheck.

And dude, it's just stressful, man, with kids.

You know, I can't imagine.

You know, it's like i think about it all the time and and i wonder i mean my wife's awesome and we have a great relationship but i wonder how much different that would be if we had to sit down and have conversations like well shit we can't pay this we got to put this off and blah blah blah and that undo stress on a relationship i i would think that that stress of money probably undoes way more relationships than you would think right that's why

no i'm the same way that's why i'm building a safety net before i have kids because you never know man yeah no no no for sure uh you don't and then and then like you you know you start having some weird health stuff happen and all of a sudden you're like holy shit are they set up for forever and then you start kind of grinding again and scrambling for that so you're you're never as prepared as you think and and and life has levels i mean there are people out there in the world that you know could walk in and look at you know and this is not a flex it's not that much money don't worry about it but i'm saying they could walk in and look at my active checking account and they would be like i could retire on that right yeah um because they just could live well within their means it is what it is and then there's there's people that, you know, then there's, there's levels to this.

So the more you get, the more you have to make.

And everybody has a number of what they have to have to retire.

Like, okay, I can, I can plan this out and then I can do that.

Yeah.

I'll get there at 50.

I'll get there by 55.

I'm not working anymore after 55.

Well, you got to be careful with retirement because they're doing new studies on brain health.

I know.

Well, okay, here's the thing.

Okay, let's talk about that.

So when I say.

When I say retire, I don't mean I'm going to sit around and play golf every day.

That's not what I mean.

I mean that even in this business, right,

you know, we have 600 agents that work here and between this and then the mortgage company and then the title company, everything else that we own,

I feel the need to have to be here every day.

Not that I have to do anything other than direct traffic a little bit, but I feel like if I'm not here, I'm setting the wrong example of leadership for the level of effort that you need to put out.

to do what needs to be done.

Wow.

And I feel like, especially with our agents who come in and, you know, they all, they cycle in and cycle out, right?

There might be a month where I don't see one of our people because they're just not coming in the office or working from home.

But I always feel, I also feel like this responsibility that when people walk in, they need to see me.

Like I need to be here on that one day a month that they might walk in.

I need to be here.

And so my definition of retiring and retirement is not ceasing to work projects.

It's not ceasing to chase your passion.

It's ceasing to feel, that, to have the need to feel like you have to be anywhere at any given time.

Interesting.

That's what I want to get away from.

That's what I want to leave.

So you would just be more like behind the scenes.

Yeah, dude.

I mean, look, at that point, you know, I sit on the board for a couple of different things and, you know, a couple of paid board chips.

I was talking to my buddy Joshua this weekend.

It's kind of the same plan.

Just a couple paid board seats,

advisory seats.

No equity, no fiduciary, just straight up easy peasy.

And give me something to think about and something to do and something to mold and help that next generation up

as we go along.

I plan on being fully involved in that stuff.

But again, it's that I need to be somewhere on Monday at 9 a.m.

That's what I got to get away from.

Yeah.

That's the thing.

And we have, and I think we're going to get there.

You're there already.

You just

yes and no.

Yes and no.

Yeah, I feel that.

Did you pick that up from Trump, that leadership style?

No.

You know, honestly, I picked that up if I had to say anything, probably from Kent Clothier.

who's, I'll see him tomorrow.

Kent's a good friend, and Kent's whole philosophy of time is now, you know, and going from hustler to CEO.

And, you know, one of the most profound things I ever heard anybody say was he said,

how many, you know, he's talking, it wasn't even an event.

Where was he speaking?

I don't remember what it was, but he was like, how many people here own a business?

A bunch of hands went up.

He's like, okay, cool.

What would happen if you left for 90 days?

Didn't call in, didn't do anything, left for 90 days, didn't show up, what would happen?

Would you come back to a business?

And people were like, well, no,

stuff would be hitting the walls.

He's like, well, then you don't have a business, you have a job.

A business is something you can leave and still just prints money for you.

And that's how you make that jump from that hustler mentality to the CEO mentality, which so many people fail to do.

And

I don't have to work.

Like I have great people that can handle every single task on a daily basis that I can do other than the vision of the direction of the companies.

That's the one thing that is dependent on me right now.

And as we develop within our companies, that next generation of leaders, you know, part of that development of them is teaching them to have that same level of vision to see what's coming down, see what's coming in the direction of the companies.

I love that.

You're going to Kent's Mastermind tomorrow, first time in Boston.

Yeah, never been to Boston, man.

Never been there.

Shockingly enough, I've literally been all over the globe and I've never been to Boston.

It occurred to me when I saw that, I was like, I've never been here how's that possible that is wild will you be trying a lobster roll i'm sure i will be trying a lobster roll i think i think how do you go and not eat a lobster roll that's what they're known for man yeah dude you got to do it i just had a viral clip for uh i asked this guest where do you rank vegas in terms of food yeah in america he said number one it is well it is number one for one

for one simple reason every single great restaurant around the country their second location is here

i mean my favorite restaurant in vegas my favorite restaurant is bivet's solid Solid steakhouse.

Which is a Chicago steakhouse with their second location here.

Oh, I didn't know they were Chicago.

That's from Chicago.

It's absolutely just a best bone marrow in Vegas.

It's the best.

And it's just a carbon copy of the restaurant there.

You look at the other restaurants, I figured, Joe's Crab, or Joe's Stone Crab.

Sorry, not Joe's Crabshack.

Joe's Stone Crab from Miami.

I mean, every great restaurant.

Now, I mean, I love Komodo at Fountain Blue.

I think it's great.

These are all restaurants from other places.

So if there is a foods, if there's something that is really wonderful in an area, it gets recreated here.

The only thing I will say, the exception to that is, is I don't think there's a great New Orleans restaurant in Vegas.

I haven't seen any.

I don't think there is at all.

I think there's no great New Orleans restaurant.

Like, I think when I first moved here,

20 years ago, I want to say that a Commander's Palace in the casino at Orleans, I want to say that's true.

But I don't know that that's true.

But they just, no great New Orleans restaurant has ever tried out out here, which is shocking to me.

What do you think about hot and juicy?

I think hot and juicy is good, but I don't think New Orleans would think that.

I think Asia is hot and good.

Oh, really?

Yeah, that's what I think.

I thought that was like southern.

No, I mean, the way they kind of do it, but it's not the same.

It's just not the same.

You still go to New Orleans every year?

I'm there so many times a year.

It's crazy.

We're there.

We'll be gearing up, obviously, with Mardi Gras coming up in the spring.

We'll be going again this year.

It's on my bucket list.

I've never been.

dude best time ever if you ever want to go let me know I'll definitely take care of you okay when you go best time ever I think this year it's in March it changes

so next year then right yeah I want to say but to give you a little taste though because you know I have like an epic Mardi Gras party at my house every year I'm going this time yes we fly food in from New Orleans it is an epic epic event you're definitely going always welcome could have made the last one I was actually really bummed dude it's a great it's a great party it's the only I throw literally one party at my house a year and that's the party that's all I wait I love that man and it's an epic party let's go what's uh what's next next for you my man so yeah like i said the uh the book is is coming out um i publisher this morning uh had some notes on against the final manuscript so that'll be done and as soon as that finishes it's probably in the next six months actually no i'm gonna say it's in the next six months uh i've been saying probably six months but after the conversation hey it'll be within the next six months it should hit um yeah excited about that um

what's next with this is we just continue to grow the companies that we have obviously being fully vertically integrated we continue to continue to grab market share in Vegas.

I'm happy to say now that one out of every 17 homes sold in the Valley is sold by us, which I like that.

That's a great number.

And we continue to do that with the same agent counts.

So we've...

We continue to gain great agents

as others retire and step out of the business.

We gain better and better agents.

We have the highest average price point of any large brokerage in Las Vegas because we gear towards luxury, which is awesome.

And yeah, I mean, just to keep doing what we do.

Love it, man.

We'll link your stuff below.

Check out the pod as well, guys.

Escaping the drift, right?

Escaping the drift, man.

We'll link that below.

Anywhere you can hear podcasts.

Boom.

Thanks for coming on, man.

All right, brother.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you next time.

Peace.