Robert Eisenstadt
Appearances
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Chat GPT is starting to be a game changer for me, bro. I like crazy.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So I went to try to open up a Buffalo wild wings. You had to have a 750 K liquid. I didn't have that as a 21 year old kid. I did get $80,000 for life insurance. Um, most of that went to like bills. I ended up getting a tattoo done of his portrait and stuff. And I bought myself a truck.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And then I went to a party one night and I was talking to my buddy and he goes, dude, you should just start a carpet cleaning business. I work for this guy that does carpet cleaning and he makes pretty good money. And I was like, absolutely not. I'm not doing that. A week went by and I was like, I just, I have to start something.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And so I called him.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And I tell everybody, I'm like, dude, whatever you start doing, it's probably not going to be what you end up doing. You just got to start learning some lessons and you'll, you know, you'll adapt and transition. Yeah. And so I called him back up. I said, hey, give me your boss's phone number. Got a hold of him. Went and bought like a whole truck and truck mount, box truck, no air conditioning.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And I told my buddy, I said, hey, quit your job. Come teach me how to clean carpet. I'll guarantee you a paycheck of 800 bucks a week. And we'll try and figure this out. That lasted, I don't know, maybe like seven or eight months until I went broke. Cause I had no, I had no money coming in. I didn't know how to run a business. I had no idea what I was doing.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So I had, you know, my friends or whatever would pay us to do their house, you know, just to kind of help us out or whatever. But I mean, I'm knocking doors left and right. Nobody's doing anything. You know, I'm trying to get into apartments, all this stuff. And so it got to a point where it was like, I either need to shut down my business and go get a job.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. But again, you know, young, dumb, naive.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
It took me a long time to learn that. Thankfully I did, you know, by hiring coaches and mentors and all that stuff. Um, but yeah, so I went broke paying him and it was basically either shut down my business and go get a job or I have to let him go either way. He was good. He was losing his job. Thankfully he was super cool with it. We're still friends.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
He just went back to his job that he had previously. And I just started knocking doors as hard as I could.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I probably knocked the door here at some point because I was going to real estate and property management companies. My thought process was how can I get the most amount of work with the least amount of visits as possible? Sure. Right. So property management companies, apartment complexes, those kind of things.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And so I went, got on with a couple of property management companies, started cleaning carpets until I got to like a thousand bucks a day. And I was like, all right, like I'm doing now I'm feeling better. I'm doing okay. Like my bills are paid, whatever. But then life happens, I had a baby, and then I started going broke again.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
It wasn't that I was losing business, it's just my lifestyle increased. I had a child I had to care for and all this stuff. And so I went to one of the property management companies and I said, hey, I literally can't pay my rent this month. Do you have anything I can do? And the license, the business license that I had was an R25, which is a handyman license.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And it was like right place, right time. The property management company had a work order sitting on their desk. It was $2,200. And she goes, well, if you have a handyman license, you can go do this job. Our handyman just flaked. I was like, yep. Took the work order, went and maxed out my credit card at Home Depot, got all the materials, worked in that house all night, and made the $2,200.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And I was like, maybe I have something here, you know? So we started working on properties, getting them ready to rent again, you know? You know a lot about it. Yeah, sure.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
It's called a business, what you're doing. So paint, drywall, tile repairs, carpet cleaning. Then we added on maid services. That was a joke. just anything I can get my hands on. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I'm doing good.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
How'd you do it? The lesson comes. The lesson comes.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Trust me. The lesson comes. Uh, my buddy calls me one day and he goes, Hey, we fired our pressure washing contractor. Do you want the contract? Sure. Went out and bought a $15,000 pressure washer. No idea what I'm doing again. And started cleaning these gas stations. Just started learning. YouTube University definitely helped me that time. Started learning, started learning.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So I'm cleaning carpets during the day, working on houses during the day. And then I'm out pressure washing gas stations all night. I'm working myself to death. and fast forward, you know, quite a few years, this went on a few years. My wife, again, I'm so busy. I have no time to pay attention to anything. I'm trying to, you know, run all this stuff.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I have at this time, I have probably eight or nine trucks out on the road. We're doing bathroom remodels, all this kind of stuff. My wife goes through my books without me knowing I was losing $20,000 a month. And I had absolutely no idea. Whoa. There was so much money coming in and so much money going out. I didn't even know how to read a PNL. Where were you leaking money? Um, materials, fuel.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I just, I just, I wasn't running a business efficiently. I was overpaying on labor. Insurance was crazy. There was not just one thing. Right. And so, um, She was like, you need to figure this out fast. But it was, it was like a constant game of robbing Peter to pay Paul credit cards. Right. So like everything that I was doing was pretty much on net 30 or net 45.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So I'd get paid from those jobs, go pay off my credit card and then use that credit card to go fund the next job. Yeah. And so it was just that constant game. But there was money coming in and going out all the time. It felt like I had money. Yeah, I didn't. Right. And so just in 2020, end of 2021, we shut everything down to just focus on pressure washing.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And this is where that go deep or go wide thing kind of funnels in. Right. Uh, I only had that one account, which was at that time, eight stores because they had acquired two more. And so it was like probably close to $7,000 a month. I was like, okay, I can live off this. Like I'll figure it out. And so that was three, four years ago, and now.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
No, actually.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
It kind of fell in my lap. I started with a chain of gas stations. Okay. But I started my business as a carpet cleaning business.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
The CPA, hiring a good CPA and a good bookkeeper to reconcile my books does wonders because now everything is broken out.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I'm like, oh yeah, well yeah. And we have other services now and I'm like, oh, okay. Like this is what's doing super well. This is what we can adjust. Yeah. So again, just massive learning lessons, but I don't regret any of those, right? Like I'm super happy that I had all of those fails, all of those lessons because now I know.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
How do you grow? Relationships.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yep. So again, same thing. I didn't want, I don't want to be doing driveways and stuff. So we're a commercial pressure washing business. So we service large industrial complexes, retail shopping centers. grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals, those kinds of areas that need to have that service done on a consistent basis, regardless for two main reasons, right?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So there's cams, you know what cams are, common area maintenance fees. They're paying that money regardless. Somebody is going to do it. It might as well be me. And then there's ADA reasons, you know, coefficient of friction. If, you know, let's say somebody walks outside and slips and falls, there's a thing actually called a tripometer.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
that they can measure the coefficient of friction of your surface outside. And if it's above a 0.8, then you can get sued. You're liable.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
No, no. We're working on the lunch and learns are a big thing. I don't know if people ever try and do lunch and learns here for you. But lunch and learns are a big thing. That's your time to be able to educate the client, right? So we're working on framing all this out now and building out the educational portion of our business to where we start educating the client on a deeper level.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
The only reason though, like look at your car. Yeah. Do you want to go to a gas station and step out in some nasty shit? No. Do you want to like, you don't have to detail your car after you go to a gas station, right? Like you want it to be clean. So again, everything is marketing and marketing is everything.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. So I was born in Chicago, Illinois, middle-class household. Dad was always at work. Mom stayed at home. When I was eight years old, we moved to Vegas because my aunt was starting to get sick, my dad's sister. So we moved out to Vegas. Both of my parents were, they sold shoes. So they worked at Nordstrom literally my entire life. We moved out to Vegas and, uh,
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So it's like, you want to be able to attract good clients to your store so they can pump fuel at your store and make you money. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah, so it's so interesting. I love it. So, well, number one, we've added holiday lights, which is just fun, right? That was my way to tap into a residential market. It's seasonal, kind of fun. But as far as the pressure washing goes, we've been building all these crazy different systems to help us scale, which we've been building them by hand, right? Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So basically we have a different tiered technician platforms. Once you get to like the third tier, you're able to go out on your own and train another person. So we have a two man cruise. Once that other person is trained to that third tier, they can go out on their own and add another person. So it's literally just like multiplying, right? So just separating, adding, separating, adding.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Does that make sense? Yeah. Separating, adding.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
The commercial industry is so much different than the residential industry, man.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
It's definitely been a thought process. I just haven't pulled the trigger on it. All right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I'm just sitting here trying to come up with ways. It's definitely been a thought process.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
All right. Here's what we'll do.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Here's what we'll do. Go ahead. You do that. Okay. Go generate revenue and then become 50% of my business will become.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
All jokes aside, service business is it's never going away. Yeah, it's I truly enjoy it. I love being able to serve people, serve our clients. Right. And it's so easy to just at least now add businesses to it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
it was just kind of like this crazy rollercoaster of death since as soon as we moved here, uh, his sister died, all my cousins started dying and then all of my friends started dying. And this is like over like a, how, uh, I don't really remember how my aunt passed away or my cousins passed away, probably heart attacks or something. Um, How did your friend start dying? So, yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Someday, and there's also a big difference between owner-operator and having a business, but I mean, I'm sure you can relate to this. Some days you just want to throw in the towel. You're like, fuck this, dude. This is a lot.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And you want to know what now for the first time in my life, it would continue to grow as well.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
You made business development managers. Okay. Yep. Uh, sales operation managers, somewhat of an HR spot, I guess. Yeah. Um, How'd you make those hires? Cool.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Uh, I actually, for the operations manager, I went through a platform called hire bus. Have you heard of it? So have you ever done like a personality test? Of course. So it's basically a platform. The operations manager cost me five, five grand. So I pay $5,000. Uh, it does all of the ad funnels and, and hiring for me basically. Hmm.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So that's included with my ad spend on like Indeed and ZipRecruiter. You put out the job ads. They do all of the pre-screening for you. So you only get the finalists. So they do like phone interviews, Zoom interviews, all these kind of different questionnaires. They have to do a personality test. It's called a right seat score. So you have to test a certain.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And they help you come up with those tests. Yeah. And so I get the finalists. Yeah. And then I interview the finalists.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. In 2023, end of July of 2023, actually, because my son was born July of 2023. So two weeks after my son was born, I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Right before that happened. That was actually, I think, the day before. Day before, yeah. Or no, no, no, the day... It was like the day before, yeah. It was right before. Yeah, that's crazy. I forgot about that.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah, we went surfing on your boat. That was awesome. But yeah, so July of 2023, my son was born. And basically two weeks after he was born, I started losing vision in my right eye. Not losing, but it just went super blurry. And, you know, I got diagnosed with that. Yeah, there's a there's a long story to that. I don't know if you're trying to get in.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So when I was 17 years old, uh, my best friend growing up, it was the first person I met when I moved to Vegas. Uh, he committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. I was with him three hours before, and I found him two minutes after he shot himself. He did it in our neighborhood park. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Me, my ex-girlfriend, uh, his mom and his sister found him, uh,
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Dude, check this out. So I was in the hospital for six days, right? Spinal taps. They pumped me full of steroids, solumedrol. That was the worst part of it. Two days after I got out, I was on a plane to Nashville for a business convention.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. I mean, and you know, we were just talking before this, it's happening again right now. Like today's like day two or three where my vision is starting to get super blurry and I have a bunch of pressure in my eye and I'm sure the headaches are. on the horizon. You know, they're coming. Um, but dude, like I still went to the gym this morning. I still made it here this morning.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I'm still going to go work my ass off today. It's just like little speed bumps. They slow you down. They don't stop you. You know what I mean? I don't know. I don't, I don't, I mean, it's a little bit different, right? Like I deal with fatigue, uh, Lost the vision sometimes. The fatigue is probably the worst for me. You deal with feeling like you have 100 volts in your face.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
What were you doing when like this happened?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And at 17 years old, it was like extremely gory. It really messed me up for a long time. I mean, I couldn't walk in the dark alone for six months. I mean, I could still to this day picture his shoes were set perfectly, what he was wearing. I could picture everything. It was very traumatic.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I mean, I think, uh, I forget who says it, but I mean, you can have success or you can have excuses, but you can't have both. Yeah. You know, I think it's every father on the planet. Uh, but I, I don't know, man. It's like, I don't, I don't focus on anything besides like where I'm going, you know, like my ship is headed North. You can get on the ship. I'm not trying to pull you.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
It's just like, it's, it's going to happen. It's not, it's not if it's when, you know,
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
No, I don't, I just, I don't feel like I need to write them down cause I just visualize them so heavy. Okay. Like I could, I could, I believe in manifestation. Like, do you know the red car theory? Yeah. Yeah, sure. So say it for those of you, for somebody might not have heard our theory. It's like, if you drive a red car, you're going to drive around and you're going to see red cars everywhere.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Like I drive a lifted F three 50 dually. I see them everywhere. I don't know if you see your cars everywhere, but, I don't see a lot of my cars everywhere, but when I do, I notice. Yeah. Right. But that's because it's what's your focus. It's what you're focused on.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So it's like, I try not to let these little things affect my day. Like Andy Frisella says, your bitch voice, it'll pop in my head for a minute. And I'm like, no, I don't need that. This is what I'm focused on. So I just focus on where I'm going, what I want. I can visualize, I could see myself being focused.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
in the house on the vacations with the vacation houses and the cars and the perfect family and all that stuff. Nothing's ever perfect. But the visualization is there.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Have you built out? Well, you have a bunch, but have you built out like your own personal assistants?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Less than a year later, my other closest friend died on a street bike. He hit a City of Henderson vehicle. A City of Henderson vehicle pulled out. He T-boned the car, went through the windshield, hit the B-pillar, which the B-pillar is where your seatbelt comes out.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
That is crazy. It's wild.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
The easiest thing that I found as far as like the business side of using chat GPT for me is like basically just asking a bunch of questions on what I want. So like I built out two different personal assistants, a life personal assistant to make sure I'm more present and you know,
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
um just being the best father i can present with my family all that kind of stuff and then a business assistant and i basically just said these are the two assistants i want i want you to help me with this this and this what prompts do you need to know in order to help me curate this and then i just listed a bunch of questions i copy the question and then i just paste the question and answer it paste the question answer it and i have like two personal assistants that
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Broke almost every single bone on his body. De-gloved his arm. So basically his arm got skinned. Oh, God. By the time I got there, I saw his bike on the ground. I was like the second person there. His shoes, all that stuff. Went to the hospital. By the time I got to the hospital, his nose was completely flush with his face. It was crazy. There was like blood all over the hospital room.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I've negotiated contracts with it. Everything.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Well, just like uploading all of your information. Like, I mean, I've uploaded like P&L sheets in there. Like, analyze this. Where can I improve?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
It was nuts. Oh, God. He died, I think, twice on the way to the hospital. And then obviously, you know, there was...
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Would you argue asking AI if this is the right move would be a more beneficial thing? And the only reason I'm saying that is because It was on a commercial side, but I had it. I had chat GPT negotiate my commercial lease.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. Okay, so real estate? Yeah. What else?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. And then I think a few months later, another good friend of mine overdosed. The other closest person I grew up with also overdosed. All these people were getting into drugs and doing all this crazy stuff.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
will get cured because the computer can just compound and interact the data so much faster than we can have you dove into um what is it called worms what is it what little worms inside your brain little worms in your brain not maggots
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Do you want the Neuralink? No, no, no. Medicine. As far as like you eat sushi or whatever, there could be.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah, sure. I'm drawing a blank. Parasites. Parasites.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Uh, there's a bunch of new studies coming out saying that like MS and other neurological issues caused by parasites. Wow. So, uh, I actually need to go down there today. Uh, but do you like a parasite cleanse? Yeah, dude. I have friends that have had all of these crazy issues. They go on this huge parasite cleanse and they feel better than they ever have in their entire life.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And they're literally urinating out parasites. Oh my God, dude.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
No. Never your thing? Not really. I mean, everybody's tried stuff or whatever, you know, but I don't think I really have a super addictive personality. Yeah. So... Were you a good student? No, dude, I was horrible. I hated school. I hated school. I was getting in fights all the time because I was getting bullied, which is so funny, too.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Right. Look at testosterone. Yeah. What was the average of testosterone back in the sixties? What do you got? Probably like 1200. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. You know, and like, but what does that come from? Diet. Diet.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
diet you know a lot of the women back then weren't on uh birth control so the pheromones that they're releasing aren't as often or frequent or strong all of these things are are like i mean i'm not even going to get into the whole because quite frankly neither one of us is qualified to talk about it but that's okay well dude look man i appreciate you coming on telling your story i hope it's
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Yeah. I mean, what's the worst that happens? You end up where you are.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Like, all the people that get bullied in school always end up doing well in life, and then all the bullies... I got in a fight in my high school locker room or whatever. Some dude was drawing a swastika on my locker. I ran and tackled him or whatever. Got in a fight. Got suspended. Got kicked out of school or whatever. And he ended up passing away. I don't know from what. Probably a drug overdose.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I love that. I mean, those people are just struggling so much internally. Yeah. They don't know how to deal with their emotions.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
but dude i like i wasn't smoking it i was just selling it i just i've always wanted money like i was the kid that you know like again we did okay yeah we had a roof over our head we had food on our table but if you wanted you had to go get it yeah like we didn't have extra money yeah and so like i see all my friends with bikes and you know all this stuff growing up we i didn't get that we we had toys it just wasn't always the best and i've just always wanted the best
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And so as soon as I could, dude, I probably started selling pot at 14, 15 years old. And then I turned into the guy that started paying for everybody to do everything because I wanted people around me and, you know, whatever, until I got too big for my bridges and learned a lot of lessons. So.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
was kind of like my first hustle did you voluntarily leave the industry or was there an intervention i learned a lot about finances at that point too like i was getting fronted what it was called you know yeah and uh i spent some money on a street bike that i shouldn't have spent and then there was threats and all this kind of stuff.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And I had to like go to my pops and be like, Hey man, I need to borrow some money. This is kind of serious. And so he lent me the money and I was done.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I only use American express now. Yeah. Uh, like the charge cards and then like the platinum and the gold or whatever for the benefits, but it's a charge card. It's not a credit card. So I'd pay it off at the end of every month. Yeah, dude. If you're not paying your credit cards off every two weeks, you're doing it wrong.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I had quite a few jobs. So, uh, 11th grade, I got pulled out of school because of my anger problems in high school. Uh, I tested out, I got my GED, my good enough diploma. And, um, I wanted my diploma, I missed one question, didn't get it. So I had to go get a job. My first job was at Del Taco. And it lasted about a week. I've never been good with authority.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And I find that with most entrepreneurs, but I've never been good with authority. last about a week. I quit. I went back to selling weed again. Uh, that tried and true. Yeah. I lasted like a little bit until I ended up getting a job as a photographer for some attractions, like up on the stratosphere at the top, uh, the zip lines.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Have you built out? Well, you have a bunch, but have you built out like your own personal assistants?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Then I became a tour guide for the zip lines, uh, like the flight lines out in Boulder city. They're closed now. Um, I don't know if you ever got a chance to do it, but it's awesome.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Oh, Boulder City, yeah. No, I never did. It's closed now, but it was really cool. It was a great job. And then I ended up becoming a lot porter at a Ford dealership. And from the lot porter, I went to like a loop tech pretty quickly. And then from there, I went to a service advisor and the service advisor was the last job I ever had.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And by that time, so when I was 20 years old, my parents got divorced. My mom moved to Florida. When I was 21 years old, it was a Saturday, November 8th, 2014. I was at work and that's the day my dad died. So I was 21 years old. I was at work. I got a phone call from his boss and my dad was always a hard worker. His boss calls me on my cell phone. I
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Calls me and goes, hey, your dad never showed up for work today. He's never missed a day in the 30 years, whatever. Yeah, we're worried about him. I just want to make sure he's okay. And I'm like, that's weird. So I call my ex who was at my house that night. I had worked super early. And I was like, hey, is my dad still there? And she goes, I don't know. I already left.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
I'm like, hey, can you please go back to my house and see if my dad is still at the house? She pulls up to the house, walks into the house, walks into my dad's bedroom, and she calls me and she goes, Robert, your dad's not waking up. And so it's kind of a blur. Yeah. But yeah, I called 911, didn't say anything to anybody. I left, went home.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
By the time I got to my house, my house is full of cops and paramedics. And so he suffered his third heart attack and passed away in his sleep. Thankfully, he was like peaceful, you know? Yeah. And they gave me like four or five days off of work. But it wasn't enough. I mean, it was just me and my dad. He was upside down on his house. I was helping him cover bills.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And like, so I have all this stress of a funeral, where I'm going to live, like all this stuff. I tried going back to work for like two days. All I could do is sit in my office and cry. And I'm like, dude, I'm useless here. And they're like, sorry, we need you here. I'm like, well, I'm sorry. You could pound sand. I'm done.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
So I quit and, uh, went to Sedona, Arizona for a few days, cleared my head and just told myself I'll never let anybody tell me what I can and can't do ever again.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Life is just, everything in life is just perspective, right? Like you can look at a situation and think, woe is me, or you could just be a victor out of that pain, right? So it's like, I've seen, throughout the tragedy, I've realized the main thing is I know that I could die tomorrow. I could die, I could leave this podcast, I could die on the way to my office.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Like I have a very clear understanding of that, right? So it's like, why wouldn't you try? Why wouldn't you try and do something great? Why wouldn't you try and benefit other people's lives? Why wouldn't you try and give your kids everything that you never had, right? So it's like, yeah, I could sit there on my sorrows, but that does nothing for me.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
And the thing that I fall back into a lot of times is like, I look at like emotions, anxiety, depression, and then presence. Right. So like my perspective of depression is living in the past. Right. My perspective of anxiety is living in the future. Yeah. So happiness comes from the present and happiness is never a destination. How Buddhist of you. Right. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Well, I mean, seriously, that's Buddhist philosophy. And that's great. You know, I've, I've written some books. I don't, I don't pay attention too much of whatever it comes from or whatever.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
You chose. Yeah. Everybody has a choice. You could do whatever you want. Like, it's like that old, like saying that your parents used to tell you, like you could do anything you want as long as you put your mind to it. It's true. You just have to choose to do it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
The Profit of Pressure Washing with Robert Eisenstadt
Like I could choose to be a depressed junkie and sit on the couch all day and do drugs, or I could choose to go make something in the world. Yeah. That's what I choose.