Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Escaping the Drift - The Weekly Drop: Books That Transform Lives and Build Wealth
Thu, 9 Jan 2025
Unlock the secrets to personal and financial success in 2025 with our top book recommendations! This episode promises to arm you with insights from classics like "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday and "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, guiding you in mastering your emotions and forming habits that last. Strengthen your social skills with Dale Carnegie’s time-tested wisdom on building meaningful relationships. These influential reads aren't just books—they're your roadmap to a more successful and fulfilling life. We also delve into the art of personal freedom and integrity with "The Four Agreements," teaching you to shed the weight of others' opinions and live authentically. On the financial front, "The Millionaire Next Door" offers timeless strategies for genuine wealth-building, steering you away from superficialities toward true financial stability. Join the conversation and become part of our community at escapingthedrift.com, where we're eager to hear your thoughts and stories. Share your journey with us and prepare for more insightful discussions in our upcoming episodes! 💬 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 #personalsuccess #financialsuccess #bookrecommendations #theobstacleistheway #atomichabits #dalecarnegie #thefouragreements #wealthbuilding #personalgrowth #relationships #financialstability #stoicism #mindset #resilience #habits #systems #influence #integrity #freedom #financialdiscipline
Chapter 1: What are the top book recommendations for personal and financial success?
from the podcast to get you from where you are to where you want to be escaping the drift this is the weekly drop with john gafford no matter what platform you're watching or listening to us on make sure you like subscribe and comment and now the drop back again everybody for another episode of the weekly drop my solo pod from the podcast to get you from where you are right now to where you want to be man escaping the drift
Glad to have you today, man. And as you know, it's the new year. It's, you know, the new year's in full swing. And I always get the same questions around this time here. You know, what should I do for success? As people start business planning and start planning everything out, doing vision boards and all type of stuff. And, you know, inevitably it gets around to, hey, what books should I read?
I get asked this question probably more than anything else, honestly, which is cool because it's a good question. I like the question. I love when people send it to me online and ask what should I read. And this does change for me from time to time. There's a lot of books that I go back to a lot.
And I'm always adding new stuff as I'm always trying to read and listen to Audible and do what I can to kind of fill my head with stuff. Just so you know. my little system for doing it is, you know, I like to use the headway app is what I like to use. And I'll read like the little synopsis of a new book and I'll see if it really interests me.
And if it does, then I go back and I read the whole thing. But this is kind of a way that I can get a little taster of everything out there. But today on the program, what I want to do is I want to just try to help you as best I can by giving you my top five books that that I would read going into this year, 2025, if I wanted to have a more rounded, successful life. These are my top five books.
And again, they do change from time to time, but these are the ones that, man, a lot of these I come back to. I've read a couple of these several times. I go back to them a lot. And I'm going to start out with my number one. Number one on the list with a bullet, dude. This is what I tell people to read this all the time.
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Chapter 2: Why is 'The Obstacle is the Way' essential for mastering challenges?
If you've listened to this program with any type of frequency, you've probably heard me say it. But my number one favorite book is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.
It is a book where Ryan takes a modern look at classic Stoicism, where he looks at famous historical figures like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, all of the famous Stoics from ancient Greece, and takes their work and lays it out in a way where it makes sense to you. This is, I will say, the book that had the biggest profound impact
Influence on my life as far as like reading something and having a moment where I'm like, whoa This is stuff that I need to implement now And really change The way that I look at things Because I was the dude that meant I would go really high and really low Like if you're if you're one of those people like when things are good, you're like yeah, and when things are bad You're like I can't get out of bed
If that's you on an emotional rollercoaster about the situations that life serves up, this book is for you. Because essentially what you're trying to do by adapting a stoic look or the stoicism type philosophy is you're trying to avoid those mega highs and those mega lows. It really comes down to just being even keel.
And as problems arise and as they occur, like they always do, it presents you with an opportunity to say, how can I take this and turn it into a win? This is the way. And it really, it makes you dive into challenges in a way. that are different instead of maybe shucking away from the hard path or shucking away from things that don't make a lot of sense or seem scary.
It's like, man, success is on the other side of that. So I cannot recommend that book enough. It will help you in like this podcast, life, money, business, life, money, success. It'll help you in all of those things, all of those things. But You're never gonna have any type of success if you got bad habits. My second book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. This is really...
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Chapter 3: How can 'Atomic Habits' transform your daily routines?
It's a manual for how to break the crappy habits in the limiting beliefs that are holding you back and replace them with better habits that will lead to success. And really the theme of the book is learning how to implement small incremental improvements that will just compound over time. And if you do this, it leads to significant results rather than trying to make drastic changes right away.
And if you're a person that wants to focus on building better habits, there's just nothing more I can say about that book. It just is amazing. Now, if you got good habits and you understand that the obstacle's the way, well, you're gonna need some people around you to maybe level up and get to the next level. And that's where probably the Bible of relationships
is my number three on the list, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. If you've never read this, I read this book religiously once a year. It comes up, it's almost like on a schedule for me to try to remind me how to interact with other people. And this book has been around for a really long time for a reason.
And we're still talking about it because the concepts that, that Carnegie teaches in that book, things like active listening, you know, look, telling you to, if you want people to be interested in you, you gotta be interested in them. And, you know, just walking you through how to make people feel valued. If you start implementing some of the stuff that happens and,
you're going to see that the success in every aspect of your life will grow because all success really depends on how well you connect with other people because you're never going to get there by yourself. You need a tribe of people to go with you. So focusing on things like empathy and kindness and understanding how to deal with people and making yourself more likable is is clutch.
One of the reasons I wanna do this is because this book made it back to the top of my list today, because this is a true thing about me. I woke up this morning At 5 a.m., I woke up this morning. And no, I'm not an alarmer at 5 a.m., get up and run 20 miles. Yes, I did work out this morning, but that's not part of my routine. The 5 a.m.
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Chapter 4: What relationship-building strategies does 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' offer?
Chapter 5: How does stoicism influence emotional resilience?
And as problems arise and as they occur, like they always do, it presents you with an opportunity to say, how can I take this and turn it into a win? This is the way. And it really, it makes you dive into challenges in a way. that are different instead of maybe shucking away from the hard path or shucking away from things that don't make a lot of sense or seem scary.
It's like, man, success is on the other side of that. So I cannot recommend that book enough. It will help you in like this podcast, life, money, business, life, money, success. It'll help you in all of those things, all of those things. But You're never gonna have any type of success if you got bad habits. My second book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. This is really...
It's a manual for how to break the crappy habits in the limiting beliefs that are holding you back and replace them with better habits that will lead to success. And really the theme of the book is learning how to implement small incremental improvements that will just compound over time. And if you do this, it leads to significant results rather than trying to make drastic changes right away.
And if you're a person that wants to focus on building better habits, there's just nothing more I can say about that book. It just is amazing. Now, if you got good habits and you understand that the obstacle's the way, well, you're gonna need some people around you to maybe level up and get to the next level. And that's where probably the Bible of relationships
is my number three on the list, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. If you've never read this, I read this book religiously once a year. It comes up, it's almost like on a schedule for me to try to remind me how to interact with other people. And this book has been around for a really long time for a reason.
And we're still talking about it because the concepts that, that Carnegie teaches in that book, things like active listening, you know, look, telling you to, if you want people to be interested in you, you gotta be interested in them. And, you know, just walking you through how to make people feel valued. If you start implementing some of the stuff that happens and,
you're going to see that the success in every aspect of your life will grow because all success really depends on how well you connect with other people because you're never going to get there by yourself. You need a tribe of people to go with you. So focusing on things like empathy and kindness and understanding how to deal with people and making yourself more likable is is clutch.
One of the reasons I wanna do this is because this book made it back to the top of my list today, because this is a true thing about me. I woke up this morning At 5 a.m., I woke up this morning. And no, I'm not an alarmer at 5 a.m., get up and run 20 miles. Yes, I did work out this morning, but that's not part of my routine. The 5 a.m.
was one of those rando, clock goes off, eyes go super wide, holy shit, 5 o'clock in the morning. And I just immediately opened my eyes, and I had this impending sense of dread that my public persona had become incredibly unlikable. I don't know why I had that feeling. Nothing happened. I had no interaction with anybody else that made me believe that this is true.
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Chapter 6: What are the key takeaways from 'The Millionaire Next Door'?
Chapter 7: How can reading these books lead to a more fulfilling life?
And if it does, then I go back and I read the whole thing. But this is kind of a way that I can get a little taster of everything out there. But today on the program, what I want to do is I want to just try to help you as best I can by giving you my top five books that that I would read going into this year, 2025, if I wanted to have a more rounded, successful life. These are my top five books.
And again, they do change from time to time, but these are the ones that, man, a lot of these I come back to. I've read a couple of these several times. I go back to them a lot. And I'm going to start out with my number one. Number one on the list with a bullet, dude. This is what I tell people to read this all the time.
If you've listened to this program with any type of frequency, you've probably heard me say it. But my number one favorite book is The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.
It is a book where Ryan takes a modern look at classic Stoicism, where he looks at famous historical figures like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, all of the famous Stoics from ancient Greece, and takes their work and lays it out in a way where it makes sense to you. This is, I will say, the book that had the biggest profound impact
Influence on my life as far as like reading something and having a moment where I'm like, whoa This is stuff that I need to implement now And really change The way that I look at things Because I was the dude that meant I would go really high and really low Like if you're if you're one of those people like when things are good, you're like yeah, and when things are bad You're like I can't get out of bed
If that's you on an emotional rollercoaster about the situations that life serves up, this book is for you. Because essentially what you're trying to do by adapting a stoic look or the stoicism type philosophy is you're trying to avoid those mega highs and those mega lows. It really comes down to just being even keel.
And as problems arise and as they occur, like they always do, it presents you with an opportunity to say, how can I take this and turn it into a win? This is the way. And it really, it makes you dive into challenges in a way. that are different instead of maybe shucking away from the hard path or shucking away from things that don't make a lot of sense or seem scary.
It's like, man, success is on the other side of that. So I cannot recommend that book enough. It will help you in like this podcast, life, money, business, life, money, success. It'll help you in all of those things, all of those things. But You're never gonna have any type of success if you got bad habits. My second book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. This is really...
It's a manual for how to break the crappy habits in the limiting beliefs that are holding you back and replace them with better habits that will lead to success. And really the theme of the book is learning how to implement small incremental improvements that will just compound over time. And if you do this, it leads to significant results rather than trying to make drastic changes right away.
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