The King is Dead,. Disnyland sells out customer experience with an App EP15 54:13

From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with John Gafford. Back again, back again, back again, back again. Surprise. If you thought we weren't going to return at all after last week's debacle with Dark Vader and Tom Hanks and everything else. You know, I got to tell you.

This is going to be an amazing episode today. And this is why. Because normally this is the point of the show when I tell you everything we're going to talk about for the day and then we go for it. But the truth be told...

I got nothing. This is going to be a free-form jazz exploration into whatever we're going to talk about. The Miles Davis of podcasting. It is. It's a Miles Davis podcast. It's going to be a free-form jazz explosion. Because as we have talked about before in the show, tomorrow is finally the big day. Well, first of all, of course, we've got to make the introductions with me, as always, to my left.

The one, the... Illustrious. The illustrious. I'll take that. Dark Vader himself. Undisputed. Colt Amidon. Undefeated. Undefeated. Yeah, I'll take it. If you guys, any screenwriters out there need some help, let me know. I'll work it out. And of course, off to the near, near, forward, a little short to left, we'll say. Chris Connelly Esquire. Short and left, yeah. Welcome, Chris. So anyway...

Yeah. So after many, many weeks of planning, tomorrow is the day that we begin our quest to be Indiana Jones. And we head off into the abyss for our trip to Egypt. And yeah, so because of that, of course, whenever you go out of town, especially if you're in real estate, if you want to get rich selling real estate, you know what you need to do, Chris? Yeah. It's real simple. What do you think you do? Get rich with friends.

No. See, Colt knows more than you. Colt, you want to make money selling real estate, what do you do? Go out of town. You go out of town because every single time you want to go out of town. The best deal ever falls into your lap. That's a little of a headache. The switchboard lights up like nobody's business. Not kidding, the largest deal I've ever done in real estate happened the day I left for Cabo and I was in Cabo dealing with this one deal. Largest deal ever I've ever done. Largest commission ever.

That is uncanny that that is actually a thing. It's always. It's not. Nope. That is. No. All jokes aside. All jokes aside, I guarantee I'm going to get some amazing deal out of it. Going to pay for the quest. No, no, no. Exactly. No, no. So in the last like 24 hours, we got an opportunity to buy a couple of the office buildings that we wanted to buy. So that's now a mad scramble to get the bank everything they need before I go out of town.

There is, of course, because again, I've been trying to stop personally selling real estate for a while, but one of my good clients wants me to sell his house. We throw it up. It sells in five minutes.

Two and a half million. Just gone in like two minutes. Yeah, two minutes. Not a bad deal. Yeah, but now you've got to deal with it. Now there's the rest of it. So he's in Russia. I'll be in Cairo. The deal is here. It's going to be an absolute mess. And then you've got the fam stuff. Always you've got to try to get – the kids still got to go to lacrosse practice. Things are still happening at the house. You've got to make sure everybody's squared away the best you can. Got to ease the wives' nerves as they head into –

I don't know. I'm not going to say, I mean, you said it wasn't dangerous. Well, so, uh, here it comes. Now that you bought your ticket, John. So what, it was funny when I was talking to the guy who's sending this all up on the Egyptian side, I said to him, Hey, level with me. You know, I've been to Africa twice already. It's my third trip back. I haven't found a bad, but it's just dangerous. There was the uprising in Egypt with the Egyptian spring. And there was, there was some things that have happened recently. He goes, well,

He goes, it's funny to me when people from America call and ask if Egypt is dangerous. He goes, have you guys ever looked at your crime stats? Yeah. He goes, we can't carry a knife on the street here. There's no weapons. Wait, wait, wait, back up. So what you're saying is...

The whip that I received yesterday, I can't take? Is that what you're saying? You can't carry weapons in Egypt. Is a whip a weapon, though? I think a whip is a... It depends. Are you getting artifacts, which we are? I think it's totally a tool of the trade. You can carry shovels. You just can't carry blades, John. You can't carry blades. Yeah, I think a whip is required. More like a shovel. A colt.

I mean, Colt's going to go. It depends on what your safe word is. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going for. What is your safe word? What kind of wind it is? Pineapple. Do you know what I just found out about pineapples? John Dino. Again, free-form jazz explosion. I'm sorry. No, I found out that an upside-down pineapple means you're a swinger. Did not know that. Did you know that, Chris? An upside-down pineapple where?

If you put it in your shopping cart upside down, do you have a decorated peach put upside down? Apparently you're a swinger. I could see how this would be maybe more of a threat in Hawaii. And I've seen people walk around with pineapples everywhere. Well, here's the thing. I mean, I guess if you're Colt, you look for the pineapple, the inverted pineapple. Yeah, I heard the swinger thing was, I heard something else too, like a...

Oh, a rubber ring or something like that. A rubber ring on your finger. No, that's CrossFit. I know. It's like working out. That's like a CrossFit outfit. Chris is thinking everybody's swing. Your office has a lot of swingers, Joe. There's a bunch of swingers in here. Somebody came up to me and they're like, hey, you're wearing a rubber ring. You know what that means in the swim community? Whatever. Really? Yeah, it was something like that. What are you talking about? The dumbest thing I've ever heard. Everybody who goes to the gym is a swinger. So I'm not wearing...

my wedding band to Egypt, though, I will be wearing a rubber ring. Yeah. I bet you will. Because the lesson, you know, we're not rock and roll. Well, you know what I found out from Colt was actually if you wear that rubber hood with the zipper on the front, it means you're submissive. The gimp mask often means that. Yeah. What is your safe word with a vet? You just go, I'm poppy, which is too rough on you. What happens? Burrito. Burrito. Burritos. Burritos.

Poppy. No mas. No mas. No mas. No mas. That's the same thing. If something happens to you guys, do I get to continue this podcast by myself? You know, that's a good point. Can I get that in writing? Here's the question. Do the ratings go up or down? If this is just the moon. H-O-D-L for Colt's podcast. Yeah, hold that to the moon. The mind of Colt would be like six-minute episodes of just –

There's Netflix series now about utter nonsense. Imagine having one in the mind of Colamadon. This is a 12-part series. Well, this goes to my point of I think we could get something on Amazon or Netflix because there's so much garbage out there. Maybe that's it. Again, saying that if we just create a documentary on anything, we could get onto Netflix. Absolutely. On swinger couples. Colt's power walking journey to the top. Oh.

Well, you know, let me tell you this, Chris, that we got – I went to the Excalibur – what's – Tournament of Kings. Tournament of Kings, yes. That should be an Olympic sport. That's way more impressive. Jousting? Yeah, it's way more impressive than equestrian. At least the people are doing something. Yeah, I probably tend to agree with you that I'd like to see more gladiatorial blood sports make their comeback. Top five countries that would be best at that, what do you think it would be?

Top five countries. It'd be Russia. It'd be Russia. It'd be Mongolia. It'd be Kazakhstan. It'd be like one of the... The stands would come in strong. Oh, yeah. Everybody, it would just be Khabib on a horse instead of in an MMA ring. With that hat. The hat alone is just going to strike fear. Yeah. So, Colt, here's the question. Let's assume for a second that Chris and I get abducted.

Let's assume that. A, I'm going to make the assumption you're not bailing us out because you want to steal the show. But let's say it's your first episode back. Here it is. The power move now. You've whitewashed my face off of it. I'm just Photoshopping. Yeah, just Photoshopping. You're just going to put your little face right over the top of this. You know what I like about your logo is it doesn't show the hairline, so I could actually get away with it. You could pull it off. Yeah, so, okay, first episode, whitewash.

What are you covering? Oh, we're bringing up the heat. We're going to talk about winter sports and what I could do. We're going to talk about how Tom Hanks is the reason COVID spread so fast.

I mean, think about it. Who was the first person to really publicly have COVID? Yeah, he was down there in Australia, right? It was Tom Hanks. He was shooting in Australia, and that's why they thought it was a part of a way to cover up the cabal of children, eaters or adrenochromizers or whatever. How crazy would that be if that came out real? So wait a second. It's almost like they...

conspiracy cult conspiracy theory number 42 they use tom hanks like the manchurian candidate he was an absolute manchurian candidate for adrena chroming children underneath pizza parlors to spread covid across the world because he's so beloved because of his movies because his movies are so amazing uh you want to go one step further colt how do you know that's still tom hanks

Because he makes shitty movies. Because the movies haven't gotten any better. So I'm going to say that that's still Tom Hanks, right? No. All right. Well, I can't, I can't say, but I got to get back to this thing about the weapons. Cause now I'm concerned about the whip. My sister who, cause she's awesome.

sent me a straight up Indiana Jones whip for this trip. Cause if you haven't listened before, we're actually going to Egypt tomorrow to go to the tomb of Saqqara, which is the most, there's go on Netflix and check it out. Apparently there's documentary about everything. So says cult. And, uh, there's one on this cause it's the most profound fine they've had in like they said decades, right? In common. Yeah. It's, it's a complete tomb.

And somehow through Chris's connections, we are going as archeologists. Do they know we're not archeologists? Do they know this? I mean, what is an archeologist, John? Somebody that cares has a whip. Yeah. I think the way I see, that's why I think the whip is an asset is an assessment. How pissed off would you be if you got thrown in jail? Cause your sister gave you a whip. I mean, by the way, that quote out of context,

Gets a little strange. Gets a little creepy. Wow. Yeah, it wasn't going there. Okay, you guys got dirty minds. Minds as clean as can be. Uh-huh. Yeah. Might be pissed off, right? No, no, no. If you took a gag gift and you're like, this is going to be funny, I want a photo with it, and then all of a sudden, you're doing two years. I think we're in good hands. I think we're fine. This is somebody that's done this a lot of times. And...

What's interesting is I do feel more comfortable going with people that have been there. Now, I'm... 100%. I consider myself fairly well-traveled. This would be my 42nd country we hit on this trip. 42nd. 42nd. I've turned 40... My 41st birthday is on the 5th, and we will have been in my 42nd country by then. So through that process, you know, you kind of get up in your own supply, feeling like a, you know, Bourdain Jr. or whatever, but...

When you know that somebody on the other end is waiting for you, it was a lay of the land. Nice to have a handler. Nice to have a handler. Because I went to Japan by myself. I assumed everybody would speak English because that's just, you know, I'm an ugly American. I just assume that that's how the world works. Nobody speaks English in Japan. You can make it around there. It's a very civilized, lovely country. But.

But communication is a non-event. But you were like a giant walking the streets. You have no idea. I used to joke around how I'm big in Japan. A Kong is walking down. Literally, you're huge in Japan. I'm literally a massive human being in Japan. So it was great. No problems, no trouble. Did you wear that little diaper thing and then throw the salt over your shoulder? Well, I was going to go pro in sumo. Did you go pro sumo? Oh, sumo, yes. Colts like diaper talk. This is my game. I would die lying. But yeah, when you go to a...

It's one of those things, people that have never been to an African or Arabic country, it is one of the most eye-opening experiences of your life because you go and you have one set of opinions because of how the media covers those parts of the world. And then you go and you go, oh, like we talked about, I don't know any well-traveled racists. Because when you go there and people are very kind to you and everybody's kind of doing cool stuff. Like, have you ever been to an Arabic or Muslim country before? No. This has been my first trip. There's something really kind of magical about it, not to sound too, you know,

sort of frilly about it because there's real abject poverty in a lot of these places. And you see children begging and, you know, it's kind of, but the bright sides of these places are very beautiful cultures and great food and friendly people. Right. And so you start moving from like the out, the, the, the CNN coverage of, you know, desert storm, you start feeling more like you're in Aladdin. You know what I mean? Like it has the shift where it starts becoming kind of a little more magical and you kind of start to feel a sense of a place in an optimistic way.

Yeah. So that hopefully will happen for you. All Colt just heard is there's a flying carpet. That is all he just heard. I mean, Jasmine's the hottest Disney character, right? You think so? I don't know. You think so? Let's see. What's your top three, Chris? I mean, like, you know, my wife kind of looks like, what is it, Elsa? Yeah. Like that. Goofy's got to be up there somewhere. Goofy's not. You know what's funny? Goofy's not a dog.

Yeah, he's a cow. He's a cow. He's a cow. I was... You know what? What? You know what? Here we go. What? Bing, bing, bing. Topic for today just emerged, ladies and gentlemen. All right, I got to look up what Goofy is. It's just emerged for the topic that we're getting into. There is no way that's true. No, no, no. Here we go. Topic for the week just emerged like... I mean, like... It didn't merge. I'm talking about like it breached the topic for today. It just came up. He's...

Full breach. The organic is where you want to be. Full breach for the topic for today. So we went down to our beach house this weekend. Have you ever seen a man's mind literally blown? That was it. It just happened. I don't think that is. Sorry, go ahead. So we go to our beach house this weekend in Newport Beach. And my wife is a Disney freak.

I can take it or leave it, you know, but she, every year she, cause my wife kind of is awesome. And I like to give her what she wants. She wanted season passes. I'm like, sure. Okay. Whatever. She's like, do you want one? I'm like, yes, I want to spend time with my kids. And when, whenever we go to Disney, right, whenever we go there, I have a mantra that I repeat to myself.

I'm here for quality time with my kids and my wife. I'm here for quality time with my kids and wife. I don't care how long the lines are. I don't care about anything. I'm just this, I'm here. I don't care if we don't get the right. Set your expectations. I'm strictly here for quality time with my wife and my kids. That's the only reason I'm here. And I just repeat that mantra and that's how I stay sane. Right. But Disney has now made that impossible. And let me tell you why.

Because now they got the app. There's the app, right? It's the app called the app. The app, the app, the app. Why am I saying it like this? Because I heard the app about 300 times on Saturday. We go. And what the app is, is no more tickets.

No more cards. There's no FastPasses, right? None of that. None of that. You have to use the app for everything. And when I mean everything, I mean like if you want the corn dog from the corn dog stand, you got to go scan a QR code. Cashless. And then it tells you when you can come back to buy your corn dog. Reservations. Dude. Get the corn dog. Oh. A corn dog is an impulse buy. That is not something you plan out. So it was so busy and so ridiculous. We couldn't get in anywhere.

And as we're sitting there, it was just like, I finally got my wife and for my wife to be over it. It's a lot. Yeah.

And I just said, I said, you're a huge John's. I mean, you probably use Disney and at least once of your speeches all the time. You are huge. I use a quote from Walt Disney, which is, and I don't know what off top of my head. I normally read it from my notes as I'm going to use this, but I say that Disney is the master of guest of guest experience. They have thought out everything that happens to you from the second you get there to second leave, how many napkins you get with the churro, how you walk through the lines, how the trams work. Everything has been thought out. Guess what?

I'm going to be the first one to tell you I'm bringing it even. Here it comes. Ready? Disney, you no longer give a shit about your customers. You don't. You don't. Because it's no longer about what's best and easier for the customer. It's about what's best and easy for Disney. How much of that is based on that thing that a lot of people are doing now to justify bad customer service? COVID. It's COVID. It's COVID. That has nothing to do with COVID. Nothing. You just don't do that anymore. Nothing. They saw that it streamlined their bottom lines. They can do more with less people.

And that's what they want to do. And it's egregiously terrible. For a place that charges now, I can't remember what it was, John. It was five grand plus for four annual passes. Okay, so that's...

- That means you could go three times, 'cause the tickets were like 200 bucks each. - Yeah, they're ridiculous. They're so ridiculous. - And you know what's weird? It's that class thing, and I don't wanna sound, but you talk about the barbelling of wealth in America. It's not ultra wealthy people that are going there. - No, no, no, no. - It's a lot of times people to the middle class, to the lower class that are going there,

Because it means something. It's so valuable to them as a way to have that nostalgia, childhood memories, the most magical place on earth, the happiest place on earth, other than the Double Down Saloon on Paradise. No. It's also the happiest place on earth. Double Down, way more happy than this joint. Right. So you go there, but now they have this thing where technology has just beaten out everything.

the human element, right? So do you remember a lot of reshoring that customer service lines that were sent to India have happened? People sent all their customer service, all that stuff to India because they're like, hey, I could pay someone 10 cents an hour a day or whatever. And then everybody was having these bad customer service experiences. So they're like bringing them back. I'd rather pay a bit more and get somebody that can connect on a personal level or whatever. No, I think that's the difference is

The problem is with an operation like Disney is there's so many people that still want to go there that will accept that level. So when I'm like, you know, when I, when I say I'm done, I'm out, they don't care. They could care less. Two people right behind you. Let me tell you what happened years ago, like years ago, this happened. So we went to Disney and it was an off day for them. Right. They, it was just off, right? Like a lot of stuff was closed. A lot of stuff was breaking. We're trying to have a birthday party for my kid. And like,

The cake came out melted and it was just kind of like, you know, this is an off day. Right. So I sent me being me. I'm going to tell you, let me give you some advice. Here it is. Ready? Who wants a superpower today? You want a superpower? I'm going to give you my superpower. You probably already had this because you're an attorney, but one of my superpowers is complaining. And I mean, I take the Karen thing to another level, like another level. Cause here's why I don't ask to see the manager. I don't call the a hundred number.

I go online, I see who the CEO is of whatever I'm trying to complain or be mad about. Then I go on and see the corporate email structure for whatever company that is. So if it's, if, if let's say it's Bob Eisner, I'm trying to get in touch with, well, now I'm going to go in, I'm going to write my email explaining what happened to me at their place of business. And I'm going to send an email and I'm gonna put 20 email addresses in the send letter. It's going to say bob.eisner.com.

at Disney.co, whatever. And then it's going to say B.Eisner at Disney.co. And it's going to say Bob.I at Disney.co. And I'm going to do every combination that I can possibly think of that might be his email address. And then I'm going to hit send. And I'm going to start watching the bounces. If I put 20 up there and I'm watching, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, 19. Bingo, baby. We got through. Because people at that level are not used to seeing complaints.

You go right to the top with it. And when this happened and I sent it off to him, you can do this with anything. When I sent it off to him, they called us immediately and I got called from Brad.

Hi, John. This is Brad from the vice president of Disney Park Operations, his office. Really sorry about what you sent us. So here's what we're going to do. And they came back with lithographs for the kids, sent care packages to the house, gave me a free weekend stay at the Disneyland Hotel in a suite. Sure, yeah. Three-day park offers for everybody and went over and above. And I just don't think that would happen anymore because –

- Yeah, 'cause of COVID. - Yeah, there's no doubt, but that level of service is just dead with them. And as soon as you go to that app and you allow technology to replace what made you great, you're screwed. And that's what they're doing. - So let me, that really brings up this thing that I think a lot of people don't understand too. And you talk to people in the restaurant industry,

If you come out, let's say you go for a nice dinner. You and Cole and your wives and your kids go out for dinner, right? I mean, is it still a nice dinner? It's still a nice dinner. It's a sweet night at Applebee's. It doesn't matter. Call it what it is. You go for dinner, right? And somebody goes and seven out of eight entrees come and they're good and the eighth is cold and it's shit and it's the wrong one. Yeah. So they're like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I'll do this. I'll bring you another one. They come and bring it to you late or whatever. Everybody's out.

People go, oh, well, they kind of made up for it, or I'll take that off. It's like, no, you've ruined my experience. Yeah. It's not just about, oh, we're getting you back to square. Yeah. It's not even just about, oh, we took that off the bill. It's like, okay, that's fine, but we came out, we did this whole thing. You kind of ruined the experience. I don't know.

I don't complain about it, I don't get worked up, but it always got stuck in my craw a bit when they thought that getting me to just basically break even or maybe a smidge above it is, oh, look how great this customer service, we got free onion rings. It's like, no, no, no, no. The whole experience has been sullied in a way. So it's incumbent upon you to go, look, your meal was ruined, we got you that back. This is blah, blah, blah, and I want you to come back next time or I want you to do this or whatever. Something that makes me go,

"Oh, they must have just fucked up." I love when people own their mistakes. I'll go back there twice. You want to earn a customer, you do something slightly well,

you know, the first time you engage with them, you'll come back two, three, four times. Oh God. Worst. I mean, cause I was in a restaurant business for a long time and I, and I always believed in the nuclear option when dealing with a table problem. Let me call up the whole meal. Let me take care of everything. Same thing. I think that's like, I think that is stellar. Yep. I think that's when they're like, wow, they're really sorry. Give a shit. Worst table visit ever. You ready? We're going to say, I'm going to talk about this and we'll take a break. Here it comes. You ready? So I, it was in, I was, uh, I was running a Hooters restaurant again, graduate years. Yeah.

in Maryland Heights in St. Louis, right? And I had a cook named Duda, this white stoner, white Rastafarian guy. Anyway, Duda was prone to cutting himself. He did it all the time. Anyway, he cuts himself one day. Anyway, blah, blah, blah, life goes on. Restaurant, I get a call out to a table. And I'm like, all right. I walk out to the table and

And the guy's like, uh, points at a 50 plate of wings, two guys had eaten 50 wings and he points at the plate and I go, wow, you guys mowed those down. Everything. Okay. He goes, yeah. And I said, yeah, everything is like, I don't get it. And he just pointed again and I look and there's a bandaid blood on it on the bottom of the wing. Oh, thanks.

That was a loser table. There's no winning that. What do you do? I comped everything and I gave them gift certificates to come back another time. They were cool. And they probably did come back. Probably did. If you're eating 50 wings between the two of you, you are a couple of bros. Yeah, you're all good old bros. But I think...

you know, I think businesses need to look and say, are we those people that can cheap out on things? There are certain businesses that can go automated and can go to that type of customer service, but there's others like, you know, a win or the DMV can fuck up. Yeah, exactly. Cause you don't have a choice. You know, the, the,

They never operated under the auspices that they gave a shit about your experience. No, they never did. This is Disneyland. The happiest place on earth. I get it. I get it. When we come back, we're going to talk more about technology versus customer service. Man, just take this. If you've got a business, man, you're going to want to listen to this because we've got some things. I guess this is where the free-form jazz explosion goes is mistakes you can make in your business to screw it up. Be right back.

Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we have things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.

Back from the break, boys. Back from the break. We're discussing, I mean, I don't know. Honestly, what we're talking about is mistakes people are making utilizing technology in their business or violating their customers is kind of what we're talking about today. So, I mean, for me, I think that technology is a great thing when used in the right way. And I think too many people and realtors are really guilty of this. If you are using technology, you've got to ask yourself a question before you implement any program or system into your deal. And here's the question.

Does this make my life easier? Does this make my customer's life easier or both? Two of those, I say green light, one of them, you don't. If it's just making your life easier,

You're gonna you're gonna lose customers. You're gonna lose that and I think a lot of what? Agents do nowadays at real estate agents start with that a lot of what real estate agents do or there's a lot of There's a lot of AI on websites. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of automatic test message text messaging There's a lot of chat BOTS. There's a lot of those things and I think that's the stuff that takes away from the personas experience I think if you're not dealing with a human and the you say well they text me so they want to text back Well, maybe not

You know, I always look at communication with my clients. And again, this has nothing to do with what's easier for me because it'd be easier for me just to text them back. But if somebody shoots me a text, I call them. If they call me and we have a conversation, I try to go see them. I'm always trying to elevate that level of communication back to the client because that shows my level of commitment to the people that work with me. Yeah. And I think...

You know, something that I always ask my people is what's the best communication? What do you prefer? And I'm sure you do the same. Yeah. Like I've got a guy, I've got younger clients that are, they'll say, if you call me, I will not answer. You know, I'd won't listen. Voicemail. The only way is email or text. But then I deal with some other people. I got a guy right now that he didn't, he said, I only call.

So if he calls me, he texts me, I call him right back. Well, and this is something I teach because one of my big pet peeves, one of my big pet peeves in business is this. You never type bad news. Never. Don't never tell a client anything negative if you're typing it. Like you can type them, say, hey, give me a shout. I need to talk to you about something because here's the problem.

If it's something that you know is going to send your customer through the roof, whether you had anything to do with it or not, it could be some completely outside force that's dealing with it. Client wants to cancel a deal, whatever it is, but it may have nothing to do with you. But you've got to be able to take that information and present it to them, even if it's really bad news, and go to wherever they're going to go with it. But you need to be with them so you can bring them back to where they need to be. Well, let me go one step further, and this is going to be a professional statement.

Never put something in email that you could see being used against you one day in a court. Or text. Right? Because a lot of times people don't understand the words that they're using and how valuable and important they are. Words have very, very specific meaning. I did a deal today. I'm brokering a commercial deal. It's a big value deal. So...

the broker on the other side says, oh, well, that's not ambiguous. I've done that a million times. I say, if I can read it reasonably any other way that means a jury can, so that when this goes sideways, I know you think the word abatement means one thing, but abatement can mean zero. It can mean a reduction. It can mean a hesitation, a pause. But if it's not crystal in there to me, right? I'm an attorney. I'm telling you how I would argue this on the other side. Now, I was listening to a speech from Charlie Munger the other day,

So never have an opinion on something unless you can argue it on the other side better than that person can, right? Never have a position, if you can't argue it, better than your counterparties are arguing it, right? So you need to understand your arguments. That's just like the words you're using.

If you send an email to a client saying, hey, blah, blah, blah, this happened. Well, first off, now we know you were put on notice of something. You may not even realizing what that is. But notice exists when it becomes in what's called a tangible medium, right? An email is a tangible medium. Clearly realized. That's like a copyright term. It's a trademark issue, right? Once it's in that medium, I get on a phone. You're not going to get my phone records.

Now, I'm not saying be cagey when it's bad news. But get on the phone with people if there's something that... But again... You don't always know which way people turn on things. No, I get it. And I would say the majority of the disputes we have contractually within contracts. I mean, I call you sometimes for second opinion on things. And I'm like, what do you think about this?

Ambiguity is what always causes the problem. - 100%. - Always ambiguity. It's well, this wasn't spelled out clearly and it could mean this, it could mean that. - That's right. - And if it can mean anything other than exactly what it's supposed to mean, you're going to have a problem. - You're gonna have a problem if it becomes a problem. Now, you never know what's a problem until it becomes a problem. This is one of my favorite things on earth, people go,

Oh, no, he's fine. He's a friend of mine. I go, he's a friend of yours until he's not your friend. I don't know if you've ever seen me. Yeah, that's rule number one of real estate. Everybody's cool until they're not. That's rule number one. I...

I don't paper up deals with my wife. I think that's the only people I don't paper up deals. John, you and I have had some stuff and I've sent you engagements. Yeah, sure. That's for your benefit as much as mine. Yeah. So that it's, Hey, this, so you don't have any of that. Oh, well, what, what was the expectation? Right. Cause ruined expectations create problems too. Well, technically too, but if I sign an engagement letter, you can't testify against me. So that works for that. Any conversation between you and I on the phone, we have attorney client privilege as well. Whether or not we have an engagement. So see, you can never subpoena Chris.

against me. You can't. But you know what's so funny? It's funny some of the stuff people will put in email and text. I'm like,

What are you doing? Never put that in writing. We had a guy like two years ago, straight up email. Hey, those leases are fake just to help you get loan dogs. I'm like, that's fraud. Did you really just email? And I called him and I'm like, cancel. I go, I'm canceling the deal. And he goes, why? I go, because I'm not committing loan fraud. Like, what do you mean these leases are fake? He put it.

back to me and email me and John were just like probably five times I'm like you're committing fraud you idiot like shut up shut up shut up stop stop stop stop but it's amazing it's amazing that people do put stuff in that well no but like I said even when people have good intentions

You can have the best of intentions, but there's that old saying, the path to hell is laid with best intentions. At the end of the day, if you aren't literally a practicing wordsmith, if you're not a professional writer, if you're not somebody that truly... You're a cocksmith, are you, Colt? Colt's a cocksmith. I thought about a wordsmith. I thought it was the same thing, I guess. Do I not come off as a wordsmith? You come off as a cocksmith. Oh, okay. Good enough. Look at the pocket squares. There's murder. That's a good point. So at the end of the day, unless you truly...

Understand the power and impact of your words, especially with clients, brokers, whatever. Understand that

You need to spell them out in a way that always keeps in the back of your head. Just have that little voice right before you hit send. Never send an angry email. Never send something that's too committal. Get on the phone and hash it out. But just always have that thing in the back of your mind going, if this was to be read to me in a deposition or if this was to be read before. Would you cringe? I'd just sit there and cringe if I did this. Would you stand behind it in a very specific way? Yeah. So just, again, that's.

I think it's so interesting until you've been through a lawsuit, like really been through one. You don't understand what it's like to sit there and have to like justify something you said or worse type. And you're like, well, I don't remember. I didn't mean that. Yeah. No, no, it's, it's, it's, it can be, it can be a challenge. And you can be in a lawsuit that has nothing to do with anything you've done.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You get dragged into it for any reason. You get dragged in. I have clients that are being dragged in. I have a bar in town. I won't name names, public information, but I'm representing multiple servers, right?

right, who were sued because the bar owner is in a dispute with his insurance company because he had some idea about a promotion to use that had nobody accountable. Servers just had to go to a manager and say, hey, they got their wristband on and the manager would pour a drink. Now they're trying to say, oh, that was all fraud, so we're suing 50 servers that haven't worked in this restaurant in four years. So,

So these individual servers live in Florida and Texas or wherever, and they're going, hey, I just got sued with something, and my friend who's also been sued said X, Y, Z. And I said, well, yeah, this is what's going on, and I think it's completely preposterous, but you're still being dragged into this, and you still have to answer, or you could get defaulted. It's going to cost you money about something that has nothing to do with anything you've done. See, that's an interesting question, and I think this all the time.

The nuisance lawsuit is such a part of my life these days. I mean, the stuff that we wind up getting sued for is just, or dragged into, is just ridiculous. As a broker. It's ridiculous. Well, just as the owner of the company, whatever. It's insane, some of this stuff. And sometimes it's so insane, we do fight it back, and we're like, no, I'm just not paying it. We have fought and won those things. Don't think I'm an easy mark if you're listening to this. But it brings me back to, it always brings me, whenever this happens, to the same place.

How do you stop so many lawsuits and will it ever stop or will legislation ever be passed considering the majority of lawmakers have law degrees? Well, let's say you can't. Let's say you can't. No, because due process allows me to. We have liberal pleading standards and you are not obligated to hire an attorney unless you're an LLC.

So as an individual, you can go represent yourself. You absolutely can, and you're entitled to. And if you have low income, you can get waivers for court fees. You have to be indigent.

But, you know, it's one of those things where hopefully when you do deals, you have attorney fee provisions in there, period. Well, I'm just, no, my question is, I'm just, I'm curious. How to get to nuisance lawsuits. Do you think there's too many nuisance lawsuits as an attorney? I'm dying to hear the answer to this. You know, candidly, I don't see a lot of, I don't defend a lot of nuisance lawsuits. Candidly, I'm not a...

I don't know why, because I won't take them, I think. I won't take filing them. I won't file against people frivolously. Because you can get Rule 11 sanctioned. I can be sanctioned as an attorney for filing something I believe is frivolous. So why do some attorneys just not seem to care less about it? Well, a lot of times these things aren't necessarily enforced, right? You can see. But I just have to make a colorable argument.

My argument has to be colorable. You as a broker are going to get brought in if an action of your agent did X, Y, Z. Well, that's colorable. You had nothing to do with it. It's not this and that. And because you lose certain rights, if it's a mandatory claim, right? If you claim one thing, civil procedure is a weird thing and there's a reason for it.

It operates under sort of years and years in history of jurisprudence back and forth. And these things, these rules seem arbitrary, but they exist for a reason. Because this person missed their right to defend themselves or this person missed their ability to file within a timely period or whatever. So those things exist for a reason. It's just to the layperson, it seems obnoxious.

I understand them. I understand the rules and why they exist. But I also empathize when people think that they are arduous. Well, you know, I just wish I could sue Disneyland over that app this weekend. I've got to believe you've been to Disneyland, Cole. I've been to Disneyland, but again, I just cannot believe. When is the last time you went to Disneyland? Right before COVID hit. How many times have you been?

Did you go to Star Wars land? No. You know what happened is I was supposed to meet people, and they're like, we're in the good guy shop. I'm like, what the hell is a good guy shop? Like the Star Wars that are the good guys? Yeah.

I'm not aware of this place. Well, no, there's shops. I know there's good guys, but I wasn't aware they had a good guy Star Wars shop. Well, no, there's a shop that they're all, I don't know who's the good or bad guys in that film. Maybe it wasn't. If they're white, they're good. If they're dark, they're bad. We've already established that. Hence why dark. But anyways, I walked in. It seemed super nerdy, so I walked out. Did your parents take you to Disneyland as a kid? Yeah, and you know what scared me the worst? Mr. Toad's Wild Ride as a kid.

You were scared of Mr. Tote? How did that scare you? Have you been in that? Many times. That's pretty awesome. No, as a kid, it was scary. I don't like rides. You don't like frogs? No. Frogs. I got to tell you, one of the rides we were able to get on while we were there, we rode Space Mountain.

I think I'm done. I think, I think, I think dude, I got off. I looked at my wife. I mean, we were, we, we got old in like two seconds. We're both kind of staggering up the road. Yeah, it was, I was dizzy. Do you know what's scary is the Ferris? So dizzy there. The Ferris. I don't like that Ferris. Oh, that thing is scary. So now, but again, to me, it just, it shocks me that the common sense of some of these people to put in, you know,

technology or something. How do you not see that being annoying? Like your kid came in and was like, oh, I wanted a Dole Whip and I had to get reservations for 40 minutes. Come back and there's no one in line. Dole Whip reservation. That is obnoxious. Dude, it is. Like when you have, how old's your kid? 14?

13 and 11. You have a 13-year-old realizing how annoying it is? How does a billion-dollar corporation get to that level? I'm going to take the devil's advocate position here, though. I guarantee you Disney World is different. No, same thing. Same thing. Do you think that Disney World would be real? I know it is. I know it is. We were with somebody yesterday that's in Orlando and said it's the same thing. That surprised me. I would understand that California having these real top-down laws about...

Cashless. No, same thing. Contactless. Same deal, buddy. Same deal. Florida. I thought they would double down and you could spend your Gator bucks or, you know. No. Well, you can actually lick Mickey, I think, in Florida. That's the difference. But for the most part, no, it's exactly the same. Speaking of R. Kelly. Yes. Oh, my God. We were at a funeral yesterday. And I got to tell you, I was walking around and-

A friend of ours' grandmother passed away. We all went down to show respect, and it was a nice showing, I thought, of his friend set that showed up yesterday to support him. But I got to tell you, man, if you ever feel not motivated, like you feel like you're just not getting enough, you know, I don't really, I just feel kind of lase, like I don't want to get stuff done. Dude, you know what an excellent exercise is? Go to the cemetery and just do the math on the dates on the stones. Because I got to tell you, far more than I would have thought yesterday, right?

We're coming up 25, 17. All over the place. Eight. Like, dude, you never know when the plug's going to get pulled on you. A little bald doctor. A little bald doctor's going to cut the string over your head. He's like, what are we talking about? Get that reference. It's a Star Wars reference, Cole. Don't worry about it. But yeah, you never know when that's going to happen. And dude, it was like, wow, it's a nice wake-up call. That's kind of what we're doing tomorrow, John.

Is it? We're not waiting. Like in your... Because how easy is it? So let me... My parents are wonderful people. My dad, though, was a history teacher. He was a teacher in history in jail. He taught high school in jail, effectively, for most of my life. Wait, was he going to work there or was he in jail? No, no, no. He was a teacher for a young offender center. Okay. But his students were like pimps, drug dealers, murderers. My dad is a real...

He was invited to the Olympics in wrestling. He's very athletic. Oh, here we go. Excellent wrestler. Here we go. Go ahead, Colt. Wrestling's kind of hard. I don't know if I could be an Olympic wrestler, but I am telling you, we should put jousting into the Olympics now. Colt wants to be an Olympic jouster. There we go.

- So growing up, my dad would always talk about the Peloponnesians and these ancient battles and wars and stuff. So my whole life, I'm like, well, his kids are both independently doing well. They don't need to, I don't need them to save their inheritance from me. I'm like, I would love to see them go travel.

Like, it's more important for me that they go do this than them, right? They're just not big travelers and never been. You know, they've been to Canada and America. Yep. And I kind of was like, hey, what an opportune time to travel. I was talking to my mom the other day about how it would be amazing to go see all those places that dad always spent his life as an educator talking about. Mm-hmm.

And for a long time, it was we'll go later. Oh, when this happens, we'll go. When this happens, we'll go. When it happens, we'll go. And now it's like, well, kind of past the time when we probably would have enjoyed going. Yeah. You missed the window. You missed the window, but I'm going. And you don't know what's when. You just don't know when it is. How common is that? I'll start a business later. I'll do this later. There is no later. Later was yesterday, my friend. Go now. Do it. Live it. Time. Spend it. Because it's not your friend. Yeah. Yeah.

It's definitely working against us and it's crazy. But you know what else? There's death that I think that motivates me a lot. You know what else is really working against you? Chili's. You Chili's.

Six margaritas in 45 minutes and you tow my car? You tow my car, Chili's? You tow my car? Working against me, Colt. No, I think they're looking out for it. No. I think you should send them a thank you card. No. What are we going to do? Go home? The views of Colt Amidon do not represent the views of Colt Amidon. How are you going to get your car home after seven El Presidentes? Yeah.

I was going to be responsible and leave it in the parking lot and get it the next day. But guess what? Not an option because they towed it away. Maybe they thought you were staying downtown closer. They're looking out for you. But here's the problem. It's not what they meant to do. It's what they did. They didn't. Okay, real quick. They didn't tow it while I was in the building.

We had left it there to be responsible, and then they told him. And you were a customer. There was ambiguity. And I was a customer. And they told him. And again, that's exactly right. There's ambiguity in the sign that said parking for patrons only. It didn't say patrons right now. I was a patron. Did it say two-hour patron parking? No. Patron parking. Patron parking. Can we sue him?

Yes. I'll get behind this lawsuit for you. No, I sent a demand letter already. I didn't have Connell do it. I had Van do it. Did you send it? Yeah, I sent a demand letter. I want my money back. Still no response. But the problem is it's small claims. It doesn't matter. You know what? Here's the thing. I just want my $262 back that I paid. Would you go back to Chili's after that? How much pain and suffering could I get for that? What did that email sound like? That's a lot.

I almost said an aneurysm. ChiliBob at Chili's.com. Be Chili. No, you know what? That's a great point. Mr. Chili. That's a great point. I did not fire off anything to the CEO, but I think I'm going to. That's why we got to work these things out on air. That's why we do it. That's why we work them out on air. Yes, I think we're definitely going to send that back. Who's your favorite stormtrooper? Desert stormtrooper?

What are we talking about? I'm not sure what we're talking about, Chris. I can tell you who's not my favorite. Here's what I'm talking about. He passes every test. I think it's time for his top five. Top five worst sports movies. I was thinking that the other day. I was sitting on the flight. Worst sports movies. Yeah, I was sitting on the flight. Oh, my flight was horrible yesterday. I got stuck next to a high-end model slash OnlyFans girl. Oh, I got it.

And she kept falling asleep on me and twitching. We didn't talk about this. It's called fentanyl. So apparently on the plane down there, on the plane down there, right between Eric getting on the plane, trying to be able to sit, who sits right next to Colt, transvestite, only fans person. I don't think she was a tranny. I'm telling you. He's a magnet for this. Ah.

I didn't even tell you that. Well, it was either her or the six foot four, three 30. Yeah. It was not a good, I seem to attract those guys. Yeah. That's how we were. We were in and out of, uh, where did we go yesterday? I don't remember. Newport beach. Uh, and,

And we were in and out for a day. I appreciate you letting us lounge at your house. Oh, no problem. You left. He was in my house like the Centurion Lounge yesterday. This guy had like 50 pounds of butters in his beach house. What are you doing? No. Don't spill his tea. No, no, no, no. Don't spill his tea. Oh, God. I'm intrigued. He left. He goes, here's your, just lock it up when you guys leave. Because he went home to Vegas. We stayed at his beach house. And we opened it up. He's got freaking, he's, ah.

There's 50 pounds of butter. No, so here's what happens. We get down there and we own the house. You don't have to answer this, John. No, I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to. We own the house with some partners. So we get there and for whatever reason, like the inside lock is locked. Right? We have the door code thing, but the inside bolt is locked. So I'm like-

Pull out the calendar real quick take a quick glance. I'm like, yeah, I'm supposed to be here this weekend Nobody should be here something what's going on? So we go around the front because we know I'm just good to the garage so we're on the go on the front of the house and Sitting on the stoop of the house and it had been there for like a day. I'd been there for a minute there was 250 pound bags of flour a 50 pound bag of powdered sugar 10 dozen 10 dozen eggs like 30 pounds of now not frozen shrimp and

Pretty sure you should throw all this stuff out, John. 80 pounds of butter, like 80 pounds of butter, and like a thing of like cookies. They're catering something. Well, obviously they delivered it to the wrong house and didn't figure it out. But no, we threw it away. But my wife's like, butter doesn't have to be refrigerated. I'm keeping the butter. Melted butter is the best. And I'm like, you're not going to keep the sidewalk shrimp? I mean, where do you draw the line? Oh.

So, yeah. So we literally had like, there was like 50 pounds of butter in the refrigerator. And I was like, flour and the sugar didn't get tossed either. No, the flour and sugar went right away, but the butter just, cause it's sealed. So it was fine. The shrimp, yeah, the shrimp didn't look so good. Yeah, that's gross. But yeah, we were flipping through on the flight back and somebody had one of the

movies on sports movie and made me think like top five worst top five worst sports movies or sports movies i'm going to go how many are there i haven't seen a good sports movie no there's a there's i'll say mighty ducks three or any of the mighty ducks one sir one is amazing two was all right tongue two is horrible i'm gonna go with colt on this one which you're going with colt on anything i'm going with colt on this i don't know why i completely agree with him my number one worst i

Feel the Dreams. Freaking horrible. What? So long. Kevin Costner, not that great. I would have thought I'd like him on Yellowstone, but do you know what? He starts to annoy me because he's the same person in every movie. So you like Al Pacino, though? Yeah, he's the same guy. No, he's annoying now. Same with Robert De Niro. I would have thought you would have gone for League of Their Own because of Starz. Well, that's in it. Okay, so you got Feel the Dreams, League of Their Own, Rudy...

What? Okay. All right. Rudy is the only one of probably two movies that actually makes me cry. Why? Hold on. Did you guys play sports? Yes. Okay. And you always have that kid over going too hard at practice, trying to injure you and everything. That was Rudy. And then, so I hated Rudy. Super slow movie. Not inspirational. I don't know.

not inspirational. When he, when he's sitting by the lake and he opens that letter and he finally gets into Notre Dame. You know what? Maybe if he was a smarter kid, took some academic classes, he got in the first time. He certainly worked in like a foundry. Who gives a crap? There's a million people like that that go there. About the,

odds making it horrible he was so annoying so then i meet rudy i went to rudy's house rudy lived in vegas right he went to his house oh my gosh he's more obnoxious than the character his whole house is just about memorabilia of him and i'm like maybe your office great but not your whole goddamn house rudy's horrible he's an hour show to general he was not an athlete

That it's possible to not be conforming and to make it against all odds. Like Phil Collins. Let's hear how you feel about Phil Collins. Horrible. Horrible. Phil Collins is probably number four on my top overrated list.

We'll get to my top overrated fan slash. Slow down. We don't want to blow it all in one episode, buddy. Slow down. I'm so overruined. Kevin Costner again. Like League of their own. Do you know what the only good part of League of their own is when he goes in the cows? At what point does the United States Immigration Customs Service come in and kick him out? It's getting to the point where it's like,

Is he like a pod person with just skin draped over? And then they did the national, they did the baseball game. Oh, and they brought Kevin Costner on. I just like someone take a bat to his head. Oh, it's so annoying. About a man having a vision about creating this thing about the connection between him and his father and.

Yeah, and understanding the impact that sports has on the human psyche. What's that shit? Terrible. He's like a duck. It's way better. Mighty Ducks is no. I tell you what was dreadful was the remake of longest yard with Adam seconded original original number one worst ever. Yeah original original original so annoying no original longest yard epic remake lovely terrible

Yeah, that's a terrible movie. The remake was absolute dog shit. Yeah, it was terrible. You know what was a great movie rookie of the year?

The year when the kid broke his arm, oh is that did he say you say funky but loving that? Remember the kid he bright breaks his arm and it's like the tendons all get tight and so I can throw like a 99 major league is no major major is great or good good great movie Opposite of that so so where does air bud fit in there?

Is that a pet movie or a sports movie? I heard the new Space Jam sucked too. It did suck. Anything LeBron sucks. Here's the thing. LeBron's so overrated because if... He's not. Yes, he is. If you're that big...

You put Michael Jordan or Kobe in his body, 100 points a night, all dunks, or go in the foul line. It gets so annoying. He's not good. Here's a question, because we're talking about animated movies. He's not good at basketball. I don't remember who was talking. Somebody was bitching about this yesterday, about animated movies. I think it was you. It probably was you, Colton. No, it was probably you on your ride home. No, no, no. They were talking about there's this new animated movie coming out. Oh, I know what it was. The Mario movie is coming out.

right oh yeah and they're like chris pratt is the mario voice and for the mario guy and they're like the internet's up in arms over it blah blah and it got these guys were debating they're like why do you need famous people to voice these characters just to draw people in just to draw but yeah it's just like the most amazing career because here's the question but here's the question all right like i get it if you're creating a character from thin air like i get that

Do you think Mario, Super Mario is going to need any draw, it needs the draw power? So Jack Black is playing Bowser, I guess. Yeah. I could see someone going, oh, I like how goofy, like, look, you're trying to appeal to this broad range of people. It's like bundling in economics, right? Mm-hmm.

You've got to throw in a little bit of something for everybody. So let's say there's somebody that thinks Will Ferrell is just hilarious. You've got to make sure that the animation in Pet's Life 2 is Kevin Hart when he's rapping Panda. That draws some parents in, and the kids don't know. So it's not for the kids. It's for the parents. And there it was. So the parents have a reason to be like, oh, I loved Chris Pratt when he was fighting fake dinosaurs or whatever.

Well, guys, we're going to wrap it up. Another episode of the podcast. Again, it was a free-form jazz explosion. I hope you got something out of this. I know Rudy Ruediger didn't get anything out of it. I know that much. Now that you think of that, a sports like who is the most annoying kid on your team is a kid over going, trying to hurt you because you're supposed to do 60% effort. Dude, when he runs on the field and his father's so proud.

when he makes the play not nothing dude you guys do you have that you're like proud of me you're like i feel like a soulless specter sitting next to me like a human oh it's so annoying and then you know what and then i meet him in real life absolutely just confirmed what movie does call me if he's giving you trouble yeah what what movie does make you cry

a movie made me cry i don't cry at movies big fish yeah la bomba richie yeah no um honestly there's probably not a movie that would make me cry you know what was up about rudy i believe him yeah that's if you yeah if you're not crying to rudy i get it all right or it's like matilda or something well well if you like what we do here after today i i who knows um

Tell a friend if you like what we do because we do appreciate it. Make sure you like and subscribe if you're watching this on YouTube. Hit that like button. Hit that subscribe button. And yeah, we're taking a little bit of a hiatus next week. There will be an episode. This will actually come out on Wednesday as on time. There will be no episode on Friday because Chris and I will be playing archaeologists. Who knows? Maybe we'll turn the computer up and on and over there and try to record something from Cairo. Oh, wow. Like a live update. Maybe we'll do it. Maybe we'll do a Zoom and try to record it, Colt.

Maybe you could be here. We'll be there. If not, guys, stay tuned to Colt's podcast in a couple weeks. Yep. Colt will be back in one and a half weeks. Thanks. We'll see you next time, guys. Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we've things we talked about on the show as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live.

And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.