Unlocking Communication's Hidden Depths with Erwin McManus

Summary

Episode Summary: Unlocking Communication's Hidden Depths with Erwin McManus

Podcast Information:

• Title: Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
• Host/Author: John Gafford
• Episode: Unlocking Communication's Hidden Depths with Erwin McManus
• Release Date: June 17, 2025

In this enlightening episode of "Escaping the Drift," host John Gafford engages in a deep and insightful conversation with renowned futurist, philosopher, spiritual architect, and bestselling author Erwin McManus. The discussion delves into the art and science of communication, exploring how effective communication can propel individuals from mediocrity to exceptional success. Below is a detailed summary capturing the essence of their dialogue, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps.

---

1. Introduction and Guest Background (00:00 - 02:43)

John Gafford opens the episode with a heartfelt introduction of Erwin McManus, highlighting his impressive credentials and speaking prowess. He praises Erwin's ability to captivate audiences and his role as the founder of Mosaic, a creative community in Los Angeles.

Notable Quote:

John Gafford [02:43]: "He doesn’t just speak to audiences. He actually shakes them."

2. Innate vs. Learned Communication Skills (02:43 - 06:02)

The conversation shifts to Erwin's communication prowess. John is fascinated by Erwin's natural ability to engage listeners and probes whether these skills are innate or developed through practice.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [03:22]: "Some of it is innate, some of it is genetic, but none of it was obvious."

3. The Journey from Introversion to Master Communicator (06:02 - 09:36)

Erwin shares his personal journey from being an extremely introverted and shy individual to becoming a dominant public speaker. He credits his education in philosophy, psychology, and theology, as well as his experiences in varied environments, for honing his communication skills.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [07:35]: "I want words to be beautiful. I want the sentences to have a melody to them."

4. Seven Frequencies of Communication (09:36 - 33:32)

One of the episode's focal points is Erwin's concept of the "Seven Frequencies of Communication," a framework he developed to categorize different communication styles:

1. The Motivator
2. The Challenger
3. The Commander
4. The Healer
5. The Professor
6. The Seer
7. The Maven

Each frequency has a shadow side, such as the Commander becoming a dictator or the Challenger turning into a manipulator.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [29:21]: "The entire purpose of communication is human connection."

5. Impact of COVID-19 and Apathy (33:32 - 42:00)

John and Erwin discuss the widespread apathy fostered during the COVID-19 lockdowns, referencing the mouse utopia experiment where mice in a resource-abundant environment ceased reproducing and became destructive. They parallel this to human behavior, emphasizing the necessity of purpose to prevent societal drift.

Notable Quote:

John Gafford [22:00]: "There’s an illusion of momentum, but you're actually being moved by the environment around you rather than you moving the environment from within you."

6. Human Connection vs. Information Transmission (28:21 - 29:21)

Erwin emphasizes that true communication transcends mere information exchange, focusing instead on building genuine human connections. He argues that without this, individuals will hit a "ceiling" in various life arenas, limiting personal and professional growth.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [28:21]: "If your goal is simply a transmission of information, you'll never be a world-class communicator."

7. Erwin's Empathy and Emotional Intelligence (36:12 - 43:06)

Erwin reveals his high empathy score from the Gallup organization, describing his ability to read emotions and connect deeply with his audience. This heightened emotional intelligence aids him in tailoring his messages to resonate with listeners.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [36:16]: "I can read people's hearts. You can feel where people are. I'll focus on that person and speak to them."

8. Shadows in Communication Frequencies and Media Influence (33:32 - 35:16)

They explore how media and culture often promote shadow frequencies, leading to communication styles that hinder genuine connection. Erwin warns against these negative patterns and underscores the importance of using authentic communication frequencies to foster positive interactions.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [34:30]: "Every frequency also has a shadow. The commander is always a dictator."

9. Overcoming Narcissism and Embracing Resilience (43:07 - 50:21)

The dialogue transitions to personal growth, where Erwin discusses the thin line between confidence and narcissism. He shares his experiences with significant financial losses and how resilience and faith played pivotal roles in his recovery and continued success.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [48:14]: "I have to put the work in."

10. Personal Resilience and Lessons Learned (50:21 - 57:18)

Erwin recounts a harrowing experience where he lost millions due to a business betrayal. Highlighting the support of his wife and his unwavering faith, he illustrates the importance of perseverance and maintaining a positive outlook in the face of adversity.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [51:03]: "We've been poor before, and you've always found a way. This is just the beginning of something new."

11. Escaping the Drift: Intentional Living (54:10 - 56:24)

The concept of "escaping the drift" is further explored as Erwin emphasizes the necessity of intentional action to avoid being swept away by external forces. He likens it to swimming against an undertow, where being proactive and purposeful is essential for personal growth and fulfillment.

Notable Quote:

Erwin McManus [55:05]: "Greatness never comes without work."

12. Lightning Round: Personal Insights (60:26 - 62:47)

To wrap up, John and Erwin engage in a fun lightning round where Erwin shares his perspectives on various topics, offering quick and candid responses that reveal more about his personality and beliefs.

Notable Quotes:

• Erwin McManus [61:57]: "You need to put the work in."
• Erwin McManus [62:06]: "Jesus' Instagram bio would say, 'private link. Click to join.'"

13. Conclusion and Takeaways (62:47 - End)

John concludes the episode by reflecting on the invaluable insights gained from Erwin, particularly the importance of having a driving purpose behind communication. He encourages listeners to apply these lessons to break free from life's drift and pursue a path of intentional excellence.

Notable Quote:

John Gafford [Final]: "If you don't have anything to believe in that's driving you, what comes out of your mouth doesn't really matter anyway."

---

Key Takeaways:

1. Purpose-Driven Communication: Effective communication stems from having a clear purpose and a message that resonates on a deeper human level.

2. Seven Frequencies Framework: Understanding different communication styles can enhance personal and professional interactions, fostering better connections.

3. Overcoming Apathy: In challenging times, maintaining intentional actions and pursuing meaningful goals can prevent societal and personal drift.

4. Emotional Intelligence: High empathy and the ability to read others' emotions are crucial for impactful communication.

5. Resilience: Embracing failure as a learning opportunity and maintaining faith and perseverance are essential for sustained success.

6. Intentional Living: Actively shaping one’s life and communication prevents being passively carried by external circumstances.

For Further Learning:

• Erwin McManus's Works: Explore "Genius of Jesus" and "The Artisan Soul" for deeper insights into his philosophies.
• Seven Frequencies Book: Delve into Erwin's detailed exploration of communication styles to enhance your interpersonal skills.
• Escaping the Drift Resources: Visit www.EscapingtheDrift.com to learn more about the podcast and join the community striving for purposeful living.

---

This summary encapsulates the depth and breadth of the conversation between John Gafford and Erwin McManus, providing listeners with actionable insights and inspirational stories aimed at helping them escape the drift and achieve remarkable success through effective communication.

Transcript

[Erwin McManus]

Wow, that is a great question. First of all, I'm rarely caught off guard by questions.

[John Gafford]

Good job, Chatgpt.

[Erwin McManus]

Good job, man. I'm just gonna. I shouldn't say this out loud.

[John Gafford]

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the Drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again. Back again for another episode of. Like it says in the opening man, the podcast that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, dude, I'm so excited about this. I've been trying. Trying to land this for a long time. This is a guy that is in the studio today that I met him at a couple of events, and it was an event. I've been at events where he's speaking and I'm in audience. I've been at events where he's speaking, where I'm backstage in the green room. And every time this guy goes on the stage, I. If I'm in the back, I go to the front because I. I'm. I want to watch him speak because his delivery, he doesn't just. Just speak to audiences. He actually shakes him. I mean, of all of the guys that I see that do what we do, he is by far the best. He's a futurist, a philosopher, spiritual architect, and one of the clearest voices out there right now, probably cutting through the noise of modern culture. He's the founder of Mosaic, which is a wildly creative community in Los Angeles. He's best selling author of books like the Genius of Jesus and the Artisan Soul. And, you know, whether you're chasing meaning, trying to build legacy, or you're just trying to make sense of the chaos out there right now, this is your guy. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. Thankfully, Erwin McManus. Erwin, how are you, man?

[Erwin McManus]

I'm doing great after that introduction.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, you know what?

[Erwin McManus]

I'm excited to hear me.

[John Gafford]

No, really, it's so funny. The first couple of times I saw you speak, right, I got captivated. You get captivated by the message because your delivery is just so unbelievably skillful, and the way that you're able to reach people in every seat is really. It's magical. And I don't just say that this isn't going to be just a compliment fest, because the reason I say the first couple of times I saw you speak, I heard every word. Because then I started really studying the delivery. I wanted to study the speech patterns, I wanted to study the inflections. I wanted to study the way you moved around the stage. And I think I know when it was the time that. When I really flipped that switch to watch just the genius of how you deliver things was at boardroom, I think, Kent Clothiers.

[Erwin McManus]

I love Ken.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah, Ken Steel. And I was. I was at that. And I was sitting in that audience and you were talking about, I remember was. It was a seven principles or seven frequencies of communication. Seven frequencies. Communication, yes. Which I will get to. And you were talking about that and I just. It was. It was just magic watching you do what you do. It was. It was. It was as good as watching Tiger swing a golf club. It was as good as watching Jordan shoot the ball. It just. It's that good. So my first question, I know it was a long build up to that, but my first question for you is, how much of that is innate in you and how much of that is just repetition and practice?

[Erwin McManus]

Well, I think there might be a third option.

[John Gafford]

Okay, all right.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, scientists tell us that about 60% of who we are is genetic, that it's in our DNA, and then 40% is shaped environmentally. And so from a biological perspective, I can say some of it is innate, some of it is genetic, but none of it was obvious. And I think that's the more important thing. I grew up incredibly introverted, really reclusive, painfully shy. Didn't speak almost at all. I had relatives who would make fun of me because they said I would never talk. And I lived inside of my head. I lived inside of my imagination. And I was not a person you would ever select and go, oh, that guy. That guy's going to spend his life speaking on stages across the world and speak to millions of people. So when people talk about something being innate, we assume you could see it from a young age. The answer is no. It was something I think it was. I think the better word is latent. It was latent inside of me. There were certain giftings or maybe a talent that was there that had not been developed and may have never been developed if I had not moved myself to different environments. And then another part of it is skill. I've spent my life studying human communication. I think words are an art form. And one of my team members asked, I think it was Chatgpt to describe me. And Chatgpt described me as poetic philosopher or a Philosophical poet. And I, I love that description because I, I think of everything poetically. I want words to be beautiful. I want the sentences to have a, a melody to them. I, I want the words to have a resonance that goes beyond the transference of information. And I also really see this as a, as an art form, as a skill that there's a craft to be learned. There are things that I had to stop doing. Like, I had to stop swaying back and forth. I had to stop saying like, like, like there are, there are some real basic things like saying, you know, you know, you know, that people do early on. And I, I put myself through a ruthless personal filter to try to have an economy of words where everything I said mattered and every word belonged there, earned the right to exist.

[John Gafford]

So is this something you used a coach for early on or were you just, would you just watch back your performance and just pull it apart?

[Erwin McManus]

No, I didn't, I didn't have a coach, but I, I have a BA in philosophy and psychology and then I got a master's in theology. And in that master's degree they offered courses on, on communication. And I took every one of them I could. I just flooded myself with every single class that had anything to do with communicating and I would put myself through the gauntlet. And so I, and I took probably six different professors who all had different philosophies of communication, all had different approaches toward communication because I didn't want to learn under just one approach. And so I just really quickly began gleaning that. But I think there's another thing. I love story. So I started watching. I love stand up comedy. At first I was pretty much a stand up comic. I spent a lot of my time on stages holding an audience for 30 to 45 minutes, doing almost pure comedy. And, and I, so I studied comedic personalities because I knew that holding people captive in that arena is one of the hardest things in the world to do.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

I also studied film and story and read an endless number of, of, of science fiction and novels because I want to know what is it in a story that holds me captive? When does a story lose me? When do I get lost in that story? I would even talk about films and say there's kind of three different kinds of films. There's the film that you are aware you're watching and you can't wait till it's over.

[John Gafford]

Sure, sure. I get trapped into this every time. My daughter.

[Erwin McManus]

Then there's also the film that you're enjoying, but you're aware that you're watching it. And then there's a third kind of film where you forget you're watching the film and you're inside of the story. And when it's over, you feel like you've been jarred out of a reality you were living in. And I broke communication like that and began giving myself, like, a personal mission. I want to communicate in a way where people are wrapped inside of the story. I want to be that third kind of film where you no longer are a hearer or a listener and you're no longer simply observing it, you're now experiencing it.

[John Gafford]

Rennet, are you crafting, like, elements from, like, the hero's journey into what you do? Is that. Is it. Is it that scientific or no?

[Erwin McManus]

No. It's so funny because I developed my own methodologies and because of my psychology background. You know, early on, studying Freud, then Jung and Adler and all these different ideologies of human identity, I realized that what they all had in common that really attracted me was that they were all trying to understand human motivation. Why do humans do what they do? So I may not agree with Freud's conclusion, sure. But I think the question was really important to explore. So I spent quite a few years studying and determining what do I believe are the intrinsic motivators of all human beings? And they influence everything I do. I think every human being across the entire planet, throughout all of history, of any generation, economic class, educational system, ethnicity, language, every human being has the exact same human intrinsics. We all have a desperate need for meaning, a need for progress, and a need for intimacy. And all the human story can be understood in the interweaving of these three human intrinsics. So in my talks, those human intrinsics are always being threaded throughout the conversation.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. You know why I love, you know, even the first part of this conversation, I love that you spend so many hit the stage at so many entrepreneurial events because the message that's out there with so many of the entrepreneur bros. I love you, entrepreneur bros. So I'm friends with a lot of you guys, but the message at a lot of these conferences is like, college is a scam. College is this. And your gift, your talent, your skill set was really crafted at a university. So obviously you have a high regard for education.

[Erwin McManus]

Well, no, no, I. I'm sorry to destroy that bubble.

[John Gafford]

Okay, let's destroy the bubble.

[Erwin McManus]

And I was a straight D student, 1st to 12th grade, and didn't go to college. Didn't I? I eventually went to college because I was just drifting through life and it had no purpose or meaning, escaping the.

[John Gafford]

Drift were in the right place.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah. And so I was, I was the Drifter. That's why I do love the title. I begged my way into college. I walked into administrative office and said, I need you to look at a human being, give him a chance. That's how I got into school. And then I stumbled into philosophy and, and, and it worked for me. Philosophy was really important in my life, but I would say that most everything I learned in college was irrelevant, except for one thing. I learned how to learn. And that is the important takeaway. And so I don't care if it's college or trade school or learning on the streets. You need to learn how to learn. Where I learned how to communicate was on the streets. I spent 10 years working with gang bangers, with drug cartels, in the world of drugs and prostitution. I spent 10 years taking a basketball to government projects, playing their best athlete, earning the right to be heard, forming a crowd in those projects and talking to people, being a musician, going to the vicarage and the Mardi Gras and going into restaurants and asking if I could perform for free. And then after I would do a concert, I would talk to all of them about life and meaning. And I learned how to communicate in the gritty space. I find people throw things at me, yell at me, argue with me. And I learned how to respond in the moment because I was always dealing with really antagonistic audiences. I had to learn how to win them over. Yeah, that's actually where I learned how to.

[John Gafford]

The clock is ticking when you, when you start.

[Erwin McManus]

It was never in the classroom. I, I think when you learn how to communicate, you know, on a stage, you become domesticated as a speaker. I, I learned how to speak in the jungle.

[John Gafford]

How do you go? Well, how do you go from the introverted kid to doing that? Like, like, was it you feel. Calling. What was. What happened?

[Erwin McManus]

Well, I mean, for me it was. There was, it was very personal in that. I grew up very irreligious and not anti religious, just irreligious, you know, And I was in college, I was studying philosophy. I was really searching for meaning. I mean, the reason I poured my life into, you know, the, the works of like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and, you know, Marcus Aurelius and just everyone in that era and then also modern philosophers, wasn't because I'm an intellectual. It's because I was searching for meaning in my life. I was hoping one of those guys had stumbled on the meaning of life and I was willing to work through all their horrible writing with, like, Thoreau.

[John Gafford]

Meditations is a little slow, you know.

[Erwin McManus]

Like, anyone who works through Walden is just really committed. And so it wasn't that the reading was scintillating to me. It was just I wanted to know if we were here by accident. And then I had a faith encounter where I became a follower of Jesus, and it radically changed my whole view of myself and the world and life.

[John Gafford]

What was the event?

[Erwin McManus]

It was a series of events. My mom called me and said that she'd become a Christian, but I had no idea what that was. But she was happy, so I was happy for her. She'd been through a few divorces, a lot of pain, and anything that might give her happiness. I was 4, and then we would go home and see her in the summer for school, university break things. My brother was an atheist, and we were home for the summer working construction, and he started going to church. And I thought, this is really weird. You're an atheist. Why would you go to church? I confronted him. I said, you're a hypocrite. You're an atheist. You're going to church. You're even reading a Bible. What are you doing? And he said, you know, if I become a Christian, it's going to be an intellectual decision. I remember looking at my brother and saying, you're lying. You're just about to fall, and you're trying to set yourself up. Look like you're not collapsing under this religion. And so I kind of saw, like, coming to faith as a collapse of your. Your will. And so my whole family became people of faith. And. And because of them, I started meeting people who believed in Jesus. And I actually really liked them. And it was kind of troubling for me. You know, I would argue against God to people who believed in God and argue for God with people who did, who didn't believe in God, obviously. I just like the argument, the conversation just like.

[John Gafford]

To debate.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah, I just like. Yeah, I just like to see, you know, where it went. And I would argue with these Christians, and I pretty much always won the debate. And then it was over. They would say. I would say, well, then you have to stop believing. And they would go, no, just because we can't win the argument doesn't mean you're right. Yeah, they said, because what we know is that, you know, we've been loved by God and that Jesus died for us. And I'm like, this is so irritating that they're not surrendering to the argument. But what really struck me was I like them better than I like me. And they. They had something that I was searching for, and it wasn't perfection. It was just a sense of peace or a sense that they had value and worth, and that was very attractive to me. And. And so I. I remember the day I. I had not read the Bible. I didn't know much. I just kind of laid out a prayer going, hey, God, if you're out there, like, you know, I'd love to know. And. And Jesus, if you're real or if you're real, like, I'm in. You know, but I don't know how to validate that. I, you know, I was a little bit too logical for someone to say, well, the Bible says this, because why. Why would I believe the Bible? And. And they would say to me, yeah, but look right here, the Bible says it's God breathed. And I go, yeah, but if War and Peace said it's God breathed, does that make it God breathe? And so none of the arguments actually worked for me. Yeah, it was more a. I wish I could say, was this intellectual moment where I finally.

[John Gafford]

But I think you have to let go of. But you had to let go of your intellectual kind of side because you were. You were seeking with a scientific brain through, you know, stoicism and all of that stuff that happened there, looking for the answer. And kind of the answer was to let go.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah, I think the answer was to trust. Right. And. And all I can tell you is that when. When I did that, my life changed. And it was instantaneous for me. Some people, I know it's progressive, but for me it was like, maybe it's just the way I'm designed. I'm extremely obsessive. I'm intense. I'm intentional and passionate. And so the moment I said, jesus, give you my life, I went, all right, what does that mean? I'm just going at it. And somebody handed me a Bible. I read the opening of the Bible, and I real. And they told me, hey, you know, we're all called to, you know, to live our lives out following him. So I just said, okay, this is what I'm going to do. And I just. I just. From zero, went from zero to 100 right away. And it did. And that's where I started communicating. I would have never become a public speaker, except that for the first time in my life, I had something that I felt was worth sharing. And there's this interesting verse in the Bible in the book of Jeremiah. I didn't know we were going to go here, but hey, man, that's the.

[John Gafford]

Beautiful thing about this. We go wherever it goes. It just says what it is.

[Erwin McManus]

There's a verse that says, or Jeremiah says, but if I say I will not mention him or speak any longer in his name, his word is in my heart like a burning fire. Fire shut up in my bones. I'm weary of keeping it in. I cannot. And that verse became my life verse. I said, I want to be a person has a fire that burns so intensely inside of me that I can't remain silent. And it created a psychological shift inside of my life, which ironically sent me to work with drug cartels and gang bangers for 10 years.

[John Gafford]

Is that still the purpose that burns inside you today? What's that, what you just said?

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah, it just. But it's much broader because, like I, my, my relationship with Jesus affects everything in my life, but I'm not a person that, like I was just an event. And the person said, all that matters to me is heaven and hell and, and I know I'm supposed to resonate with that, but I don't.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

At all.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Like, life matters to me. Like, the fact that people are waking up every day without purpose and intention, drifting through life matters to me. The fact that people are not stepping into loving deeply and risking to give themselves completely to something that matters. Those things matter to me. And so in that sense, this life really matters to me. I did not give my life to Jesus so that I wouldn't worry about life after death. I gave my life to Jesus so that I could have life before death. And I think a lot of times people miss that point.

[John Gafford]

You know, I love that you're. We are in complete agreement about people that are drifting through life. And that's the mission of this podcast. It's the mission of my book coming out in November. It's kind of a war on apathy. Because for me, I think that the turning point, I think for a lot of people in this country was Covid. And the reason being is because what did we do during COVID What'd you do when they first locked us all down? You had to stay in your house. What'd you do? There's one word. You did it all day long. You waited.

[Erwin McManus]

Oh, I didn't.

[John Gafford]

You didn't during COVID Most people did.

[Erwin McManus]

During COVID I started a fashion company. I wrote a graphic novel.

[John Gafford]

You did?

[Erwin McManus]

I wrote a book called the Genius of Jesus. I bought an industrial sized smoker and started cooking dinner for 50 to 100 people every Friday. And they could Come and grab their meals, either eat with us secretly or take them to their homes. And, and so I actually turned those 18 months, because we were shut down in LA for 18 months, I turned them into 18 of the most productive months of my life.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, we did, we did pretty well business wise during it too. But I found that. But I think a lot of people were waiting. Yes. You know, you're, you're at home, you're waiting for your show to come on, you're waiting for the, for dinner, you're waiting for lunch, you're waiting for this. Because there wasn't a whole lot else. You couldn't go anywhere. You couldn't, you couldn't. Like Vegas was a ghost town. So we were locked down. And I think that the apathy that ran through that is still, is still permeates everywhere. I think about it like, and this is not picking on our friends in the hospitality industry, but before COVID like, I never really saw, when I had exceptional service at a restaurant, it didn't jump out at me because pretty much you got great service everywhere you went. Because there was a lot more caring, there's a lot more forethought, a lot more thought in what everybody did with the craft of what they did. Now it just seems like if you get amazing service somewhere, you're like, wow, that was amazing. Because it does stand out. Because the standards of everything in every industry, in our industry, in real estate, it's shocking to me. You know, I told a story a couple of weeks ago, I have a client shopping for multimillion dollar houses. And here our standard is if you take a listing over a million bucks, you're showing it. There is no lockbox. It doesn't exist. And we went and saw multiple, multiple houses that were just on lockbox with the lights off. And I'm thinking to myself, if this sells, you're going to make $100,000 and you can't come over here to open the door. And I think that that level of apathy just permeates through everything because people are just waiting. They're just drifting along waiting for something to happen. And I've made it my mission to try to stop that. And I know that's your mission as well.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, the sad thing is when people were in that, that vacuum because it felt like people were existing, not living.

[John Gafford]

Yes.

[Erwin McManus]

And the, the paralysis, the apathy, the lethargy that still remains to this day created so much mental health issues. If, if we could do an experiment and say, let's see if Humans are happier with less pressure.

[John Gafford]

They're not. They've done that. They've done this.

[Erwin McManus]

No, that's what.

[John Gafford]

With the mice. They did this with the utopian mice.

[Erwin McManus]

In the experiment was Covid.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

So in L. A. For 18 months, you don't have to go to work, you have to pay a bill. Everything's going to be taken care of. All you got to do is stay home, watch Netflix. And depression went through the roof. Human beings are not created to, quote, be taken care of.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. Well, do you know the study I'm talking about with the utopian mice? Yeah, I'm talking about.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, they took, I think it was like 500 mice, and they put them in a little city, created like a mouse utopia where they got everything they wanted, all the food, everything. Like these. These mice wanted for nothing. And after a period of about eight months, they stopped reproducing. They just stopped breeding. And then the whole society just. They turned on each other. The strong ones decided to beat up the weak. And it just. The whole is imploded because you've got to have a sense that you're doing something and purpose. So let me ask you this. How? What's your message to guide people to find that purpose? Because I know it's great.

[Erwin McManus]

Why? Because you know it's what?

[John Gafford]

Because I know it's great.

[Erwin McManus]

So I don't know if I always have a, like a general or generic message. I think people are uniquely different, but it just depends. I spend a lot of time with people who are already very self motivated because entrepreneurs are really self motivated. They just usually confuse outcomes with goals. Yeah, they think that success and fame and possessions are goals. Those are outcomes. Fame is a great outcome. You know, success is. Wealth is a great outcome. They're just terrible goals because if your identity is rooted in them, you're in trouble. And so a huge part of it for me is you're designed to actually be fully alive. And when you choose anything less, your soul begins to diminish. And you have to find that thing that wakes you up in the morning that you want to go fight for. I think I'm going to say this especially for men. I think we're designed to fight.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, we're designed in a sense, to go to war against whatever we consider to be the enemy in front of us. And whether it's loneliness or apathy, whether, you know, it's. It's, you know, being mediocre or accepting the status quo, or, or, or maybe it's fear and insignificance. But I think we're at our best when we're fighting for something that actually matters to us. It's a huge part of, for me, and I talked about it today. I know it's not PC, but I think obsession is a good thing. And, you know, everybody asked me, like, Irwin, how do you have work life balance? Look, I've been married 41 years to the same woman. Our kids are 36 and 33, and they both chose to buy houses within walking distance of us. That's how good of a relationship with our family.

[John Gafford]

Well done.

[Erwin McManus]

And I've always lived a life of obsession, and I never tried to be balanced. When they would come to me and go, how do you find balance? I would say, I'm not Mr. Miyagi, you know, I believed in a skewed life. I think you should find what you're good at, that you can do the most good in the world and give yourself fully to that and then build the universe of your life around that intention. And so Kim and I have lived a really intentional life, and my kids were in our intentional life, and it took me all over the world, but both my kids, by the time they were 18, had traveled to over 30 countries, both of them together. Yeah, it's amazing, you know, and, and if I had been balanced, I would have made sure they were in school every day. And I remember when I took Aaron out of, I think it was third grade or second grade, and he goes, dad, I can't leave. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna get the perfect attendance record. And I looked at her, I said, buddy, you are never going to have perfect attendance. They said, you're getting on an airplane with me. You're going to Tokyo, Japan.

[John Gafford]

We're gonna go learn something.

[Erwin McManus]

And, and we went to Tokyo, made her understand, you know, Japanese culture, Asian tuism, you know, the economy of that part of the world. And, and, and as we were there, I made a read, Catcher in the Rye, which I realize now was too young, at the age of 9 or 10, but it was one of the books, a little aggressive and, but I, I wanted my kids to understand that life is to be lived, not to be studied. And, and now they have beautifully, obsessively skewed lives.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, I, you know, I've got a, I, I've got a 17 year old that, that had some issues, played sports younger, but couldn't because just some medical issues that he has and he got obsessive about his grades, and it's like, all right, you know, I'm going to support you. I'm kind of with you. I'm like, I'd rather take you to Egypt and let's go see some stuff. But he was obsessive about these grades. And I will say this came out yesterday, number one in his class.

[Erwin McManus]

So amazing.

[John Gafford]

So, yeah, number one. He'll be valedictorian next year.

[Erwin McManus]

So only obsessed people become the best.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, you can't.

[Erwin McManus]

You can't do it.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, you can't. You can't do that. Right. Without being that way. So I. I completely agree with that. Let's talk a little bit about. Let's talk about the seven pillars, pillars of communication. Because I did love that talk. And I think people. I, I think it's. I. I love that it's becoming more in vogue to want to be a better communicator. What's his name? Jefferson. The attorney that just is blowing up everywhere on social media, just strictly telling you how to be a better communicator. And he's gone from zero to massive reach just because I think people are thirsty for that knowledge. So let's give him some. How do you become a better communicator?

[Erwin McManus]

Well, I mean, there's so many different aspects to it, but the first thing, to be a better communicator is that you have to have something to say. And a lot of people want to be speakers while having something to say. And if you want to have a more interesting message, you need to live a more interesting life. And so whenever, you know, we have a master class called the Art of Communication, and my team always wants me to start a lot of times with, like, techniques and methods. And I go, no, really, it starts with essence. And you have to be willing to change your inner world if you want to be a lifelong great communicator. And I can teach you how to move your hands and how to stand on a platform and how to own a stage and. And the physicality of all that. I, you know, I can teach you all the techniques of that simply because I've learned them over a lifetime, but I learned them the other way around. I didn't learn the techniques and then became the person. I became the person, and the techniques came naturally.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Out of that process. And. And so I think that, you know, to be a great communicator, you have to realize the entire purpose of communication is human connection. And if your goal is simply a transmission of information, you'll Never be a world class communicator. But if your goal is human connection, you have a chance of getting there. And communication is an organic part of the human experience. It's not just what we do on stage, it's what we're doing right now. It's what you do with your wife, it's what you do with your kids. And the one predictive ceiling in every area of your life of how good your marriage will be, of how good your parenting will be, of how good your business will be, is your ability to master communication. If you don't learn the art of communication, you will have a low ceiling in life. So for me, the reason I focus on helping people with communication is that it actually destroys the ceilings in every arena of our lives. Now, the book itself is called the Seven Frequencies of Communication. And I know frequencies are kind of. They feel almost like a metaphysical, like.

[John Gafford]

No, I love that. I love that word because. Because for me, like they're sit. Like I'm very much. I think cities have a frequency. Yes.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah, Everything has a freak, which is.

[John Gafford]

Why New Orleans is my favorite place in the world. For whatever reason, that frequency just resonates with me. And we spend a lot of time in New Orleans. But. Yeah, but, but you're 100.

[Erwin McManus]

No, you're right. Because, like, when you're looking at cities like London and Paris.

[John Gafford]

Yes.

[Erwin McManus]

And Rio de Janeiro, they all have very different frequencies. And because cultures have different ethos, they have an essence that you can experience when you're there. And I was just seeing today how plants actually have like telepathic capacity where if you're the person who waters plants every day and takes care of them, they can actually, they make a, an electronic shift when you're within a mile and a quarter of them. And so they can actually tell when you're within a mile of their presence. Now, if plants are that connected to humans, can you imagine the connection we're created to have as human beings? And most of the time, our disconnection is because we're on the wrong frequency. We're on the wrong wavelength. And so what I did to try to help people is identify seven primary frequencies of human communication. And it's. This is just a communication style. It's connected to your neurological process. It's the way you perceive reality, the way you process information and the way you transmit it. And so we just basically broke down to seven. The Motivator, the Challenger, the Commander, the Healer, the professor, the Seer, and the Maven. And each one of these is a Different, unique, distinct human communication process. Just to shortcut this in some ways. My wife's primary frequency is commander. And I've been married for 41 years.

[John Gafford]

I know that wife.

[Erwin McManus]

And what's so funny is every night before she goes to bed, she always goes to bed about four hours before me. The last thing I say to my wife is, I love you. And the last thing that Kim says to me is, lock the doors and turn off the lights. Every night, she gives me those two commands as if I'd never thought of it before. And every night I want to say, well, that's a great idea. I never thought of that. And she psychologically cannot go to bed with peace of mind without telling me to lock the doors and turn off the lights. She has to end the day with command. Now, she wakes up every day about 4 in the morning. And if I'm awake, I just pretend I'm asleep. Because the moment she catches, I'm awake.

[John Gafford]

Here comes.

[Erwin McManus]

Here comes the first command. Let's make the bed, or let's do that. And. And I'm like, you know, I just want to kind of chill my first hour. Just do whatever I want to do. But because her frequency is command, even suggestion comes across like command. My son's my business partner now. His number one frequency is command. So I live in a world where I have no confusion about what I should do.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Because commanders are very utilitarian, very direct, very point A to point B. My daughter's primary frequency is called the Challenger. And she's amazing, and she's beautiful, and we're so close. But even her texts come across as challenges, even when she's trying to encourage me. Like, I'm 66 now, almost 67. And so she says, dad, you're at the age now where you should only do what you love. You should only do things that make you happy. Because she's. She knows me, and I've done a lot of things in my life just for other people's happiness or just serve other people, even though it didn't give me fulfillment. And so she's trying to hold me to the principle of only if you're happy. But when she asked me, she goes, dad, are you happy? I could feel the challenge, like, dad, are you. Are you. Are you doing this because you love it? And it always comes across like a challenge. It never feels warm or soft, like, you know, dad just want you to be happy, you know?

[John Gafford]

And I know that daughter, too. I know that daughter.

[Erwin McManus]

So each frequency has a very different dynamic. And you need those frequencies throughout life. But every frequency also has a shadow. The commander is the dictator. The challenger is the manipulator. The motivator is the performer. The healer is what's called a cipher. The professor is a diminisher. The seer is a perfectionist, and the maven is a nihilist. And what the challenge in life is that your shadow frequencies can actually make you successful. And so I wish I could say you can only succeed if you use your authentic frequencies, but it's not true.

[John Gafford]

Right?

[Erwin McManus]

We. I have a mastermind called the arena that we do online with people all over the world. And when we came out with the seven frequencies, I said, pick a TV show and I'll break it down based on the seven frequencies. They picked two friends and secession. I didn't want to do friends, so I did Secession.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, why not? Man, That's a. That's a. That's a lesson in. In modern psychology. If there's never been one, I just.

[Erwin McManus]

Don'T know an entrepreneur who has not watched the session.

[John Gafford]

Unbelievably great.

[Erwin McManus]

And so I watched the session, and I cannot find a single one of the seven frequencies. And so I freak out. Right? You know, I'm having a little panic.

[John Gafford]

Because they're bouncing around so heavily.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, oh, no, it doesn't work. This paradigm doesn't work. And then this little inner voice said, go back and listen for the shadows. And I went back and I realized there are seven main characters, and they all have a perfect frequency from the seven frequencies, only in the shadow. So the commander is always a dictator.

[John Gafford]

What's the worst version? That show is definitely the worst version of everybody.

[Erwin McManus]

So I've made it through every episode now, through every season, and they never leave their shadow. And so a couple of things come to mind is it's a reminder that you can become a billionaire and live your entire life in the shadows. You can have great wealth and power and be eaten away in the shadows. But also, we have an entire generation that's being taught how to communicate almost dominantly from shadow frequencies.

[John Gafford]

How so?

[Erwin McManus]

Because that's what they're learning on television through film, through culture.

[John Gafford]

This is how people talk to each other.

[Erwin McManus]

This is how you talk to each other. And then also social media and the disconnection of face to face interaction allows us to operate in our shadows with impunity.

[John Gafford]

I tell my kids all the time, the number one skill you can develop over the next 15 years is the ability to connect with another human being. One on one, eyeball to eyeball. Because your entire generation has their face down in the phones. And you will eat your generation for lunch if you can do that. One skill.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

Because it's just. It's going to be short order.

[Erwin McManus]

No, it is. And. And, you know, it's just a good reminder going in a text. Is that how you would say it? Face to face?

[John Gafford]

Yeah, dude. As some of the coaches, salespeople a lot, it's. Stop texting your clients. There's no context. There's no context to those words. There's no color to. There's no meaning to it. It just. There's. There's a key and peel sketch where they're texting each other, and it's like, you want to go. And he's the one guy's like, oh, do you want to go? He's like, you want to go? And it's like just completely misinterpreting each text back and forth. But that solidifies it. It's funny you talk so much about frequency and feeling. Do you consider yourself an empath?

[Erwin McManus]

Why do you ask me that?

[John Gafford]

I'm just asking. It seems like you. It seems like a good question based on what you said.

[Erwin McManus]

It is. I do. And probably about 20 years ago, I was invited to be a part of something at the Gallup organization, where they graph like the top leaders in the world. And I had the highest score in empathy that ever tested. And I remember when I was young, I used to say I can see emotions the way people see furniture. And I didn't understand how everyone else couldn't see them, because for me, what's happening inside of a person is as visible as what's happening outside, and it's not an ability you want. And I can tell when people are lying to me.

[John Gafford]

Well, that part would be helpful.

[Erwin McManus]

It is, except we lie to each other far more than we think. And I. Sometimes I just want to pretend they're not lying to me or lying to themselves.

[John Gafford]

Which is worse.

[Erwin McManus]

Which is worse. Right. You know, and. And as a speaker, it became incredibly helpful to me because I can feel everyone in the room that.

[John Gafford]

Well, that was my next question based on that, which is, obviously, everybody's at a different place. So as you're speaking, does that make it easier or harder? Because you're like, I got you. I don't have you.

[Erwin McManus]

Like, you can feel where people are. I can. I can feel. I mean, you could be 300 seats back, and I'll feel your sadness.

[John Gafford]

Wow.

[Erwin McManus]

And. And then I'll focus on that person and speak to them. And. And I also know that when you're doing that, it's also connecting to a lot of other people.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah. And I. I remember when my daughter, Mariah, she traveled with me for months and months and months when she was probably 12 years old, 11 years old, and after we'd finished a lot of travels, we were sitting at a Chinese restaurant. She said, dad, can I ask you a question? I said, of course. And she said, you can read people's minds, can't you? And I said, no, sweetie, I can read their hearts.

[John Gafford]

Wow.

[Erwin McManus]

She said, you know, you're scary, Daddy. And I just tried to explain to her that people will tell you more than they even know they're telling you. And it was probably a couple days later she said, you know, dad, you know how I said that you can, like, see inside of people? And she goes, I can do that too. Can I? I said, yeah, you can. And it. I think there's an awareness. I think humans communicate in so many different ways, and some of it is just making sure that your. Your antennas are up so you can perceive and hear and understand. And, and, and by the way, I don't know how you can stay married if you don't learn how to read the frequency, not the language. Right.

[John Gafford]

Read the room. Does it. Because of that skill set, does it hurt more when you're wrong?

[Erwin McManus]

I've been wrong so much that I don't know, like, you know, that's a bruise that just doesn't heal.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, I. I have a really high trust in people. And my. My kids and my wife, we. We just took this assessment together. I love. We. I create a lot of assessments, and because of my psychology background and, and so we love a lot of these. And my wife and my two kids both came out low trust. Like, they're the people where they go, I don't trust you until you earn my trust. Yeah, I'm high trust. I'm. I trust everyone until you prove me to me.

[John Gafford]

You give reason not to. The reason I asked that is because obviously now in the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur world, it seems like every day I turn on. And so and so got indicted, so and so got arrested. It's like, good lord, this is becoming an epidemic. A lot of these guys that I' sat at dinner tables with, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's not a good look. So does that. Does that jade you to. Because you're in it with the entrepreneurs that all the time, it has to Jade, you to this a little bit. So has that shifted? With some.

[Erwin McManus]

With some of this, I go with my intuition.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Like, I. Because trust and intuition are not the same thing. Like, I have a view that I trust humanity because I want to believe in a trustworthy world. But my intuition, it tells me, hey, something's off, and you get it right away. You just have to pay attention to it.

[John Gafford]

Well, or. Or you can do what I did. You marry it. Because my wife is very much an empath. And I have had. I've had. I've been really lucky, right? I've been very, very successful. A lot of stuff we've done. I've had two deals go very, very poorly. Like, like seven figure loss deals, right? And both times my wife was like, don't do this deal. I don't like these people. I don't want. I don't. I do not do this deal. No, no, no, it'll be fine. Because again, I like to see the best in everybody. I think the numbers work. It's great. These are good people. No, no, don't do that. So now, after the last seven figure loss, which is a couple of years ago, we have a deal. I don't do anything unless. Unless she says it's okay. And there's been times I've been at, like, events or conventions, and I'm talking business. I mean, I'm like, you know, hey, I'm. One second, I just got to go get somebody. I'll go get my wife and I'll say, I just need to be around this person for five minutes.

[Erwin McManus]

But people will tell you who they are.

[John Gafford]

Oh, yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

And you really.

[John Gafford]

She's got it. I.

[Erwin McManus]

You just have to pay attention. No, they'll always. They'll always disclose themselves in a statement that you think is arbitrary.

[John Gafford]

How so?

[Erwin McManus]

A great example. I don't know why it just came to my mind right now. It's an early video with Joe Biden, okay, President Joe Biden, where they were talking about, you know, corruption and government around that, and they made him the exception, saying, well, we know you're not corrupt, but how do you deal with all corruption in politics? He goes, don't assume too quickly. I'm not corrupt. And then he goes on.

[John Gafford]

Why would he say that?

[Erwin McManus]

Because people tell you who they are because we can't help it. And especially when you're even bordering to a bit of narcissism, you want to give people clues so you can show how smart you are that they couldn't find you out.

[John Gafford]

God, it is Something that speaks from. Is something that speaks from stage and has a lot of people that listen to you. Do you ever. At all. Does it. Does. Does narcissism ever worry you? Because I know for me, sometimes I'm like, dude, am I narcissist? Like, I. Like, I go. Like. I. I try to constantly check that to make sure that I'm not slipping into that.

[Erwin McManus]

I can give you an assessment that I use my personal coaching.

[John Gafford]

I love that. Shot a narcissist live on camera. Here we go.

[Erwin McManus]

I remember all psychological designations are descriptions, not definitions.

[John Gafford]

Okay.

[Erwin McManus]

We can. We are so arbitrary. We go, you know, oh, I'm bipolar, or I'm schizophrenic, or I'm anticompressive or. No, those are their descriptives of symptoms. They're actually not diseases. So when you call someone narcissist, there are some people who are clinical narcissists.

[John Gafford]

I think I've dated a few.

[Erwin McManus]

But there's also narcissistic tendencies that we can have that we war against.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

And one of the ways of knowing you're not a narcissist is that you don't want to be one.

[John Gafford]

Ah. Fair. We're winning today on the podcast. Outstanding.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, it's like. It's. It's the line near the end of season one of Billions, and if you ever watched.

[John Gafford]

Oh, yeah, great.

[Erwin McManus]

When Axe asks, you know, am I an. Am I a narcissist or a sociopath? And she says, you're a narcissist with a God complex. Whether you're a sociopath or not is up to you.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

He goes, well, I'm concerned because my best friend just died, and I'm not worried about it, and that concerns me. And she said, if you're a sociopath, that wouldn't concern you.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. And so it wouldn't concern you that you're not concerned.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah. Yeah. And so. And I know we're diving it off a little bit here, but. Yes. Well, I was having this conversation today. The last five years, I've probably spent a huge amount of my time studying how can you achieve the same level of success that is. That requires a level of narcissism to achieve it.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Because so many people who break that 50 million mark are inherently natural narcissists. But it doesn't mean that's essential for success, but it does mean there are certain characteristics inside of that that are essential for success. And. And so if you're not a narcissist, you have to figure out how to Develop an insane level of self confidence while you still know that you're flawed. How do you shift out of a sense that you're not? That success for you is, is not legitimate or worthy of it. And because a narcissist will never question that. Like, there's never a point where a narcissist is rich enough that says, I have too much.

[John Gafford]

It's more, more, more.

[Erwin McManus]

It's not even the greed. It's just, I deserve more.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

So it's, it's different when people think. It's not like I need more, I want more. It's like, I just, I deserve more. You know, of course I'm gonna have more. I'm just, I'm not good.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, and so it's just, we're like, I breathe, you know, and if you're not one, you have to find the right psychological tools to replace those things. And, and so, you know, and obviously I've had other people come into my life to give me tasks because the worst thing in the world would be to test yourself, Right?

[John Gafford]

Sure.

[Erwin McManus]

And I've used certain formats with about a dozen multimillionaire billionaires. And a part of the agreement is, I show you mine, you show me yours. We put everyone's grid on the wall, and all of them were shocked that my structure was the exact opposite of theirs.

[John Gafford]

Like, how are you doing what you're doing if you're not built the same way we are?

[Erwin McManus]

Yes.

[John Gafford]

And were they also, were they similar?

[Erwin McManus]

They were all identical. Yeah. You, you, you would have thought they came out of the same cell. Identical. Wow. So I do know the characteristics that make people highly successful, and I also know the shadow of those. And. But see, from the flip side, I go, I have, I have my own shadows, and I have to figure out how to put light on my shadows and then what are your shadows? Oh, my gosh. You know, I. So many issues, probably from growing up and things like that. And I'm an immigrant from El Salvador. I never knew my real father. My grandparents raised me for the first few years. My mom came and took me back. My mom married a guy in creative underground economies that needed an alias to run from a very tight knit family out of Chicago, mostly Italians. And so I became a McManus overnight. And I had an alias all my life. Are you kidding? I am the recipe for psychosis. I was in a psychiatric chair by the time I was 10 years old. Yeah, I was in and out of hospital for six months and for what they told me was psychosomatic. Illnesses. And so I was so shattered and so broken that I never had a sense of. Of value, that I could ever do anything that mattered. I don't know if you know who Ed. My lead is.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, of course.

[Erwin McManus]

So I. I did Ed's podcast the last time I did it. Done it a few times. But yeah, he asked me a question that kind of threw me off a little bit. You ever get complimented? You know, something's coming, you know.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, here it comes.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah. And, you know, he said, erwin, you know, you're like, you know, we have a group of friends. And he said, in that group, everyone considers you a genius. The smartest person in the room, the best communicator. And he went on through a long thing. He goes, but you always seem to have a lack of self confidence. And he goes, can you explain that? And, and. And I remember saying, yeah, you're right. I. I have to. I don't wake up in the morning going, I'm the best person for this. Or, I got this. Or, you know, I wake up in the morning going, I have the capacity to fail. 10 more times and I'll get up 11. Like, what I have confidence in is my ability to overcome failure.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, your resilience is through the root.

[Erwin McManus]

I'm a super resilient person, but I've never had a perception of having more talent than anyone else. Or. I mean, I was raised believing basically I was retarded. It took psychological intervention for someone to tell me that. That I had inherent genius. And even in that, that makes me really uncomfortable to say that. Yeah. You know, because it didn't change my self perception, but it did help me. Someone telling me there's something inside of me that was valuable.

[John Gafford]

So you don't find that the external input there dwindles down. That opinion in your. In your own. I mean, because, dude, everybody's got to tell you what I told you when we started this today.

[Erwin McManus]

Well, it's. It's. Yeah, it's because when it's in you, you know, those inner voice, that's how I know how to still fight.

[John Gafford]

Even though you hear it every day, you're still. You still suffer with those demons.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah, I still wake up going, oh, today everybody's going to figure out that I'm not very bright, you know, I mean, yeah, today's the day. Everyone's gonna pull the curtain back today, you know, and. And it's. You can't. You can. You can't silence the voices. You can overcome them. And so a huge part of What I do with people is I, I don't try to help people get rid of negative internal emotions. I try to help them take that fuel and turn it to positive energy.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Because it's like, I don't know how to not feel fear sometimes. I know how to turn fear to your advantage. You know, I, I, I'm not one of those people. In fact, I was just in a conversation today versus, you know, l is not a loss, it's a lesson. And I go, no, L is a loss. It's just not terminal.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah, you're not done. You're not out of business.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, I don't like when people say, oh, you never fail. I'm like, no, I failed a lot. It's just that failure is not defining. Like, we want to redefine the negative experience. I actually want to own the negative experience and go, and I'm tough enough to get through that. I mean, I lost about 6 to $10 million in one day, and I lost a lot of money.

[John Gafford]

That's a tough clip.

[Erwin McManus]

That's a tough one. And I couldn't eat for 30 days. I lost so much weight. I looked awesome. But, you know, I got down to 169. For me, that was, like, super low because I couldn't hold food down. It was a real loss. I had to fly home and tell my wife I lost everything. That was more humiliating than losing the money. My wife is an orphan raised in a foster home from the age of 8 to 18. My whole, like, psychology of being a husband is she's never going to have to worry about not having a place. And I remember sitting down with Kim and saying, honey, I lost everything without blinking an eye. My wife looked at me and said, I thought I was your everything.

[John Gafford]

Man.

[Erwin McManus]

I'm like, where did you come from?

[John Gafford]

What else do you need? Let's get a can of Vienna sausages and plan tomorrow. Let's go. Like, come on.

[Erwin McManus]

And I, I didn't have a great response. I just said, well, I lost my other everything. Yeah, everything that finances my everything.

[John Gafford]

I lost everything that pays for everything, stuff that, that everything.

[Erwin McManus]

And she said, we've been poor before, and you've always found a way, you know, this is just the beginning of something new and, and coming out of that year, and it was brutal. And, you know, I'm a person of faith, so I kept praying for a miracle, you know, And I felt like what God was saying to me is that you wanted me to meet you in your faith, but I met you in your Faithfulness. And sometimes faithfulness is the great miracle that you become a stronger person. Then coming out of that, I loved going. I lost like $10 million in a day.

[John Gafford]

I'm still here.

[Erwin McManus]

I'm in like the 1% of the world. You can't lose that much money and not be elite.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true.

[Erwin McManus]

And it was all because the betrayal of a business partner. And that was actually the more so.

[John Gafford]

You missed on that. Ah, you missed that.

[Erwin McManus]

I did, but I saw all the signs.

[John Gafford]

Ah, that's good.

[Erwin McManus]

And.

[John Gafford]

And did you choose not to see it?

[Erwin McManus]

I did. Yeah, I did. You know, that's why you get a.

[John Gafford]

Weakness for people and you just want. You want to you. Even if it's the smallest glimmer of good you want.

[Erwin McManus]

I don't have a perfect record.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, but I. I actually love reminding myself and other people we're in the middle of an NBA and it's the Pacers against the Thunder. And in the normal human construct, there's going to be a winner and a loser. But the truth is that one team will lose the championship, but no one walks away as a loser. Those are some of the greatest athletes in the world, accomplishing what not even 1% or 1% or 1% in the world can accomplish. And we're going to describe the team that doesn't win four games as a loser. We have really unhealthy, unhealthy mental constructs.

[John Gafford]

You know, I try to. I have something that I use to try to break that down in myself, which is risk. When I deal with risk, aversion, my. My totem or my talisman, whatever you want to call it, wear on my neck, which is. This is memento more. You'll appreciate that from your, from your stoicism, but on the back of it, I've had now seven guys that at one time in my life I would consider in that the top three best friend are right there in that crew. Seven of them are gone.

[Erwin McManus]

Oh, wow.

[John Gafford]

And I wear that on my neck. And whenever I'm worried about stress about something, I look at this and I just go, any one of these dudes would be going to anything to be here. Yeah. Doing what I'm doing. Yeah. You know, and they're not here. So, you know, what are you worried about? What's the worst that could happen? You know, you're going to get up tomorrow and figure out a new way to fight. If this doesn't go right or goes.

[Erwin McManus]

South, you know, I have to say Something about the title.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

One, I'm fascinated by drifts and began studying drifts probably like 20 years ago. And part of the reason for that is that drifts create an illusion of momentum. And because when you realize I'm stealing.

[John Gafford]

This, when I go on my podcast or for the book, I'm gonna steal.

[Erwin McManus]

Everything you're saying, because when you're drifting, you are moving.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

And so it's an illusion of momentum, but you're actually being moved by the environment around you rather than you moving the environment from within you. And what's really fascinating about every virtue or vision that a human being has, we always drift to the lesser version of ourselves. You cannot drift to greatness. You can't drift to your highest expression of talent. You can't even drift towards your character. I've thought to myself, why is character so hard? Right. You know. You know, character is hard. You know how we know very few people have it, Right.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

Everything that's easy, everyone has.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, it's. It's hard to be physically healthy. It's easy to be overweight.

[John Gafford]

Sure.

[Erwin McManus]

Like, I don't become overweight. When I make a decision to be overweight, I don't wake up going, you know, I think I'm going to gain like £20. Right. I just decide not to be healthy. And so the drift happens when I stop fighting for the higher version of myself. And so there is no neutral. You can't go, oh, I'm not going to be great, but I'm not going to drift, because the drift happens when you stop pursuing the best version of you. And so if you think about every emotion that is negative comes easy. And every emotion that is positive takes work. Hate is easy. Love is hard.

[John Gafford]

Work builds self esteem. And which. Yeah, pretty much all positive emotions, in my opinion, are built off self esteem.

[Erwin McManus]

That's right.

[John Gafford]

And if you don't have that, you got nothing. You're never gonna be happy, never gonna have pride, none of it.

[Erwin McManus]

Because you don't have to work being bitter. You just have to not forgive.

[John Gafford]

Yeah. Just be bitter.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah. And so I started looking at it going, we shouldn't expect character to be any different than, like, athletic greatness or academic greatness, because the highest version of you is going to take work, because greatness never comes without work. And so, ironically, like, escaping the drift is not a place where the drift is impossible, because the drift is always possible the moment you stop moving forward.

[John Gafford]

Well, again, like I talked. We talked earlier about the purpose was the apathy running through and that suggests the underperformer. Right. I know a lot of high performers that stop paying attention, stop focusing, and they get sucked right back in. Yeah. And even though, and they may be, I call it failing successfully is what they're. Is what essentially they're doing if I'm successful, because they just don't even realize that it's happening.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah. A lot of times the drift is you're pursuing financial success and you lose. You lose your marriage and your kids.

[John Gafford]

Yeah, yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, and so the drift can actually happen inside of like the swim.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You know, and I remember my brother and I, and my brother in law, we were out in Florida years and years ago and there were signs, you know, the undertow was too dangerous.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

We went out anyway, you know, because that's what dudes do in their 20s, you do, you know. And so we went out and we got sucked into this undertow. Just kept pulling us out further and further, further out.

[John Gafford]

You got to swim sideways. You swim sideways.

[Erwin McManus]

We, we were, we were trying Florida.

[John Gafford]

Boy, you swim sideways.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah. I grew up in Miami, you know, and, and they were like bullhorning. You need to get out because it was super dangerous. And we're trying. And we're going to send out lifeguards. We're like, no, we were just too proud. Like we're going to fight our way back in. Eventually they had to bring the little boats out there, you know, speed boats, whatever it was, and jet skis. And we did not want the help back in, but we went. So we traveled probably a mile. But what's interesting is that when we did nothing, we went where we did not want to go.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

And that's the danger of the drift is that you have to be so intentional or you end up where you don't want to go. And so many people end up saying, I don't know how I got here.

[John Gafford]

Well, and I think we're about to have an epidemic of people with AI taking low end jobs and eliminating things left. Right. I mean, a good friend of mine that, you know, is an author, he does ghostwriting, copywriting work. And he just hit me up the other day out of the blue and he's like, hey, I'm looking for a friend of mine, owns a very large company and he saw an ad there and he's like, oh, you know, they have this job. Can you give, you know, can you refer me? And I just said, dude, nothing for nothing. You're applying for copywriter jobs. Like you, you need to pivot. Like you need like, yeah. Even though it's not as good as you, all these companies just assume that the AI is good enough and, and it's just going to be good enough. So you, you need to pivot now. And I just think there's going to be a sea of these people that are not living with intention, that are going to be lost very soon.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah, I agree.

[John Gafford]

And I plan on fighting that back as much as I can, too.

[Erwin McManus]

I'm one of the people I'm not afraid of. I. I'm actually really excited.

[John Gafford]

I love it. I love it. It's. I. Because I love it for several reasons. Number one, it's like for what we do here in the real estate industry. And yes, there's a. There's a million bad realtors. I understand that. I've got 585 good ones that work for us here. That's what I like to believe. But I think that, again, it's that human connection with people that I will not be able to replicate. And you know, they said when Expedia came out and orbits came out or not orbits, when Zillow came out, they said, oh, just like the travel agent got killed by the computer in Orbitz and Expedia, you guys are done. Real estate agents are going away. Well, no, because there's still a certain group of the population that needs somebody to look across from them as they're making the largest single financial transaction of their life and say, this is okay and that need will never go away. And a robot's just not going to get them there.

[Erwin McManus]

No, because when you're buying and selling it, you know, as a person who's just a customer. I've bought several homes and sold several homes. But you're looking for someone you can trust.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

You're not really looking for. You feel, you're not looking for information because you feel like everyone has the information. Like, in a sense, every realtor can access the same data.

[John Gafford]

Yeah.

[Erwin McManus]

But you really want to find this person you can trust.

[John Gafford]

I'm going to take. You're looking for certainty is what you're looking for in a. In somebody in any field that sales, if you can. Like you just said, the data is out there.

[Erwin McManus]

Yeah.

[John Gafford]

You need to sell certainty and that's what we sell here.

[Erwin McManus]

I love that.

[John Gafford]

So let's do this. My random chat GPT odd questions to ask you. We're going to do a light. We're going to go lightning round. Right. We're going to go fast. As we, as we wrap this up, we're Going to go fast. You ready? What's one book you wish people would stop quoting?

[Erwin McManus]

Oh, wow, that is a great question. First of all, I'm rarely caught off guard by question.

[John Gafford]

Good job, Chat GPT.

[Erwin McManus]

Good job, man. I'm just gonna. I shouldn't say this out loud. I have a book that I wrote called the Barbary Ny and it's coming out right now as its 20th anniversary. So I shouldn't say this, but I have more people still quoting that book to me 20 years later. And I'm like, I've written 14 other.

[John Gafford]

Books, I've done other things.

[Erwin McManus]

Could you stop quoting that one?

[John Gafford]

Okay, fair. What is the most overrated leadership trait?

[Erwin McManus]

Oh, the most overrated leadership trait I would say is charisma.

[John Gafford]

Charisma. Okay. What's something people assume about you that is completely wrong?

[Erwin McManus]

That I'm extroverted.

[John Gafford]

You're extroverted. Okay. What scares you more? Success you didn't earn or failure you didn't see coming?

[Erwin McManus]

Success I didn't earn.

[John Gafford]

Okay, one lesson your younger self was too arrogant to hear.

[Erwin McManus]

You need to put the work in.

[John Gafford]

You need to put the work in.

[Erwin McManus]

Okay.

[John Gafford]

All right. If Jesus had an Instagram, what would his bio say?

[Erwin McManus]

Oh, wow. And it would say, private link. Click to join.

[John Gafford]

All right, last one, last one. What's one question you hope nobody ever asks you on podcasts, but they always do.

[Erwin McManus]

The one question, always, I find, I don't know why it drives me crazy, is what would you say to your 25 year old self?

[John Gafford]

There it is. And there it is. If they want to find you, how do they find you?

[Erwin McManus]

You go to my website, irwinmakemanage.com and you can learn about the arena, which is our online mastermind, and some of the events we do. And that's probably the easiest place you can find me.

[John Gafford]

I love that. Well, this we could, I could go literally on for two hours here if we could. But new. Thank you so much. You're more than welcome. It's great to know anytime you ever want to come back, man, I would love to have you back. Guys, here's the deal. If you. I hope you're listening to this still because that means you got a lot out of it. Because I got a lot out of it. And you know, communication is so important to what we do. But at the end of the day, if I learned anything today from Irwin, which is if you don't have anything to believe in that's driving you, what comes out of your mouth doesn't really matter anyway. We'll see you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift. Com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review, Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.