Phil In The Blanks #60 - Jon Taffer

today is really special for me I say special for a lot of reasons but especially when I get to sit down with a really good friend and if it's a good friend that I have a lot in common with then it's extra special and today that's what's happening because I've got a awful lot in common with this guy from a lot of different angles which you'll see as we get going I'm talking about Jon Taffer now you may know Jon from bar rescue I've watched every episode probably twice I mean I do I go back through them and watch them cuz I have moments that I wait for cuz it's like wait for this wait for it there it is and let me tell you some things about Jon that you may not know before I let him talk he is an award-winning hospitality expert he doesn't just roll up on bars and start giving people grief he really comes from the position that knowledge is power he's an entrepreneur he's a New York Times bestselling author he's a husband he's a father and he's credited largely with creating the concept for the NFL Sunday Ticket which I'm also a big fan of and he's been doing Bar rescue since 2011 and if you don't watch it you need to start it needs to be one of your must-see programs that you watch it's got heart it's got information it's got motivation and inspiration it's not really about bars it really isn't is it no it's battle people who hit barriers in life so in a film yeah they get to a certain point and they can't go any farther yeah when I first started watching it I really enjoyed watching the physical transformation of the bars because the before and afters were so dramatic I'm the kind of guy that likes to paint a black wall white and so I like to see the progress as I go along but it didn't take me very long to realize that the bar is just really a prop for life and for you getting these people to stop accepting mediocrity from themselves yes whether it's the fact that they're drinking or they've just that they can't do any better than they're doing or allowing themselves to be less than they can be in the way they treat other people or their spouses and you're doing therapy you're doing life coaching you're doing inspiration with these people and it's just damn good I'm just telling you it's this good work thank you feel you know it's interesting in reality TV you know television wants to pre-plan everything and we don't I get there I've never been there before I've never met these people before you know that so it's a challenge to find that spot and you do it real well where is the point where their brain bogs down where is that barrier that they can't get past and bar rescues is very much about confronting them with their own accountability yeah and people don't realize I said that I enjoyed sitting down with a good friend that I have so much in common with from a lot of different angles and one of it is that we don't work from scripts and the reason we don't work from scripts is because I can't know what I'm gonna say or do until I hear what they have to say or do there's no way you can script that now you can you can learn who they are I know their names I know how long they've been married or you know how long they've been in business or whatever we know some of the background but we don't know how they're gonna respond until we hear it so it's not scripted it truly is reality and a lot of reality shows have 10 or 12 or 15 riders yes we have none yes I have none either yeah it's truly reactive to the situation but isn't that what's fun for you I know that's what's fun for me it keeps it fresh of course it keeps it fresh after hundreds of shows and I'm starting my 192nd tonight it's it's when you look in somebody's eyes it's like episode one yeah it's over again every single time you never know yeah yeah your first job as a bar consultant was in 1978 at the Troubadour at the true but right here in LA yeah my son Jordan has performed at the Troubadour and I've been there to see other artists The Troubadour for people that don't know is a truly iconic venue here in LA Linda Ronstadt jazz tailor on Elton John everybody has played there and what did you do for them by at 78 I started as a doorman believe it or not cuz I was a musician I was a drummer yeah and I moved here as a drummer to pursue a musical career so I would play at the troubadour at night with bands sometimes and I was it started as a doorman ended up his manager really of the trivet of the troubadour and Doug Westin who was alive then who owned that had this unbelievable ear fill he would he had all drill to real tapes in his house and people would send them reel-to-reel tapes and he would listen to the tape and put him on a troubadour and he was a star maker Wow yeah I remember real real tapes was Fisher yes back then yes 3m one sack exactly but you didn't study music you studied political science I did in college were you planning to be in politics or I also study cultural anthropology I was fascinated by primates and societies of primates and primal instincts and what causes us to act the way we do we're kind of cro-magnons so so yeah kind of fits so I've always studied human behavior I've been fascinated by it and political sciences in so many ways human behavior contingency plans I do this you do that too chess game planning ahead so I find all that fascinating did you ever work much as a bartender I did for the first few years I worked as a bartender at Barney's Beanery down the street yeah from the Troubadour yeah and I only cut through from Santa Monica up to sunset in 1978 I'm showing my age here yeah I had the record in st. Patrick's Day I poured 42 hundred bucks that night in 1978 on my own I had the record I'm sure it's been broken since then but I was darn good my day well people don't know John is really a major force in the nightclub bar business he's a two-time winner of the bar operator of the Year award he's got this Taffer dynamics which is a method of management that has has really become the gold standard in the industry because in the bar business you just get robbed blind if you don't have systems and ways to meter and check things out and John has just really mastered that across time you've just overseen and facilitated synergies among nightclub and bar conventions and trade shows I don't think there's any level of the business that you haven't been involved in or not still involved in you know that's it's true fell from a bartender to a resort general manager so I got to run the gamut so I am a hospitality guy but you know it's interesting when you take a look at our business and I even believe that the shows that we do we're not in the television business we're in a human reaction business course we achieve reactions through our television shows I don't think bars are there for food and beverages Phil I always believe they're there to create a reaction and the food and beverage just fills time while you're enjoying that reaction so I think that's really what separated me is I've always fought for that reaction which goes back to my cultural anthropology days you know of primates and reactions and and that's still right how we seem to migrate well that was your first book you wrote raised the bar an action based method for maximum customer reactions yes and that's what you were focused on is how do you get the customer to react how do you get people to really have an experience that they'll go home and remember and want to replicate and come back and have that experience again yes and reaction management also relates to employees right how do I get the most out of my employees and such you know as one and I'm gonna give you a compliment here you know I get to go to a lot of sound stages so I get to go on a lot of shows when I come here this is reaction management the attitude of your staff the professionalism of your staff I've always found it remarkable the level of professionalism in this building when I compare it to other buildings that I go into in this space it really is something and I think that that you might not be using that term per se but this building is filled with reaction management well I believe I've got the best team in television and I've always said I've got this knack for getting these gigs where somebody does all the work and I get all the credit I've seen you in action you do little work that's how it is here I've had the same executive producer since day one I've had same director same supervising producers I've got the same seven cameramen I started with 18 years ago you get a team going and it's like the cameraman they know when I'm getting ready to do something they know if I'm getting ready to get out of my chair you know he's getting ready to get up yeah writer doesn't even have to tell him he's getting ready to get up or you have to go with him they know they're already moving because we've been doing this 3,100 times which is 20,000 gifts they know it ain't gonna get by him he's gonna get up and go show them this and so you really do get it as a well-oiled machine you know what else is fun for me and I've had my crew for a long time also seeing them get married and the babies and the grandchildren and seeing their lives evolve as they work with us too it's wonderful it really is my executive producer Carla Pennington had twins when we started they were one there now sophomores in college unbelievable yeah it is unbelievable it truly is about building a team yeah one of the things I like that I said I'm gonna keep repeating this about things that we have in common people refer to me as mr. accountability you are so much that way you've even categorized excuses you have six categories of excuses fear time knowledge circumstances ego and scarcity yes let's talk about those a little bit because I like people to learn from these podcasts and then we'll talk some more about other things but talk about fear as a category of excuse because you say it's based on obviously apprehension and anxiety sure you know I think fear comes from another place B comes from lack of confidence lack of resources things like that but when I look at fear no I'm not talking about standing on a cliff of course right but when I talk about fear most of us are scared of something that millions of people have already done so there's typically you know a prerequisite for doing what we're scared of doing so fear is often false it really is and if it isn't challenging us physically and it doesn't endanger us then it isn't fear it's calculated risk mm-hmm you know monsters live in the dark I've asked people a lot of times what scares them the most and it's interesting it's like if I get out of my comfort zone and say I succeed say I decide I'm gonna set a goal and I'm gonna get out here and Jack my income 30% what am I gonna do next month now they feel the pressure to keep it up right and so they think okay if I do that now everybody's gonna expect me to keep it up I put pressure on myself it would be so much easier to stay in my comfort zone in raqqa long but then I'm miserable if I do that that's like doing the third grade over every year right you know it's interesting when I go to bars I see that exact thing and I have that same thought to myself they raised the money they opened the business they hired the people they put everything together but they can't get to that next step because they're scared of where do they go from there how did they do and but it's a false fear fill it isn't based in any kind of reality so fear is it's not easy to tell somebody to push it aside for sure because it's there and they feel it but unless it's physical to me I always move that them to the premise of calculated risk and not fear and when you're in a dark room you have nothing to calculate do you that's why that monsters in the dark and it's not about being reckless it's about taking calculated realistic I'm not gonna throw away everything and go try out for the NBA that's reckless I'm not gonna make it in the NBA you got to be realistic about it I remember when I started my television showing I was sitting in the offices in the network and I told him about bar Sciences fell and they said what a couple of bar Sciences so I threw a couple out there and the show was booked and then I'm on the drag home I got a TV show picked up and I got so many sciences can I take this to 3-under and I think it the five can I take it to ten so I was worried okay I got the idea who can I take it that far and obviously I did but in the early days that was a huge fear that I had but I have to put that aside and just go to work every day and you know let the progress happen many of truth two spoke in jest I can't tell you how many times I've gone home they can fool them again yeah that's right in your early days yeah not fooling them anymore though I mean you really wonder I practiced in the area of brain and central nervous system for a lot of my practice and I would be in the room giving advice about what do and I would think if they knew how little I know they would throw me out that window and then I realized but it's 10 times more than anybody else knows it's just that we're our own worst critic course we are and I had to say I wish I had an MRI back in the day we didn't have them then so we had to do functional tests and make assumptions based on whether they could feel you riding on their fingers whether or not they could see in the upper quadrants of their visual fields and all you had to infer from functionality then people would make decisions about what to do and I'm thinking oh my god I wish I had x-ray vision where I could see this your vision was still better than anybody else's and so you feel like you're masquerading but it's better than the ten people next to you that are masquerading something you don't know about me I'm gonna board at the Cleveland Clinic oh really and I work on neurological disorders is that right it says so that that's a passion of mine working with Parkinson's and disorders like that so I know that's a background of yours as well yeah you makin a lot of progress it's still a passion of mine I read and study about it all the time yeah dr. Bradley Jabbar is a good friend of mine and he's a radiologist that really functions on the brain he sends me articles and we discuss them and so he keeps me very up to speed on all we have the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain health in Las Vegas which is a great research facility that we're involved in yeah its world-renowned that is talk about excuse number five which is ego you say excuses based on internal beliefs and bad habit yeah talk about that one a little bit because I think people will relate to that we I think ego it's almost keeping score ego is based on what do I buy what do I have what do i do how do I win had away this had a way that you know our soul comes from a very different place and ego I've typically find I'm sure you'll smile and I say this fellow I find people that had the biggest egos tend to have the thinnest wallets because the ego of having and not having and scorekeeping is more important to them than the accomplishment itself yeah so you know I want that thousand dollar suit or that ten thousand dollar suit even though I can't afford it yeah somebody else is really focused more on affording it rather than just having it and I think ego gets in a way of accomplishment you know I've met people a lot of them in this town that take pride in how much they pay for something and I'm not saying how little they paid for something how much they paid for something they want to tell you I paid three hundred thousand dollars for this car that's only worth 150 exactly pleasure in that so you do that's the absurdity of ego yeah I would be much more proud to say I got it for 83 or died feel like an idiot so they put aside the accomplishment of a good deal yeah and attached to the ego of a bad one that makes no sense and it's one of the biggest destroyers of business in my view I've been in this town now for 18 years and I have found the bigger the talent the smaller the ego if you get some reality star in here or somebody that came in eighth on American Idol or something they show up with a ten person entourage demands their 45 minutes late they come in like oh my god you would think it's the second coming of Christ but then I have Stevie Wonder on he shows up an hour early and brings doughnuts but seriously the bigger the talent the smaller the ego they're not insecure they know what they can do they know who they I completely see the same thing and also who wants to work with someone with a huge ego yeah I think it's because they're good people that you know staffs and and casting people and production people get behind them who wants to work with a jerk and I've told some of those people that came in that way I pulled him aside and said listen it may not be you it may be your publicist or it may be your manager but you are pissing people off so fast it's gonna ruin your career you need to take control cuz I don't think you're a jerk but everybody around you is right and some listened and some didn't and the ones that didn't are working at Home Depot in Nebraska right now yeah at the end of the day we don't want to work with people we don't like being asked really what made you so curious all your life you're one of the most curious people I've ever met huh you know I'm not sure if oh you know I I had a difficult upbringing you know I was a raisin in affluent place in Long Island you know I had a housekeeper and and my mother was really tough my family was very very tough on accomplishment and integrity and those kinds of things I know I got my work ethic from there I don't know where I got my inquisitiveness from you know my family was very much involved in marketing direct marketing my grandfather invented direct marketing he gets credit for that so I've always been around marketing plans and creative plans my grandfather wrote Eastern the wings of man and did Volvo commercial so I've always been around these things and I've always had this curiosity for human behavior so he's bothered me when I look at somebody do something full of always said why what causes them to do that what causes them to act the way that they do no you're the master of this for me it puzzles me every day mm-hmm and you should talk about this before but you don't accept anything at face value dig deeper you've always given that advice and you live that advice I do I've been places with you where somebody has got a science or got a process and I'm kind of taking it all in and you're over there behind a wall looking at some little something figuring out how they do this or that and you come away with a knowledge about it that most people wouldn't even think to dig into it's interesting I always try to see what is the process in their mind yeah so you know what makes them a motivator when they wake up in the morning where are the barriers in their lives and then we all have these barriers fill whether it's confidence ego things are getting away with us and I got to try to find that and it goes back to what you were saying earlier about reality TV Phil it's amazing they put these cameras in these bars they come a couple of days before I get there so that people get used to the cameras and I walked in there and I have this incredibly unrealistic base lights cameras everything around me and you have the same thing the reality that we get out of people from this unreal beginning this unreal platform is remarkable in reality they throw me out if I said these things to them mm-hmm so it's the fact that they've accepted my presence gives me the license to go at them in the way that I do and challenge them to reassess themselves you say anger is a tool yes you differentiate between business anger and personal anger and you say it's a tool to get people's attention and get them moving what do you mean by that you use it as a tool to do talk about that well you know it's funny the new book that I'm working on it is the power conflict and the premise of the power conflict is the world without conflict would be a terrible place ideals would disappear our morals who wouldn't stick up for anything I mean George Washington would conflicted his whole life our nation wouldn't exist without conflict so I'm not scared of conflict so I use conflict to challenge people to tell me the truth I call them out and you do it too but I call them out I think what I find is anger creates often foe I'm saying something to them they've heard before they know their place is dirty they know they're failing they know their 400000 and debt they know their wife is ready to kill them they know their children don't respect them they know these things I have to say it in a way that they really hear me this time so I say it in front of their wife I say it in front of their children I put them in a place of real discomfort and I find fill in that moment of discomfort their brain seems to open up a crack and I can walk in I've always said this I believe people know the truth when they hear it if you speak the truth whether they want to hear it or not they know the truth when they hear it they do and if you're just confronting just to be confronting it means nothing but if you're speaking the truth if you're a truth teller and it's something that they need to hear they're gonna hear you also I think you know intent is powerful yeah now they know when they sit on your stage that your intentions are good you truly want to help them it might get ugly for a few minutes but your intention is good I think I get the same thing Phil and they have to trust my intention if they trust my intention it gives me a lot of latitude in a way I deal with them I can confront them aggressively I can be angry I can say things that embarrass them and challenge them because they do trust my intention that's the trick to great television know it Phil because you have a relationship with those people on stage I have a relationship with the people in my show production doesn't have that relationship you and I do yeah and there's no way you can program for that no way you can script it there's no way you can set it up there's no way you can pre-program it I've always said you can put me on the top of the Empire State Building you can put me on a mountain in Aspen you can put me anywhere what people care about is what happens between the tip of my nose and the tip of their nose it doesn't matter where we are they care about what happens right here that's what they're tuning in for it early on they wanted to go do stunts and do this there and go to some exotic setting where it was exciting people don't care about that they care about what I'm gonna say to her when she asked a question that has to do with the outcome of her life or her kids or her relationships or whatever and I see people that you deal with on your show if they don't get what you have to offer they're going out of business hmm they're desperate just like people that come here they're desperate they got one foot in the grave and one foot on a banana peel when you get there so they are motivated to listen and you've got a record of success I look at the follow ups you come back those people are doing well yes they are it's interesting there's an article just a few weeks ago I won't mention the other shows names but do it to other shows that are in the same space that I am restauranteur one has a 28 percent success factor the other is a 21 I have a 71 percent according to the paper but I work it I mean I'm like you feel I'm committed to help these people before I start it's about helping these people to me and you get you try to help people when you wind up with a great TV show in a way I do the same I try to help people and wind up with a good TV show anyway if you put the show before the people it doesn't work is there one that sticks out to you that was the hardest to turn around there is it a category of things that are hardest for you to turn is it based on the facility is it based on the personality you know the facilities are easy fell I can always build a successful bar you know fixing the bar is easy it's fixing to people that's tough here the most difficult ones are the ones that have an inherent and bred into them lack of respect meaning they don't respect their own family they don't respect their employees they don't respect their customers they don't respect themselves that is the most difficult difficult profile for me to ever crack through is to try to turn someone who is inherently disrespectful to respect their customers respect their employees respect themselves respect their own business that to me seems to be that the most difficult obstacle I deal with it's astounding to me that people will take that path in life where they and it's so often true of the people you work with they bet the farm they've mortgaged their house they've borrowed money from mom and dad they've taken everything they have and they bet it on this and then sabotage themselves that's why can't anything to me that's my justification I work at how dare you take your parents retirement how dare you take your children and then not try yeah how dare you so that's a big source of anger form sometimes still when I get there I have to have somebody to fight for mm-hmm you know and I remember the dr. Phil show you and I did a bad a year ago or so we were fighting for the parents not to child when I get there sometimes the owners not worthy of the fight so I got a fight for the wife or I got a fight for the husband or I got a fight for the employees last time I couldn't find anyone to fight for I fought for the community they loved the place yeah but there's got to be something to fight for we can't go into this fighting against so you know I think that I'm fighting for something comes across to them but they still fight me every step of the way yeah they got to get out of their own way but you do well at getting them out of their own way yeah so what do you do for fun when you're not out there taking bars turning them wrong side out and the people with him what do you do for fun well you know I like you I'm a massive dog lover and I went through I lost my lost my little boy a few months ago so I got a new one so I'm a massive dog whatever so I will spend hours and hours every week with my dogs that's a great source of pleasure to me yeah I have a jeep that I bought and I'll go a four-wheel in a little bit I'm looking at your motorcycles around here I know you were a bike guy for a lot of years I like going out in four-wheeling and I really enjoy my work Phil you know I read a lot about my work I study a lot about my work cause I know you do too you know we love what we do so you know we doing it even when people don't know it do you relax much no I'm not good at that that's that's probably a real problem for me and my doctors have putting some pressure on me now that you know I've got to learn to relax when I'm kind of learning to calm down a little bit so I bought myself a 45-foot bus and when I'm in this bus I come down well actually it does it has an effect on me where are you going it so I bought a site in Palm Springs so I bought a property for in Palm Springs but I'll take it up north I'll take it around I'd Drive it myself it's a blast you drive it your doesn't lack see oh yeah I find it very relaxing but I'll go Park in the mountains I'll take it up to Breckenridge I'll take it up to Vail I'll take it up to Aspen I'll Park it for a few days something about this disconnecting like that uh helps me I'm not good at disconnecting fo the phone seems to always ring for me yeah that's what I mean that's why I say you got to find something to chill something to kick back on yeah so where are you on sports so I'm playing golf play a little golf yeah and but I'm not playing basketball I know you play basketball correct well I used to but I don't have that 42-inch vertical anymore I heard you had a hell of a shot though maybe he'll be shot today maybe it was 4.2 inch vertical I think that's what it was I used to have a what I always drove them crazy I told him I had a killer hook shot but they couldn't stop it that's what made a man it's the only shot I had was a killer told me you're a good player yeah for a while I gave it up a long time ago though but I do play tennis every day here's what I want to know and I'm gonna be selfish on behalf of my listeners you're such an entrepreneur you do such a great job in turning other people around if you were gonna mentor somebody maybe fresh out of college or had been working in a job for a while and decided okay I want to go out on my own I want to start my own whether it's a business or some endeavor what do you think is key for young men or women that are saying look I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a rank-and-file job I want to do something where I'm working for myself where if I hit a home run I get the benefit if I don't I don't but I want to work for myself I want to take that entrepreneurial spirit I want to bet on myself how would you mentor a young person that wanted to get out and do what you've done well first of all I would say this is the time to do it economically right it sort of boom town around us right now so this is a great time to start a business so anybody's thinking of doing it this is a great time to start it why I think great because of the economic environment right now the fact is consumer confidence is high business investment is abundant around us so it's just a good economic time to start a business so I think those people who've thought of doing it that have been hesitating I don't think there's a reason to hesitate economically at this point in time but you know for I find that when people say I want to go into a business that in itself doesn't provide the passion for success I want to hear somebody say I want to sell widgets I am excited about widgets I love widgets I want to invent the world's next widget I love to see passion so what I typically tell people who are looking to do this is what is it that they want to do that they want to sell because whatever business we have and you and I can say this it has to have our DNA in it and and you and I have been very fortunate we've been able to build brands around our DNA other people need to connect themselves to what they do when you're passionate in that kind of a way Phil you fight harder for it so I think it isn't a desire to go into business for yourself that should drive someone to do it I think it's the desire to do something that should drive someone to do it and Phil I believe the same is true with politics I don't think people should go into politics because they want to be in politics I think she should go into it because they want to accomplish something there's something that they're passionate about something that they believe in that's been the basis of our success is your passion to help my passion to help so how do people take their personal passions turn it into a business because when it's that exciting to them they will money with it's exciting to them they will find a location when it's that exciting to them that translates to their employees it translates to their customers it energizes everything so my comment to people when I meant to them is to sit with them and I do this voter sit with them and say where is your passion what is it that you want to do or if you can't come up with the product what is the result do you want to help people in crisis do you want to help people grow do you want to help people build what do you want to do in life and I think we have to focus on what makes us feel good Phil and you and I are blessed because we're in businesses that make us feel good every day we're doing what we want to do we believe in it that's what all of these people need to find and you can find it in anything Phil you can sell paper and be excited about the next color of paper so any business is exciting if we're if we really believe in that that is our DNA that is what we're meant to do don't you agree I do I think it's a matter of keeping score for a lot of people I play tennis every day and I can be out hitting the ball back and forth and you know we hit the ball back and forth but when we start keeping score even if it's just we're gonna hit a hundred without missing or whatever he doesn't matter when I start keeping score then I start getting passionate about it and you better that's currency for me I need a hill to climb I need something to get over I need something that I can achieve that's what motivates me so just being there getting into a business that I don't care about like you said selling paper I could get passionate about selling paper if I was keeping score cuz I would want to sell more paper in anybody's ever sold course ever meet up and find new ways to use paper come up with different things different ways innovations but you got to love paper to do that and then you've got to figure out how you can be innovative with it I see a lot of people like my son Jordan is a musician and good one it's interesting to hear him talk he's never said a word about getting rich he's never said a word about getting famous he always talks about making the music that's what it is to him it wants to make the next song better than the last one he wants the experience of the audience to be something they won't forget he wants to create this may you this experience reaction that they have this connection this reaction this relatability back and forth and I thought originally you know kids you got to monetize this some way and it was interesting he was wise and saying that'll take care of itself if the music is great he said if the music is great and the connection to it is real that will take care of itself and he was dead right he's just finished an 80 city tour in the US and he's now finishing a leg in Europe he's on tour with the Jonas Brothers and it's been interesting to just watch him explode and it's all from his passion he's just passionate about it so he had to succeed with that level of passion and honestly if he didn't greet fine great success the fact that he lived his passion would have been success enough right yeah and you know I've told both of my boys I've told Jay and Jordan both many many times I remind them and I try to remind myself as well don't miss the journey I've told Jay a hundred times over the last 18 years when you pull onto this lot and you walk on to stage 29 or stage 30 and that red lights flashing and you hear that audience in the background and people are zooming around and stuff take a minute stop take a breath look around and realize this is rarefied air this is not something that everybody gets to do this is not rank-and-file successful and you don't want to miss that in a blur you want to stop and go wow yeah I got an email from Jay the other day it just out of the blue it said you know sometimes I feel like I went to bed and woke up in a movie because he was having so much fun yeah he had Erica and the kids and they were down in Cabo and this had the other it was one of those moments where he was taking a minute to just kind of look around and take stock of his life and his two happy kids laughing and joking and he was just like wow he said this is what you mean when you say take it all in you know I was watching for Presidents Day I was watching the HBO special John Adams and there's a line and he John Adams special where he says to his son you know I never appreciated the mundane yeah and then he looks down at a little flower weed really yeah and says the beauty of this weed is that and he just looks at it and and you're right though we sometimes don't stop and appreciate those things that actually are worthy of appreciation I'm guilty of that sometimes I find my show frustrating you know I was on hiatus for a few months I wasn't thrilled about coming back and and sometimes I look at what I've got look at what I'm doing it we could how special this is it is special air it is special and sometimes we lose touch with that but we all have those moments no matter what we do in life that's slide by and those are the moments that should fuel our happiness but when we miss them we're not feeling our own happy it's sort of absurd yeah I think you do this really well is what makes me think of it but I try to tell people one of the things you want to put on your list of priorities is to star in your own life you got a star in your own life and if you don't who is how crazy is it if somebody else stars in your life you become a bit player in your own life what the hell is that about I don't care if you're a teacher a plumber a butcher a baker a candlestick it doesn't matter what you do and people can say well yeah you know dr. Phil it's easy for you and jaundice to say you star in your own life you guys are stars in TV shows and stuff it doesn't matter you have to star in your own life and to do that you've got to claim that what you're doing is star worthy you're the best at what you do you're not a failure like a star yeah you're the best at church on Sundays in directing the kids or whatever you do you've got a star in your own life and I think that's critical and I think people miss that a lot I think so too when you're presented in that way to think that I would be a bit player in my own life is about as absurd as it gets but you know what's interesting our wives are very good at that yeah and you know when you think being the wife of dr. Phil is not an easy thing that's a big shadow to stand in yeah and being my wife is not the easiest thing but yet they're not bit players in our lives they're stars in their own so you know I think how do you live your life next to a star and still be your own star is interesting yeah you and I what they call eat the scenery yes we do but our wives you know stand toe-to-toe with us and there's certainly not big players in their lives so it's interesting the dynamic of that whole be a star in your life well I said how do you mentor someone you talked about passion when Jay was in high school he wouldn't read a book she wasn't academically motivated ah he wouldn't read a book and in his first year in college he wrote a number one New York Times bestseller I sent it to his English teacher in high school and she was like no way no way he wouldn't even read a book in high school you know it's interesting I've never been to a management program in hospitality I've never been to a seminar I've never done anything like that and when people say to me gee John why wouldn't you quest you know seek out that knowledge I actually I believe what I'm about to say - you're gonna think I'm crazy I don't want to contaminate my brain yeah with somebody else's thoughts I want to go at things in an original way so I'm not a big person on going to a seminar in learning somebody else's way of doing things I found success finding my own way of doing it Phil I mean it's worked for you when Jay wasn't academically motivated and in wrote a book he did an interesting thing he interviewed a bunch of kids that were on drugs and said why and then he interviewed a bunch of kids that were not on drugs and said why and I thought the answer was going to be moral compass that these kids just thought it was wrong these kids didn't care and etc and that was not the truth what he found out is the kids that were on drugs said I have no reason not to be and the price of entry the price of admission to the drug culture is very low you can be tall short fat skinny clean dirty whatever all you have to do is drugs and then when he asked the kids that were not on drugs why are you not on drugs they said it wasn't a moral answer they said it just doesn't fit my plan he's what do you mean he said well he got answers like I want to be on the debate squad I want to get a car I got to have a job to get a car I got to do a drug screen to get a job I want to go to college I want to play football I got a pass a urine test for this it just doesn't fit and these kids that weren't on drugs had a passion they had something they wanted and so it just didn't fit these kids had no passion that were on drugs they had no passion they had nothing they were working towards so they said why not and I mean he concluded quite rightly if you've got a kid that doesn't have a passion in life you need to help him find one sure do because if they've got something that drugs are incompatible with that's what will keep them from going down that path not you preaching and giving them all the moral lessons in the world appeal to their greed appeal to their greed and without a choice that's right st. look you want what you want then get it I'm appealing to your greed don't do this that's what I mean about finding passion and starring in your own life if somebody really wants something they'll go to bed at night they'll get to sleep they won't stay bend drink they won't wake up hungover and operating on 50% they won't get into drugs they won't go do stupid stuff because they want what they want they'll also learn they'll take the time to educate themselves they'll take the time to gain experiences and such you know I think that same motivator drives everything Fela tells them what not to do but it tells them what to do you know what we're talking about that business owner who took his parents retirement right yeah wipes out his parents and opens up the business and he's making a choice he's choosing to drink rather than rise it's the same scenario and and he doesn't have a choice that he buys into other than that and that said yeah I've seen so many people that just don't require enough of themselves cuz I guess they just don't think they're worthy of it I remember one of the shows that you did and I forget the city but this idiot would let these people come into the bar late at night and actually get motorcycles up on top of the tables and spin the wheels and just drove off all the decent customers and his wife was like what are you doing and when you finally got him to take some dignity and self-respect and hold himself to a higher standard everything changed he had to hold himself to a higher standard first I'll never forget in that episode there was a scene I was standing with the blueprints and this guy slept on a couch and this moist ugly basement under this bar and all he wanted in life was a studio apartment remember yeah so I remember showing him the blueprints and saying so if I do this what does that mean it's a studio apartment if you do this what happens I get a studio apartment if you do that what happens I get a studio apartment suddenly it started to connect you know if I do this I get that yeah to him that studio apartment was the biggest motivator that was his choice yeah he'd rather have that than the other options and I guess it goes back to that same story about the drugs it's having that better choice that motivates you yeah people have currency and their currencies are different I mean for some people it's money for some people it's recognition for some people it's a studio apartment you don't know what will make somebody tick but once you know that currency you can drive them can I ask you a question yeah you can ask me someone when you were young did your parents give you esteem when you were young boy did you have a lot of self-esteem interesting my dad died when I was 43 and at that point I had a PhD graduated number one in my class made the highest score on the licensing exam had ever been made stood for like 20 years had a very successful practice back to scorekeeping yeah had a wife and the family and was very successful in life by any metric good citizen family mana and [Music] he died when I was 43 and never in 43 years did he ever say I'm proud of you I think he would say it to other people I think it would brag on me to other people but he never never said it to me and [Music] we had a great football team in high school never lost a game played Division one football on a scholarship never said well done son never so the answer is yes and no no I didn't get esteem from them but I learned to give it to myself I think I'm the same way there comes a time where you wish you could get something from someone else and you realize they don't have it to give they can't give you what they don't have they don't have the selflessness my dad was a really bad alcoholic and they just can't give you what they don't have so you learn I have to give myself what I wish I could get from somebody else I have to look myself in the mirror and say you know what you're a good father you're a good husband you're a good citizen you're a good employer you're you're a good Christian your goodness your good debt you have to give yourself what you wish you could get from somebody else I went through exactly the same process really yeah my dad died when I was 2 and my mom was tough so I did not grow up with any esteem I was called to cancer when I was a kid said that's so shall I he's pretty rough there's pretty rough though so I had a very rough childhood so I grew up to really going through and I didn't realize consciously what I was doing but I've built up that esteem on my own over the years very much and it's interesting how we've done this very much by looking in a mirror and almost saying the same things to myself yeah I am a good father I am a good man I do have in that bubble so there's a big lesson in this for those that don't feel they have that esteem that were it wasn't given to them by their parents you can still get it yourself I'm a big one for what I call continuity of ID continuity of identification I look back to times in my life that people objectively would say these were not good times but nonetheless they were me and I think it's important that I never lose contact with those times I was homeless the summer before high school and that was not a good time but I observed myself survive and overcome that and so I attributed to myself the ability to survive and overcome that so I made a self attribution like I can do that I built a steam so I've never played the game of life with sweaty palms because I can do poor so I'm not afraid of it right I was poor my whole life until I started doing things on my own but I look back to even what they now call middle school we call junior high 7th 8th to 9th grade I realized now I didn't realize then but I realized now that I starred in my own life then because everybody in the family has a role and I had three sisters I was the only boy and we were broke as a snake and a snake doesn't have pockets and so there how broke we are I was the entertainment for the family because I was an athlete so in junior high every Thursday night we had our games cuz varsity high school played on Friday so junior high played on Thursdays and it was the only thing the family could do for free so everybody looked forward to those games and I was a pretty good athlete so they had something to cheer about because I could jump high and run fast and was a source ride for the family so it was so that was my currency it was my currency at school because I didn't have the clothes and the social things you know the Izod shoes and the penny loafers and things that were big at that time that was my role on the family I started in my life as I was just gonna say he became a star at a young age in your life I didn't think about it then I didn't realize what I was doing its time but looking back that was my currency and I was starring in my own life at the time then when I got into high school same thing we didn't have money but I was the entertainment so I was always the escape for the family I was always they could take pride in me as an athlete and come to the games and everybody's patting him on the back and hey great game and people into you in town and yeah name is over so everybody has a role and you find a way to star in your own life even when you may not have a lot of tools or things that you maybe other people have you know it's when you talk about mentoring early on I was always thinking about you know this whole premise of currency and being a star in your own life and so many times people are saying oh I just don't have the steam I don't have the self-confidence and I tell people all the time your parents don't have to give you that that's something you can create on your own you know when you talk about mentoring that's a lot of it Phil I'm you know wonder how many people were listening that have the ability to succeed but just don't know they had that ability yeah and actually have more steam than they believe they do if they would look at their mirror and tell themselves so yeah and get out and get in the game and observe themselves do something and then make the attribution and say I did that I survived that I accomplished that I overcame that you know the way we make attributions to other people is like think about if you got somebody at your office that they're there every morning five minutes before they're supposed to be they put on the coffee they turn on the lights they're never not there they're just like a clock just click click click click click you attribute to them being responsible reliable you make those attributions based on what you observe them doing that's exactly how you make your own attributions you watch what you do if you watch yourself shrink from a challenge if you watch yourself cower from somebody that's intimidating you or or pushing you out of the picture do you make an attribution to yourself that's you strength in a cowardly way if you watch yourself get out there and accomplish something then you attribute to yourself hey I can do that but you only can do that if you observe yourself doing it yeah you know it's interesting in bar rescue I put them in that stress test which you've seen of course 100 times and I caused them to accept their own failure in that moment Phil right it's tumbling down around them they can't escape it and then with a couple of days of training putting them back in control this slight realization wow I can do this wow it isn't so bad that little glimmer of light you know gets me to a 71 percent success factor and all of it you know Phil in most cases I wouldn't even have to remodel the darn bar all I had to do is get them on path again and get them excited yeah but you see those people stand taller you know when you come up with a signature when you come up with food that's actually edible it didn't come out of Greece with Ebola in it or something and they actually take pride in the product you see them stand taller and they go WOW I've take pride in this bar I take pride in people coming in and knowing I work here it's amazing how the staff and the owners transform because they observe themselves running a place with pride and what's interesting you don't see that on TV but I do just like you do I see in their eyes when they change I see their body language means I can see the confidence grow in them sometimes it doesn't come across on television like it should but but a seeing that happened before my eyes fell over 48 hours is quite a remarkable thing and you go I'm gonna go back to how you started with me it goes back to that anger yeah it's confronting them because I have no time for them to change its confronting them and forcing them to deal with it now and I find that that urgency really works to my advantage it's a little gestalt if you will Phil yeah and you know people might be walking by the TV and say oh there's John yelling again if you stop for five minutes and watch what's going on [Music] it's not just about yelling and confronting it's about getting people's attention and getting them to love themselves and believe in themselves there's so much more going on if you stop for even five minutes and watch what's going on yeah it's the truth felon and watching that transformation is what motivates me it's incredible for the first day they're ready to throw me out they hate me know if could I get that hug four days later yeah well that hug motivates me I can screen it out or next week cuz I know I'm getting that hug you have of course well I've kept you a long time but I need to keep you a couple minutes more my pleasure cuz you need to tell me about the podcast I'm inspired to help people feel just like you are I do it in a different way than you do of course cuz I do it in a non textbook non-professional way I'm a hacker if you will my father used to say that our chicken flicker my father used to say but the fact of the matter is what's most exciting to me is the personal transformation that people have that's what inspires me more than anything filling and when I look at my podcast it's the same thing what can I say to inspire people I've done hundreds of seminars of my life I speak all over the world Philip major conventions and stuff and I always say the same thing I don't want to change what you do I want to change the way you think if I can change the way you think I can't help but change the way you do changing the way you think is a little ugly sometimes Phil I got to challenge you I got to tell you you're wrong I gotta make you reassess yourself those are moments of weakness that moments of strength come from my podcast is all about that and I'd like to invite you to come on it in the next few weeks if you would but I will it's trying to take the lessons that I've learned in life filling past a month and trying to inspire people and I hope that each week when people listen to it they're inspired to start that business fill seek that promotion you know even confront that person who's taking advantage of them stick up for themselves and I'm going to use your words become a star in their own lives yeah well one of the many things I like about what you do and how you do it is you put the dots real close together and you connect them with a bright red line so people can say alright this is what he's telling me I need to do how I need to change my thinking what I need to require myself and I think that's what people are gonna find when they tune in to that it's on all the platform I feed so you can you'd be finished listening here you can just click and go right to John Taffer no excuses Fran we got a whole new season premiere March 12th your solutions is a big day for us and new season of bar rescue premieres March 1st and relax yes new season I'm doing 38 this year 38 more by the way I'm starting my 192nd I know you get a kick out of this and in May I'm gonna shoot my 200th episode which to you is nothing but in my world that's a lot of TV yeah well you take four days to shoot them I do two a day later so I'm gone 38 weeks yeah to do 38 episodes so now wait a minute the new season of bar rescue is March 1st yes and then no excuses March 12th correct okay I don't want to confuse people with that so March 1st is the new season of bar rescue and you're doing 38 38 this year Wow yeah well congratulations and I'm sorry it's funny I used to do 10 first season was 10 second season was 10 third season was 40 yeah fourth season was 50 to fill in one year can you believe it yes I think it is actually a bit of a cakewalk for me God knows how many hours in Toronto a lot but that's alright John congratulations on all your success thank you for I want to tell you that you have played a large part you have you've had a big impact on me Phil I've learned a lot from you these past few years I honor our friendship and and you might not know it but you're a bit of a mentor to me um flattered and humbled to hear that because I don't alot from you as well and I'm gonna hold you to what you said about putting me on your podcast it's a deal all right thanks fel thank you my friend all right

Channel: Dr. Phil

Views: 94,300

Rating: 4.8532753 out of 5

Keywords: dr.phil, Series, Phil, Show, Self, News, McGraw, Daytime, Help, drphil, Illness, Doctors, Talk, jay, Host, dr., Psychologist, Mental, Tv, Mustache, Dr Phil Show, Dr. Phil Show, dr. phil, dr phil full episodes, Parenting, Advice, Self matters, Personality, Life strategies, pitb, podcast, Jon Taffer, Bar Rescue, jon, taffer, Taffer Dynamics, Bar Operator, Nightclub & Bar Media Group, management guru, Spike TV, Pub Master

Id: Mf-QiVGHakM

Length: 57min 49sec (3469 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 25 2020