# JOHN MORGAN ON BUILDING A BILLION-DOLLAR LAW FIRM, $600M MARKETING STRATEGY & KIDS SIGNING PRENUPS

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 23 Jul 2026, 1 h 34 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/b78dca41-0be8-4fe7-8414-b49000b690a7/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

John Morgan, founder of Morgan & Morgan, joins Earn Your Leisure to break down how he built one of America’s largest law firms into a billion-dollar business. He shares the blueprint for scaling a company, building a winning team, and why great leadership is the foundation of long-term success. We also dive into his $600 million annual marketing strategy, the competitive advantage of branding, raising capital, hiring A+ talent, and the business decisions that transformed Morgan & Morgan into an industry leader. Finally, John shares powerful life lessons on luck, failure, family, legacy, and why he requires all of his children to sign a prenup. This is a must-watch conversation for entrepreneurs, business owners, and anyone looking to build lasting wealth. #EarnYourLeisure #JohnMorgan #MorganAndMorgan #Business #Entrepreneurship #Marketing See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Your brother, Tim's been in a terrible accident. He's paralyzed
[0:03] Speaker 1: from the chest down. On a dime, My life just
[0:06] Speaker 1: turned upside down. It's not as bad as death, but
[0:08] Speaker 1: it's like that Tim's terrible luck turned out to be
[0:11] Speaker 1: my purpose in life.
[0:12] Speaker 2: People always say success is not lucky. Your book title
[0:15] Speaker 2: is life is Luck. What does that mean?
[0:17] Speaker 1: Most people who are successful don't want to say I
[0:20] Speaker 1: was lucky. They want to say hard work the hardest
[0:22] Speaker 1: work in people make the least.
[0:24] Speaker 2: So how were you able to take your law practice
[0:28] Speaker 2: and scale it to what we know it is now?
[0:30] Speaker 1: You can't just want to take your profits and buy
[0:33] Speaker 1: a boat or buy a car. You got to take
[0:36] Speaker 1: that money and pour it back into the business.
[0:39] Speaker 2: Who's the other Morgan? Is there another Morgan?
[0:41] Speaker 1: There is another Mortgage and she says she's the first Morgan?
[0:44] Speaker 3: How have you managed to keep up to date, be
[0:47] Speaker 3: in tune with the drastic changes that happened in this space.
[0:49] Speaker 1: You don't let time pass you by, So I surround
[0:53] Speaker 1: myself with youth. Dan was a rapper in college.
[0:56] Speaker 4: The song's about me getting my monthly allowance twenty five
[0:59] Speaker 4: hundred dollars and then me blinded.
[1:00] Speaker 1: You weren't getting twenty five hundred shit. It wasn't for me.
[1:03] Speaker 1: I wouldn't have never given you that much money.
[1:04] Speaker 2: How do you know where to deploy capital? What's a
[1:07] Speaker 2: waste of money and what's actually a good investment.
[1:10] Speaker 1: Half of my advertising is working. I just don't know what.
[1:13] Speaker 1: Half a lot of things lie, numbers do not lie.
[1:17] Speaker 1: There's really no exact science. If there was, I'd be
[1:21] Speaker 1: a lot richer than I am. The way you find
[1:24] Speaker 1: luck is you're looking for opportunities.
[1:28] Speaker 2: All right, guys, welcome back, Eyl. We have a special guest,
[1:32] Speaker 2: a legend in the game, John Morgan, billionaire entrepreneur and CEO,
[1:37] Speaker 2: founder of the America's largest personal injury attorney law firm,
[1:42] Speaker 2: Morgan and Morgan. I'm one hundred percent positive that you've
[1:45] Speaker 2: heard of them, because they were more advertised than anybody
[1:49] Speaker 2: I've ever seen. But you also have a new book out,
[1:52] Speaker 2: Life is Luck, right.
[1:54] Speaker 1: Life is Luck. Lessons from a paper Boy, Lessons from
[1:58] Speaker 1: a paper Boy.
[1:59] Speaker 2: So, man, we got a lot to talk about. But
[2:01] Speaker 2: first and foremost, thank you for joining us, Thank you
[2:03] Speaker 2: for having me. So let's start at the beginning. Like
[2:05] Speaker 2: I said, I'm pretty sure people know about Morgan and Morgan.
[2:08] Speaker 2: They've heard it, they've seen the commercials, they've seen the billboard,
[2:11] Speaker 2: they have heard it on the radio. Where does your
[2:15] Speaker 2: journey start? And who's the other Morgan? Is there another Morgan?
[2:20] Speaker 1: There is another Morgan? Who's the other Morgan? And she
[2:23] Speaker 1: says she's the first Morgan. This is my wife, Ultimate Morgan. Okay,
[2:29] Speaker 1: So she says she's the first Morgan and I'm the
[2:31] Speaker 1: second Morgan. And guess what, Mama's happy. Everybody's happy, happy wife,
[2:39] Speaker 1: happy life happy. So yeah, So tell us your journey
[2:43] Speaker 1: and how you guys started. Well, my journey come from Lexington, Kentucky.
[2:51] Speaker 1: I was a paper boy in Lexton, Kentucky. But my
[2:54] Speaker 1: journey from Morgan and Morgan happened. I was a sophomore
[2:57] Speaker 1: at the University of Florida. Dad called me up. I
[3:01] Speaker 1: was sitting with my brother Mike in our room. He
[3:04] Speaker 1: calls me up, and he says, your brother Tim has
[3:06] Speaker 1: been in a terrible accident. He's paralyzed from the chest down.
[3:11] Speaker 1: He was a lifeguard at Walt Disney World and on
[3:16] Speaker 1: a dime. My life just turned upside down. And we
[3:22] Speaker 1: were poor people. Our mother had already left. We were
[3:25] Speaker 1: poor people, and now we're in this crisis. How were
[3:30] Speaker 1: you nineteen? He was seventeen, And all of a sudden,
[3:37] Speaker 1: it's like it's the unthinkable because you know it can
[3:41] Speaker 1: never be good. I mean, that news is almost it's
[3:45] Speaker 1: not as bad as death, but it's like death. And
[3:49] Speaker 1: so me and my brother had got in a car.
[3:52] Speaker 1: We drove, we actually drove with the Catholic church and
[3:56] Speaker 1: lit a candle. I never lit a candle before, but
[4:00] Speaker 1: somehow we lit a candle. We drove home and we
[4:03] Speaker 1: got there and Tim was on a gurney spinning. It
[4:07] Speaker 1: couldn't move anything. And there began that journey when you
[4:14] Speaker 1: see somebody that you love that much in that situation.
[4:19] Speaker 1: I can't even describe it. It is the worst day
[4:23] Speaker 1: of my life so far. And Disney's where it happened.
[4:29] Speaker 1: They fought him to the nail. We hired the wrong
[4:33] Speaker 1: law firm, and it was just like this feeling of
[4:39] Speaker 1: not only are we poor, but we're hopeless and we're
[4:44] Speaker 1: powerless and we're helpless, and it's just it's the worst feeling.
[4:51] Speaker 1: But through it all, as the harder Disney pushed, the
[4:55] Speaker 1: more enraged I became. They were pushing not to pay. Yes,
[5:00] Speaker 1: hard hard. They fought him. I mean you would have
[5:03] Speaker 1: thought because he died. He was a lifeguard at the Polynesian.
[5:08] Speaker 1: He got up on a makeshift raft. He dove in
[5:12] Speaker 1: and they had this makeshift anchor tying down these boats.
[5:16] Speaker 1: And there was a little girl that they thought had drowned.
[5:18] Speaker 1: She was actually asleep in her room. But they fought
[5:21] Speaker 1: him like he was, you know, instead he's going, hey man.
[5:26] Speaker 1: And it didn't. The case didn't go well. We hired
[5:30] Speaker 1: the wrong lawyers. But through it all, I became enraged
[5:35] Speaker 1: and I decided through that process that I knew what
[5:38] Speaker 1: I was going to do. Tim's terrible luck. Tim's horrible
[5:43] Speaker 1: luck turned out to be my purpose in life, which
[5:46] Speaker 1: was to give people a representation I wish Tim had had.
[5:53] Speaker 1: We prayed a lot. We you know, were Catholic. We
[5:57] Speaker 1: sent off for water from lords miracles. We were pouring
[6:01] Speaker 1: water on his legs and praying. And believe it or not,
[6:05] Speaker 1: people say, well the prayers didn't work. Well they I
[6:07] Speaker 1: think they did because he was a quadriplegic. But he
[6:11] Speaker 1: became what's known as a super quad. He could drive
[6:14] Speaker 1: a car, he could do everything that a paraplegia could do,
[6:21] Speaker 1: and so we kind of considered that a miracle. And
[6:24] Speaker 1: when I started the law firm, Tim came and he
[6:27] Speaker 1: worked in my law firm for almost thirty years. He
[6:30] Speaker 1: ran my call center and we got to see each
[6:32] Speaker 1: other every single day. And so that's where it all began,
[6:37] Speaker 1: was to bring a different type of justice to people
[6:42] Speaker 1: like Tim.
[6:43] Speaker 5: We see with the obviously what the law firm has done.
[6:45] Speaker 3: Now, I wondered, prior to that moment, you called it
[6:49] Speaker 3: the worst day of your life thus far.
[6:50] Speaker 5: What were you studying before it was law? It was
[6:53] Speaker 5: what what was I studying?
[6:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just studying political science. I was at
[6:57] Speaker 1: the University of Florida. Okay, you know, I suck in math.
[7:02] Speaker 1: I suck in science. So you know, law was and
[7:06] Speaker 1: I'm pretty good talker. So you know, I'd always thought
[7:09] Speaker 1: about being a lawyer, but I didn't know what a
[7:11] Speaker 1: personal injury lawyer was. I never even heard of it
[7:14] Speaker 1: when I was thinking, you know, i'd be a public
[7:17] Speaker 1: defender or something like that in the courtroom. And then
[7:21] Speaker 1: I got in this process. All of a sudden, You're
[7:22] Speaker 1: in the middle of personal injury and uh so, I,
[7:29] Speaker 1: you know, finished my studies and we went to law school.
[7:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels like when obviously we were building homes,
[7:35] Speaker 3: we didn't know any a lot about real estate. As
[7:38] Speaker 3: you're going through the process, you realize you're studying so much,
[7:40] Speaker 3: figuring out so much that you almost become the interior designer.
[7:44] Speaker 3: You almost become the developer of the project. It feels
[7:47] Speaker 3: like this tragedy puts you in that space. Oh, you
[7:50] Speaker 3: study it. What's the first steps to creating the actual firm?
[7:55] Speaker 1: The first steps for me was I got a job
[8:00] Speaker 1: to personal injury law firm. When I say life is luck,
[8:03] Speaker 1: think about this story. All I applied it to was
[8:07] Speaker 1: personal injury law firms. I had a big stack of resumes,
[8:11] Speaker 1: one hundred letters, and I got all the postage paid
[8:16] Speaker 1: and my dad was going to mail them all. So
[8:18] Speaker 1: my dad calls me up one day and says, hey, John,
[8:21] Speaker 1: one of those letters got slid down behind the back
[8:24] Speaker 1: of my seat in the back seat. I go, how'd you?
[8:27] Speaker 1: I said, daddy, how did you find it? He goes, well,
[8:29] Speaker 1: I was vacuuming the back of the car. I'm like,
[8:32] Speaker 1: this guy doesn't vacuum in the back of his car,
[8:34] Speaker 1: but he did, and he goes, there was one resume
[8:37] Speaker 1: still there. I go who is it? To a guy
[8:39] Speaker 1: named Jerry Billings. He goes, should I mail it or not?
[8:43] Speaker 1: I go go ahead, guess where I got the job?
[8:47] Speaker 1: Jerry Jerry Billings. And so that was a piece of luck.
[8:51] Speaker 1: When I wrote the book, I started thinking about things
[8:54] Speaker 1: like that along the way. I got a job with
[8:58] Speaker 1: Billings for two years. Then they told me on my
[9:04] Speaker 1: review that they were gonna give me this, and I
[9:06] Speaker 1: thought I deserve that, and I reside and started my
[9:11] Speaker 1: own firm after being out for two and a half years.
[9:14] Speaker 5: So how were you able to scale?
[9:16] Speaker 2: Because there's a lot of lawyers where not a lot
[9:18] Speaker 2: of lawyers are like obviously great entrepreneurs. It's like a
[9:22] Speaker 2: lot of doctors. You might you're trained in one particular area.
[9:26] Speaker 2: That doesn't make you qualify to be a great businessman.
[9:28] Speaker 2: So it's one thing to know law and to have
[9:30] Speaker 2: a passion for law. There's another thing to actually be
[9:33] Speaker 2: a great operator, entrepreneur and somebody that can scale a business.
[9:36] Speaker 2: So how were you able to take your law practice
[9:40] Speaker 2: and scale it to what we know it is now?
[9:44] Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you about scaling. First of all, I
[9:48] Speaker 1: believe that one of my lucky breaks in life was
[9:52] Speaker 1: that I had an entrepreneurial seed inside of me. Some
[9:56] Speaker 1: of us do, some of us don't. That's why I
[9:59] Speaker 1: call it lessons from a paper boy. A paper route
[10:04] Speaker 1: is hard because you're ten eleven years old and you
[10:08] Speaker 1: got to We had to buy the route, we had
[10:10] Speaker 1: to collect the money, and every single day we had
[10:12] Speaker 1: to get up and get it done at ten eleven
[10:15] Speaker 1: years old. So I think I had luckily an entrepreneurial seed.
[10:23] Speaker 1: And I bet if you guys go back to when
[10:25] Speaker 1: you were children, I don't know if you would. I
[10:26] Speaker 1: don't know if you hadn't mean you seem like entrepreneurs
[10:29] Speaker 1: to me, I would bet that you were doing something,
[10:34] Speaker 1: whether it's mowing grass or selling lemonade, shoveling driveways. And
[10:41] Speaker 1: by the way, most people aren't. There's only a few people.
[10:44] Speaker 1: You think everybody is, but most people aren't. And so
[10:48] Speaker 1: I had that entrepreneurial seed. So then I started to
[10:52] Speaker 1: practice start my own deal, and I'd spent a lot
[10:55] Speaker 1: of times in union halls with union members, and before
[11:01] Speaker 1: I went to law school, I sold Yellow Pages and
[11:03] Speaker 1: I could sell the hell out of Yellow Pages, and
[11:05] Speaker 1: I was a member of CWAFLCI, so I'd go into
[11:08] Speaker 1: union halls and then lawyers didn't advertise back in those days.
[11:15] Speaker 1: It was like verboten. But the people who did. I
[11:18] Speaker 1: would go to those people and say, hey, give me
[11:21] Speaker 1: the cases, the tough cases, give me the cases you
[11:24] Speaker 1: don't want. I basically lived out of their dumpster. And
[11:28] Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I drive by and see somebody in
[11:31] Speaker 1: a dumpster eating a whopper, and I'm like, that's what
[11:35] Speaker 1: I was doing. But guess what, when you're hungry and
[11:38] Speaker 1: you're in the dumpster, the whopper tastes pretty good. It
[11:42] Speaker 1: doesn't taste that bad. You know, You're like, hey, it's not.
[11:47] Speaker 1: But then I said to my wife, I said, look,
[11:49] Speaker 1: this train is leaving the station. Advertising is happening. These
[11:54] Speaker 1: people are jackleg lawyers getting a lot of cases. And
[11:58] Speaker 1: I said, I think I want to go on to you.
[12:00] Speaker 1: I want to advertise. And I was the type of
[12:02] Speaker 1: person that would not you wouldn't have you would not
[12:04] Speaker 1: have picked me to be a advertising lawyer from my background.
[12:10] Speaker 1: But I did it. And I went to the bank
[12:12] Speaker 1: and I borrowed one hundred grand. One bank sale, give
[12:16] Speaker 1: me fifty other bank sale, give me a hundred. Yes,
[12:20] Speaker 1: guess where I went when they gave me a hundred
[12:23] Speaker 1: and I started advertising and it started working. It started working.
[12:29] Speaker 1: And so what I did to scale the business. Every
[12:33] Speaker 1: time that I would make money, I would pour money
[12:37] Speaker 1: back into the business. What I would tell your listeners
[12:41] Speaker 1: and viewers is to scale, you can't just want to
[12:48] Speaker 1: take your profits and buy a boat or buy a car,
[12:52] Speaker 1: or you got to take that money and pour it
[12:57] Speaker 1: back into the business. And if you look at all
[13:01] Speaker 1: the businesses who do well and who scale well, they
[13:05] Speaker 1: poured their money back into business. You know, the first
[13:09] Speaker 1: year that I made a million dollars, even though I
[13:12] Speaker 1: was doing great things, was I was forty one years old.
[13:15] Speaker 1: I didn't make a million dollars. I was forty one
[13:17] Speaker 1: years old because I started in Orlando. I said, Okay,
[13:20] Speaker 1: I got Orlando mastered. Now I'm go to go to Tampa.
[13:23] Speaker 1: I got Tampa mastered. Now I'm gonna go to Jacksonville.
[13:27] Speaker 1: I got Jacksonville mastered. Now I we'll go down to Fort
[13:29] Speaker 1: Myers and Naples got that mastered. Let's move across the
[13:32] Speaker 1: Alligator Alley and go to Miami. Okay, we got Florida
[13:37] Speaker 1: taking care of where's next Atlanta, Alabama? And I kept
[13:44] Speaker 1: pouring money, not in myself, in my pleasures for myself,
[13:50] Speaker 1: but in my business. And so fast forward from nineteen
[13:56] Speaker 1: eighty eight till today, where I spent one hundred thousand
[13:58] Speaker 1: dollars on my first year of average and I look,
[14:02] Speaker 1: I don't know what would have happened if people didn't call.
[14:04] Speaker 1: I mean, I'd had to pay one hundred off and
[14:06] Speaker 1: I was still, you know, hustling. But that first year,
[14:10] Speaker 1: we spend one hundred thousand dollars in advertising. This year
[14:14] Speaker 1: we'll spend six hundred million dollars.
[14:17] Speaker 2: And can I can I just follow it because that's
[14:19] Speaker 2: the next question I had. Okay, you spend six hundred
[14:22] Speaker 2: million dollars in advertising, What is the rate of return
[14:26] Speaker 2: on that? And how do you allocate, like explain spending
[14:29] Speaker 2: six hundred million dollars on averatime?
[14:32] Speaker 1: Well, sometimes you start and when you start a new market,
[14:37] Speaker 1: you know you're losing money because the case takes you know,
[14:42] Speaker 1: twelve to eighteen months to resolve. So you're spending big money.
[14:46] Speaker 1: And so it looks like this just bleeding, bleeding, bleeding, red,
[14:51] Speaker 1: red red, and then at a certain point, by the
[14:54] Speaker 1: second or third year, you start flatlining. You're not you're
[14:58] Speaker 1: not having to pour money in it. It's paying for yourself,
[15:01] Speaker 1: but you're not making money. And then it starts to
[15:03] Speaker 1: rise up. And then at a certain point I call
[15:07] Speaker 1: it crossing the rubicon. At a certain point, you cross
[15:11] Speaker 1: the rubicon and now you're broke even. And once you
[15:16] Speaker 1: break even, then you keep going. My rule of thumb
[15:20] Speaker 1: is this what's up earners?
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[16:03] Speaker 1: I try to spend fifteen percent once the markets mature.
[16:07] Speaker 1: Fifteen percent of my budget is if my fees. If
[16:13] Speaker 1: my fees are going to be one hundred million, then
[16:15] Speaker 1: I spend fifteen million. That's fifteen percent. So you know,
[16:23] Speaker 1: last year we did two point four two point four
[16:30] Speaker 1: billion in fees. Now some of that is like, you know,
[16:35] Speaker 1: Los Angeles, I'm probably forty million down from inception. But
[16:41] Speaker 1: I'm okay with that because the cases are there. I
[16:45] Speaker 1: always kind of look at it like a car lot.
[16:47] Speaker 1: As long as I'm spending money and there's cars on
[16:51] Speaker 1: the lot that I can sell one day, as long
[16:54] Speaker 1: as there's cases in the file cabinets that I'm okay.
[16:58] Speaker 1: So even though I've never made money in Los Angeles yet,
[17:05] Speaker 1: I'm going to make a shitload of money in California
[17:10] Speaker 1: because I got the cases and the case flows coming.
[17:13] Speaker 1: And you know, Philadelphia, you know, last year was the
[17:18] Speaker 1: first year I made money in Philly. I made you know,
[17:20] Speaker 1: eighteen million. But it takes that to go and then
[17:24] Speaker 1: you got to So the key to scaling is, don't
[17:28] Speaker 1: go out and buy a big car, don't go out
[17:30] Speaker 1: and buy boat, don't go out and you know, spend
[17:33] Speaker 1: money on silly stuff. Spend money now while you're young.
[17:38] Speaker 1: And then what happens all that time, all that effort,
[17:43] Speaker 1: when those plants start to grow all at once, it
[17:49] Speaker 1: becomes ridiculous. And by the way, that two point four
[17:52] Speaker 1: billion is what we call our core. That's the South
[17:56] Speaker 1: where our big push has been the expansion. New York
[18:01] Speaker 1: should call and listen. You know, you come into market
[18:04] Speaker 1: like this, it's expensive in New York. You go to
[18:06] Speaker 1: LA it's expensive. So I've got, you know, hundreds of
[18:12] Speaker 1: millions poured into expansion. But expansion is Boston, Philly, d C, Houston, Seattle,
[18:21] Speaker 1: San Francisco. And those days are my best days to come.
[18:26] Speaker 3: You talked to there's a lot there and I want
[18:28] Speaker 3: to ask a bunch of questions, but I'm gonna be
[18:29] Speaker 3: fair because go back and forth with Shotty. You said,
[18:32] Speaker 3: mastering a market, a market maturing? How do you realize
[18:36] Speaker 3: what are the metrics that you realize and to say, okay,
[18:39] Speaker 3: we've locked this down, right, it's the idea of find
[18:42] Speaker 3: a small town, locking down, move to the next one.
[18:44] Speaker 3: How do you know when you've mastered that market to
[18:46] Speaker 3: go to the next one. You started into Florida, but
[18:49] Speaker 3: obviously it's expanded.
[18:50] Speaker 1: I kind of look at it like this and there's
[18:52] Speaker 1: no I mean, look, everything I've done has been on
[18:54] Speaker 1: the fly. But I kind of look at it like
[18:56] Speaker 1: a tea cup. Like if I'm pouring tea into the
[18:59] Speaker 1: tea cup and I think the tea is starting to
[19:02] Speaker 1: pour over, like diminishing returns, that maybe I should go
[19:06] Speaker 1: pour in another teacup because it's just pouring over the teacup.
[19:10] Speaker 1: Like I'm not. I'm not moving the needle like I did.
[19:13] Speaker 1: Like when I first come into market, I move the
[19:16] Speaker 1: needle like that, But then you get to a point
[19:18] Speaker 1: where it's harder and harder to move the needle because
[19:21] Speaker 1: of the competition, because of the market. Once I feel like,
[19:26] Speaker 1: you know, think about it like a speedometer. You're going
[19:30] Speaker 1: down the road and you've got it floored, and you're
[19:33] Speaker 1: at ninety and you keep trying to floor it. I'm
[19:36] Speaker 1: going fast, it ain't going faster. The teacup is overflowing,
[19:41] Speaker 1: and now it's time to go get a new teacup.
[19:43] Speaker 1: That's kind of how I thought about it. Yeah, Now
[19:46] Speaker 1: is it is it exact science? No, But it's the
[19:49] Speaker 1: science I used.
[19:51] Speaker 3: You started out one hundred thy nineteen eighty eight up
[19:54] Speaker 3: to six hundred million this year.
[19:56] Speaker 5: Marketing has evolved.
[19:57] Speaker 3: I would imagine eighty eight is any year television is
[20:00] Speaker 3: newspapers this yellow pages today very different. How have you
[20:05] Speaker 3: managed to keep up to date, be in tune with
[20:09] Speaker 3: the drastic changes that happen in this space.
[20:12] Speaker 1: Well that's a great question. First of all, you have
[20:19] Speaker 1: where a lot of people make a mistake. The old
[20:21] Speaker 1: bull can't let go. The old bull needs to understand
[20:25] Speaker 1: their's young bulls. Like whatever he said to you that
[20:28] Speaker 1: you kind of did, I don't know what the fuck
[20:30] Speaker 1: you're talking about, but he did. Okay, I have no
[20:34] Speaker 1: idea how when they get in the car like what
[20:36] Speaker 1: was he? You know, but you need a lot of
[20:39] Speaker 1: thirty year old and forty year olds and twenty year
[20:42] Speaker 1: olds and social media. I mean, you can't be stuck
[20:47] Speaker 1: just because you don't know it. So I surround myself
[20:51] Speaker 1: with youth. Now, you know, I've got children. You know,
[20:54] Speaker 1: he's in his thirties, but my social media people they're
[20:58] Speaker 1: in their twenties. I mean when I go over to Brooklyn,
[21:00] Speaker 1: where my all my creative is, I mean there's people
[21:04] Speaker 1: walking around with you know, pink hair and nose rings,
[21:08] Speaker 1: and everybody's tattooed up, and they're you know, they're they're
[21:13] Speaker 1: skateboarding around. We're looking at it. The we look right
[21:16] Speaker 1: out at the the Statue of Liberty. But you have
[21:20] Speaker 1: to make sure that you don't let time pass you by.
[21:24] Speaker 1: Because time I'm seventy, time will I look good. But
[21:28] Speaker 1: I'm seventy, and time will pass you by. So I
[21:32] Speaker 1: try to layer my organizations with youth, specifically for different things.
[21:39] Speaker 1: I mean, social media is a whole. I mean, look
[21:42] Speaker 1: where we are. John Morgan ten years ago, ain't sitting here.
[21:48] Speaker 1: You're not sitting here. So but you know, my my
[21:55] Speaker 1: younger people. Look, I give a lot of credit to
[21:58] Speaker 1: Dan over there. I mean, we're doing US Sea fights.
[22:02] Speaker 1: I don't think I would have done that. We're on
[22:04] Speaker 1: the Yankee, we're sponsoring the Yankees, we sponsor the Jets,
[22:07] Speaker 1: we sponsored the Red Sox. We got into sports a podcast.
[22:13] Speaker 1: We're buying podcasts, you know, adds them. But I don't
[22:18] Speaker 1: really listen to podcasts. I listen to some I listened
[22:24] Speaker 1: to like Malcolm Gladwell and you know some of those.
[22:28] Speaker 1: But I didn't know it. But just because I didn't
[22:31] Speaker 1: know it doesn't mean it's not out there. And so
[22:34] Speaker 1: what you gotta do is when you build your team,
[22:37] Speaker 1: you have to be open to a big team, and
[22:41] Speaker 1: you have to be open to hire people who you
[22:44] Speaker 1: believe know what they're doing, and then you gotta let
[22:48] Speaker 1: her run. You got to go fast and break things.
[22:51] Speaker 1: And breaking things is okay. Not breaking things is not
[22:55] Speaker 1: okay because that means you're not going fast and so
[22:58] Speaker 1: and so that's what I've done.
[23:01] Speaker 2: How do you so you're obviously a master marketing? Is
[23:06] Speaker 2: it a matter of just throwing everything against the wall
[23:08] Speaker 2: and just seeing what sticks because you're doing billboards, you're
[23:10] Speaker 2: doing social media, doing radio, you're doing the sports events.
[23:13] Speaker 2: Or is it a matter of Okay, I want to
[23:16] Speaker 2: target one thing. I want to move on. I want
[23:19] Speaker 2: to target one thing. Move on, Like, how do you
[23:21] Speaker 2: know where to deploy capital and what's a waste of
[23:25] Speaker 2: money and what's actually a good investment.
[23:28] Speaker 1: Well, this is an old line from a long time ago.
[23:31] Speaker 1: Half of my advertising is working. I just don't know
[23:35] Speaker 1: what half. You ever heard that? That's a new one. Okay,
[23:40] Speaker 1: So it's kind of like that. But as we've gotten
[23:43] Speaker 1: into the digital age, you know, clicks are counted and
[23:48] Speaker 1: CPM is a real deal, and so like that's why
[23:53] Speaker 1: everybody loves digital. You get to see the clicks. I mean,
[23:55] Speaker 1: I get to see I buy a word and I
[23:58] Speaker 1: get to see that work. I get to see it
[24:02] Speaker 1: all the way to sign up, I get to see
[24:04] Speaker 1: it all the way to fee, and I get to
[24:07] Speaker 1: see my return. I mean in real time. That didn't
[24:10] Speaker 1: happen years ago. So with you know, in podcasts, like
[24:15] Speaker 1: you know you all are huge, there's you know. I'm
[24:18] Speaker 1: here because I feel lucky to be here. Some people
[24:23] Speaker 1: call me for podcasts. I'm like, no, numbers just don't mean.
[24:30] Speaker 1: And by the way, I got another saying numbers don't lie.
[24:34] Speaker 1: A lot of things lie. Numbers do not lie. It
[24:39] Speaker 1: is what it is, and that's the age we're in.
[24:41] Speaker 1: And so but I look at advertising like a meal,
[24:46] Speaker 1: a balanced meal. There's vegetables, starks, protein, dessert, iced tea, radio, TV, podcasts, sports,
[24:58] Speaker 1: it's a balanced meal. In the beginning, when you come in,
[25:01] Speaker 1: you're trying to hit where you think it's going to
[25:03] Speaker 1: be best. I look at it all like a like
[25:06] Speaker 1: a dartboard, and what we want to hit first is
[25:11] Speaker 1: the bulls eye. So where do you go for bulls eye?
[25:14] Speaker 1: There's certain demographics, and then you finally get out to
[25:19] Speaker 1: you know, when you get bigger and bigger and bigger.
[25:22] Speaker 1: But there's really no exact science. If there was, I'd
[25:30] Speaker 1: be a lot richer than I am because because can
[25:34] Speaker 1: you imagine if there was a science to be able
[25:37] Speaker 1: to quantify every single dollar you spend. So a lot
[25:41] Speaker 1: of dollars I spend, you know, I get nothing on it,
[25:45] Speaker 1: but over time, basically, what I'm looking for I'm looking
[25:48] Speaker 1: to spend like in TV, I'm looking to I'm looking
[25:51] Speaker 1: for to talk to for four hundred dollars per acquisition
[25:59] Speaker 1: Social sie security. I can acquire a Social Security case
[26:03] Speaker 1: for less than four hundred dollars, and I just run
[26:06] Speaker 1: those things. I just They said, when should we stop
[26:08] Speaker 1: advertising for it? I said, let it get to four
[26:11] Speaker 1: hundred dollars. As long as it's under four hundred dollars,
[26:15] Speaker 1: because the average feel SOCID security is like, you know,
[26:18] Speaker 1: forty one hundred dollars and the success rates eighty five percent,
[26:22] Speaker 1: I said, just keep running. My guy goes, I should
[26:25] Speaker 1: just keep running the ads unlimited for Social Security. I said,
[26:30] Speaker 1: until we get to four hundred dollars, then come back
[26:32] Speaker 1: and tell me, he goes, What if we never get
[26:36] Speaker 1: to four hundred dollars, I said, you who to Let
[26:39] Speaker 1: me tell you this if there was a bank and
[26:43] Speaker 1: every time you pulled in and you put one hundred
[26:46] Speaker 1: dollars in the teller window and they credit your account
[26:51] Speaker 1: with it two hundred instead of one hundred. He goes, yeah,
[26:56] Speaker 1: I said, how many times a day would you drive
[26:58] Speaker 1: through the day? I said, I'd be out there to
[27:01] Speaker 1: fucking doing donuts. I wouldn't even go to work. I'd
[27:04] Speaker 1: just be doing donuts. I that'd be my job. I
[27:08] Speaker 1: be dizzy, I'd be Disney from hundred dollars, I'm back.
[27:12] Speaker 1: And you know, so those types of metrics are easy
[27:18] Speaker 1: for me. What's not easy is, you know, Yankee Stadium,
[27:24] Speaker 1: Fenway Park. But on the other hand, you know, when
[27:29] Speaker 1: people are seeing you on Yankee Stadium, that separates the
[27:33] Speaker 1: men from the boys. Looking up, there's Geico, there's Budweiser,
[27:38] Speaker 1: there's John and you know, people watch live sports and
[27:43] Speaker 1: as you all know, in this day of cord cutting
[27:47] Speaker 1: and radio being supplanted by podcast and the rise of
[27:52] Speaker 1: you know, these outdoor events and these sporting events, you know,
[27:57] Speaker 1: and and by the way, I came along reluctantly, I
[28:04] Speaker 1: was like, you know, this is I don't want to
[28:07] Speaker 1: be a jocksniffer just so I can see my name
[28:10] Speaker 1: at Yankee Stadium. I'm want to put my name somewhere
[28:13] Speaker 1: where I can make money, not just to walk in
[28:16] Speaker 1: and say, hey, I got four seats behind home plate
[28:18] Speaker 1: because I've never been. I've never even used any of
[28:21] Speaker 1: our tickets. We do rodeos in Vegas. The rodeo stuff.
[28:28] Speaker 1: We do a big, big wwe you know, naming the
[28:34] Speaker 1: map and so. But as the budget gets bigger and
[28:40] Speaker 1: the map is now America. The map was Orlando, Florida.
[28:44] Speaker 1: Now the map is America, every state. And so there's
[28:50] Speaker 1: no science, but it gets it gets there's some science.
[28:54] Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's incredible. So you've built one of the
[28:58] Speaker 5: largest law firm in America.
[29:01] Speaker 3: You've done it without private equity, you've done it without
[29:05] Speaker 3: venture capital, and you've done it without giving up ownership.
[29:10] Speaker 5: The question is how?
[29:12] Speaker 3: And then second part, was there ever a time when
[29:15] Speaker 3: you thought, maybe because I could scale this faster.
[29:21] Speaker 1: That I should scale it faster.
[29:22] Speaker 5: No, if you took money, you could scale it faster.
[29:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, but I do when I do the math. Once.
[29:26] Speaker 1: You got to remember this. When I was young, in
[29:28] Speaker 1: my twenties, I started a bank and it became a
[29:33] Speaker 1: bank called Center State Bank, and we traded on NASDAC
[29:37] Speaker 1: and we sold our bank to South State. Sitting on
[29:41] Speaker 1: that bank board that I started, I'm the founder of
[29:43] Speaker 1: that bank. I got to see the power and for
[29:49] Speaker 1: all the entrepreneurs listening to this, the power of compounding interest.
[29:55] Speaker 1: It can make you and it can break you. And
[30:00] Speaker 1: I set in many loan meetings or people couldn't pay
[30:04] Speaker 1: their bill the money people are borrowing for In the
[30:09] Speaker 1: legal space, I served on a board up here of
[30:14] Speaker 1: Esquire Bank, was a lawyer of bank for lawyers, and
[30:18] Speaker 1: it serves a great purpose. But a lot of this
[30:20] Speaker 1: money is expensive money. A lot of this money is
[30:22] Speaker 1: like fifteen fourteen, sixteen percent. When you start compounding that
[30:27] Speaker 1: over a long period of time, there's nothing for you
[30:31] Speaker 1: at the end. It's only for the bank. And so
[30:34] Speaker 1: I decided not to let because compounding interest can swallow
[30:39] Speaker 1: you like a tsunami, and it comes fast, and a
[30:43] Speaker 1: lot of people I've seen go bust, you know, over it.
[30:46] Speaker 1: So I decided, you know what, I'm just going to
[30:48] Speaker 1: grow organically, brick by brick, brick by brick, step by step,
[30:56] Speaker 1: and I never I've never had to use that money
[30:58] Speaker 1: because a lot of people use that money. They get
[31:01] Speaker 1: into a what they call a mask toward they say, hey,
[31:04] Speaker 1: we're gonna go do yos, and they borrow a bunch
[31:07] Speaker 1: of money and it takes ten years for that case
[31:11] Speaker 1: to settle. All the while that money is running and
[31:16] Speaker 1: that clock is ticket and that interest is just going
[31:18] Speaker 1: up and up. And they get to the end and
[31:20] Speaker 1: they settle the case and here's the money. And guess
[31:23] Speaker 1: what the lawyer got nothing. Nothing, That all went to
[31:27] Speaker 1: the bank. And so before I do that, I would
[31:31] Speaker 1: look at I've always look I've thought about it, because
[31:35] Speaker 1: you know, you want to grow faster. But on the
[31:38] Speaker 1: other hand, I don't want to just you know, I
[31:41] Speaker 1: look at some of those people, like hamster's on a
[31:43] Speaker 1: treadmill or on a spin wheel. You ever seen a
[31:46] Speaker 1: hamster on a spin wheel. He's just there all day long,
[31:52] Speaker 1: going nowhere fast, and at the end of the night
[31:55] Speaker 1: he's collapsed. Oh that was exhausting, went nowhere. I want
[31:59] Speaker 1: to be out of the cage. I don't want to
[32:01] Speaker 1: be in the cage on the spin wheel. I want
[32:04] Speaker 1: to be moving. How do they move a couple of blocks?
[32:09] Speaker 1: Then to be a hamster on a spin wheel, because
[32:11] Speaker 1: that's what most of those people are that take that
[32:14] Speaker 1: funny money.
[32:15] Speaker 2: What's your business model is it? I'm assuming it's like
[32:18] Speaker 2: somebody hires you and if you win, then you take
[32:23] Speaker 2: a percentage of it. If you don't win, there's no conversation. No,
[32:27] Speaker 2: And then how many How do you go about hiring
[32:29] Speaker 2: lawyers because obviously you have to have lawyers from all
[32:31] Speaker 2: over the country. Right, So are the lawyers paid on
[32:33] Speaker 2: salary or are they like commission based based off of
[32:37] Speaker 2: amount of cases that they win.
[32:38] Speaker 1: Well, I'm very entrepreneurial and I'm they all when they
[32:43] Speaker 1: first start, they got to get some guarantees because they
[32:45] Speaker 1: got more lawyers. Yeah, I mean lawyers. Do you have
[32:48] Speaker 1: twelve hundred? Yeah? I mean I don't even think. I
[32:52] Speaker 1: don't even know if any personal injury firm has one
[32:55] Speaker 1: hundred lawyers in America. But the thing I do with
[32:59] Speaker 1: the lawyers is based eat what you kill. I'm going
[33:01] Speaker 1: to give you all the tools you need and I'm
[33:07] Speaker 1: going to pay for all the costs, but you need
[33:09] Speaker 1: to get out there and win. You got to win.
[33:12] Speaker 1: And then the other thing I did inside of my firm,
[33:15] Speaker 1: I've made a lot of people partners in the firm.
[33:18] Speaker 1: So of the twelve hundred lawyers, two hundred are partners.
[33:24] Speaker 1: I fully believe that one of the big parts of
[33:29] Speaker 1: my success and one of the places where other people
[33:31] Speaker 1: make mistakes, is you got to share. You got to
[33:35] Speaker 1: share with people who make a difference. There's three types
[33:38] Speaker 1: of people in your organization. A's, b's, and c's, and
[33:42] Speaker 1: then there's a few A pluses. If you find an
[33:46] Speaker 1: A plus, you cannot let that person leave. If that
[33:50] Speaker 1: person leaves, you're devastated. And I've got my A plus.
[33:55] Speaker 1: I know who my A pluses are. I know who
[33:56] Speaker 1: my a's are, and then I know who my b's are.
[33:59] Speaker 1: And b's can just be bees forever, or bees can
[34:02] Speaker 1: be made into a's. C's gotta go. Seas are the
[34:06] Speaker 1: cancer cells that will take your organization down, and if
[34:10] Speaker 1: you let enough cancer build up inside your organization, your
[34:13] Speaker 1: organization fails.
[34:14] Speaker 5: What's what's the sea?
[34:15] Speaker 3: Like?
[34:15] Speaker 2: Explain some of the characteristics of a of a sea
[34:17] Speaker 2: person They complaining, Like what's that?
[34:19] Speaker 1: They're they're they're, they're they're always murmuring there, I call
[34:25] Speaker 1: them murmuring, you know there their dim viewers. I got
[34:28] Speaker 1: you know, I got a bad case. I got you know,
[34:30] Speaker 1: I'm not being paid fairly. I need more help, I
[34:33] Speaker 1: need another s It's always somebody else's problem, not their problem.
[34:39] Speaker 1: And over time, you know who they are. I guarantee
[34:44] Speaker 1: you this. If I said to you in your organization,
[34:47] Speaker 1: if there's one person that you if they leave, it's
[34:51] Speaker 1: a devastation. You're both gonna write down the same name.
[34:56] Speaker 1: We know who they are. It's not hard. Another thing
[35:00] Speaker 1: I'll tell you to your viewers do every year we
[35:03] Speaker 1: take a list of everybody in our organization, Joe blow.
[35:08] Speaker 1: Then there's a why for yes and an end for no,
[35:11] Speaker 1: and you ask yourself a question. If this perison. I'm
[35:15] Speaker 1: gonna talk about this guy over there, see him sitting
[35:17] Speaker 1: right there, See him smiling over there, looking at him,
[35:20] Speaker 1: see him smiling. All right, if this person applied for
[35:26] Speaker 1: a job here and he didn't work here, knowing everything
[35:30] Speaker 1: you know about him, would you hire him? Yes or no?
[35:38] Speaker 1: He shook his head. No, I don't want This is
[35:41] Speaker 1: a great way to evaluate. No, it's a great way.
[35:44] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is this is money. Would you hire him? Now?
[35:48] Speaker 1: Would you fire him? That's a different question. Would you
[35:51] Speaker 1: hire him? Would you hire her? And then you look
[35:55] Speaker 1: at that, and you go, now you got a list
[35:57] Speaker 1: of people. If you got a lot of whys, yes is,
[36:01] Speaker 1: you got a good organization. If you got a lot
[36:03] Speaker 1: of no's, you got to do something.
[36:06] Speaker 2: So you ask the employees about other employees, like you
[36:09] Speaker 2: ask it. They take them.
[36:10] Speaker 1: I asked, they're supervisor about them knowing everything you know
[36:15] Speaker 1: about him, about her if they applied for that job today,
[36:19] Speaker 1: and I don't care if it's reception or runner or lawyer,
[36:23] Speaker 1: would you hire them? It's just a question. And then
[36:26] Speaker 1: then you get to look at your organization the wise
[36:29] Speaker 1: and then what I would suggest is don't do it together,
[36:32] Speaker 1: do it separately. And then you all compare notes. And
[36:36] Speaker 1: if everybody's got a bunch of yeses, that's good news.
[36:39] Speaker 1: If everybody's got a bunch of no's, you got a problem.
[36:42] Speaker 1: And then what you got to do after that, You
[36:44] Speaker 1: got to go, Okay, here's the a's, here's the b's,
[36:48] Speaker 1: here's the c's. The c's are not going to be
[36:51] Speaker 1: that many, And then you got to ask yourself, what
[36:55] Speaker 1: are we going to do with the c's. What are
[36:57] Speaker 1: we going to do with the c's? Because the seas
[37:01] Speaker 1: will drag you down over time and so every year
[37:07] Speaker 1: I have my managers do the ABC deal and then
[37:10] Speaker 1: they get the seas and then we let them go.
[37:13] Speaker 1: We say you know what, and look, it's usually in
[37:18] Speaker 1: their best interest. And I never really just fire people.
[37:21] Speaker 1: I always tell people, look, it's easier to get a
[37:24] Speaker 1: job with a job. Go look for a job. When
[37:28] Speaker 1: they ask you why you're leaving, just say John Morgan's
[37:30] Speaker 1: an asshole. It's easier to find a job with the job,
[37:35] Speaker 1: because I don't want to hurt them. When I was little,
[37:37] Speaker 1: my dad got fired all the time. That's a scarring
[37:40] Speaker 1: thing for me. You know. I'd pull up and I'd
[37:44] Speaker 1: see his car in the driveway and my, ah my god,
[37:46] Speaker 1: here we go again. Yeah, home early, Homer, home early, Yeah.
[37:50] Speaker 1: I Like, Hey'd be sitting there with his one ads
[37:52] Speaker 1: open and socks and I'm like, oh god, how long
[37:56] Speaker 1: is this How long is this one going to last?
[37:59] Speaker 1: So I'm scarred by that. So I don't like to
[38:01] Speaker 1: just but I'll tell them, look, it's better to find
[38:04] Speaker 1: a job with a job. This isn't working, and it's
[38:07] Speaker 1: usually good for them because if they're not doing well,
[38:11] Speaker 1: it's because they're just not suited for it. But then
[38:15] Speaker 1: you got to get those eight pluses, and those eight
[38:17] Speaker 1: pluses they cannot leave your organization. Just think if somebody
[38:23] Speaker 1: left your organization, you're like, oh my god, this is
[38:26] Speaker 1: a devastation. And you got to pay close attention to
[38:30] Speaker 1: them because a lot of people start taking them for granted.
[38:34] Speaker 1: When you start taking somebody for granted, whether it's your
[38:37] Speaker 1: wife or your girlfriend or people that work with you,
[38:41] Speaker 1: there's other people out there. Listen, and this day and time,
[38:43] Speaker 1: people are trying to recruit my people all the time.
[38:48] Speaker 1: People are trying to recruit great people all the time.
[38:51] Speaker 1: So you've got to be defensive on one hand to
[38:54] Speaker 1: keep all your stars, but you also got to be
[38:57] Speaker 1: pruning the bushes at the same time to get rid
[39:00] Speaker 1: of the seas.
[39:01] Speaker 3: The a pluses are important, and you talked about being partners,
[39:06] Speaker 3: So I wonder is there how do we measure that?
[39:08] Speaker 3: Is it a win rate? I just had two friends.
[39:11] Speaker 3: Actually they're married. Wife was partner husband wasn't time went
[39:17] Speaker 3: on husband, they're both partners now in the firm. What
[39:20] Speaker 3: is that process like Because a lot of people hear that,
[39:22] Speaker 3: but they don't understand what it entails.
[39:25] Speaker 1: Well, there's no exact science. It's like you just the
[39:30] Speaker 1: first thing you say, if I lost this person, it's
[39:33] Speaker 1: a very bad day. The second thing is they got
[39:37] Speaker 1: to buy in. I mean, to buy into this organization,
[39:43] Speaker 1: you got to go borrow sometimes millions of dollars. And
[39:50] Speaker 1: the reason I like that is I've got your attention.
[39:53] Speaker 2: They have what do you mean, they have to buy in,
[39:55] Speaker 2: They have to.
[39:56] Speaker 1: Shares in the firm. It's not just hey, you're a partner.
[39:58] Speaker 1: They have to write a check, They got to go
[40:00] Speaker 1: to the bank. They got to borrow millions of dollars.
[40:03] Speaker 5: Is that the typical like, oh, that's yours.
[40:07] Speaker 3: So in order for me to be partner, there is
[40:10] Speaker 3: I have to have ownership in the company.
[40:12] Speaker 5: I gotta buy ownership.
[40:13] Speaker 1: But then I show you I gotta the way I've
[40:15] Speaker 1: got to set up. I show you, yo, Look, if
[40:17] Speaker 1: we keep doing what we're doing, you're gonna pay this
[40:19] Speaker 1: loan off in three years. Okay, that's kind of the deal.
[40:24] Speaker 1: It has to be a loan. I don't care if
[40:26] Speaker 1: it's a loaner. I mean, if you got a rich mama,
[40:28] Speaker 1: I don't care about that. Money's money. I always do it.
[40:31] Speaker 5: Thought it was a promotion. People worked hard.
[40:34] Speaker 2: Hell usually you know you're saying, that's how hiss.
[40:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of people or the or it's like
[40:39] Speaker 1: the buy is like fifty grand, it doesn't mean anything. Okay,
[40:42] Speaker 1: now my buy in is millions. Got you, but they're
[40:46] Speaker 1: going to make millions. I mean these And by the way,
[40:52] Speaker 1: every partner I got if I try to take their
[40:54] Speaker 1: partnership and also got it, I also got mechanisms to
[40:57] Speaker 1: take partnership away. The same formula that we have to
[41:01] Speaker 1: buy in, it's the same formula to buy out. Sometimes
[41:04] Speaker 1: I walk in and go, you know, we don't have
[41:07] Speaker 1: your attention anymore. We're gonna buy you out. And we've
[41:11] Speaker 1: got a locked price. So it's it's all, it's all
[41:13] Speaker 1: in stone, we're gonna buy you out. Why do I
[41:16] Speaker 1: do this? Because when people real partners care. When they
[41:21] Speaker 1: leave the building, they turn the lights out, they lock
[41:24] Speaker 1: the door. If they hear somebody's getting ready to quit,
[41:27] Speaker 1: they'll call you and tell you, hey, we're gonna lose
[41:30] Speaker 1: our receptionists. A coworker won't do that, but a partner will.
[41:36] Speaker 1: And so how do I develop who these partners are they?
[41:39] Speaker 1: What happens over time is people, It's like a sports team.
[41:43] Speaker 1: People emerge and look at sports. You see like you
[41:47] Speaker 1: know Scottie Pippen, he came out of nowhere, he just
[41:50] Speaker 1: emerged and became Scotty Pippen. People emerge and you just
[41:57] Speaker 1: see their work, ethic, their demeanor. But then I have
[42:02] Speaker 1: one key, key thing that I use. I call it
[42:07] Speaker 1: sind delete. Over time, you'll start sending people something to
[42:13] Speaker 1: do with, Hey, can you do this? Can you do this?
[42:16] Speaker 1: And it just gets done and you start to get
[42:19] Speaker 1: the hang this. This shit's just getting this. She gets
[42:22] Speaker 1: it done. And then you say, in the past you
[42:28] Speaker 1: used to send it, but you'd hold it, and then
[42:30] Speaker 1: check back in the day, Hey did you do this? Yeah?
[42:33] Speaker 1: Ask God. Once you realize you got what I call
[42:36] Speaker 1: a sind delete person, if I send it, I don't
[42:40] Speaker 1: need to worry about it. It's done. Then those people,
[42:44] Speaker 1: those are the a pluses, and those are the ones
[42:46] Speaker 1: that I invite to be my partner. And then once
[42:52] Speaker 1: they emerge and once they become a sin deleite person,
[42:58] Speaker 1: then and only then do you delegate ruthlessly. Ruthlessly and
[43:09] Speaker 1: everybody's got a job. Here's something to take with you.
[43:16] Speaker 1: If everyone's accountable, no one's accountable. There are so many
[43:22] Speaker 1: organizations where there's not people that have specific responsibilities, like
[43:28] Speaker 1: what happened? Why is the power off? Who didn't pay
[43:32] Speaker 1: the bill? Well he didn't. Well, that's not my job.
[43:36] Speaker 1: Everybody's got a specific job. Whatever happens in my firm,
[43:40] Speaker 1: everybody's got a specific job, and we know who to
[43:43] Speaker 1: look at when something fails.
[43:46] Speaker 2: So if I'm a lawyer and I'm working, I just
[43:48] Speaker 2: started right with your firm. You guys are getting phone
[43:52] Speaker 2: calls all the time. I'm gonna show you how do
[43:55] Speaker 2: like how do you dish out? Okay, this is your case?
[43:57] Speaker 2: This is your case? And can they get their own cases?
[44:00] Speaker 2: Like if they want to, Like, can they go out
[44:02] Speaker 2: and market themselves as as a person that's representing your firm?
[44:06] Speaker 2: Or they just have to just wait for the cost
[44:08] Speaker 2: center to give them.
[44:09] Speaker 1: Listen, they all get paid more for they bring the
[44:11] Speaker 1: case set. Okay, so they cold can Yeah. In my book,
[44:14] Speaker 1: in my book here I tell that there's a book.
[44:17] Speaker 1: There's a book that I read that I put as
[44:20] Speaker 1: one of my chapters in life is Luck. It's called
[44:23] Speaker 1: never eat alone. You're not gonna make no money. Eat
[44:26] Speaker 1: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at your desk every day.
[44:29] Speaker 1: The only way you're gonna make money is out there
[44:32] Speaker 1: and about, whether you're taking somebody lunch, whether you're speaking,
[44:38] Speaker 1: whether you're at a convention, whether you're networking. If you're
[44:41] Speaker 1: not out there and about, then you're never going to
[44:46] Speaker 1: be a top tier.
[44:47] Speaker 2: So they have to build their own. They have to build.
[44:49] Speaker 2: They don't have to they don't have to recommend.
[44:51] Speaker 1: Some of them is if you want to make money,
[44:53] Speaker 1: more money, I mean, if you want to make money. Yeah,
[44:56] Speaker 1: it's you know, it's now. Look, some people don't have
[45:00] Speaker 1: the personality for it. Some people are more technical than not.
[45:06] Speaker 1: And that's okay because there's a there's a place for
[45:08] Speaker 1: some of these people. There's some people, Hey, look, you know,
[45:12] Speaker 1: I'm just not a smoother, and that's okay. But those
[45:15] Speaker 1: people are usually not partners either. There's those are the
[45:20] Speaker 1: bees I look at like, you know, the offensive line,
[45:25] Speaker 1: the guards and the tackles. We need them. But they're
[45:30] Speaker 1: not they're not they're not the quarterback, they're not the
[45:34] Speaker 1: running back. They're not you know, they're not Mike Evans
[45:40] Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, Mike. They're not Mike Evans. So so,
[45:47] Speaker 1: but it's you know, and and and look, they got
[45:49] Speaker 1: to show up every day. It was just because you
[45:51] Speaker 1: become a partner and you decided to sit back and
[45:54] Speaker 1: start making millions and not contributing, and we come in
[45:58] Speaker 1: and go look. And I'll always come in and say, hey, look,
[46:02] Speaker 1: this is your warning year. This is your warning year.
[46:06] Speaker 1: We brought you in because we thought you were something
[46:08] Speaker 1: and you turn out not to be that. And just
[46:11] Speaker 1: because you bought the stock, this is not Apple. You
[46:15] Speaker 1: don't buy a stock. This is we need sweat equity.
[46:20] Speaker 1: And and so we've got a formula set up and look,
[46:22] Speaker 1: we've we've had to take a lot of partnerships away
[46:25] Speaker 1: over the years. And to me, it's always it's kind
[46:28] Speaker 1: of just like a sports team. When the when the
[46:30] Speaker 1: when the player stops producing, you got to get players
[46:34] Speaker 1: who can produce bottom line bottom line numbers don't lie,
[46:38] Speaker 1: renegotiate the contract, renegotiat and look, a lot of them stay.
[46:42] Speaker 1: A lot of them say look okay, because the numbers
[46:45] Speaker 1: don't lie.
[46:47] Speaker 2: Oh so they lose their partnership and still stay as
[46:49] Speaker 2: a regular employee.
[46:50] Speaker 5: Yeah, signed.
[46:52] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[46:53] Speaker 5: Veteran mineral g League league.
[47:01] Speaker 1: Said, no death in the Hey, I tell you, because
[47:03] Speaker 1: you never know you know, but never know. The other day,
[47:07] Speaker 1: I'm in I'm in the grocery store. I don't go
[47:08] Speaker 1: to the grocery store very much. And I was in
[47:10] Speaker 1: the grocery store and this guy walks up. He's got
[47:13] Speaker 1: kind of hair down to here, and he walks up
[47:15] Speaker 1: and he goes, are you John Morgan? I go, yeah,
[47:17] Speaker 1: And he had his he had his right hand behind
[47:19] Speaker 1: his back like this. I said, yeah, I just moved
[47:22] Speaker 1: up here from Miami and I'm with so and so,
[47:25] Speaker 1: and I just can't believe I see you on social media.
[47:28] Speaker 1: And I kept looking at this guy like the fuck's
[47:32] Speaker 1: he got behind his back? I'm like, you know. I
[47:36] Speaker 1: finally had to say. He goes, can I get a
[47:38] Speaker 1: picture with you? I go, I said, what do you got?
[47:41] Speaker 1: I said, what do you? I said, what do you
[47:43] Speaker 1: got in your hands? I don't be capped. Right there
[47:44] Speaker 1: in the damn frozen food section, the public's he pulled
[47:49] Speaker 1: a day he feels, he pulls his hand out nothing.
[47:52] Speaker 1: I go, he goes, why just checking. So when that
[47:54] Speaker 1: guy knocked I thought it was another assassinate. I thought
[47:57] Speaker 1: it was another assassination.
[47:59] Speaker 3: He's saying, Dan, dance with my wife. You never know,
[48:07] Speaker 3: what's the biggest competitive advantage that you have, because I'm
[48:11] Speaker 3: looking at it and I'm listening to it. Is it
[48:13] Speaker 3: the operations? Is it the marketing? Because obviously you guys
[48:18] Speaker 3: are premier here locally. We used to hear like other
[48:21] Speaker 3: injury at ternment, but then none of them are Morgan
[48:23] Speaker 3: and Morgan.
[48:24] Speaker 5: What has separated you from the pacts?
[48:28] Speaker 1: Well, I don't do anything half aass. I want to
[48:33] Speaker 1: be number one. And the other thing that's really helped
[48:39] Speaker 1: is the more cities I'm in. It seems like my
[48:42] Speaker 1: footprint gets you know, when I go into a new market,
[48:44] Speaker 1: it happens faster. I don't know exactly why traveled already,
[48:49] Speaker 1: the name travels people have lived, you know, populations every
[48:55] Speaker 1: seven years. Populations change by twenty five percent every seven years.
[49:02] Speaker 1: Now a lot of it's in the state. But if
[49:04] Speaker 1: somebody was in Orlando, now they're in Tampa, I've got on.
[49:08] Speaker 1: But if somebody was in Orlando now they're in Atlanta.
[49:10] Speaker 1: So we're travels and so that has been an advantage.
[49:19] Speaker 1: One of our other advantages. I think you'll see my commercials.
[49:23] Speaker 1: Some of them cost one hundred thousand to do. Someone
[49:26] Speaker 1: costs two fifty to do. I got one with John Daly.
[49:29] Speaker 1: You know it was expensive deal. We did a lot
[49:31] Speaker 1: with Kyle Busch when he was alive. Yeah, those commercials.
[49:37] Speaker 1: If I was just going to do that in one
[49:39] Speaker 1: city and spend two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I'd
[49:44] Speaker 1: be like, that doesn't work. But because here's the key
[49:48] Speaker 1: word scale. If anybody takes anything away from me today, scale.
[49:54] Speaker 1: So now wait a minute, it's twenty five, it's two
[49:57] Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand, or it's a one hundred thousand,
[50:00] Speaker 1: which is expensive. But I'm in forty to fifty markets,
[50:08] Speaker 1: and when you divide fifty into one hundred, that ad
[50:12] Speaker 1: costs two thousand dollars and not one hundred thousand. Does
[50:16] Speaker 1: that make sense what I'm saying. So that gives me
[50:19] Speaker 1: an advantage. I can have these. Listen, my chief marketing officer,
[50:23] Speaker 1: you know what he did before he was my chief
[50:25] Speaker 1: marketing officer. He was guy coach chief marketing officer. I
[50:31] Speaker 1: just hired a major guy from Amazon who did the
[50:35] Speaker 1: AI at Amazon for my AI. I'm able to pay people,
[50:41] Speaker 1: big people, big money because I'm scaling it across. Those
[50:47] Speaker 1: salaries are paid by all the cities and that gives
[50:50] Speaker 1: me an incredible advantage when you're buying ads. If you're
[50:55] Speaker 1: buying a few adsus this. When you're buying a lot
[51:02] Speaker 1: of ads, it casts this. You know. I own a
[51:06] Speaker 1: water company once with Crystal Gale, the singer called clear Ridge.
[51:11] Speaker 1: When we'd sell a big bottle, big thing at the
[51:13] Speaker 1: Saturn factory, it was cheap. The water was cheap. But
[51:16] Speaker 1: when you sell a little bottle ship that's that's that
[51:20] Speaker 1: costs more than beer water. So size is my friend,
[51:27] Speaker 1: but size can be your enemy because when you get big,
[51:30] Speaker 1: now you're a target, you know, and everybody wants to
[51:33] Speaker 1: take you down. You got to worry about that. You
[51:36] Speaker 1: can't jywalk.
[51:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, when you when you're spending Now is it linear?
[51:42] Speaker 3: Is it streaming or is it the more modern meaning?
[51:46] Speaker 3: It's everything everything, It's everything. Look, look, cord cutting is here.
[51:50] Speaker 5: It's happening.
[51:51] Speaker 1: Radio very difficult, uh, you know, And that's kind of
[51:59] Speaker 1: why we've moved move to you know, sports and events
[52:03] Speaker 1: and you know podcast I mean podcast I mean and
[52:07] Speaker 1: by the way, what's what's interesting about podcasts? Everybody thinks
[52:12] Speaker 1: it's easy. It ain't. When the other day I go
[52:16] Speaker 1: the other day there's a guy, a friend of mine.
[52:17] Speaker 1: I live in Hawaii half the year. Oh yeah, Maui.
[52:21] Speaker 1: I used to live on a big island. Okay, I'm
[52:24] Speaker 1: over Maui. I'm in Lehina. I represented the fire. Are
[52:28] Speaker 1: we settle that case for four point seven billion dollars?
[52:32] Speaker 1: He's right there in my back my backyard, looked at
[52:36] Speaker 1: front Street, that's where the fire was. But there's a
[52:40] Speaker 1: guy over there in Mali who's the greatest guy in
[52:42] Speaker 1: the world. His name is Shep Gordon, and I've always
[52:44] Speaker 1: told Shep you ought to watch his shows called His
[52:48] Speaker 1: documentary is called super minch In the book's called Superminson.
[52:54] Speaker 1: He represents Alice Cooper. He represents everybody. But I told you,
[52:56] Speaker 1: I said, Shep, we ought to do a podcast. Everybody
[53:00] Speaker 1: that Luke comes through town always comes through his backyard,
[53:04] Speaker 1: and he's thinking about it. But I went into chat
[53:07] Speaker 1: GPT to get the statistics for how listen, man, you
[53:14] Speaker 1: got a better chance of launching a rocket and taking
[53:17] Speaker 1: your ass to Mars then being successful in a podcast.
[53:21] Speaker 1: I mean it was like, damn. I mean, if you
[53:26] Speaker 1: read that, you might even even start with If you
[53:29] Speaker 1: fellas had read that, you may not have even started
[53:32] Speaker 1: this thing because you're like, that's the odds are against us.
[53:36] Speaker 1: But now you know you're coming to Atlanta with forty
[53:39] Speaker 1: thousand people in attendance. It's gigantic. Life is luck, Life
[53:44] Speaker 1: is luck. And speaking of that, what does life is luck?
[53:47] Speaker 5: What does that?
[53:47] Speaker 2: Because people always say success is not lucky, and don't
[53:53] Speaker 2: you don't become successful by being lucky. Your book title
[53:58] Speaker 2: is life is Luck. What does that mean?
[54:01] Speaker 5: All right?
[54:01] Speaker 1: What that means is this life is a thousand left turns,
[54:07] Speaker 1: a thousand right turns, a thousand U turns, and a
[54:10] Speaker 1: lot of the turns. You just flip a coin. You
[54:13] Speaker 1: just do it. Now, everybody who is successful or not everybody,
[54:19] Speaker 1: Most people who are successful don't want to say I
[54:22] Speaker 1: was lucky. They want to say hard work, hard work. Well,
[54:27] Speaker 1: here's what I want to tell you about hard work,
[54:29] Speaker 1: the hardest work in people in America make the least,
[54:36] Speaker 1: make the least. So don't don't don't ever, don't ever
[54:42] Speaker 1: have you ever have you ever taken a shovel and
[54:45] Speaker 1: try to dig a hole? They're done that. It's hard.
[54:50] Speaker 1: It's like forget it. It's like and if you have
[54:54] Speaker 1: some frost on the ground, you know hit, You're like,
[54:58] Speaker 1: forget it. That the hardest work, you know, in the
[55:02] Speaker 1: fields picking strawberries and throwing watermelons, And that's the hardest
[55:08] Speaker 1: work in America, and they make the least. So what
[55:15] Speaker 1: I recognize is this, There was a few things that
[55:19] Speaker 1: happened in my life that changed everything for me, like
[55:24] Speaker 1: Jerry Billings. What if I didn't go to Jerry Billings.
[55:29] Speaker 1: What if I hadn't by, what have happened to me?
[55:32] Speaker 1: I think I might have still been okay, But would
[55:34] Speaker 1: this have happened? I had a big case early in
[55:37] Speaker 1: my life. I build these attractions across America called WonderWorks,
[55:43] Speaker 1: and they print money and the houses are turned upside
[55:46] Speaker 1: down and you walk in, you're standing on the ceiling.
[55:49] Speaker 1: And I got six of them, and I got no debt,
[55:54] Speaker 1: and I make thirty three million dollars a year in EBAA.
[55:58] Speaker 1: But guess what I did the first one in Orlando,
[56:01] Speaker 1: did the second one in Pigeon Forge, and is the
[56:03] Speaker 1: third one in Myrtle Beach. And then I did one
[56:10] Speaker 1: in Syracuse in the mall. And it's a total disaster,
[56:13] Speaker 1: total disaster. If I'd done that one first, I might
[56:19] Speaker 1: not have done none I might have just been it,
[56:25] Speaker 1: but I did it in Orlando. Sometimes it's just that
[56:28] Speaker 1: it's not that your idea was bad, your location was bad,
[56:32] Speaker 1: your city was bad, or you didn't have enough capital,
[56:36] Speaker 1: and so there's so many of confluence of events that
[56:41] Speaker 1: make it like and if I had to say to you, guys,
[56:45] Speaker 1: tell me the luckiest, I'll ask you, what's the luckiest
[56:48] Speaker 1: things that ever happened to you in your in this
[56:50] Speaker 1: world that you're.
[56:51] Speaker 2: In, the luckiest thing that's ever happened.
[56:53] Speaker 1: You're supposed to say, I met him, but keep going.
[56:56] Speaker 2: At the top of the well, let me see this,
[57:00] Speaker 2: let me say this, because I'm gonna answer that question.
[57:04] Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you something. I'm glad you don't live
[57:06] Speaker 1: in Orlanta because you two would be I mean, we're
[57:08] Speaker 1: hanging out after this, I'm telling you, I'll keep watching
[57:11] Speaker 1: him laughing at you, like I gotta separate these two guys.
[57:13] Speaker 2: But we've been we've been fortunate a lot, like we've
[57:16] Speaker 2: been fortunate to run into Steve Harvey, who's become a
[57:19] Speaker 2: great mentor to us business partner. We've been fortunate to
[57:23] Speaker 2: start to show in a time where people really was interested.
[57:26] Speaker 2: He was fortunate. I hate to say it, but even
[57:28] Speaker 2: COVID because that was an acceleration period for us. But
[57:34] Speaker 2: we also put ourselves in position to be fortunate. It's
[57:38] Speaker 2: not like we were just random people on the street
[57:39] Speaker 2: and then it's like COVID happening and it's like, oh,
[57:41] Speaker 2: now we're gonna become alone.
[57:43] Speaker 1: Never eat alone. Listen. The way you find luck is
[57:48] Speaker 1: you're looking for opportunities that's in your control. It's not
[57:53] Speaker 1: all luck, right, you know, if you don't play the game,
[57:57] Speaker 1: God be in Yeah. And if you never take a
[58:00] Speaker 1: shot on goal, you never make a goal, Wayne Gretzky.
[58:03] Speaker 5: So you create you yeah.
[58:05] Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's so I don't want to take too
[58:08] Speaker 1: much away from it. Listen. Grant Hill is a partner
[58:12] Speaker 1: of minding some businesses and one time, I'm from Kentucky.
[58:17] Speaker 1: He played a duke.
[58:18] Speaker 3: So we're a Kentucky fan, you are, Yeah, how do
[58:21] Speaker 3: you have that happen?
[58:23] Speaker 6: Uh?
[58:23] Speaker 5: Nineties?
[58:25] Speaker 3: I grew up just watching Jamal Mashbury and Travis Ford
[58:28] Speaker 3: and that was it.
[58:29] Speaker 5: Oh.
[58:29] Speaker 3: I was like, he's from the Bronx point this is
[58:32] Speaker 3: gonna be my team and it's just been my team.
[58:35] Speaker 1: Well, we're me and Dan are real close with cal
[58:38] Speaker 1: He's at in Arkansas.
[58:39] Speaker 5: He's not with us anymore.
[58:40] Speaker 1: No, but he should be.
[58:42] Speaker 2: Kentucky's your team exclusively.
[58:45] Speaker 5: Yeah, College for sure. College. I knew I loved you
[58:49] Speaker 5: know something different. You didn't ever root for Michigan. You never,
[58:51] Speaker 5: I did. Gregor is a Michigan fan. You never rooted
[58:53] Speaker 5: for Michigan Fab five?
[58:55] Speaker 1: Did you?
[58:55] Speaker 7: I wanted them.
[58:56] Speaker 5: I wanted them to.
[58:57] Speaker 2: Do well at any point in time that you root
[58:58] Speaker 2: for Michigan.
[58:59] Speaker 1: No, So think about this. Think about this. There's three
[59:02] Speaker 1: types of luck. There's pure luck, there's planned luck, and
[59:08] Speaker 1: there's practice luck. Pure luck is catching lightning in a bottle,
[59:13] Speaker 1: or just getting hit by lightning. Bad luck. Good luck,
[59:17] Speaker 1: catch lightning in a bottle. Then there is planned luck.
[59:21] Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin is seeing this electric stuff and he's like,
[59:24] Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to drag this key out
[59:26] Speaker 1: with the you know, and he catches lightning. That's planned luck.
[59:30] Speaker 1: Then there's practiced luck, because luck comes in all forms
[59:33] Speaker 1: of fact. So one night, Grant and I are flying
[59:35] Speaker 1: home from somewhere. He had this pass, you know, the
[59:38] Speaker 1: pass nineteen ninety one. He throws the ball down Christian
[59:44] Speaker 1: Lightner turns around. Game over. I go, I said, Grant
[59:50] Speaker 1: that it's just that broke my heart. I said, I
[59:54] Speaker 1: was the luckiest shot in the world, and he goes,
[59:57] Speaker 1: Luck had nothing to do with that, John, do you,
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: I said, like, wow, explain that to me. He goes.
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: We practiced that play every day in practice. And once
[1:00:12] Speaker 1: we had the same play, but we were doing it
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: down the sideline instead of underneath the basket. We did
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: it against wake Forest and I threw it, but it
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: was on the sideline and it blew up, and so
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: then we changed it that we're going to inbound it
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: from under the basket to the top of the key.
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: That happened every day in practice. So now we're against Kentucky.
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: Coach k calls time out. He brings the team over. Grant,
[1:00:40] Speaker 1: can you make the pass? Yes, Christian? Can you make
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: the shot? Yes? Hands in, Let's go win this game.
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: What's planned? Luck? What's practice luck? You swatch football the
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: two minute drill? You're like, how in the world are
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: going from the five to the two? I mean, that's lucky.
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: They practice that two minute drill every single practice. It
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: looks like luck. So there's you got to sort you know,
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: the weed from the shape. There's pure luck, there's planned luck,
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: and there's practice luck. But the way you find the
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: best luck and the most significant luck is if you're
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: looking for luck. And the way you look for luck
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: is you got to always be looking for opportunities. And
[1:01:42] Speaker 1: when you fail, that is, believe it or not, is
[1:01:47] Speaker 1: your best luck. You're like why, because the lessons in
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: failure are the roadmap to success. I had an attraction
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: that I built in DC called the National Museum of
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: Crime and Punishment. I had it, I had CSI laboratories,
[1:02:05] Speaker 1: I had, you know, all this memorabilia. I couldn't build
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: it the way I wanted, a bad low. I mean,
[1:02:15] Speaker 1: you know, everything's free in d C. I should never
[1:02:18] Speaker 1: gone there. So all of a sudden I failed. But
[1:02:21] Speaker 1: my wife kept saying. She says, John, this is the
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: best thing you've ever done. So well, you know, I
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: got other attractions over in the Smoky Mountains. She goes,
[1:02:29] Speaker 1: you need to build it again. I said, to take
[1:02:32] Speaker 1: this failure. She is, it's not a failure. It was
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: the wrong city, So you know I did. I took everything,
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: I packed it all up. Then I got a location
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: in Pigeon Forge, which is Gatlinburg and instead of called
[1:02:43] Speaker 1: the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, I call it
[1:02:46] Speaker 1: Alcatraz East. And it looks like a nineteen you know,
[1:02:50] Speaker 1: an eighteen eighties prison. You drive down the road, you're like, holy,
[1:02:54] Speaker 1: you know you got to pull in there, and it
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: print money, prints money. I failed in DC. I packed
[1:03:06] Speaker 1: it up, I changed the name. I built a facade
[1:03:11] Speaker 1: and the grand finale when you come there, I got
[1:03:15] Speaker 1: these four cars, Ted Bundy's VW, Bonnie and Clyde death
[1:03:23] Speaker 1: car from the movie John Dillinger Sedan and the final piece,
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: Ojy's Bronco.
[1:03:32] Speaker 5: You got it.
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: I got it. And when you go through this, when
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: you go through Google, alcatrazis to see all this stuff.
[1:03:39] Speaker 1: I got in there and it just prints money. It
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: makes me six million bucks a year, got no debt.
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: Now how many people would take that failure and say, Okay,
[1:03:55] Speaker 1: here's what I learned. I should never gone to DC
[1:03:57] Speaker 1: in the first place. Why I went there because the
[1:03:59] Speaker 1: Spy Museum was supposedly doing good. I didn't go there.
[1:04:03] Speaker 1: I was stupid to go there. I couldn't make a
[1:04:05] Speaker 1: facade other than just a regular office building. I spent
[1:04:09] Speaker 1: too much money at the first one I had in
[1:04:11] Speaker 1: America's most wanted in the basement, spent too much money,
[1:04:14] Speaker 1: but I took all my mistakes and everything I learned
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: and went into that. In Florida, I wanted to legalize
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: medical marijuana. I went on the ballot, spent ten to
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: twenty million bucks my own money, and fell short by
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: this much. And I go, well, I think I should
[1:04:34] Speaker 1: have done it during the presidential election. I recalibrate it,
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: and I wanted to do it for my brother Tim
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: because he relied on marijuana for his spasms in pain.
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: And I did it a second time after learning all
[1:04:48] Speaker 1: the pitfalls and all the mistakes, and I passed. It
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: was seventy three percent of the vote. And then I
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: took that lesson from medical marijuana, and I said, you
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: know what's wrong in America is the divide is because
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: people aren't making enough money. That's what's hurt in America.
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: People are not being paid at living wage. So I
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: took all those lessons from the failure of medical marijuana
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: to the success of medical marijuana, and I did a
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: constitutional amendment to raise an a minimum wage in Florida from
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: eight dollars an hour to fifteen dollars an hour, and
[1:05:23] Speaker 1: I took lessons from my failure, and everybody told me
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: it'll never happen John and I passed it with sixty
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: three percent of the vote. Failure is your friend, if
[1:05:37] Speaker 1: you will let her be. But if you get knocked
[1:05:41] Speaker 1: down and you don't get back up. One of the
[1:05:43] Speaker 1: speeches I end with a lot of times is the
[1:05:47] Speaker 1: greatest fight of all time was the Thrilla in Manila.
[1:05:51] Speaker 1: Joe Frasier versus Muhammad Ali. They're in the fifteenth round.
[1:05:57] Speaker 1: All he goes to his corner. He says, cut off
[1:06:01] Speaker 1: my gloves. Cut off my gloves. I can't walk, I
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: can't stand up. In the other corner, Joe Fraser's eyes
[1:06:11] Speaker 1: so swollen. He they're putting his fingers. How many I
[1:06:14] Speaker 1: don't know. I don't care. And Eddie Futch is Joe,
[1:06:17] Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna throw the towel, and he goes,
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: if you throw the towel in, I'll never speak to
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: you again. Back and forth, back and forth. Allie is
[1:06:24] Speaker 1: cut off the gloves, cut off the gloves. Angelo Dundee's
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: don't do it, sham Bundanny Brown, you know we're gonna
[1:06:31] Speaker 1: do it. Ring the bell, ring, ding ding ding ding ding.
[1:06:34] Speaker 1: When this is over, I want you all to get
[1:06:36] Speaker 1: I want you all to pull this up and look
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: at it. You'll see Bundini Brown and Angelo Dundee pushing
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: him up out of the chair. All he stands up.
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: On the other corner is Eddie Futch and he sees
[1:06:51] Speaker 1: all Lee stand up and he throws the white towel
[1:06:56] Speaker 1: in and Joe Fradric gets very upset. Alli takes like
[1:07:01] Speaker 1: three steps and collapses, collapses. The lesson is twofold one.
[1:07:12] Speaker 1: In the most difficult times, In the most difficult times,
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: answer the bell. Answer the bell. When you're tired and
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: you're fatigued and you don't think you have it, take
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: one more step. Answer the bell. And the second lesson
[1:07:28] Speaker 1: for you entrepreneurs is this, make sure you have somebody
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: in your corner that believes in you. Because having somebody
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: in your corner who believes in you. When I did
[1:07:40] Speaker 1: that Alcatraz East, I didn't want to do it. You
[1:07:44] Speaker 1: know who you know who tipped the scale for me?
[1:07:47] Speaker 1: My wife, I said, we got to it's gonna be
[1:07:51] Speaker 1: a lot of money. She said, it's the best thing
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: you ever did. Answer the bell and have people in
[1:07:58] Speaker 1: your corner that believe in you. That's a recipe for success.
[1:08:03] Speaker 3: Important lessons, important lessons. I wonder what those are some
[1:08:07] Speaker 3: of the failures. What does success look like? When I
[1:08:09] Speaker 3: heard you talk about the cases that are outstanding in LA,
[1:08:14] Speaker 3: obviously you've turned it around to Philly, maybe New York.
[1:08:16] Speaker 3: The cases it talks about future inventory. To me, I
[1:08:19] Speaker 3: hear future guidance right like that, there's still money on
[1:08:23] Speaker 3: the books that hasn't come in yet. So what does
[1:08:25] Speaker 3: success look like for you? And second part, what does
[1:08:29] Speaker 3: succession look like for you?
[1:08:31] Speaker 1: Well, success looks for me is this. Remember this, I'm
[1:08:36] Speaker 1: in the business of trying to get back for people
[1:08:40] Speaker 1: things that were taking their health, their income, their enjoyment
[1:08:44] Speaker 1: of life, sex, all of it. I'm in the business
[1:08:49] Speaker 1: of going back to the best of my ability and
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: get back what was taken. Sometimes you want to get
[1:08:55] Speaker 1: it back. You know, monetarily can't work anymore. You got
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: to be paid. That's what success looks like to me,
[1:09:01] Speaker 1: getting somebody back as well as I can not one
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: hundred people. The legs never gonna grow back on, legs off,
[1:09:08] Speaker 1: legs off, But there's ways to compensate and get justice
[1:09:15] Speaker 1: for what's happened. Succession looks like to me is all
[1:09:20] Speaker 1: these partners I've built over the years. And you know,
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: I've got three boys that are in my firm that
[1:09:30] Speaker 1: you know, had been, you know, riding around the backseat
[1:09:32] Speaker 1: of my car, you know, since christ was a baby.
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: I mean they've been sitting back there listening to everything forever.
[1:09:39] Speaker 1: And that in osmosis does work. But I also have
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: when I look at my firm, I look at certain
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: people and go, I wouldn't be here if I didn't
[1:09:48] Speaker 1: have him. I got this trial lawyer named Keith Midnick.
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: I tell Keith all the time because he's the trial
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: lawyer that that built it all, helped I wouldn't be
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: John Morgan if I didn't have Keith Midnick. And I
[1:10:01] Speaker 1: got a bunch of those people. I got a bunch
[1:10:03] Speaker 1: of those people. And I try to skew toward youth.
[1:10:08] Speaker 1: So like my CEO has been with me from almost
[1:10:11] Speaker 1: the beginnings, Andrew Clem and he is just turning sixty,
[1:10:17] Speaker 1: but then my two coos are in their early forties.
[1:10:22] Speaker 1: I believe big in youth. I believe big in energy,
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: all the music, all the great and I'll write about
[1:10:28] Speaker 1: this in the book, all the music is written by
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: teenagers in early twenties. How many people write a hit
[1:10:35] Speaker 1: song in their thirties or forties. Very few. The average
[1:10:40] Speaker 1: age of a Nobel laureate is forty three years old.
[1:10:45] Speaker 1: You cannot underestimate youth for so many reasons, for so
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: many reasons. But you also need the gray beards around
[1:10:53] Speaker 1: to say that. I remember once upon a time, you know,
[1:10:59] Speaker 1: and my boys will call me, hey, daddy, uh, we're
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: thinking about this, and I'll say, well, boom boom boom
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: boom bah. Okay, So there's it's there's a balance. So
[1:11:10] Speaker 1: succession is. I've planned for it now. I mean these partners,
[1:11:14] Speaker 1: they own shares of this firm. You know, I don't
[1:11:16] Speaker 1: make all the money. They all make a lot of money,
[1:11:19] Speaker 1: and so succession is. And then I have a lot
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: of non lawyers. My CFO is very vital to me.
[1:11:27] Speaker 1: The people over in Brooklyn who do my creative and
[1:11:30] Speaker 1: who manage my media very important. But they're all a's
[1:11:37] Speaker 1: and a lot of them are a pluses, And you
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: just cannot lose the a's and.
[1:11:41] Speaker 5: A pluses before we go. I got it.
[1:11:43] Speaker 2: I kind of asked you about this. This clip that
[1:11:45] Speaker 2: went viral so many different times. But talking about a secession,
[1:11:48] Speaker 2: planning divorce, you have all your children signed pre nums.
[1:11:55] Speaker 2: That was something I think when people heard that, they
[1:11:58] Speaker 2: never really had heard father in law, father, you know,
[1:12:04] Speaker 2: mandating a child their child. So explain the psychology behind that.
[1:12:09] Speaker 2: And I know you said it, but can you say
[1:12:10] Speaker 2: it again just for our audience and kind of just
[1:12:12] Speaker 2: break it, break down the thought process and that all right, and.
[1:12:15] Speaker 1: I write about it a little bit in a book.
[1:12:17] Speaker 5: All right.
[1:12:17] Speaker 1: Number one, fifty percent of all the marriages are going
[1:12:20] Speaker 1: to end in divorce. That's just we're all numbers. It's
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: going to happen fifty percent. Now, an interesting statistic is
[1:12:33] Speaker 1: for people who marry after thirty, it's only four percent.
[1:12:37] Speaker 1: So for everybody out there, TV Land, podcast land listening,
[1:12:41] Speaker 1: wait till you're thirty. Get it out of your system.
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait, you know, have your fun in
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: your twenties and start your family like Dan he started.
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: He got married out in Hawaii last year.
[1:12:55] Speaker 5: Congrats man.
[1:12:56] Speaker 1: Yeah. So she's beautiful and we love her, But it
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: goes like this because it's probably gonna happen fifty percent
[1:13:05] Speaker 1: of the time. Let's make sure that we understand that,
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: and let's make sure that Dan and Mike and Matt
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: and Kate are not the bad guy. Here's how it goes.
[1:13:19] Speaker 1: My dad is not gonna leave us any money if
[1:13:24] Speaker 1: he don't if he doesn't get this prenup signed, I
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: become the bad guy because when you're looking, when you
[1:13:32] Speaker 1: start to ask somebody a prenup, here's the first thing
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: they're going to say. You're just saying this marriage isn't
[1:13:38] Speaker 1: gonna work. You're saying we're beat before we even begin.
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: They're playing you by the way they're playing. Before they're
[1:13:49] Speaker 1: playing you. We say, hey, I'm okay with it. I
[1:13:54] Speaker 1: just want you to know that we're not gonna get
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: any money unless we sign this thing. I'm the bad guy.
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: And when they come with you know you don't love me.
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: You're you're saying we're going to fail and I don't
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: want to go into a marriage, and I'm like, bullshit,
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: you're looking for the money. You're looking for the money.
[1:14:18] Speaker 3: How the conversation goes.
[1:14:22] Speaker 1: Well, he was number four, but the first one didn't
[1:14:25] Speaker 1: go smooth. The first one says the first one, because
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: you got to hire a lawyer for them. You got
[1:14:31] Speaker 1: to do it six months out, so there's no you know,
[1:14:34] Speaker 1: undue influence. And so the first one for Matt, we
[1:14:38] Speaker 1: hire a lawyer for and the lawyer calls me up
[1:14:41] Speaker 1: and says, mister Morgan, we've read this document and it's
[1:14:46] Speaker 1: really one sided, and you and I need to sit
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: down and negotiate this agreement. I said, sir, let me.
[1:14:54] Speaker 1: I don't know who you are, even though I am
[1:14:56] Speaker 1: paying your bill. I said, but I just you understand
[1:15:01] Speaker 1: this is we're not We're never sitting down ever. This
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: is a take it or leave it document. There is
[1:15:09] Speaker 1: no negotiating and he goes, well, then then I cannot
[1:15:14] Speaker 1: recommend to my client sign it. I said, tell her,
[1:15:19] Speaker 1: tell her And he's like, well, you know, then I'll
[1:15:24] Speaker 1: just resign. I said, do what you have to do.
[1:15:27] Speaker 1: But this is so all of a sudden. She goes
[1:15:31] Speaker 1: home and tells Matt says, my lawyer says, all he
[1:15:34] Speaker 1: wants a roommate, not a wife. And I'm gonna say, Matt, listen.
[1:15:40] Speaker 1: And then Matt says he's one surfing in Costa Rica.
[1:15:44] Speaker 1: He says, well, maybe, Daddy. What I do is I'll
[1:15:46] Speaker 1: uh I put in there if I cheat the post.
[1:15:53] Speaker 1: The prenups null and void. I go, no, no, no, no, no
[1:15:57] Speaker 1: no no no no no no.
[1:15:59] Speaker 2: You know what is cheating? Things happening should happen.
[1:16:03] Speaker 1: You know, you know? Fine? Wrong?
[1:16:07] Speaker 5: Yeah, who knows?
[1:16:08] Speaker 1: Who knows?
[1:16:09] Speaker 5: A text a cheat?
[1:16:10] Speaker 2: You don't know?
[1:16:11] Speaker 1: Yeah? Texts? Oprah says, yes, right, Oprah says, what do
[1:16:17] Speaker 1: they call it? Nex? Texting is cheating? I said, that's
[1:16:20] Speaker 1: not gonna happen. You're never putting that. I said, listen
[1:16:22] Speaker 1: to me. You need to tell her you're going surfing
[1:16:26] Speaker 1: in Costa Rica. Here's the document the lawyer has already written.
[1:16:32] Speaker 1: Don't sign it. She can do what she wants, and
[1:16:35] Speaker 1: then tell her. If she doesn't sign it, you're gonna
[1:16:38] Speaker 1: have to postpone the wedding and we'll get a new
[1:16:42] Speaker 1: date when we get back from Costa Rica. When he
[1:16:46] Speaker 1: came home, the document was signed on his dresser. Top
[1:16:50] Speaker 1: of his dresser. They've been married now for twelve thirteen years.
[1:16:57] Speaker 1: I would I would give her my kidney, I'd give
[1:16:59] Speaker 1: her everything. This girl. I love this girl so much,
[1:17:04] Speaker 1: and my two of my her, my grandsons are with
[1:17:07] Speaker 1: me on this trip too. But it worked out. But
[1:17:11] Speaker 1: if it didn't work out. I didn't want somebody going
[1:17:14] Speaker 1: I'm gonna take half of your ship. Those are the
[1:17:17] Speaker 1: worst words ever.
[1:17:18] Speaker 2: Well can they? I mean, it's let's say, hypothetically, one
[1:17:21] Speaker 2: of your to them like, I know what, I'm getting
[1:17:23] Speaker 2: married and I'm not going to get a pre nup.
[1:17:26] Speaker 5: How would that work?
[1:17:27] Speaker 1: If the kids said that, then they don't get anything.
[1:17:28] Speaker 2: Then then what they get written out there, written out there.
[1:17:31] Speaker 1: They get like a million bucks a year, which is
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: not bad.
[1:17:36] Speaker 2: Oh so so it's like, okay, you could do what
[1:17:38] Speaker 2: you want, but you're not going to never get in
[1:17:40] Speaker 2: the big hum. You're not getting the big big boy. No,
[1:17:42] Speaker 2: you're not getting money. You're not getting You're you're not
[1:17:45] Speaker 2: getting a.
[1:17:46] Speaker 1: Big lump sum a fair conversation. You're gonna get enough
[1:17:50] Speaker 1: to survive, to survive, but I'm not you know, and
[1:17:53] Speaker 1: it's and it's and by the way, especially if she
[1:17:57] Speaker 1: won't sign it, then you then you're definitely not gaged
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: because if because if they're in it for the money,
[1:18:06] Speaker 1: and looking listen, I wish I married money. Who the
[1:18:10] Speaker 1: hell doesn't want to marry money? I mean I was
[1:18:13] Speaker 1: walking into the hotel yesterday and Jennifer Garner walked by
[1:18:16] Speaker 1: I'm like shit, I wish I was married to Jennifer Garner.
[1:18:20] Speaker 1: I got up in the room and googled her. I
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: got up there and googled her celebrity numbers. Said she's
[1:18:25] Speaker 1: worth eighty million dollars. I'm like shit, I that would
[1:18:27] Speaker 1: have been good, But I would much rather have married money.
[1:18:32] Speaker 1: Who wouldn't. You're right, but you know, my dad used
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: to say, it's easier. It's as easy to fall low
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: with the rich girls. It isn't a poor girl. But
[1:18:41] Speaker 1: none of my kids have ever married money. I told
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: Dan one time we were at a There's we were
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: at a golf term is a billionaire named Joe Lewis
[1:18:50] Speaker 1: owns his golf and we were at his club, Ayleworth
[1:18:53] Speaker 1: and Tiger Woods. Was there. Everybody's there, and Joe's granddaughter
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: walked by, and Dan was out there. I said, I said, damn,
[1:19:01] Speaker 1: there's Joe Lewis's granddaughter. I said, get over there. I said,
[1:19:06] Speaker 1: get over there and say something to her. He goes,
[1:19:10] Speaker 1: she's engaged. I said, she ain't married. Get over there
[1:19:14] Speaker 1: and say something to her. For the second wife married,
[1:19:17] Speaker 1: he's married. Now, No no, no, no, no, God, don't no,
[1:19:21] Speaker 1: don't no, no, we we we like we we we
[1:19:28] Speaker 1: we we we like Dan's girl. We like listen wife wife, yes,
[1:19:33] Speaker 1: life because now girl could get she's a knockout man.
[1:19:36] Speaker 1: I mean you know Dan, Dan got a stunner and
[1:19:39] Speaker 1: uh but yes, she's brazumed.
[1:19:43] Speaker 5: We need to get Dan have his own interview.
[1:19:52] Speaker 1: Okay, if you do one with Dan, it's going to
[1:19:54] Speaker 1: be called Dan after Dark, after dark.
[1:19:56] Speaker 2: We got to show for that.
[1:19:57] Speaker 5: We got.
[1:20:01] Speaker 3: That's why you know what listening to you all Joseph's side,
[1:20:03] Speaker 3: This is why having father figures in your life are
[1:20:07] Speaker 3: so important because they can they have foresight, they have knowledge,
[1:20:13] Speaker 3: they have capital. But sometimes your emotions will in those
[1:20:17] Speaker 3: type of moments, will sway your decision.
[1:20:20] Speaker 1: And remember this my four children and my six grandchildren,
[1:20:26] Speaker 1: and hopefully Damn will populate. Now. Now, my problem was
[1:20:33] Speaker 1: I overpopulated. My wife was very Catholic, and so we
[1:20:41] Speaker 1: were on the rhythm method. Okay, let me sell you something.
[1:20:45] Speaker 1: The rhythm method in Jack Daniels don't mix. They just
[1:20:49] Speaker 1: it's just it's Friday night and you're fucked up. I
[1:20:56] Speaker 1: kept having babies so fast. My kid a forty three,
[1:21:01] Speaker 1: forty one, thirty nine, thirty seven. I told people back
[1:21:04] Speaker 1: in the day, I said, listen, man, if I piss
[1:21:06] Speaker 1: on a rock, there's potatoes growing the next morning. I
[1:21:08] Speaker 1: just kept I just kept having them. But with that said,
[1:21:13] Speaker 1: about these kids and the father figure and the grandfather figure,
[1:21:17] Speaker 1: the easiest decision I could make in my life would
[1:21:20] Speaker 1: be do I take the bullet or does Dan get
[1:21:24] Speaker 1: the bullet? Do I take the bullet or do my
[1:21:26] Speaker 1: grandchildren take the bullet. That's the quickest thing I could say,
[1:21:29] Speaker 1: if it's me or Dan, whatever a millisecond looks like,
[1:21:34] Speaker 1: because that's what my love is like for these people.
[1:21:37] Speaker 1: And when you have that kind of love for these people,
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: everything comes from a place of love. And when things
[1:21:46] Speaker 1: are coming from a place of love and guidance and wisdom,
[1:21:49] Speaker 1: it's a magical thing for the kid.
[1:21:51] Speaker 2: But you also said something I was really insightful, was like,
[1:21:53] Speaker 2: because my whole thing is what the rebel, it's tied
[1:21:56] Speaker 2: to money. Money plays a major factor, and kids listen
[1:22:00] Speaker 2: to you.
[1:22:01] Speaker 1: Hey, look, but let's go back to Dan. Okay, we
[1:22:05] Speaker 1: comesit down there, get it. At this point, you need
[1:22:07] Speaker 1: to see what you look like. Man, he was born
[1:22:09] Speaker 1: on my birthday? Oh was he three thirty one?
[1:22:12] Speaker 5: A baby, make your own luck.
[1:22:13] Speaker 1: Make so Yeah, bring Dan in here.
[1:22:18] Speaker 7: I put my kid. When you want to talk about.
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: So so Dan's had some ups and downs. Uh Dan's
[1:22:27] Speaker 1: Uh Dan. Dan was a rapper in college. And what
[1:22:33] Speaker 1: you know what his name is? Dan Man Demo Swag, Demo, Swag,
[1:22:38] Speaker 1: Demo Swag. When we leave here, google his song blowing
[1:22:42] Speaker 1: all My Stacks. He wrote that in Monica, Blowing all
[1:22:45] Speaker 1: of Our It's on It's it's called Blowing All My
[1:22:48] Speaker 1: Stacks and so riding credits with Sway Lee Quevo. Oh yeah,
[1:22:54] Speaker 1: Sway Lee's this guy. So oh yeah, listen. I mean
[1:22:58] Speaker 1: I had a rap. I had a rap. I had
[1:23:00] Speaker 1: a rapper as a son. But he was rebellious.
[1:23:04] Speaker 2: You know.
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: He smoked too much weed. One time he comes home
[1:23:08] Speaker 1: from college. I go Dan, I said, Dan, I think
[1:23:12] Speaker 1: you've been smoking marijuana over Christmas break? No? No, I said, yeah,
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: Like I said no, I said, Well, here's the deal, Dan,
[1:23:20] Speaker 1: I got a drug test back in the pool room.
[1:23:23] Speaker 1: You're gonna go peeing it.
[1:23:25] Speaker 5: Now.
[1:23:25] Speaker 1: Here's the how it's gonna go. If you fail the
[1:23:27] Speaker 1: test after lying, you lose your car for this semester.
[1:23:31] Speaker 1: If you want to admit to it right now, You're
[1:23:33] Speaker 1: going to lose your car for a month. He's just
[1:23:38] Speaker 1: stand there looking at him. He reaches in his pocket
[1:23:42] Speaker 1: and throws me the keys. So I grabbed the keys.
[1:23:48] Speaker 1: So Dan has been a very hard kid because you
[1:23:52] Speaker 1: know he's a he's a white rappers, like like having
[1:23:55] Speaker 1: eminem upstairs. And we go to Monica one time when
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: he wrote this song Blowing on my Stacks. We're going
[1:24:03] Speaker 1: through customs in Monaco. I look over. They've got his
[1:24:06] Speaker 1: backpack open. They had this thing. It looked like a
[1:24:09] Speaker 1: rocket launcher. I look over, I walk over. I go
[1:24:13] Speaker 1: it was a microphone. And the guy that the guy,
[1:24:16] Speaker 1: the guy customer. When Monica goes into what is this?
[1:24:19] Speaker 1: What is this? And Dan goes, uh, it's a microphone.
[1:24:23] Speaker 1: And he goes and what is this microphone for sir?
[1:24:27] Speaker 1: And Dan goes, I'm a rapper. I'm sitting hearing this
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: for the first time. We're leaving Paris on the way
[1:24:35] Speaker 1: to Monaco. I look in there, Dan saying he's a rapper,
[1:24:39] Speaker 1: and then he goes. The girl goes, the man goes
[1:24:42] Speaker 1: into what tea is your name? He goes, uh. Dan
[1:24:45] Speaker 1: had a little stutter by the uh uh oh he
[1:24:47] Speaker 1: still got demo Swag. I'm saying, like, what the fuck
[1:24:54] Speaker 1: is happening here in Monaco? And then the you know
[1:24:57] Speaker 1: the guy there, he goes, mister Swag have a very
[1:25:02] Speaker 1: good tread. So we go to Monaco and this is
[1:25:06] Speaker 1: where he laid down the tracks for we'll play it
[1:25:11] Speaker 1: before we leave. Try to find it.
[1:25:13] Speaker 5: Can you give us a line?
[1:25:14] Speaker 4: Yeah, from long on my snacks. Yeah, I'm trying to
[1:25:18] Speaker 4: think from a lot from the from that song. There's
[1:25:20] Speaker 4: a song about Monica. It says I like the finer
[1:25:22] Speaker 4: things in life. So I fell in love with Monico,
[1:25:24] Speaker 4: goes chilling by the Sea. My life has like no complaints?
[1:25:29] Speaker 7: How'd it go?
[1:25:31] Speaker 5: Well, we gotta pull it all right, we'll pull it up.
[1:25:33] Speaker 1: Well, he's freezing out pulling it, but I'll you'll be
[1:25:36] Speaker 1: pulling up a lot to tell the story. So Dan
[1:25:38] Speaker 1: has been a problem. So Dan's working at wonder Works,
[1:25:46] Speaker 1: the Upside Down House, and he's a bad employee. So
[1:25:50] Speaker 1: I had to fire Dan. Fire Dan, I said, here's
[1:25:55] Speaker 1: the deal, Dan, you're never leaving the house up to
[1:26:00] Speaker 1: go to school and look for another job. He gets
[1:26:03] Speaker 1: a job at Boston Market. They think so highly of
[1:26:07] Speaker 1: him they have him washing dishes. I said, you you understand,
[1:26:11] Speaker 1: you're at the bottom of the food to work food chain.
[1:26:15] Speaker 7: Literally literally started off slowly, got demoted down.
[1:26:20] Speaker 1: Yeah he was starting. Yeah, he's starting mast.
[1:26:22] Speaker 7: The parking bottle though. They were messing. They start you
[1:26:24] Speaker 7: at the top. And one's a dishwasher. Quick, there's some slattery.
[1:26:26] Speaker 7: One down one.
[1:26:27] Speaker 1: Yeah. He was supposed to be cooking ham. He was
[1:26:30] Speaker 1: supposed to be cooking hams. He got demoted all the
[1:26:33] Speaker 1: way down. I said, Dan, you got hired to cook
[1:26:35] Speaker 1: turkeys and ham. They got you carve ham, carve hams,
[1:26:39] Speaker 1: so they so he then quits that job. He quits
[1:26:42] Speaker 1: that job. Yeah, I can't take it. Smells like vomiting there.
[1:26:46] Speaker 1: I said, well, here, Dan, that's fine. You need to
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: You're never leaving the house except to fight a job
[1:26:53] Speaker 1: or to go to school. And he got a job
[1:26:55] Speaker 1: at a sub place called Firehouse Subs. And guess what,
[1:26:59] Speaker 1: he became one of the great suckmakers.
[1:27:02] Speaker 7: Had Steamer, that's just had Steamer and Company.
[1:27:05] Speaker 1: And he became very very But listen sometimes sometimes with
[1:27:10] Speaker 1: your own kid, because if you don't, nobody will. And
[1:27:16] Speaker 1: the other thing I tell all your people listening and
[1:27:18] Speaker 1: I did it with some of my kids. Your your
[1:27:20] Speaker 1: child is one friend away from total disaster.
[1:27:25] Speaker 5: That was a financial advisors.
[1:27:28] Speaker 3: What do you think about a song titled blowing on
[1:27:32] Speaker 3: my sacks?
[1:27:34] Speaker 2: It's it's just the genre. If it's the genre, were
[1:27:38] Speaker 2: you serious it was.
[1:27:40] Speaker 1: At the time.
[1:27:41] Speaker 4: Yeah, so the song's about me getting my monthly allowance
[1:27:43] Speaker 4: twenty five hundred dollars and then me blowing it.
[1:27:46] Speaker 7: How were you eighteen? Now it was probably twenty. I
[1:27:49] Speaker 7: was in college.
[1:27:50] Speaker 1: You weren't getting twenty five hundred.
[1:27:52] Speaker 7: I'll get five hundred for rent, five hundred a week.
[1:27:54] Speaker 7: It was from me.
[1:27:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, shit, it wasn't for me. I wouldn't have never
[1:27:58] Speaker 1: given you that much money.
[1:28:00] Speaker 2: So at what point, okay, as as this is interesting dynamic,
[1:28:05] Speaker 2: you have the largest personal injury affirm in the world
[1:28:08] Speaker 2: and your son is talking about blowing stacks and he's
[1:28:11] Speaker 2: a rapper, do you have like a conversation of like, look, no,
[1:28:18] Speaker 2: it's over, We're not doing this.
[1:28:19] Speaker 7: So they would let me go broken college like I
[1:28:21] Speaker 7: was living.
[1:28:21] Speaker 5: I was what college? Did you go to?
[1:28:23] Speaker 7: Uf Gator? But I was paying for subways with quarters.
[1:28:26] Speaker 4: I was going to McDonald's. Like once the money was gone.
[1:28:28] Speaker 4: It was don't come home, don't call home.
[1:28:30] Speaker 2: Did you really think she was gonna be a rapper?
[1:28:31] Speaker 2: Or he was just playing around? Was just playing around?
[1:28:34] Speaker 7: Lost one.
[1:28:35] Speaker 1: Back in the day, he was really good at freestyle rapping.
[1:28:40] Speaker 4: So I played on an all black football team growing up.
[1:28:42] Speaker 4: He was always late working, picking up alayskind of the
[1:28:45] Speaker 4: last one hanging out. He was the only white kid
[1:28:47] Speaker 4: on this and it was always freestyling with the guys.
[1:28:49] Speaker 5: So you got you got, you got influence that.
[1:28:51] Speaker 7: Way, you got Gainsville party.
[1:28:52] Speaker 1: Three of them went to the NFL. What was it,
[1:28:55] Speaker 1: three of them.
[1:28:55] Speaker 4: I was seven, So they were like I was with Boll,
[1:28:59] Speaker 4: chic Hernandez, all the guys you know who.
[1:29:01] Speaker 1: You know who went to the derby with us? His
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: boy yo?
[1:29:05] Speaker 2: Oh I use I used when Joe was Yeah, yeah.
[1:29:08] Speaker 7: All those guys, they're all his big guys. But he
[1:29:11] Speaker 7: was living with Chandler Parsons at the time. So yeah.
[1:29:14] Speaker 2: So it's interesting because who who's the point guard that team?
[1:29:20] Speaker 7: Tory and Green?
[1:29:20] Speaker 2: Tory and Green. So me and Tory Green went to
[1:29:22] Speaker 2: school together. I went to im G Academy.
[1:29:23] Speaker 4: So he's coaching at UF now, is he? Yeah, he's
[1:29:26] Speaker 4: doing really good. Yeah, yeah, Corey was there.
[1:29:29] Speaker 7: Chris Richards was another one that got drafted.
[1:29:32] Speaker 1: He's got hey, Dan's got before. Dan's got part of
[1:29:35] Speaker 1: a sports sage he called Lyft. They had five number one.
[1:29:38] Speaker 4: I own it with Mike Miller. My mother was just
[1:29:41] Speaker 4: at the draftact. I was there with him.
[1:29:43] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[1:29:43] Speaker 7: Yeah, we had Native Matt.
[1:29:44] Speaker 1: We had I'll show you.
[1:29:45] Speaker 5: So how how are you like?
[1:29:46] Speaker 2: Thirty seven?
[1:29:47] Speaker 7: Thirty seven? Yes, sir, that Milwaukee. You just got drives in Milwaukee. Yeah,
[1:29:52] Speaker 7: we're just talking about six to eleven from Tennessee.
[1:29:55] Speaker 8: You need to do Dan after dark and after dark
[1:29:58] Speaker 8: we need a this is there's a whole nother conversation
[1:30:01] Speaker 8: about about having having wealth but having children and balancing
[1:30:08] Speaker 8: the expectations of what life.
[1:30:09] Speaker 1: I never bought. I never bought them nice cars. I
[1:30:11] Speaker 1: made them. I made them drive you know, big SUVs.
[1:30:15] Speaker 1: I made them pay for their insurance. I made them work.
[1:30:17] Speaker 1: One time, it was Christmas time and Matt and Mike.
[1:30:20] Speaker 1: I said, where you'll if you got your schedule? Wonder
[1:30:23] Speaker 1: works And Mike says, nobody a Bishop Moore is working
[1:30:26] Speaker 1: over Christmas? And I go, what mag goes? Yeah, nobody's working.
[1:30:29] Speaker 1: I said, I know that's wrong. No, but nobody's working.
[1:30:32] Speaker 2: I don't know that's wrong.
[1:30:33] Speaker 1: YouTube, motherfuckers are working.
[1:30:35] Speaker 5: That's wrong.
[1:30:36] Speaker 1: You two are working.
[1:30:37] Speaker 5: I never heard that before.
[1:30:39] Speaker 2: Are Usually it's like, I know that's right, I know
[1:30:41] Speaker 2: that's I know that's wrong.
[1:30:44] Speaker 1: Inversion inversion.
[1:30:47] Speaker 4: I wasn't able to buy partnership point until I won
[1:30:50] Speaker 4: a few trials.
[1:30:51] Speaker 7: I was.
[1:30:51] Speaker 4: I didn't get to parnish your point. I've been there
[1:30:53] Speaker 4: eleven years now. I got my first one probably five
[1:30:56] Speaker 4: years ago.
[1:30:56] Speaker 2: Oh so you're a partner.
[1:30:57] Speaker 7: I'm a partner. Yeah, I got.
[1:30:59] Speaker 4: I had of the office and they had to go go.
[1:31:04] Speaker 1: To the bank, borrow, borrow the money.
[1:31:07] Speaker 2: So you did it like everybody else did it. There
[1:31:09] Speaker 2: was no fast track because he had to try.
[1:31:11] Speaker 1: The cases, had to go to trial, had to win,
[1:31:15] Speaker 1: you know, had to become an a on his own.
[1:31:18] Speaker 1: That's it. Hey, look, if you don't do that, you're
[1:31:20] Speaker 1: hurting them.
[1:31:22] Speaker 2: I always say, that's one hundred percent. That's one hundred percent.
[1:31:25] Speaker 2: You can hurt somebody by helping him.
[1:31:27] Speaker 1: And by the way, he didn't really want to go
[1:31:28] Speaker 1: to law school. We had a deal. I was real
[1:31:31] Speaker 1: close with Barack Obama and I was we had him
[1:31:34] Speaker 1: at my casually casually at my house. No, but we
[1:31:41] Speaker 1: had me and me and me and Vince Carter had
[1:31:44] Speaker 1: another party for Barack. We have it at at Vince's house.
[1:31:49] Speaker 1: Dan comes Mark Cuban's there. Mark Cubans starts attending bar
[1:31:53] Speaker 1: I owned the club downtown. Dan leaves the leaves the
[1:31:58] Speaker 1: Obama event with Mark Cuban and then becomes best friends
[1:32:02] Speaker 1: with Mark Cuban. And he's so Mark Cuban's wanted to
[1:32:05] Speaker 1: hire Dan, and Dan doesn't want to go to law school.
[1:32:08] Speaker 1: And I'm like, hey, man, you're going to law school.
[1:32:12] Speaker 1: And Dan basically went to law school under duress. I said, listen, dude,
[1:32:18] Speaker 1: you're going to law school. I want to be a
[1:32:20] Speaker 1: sports agent. And what was the guy's name that was
[1:32:24] Speaker 1: trying to hire you? He got killed. But I said, Dan,
[1:32:28] Speaker 1: here's the deal. You're going to go get the law degree.
[1:32:31] Speaker 1: I don't care what you do with it, but you're
[1:32:33] Speaker 1: going to be what you want to be, not what
[1:32:35] Speaker 1: you have to be. And by the way, being a
[1:32:38] Speaker 1: sports agent with a law degree will be helpful. Even
[1:32:42] Speaker 1: if it's not help they will think it is. And
[1:32:44] Speaker 1: so he didn't want to go to law school. I mean,
[1:32:45] Speaker 1: I had to drag this guy by the and then
[1:32:51] Speaker 1: you know, he kind of and then he kind of
[1:32:54] Speaker 1: fucked up the first year. But but then he found
[1:32:57] Speaker 1: his stride and finishes, you know, student then became a
[1:33:01] Speaker 1: top lawyer in the firm. I mean, you can't give up.
[1:33:05] Speaker 2: You can't give up. You got interesting socks.
[1:33:07] Speaker 5: On too, Pops, always be marketing.
[1:33:10] Speaker 1: That's face, that's your dad, that's your dad. And Morgan
[1:33:13] Speaker 1: on the sox swag. Did we bring them some swag?
[1:33:16] Speaker 5: We did got some swag. Yeah, we got a box.
[1:33:17] Speaker 5: We got we did get a box of swag.
[1:33:19] Speaker 2: Man, This has been extremely insightful and enjoyable. Who is
[1:33:22] Speaker 2: this book for? What can they learn from this book?
[1:33:25] Speaker 2: And when can they get the book?
[1:33:27] Speaker 1: They can get it. They can get it on Amazon,
[1:33:31] Speaker 1: Birds and Noble Audio. This is for the entrepreneur that
[1:33:37] Speaker 1: wants to find luck. This is a way to find luck,
[1:33:42] Speaker 1: enhance luck, turn bad luck into good luck. Make failure
[1:33:46] Speaker 1: your friend. Don't make the mistakes I made. These are lessons.
[1:33:52] Speaker 2: From a paper boy, available right now, right now, all platforms.
[1:33:57] Speaker 3: I was highly anticipating this sit down. I'm leaving this
[1:34:02] Speaker 3: as I have two new favorite people. Three thirty one aries,
[1:34:08] Speaker 3: three three pisces. Oh, same month, I got a cloud.
[1:34:18] Speaker 2: No box. All right, guys, thank you so much. I
[1:34:21] Speaker 2: appreciate it.

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