Billionaire Lawyer spills his $250M side hustles (pick one)

0:00 I don't hunt deer, I hunt money. You own one of the biggest, if not the biggest, law firm in the country. We've seen your face on the billboard from Morgan to Morgan. And if you just want to say Morgan. That'd be great too. My big vision. was this. What if Google was a law firm? What would it look like? You just became a lawyer to fund your harny ambitions. And that's pretty badass. I built an attraction called Alcatraz East. And it just prints money.

0:30 Ha ha I've got apartment complexes, I've got shopping centers. That prints money too. He's basically like half Walt Disney, half shark. Where my competition gets beat by me. is 95% of them are shit. I'm not hunting cockroaches, I'm hunting big game. I got goosebumps, John, I love that answer. That was incredible. So um First of all, welcome to the pod, you know, uh we're on. And um I I'm from the south. Um from Missouri and Tennessee. I live in Tennessee for a while.

1:08 And I've been trying to convey to Sean this idea that I call capital men. And I was like, Sean, I don't know how to explain it, but they just kinda follow the process and they just do thing to thing to thing and they don't overthink stuff and they're just ballers. And you are a good example of that. I'm hearing how you talk and I'm like, You are exactly what I'm talking about, these capital men, these guys who just get into stuff and it's like a it's like an onion. They just have layers of stuff that you don't even know about. And so for this podcast, maybe we can ask you about like the I think you have like ten or something different businesses. We can like ask you about each one because everyone knows you as as the law firm guy.

1:43 But that might not be the most interesting thing about you. Well, believe it or not. I've tell this to my wife all the time. The thing that I'm most proud of And all my businesses has been wonder works. The upside down house.

1:58 Back in the nineties, my kids were little, we'd go to the side center. And It was just Yeah, they were shipped. They were terrible.

2:08 And The kids were wanting to leave before they got there. And I had a business where I put on fair around America in in one of our One of our vendors had this huge tent and everything in it was interactive. Interactive. Touching, feeling before before interactivity was a thing. And I said, you know.

2:29 If we built a science center that was interactive That's what a science center should be, where you're touching, feeling, doing that and that parents would enjoy as much as kids. So I went out around America. Matter of fact, I went to the exploratorium. In San Francisco and I found like four things in the exploratorium. I found in the exploratorium.

2:51 In San Francisco I found a bubble room. Where you make this bubbles And I'm like Okay. That's something I found another thing called uh Recollections

3:02 So I went around the The country looking for Interactive things from science centers. But

3:09 I felt like the building had to be great. And this guy comes up to me who'd been with Ripley's And he had a rendering. of a building turned upside down. He goes, th this is what you should do. You should turn it upside down. I'm like, Well, how do you do that? He starts to tell me, I go

3:26 Well, hell, if I could do that, I would do that. And so the So I built the first one Orlando. It's called Wonderworks. If you Google Wonderworks It's this right here. There it is. And This is amazing. I've never seen this. Is this um near Disney World?

3:43 One of mine is My uh one the one in Orlando is very close to Disney World and very close to Universal. Is the inside of the building upside down? When you go when you walk in, you walk in and you're standing on the ceiling. Yeah. So you walk through the trusses

3:59 And now you're standing on the ceiling. And the storyline is that once upon a time in the Bermuda Triangle, the greatest scientists in the world were working on the greatest experiments in the world to better mankind. They were trying to

4:14 build their own A hurricane to get out of control. It ri the the place was located in Bermuda Triangle, lips lifts it out of the air. Spends it. And it crashes down in

4:26 Orlando, Pigeon Forge, Branson, Missouri. And So then you go in And now you're on so you look up and you know there's the stairs and now you gotta now how are you gonna visit it? So you go through an inversion tunnel where we

4:42 turn you upside down so that when you exit the inversion tunnel You will be defying gravity. And walking upside down and then you go from gallery to gallery to gallery to gallery. And uh That prints money too. That that those things I have zero debt.

5:02 And Uh I'll do like thirty three million in EBIT this year. Oh that's basic. You dropped into the kind of a

5:13 A national fair. Well, we put on fairs around America. We we weren't we didn't own the rise, we were the operator. In other words Um Brevard County Fair. Pennsylvania State Fair, Long Island Fair, Nassau County Fair.

5:29 Where we just set it up, we'd promote it and then the ride people would come in and we were just It it didn't make a lot of money. But You know, back in those days, listen, I remember the first time me and a guy

5:42 took a piece of land and flipped it and made sixty grand. We split sixty grand. We went on a two week bender celebrating our thirty thousand dollar profit. Yeah, you know, those first those first prophets were like holy shit. And it was like a side hustle. I mean, I was a lawyer, but I just made an extra thirty Getting a piece of land rezoned and flipping it to the developer. So

6:07 Alright, so John has tons of side hustles, upside down buildings, crime museums, chocolate factories. He's a machine. But here's the thing. Every single one started with him spotting an opportunity others missed. My old company, The Hustle, built a database with hundreds of ideas like this.

6:24 Some are weird like John's, some are dead simple. If you liked what you just heard. Go check out the Side Hustle Ideas database. Scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now let's get back to the show.

6:38 San Francisco inspired me. I went there once with my wife. We wanted to go see Alcatraz. We go to Alcatraz. Al Catraz is we get there thinking we're gonna walk right in, they go There's no tickets available. I said, We'll be here a couple of more days. When can we go? There's no tickets. T it's sold out for the next two weeks. I'm like

6:59 The And so the way the way you always solve that problem is you pull out two one hundred dollar bills to the ticket taker and you say Are you sure you don't have Two extra tickets back there. This is not for the tickets, this is for you. So I got to go through Alcatraz.

7:17 And when I went through it, I thought I had this epiphany, you know, have you have these Epiphanies. And my epiphany is America is

7:27 Fascinated with crime and punishment like nothing else. T V shows, movies, books, Netflix, all of it. And I was in the attraction business anyway, I said, You know What about an attraction dedicated to the History of crime and punishment. And so I built

7:47 An attraction. Uh It's in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, called Alcatraz East. And it's I built it. It looks like a eighteen hundred prison.

7:59 And it's the history of crime and punishment. Headed. Just Prince money. Ha ha.

8:06 How uh how big is that business? It makes five million bucks a year. Net net. And In profit. It's just gets how much did it take cost to build it initially? It's an interesting thing'cause you know, I got a speech called

8:20 Failure. can be your friend. And what happened is I first built it in Washington, D C'cause I thought, you know, the hist you know, I called it the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. And it didn't didn't do very well. And the reason it didn't do very well in my opinion is there's a lot of free stuff in D C to begin with. But more importantly.

8:42 They wouldn't let me do anything with the facade. So I was just in a building You know, across from the National Portrait Gallery. I was doing okay. I was limping along. But

8:55 Paying rent and paying just a little bit. But The landlord came in and said, You know You're not doing the numbers. Per the lease and we're gonna call the lease on you. I'm like

9:06 But I'm paying my rent. Why would you do this? We're we're we're doing it. So I moved everything. And built the structure and pigeonforge. Moved a lot of the stuff. So some of the stuff I'd had I bet the whole thing From what I had to build and what I took, I think the whole thing probably cost thirteen million bucks.

9:26 Fourteen million bucks. But like the at the end of the attraction I have Four things that are just you just can't believe it when you get there. One Ted Bundy's VW Two

9:39 Bonnie and Clyde's death card from the movie. Three OJ. OJ's Bronco and four John Dillinger's sedan. And I just bought John Bonnet's bicycle and the Murdoch's Golf cart.

9:54 And let me tell you, America's fascination with crime is such that People are in this thing for Three and a half, four hours. And it's an easy business to run because it's it's static. You know, it's not there's not a lot of interactive. I'm looking at your website right now. I've I've um

10:12 Uh, I've been here, I believe. I'm a huge crime fan. And so when you were waiting to name what you were gonna name, I was like you're feeling forgetting OJ's car. Uh this is awesome. And you made a big bet'cause after you do the thing in DC, I think the normal entrepreneur sort of starts to doubt the concept, doubt the viability. You know, you're you're you d it didn't go well right away. And yet you uh You double down in the face of that.

10:38 W is it just blind faith, conviction, or you just a stubborn guy? That's it's not that I'm stubborn. It's like Y you know, you hear everybody give these speeches about failure is your friend. Failure can be the best thing that ever happens to you. But yet when we lose we never go near it again. We say that You know, it sounds good. In a speech But what happened is I had had some investors from Wonderworks invested in this deal. So I had investors

11:06 I said out my wife. kept saying, This is the this is great. It's great. You just gotta build it in a place where there's people, more people. And so I sent a letter to all my investors saying, Look I'm gonna move it from here to there. And

11:19 You'll be part of it and everything was you know, and not one person Took me up on it. Not one person They all said you know You know, we've we're taking our loss.

11:32 And then I my wife I said, What do you think? She goes, Let's do it ourselves. And you know, and so the m my new money was like eight million dollars. New money. And uh I got it back in a year and a half. Were you how big was uh the law firm or like w what was your financial situation?

11:50 My financial situation was not bad, but you know, I mean my financial situation got The older I get, the better it got. You know, because I was one of these guys that always was pushing my profits Into new things. And Uh

12:09 It was good, but But I d I did have eight million bucks. That's amazing. So th what's crazy about your story is You're this guy. You own

12:18 Uh one of the biggest, if not the the biggest law firm in the country, right? We've seen your face on the billboards from Morgan to Morgan. Before that, you've done all these other things. So you were talking about Wonderworks, maybe your favorite business that you're most proud of, which was a amusement business. And maybe some of the inspiration from that came from you working at Disney when you were younger. And so like I guess where does the story start for you? Does it start when you're like a little kid? Does it start at Disney? Where where does the entrepreneurial bug start? I think the story started for me probably the same way the story started for you too.

12:51 Except You're too young for this to happen. There are people that are born with a Entrepreneurial seed. A C it just happens.

13:02 Now for my generation You can spot those people because they were paper boys or paper girls. And A paper route was a M Effer.

13:13 Because the paper route You're ten, eleven years old, but it's every single day. It's Rain, sleet, snow. If you miss one, you gotta go back, you gotta collect your money. And I'll bet you two guys, if you went back to your ten or eleven years old, I don't know if there were paper routes when you all were younger.

13:33 But You were probably doing something hustling money. You two were probably coding or You know, selling stuff on eBay. Selling stuff on eBay, whatever. You know, and at in my school I always sold candy. I always I used to wear army pants with all the pockets and I'd have watermelon sticks and bubblegum and Not chocolate'cause that melted. And I would sell candy at school and make like ten bucks a day.

13:57 By the way, John, y y you know that Evidence for what you're saying? Buff it. had a uh paper route plus you know sold magazines gum and coke. Jeff Bezos had a paper route. Sam Walton from Walmart had a paper out. Walt Disney, Peter Drucker, there's like an insane roster of people that did exactly what you're saying. Oprah had a paper out.

14:17 That's badass. And uh so the reason I know all these people'cause I've written a new book that's being edited right now called Life is Luck. And the thesis of my book is We wake up, we're born. But we're born lucky. You know, we're born in America, first of all.

14:35 Warren Buffett. Calls it you know. Winning the Ovarian lottery. Just being born in America. And then you make a thousand left turns and a thousand right turns and a thousand U turns and then you end up here and one different turn.

14:51 But Part of my thesis is The paper boy, the paper girl, these people that were born with that Genetic seed. Of

14:59 Entrepreneurism. And you can it can't be taught. It's just it's just in you. And It's is such an advantage. Uh In life because and is

15:10 Really nothing we did. We were born with it. Nobody was. Rich people do never want to be told that they were lucky. They want to tell us all I work my ass off. I deserve every single Penny I got. And they are Like one hundred percent wrong about that because one different term.

15:32 I mean Buffett. Buffett's company is basically Five stocks. If you take

15:40 When Charlie Munger died, I read a thing about him yesterday that w You take five stocks away from Berkshire, it's not Berkshire. Yeah. It's like Amex, Coca Cola, Apple and Right. Exactly. But but

15:54 But But we see him as this great investor and and his his greatness has really been his patience. And His understanding of Um

16:03 Of index funds instead of You know, money managers and Time. And and power of compounding interest. I believe what you're saying. I I believe luck to be true. I think that most people when they get successful, I actually think that they attribute uh a fair bit to luck because they realize like

16:21 Like for example, when I saw my company, the CEO got into a really bad accident, like two weeks after the deal closed, and I'm like I mean, if that happened two weeks prior, that could have changed everything. So there is a law component. But you have Uh I I I have some research here and and I think you have like Ten or twelve. things that have worked out really well for you. Um

16:40 And so there is some like There's a lot of good decision making that that you have um on your side. Um, were you always doing these little hustles? Like did Morgan and Morgan start as a hustle and turn into a real thing, or were you trying to build something big from the get go? Well, I was not trying to build something big from the get go. I mean look when I first got out of law school

17:01 They'd pay me a hundred grand And Tied to cola, I would have been, you know, gimme the pen. I mean I wasn't even thinking like this.

17:11 You know, I I got into this business'cause my brother got hurt when I was in college. Can it kinda you know He was quadriplia for from an accident. And so

17:24 I was in the middle of all that. And Relatively poor. And

17:31 When you're poor U Helpless, hopeless, powerless. And then you're watching your brother

17:39 Pushed back by the The big companies. And I became enraged about the way he was treated and And So when I went to law school

17:49 I knew what I was gonna do when I went to law school. I I knew exactly what I was gonna do. I was gonna come back and do this work. I was I had a lot of job offers other places. But this is all I wanted to do, and this is all I've ever done. But I didn't There's no way I could have dragged this

18:07 Because it it w it's too big to dream it too it was too big to even dream this. Well it's interesting because I would say Personal injury lawyers. I think have a Pretty bad uh

18:20 Perception in the public. I think it's you know, ambulance chasers is seeing as sort of a sleazy Um I think that would pro I think that's fair as like m uh mass perception, but the when you think about what you were actually saying or what you did, right? Like you know Your brother has this tragic accident. On the job.

18:36 Becomes a quadriplegic. You didn't And and you know insurance companies and the c and and large corporations, they're you know, they're not trying to pay out You know.

18:46 fair compensation or huge settlements to to to folks that That were that needed it. And you're in in a way like you know, you're basically helping somebody who needs the most help. Who tends to have the least power or resources to fight against those who have a lot of power or resources. And in many ways, that's a very noble thing, but it has the opposite perception. Is that Is that how you see it or you know, what what's going on?

19:06 Yeah, it's his look. It's it's like this. When I got out of law school Almost when I got out, you weren't even allowed to advertise. You know? And personal injury lawyers were

19:20 Like you said, ambulance chasers. That was what they were called. Everybody wants to look down on somebody. So lawyers who had a bad reputation themselves anyway, you know. Kill all the lawyers. All of a sudden they found somebody to look down on. And that was the personal injury law, you're the hammer chaser. I'm not an amulet chaser.

19:39 And then all of a sudden you have the advertising lawyers, which is another group to look down on the P the personal injury lawyers. Well, I don't advertise. I'm above that. I'm down, you know And So what happened was When I got out of law school, I would have been the last person you would have ever I was straight and narrow. I was the you know, the president of

20:01 everything at the university. I had all these job offers. But I didn't take'em'cause I I did have a desire to do what I'm doing. When I got out. I started going around to people who did advertise

20:15 Who were kind of Shady. And they gave me their business. And I took their bad cases, I took their tough cases.

20:24 But I got inside the bell of the beast and I saw the future. And You know, a lot of times you get to see the future. You know, Bill Gates And Paul Allen, they saw the future.

20:37 But if they were born today. That future wouldn't be there for them. That was their luck when they were born because If they were born today Microsoft is already something else. And so I saw it and I sat down with my wife and I said, Look.

20:52 This goes against everything I ever thought I'd be. But this train is leaving the station. And that train being advertising for your services. Yes. Advertising for my services.

21:06 But when I was doing it, when I started out Other lawyers would refer you business and you were paying them a fifty percent referral fee. So if you're If your fee was a hundred dollars, you had to give your referring lawyer fifty dollars. Well that's herds margins.

21:22 And And all of a sudden you're seeing a different way. Now, it was still iffy when I did it because it hadn't really hadn't become mainstream at all. So but it but it was something I was so embarrassed about it. I didn't even do the commercials myself. I had a friend who was very handsome.

21:41 And uh I said, Vance, I want you to be my face and he did it. And then the bar came in and said, Well You can't have spokespeople, you gotta do it yourself. So I had to take my My fat face can go on TV. There, there I was. Look, I don't know, man. You look pretty good to me. Yeah, you look you look sharp.

22:00 But I didn't like the way I looked. So so were people not advertising'cause they were literally just too proud for or was it was it a grey area legally of if you could or couldn't grey Oh. Legally, but it was it was taboo. It was just not done.

22:15 People who could, who ha wouldn't because They didn't want to be shunned at the country club. People that would didn't have the money to do it. How I got to do it was I went to the bank.

22:29 And borrowed a hundred grand. And Went down, did the commercials. You know, when I think back later, you know, and and by the way, my credit was so good that this T V station Would only run my ads if I paid in advance.

22:45 Because they you know, that's how good that my credit was. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book but then tearing out four fifths of the pages. Point is you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business, the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit hubspot.com. So you're saying the order of operations was you graduate as a lawyer, you know what you wanna do as a practice.

23:21 You saw that there were some kind of lawyers at the bottom of the of the social barrel there that were advertising. You didn't advertise yourself. At first you just went and took their cases to like they would catch the fish. You would cook the fish. You would go and actually Do the case. And you said I s you know, you're you said you're in the belly of the beast and you saw, oh, this is the future. These guys are getting a lot of cases. This is how lawyers are gonna get business.

23:44 And you decided to do it. What what was it that lets you kind of like go against that kind of can the country club mindset. Um like you know, I I heard this quote from Larry Ellison, he said one time that they were saying how successful he was. And he goes.

23:59 Yeah, I had all of the necessary disadvantages you would need to be successful. Like kind of like I had this chip on my shoulder, no, I wasn't the best student, no, I wasn't the best at this. No I had everything I needed. To be successful. That's that's what I needed. What was it that you needed to to kind of break out from w the way that other lawyers are doing things.

24:17 Well I've always been, you know Aggressive. And I'm a networker.

24:25 But I didn't want to do it this way because but Paying that fifty percent. How I looked at it was this. They were throwing me their trash. I felt like I was up in a dumpster Eating a half eaten Walper.

24:38 Yeah. But Guess what? It tasted okay. You know, the I was I was living. But I would rather have just had a fresh Whopper. right through the drive through window instead of having to climb into the to the dumpster.

24:55 And that was my decision. Do I just keep because I knew it was gonna happen and I knew First to market was always an advantage. And if I could get in there early enough. You know, and become Kleenex instead of You know, tissue.

25:10 I had a better chance. And my wife was a securities lawyer. She's very smart. I'm not. I'm I'm the part of the fifty percent of the law school class that enable there to be a top Fifty percent. And without me, there's no them.

25:28 My wife was in the Top Two percent. The foundation. We call that the foundation.

25:34 Yes. And so The thing that happened to Tim It was one of these things where, you know, we're very close. And he's

25:44 in this terrible situation and Disney is really treating him terrible And the more that we'd fight the more they would just crush it. And when you're watching somebody you love that much Get manhandled that way.

26:01 You just there's a rage that It came inside of me. And so I always knew what I was gonna do. I mean, I was offered a job of this guy more culsi wanted me to Come to his firm and I told him, I said, you know This is what I wanna do. And he helped me get my first job out of law school.

26:19 And so the good thing about what I've done And the good thing for people in in that are listening to this is When you wake up and work is not work So I woke up every day going, This you know, I'm gonna take care of the Tims of the world.

26:40 So it was never work for me and I wanted to go and get my Pound of flesh. From these people. Who had bullied us When we were helpless, hopeless, and powerless.

26:54 And so As time's gone on, it's to me it's been very noble. Oh. What we do. Because

27:03 The people we represent Didn't do anything wrong. But they had things taken from them. They had their health taken. They had their ability to walk taken. They had loss of income. They had things taken. And what we do

27:19 is we get give them back as much as we can Or compensate them as much as we can. For what was taken. From them. And so

27:30 You know I like the business. I listen. I liked Robin Hood when I was a kid. I always Always like the Robin Hood story, you know, and so

27:42 The people I'm going against You know, look the tobacco industry. I've had many, many trials against them. What do they do for a living? They are in the business of premeditated murder. They know what they're doing.

27:54 They're gonna kill us. They're gonna kill a bunch of us this year. And they know it. And the reason they know it in their internal documents, they call it They call new smokers replacement smokers. They laced

28:06 The cigarettes. with additives to to hook us. They gave it to the kids. They gave it to the service people. They're in the business of premeditated murder. And so I don't feel bad. At all.

28:20 When that's my enemy. I don't feel bad at all. When I'm trying to get compensation for people Who got hooked and addicted. by a very evil company. And by the way.

28:31 Today. Those same companies now own our food companies. Yeah, it's crazy. And processed food is the new tobacco. In terms of um so in a little bit we wanna ask about all your businesses because you've you've had so much stuff. But

28:47 Just to add to to give us some context and s into the timeline. When you start advertising, do you remember like the next ten years of business? Like how big did your business grow? It was it was gradual. But The way I always looked at it is

29:02 I had a number of what I thought a case was worth and then I had the number of cases that That I would sign up and I would divide the The number of The average fee into the cases and as long as that equaled out where

29:15 I could break even. I kept pouring more money into it. So If a case was If I if a case was worth four thousand dollars And I was spending

29:27 Uh you know. Well, four thousand dollars and if I was spending eighty thousand dollars. I had to if I got twenty cases, that was break even. And if I got double that. Then that was profit. So that's kinda how I did it.

29:42 In a very simplistic way. And I felt like as long as I'm breaking even I'm building the brand. And building the brand was very important too. When you say building the brand, like uh

29:54 What's the John Morgan school of brand? If you were gonna school us and how you think about brand, what what do you think about? First of all, I want it to be something that's memorable. I wanted so when I first did it, when I first got into it I w there weren't even computers. I didn't have a computer. I didn't have a U R L The first time I really understood what a URL was, I was at a

30:14 Yankees game with some lawyers in New York and they all had These devices in their hands. Called Blackberries. And I'm like, what are those? You know, uh it was like

30:25 What what is this? And they're all their oh my and they're just stomach through it the whole game and I'm like What are you doing there? We're getting cases. So I went back Home and said, I gotta get a blackberry. And then when I got the Black Bear, I said, I gotta get a U R L

30:41 And then The beginning of it, the beginning of the brand was the URL. And so I wanted my URL to be my mission statement and my branding statement. The two things I came up with in my mind was Justice for all And for the people.

30:59 Those are the two U R L. And I ultimately went with for the people because I was worried that people couldn't spell justice. All the time. But I knew that we could all spell four the

31:13 People. And so When I built my brand, it was I wanted my brand to be my mission statement. And my URL. I want it all to be one thing. So I never had to say something twice. I could just say it once. So A lot of the ads in.

31:30 You know, visit You know. Call Morgan to Morgan. For the people. Dot com.

31:36 I so I can say it all Just like that. And so But building the brand was very, very important. Who did you take inspiration from uh on building a like a iconic, memorable brand? Who did you think was doing it well?

31:53 Well, the people that I admire in my life is Walt Disney. I worked I did magic at Walt Disney. World. And so every time I walk out of the magic store I'd see Walt Disney holding Mickey's hand on Main Street and uh Say the head, dream it, do it.

32:11 And so that was kind of in my mind. It was P. T. Barnum. Disney. Those type of people. So I like the promotion. Like when I was building Wonderworks.

32:23 Uh I knew that the building itself You you've heard the slogan Sell the sizzle, not the steak. Well

32:33 There's a lot to that. So when I was building Wonderworks, I was thinking Sell the sizzle, not the steak. People will pay just to get behind the curtain. Like they did with P T Barnum. They'll get they'll pay to get behind the curtain just to see the human pincushion.

32:51 How many active companies do you have Right now. You know, I got so many K one's That Uh

33:01 I've I build I've got shopping centers. That I'm b that I'm built and I've got apartment complexes that I built that are under construction. So I I get that whole part of my life.

33:14 I've got the attraction businesses. That I have I started building Marriott hotels about twenty years ago. I've had a I had a billboard company that I sold to Lamar for a lot of money. had an ad agency for lawyers called Practice Made Perfect that I sold made and did well.

33:32 The new thing I've got going right now is y you know the uh The guy you know who Guy Fieti is, he's a California guy. Yeah. So Dave and Buster's kinda have has it all to themselves. And so we built our very first What we call downtown flavored town in Pigeon Forge, and it's basically Dave and Buster's

33:54 Meets Guy Fieti. And Um We built the f we opened up the first one a about a year or so ago. And we're building the second one right now in Pigeon Forge.

34:06 In Myrtle Beach. This fascinates me because so many people come on this podcast and their message is you just gotta focus. You gotta, you know, don't get distracted, don't chase the shiny objects. You just gotta do one thing and let it compound for a long time. But you kinda seem to have done both, right? Your firm has compounded. I think you guys do like two billion in revenue now. This is like a huge firm.

34:28 But you've had all these other entrepreneurial side quests. So I guess like Kinda square that circle for me. Are you are you focused, are you unfocused? How how do you think about that? Here's how I think about that. Those people that tell you to focus They're also

34:43 Doing a lot of this. Hunting. Fishing. Golfing. All three.

34:53 No. You know. No. Nothing a wrong with North.

34:59 But there's nothing about business except maybe a little golf. You can do a little bit there, but Hunting. To me makes no sense. Yeah. You know, killing an animal.

35:10 Right up on an animal makes no sense. The venison I can I can taste the fur. I don't want to eat it. So I don't hunt. So I got that. Fishing I don't understand. I don't understand catch and release. Let's go out and have a good time.

35:26 Let's catch a fish. Let's rip its mouth open, let's tear its eye out, and let's throw it back in the water. I don't understand that. Engulf. Look.

35:38 It's a great hobby, but I'd rather shoot pool, you know, for an hour than Golf for So All that focus that these people that these people are focusing on

35:51 I don't have that distraction. I don't hunt deer. I hunt money. And And I like it. So instead of collecting stamps, some people collect stamps as a hobby.

36:04 I collect Artifacts. For Alcatraz. I could try. You're you're a big fan of presidential note cards, you know, presidential flash cards. You just like collecting those bills. Yes. Yes, including food. So

36:19 I am very focused. I'm just not hunting. Golfing. Or fishing. If you take all that and listen I watch sports on T V, but there's people that that are more interested in

36:33 Then you know, in Lane Kiffin's a new job than they are their own job. Well I don't have Those distractions to my focus. Can can can I ask you uh about each one of these businesses that I researched and I want to brag a little bit about you and also you can tell me if it's true or not. Okay. Um

36:57 So listen to this, Sean. So tell me if this is true. Okay, so we have Morgan and Morgan. That's a huge successful thing. Well, you talked a lot about that. But you also have a company called Lidify. Which I think you sold Solidify is a uh tech company for lawyers. And I believe you sold

37:12 Around sixty percent of the company. You still own forty percent. At a six hundred million dollar valuation. Is that true? That's right. Do do you have a method where like you do the vision and somebody you hire a CEO early on, like what What makes the system work. For that uh the a guy joined me who is

37:30 You know. This guy was one of the smartest guys, a young guy, and he could do anything. And it was like I could just tell him I I called it magic carpets. I would say Can you do this? Yeah, I can do this. Can you do that?

37:45 Can you do this? Can you do that? Yes. When I first brought him in My vision and I've written a book called You Can't I've written two books. One called You can't teach hungry.

37:58 One called You Can't Teach Vision. My big vision. For the law. Was this What if Google was a law firm?

38:08 What would it look like? That was a thing that just hit me and I just kept going over and over and over in my mind. Now the problem for a guy like me is You know, terrible in math, terrible in science. You know, the idea of coding, you know, I you know

38:28 No idea. But I had that vision. What if Google was a law firm? And then I decided That I was gonna build what I called

38:37 The Google Law Firm. But I didn't have the So I'd been close with Obama's team and I was talking to the Obama people, the guys who ran the cave. in Chicago guy named Teddy Goff and there was another guy named Eeling Kriegel and

38:53 I'm talking to all of them about the Google Law Firm and when I would talk to them they're they're just blank face. Like what what do you mean the Google Law Firm? So I found this guy and he got it. And the first thing I said to him was You know, everything we're gonna do, we're gonna ask what Google would do. And here's what Google would do if it was a law firm. Google would be everywhere for everybody.

39:16 And Google wouldn't want some cases, they'd want all the cases. And if they didn't handle their cases in house They would refer them out. They would partner with a firm like Uber. So

39:28 So I th I was inspired by Google and Uber. So I wanted to build the Google Law firm. I'd keep a lot of cases, but I'd refer a whole bunch more out. Well So then

39:42 So I say to the guy He says, What do you want the most? I said, I want transparency and automation. Now we had a software called climb profiles.

39:54 And was was pretty good. But he kept saying. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough. We have to build our own Software. And that and that's the last thing I wanted to do because it's just too big.

40:08 And I'm like that's not what we do. But he Finally convinced me we gotta build it. And I had Jane such trust him, I was like, Well, let's go ahead. And so we built Lidify for us internally.

40:23 And we put and we put it on Salesforce. We we we layered it on Salesforce. Nobody'd ever done that before. So all of a sudden we got all these engineers. We got this, you know, we got a staff of thousands of engineers. Salesforce was interested in us because they hadn't been in the legal space before. And

40:42 We can change things with with we can we can do whatever we want. So So we started litofing. And um part of the deal if you want to be like so I refer a But bunch of cases out to lawyers across America.

40:56 But like with the Bloomies, if people wanna get my referrals they gotta be on Lidify'cause that's how we talk to each other. So a case comes in that I'm gonna refer out to Des Moines. You know, the case comes in, I got a partner. Who's on Littify. I refer the case to him.

41:12 He's got, you know, twelve hours to accept it or decline it. If he declines it, he comes back, it goes to a second person. Comes back, goes to a third person and then And then there's then it's So

41:24 It started as something internal. For us. But it's but then it became You know So good that everybody wanted it, so we started selling it.

41:36 What was how much did you invest in it and what was the time to exit? Well, p other people invest it in it with his um Fortress put some money in. I was on a bank board. I was on a bank board called Esquire Bank, which was a is a bank for lawyers, trades on Nasdaq. I sat on the board. Tiger Capital put in some money.

41:57 I would say from beginning to exit. Six, seven years. And look incredible. I didn't really want to exit, but You know It was time because, like you said, the focus I needed to focus

42:12 On the Google Law firm. I already had this I I still have a lot of input with the Besmer and I sold it to somebody who I thought would be good. I sold it to Besmer and they're very good at this. And so um yeah, about six or seven years.

42:29 Okay. That's amazing. By the way, it's it seems like there's a flywheel between these businesses. So you said we built kind of for ourselves and then You used your position and leverage in the market where hey if I'm referring to your case, you got to be using our platform for this to work well. The second business I think Sam's gonna bring up is like this uh ad agency you created. The the ad agency was here's how the ad agency was. I called it Practice Made Perfect. So what my idea was is I was gonna go out

42:56 across America say if you want to do what I'm doing I'll write your ads, I'll place your ads, I'll Oh And and when big cases happen When mass torts happen, you can put'em in and then refer'em to me.

43:09 I built this Practice made perfect. And all these lawyers across America. I was charging fifteen percent, so I made money.

43:20 Yeah, I was making I was probably making, you know, eight or nine million bucks a year just running that business. But more importantly, all those lawyers started referring me

43:31 You know, when viox would happen or when it you know Mass torch would happen, they would send me their cases as well. So I I built this I I thought of it like Like global crossing where I'm laying all this

43:43 fiber optic across America, but my fiber optic where these law firms across America That I would make money Be in the ad agency, but I'd make the big money With the cases they would say, so was that its own entity, and you're saying it was doing eight million in income? Yes. That's incredible. Where's where's it at now?

44:03 I sold it. Because here's why I had to sell it. As I started to expand across America with all these lawyers, they were all good friends of mine by the end, but I kept They w they were like, you know, I had a guy up in Indiana and he's like John, you know, you you're you're infringing on my territory. I'm like How? Because my deal with these with my clients was this You don't have to sign a contract with me. You can fire me any time you want.

44:27 And I'll never compete with you. I'll never compete with you. And it was just a handshake. Well, they were like calling saying, Well, John, you know, I saw one of your billboards. I'm like, Well, where did you see it? He's like, Well, I saw I was driving to Louisville. I go, were you in Kentucky or Indiana? Well I was in I was in Kentucky but I was driving I was like, Hey man

44:46 You're in Indianapolis. I I'm in Louisville. So I started getting I was infringing on my Clients. Right. And

44:55 It just became Untenable. I I was at a crossroad and I either had to Not grow the Google Law firm. Or keep this other business. So I sold practice made perfect.

45:09 I I don't know what's gonna happen to it. I'm very worried about it because When they bought it from me the the person that came in to run it, they called The person they put in there The Mm.

45:21 The resident Entrepreneur or something like that. They have some name for the The guy who's gonna run'em I you know Just give me the money and go do what you want. How much did you sell for? Uh like eighteen.

45:35 Okay, so that's eighteen million. All right. Now listen to this, Sean. Is this true? So do you still own this and and tell me the story about it. You had a trade show called Mass Torts Made Perfect. And it's a twice a year. Trade show. For

45:50 for lawyers. So you're you're you basically owned like the networking of law firms, is that right? It's called Mass Torch Made Perfect. And we put Two times a year people would come to learn about the latest mass torch. It was a play on my Uh

46:07 Practice made perfect. I had practice made perfect for my Clive. And mass torch made perfect. For all the lawyers in America. And I stay with that for a long time.

46:19 And Uh at a certain point it was me and two other firms. It was when Johnny Cochran was alive, he was part of it. And I was helping Johnny Cochran map out his national strategy, which also helped me learn about going national. And then another law firm.

46:37 Yeah. But at a certain point. Back to your Focus, you you are right about focus. I mean Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Both say focus, focus, focus.

46:47 At a certain point Mass Torch Made Perfect was not helping me grow my business. And so I sold I I I let them have mass torch made perfect. I kept practice made perfect.

47:03 And we and then I went And spent way more time on the Google Law firm. Well, how big was the trade show business? It was big, but it wasn't that profitable. Th what the the the the trade show itself made money, but not a lot of money. Practice uh practice made perfect, the ad agency was really supplementing that But what we were really looking for were cases.

47:26 We were really looking for people to say Hey, you know. We're gonna send you our cases. So the trade show itself never made money. It was the cases that we got. Where do you see opportunity today that You know I

47:39 A a a younger, more free. John Morgan would actually be able to go and pursue what would you go chase down? If I was young I would probably Be because of AI because I'm not good at that stuff.

47:54 I would probably be Looking at Toward the service industries. For John Morgan, you know, plumbing Um

48:04 Electrical air conditioning. I think that That's where a person like me could thrive because I'm I'm good at scaling, I'm good at building teams. I'm I'm good at sharing

48:20 The profits And so I think that that I think I might be In something like that. But the business I really enjoy The most

48:31 is the entertainment business. Yeah and I don't it's just The great thing about the entertainment business, whether it's the Downtown Flavortown or Wonderworks or Alcatraz. Is

48:45 You're not fighting. Can you can you okay, so Bash and I are, I guess sort of in the entertainment business because we have this podcast, but you know, I love the idea of owning um an upside down museum. That sounds amazing. It sounds fun, it sounds like it's good for the world, like it it's like a it's wholesome, it sounds fantastic. It seems cool to touch the things you're working on. Can you teach us how to get into that business and how to operate, run, spotted an opportunity, or what a winning formula looks like? Well, Looks like

49:14 You gotta go back to the basics. Always Location, location, location. The my Orlando Store does the best.

49:24 And then Pigeon Forge does the second best. And then Myrtle Beach does pretty good. And then but Branson does less than Myrtle Beach. It's all about where your locations are. If you don't have a great location for this for this type of business Look, six flags is having trouble in America right now. Because there's just not enough people. To go to six flags.

49:50 I like these one offs. Where location based attractions where It's at the corner of Maine and Maine. You got a lot of people coming.

50:01 With you know, and when people come With money, they're they're they're coming to spend money. When the people come to Orlando, they're coming to spend money. And so that's what I would that's what I would focus on, which would be would be w you know the the cities itself. And is the business model just thirty dollar tickets or fifty dollar tickets or they're not. It's like twenty six dollar tickets. Yeah. And and the value the reason I think I'm really doing well is the value's incredible'cause There's probably four or five things inside of each attraction.

50:31 That if you just went out and paid for it on the street like I've got these virtual roller coasters. In malls they go for twenty dollars a ride. You know, three minutes, twenty bucks.

50:43 With me, you can just keep going and going and going. Ropes course. fifteen, twenty bucks a ride. With me Go laser tag. Fifteen, twenty bucks.

50:52 There's probably five Items inside of a Wonderworks. That would cost a hundred bucks. Bottom. Each by themselves.

51:01 But here a family of four comes in. For a hundred bucks. And they leave You know With a huge grin on themselves.

51:12 Sweating from all the activities. And uh The value is incredible. The thing I love about the business is There's really no fighting like in in my law business. You know, I'm competing to get the cases and I'm

51:28 fighting the insurance company, that I'm fighting the defense lawyers, and everything's a fight. The only things of five here is When somebody comes and say, I didn't like it. I want my money back. And we basically look at the ticket and go How long was How long were they there? If they were there for an hour or less

51:45 Here's your money back. When they come and ask for their money back and they were there for three hours. For like Get the f outta here. Do you is there like a winning um

51:58 strategy like okay, um the story of uh an upside down house that got tossed out of the Berlin Triangle. That's kinda cool. Um crime and punishment's cool. What other winning story formulas do you like? Well, I have one that I'm gonna that I'm looking to build right now and it's called Santa's Chocolate Factory. So imagine This is Santa's chocolate factory.

52:24 Nice. Okay. And The thing in the middle. So envision here here's the idea here's where this came from. Here's where this idea came from. So I'm out at Disney one day.

52:35 And I'm sitting at Jir Deli's. And Giardelli's is a ice cream shop store. Right next door was a Christmas store. It In Disney Village. I'm sitting there and then I go into the Christmas store. Christmas is, you know, a year round business in certain places.

52:50 So then I thought What could I build? That would be phenomenal. So I thought Well Willy Wonka, you gotta pay IP for Willy Wonka. But you don't have to pay IP for

53:02 For Santa Claus. So I said What about Santa's chocolate factory? Santa's living there. This is Santa's house. There's a big chocolate factory, there's ice cream, the the booze are made out of sleighs.

53:17 Then you got all the merchandise you're gonna sell. You got Santa Claus there and you know. in his workshop. You got pictures being taken. You got L's working there. And so my idea is to build This complex

53:33 of Santa's chocolate factory. Where Santa is and And On the hour, every hour. At midnight.

53:42 Every hour turns into midnight. Dung dum dung dum, the lights go down and all of a sudden The store comes alive, the train starts moving, the bears are moving. It's Christmas time. On the hour, kind of a

53:55 a Bellaggio moment where people come, it's snowing outside. And so That's the next thing. That I'm gonna do. I love it. Have you seen Enchant?

54:09 Uh Enchant Christmas, have you seen this business? Yeah. But here think about this, what I'm thinking about with this. Because the inside's gonna be so phenomenal. I'm thinking about doing something that's never been done ever in the history of the world. charging money to come into a retail store.

54:25 A dollar to come in. Now. I don't know if it'll work. If it doesn't work, I'll quit charging the dollar. But I think I can build something inside.

54:37 So spectacular. that people will want to get in there. To see the clock strike twelve. The clock strikes twelve. All of a sudden

54:46 The everybody's up on the counters like Johnny Rockets. They're all saying it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. There's this five minute interlude. Every hour And I think people will pay to come in and see it. So that's my next thing that I'm working on right now.

55:04 Sam, isn't it crazy that he's basically like Half Walt Disney. Shark. Uh lawyer shark, you know, better call Saul meets Jeff Bezos.

55:15 One of the wildest combinations. It's pretty amazing. It it's I mean you've been in the it's it's it's kinda funny. There's like a joke here of like you just became a lawyer to fund your uh carny ambitions. And that's pretty badass, to be honest, because you know, being a lawyer is cool and I'm totally on board with helping the the little guy. But there's something special about particularly in a world of AI, you know, this is a common theme that Sean and I have talked about. In a world of AI and more digital, it's pretty cool to be out of the house and and Screen free experiences. And so I actually find your attraction business almost probably more interesting than your philosophy. I'm I'm you know, my wife doesn't understand it when I tell her I'm pro I'm more proud of my attraction business.

55:55 Than the law business just because it's so unlikely. And what do you think and so that business is thirty what do you think that do you own the whole thing? Uh um almost. I had some limited partners over time I've bought a lot of'em out, but Yeah. So what's that worth?

56:12 Eight. Thanks. Quarter a billion. Yeah. Hey, quick message here because you know that feeling when you send a wire and it

56:20 Actually works. No friction. Well, I've used Mercury for years now, and let me tell you, it just works. And that's why I use it for not one, not two, but eight of my companies. From credit cards to invoices, I have everything in one place. There's no janky dashboard. I'm never told please please visit a local bank branch. None of that tomfoolery. And a few months ago, I landed a big client and the first thing I did. I sent them a clean branded invoice, boom, deal closed, cash in the door. That's the kind of banking experience I want. And that's why I use Mercury. So if you're running a startup. And you want many that feels like it's built in this century, well go to mercury.com and get started in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Bank the services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column NA, and Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC.

57:02 What are you doing with malls? Are you doing something interesting with malls? So what I'm doing with malls is this everybody's Tearing malls down because malls are no good. So Up in Myrtle Beach, I'm gonna b I'm gonna build this

57:16 The I'm building this new Uh downtown flavored town with Guy Fietti. So There was a A ba there was a mall that was just

57:27 On his last legs. There's an out parcel. that has a bass pro that kicks ass. So that's That's golden. But the mall What I really wanted out of the mall.

57:38 Was I wanted The JC Penny's location. It's the the location's fantastic. The mall's just no good. I wanted the J C Penny's location to build. Downtown flavored town. But then I got stuck with them all. But I bought the mall.

57:54 I bought it all for an incredibly low price. So now the question's gonna be Do you level them all or what do you do? What I've decided to do is to do something That's never really been done like this.

58:10 For your viewers. I'm gonna a now you guys seem you'll know the answer to this. Are you all familiar With the concept of first principle Thank you.

58:21 Okay. Yeah, E Elon has popularized this this term. And Aristotle taught Elon. The term. So But So you take

58:30 these assumptions and you deconstruct them. So right now the assumption is if you buy a mall You tear it down'cause there's nothing you can do with it. So I've decided to do some first principles I do a lot of first principle thinking in my businesses. So I've decided what about what if I take this older mall. And with new technology and LED and illusions and all that

58:56 What if I take this mall And I Don't tear it down. I just repurpose it. But I make it a gallery. I make the whole mall

59:06 Illusions. That that you know, like when you're in The Venetian and you see those that The the When you're on the water and and

59:17 There's so many things to do with LED. So I'm gonna take this mall. And I'm going to repurpose it. And I'm gonna call it the gallery. And it's gonna be uh it's gonna be the mall is gonna be A museum.

59:33 You're gonna go to the mall just like you're gonna go to Santa's chocolate factory. You're gonna go Just to see the inside of the mall. You're gonna go to see all this and that. I'm gonna have a zip line from one end to another. I'll have my rogues courses in the middle. I've got so many cool things. So when you go to this mall

59:53 Most malls are now just torn down. That's just that's what you do. I'm gonna take Elon's first principle thinking and I'm not gonna turn them all down. I'm gonna make the mall. The attraction

1:00:07 Sure, fascinating. And Your wife? your children and some of your close co workers, what would they say it's like working with you? Well I think they would say that uh

1:00:19 that I have strong feelings, you know, if if I feel like something is You know, is I don't want to say my way or the highway'cause I I I I do a lot with consensus, but once I For my consensus. then I execute. I mean I I'll spend a lot of time

1:00:38 going around the horn, but once I figure out what it's gonna be. I execute Uh I would say You know

1:00:49 Procrastination may be What they would say I might put off a little bit, but I don't see it that way'cause I'm I feel like I'm like even on this mall, I'm still thinking of what I'm gonna put in it. I mean, over the weekend I was looking at these buildings where they have painted illusions on these different buildings.

1:01:08 And so you pull up to a building and it looks like it's a you know It looks like it's something, but it's not. It's an illusion. So like this weekend I was looking at all these different things. So it's not really procrastination in my mind. It's Thinking.

1:01:23 He's thinking. Planing. Yeah. It seems like you probably meet a lot or talk to a lot of entrepreneurs. If I said to you Man, so many entrepreneurs just don't get it.

1:01:35 What is it that they don't get? They You But you get. Well

1:01:42 First of all It it's I I have a game that I play when I drive down roads I'll see a new business coming in and I'll the game is this. Is he gonna make it or not? Well, I'll see.

1:01:55 I'll see an old Burger King being turned into some, you know, health food store. And you look over and you go, Is that gonna make it or not? And it's usually you know, if they're repurposing an old Burger King, they're probably not gonna make it.

1:02:11 What I think they make the mistake, they wanna do it so badly that they try to put A round peg and a square You know, it just doesn't work. They want to do it so Badly. That they forget.

1:02:25 Location, location, location, location. So would you summarize that into just Uh planning in advance or just like Or basically like if you nail one thing, everything else is taken care of. Yeah. And and and I I also believe bullets before bombs. You gotta really test things A little bit a lot of people try to, you know, build two at once or three at once. You gotta build that first one, that first pilot.

1:02:49 And really get it down. And and that's how I do the law firms. Before I really go big in a city I come in. Spend some money with ads. Here are a few lawyers.

1:03:01 The bullets And then when I feel it catch it on, then I bring the bombs. And when other people try to compete with you with uh'cause you know, if I drive I I was in Vegas and in Vegas every single billboard is a personal injury lure. It's like insane. I don't know why. Yeah.

1:03:20 There was a lot of competition. And When I think about what you did, I guess my shortcut answer of like why did he win? Why did you become the largest Law firm and then And everybody else is, you know, playing for second place.

1:03:33 My answer is You were early, you were first m you know, not maybe not the first mover, but you were very early. And then once you figured out the secret. Meaning like business is about exploiting secrets in a way. You've you've figure something out before everybody else is before it's consensus. So you figured out

1:03:49 Hey, we can advertise Effectively. And we can Basically like pour money into ads and get get people get uh cases out of it. You were way more aggressive with that. That even if other people were advertising, they weren't as aggressive with the advertising, meaning Either

1:04:04 Putting money and effort into the creative. Or just Po reinvesting capital. um to build the national brand. And so that I guess that's what I would say is the the thing. What am I is that right or what am I missing something that was important and while you won and

1:04:18 And everybody else didn't. Okay, you're miss yes, you're missing a very big piece. I one of you said I don't know if you'd heard me say, but one of you talked about fishing. And and I've got a Th In my

1:04:31 Business I call it You know? First of all You gotta fish first and fish fast. So there's two sides of my business.

1:04:39 There's catching fish. And to catch fish, you gotta fish first and fish fast. And then there's cooking fish. The value of the case. Where my competition gets beat by me.

1:04:54 is most of them, ninety five percent of them Are shit lawyers. They're terrible at what they do. They couldn't try case, many of them if they wanted to. So they have to take

1:05:09 The last Best Awesome. You'll see people bragging, hey, we settle this case for a million dollars. Yeah, well, the case was worth ten million dollars. But the problem for them is they couldn't do it.

1:05:24 They didn't know how to do it. What I did when I was going through all this, I started to really look at where does my money come. Twenty percent. Twenty percent of my cases Or eighty percent of my money.

1:05:37 But here's where my money really comes. Becomes. The Friday before trial. So they've said no no no no no no no no no no no That was Friday before Trump.

1:05:49 The Friday before trial a lot of times they'll say, Okay Here it is. The next time the money comes is during Right after jury selection. We pick a jury like oh we don't like that jury. We pay us then. The third time our money comes

1:06:03 is during the trial. They might say Here's the money. And then the fourth Comes as the verdict.

1:06:10 I get gigantic verdicts. Gigantic verdicts. Were they getting where they're talking about five hundred thousand? I I'm I'm getting ver I got a verdict in your city San Francisco gives Google a couple of Weeks ago for five hundred million dollars.

1:06:26 And so Y you know, I'm not hunting cockroaches, I'm hunting big game. I'm not I'm not s happy Just to get a little bit of m I want to get Exactly what it's worth.

1:06:39 So where my margins where I have separated myself from all of them His results and reputation. And then the other thing they don't do, there's a concept in my law called bad faith. If there's a million dollars in coverage and they don't pay it They're in bad faith, perhaps.

1:06:57 When they come to offer me the million It's too late. Now most lawyers because they need the money they take the million. I say You.

1:07:09 I go get the verdict. I go get the verdict. For ten million. Yeah, I got one a a representative state senator this year. They were offering us nothing, nothing. They finally offered us a million the day a trial was a death case.

1:07:22 I said, you know, F you. And we got a hundred million. And So Where the disconnect is, they're not real lawyers.

1:07:32 So what have I done? I've got a stable of race horses. They get big verdicts. I got people who that's all they do. They just go around the country. They go from here to here to here to here to here to here. They don't even live in the cities. They just parachute in. And I call it the Walter Payton rule. Walter Payton played for the

1:07:52 Bears, he got the ball fifty times a game. Well, it was fourth and goal, he always got it. So I've got my Walter Paytons. I got my Walter Patents who I parachute in. And they get these big verdicts. So my differentiator between me and my competition Is

1:08:11 Most of them are not real lawyers. They're marketing people. Who take the last best offer. Their and their margins are terrible. Now. On the mar the cases I refer out the Google Awfer.

1:08:26 My margins on those cases My margin in my business are about thirty, thirty five percent, but my margins on my referrals is eighty five, ninety percent. And that business is getting bigger and bigger and bigger as my national footprint gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So

1:08:44 I got two sides of the business. I got the stuff I do internally. But then I got the cases I refer out. And when I refer'em out. To my Uber drivers. It's not a Uber driver, it's Mario Andretti that I'm referring to these

1:08:58 These customers to I got goosebumps, John. I love that answer. That was incredible. That should be your next infomercial. That was incredible. John's a cowboy. I mean, you got this cowboy energy, which we love. We love cowboy, we have a joke, we call ourselves Manifest Cowboys.

1:09:12 Uh,'cause we like dream up stuff and make it happen. 'Cause we're hoping other people start to call us that. We we get to stop saying it ourselves. That would be great. When you nickname yourself, it's not as cool, but I think you actually are the manifest callers. So do you own The the as I guess it's a partnership, but do you own a Huge chunk of this. Firm yourself, no there's no investors, right?

1:09:31 No. This is mainly me and my family, but I do have a lot of partners in it because I believe That look, when I look at this firm or all my businesses, I always envision it like I'm building a circus and I want to build the greatest show on the earth. When you see some of these circuses in And

1:09:50 Shopping centers. You know, th they gotta Elephant with one tusk and a drunk clown and a seal that's caught. And it's a bullshit circus. The surface I'm building

1:10:02 Is the greatest show on earth. Why do people go to the circus? They go there for two reasons. One, they want to see the lions and the tigers eat the man. They want that's why they want to that's why they go. They want to see him. And then they want to see the great Walinda fall off to his death.

1:10:18 That's why they're at the circus. That's why they go to NASCAR. They're hoping That somebody is gonna die. How do you not die? Well, with the animals.

1:10:30 You feed'em and you love'em. I've got a lot of partners who make a lot of money because they got a piece of this deal. The second way is you focus you're up there on that ha wire And you gotta pay attention. You gotta get from here to there.

1:10:46 So In building this firm, I got three rules. Love'em. Feed'em. Focus.

1:10:54 And then you can build The greatest show on earth. You're very successful. You've you've won so many times in life. Has there ever been a point where the um the businesses or the firm uh almost went under because you said that you're a pretty risk Risk on person.

1:11:09 Has um have you almost had to pay the consequences because of that? I don't know about pay the consequences, but I'm but look I sent a guy up to Atlanta. When I opened up Atlanta, I sent the wrong guy up there. By the time I got him out, we were fourteen million dollars in the hole. Just it just kept Yeah. And uh he was a disaster.

1:11:30 But you know, now he's gone and My team I mean Atlanta makes some you know, prints money. So that was Atlanta was tough. I've had a couple of cities that didn't do as well as I hoped, like Memphis. So yeah, I've had I've had some you know I've had some

1:11:47 Things not do well. Uh I built a small amusement park called Magical Midway that I ended up selling lost a million bucks. But that doesn't bother me because Nobody bets a thousand. I mean, if you bet if you bet three hundred, you're in the hall of fame.

1:12:04 You know, all you gotta do is get on base one out of three times and you're in the hall of fame. Like we talked about earlier, Warren Buffett has five big stocks. You take those stocks away. He's not Warren Buffett anymore. And he's the one he's the first person who tells you that. Th that's why I love him so much. That's why I have so much Berkshire Hathaway stock.

1:12:24 I mean he he's my guy. You've been doing a lot of media. I saw you on this Jubilee thing and I had known of who you were before that. And I was like, What the hell? Why would you want to do that? You came off you came off pretty good. You came up pretty good. You've done a really good job of judoing like a bunch of these like Uh gotcha moments. Um

1:12:42 So that's been pretty cool. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna try to run for office one day? I mean, what's going on? Why are you why do you care about being uh Why do you care about being out there? Fish. I want fish. I want to catch fish. And uh You know, I do these things called John in sixties, but look І мав би сам сус.

1:13:01 Running for office. Look, I don't know about that, but But in Florida. When my brother, the brother I told you about that got hurt, he he He needed marijuana desperately. to help his situation.

1:13:14 I ran a constitutional amendment twice in Florida to legalize Medical marijuana. I spent tens of millions of dollars to to pass it. And then later when you when you have when you make money, I believe that we have An obligation A civic obligation, a moral obligation to give back.

1:13:35 One of the things that has one of the things that I believe that where the country is headed in the wrong direction And you're starting to hear about it is affordability. It's all because people aren't paid enough money. That's that's the affordability problem. The the the minimum wage in America is eight dollars an hour.

1:13:53 So what I did with my own money here in Florida is I ran a constitutional amendment. to raise the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour. And everybody told me again, you know. You're you're you're you're nobody that's never gonna happen. Well it did happen.

1:14:11 And so I raised the minimum wage in Florida to fift from eight dollars to fifteen dollars an hour. So because of those constitutional amendments, I became almost like a politician in this state. And everybody's like he we want him to run for governor, we want you to run for governor. When I go to the when I would go to the White House They would take me to the side and show me polling. About my poll numbers.

1:14:36 So You you think about it. But then you gotta think about the job itself. I mean I I would have trouble With the job itself. I live in Maui. You know, five months out of the year.

1:14:49 Which I love. I love it out there. And I'm sixty nine, so I don't know. But really what I'm doing is in this day and time it's just Being out there. And if somebody sees me

1:15:01 And they're and they are favorably disposed by the jubilee or I was just on this thing this weekend that printed You call the business insider. Yeah, that was a good interview. I saw that. So I just did that. So my thought is it's kind of back to that, you know, why bother?

1:15:17 You know, this you know. Some people are gonna see this. And some people are not gonna like me. But some people are. And look, you can become president with if fifty one percent of the people like you and you can get rich as hell if you fifty one percent of the people use you.

1:15:34 So I look at these things As New age marketing where people Get to see me. You know, w with my ads, I look like I'm, you know

1:15:45 Working at a funeral home. You know, with what I'm selling. So By doing these things they're like, you know, that guy actually has a personality. He's not a you know A gravedigger.

1:15:57 But We wanna make sure there's enough people watching before I'm gonna Gonna do it. So like and subscribe, leave a comment. Well, this has been awesome, man. I appreciate you coming on. Uh shout out your new book. It's been

1:16:15 Edited right now is called Life is Luck. The paperboy. You you're the best. That's it. That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'll put my all in it like my days off. On the road, less travel, never looking back. All right, everyone, if you're listening to MFM, you probably want to make more money. Well, I want to tell you about a podcast you might want to check out. It's called The Sales Evangelist, and it's hosted by Donald Kelly.

1:16:42 Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts who share their strategies to succeed in sales. They share actionable insights and stories that will encourage, challenge, and motivate you to hustle your way to the top. If you're someone looking to raise your income level, check out the sales evangelist. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.

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