"People Are LAZY!" Billionaire Exposes The BEST Ways To Make Money In 2026 (& Why 99% Will Fail)
2h 3m 16s
The speaker, a self-described "liquid net worth billionaire" in personal injury law, shares insights into his success rooted in authenticity, patience, and ethical business practices. He emphasizes that true wealth is measured by accessible liquid assets, not nominal business valuations. His legal work focuses on justice for victims of injustice, rejecting frivolous lawsuits that exploit the system. He built a powerful brand through viral, attention-grabbing marketing strategies, like defaced billboards, which generate massive public engagement. He warns against greed and speculative investments, citing historical bubbles like the tulip trade as lessons in unsustainable growth. Strategic asset protection, privacy tools, and financial transparency are central to his approach. He stresses the importance of assessing character and lifestyle when choosing business partners or investments, drawing on personal experience and real-life examples. His philosophy blends entrepreneurship with personal integrity, advocating for long-term wealth over quick gains. He sees success not as luck, but as a combination of sound judgment, risk aversion, and consistent effort—highlighting that even in high-stakes industries, wisdom and discipline ultimately win.
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There's nothing that stops the music like the word billionaire.
Do you have a billion in the bank?
I'm a billionaire.
A real one.
What was your business?
I own one of the largest law firms in North America.
I hunt money.
I fish for money.
Income and wealth disparity in the U.S. are at all-time high levels.
Nobody wants to say, look, here's the real reason.
I'm a lazy slug.
What do most people get wrong about your business?
I am the most authentic person.
You're ever going to meet.
But I'm very, very street smart, and my social IQ is off the charts.
So how did you become a liquid net worth billionaire?
If work is work, you're f***ed.
I love to work.
Because I don't lose.
They lose.
Sir, I'm sorry.
And when somebody f***s with me, I f*** back.
John Morgan, thank you so much for coming on the Iced Coffee Hour.
Well, it's good to be here.
And welcome to the big O.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
You say you don't hunt deer, you hunt money.
And now you're a confirmed billionaire.
I'm curious, are you still hunting money?
People who hunt deer are still hunting deer.
And people who fish are still fishing.
So I'm still hunting and fishing.
Yes.
So what's remarkable is that your firm did over $2 billion in revenue last year.
What people get wrong about my business is. You know, we're chasing frivolous cases.
We probably take about 7% to 6% of the calls that come to us.
We don't have the money to chase frivolous cases.
Because the people we're going up against have unlimited money.
So when people say, you know, jackpot justice and frivolous lawsuits
and amnesia, we don't have the money to chase frivolous cases.
They say it because they're trying to have what's called tort reform and to scare the public.
I don't have the money or the time to chase frivolous lawsuits.
So I think that's the number one thing.
What I do for a living is righteous.
What I do for a living is somebody has something taken from them due to no fault of their own.
Their health, their income.
Their enjoyment of life, consortium, you name it.
It's been taken from them due to no fault of their own.
And my job is a great job because what I get to do is go back and get back as much as I can that has been taken from them.
I think the people who get something wrong about my job will go, if something is taken from you, you want it back.
Now, if you get your leg cut off, I can't put your leg back on.
But we can get justice and compensation for that.
So not only is what I do good, it's righteous and right.
How common are frivolous lawsuits?
Well, I don't think they're common because the insurance industry, these are smart people.
And when they get a frivolous lawsuit and it goes to an insurance defense lawyer, they love frivolous lawsuits.
You know why?
Because they get to bill, bill, bill, bill.
And they bill like crazy.
They get to bill like crazy on frivolous lawsuits.
Why?
Because they know they're going to win.
If somebody sues somebody with a frivolous lawsuit and the defense lawyer gets it, they're like, no, we're paying nothing.
We're paying nothing.
Because who gets to pay the money?
The insurance company.
So why?
The question is why?
I'm starting to think about a new ad.
You might give me a good new ad idea.
I'll take my 10%.
Three.
Five.
I'll take frivolous lawsuits.
For there to be frivolous, not lawsuits, frivolous cases, the insurance industry has to go, we're going to give you money for this frivolous lawsuit.
For nothing.
Do you think they're going to do that?
No.
And if they don't do that, then they go to a jury of our peers.
The same juries who get to put people in the electric chair.
We have the best civil and criminal justice.
We have the best civil and criminal justice system in the world.
So that's what people get wrong.
You've spent over a billion dollars on advertising.
What do you understand about human attention that most people don't?
It's a bit more, way more than a billion.
I'll spend 600 million this year.
600.
I heard 500 million this year.
We've adjusted as we've gone because we've moved into some new cities and I got a new domain called injury.com.
How much did you pay for that domain?
Injury.com, I think I paid 4 million.
$4 million to injury.com.
Seems like a bargain.
Yeah, that's actually not that.
Believe it or not, here's what I said.
When I bought injury.com, here's what I said.
I want to buy, whenever I do an ad or do something in my space, I want to do something that my competitors literally up their back when they hear or see.
So if I was a competitor and I saw a billboard that said injury.com, I would shut up my back because that's,
that's, that, I mean, if you could have a name, what would you want for my business?
I'd run injury.com, personalinjury.com, caraccident.com.
Not personal because let me tell you, when I did my domains, I got down this, I was doing this before anybody was thinking, I mean, nobody even had BlackBerrys when I was doing my URL.
I got down to two names that I was going to make.
I wanted it to be my branding statement and my URL, my mission statement.
choices I had was for the people. And the other one was justice for all. Now, let me tell you why
I didn't do justice for all. The average reading age in America is about sixth or seventh grade.
A lot of these don't know how to spell justice. So what I don't like about personal,
how do you spell it? How do you spell it, Graham? Go ahead.
J. Wait, no, no, I got, I got this. Pneumonia. It's like, so I would, I don't like per, I mean,
there is a personalinjury.com, but you got to think how they think and how they spell and how
they read and they don't read or spell well. For, that's like kindergarten. The,
like, that's like the second word you learn. And people, that's the hard one.
J. How much have you spent in total on advertising, do you think?
J. Oh, I'd say billions and billions.
J. Multiple billions of dollars.
J. Multiple billions.
J. So what do you understand about attention that most people don't?
J. I understand that the, the tension that people have is like a gnat and not, it's not a long
attention. And here's what I want to do with my ads. If I took you out in the field and there
was a thousand brown cows.
J. And I pointed to one and I told you, look at that cow.
J. Because we're going to come back here in six months and I want, I want you to pick this cow
out of the herd. You'd look at the cow. Okay. He's got a little, little scratch on the eye.
J. He made a little sock on one leg and you'd be looking at the cow. Okay. All right. Get in the
car. We're going to come back. And then we come back in six months and I tell you, go find the
cow. You might, you might not. J. Now we went out to that
same field and there was a thousand cows, but only one was purple. And I pointed to the purple cow.
We can come back in 60 years and you're going to pick the purple cow. I want to be the purple cow.
J. And so how do you become a purple cow?
J. Look at all these insurance companies ads. Look at Progressive. Look at Geico. Look at State Farm.
There's humor, a lot of humor. My director of marketing was with Geico before he came with me.
J. But then there's other,
you got to be educational. You can't just be this big head going, if you've been injured,
call me, you know, boom, boom, boom. No, you have to have people watching. My goal with my
commercials is that, that they're so good that the public rewinds them to go, wait a minute,
wait, wait a minute. What did that say? Or the billboards. I did a billboard once was highly
controversial. Size matters. American size matters. It's a billboard. It's a billboard. It's a billboard.
America's largest injury firm. Well, a lot of people gave me a lot of shit for that. That's
offensive. Why? Well, we know what you're doing. Really? What am I doing? The fuck you think I'm
doing? You get your head out of the filth. You're a filthy person to be thinking like that. I'm
saying size matters. The size of my firm matters. So when you say size, one thing I did before
years ago, I take all my billboards and I defaced them myself, but I made it look like
somebody crawled up, you know, put for the money and blacked my teeth out.
Glasses.
Glasses.
All this in college towns.
I had this thing went viral because guess what's happening?
Everybody's like taking pictures of the billboards and sending them out to their friends and
post them on media.
The news people were calling.
Your boards have been defaced on Alifaya.
What?
Can we come by and do a story on it?
I need to figure this out.
They're doing stories on my defaced ads.
Cars are stopped and they're outside of the thing taking pictures of my defaced ads, which
was really, you know, negative shit about me, made up by me, for me.
That's a purple cow.
So you came up with this idea yourself.
Do you run these ideas by anybody else or you just decide on your own?
That's great.
Have you ever seen Bill Cosby or Art Linkletter kids say the darndest things?
They're up in high chairs.
So we're going to film this Sunday here in Orlando, a bunch of kids.
And we're just going to be asking kids about Morgan & Morgan, sitting on the chair.
Kids say the darndest things.
Then we're going to film them all.
Then we're going to chop it up.
And then we're going to run this ad called Kids Say the Darnest Things.
Yeah, I came up with that.
Who do you look to as inspiration for advertising, marketing?
What do you think is the most effective advertisement of all time?
Coke.
It's the real thing.
I'd like to help the world to improve.
In perfect harmony.
And I love the ending of Mad Men.
Did you see Mad Men?
Mad Men was a show.
And Don Draper was this big executive who was the king of Madison Avenue.
And then he kind of, you know, after everybody in town and had a great time,
he decides to drop out of life.
And he's sitting there at the end, the last episode.
He's gone to find himself and he's in Hawaii.
And he's sitting out there.
He's meditating.
And all of a sudden, I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.
And he's sitting there.
And it was the Coke.
And the inference was he's coming up with the Coke ad.
You got to watch it.
It's fantastic.
It gave me cold chills.
So your marketing, I have to say, is fantastic.
Why don't you sponsor the Super Bowl?
Well, I might.
I don't know.
It's so expensive.
How much does it cost to sponsor the Super Bowl?
Well, different things.
I mean, it can be millions and millions.
Did you get a price ever?
I've run Super Bowl ads, not national ads, but in regional, in DMAs.
Yeah, I've gotten price.
Listen, they're pitching me all the time stuff.
But the Super Bowl is one day.
Here's what I don't like about the Super Bowl.
If it's a blowout, are they going to watch the second half?
No.
Where are they going to place you in the, you know, I mean, if you're in the beginning or if you're the end, it's all about placement.
So I wrestle with it.
There's certain people that advertise just for their own ego.
And then you look at the ads and we're so disappointed in some Super Bowl ads.
But then there's the Budweiser ads and you're like, I want to rewind that.
Yeah.
And that gives you cold chills.
Those Clydesdales.
What's the most you've ever spent on an ad?
I had some ads with Kyle Busch and we, we haven't been able to really run them because he passed away.
You know, he died.
We have an ad with John Daly and his son.
And, uh, cause then you got talent you're paying.
I've sponsored the car.
So part of my Kyle Busch deal was I sponsored the car.
So I got the car, I got the rights to all that.
And I was, I was in the races.
And then I, so I spent millions on, on, you know, with NASCAR.
Now, one thing I found really incredible is that I've heard you received about 3 million leads, which is equivalent last year to 1% of the entire United States.
Have you ever had to sue a friend?
Yes.
How do you deal with that?
Here's what I do.
If it's, if it's a, well, first of all, there's friends and acquaintances.
Everybody's your friend when you're going to sue them.
Right.
But.
A lot of times what I'll do is I'll call them.
I'll say, listen, I got this case.
I can do it or you can, I can have somebody else do it.
You tell me what you want me to do.
And a lot of times they say, I'd rather have you do it.
Cause sometimes people just want to be vicious to be vicious.
And, you know, it almost turns into extortion, not a lawsuit.
But if it's somebody, it's a good friend that I've given, you know, I give them diplomatic community.
I don't, I don't need the money that bad to sue.
Friends.
I've, you know, I had a case one time where malpractice case and I called him up a doctor and, you know, me and him used to play basketball together in high school.
And I said, listen, this is going to happen, but do you want me to do it?
And he goes, I don't want you to do it.
And they settled the case against him for $4 million.
So I lost, you know, $1.6 million for my friendship.
Funny thing about that.
I never saw them again for the rest of my life.
So I've been thinking about that 1.4.
What's the most you've ever won in a lawsuit?
Well, we hit Google for 500 million last year in San Francisco.
I settled black, black farmers was 1.2 billion.
A lot of hundred million.
These are verdicts.
And I've been in big mass torts, the BP oil spill.
I've rep, I live in Hawaii in the wintertime.
I was one of the lawyers that represented the fire victims.
We settled that one last year for 4.7 billion.
I'm on the opioid MDL.
Yeah.
So, but it's, you know, it, it, it's from, you know, a little to a lot.
So what's the most you've ever personally made from a lawsuit?
As many of you know, we moved into this warehouse and it
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Where you make the biggest money are these big mass torts, but it's misleading because it
could take 10 years.
And then you just. You divide 10 into that number to annualize it, and you go, was that worth it?
I mean, yeah, yeah, you know, it's kind of. But the fees are nowhere near what the public thinks.
I mean, if I, you know, $100 million case, you know, I had a case in Miami, 100 million
bucks, fees 40 million.
Black farmers was 90 million on the 1.2 billion.
So when you see. When you hear 1.2 billion, it doesn't mean I got a third, because there's all sorts of. Because fees go to many different things.
Fees are. Doctors, they go to the partners.
Well, fees go. And fees are different.
Fees are not just a third.
I mean, that's on a single. You know, single event cases are a third.
And what you got to remember when you hear these verdicts in some of these states, they
knock the verdicts down.
They set the verdicts aside.
They don't have insurance.
There's not many people have 100 million to pay 100 million.
What's the. What's the most surprisingly large settlement you've ever gotten?
We. Or verdict.
We have a friend that settled something.
He's a personal injury attorney in the Valley of Los Angeles.
He settled $50 million for someone who spilled hot tea on their groin going through the drive-thru.
I just had a big hot coffee case.
We got a verdict for like 5 billion.
5 billion?
Million.
Oh, I heard billion.
Yeah.
I was like, wow.
It was probably that lettuce on my tooth sliding down.
The fees that I've had over the years is right at. At the beginning of this year was 35 billion for everything.
But remember, I got 1,200 lawyers, you know.
So it's a big number, but I got a lot of people, you know, cracking out those cases.
What is your annual overhead on the business?
Like, what do you spend to keep this whole business alive?
It all depends because the lawyers got bonuses.
It's tied to their production.
So, and by the way, what I want to do is pay them a load of money.
I want my lawyers' bonuses to be astronomical.
But it's a, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a, it's, it's a huge number.
Now, when it comes to lawsuits, I'm curious, why don't the loser in the case,
why don't they pay for the other person's legal fees?
Like, if I sue Jack and. he wins.
Why is it called loser podcasting?
pays loser pays why not i want it you want it why isn't it why isn't it like that because i win
they don't want they don't want it against me if they have listen the first person will run
for once loser pays is me because i don't lose they lose here because i get to pick the case i
get to take i get to pick what i want here's where i'm coming from is that in california which is
where we used to live really until 2020 i've seen so many frivolous lawsuits and how they always
start is they say i'm going to claim this and it's going to cost you fifty thousand dollars to fight
this and you're correct but you're going to spend fifty thousand dollars to fight me or you give me
twenty thousand dollars i'll go away and that seems like a very common tactic well but see you're
misinformed there's all sorts of things like there's a thing called a demand for judgment if
they put a demand in if they say
okay we're going to pay you ten thousand dollars and the verdict comes in 25 less than that 75
74 9999 it's loser pays in florida and vice versa if i put in and i get 25 more they got to pay my
fees too so there are devices and motions and pleadings that you can have loser pays and i get
it all the time i do it
i do propose it's called a proposal for settlement now they're different in different states pfs
i do i do a pfs on 95 96 percent of my cases and they have to pay my fees when they lose
but some of this also assumes that they're easy to track down like we have a personal friend
who got sued okay uh spent four hundred thousand dollars fighting it won the lawsuit he was in the
clear completely and now we're in a situation where we're in a situation where we're in a
he has to sue back to get his legal fees. But that's going to cost more money. And the guy who
he's suing cleverly hid and moved assets around so that actually collecting from this guy is going
to be almost impossible. Well, there's also something called fraudulent conveyance. And
you tell your friend to hire me and I'll go get his money. But that's assuming the fraudulent
conveyance was done during the lawsuit and not years before. No. As soon as they have knowledge
of the lawsuit. So they know it's coming and they start moving money around. That's fraudulent
conveyance. But let's say it was already moved. Well, then it's not. But every story has a story
that's not necessarily true. Like you thought there's no loser pays, but there is in many
states. I have just personally seen so many people I know go through this and just sell
settle, settle, settle. And they pay out of pocket because they don't want to file a claim
with their insurance. I see this happen probably a few times a year. And I'm in the real estate
industry. I see landlords dealing with this. Well, listen, I'm in the I own attractions,
I own hotels, I own shopping centers, I own billboard companies. I started banks and I'm
sued too. And when somebody with me, I back. But part of this,
like, is your name. Is they see you as the owner? Like, no offense. I would never want to sue you.
I would just knowing that it's like, this is you. You are your deterrent. You are your best
insurance policy. No, no. Listen, a lot of people call me and say, hey, we have a case against you
at one of your museums. I say, sue me. Because if I fucked up, I want to pay.
If I'm negligent, I want to pay. That's why I have insurance.
So they'll say, well, are you going to be mad at me? Oh, no. Go for it.
And we pay sometimes. And sometimes it goes to court and we win.
Like speaking of insurance, here's a good example is that in my rental properties,
insurance has more than tripled and they have gotten rid of habitability lawsuits
in their coverage, which means if a tenant purely claims my unit's not habitable,
my insurance is not going to cover that.
Defending that is going to be a big deal.
It could be $60,000 or a lot of people that I know just say, here's $20,000, go away.
And they get out of the business entirely. Is that a California issue?
Yeah. I'm in California. No, it's not. I mean, I think you're getting false information because
I own all that, all those buildings across the street, those are mine. Those are all mine. You
own all that. I mean, I think you're getting false information because I own all that, all those buildings across the street.
Yeah. I'm in California. No, it's not. And while we're on the topic of taking care of yourself, it's also really important to think about the people who depend on you.
I think a lot about how much goes into building financial security and making sure the people I care about are taken care of is a big part of that.
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Put everything in husband and wife's name, joint tenants by the entirety.
Because you can't, like, if I do something, they can't get my joint assets.
But I did another layer because my wife and I own the firm together.
So I had to go get Andy Commiter to get my documents put together that are way more sophisticated than me.
I'm a trial lawyer, not a states lawyer, states and trust.
I'd go get an estates and trust lawyer.
I'd ask about the joint tenants by the entirety.
And then I'd say, what's the other layers I can do to protect my assets?
And you better protect them before you're trying to hide them.
Because when you're starting to try to hide them, like we talked about earlier, it's called fraudulent conveyance.
They can set it aside.
What's the best insurance someone should get?
The best insurance somebody should get, and it's the cheapest, is Umbrella.
Just buy a load of Umbrella.
Because the Umbrella.
The Umbrella, very rarely.
You want to hear a statistic?
I just Googled this the other night laying in bed.
This will show you how bored I am.
What percent of life insurance policies do you think are paid?
Probably more than 50%.
1% every pay.
How do they do that?
People live.
Oh.
I'm saying, at a certain point, my insurance, the term insurance starts to burn out.
Oh, term insurance.
That's all you want is term.
You don't ever want to.
If you start buying whole life.
Or annuities, or any, you're getting, where the insurance agents make the most money, whole life, annuities.
It's a racket.
All you need is term insurance.
The younger you are, you don't have a pre-existing condition.
When you go in and, hey, I had a lesion here.
Oh, you got to get it done early, early, and it's cheap.
And then when you do it for your liability insurance, you buy.
Load of umbrella.
Because the more you buy of umbrella, the cheaper it is.
It's the cheapest insurance.
Those first layers are the most expensive.
There's not many claims paid.
Above the umbrella policy.
Above the main policy.
You very rarely get into the umbrella.
What's the best way not to be a target?
Like, we've heard from people that if you're not searchable, and if they can't find your assets,
it makes it less likely that a lawyer is going to see this and want to take your case.
Well, I'll find your assets.
How do you find assets?
That's what I do for a living.
I sued some doctors one time.
They thought they hid their assets.
I took $6 million out of their bank account.
The funny thing is, he comes to me, he's like, you know, and I said, look, your insurance company you.
And he goes, well, how?
I told him how he goes, what should I do?
I said, there's a lawyer over in Tampa named Dale Swope.
He's a bad faith lawyer.
You need to go hire Dale Swope and sue your insurance company for bad faith law.
And I'll testify for you.
He went and hired Dale Swope.
Dale Swope made the bad faith case.
He got his $6 million back.
And guess what happened?
now invest with me in my deals. The doctor that I took the 6 million from, because I got his 6
million back, but he got his insurance company. How could he have remained invisible to you?
Well, some people could. I mean, I basically was like hunting and pecking.
Like where did he go wrong? How could you find it when he thought you could?
I just kept hitting banks and all of a sudden I hit one bank and there it was.
In his name? Or was it in an LLC that he had?
I watched his wife drop off a deposit in the bank and then I let it-
This is another level.
Well, it was 6 million bucks. The wife was the office manager. I saw her make a deposit. I go,
there's a bank. Then I had the judgment and I served her on the bank. I already got the verdict.
I already got the judgment. I got the judgment. He thinks I don't have the judgment.
Wasn't that his fault though,
for not having the judgment?
Not disclosing, because you're supposed to do a disclosure of assets. So wouldn't he disclose?
He doesn't have to do that.
Okay.
I mean, we hadn't got to the point of innate of execution. That's a different whole. You get
the verdict and then you start deposing innate of execution. Then they start moving around then.
Got it.
I had a guy one time that we hit for $22 million in a commercial case and I drug his ass to bank.
He was in bankruptcy court and he wouldn't turn over his laptop to the judge and the judge put him in jail. And as he was being taken off to jail, he's like, I will give you the laptop. I will give you the laptop. And the judge is like, well, then you better get him the laptop and then you get out of jail. And I got the laptop and I got the 22 million.
Wow. What do you think about irrevocable trusts in terms of asset protection?
Well, the-
The word is irrevocable because now you're locked and loaded and the person you've given it to turns out to be an asshole or a drug addict. Irrevocable trusts are usually for your children.
And what do you think about them for asset protection?
It's just your money's gone. You just know it's gone. Yeah, it's very good, but it's not yours anymore. If it's irrevocable.
Correct.
Yeah. Then it's just not yours.
Doesn't mean you can't draw on it though.
No. It all depends. But again, this is getting above my pay level because-
When I did mine, I hired a lawyer in Palm Beach, Andy Commiter, who represents the richest people in Palm Beach.
And how does he set up your estate? Is it through land trusts?
It's hard to explain except it's really, it's there, but I can get to my money, but it's harder for me to get to my money. It's not like I can just sell something and do it. I control it, but I don't control it. But I control it. It's just another layer. Look, I'm also got-
I'm also married with joint tenants by the entirety.
Is that true throughout the entire United States?
It all depends state by state.
Okay.
Everything's different. I mean, California is different. Florida is different. It's like divorce. In California, Florida is bad. You get divorced in California. Florida is bad news. You're getting divorced in Montana. That's good news.
Is there any tort reform?
That you would support or policy change that you would support that would make being a personal injury attorney less profitable, but would make the overall-
When you vote for tort reform, you're just making them richer, and they're you. Find one time where there's been tort reform tied to a mandatory rollback of rates. When that happens, I'm in.
How common is it that someone with money can bully someone else into either settling or quieting them down or just scaring them?
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I don't see it.
I mean, I just don't see it.
You know, the thing about money is. There's something more powerful than money.
It's the truth in our jury system.
Jurors can figure it out.
But it costs money to get to that point.
Like, we see what's common on YouTube is that you have some creators who want to silence other people, and they do it through lawsuits.
And some of them, I would say, valid.
And I think they're in the right.
And some of them are also not.
And it's someone with a lot of money who's like, I don't like what they say.
I'm going to sue them for this.
I'm just going to keep milking it.
What you've got to remember is these stories you hear take on a life of their own and a lie of their own.
You hear stories that just aren't true.
You heard the story about the McDonald's hot coffee, and they got $5 million, and they just brought it in, and it's just terrible, and we need tort reform.
Well, guess what the true story is?
The true story is, before they got that verdict of $5 million, it had happened hundreds of times.
And how did it happen?
They heated the coffee up at 140 degrees.
Why did they heat it up at 140 degrees?
So it would stay warm by the time you get back to the office.
And it kept happening and happening and happening and happening.
And by the time the case was finally resolved through everything, the person got like less than a million dollars.
But the whole story was a lie.
But hot coffee was like the poster child for tort reform.
Yeah.
Because people heard a snippet of a lie and then spread the lie.
Remember how you'd whisper in kindergarten and then whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper, and go around the table?
And when you get back to this final guy, what he says is not even close to what he started with.
That's what happens.
And guess what?
We live in a conspiracy theory world.
You know, Hillary Clinton's got, you know, underground.
Not only, she eats babies.
She eats babies.
Obama's a lizard person.
Or a lesbian.
Michelle's a man.
Michelle's a man.
I mean, all of it.
That's the world we live in.
And that's bad for my business because those distortions.
In fairness, I just want to defend myself on this one.
I know a lot of these people personally.
And so it's like me talking to Jack.
And sometimes I know the other person involved as well.
I know them both personally.
And I could see.
Well, in fairness, I would like to sit at the table and ask.
ask the questions and get the real facts because people that feel like they've
been over tend to tell their story a lot differently. Like if your wife is a bitch,
she doesn't think she's a, she thinks you're a bitch.
That's what I tell them all the time.
But you're her bitch.
True.
Now, going back to the topic of your business and success, Forbes estimates your net worth to be
one and a half billion dollars. How do they estimate something like that? How do they know?
I don't know.
You don't know how they try to source that information?
I think they try to source, they go, how much of the firm does he own? What would he be taking
out of, how much of the firm does he own? And by the way, net worth's all billion. I don't consider
anybody a billionaire that doesn't have a real billion in the bank. Guess how many people have
a real billion liquid?
How many?
Well, we had-
Yeah, I don't know how many.
Maybe 20.
Papa John was one of them.
He doesn't have, no, no, no way.
He said he put a billion dollars, he sold for 1.2 and he said he put a billion in dividends.
Dividend stocks running 5%.
That's what he told us. I think it's on, it's on the record. It's on video.
Well, then tell him to show you his financial statement where he signed it.
My financial statement's got every dollar, every brokerage account. Look, Kanye West,
was a billionaire. That wasn't a billionaire. They're like, hey, we're going to extrapolate.
He's making 40 million a year. And that means it's a 25X and 25 times 40 is 1 billion. You're
a billionaire. It's this. They're just each other off. A billion for me is when a billion's in the
bank.
I'm a billionaire.
It's a powerful statement.
A real one.
One of 10.
20.
20, give or take. Because most people have their net worth in their businesses. They have the, you know, and they say, okay, we're making 30, you know, what's the girl, Rihanna is a billionaire. She ain't no billionaire. You know, she's got some kind of makeup company that's making 30 or 40 million. They're giving her like a 40X.
And the company may not be around. Kanye had all this money because he had the Reebok deal or the whatever deal until he's to bed. And then he was working that, you know, then he's dead. So billionaires, look, there's nothing that stops the music like the word billionaire. It gets clicks. That's why you're here. It gets clicks.
This is real.
I mean, I really appreciate the transparency. This is fascinating. This is like, we're pulling the curtain back in the Wizard of Oz.
It's not going to pull back. Listen, I am the most authentic person you're ever going to meet. Because when you start bull****, you're just bull**** yourself. And guess what? If my banks hear that, they're going to know if I'm bull**** or not.
So when you say a billionaire, you mean you pop open your brokerage account or you pop open your, your business?
Savings account. And it just, however many, I don't even know.
I'm sure through foundations and trusts and.
I'm just saying, you know, but I'm saying most people don't have it. They have it in real estate.
Where did the money come from?
I have an attraction business that does 33 million a year in EBITDA. I've made a fortune in real estate. I had a billboard company that I sold. I had an advertising agency.
What are you selling all these companies for? Like, I'm curious how much.
I sold my billboard company to Lamar for 13X.
And then your real estate portfolio. How did you make the money there? How much money do you have in real estate?
Only thing I ever put on my financial statement is my basis. A lot of people bull**** themselves. They go, hey, I bought this house for a million dollars, but it's really worth 3 million. Why?
Because you could sell it. I would say the same as a stock.
Appreciation of equity.
Maybe.
Something that is worth what somebody will pay.
Correct.
So on my financial statements, the only thing I put on my financial statements is my basis.
And you don't account for appreciation?
No. Because I'm not going to jerk myself off either.
At what age?
When I sell it, when I sell it.
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And it goes liquid.
Then it goes into my brokerage account, and that's real money then.
And until it goes in my brokerage account, it's not real money to me.
The guy that, you know, a hero of mine is a guy that started Patagonia.
Oh, yes.
Yvon Chouinard.
That's the guy you ought to go interview.
I would love to.
I would love to.
I've seen him speak one time.
He's the one I heard, I'm not a billionaire.
They made him a billionaire.
He said, I'm not a billionaire.
I don't have a billion in the bank.
It's so funny.
Even Jake Paul said the same thing,
that he wouldn't consider himself a billionaire until he has a billion liquid.
Yeah.
When did you become a liquid net worth billionaire?
Barissa.
It was recently.
Yeah.
And-
Liquid.
And the main things that contribute-
Well, don't forget, I'm also, I've got children.
I'm making my money, but I got four children that I'm fanning out serious money to.
And where do you think most of your net worth crossing that billion dollar mark came from?
Was it appreciation of stock?
Was it the active income from your law firm?
Was it the real estate?
Law firm.
You also have a lot of profitable businesses besides the law firm.
What do you attribute these ideas to?
I do.
And why do so many of them seem to hit?
Well, some don't.
I mean, I've had some, I've had a few losers.
Look, Warren Buffett's only, his whole net worth and success is basically 11 or 12 stocks.
It's not what you would think.
It's not this bunch, it's like this.
I feel like I have a pulse on what people want and what people like.
I'm also risk adverse and debt adverse.
Like when I, when I do my businesses, if I don't have the money, I'll go get partners or I'll do a private placement memorandum.
And when I started building the attractions, I raised the money.
OPM.
People in real estate are much more risky than me because it can just take you down.
And then what I do is I call it, I got the A side and the B side.
The A side is my cash that I use to invest.
The B side, once money goes over to the B side, it's never, ever taken.
It's never touched for the rest of my life.
All it does is throw off, you know, 4% tax free ish.
So if I got a hundred million, I make four, if I got 200 million, I make eight, if I got a billion, I make 40.
And what are you making that with?
Tax free bonds, T-bills and, and, and, uh, and interest rates between three and 4%, some of it's tax free, some of it's not.
What are the differences that you've seen?
Yeah.
The type of people that make millions, tens of millions and hundreds of millions.
Is there a personality trait?
Is there a mindset that they have differently?
Look, everything is different, but I would say that the people who really get filthy rich are patient.
I didn't make a million dollars till I was 41 because I was pouring everything back into my businesses.
Some people pour it into boats and Ferraris and whores and.
I'm like, that's a non-performing asset as far as I'm concerned.
So the mistake they make is they want to get rich quick.
The biggest mistake they make is greed.
Greed is not good.
Greed is dangerous.
And by the way, and I have been greedy and made mistakes and it goes like this.
How do you know if you're being greedy?
If it's too.
Too good to be true.
It's too good to be true.
If you see somebody offering, Hey, we're going to pay you 11% interest run.
It's a lie.
If I, if I could take everything I have and have only invested in an instrument that gave me 8% compounded, that's all I would want.
It's all I would need.
But don't you think that you go from a place when you have less money of like trying to.
Gain appreciation, rapid growth to the point of asset production and capital preservation.
Like there is a kind of tipping point.
Well, the book, the books, the book I like is the tortoise and the hare.
I'm the tortoise.
And so what's the most amount of money you've lost due to greed?
It really wasn't lost money.
It was, I lost, I wasted my time.
I went with some people who kind of me.
I mean, to put down what I lost, I lost so much time around with them.
Were there.
Red flags or something that you should have identified?
Always.
What are the red flags?
Here's a red flag.
Let me explain.
it to you in kentucky terms you ever been walking in the woods and felt your foot slip like that
this drought yeah no you like was that dog and then you keep walking and then you keep walking
to your car and you're like as you're walking to the car you're like no that's probably pine
needles that's probably grass that's probably wet leaves because we don't want it to be dog
we don't want there to be dogs on our on our shoes and then you walk to the car now you've
been you've been thinking about dogs the whole time but by the time you get to the car you
convince yourself it was leaves or pine needles and then you get in the car and then you shut the
door you all know that smell i'm thinking about right now all three of you all know that smell
i'm thinking about right now and here's the lesson for everybody out there in podcastville
if it smells
like dogs there's dogs in life and in love
and we can sense it but the reason we don't is greed we're so crypto and i don't know if y'all
are crypto people no a little i like bitcoin i mean okay eight percent is not worth in bitcoin
listen when lamar odom is selling bitcoin i'm out everybody that sells bitcoin you know got gold
chains on medallions and a russian hooker i'm not and maybe they're gonna make money i don't know
but but to me crypto's dog for me now some people donald trump is make making billions he makes it
even when people lose because he gets he gets he's he gets it coming and going he's i mean he's smart
so i look at bitcoin and why do we do bitcoin the same reason they bought the tulip bulbs you know
the tulip bulb story okay so it's everybody out there listening google tulip bulbs in the 1600s
everybody's buying tulip bulbs tulip bulbs tulip bulbs tulip bulbs tulip bulbs the tulip bulbs were
crazy high what i look at the lessons from tulip bulbs is this to me tulip bulbs are crypto today
to me why were people buying tulip bulbs i still can't figure it out you ask somebody
who's invested in crypto how do you make money with it what's the deal how do you make
if i can't figure it out
then i just don't do it to me if i can't if it can't be explained to me and listen i've invested
i've investigated crypto because i'm greedy but what happens is it's called herd mentality
when i grew up on kentucky i go down to my uncle's farm and i look up on this field and all of a
sudden i'd see a bull start running up the hill and i see some other cows start to run up the hill
and then before i know they're staying they're all stampeding up the hill
hundreds of them and they get the top of the hill
and they're all looking at each other and i was a little boy and i was like you know what they're
saying what the are we running to to me that's crypto to me that's tulip bulbs we're just following
the bull but in terms of red flags of people what do you look out for specifically and when
you first meet tortoise shell glasses that invest in crypto the eight percent eight percent in a
bitcoin etf well look it's gambling it's gambling you live in vegas it's gambling but the book i
wrote called wife is luck lessons from the paper boy here's what life is life is a since you're
from vegas i want to speak your language life is a since you're from vegas i want to speak your life
please life is a casino
and you walk in and there's all sorts of games to play and there's some lottery games over the
trees as well now there are games to play and there's games you shouldn't play you should not
play keno it's fun though it's fun but never with a measurable amount of money yeah it's
an entertainment to me keno's crypto if you're going to play a game you probably should play
blackjack and then when you play those games
there's rules for those games there's the book i'll give you a test to see if you're really from vegas
you get two aces what do you do split you got 15 and they got 10 what do you do hit
you got 15 and they got five stay those same rules in the casino are the rules in life and business
location location location
capitalized all the rules are there but sometimes when you start drinking and when you get blinded
by greed you say you know what i'm going over to the keno table so you're saying that you need to
look at this person's life pretty holistically and see how they're spending their time if they
if there's anything you kind of like investigate the entire car like a pre-purchase inspection you
look at the car and if like one little thing is wrong you're like okay well maybe this person
that maintained their car perfectly actually you you know they didn't you look under the hood you
see one little thing wrong you can assume that there's more when i look at the people in the
crypto industry when i just look at who they are what they're wearing what they're not you not you
not okay he's not not enough he's not i'm not incredible he just owns a bitcoin et no i'm not
looking at you no i'm not i'm talking about the sellers i'm talking about the guys who are out
there you know preaching it's preaching it's selling it lamar odom that's all i'm talking about
all the conference lamar odom walking out of a crypto convention i'm like i'm out
but why do we do it because the same reason they bought the tulip bulbs
the same reason bernie made off i had a guy i had a friend of mine one time he kept saying hey you
need my aunt got in this deal with this guy in new york and he's returning 12 interest i go he goes
year in and year out i go that's what yeah it's hard to get in but my wife my my aunt got in so i
got in with my aunt and blah blah blah blah and he kept always waving this thing is you ought to put
some money in with us i said it's too good to be true 12 percent and i'm just telling you 2008
comes everything crashes i said seth how did you do this year well 11 percent how the is
that possible he goes he pulled out of the market and did some puts and some calls and we got 11
but are you were you in made off no no i i like selling options i like he tells me all the time
i never say buy puts okay i say sell okay but listen young people are reckless you have to learn
you got to get burned enough to you know get old and fat like me and you won't be doing that but so
seth called so that's so that's the deal seth had everything in it 12 million dollars 12 that's all he had
i get an email from him on the subject i said sos call me i call him up what's wrong
because you're not gonna believe it i go what he goes you remember my aunt's fund that i was
telling you about i said yeah the 12 i knew the number he goes yeah he goes it was bernie made off
i repeat if it's too good to be true it's too good to be true how does that apply to people
not on crypto but just in general in terms of who you do business with and who you want to partner
with and who you want to keep in your life as i'm sure you've seen we're down to the last few weeks
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that is drinkag1.com ich to lock back in before things get too busy how does that apply to people
not on crypto but just in general in terms of who you do business with
and who you want to partner with and who you want to keep in your life you can tell the
most about a person by the people they surround themselves with that's machiavelli the prince the
book
i look at people and i look at who they surround themselves with
character matters morals matter decency matters you know a liar is a liar a cheat is a cheat
and they cheat and lie in different forms and fashion so you can size them all up from
from all of that just their lifestyle and we know butters and non-butters but
what overtakes us is
our greed and we just want that money and we don't want to miss out we just don't want to miss out
look at my book life is luck the average person who plays a lottery plays it like 400 spends like
400 something dollars a year. 40% of Americans don't have $400 in the bank today, but they're
all out there trying to take this job and shove it. And they're all chasing something that's just
not going to happen. It's just statistically not going to happen. Now I'm in a business that I
know is going to lose money. And I own racehorses. And I know that I am probably not going to make
money in my lifetime with racehorses, but I enjoy it. But I also know that when I write that check,
that money's gone. Now I've had some luck because I had a great horse named Ultima D.
Her father was scat daddy and she lives with American Pharaoh. And once a year,
me and Pharaoh match up and we get a colt or a filly. And
that's what I do. And I've had some luck. That horse is worth a million bucks. And I split the money with my friends from Ireland that own
Pharaoh and Justify. But by and large, horse racing is gambling.
So what's the best investment you've ever made outside of investing in your own business?
The attractions have been gigantic.
So that was the best investment you've made?
But that was me. I built them. I invented it. The upside down houses and all that.
I invented that. I've had some good things. I had some land that got condemned for a school.
Condemnation is great because you don't pay taxes when your land's taken from you.
I had some land over here and they wanted to build a school on my land. They took my land.
So I was so happy that they did take my land.
So what did you pay for it? What did they buy it for?
I forget exactly, but I didn't. I mean, it was like a,
you know, 15, 20 X because I bought it a long time ago and, you know,
had a trailer, little trailer parks on it. And, uh, but look, I made my money on me.
Now, how much of this can you teach somebody in terms of entrepreneurship, drive, motivation
versus is just genetic that you were born with this desire to build something,
to be good in business, to forge your own path?
Well, the reason I called my book life is luck lessons from a paper boy,
is because you all are too young to have been paper boys, but I guarantee you, you and you,
when you were 11 or 12, you were hustling something. I don't know what it is. I can
just tell by looking at you and talking to you. For my generation, it was the paper route.
You're 11 years old, you're 12 years old, you're 10 years old. I had to buy my route. I had to go
down to the second national bank election and get a loan with my grandmother's son.
And then I had to buy my route and I had to get up.
And the snow and the sleet and the rain and the heat every day. And when somebody didn't get a
paper or missed a paper, I had to go back and give it to them. Then I had to collect the money.
I think a lot, that's why I call the book life is luck. I think some of us are born
with an entrepreneurial seed. That's as powerful as Shaquille O'Neal being seven foot one
and built like a Mack truck. There's no way I could be Shaquille O'Neal because I'm just
like, Hey, me too, man. Well, me and you be, we're the point guards, but that just happens in
life. And by the way, the reason I call the book life is luck. There's so many things that are out
of our control. Just being born is trillions and trillions and trillions to one, the country you're
born in. We have no, we have no control over that. What, what's the country you want to be born in
the United States of America.
We were born here for a lot of us being born white was, and we had no control over that.
And as you keep going, good looking people, this is going to do very good because good looking,
good looking, this do good too. Good looking people are usually the CEOs of companies.
If you're tall, you have a better chance of being president. You're short. Me and you are not going
to be president. He could be president height. It's out of our control. There's so many things
that we can do. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We
can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't
do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We can't do it.
That's true. But some people are not built to work. You'll wait. Of course they are. No, in the jungle
today, a lion will be born and a sloth will be born. The sloth is incapable physically of working.
He wakes up like this. I mean, he, only thing he can do is eat and go down once a day and go back
up and go to sleep. The lion is born and he's a king that day. If that door opened over right now
and a six month lion walked in his room, me and you'd be jumping up on the table scared. If a
sloth walked in, we just kick the out of here. And everybody thinks it's all hard work. This,
oh, I'm successful. It's hard work. Let me tell you this about hard work. The hardest working
people in America are the ones who make the least, the least. You ever dug a hole with a shovel?
You ever tried that? As a kid?
Yeah. Could you do it? Not more than a foot or two.
Yeah. And lay some frost on that ground. Sometimes I see these people on, with squeezes on this,
up there, suctions. And I'm, you know, you're looking at them, you're like, well,
he's from Guatemala illegally because nobody's getting up there and he ain't getting paid
worth to do it. He has to do it. So the people who want to pat themselves on the back for being
successful, there's a lot of left turns, a lot of right turns, a lot of U-turns, and it can go good
and go bad. I know this. If I got started again, had to do all over again, I don't get to be who I
am. Something would happen. If Bill Gates was born today, he's not Bill Gates. Somebody else would
have been Bill Gates. What do you recommend to the people who feel like they've got dealt a bad
hand? They're here in America. They want to be successful. They want to make a lot of money.
They just say, I don't have the resources. What I would say to them is this. You always
have the resources.
You always have. If there's a will, there's a way. And in the book I wrote, Life is Luck,
I lay out a roadmap to finding luck. Finding luck, improving luck, return on luck,
turning bad luck into good luck, making failure your friend. There's all sorts of ways to do it,
and that's what the book's about. But the main way you do it is you are constantly
constantly constantly looking for opportunities. It's never going to happen sitting at your house
eating peanut butter and jelly. I got a chapter called Never Eat Alone. There's a book called
Never Eat Alone, which was very good for me. If you're sitting in your office, not going out and
hustling, it's not going to happen. If you're not out giving a speech, it's not going to happen.
If you're not out networking, it's not going to happen. And so in the book, I lay out all
sorts of things. Now, when people say, I don't have the money. When I built Wonderworks the first
time I built Wonderworks, I did not have the money. My first real estate development was called
Heritage Square down in Kissimmee. I did not have the money. But there's something called O-P-M,
other people's money. And what you do is you find a deal, you lock the deal up, you get a private
placement memorandum, and you go out and you pitch your idea to your friends who have money.
That first deal I did,
I was raising $10,000 increments. And guess what? Heritage Square was a success. Now I've got these
investors who will follow me. Then I did, when I built Wonderworks, Wonderworks was millions and
millions of dollars. I didn't have millions and millions of dollars, but I would tell the people
listening, O-P-M. I wrote another book one time called You Can't Teach Vision. There are visionaries
that we all know about. Steve Jobs is a visionary. Bill Gates is a visionary.
You know, there's visionaries everywhere. That's the wrong term. Because visionaries just have an
idea. There's a big difference between a visionary and a vision maker. Big difference. Once upon a
time, after church, we'd go to Denny's and get crayons for the kids, and the crayons would roll
onto the floor. I'd be down there picking up crayons. I told my wife one time, I said,
I need to invent a crayon that doesn't roll. About six months later, we come in,
there's a crayon made out of a triangle. I held it up. I go, look, this is my idea. This is my
idea. And what'd she say? You should have done it. But I was a visionary, but I wasn't a vision
maker. And by the way, there's a big delta between visionaries and vision makers, and they're called
vision blockers. You know, I'm going to go patent these crayons. With our money? No, you're not.
Or your friends. Guess who doesn't want you to be successful? Most of your friends.
Most of your family would rather have a total stranger win the lottery than you.
Because people are eaten up with jealousy and envy. So you got these, what I tell these people,
first of all, if there's a will, there's a way. And there's, the vision is not the deal. The vision
is just the beginning. And you got to jump over these vision blockers to get to be the vision
maker. And you know who the number one vision blocker is? You.
Hmm.
Fear. Fear of failure. I would tell them, listen, failure is not a problem.
Because when you fail, you learn so much. You now know the next time what you're not going to do.
And you know what you're going to do. And I've had failures. I opened up an attraction in DC
once called the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. It was just unbelievable. It was
fantastic, but it was a bad location. It turned out I shouldn't have ever gone to DC because the
shit was free. And I built this magnificent, magnificent attraction called the National
Museum of Crime and Punishment. I didn't lose money, but I didn't make money. I'm just paying
the rent, get a little bit, you know, dribbles. So I closed it. I was like, you know, it's not
worth it. But you know what I did? I took that failure. I said, this was good. I took all the
stuff, all the content from my attraction in DC, and I went over to Pigeon Forge.
Smoky Mountains, 13 million visitors a year. I found a location. Instead of having no building
or an office building, I built a thing that looks like a prison, 1800 prison. Instead of calling it
the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, I called it Alcatraz East. When you finish up at
Alcatraz East, the last three, four things, you see JonBenet's bicycle, you see the Murdoch golf
cart, you see Ted Bundy's VW, you see John Dillinger's sedan, Bonnie and Clyde's death
cart, you see John Dillinger's sedan, Bonnie and Clyde's death cart, you see John Dillinger's
car from the movie, and OJ's Bronco. And this attraction is unbelievable. I'm printing money
at Alcatraz East. Everything's the same. The Bronco's there. Everything, I just moved it.
Location, location, location. If I had let failure beat me,
but that thing makes about six, seven million bucks a year.
And all I did is just move the stuff to a different location.
Most people don't because when people get beat, they become defeated forever.
When I get beat, I get back up. That's what I tell people.
What impresses me is the volume of successful entrepreneurial
things that you're doing from the upside down houses, the different hotels, the banks,
you know, Alcatraz East. I'm curious, you don't,
you don't have enough time yourself to be doing all of this. Like how much of this is your vision
and your plan and your decision-making versus you just hiring out phenomenal operators? And like,
what, what does that mean to be an executive and to find and manage talent?
Well, first of all, it's all me. All the ideas are mine. Every, every, Wonderworks is me. Alcatraz
East is me. The bank, Wonderworks. Do you have a council that you run these ideas by?
Me.
Who do you look to for advice?
Do you ever go to someone else and call them Steve?
I read, I read, I read books like crazy. I devour books. And I had a seminar in Vegas and I brought
Dan Martell.
Dan Martell.
Yeah. We've had him on the podcast.
He's a genius.
Yeah.
And, and I write about that. I write about him in my book. Look, you only have so much time in a
day. What I try to do is I try to find people around me that I call send-delete. It's a person
I know if I send something to, it's done. I can delete it. I call them send-delete.
Then when I find a send-delete person, then I give them a task. Because remember this,
everybody's got to have a specific task and responsibility. If everybody is accountable,
no one's accountable. So when there's a f**k up, we know who f**ked up. You find a send-delete
person. They emerge out of nowhere. You don't, you can't tell when you first, who's going to be
send-delete and who's not. And then once you get that send-delete person, then you delegate
ruthlessly to execute your vision. You buy back your time. You pay these people. I just hired a
guy from Amazon for my AI because I got to figure this AI. I don't know what AI is. You know, I mean,
I failed, you know, basic math, but I'll pay this guy a load of money from,
you know, I don't know what the f**k up is. I don't know what the f**k up is. I don't know what the
Amazon to figure out AI for me. And you just have to do that. So I get the vision and then I got the
team around me and then I have them execute and I delegate ruthlessly. Now, all these ideas,
remember this, I don't fish, I don't hunt, and I don't golf. To me, that's all f**king off. I hunt money.
I don't fish for money. That's how I have the time. You take golf and hunting and, and, and, and first of
all, I don't want to shoot a deer because I could taste the f**king fur. I don't want to fish and,
you know, catch and release. I'll rip the fish's face off or eye out and throw him back. Oh, look
how good I am. You're, you know, you're swimming around with no eye for the rest of your life. I
don't want to do that. And golf, when Tiger Woods is hitting the ball in the water, I'm just not
interested in trying to perfect that. There's nothing you're interested in outside of
money. Oh, a lot. I love to read. I love the beach. I like tennis. When I was young, I was
your guy's age. Oh, there we go. So you played tennis? Yeah, I played tennis when I was your
guy's age. I played a load of basketball, played basketball three days a week. I played in three
man leagues. You get to be, in my age, you can't play, you know, you can't be, when I see guys my
age playing basketball, I'm like, stop, stop, stop, stop. It's embarrassing. I went across the street
to one of my grandsons the other night and he was shooting free throws. And I went, I said, because
you hit some free throws, I go to shoot a free throw. I didn't hit the net. Well, maybe with a
little practice. Well, but you've ever heard of muscle memory? I started researching muscle memory
and then I'd try to do it again. I really heaved it. I didn't even hit the rim.
But in, in, you know, when I was your guy's age, I played a lot of basketball. I played a lot of
tennis. And, uh, so yeah, I have those, those interests and, uh, I probably exercise four or
five days a week.
And, uh, I think that's, that's one of the things that I've learned over the years, is that you have
to, you have to, you know, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have
to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you
have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to,
but to me, hunting and fishing, I just don't get it. So I don't feel like I'm losing anything there.
Nothing. Yeah. Putting me in a tree stand, waiting for, I got, I got so many deer in my,
at my house. I could lay in my pool with like 20 deer this morning. When I left, I was like,
my house this morning, there was these deers laying in my front yard. I rolled the window
and I said, have a good day guys. You're at the right place. I, well, yeah, I don't want to eat
them. Speaking of money, you previously mentioned that you believed that income inequality was one
of the biggest problems of America. And I'm curious from your perspective, why is that?
Because the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and the system's rigged.
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Now, and listen, I'm taking advantage of the rig system.
When Trump got elected president, I bought a new G500. Why? It's almost free.
I mean, when you do the math, I'm like, it's crazy. These hedge fund guys have carried
interest. It's all stacked that way. But here's what happens. When the poor get poorer and the
rich get richer, there becomes an uprising. And you're seeing it now, it's called the Democratic
Socialists, progressives. There's two types of envy. There's benign envy,
which is you take that envy and you channel it to motivate you. You know, I want to, I want to be,
I want to, you take that as a motivation. And then there's what's called malicious envy,
where you're just so mad. It's just not fair. It's just not fair. They got all the money. I got
none. And then they, political leaders, they take that malicious envy and they turn it into
socialism. They harness that malicious envy. We're, you know, the word, the new word now,
oppressed. We're oppressed. We're oppressed. They almost turn it into a political movement.
We're oppressed. And that malicious envy turns in to socialism, which turns in to
communism, authoritarianism, Castro, Hugo Chavez. It all started as malicious envy.
And all throughout time, if the rich people in this country don't understand, at the end of the day,
that malicious envy turns into a movement and they just take it. Marie Antoinette said,
let them eat cake. They cut her throat. I'm tempted to write one more book called The Castle
Like This. There's this castle where the 0.1% live and they got everything. Then there's this moat
where the 0.1% live and they got everything. Then there's this moat where the 0.1% live and they got
deep and wide. And in that moat, there's electrical eels and piranhas and sharks. It's deep and it's
wide. And that's the middle class. And then outside the moat, there's the barbarians at the
gate. They want in. They want to come get it. But the people in the castle keep drawing the water
in for themselves. They got pools inside. They're drinking. They're taking a lot of baths. And the
water starts to go down. And the eels die and the sharks die and the piranhas die. And then there's
not even water. And the barbarians just walk across. And by the way, that's what MAGA is.
They're mad. On January 6th, they went to the castle. They went to the castle because they're
pissed.
MAGA's pissed. And guess who let them in the castle? A lot of the cops because they're pissed
off at who they're guarding for. If we're not careful, if we let this moat sink and the middle
class go away, we've only been around for 250 years. So what's the solution? Because a lot of
people would say the solution is we have to tax more. I don't mind taxing more as long as we're
as long as it's tied to, like I talked about tort reform, as long as it's tied to what Bill Clinton
did, he's my boy, you know, that we got to have a balanced budget. This is not sustainable. The
national debt is not sustainable. And at some point, we're going to be Greece. I would say tax
more, but tied, like I said about tort reform, tied to rate decrease. I would also say tie it
to a balanced budget.
I'm happy to pay more taxes if we can balance the budget. You know, and look, I put my money
where my mouth is. In Florida, I ran a constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage from $8
to $15 an hour. And guess what? It passed. People can't live on $8 an hour.
What do you think, if you could control the minimum wage, what would you make the minimum
wage? If you could just snap your fingers and that's what it is.
We're different folks. If you're living in New York City, there's one. If you're living in
Columbus, Georgia, there's another. You can live like a sheik in Columbus, Georgia. You can have
a mansion in Columbus, Georgia, the same money that wouldn't buy you New York City. So that's
kind of the problems is that, you know, living in LA and living in Mississippi.
Now, if a business can't afford to stay in business
by paying an increased wage, should they deserve to exist?
No.
Listen, here's a stat from the soon-to-be, I'm number one in Amazon today.
Congratulations.
For self-help books, Life is Luck. 25% of all businesses fail in the first year. 43% fail
within five years and 65% fail within 10. And that doesn't even account for,
they'd have been much better off just working for somebody.
Then going on this, you know, having this juice bar. When I see juice bars, I'm like,
what the, I mean, how many juices you got to sell? So the first thing is, but we all want the,
we all have, we all dream the dream. We want to own the business. And if you're going to open up
a restaurant, you're most likely going to fail. And what if the minimum wage increases and then
some businesses just say, all right, fine, we're going to hire overseas. We're going to pay less
over there. I do. I got, listen, I got a lot of people that are going to say, well,
my call centers, I got 1100 people in my call centers, El Salvador, where abogados.com
goes to, the Philippines, Belize. I'm doing it. And by the way, in El Salvador, I got lawyers
working in the call center. They're making more money as with a law degree working in my call
center in El Salvador. So why not then pay people?
Here, the $15 an hour. Hey, by the way, really quick, if you want extra content, just like this,
as well as early access and a bonus post show posted every single week, feel free to join as
a channel member to get immediate access to all of that, as well as early access to everything
else that we post along with priority responses to all of your comments. So if that sounds cool,
feel free to join. Would love to have you on board. Thanks so much. We'll get back to the
show in a minute.
At the end of the day, there will be an uprising because there has never not been one.
At the end of the day, if you let the moat go to dirt, there will be an uprising. It is in our best
interest. And look, in the world that I look at in the future, I'm not probably going to be a part
of. There's going to be a, with AI, there's going to be people who are going to get paid for it.
There's going to be people who are going to get paid to do nothing because there's not going to be
jobs. I think.
I tend to believe that AI is going to balance the curve quite a bit.
I think it'll be, it won't be as bad as we, it won't be as bad as we think, but it's going to
eliminate jobs. Look, I just hired a guy for a lot of money from Amazon because I got to figure out
AI and guess where I'm using the AI first? The call centers.
What do billionaires financially owe to the people that are struggling financially?
Look, I'm not a guy that wears,
my religion on my sleeve, but I don't believe, I believe that my money belongs to God.
I believe that what's happened to me has been so, I have been so lucky and so fortunate
that I believe that my money belongs to God. I believe if I did it again, I would never be where
I am. I believe that one different turn would have changed everything. And I truly believe that.
And I know this, I don't live a big lifestyle other than the jet.
You know, and then I have houses, but they're not, you know, like that one you showed me.
And the food I eat, I like, you know, I like, like, you know, cube steaks with smothered onions and
fried potatoes and cabbage, you know, just country food. You don't need a lot.
You know, what's the difference between a hundred million and a billion
as far as lifestyle, if you get rid of boats and, you know, Rolexes. See, I got nothing.
The wealthiest person in the room. This is going to get clipped.
Yeah. Oh gosh.
Yeah.
I got it. You know why I don't need it? I got an iPhone.
So I, now you're actually, what kind of watch is it? What is it? What is it?
Mine was a, it was a gift from Brent Navarro, Rolex Datejust.
Listen, my brother, Tim, when he was alive one time, you know, he's always wanted a Rolex
and I don't want one for myself, but he always, he was the one that was paralyzed.
And he ran my call centers for me before he passed. And one day I'm down on Park Avenue
over here in Winter Park and I started drinking and I get drunk and I go down the jewelry store
and I bought Tim a Rolex and I forget what it was, what I paid for it years ago. And I call
him up. I say, Hey, come down here to Park Avenue. Let's have a drink. He comes in and I handed him
the Rolex and he started crying, which made me start crying because he was so happy.
And he's sitting there with a Rolex on his wrist. I go, I go, look, just between me and you.
What, what is it about? What is it about the Rolex? What is it for you guys?
I'll never forget these words. He goes, it's like having a, it's like having a Rolls Royce on your
wrist. I'm like, but I, I got an iPhone. I actually, I don't disagree. I don't disagree.
Says the person wearing a nice watch. But the only reason I bought this watch was actually to
spite Graham. So that was mine was a gift. Mine on the backs is 2 million subscribers. It was a
gift from us. A lot of people, a lot of people, a lot of people wear them to pull ass and, you
know, get women, get men. But here's the problem with all of it. Comparison is the thief of joy.
and we want.
There used to be a guy
in this building, his name, he's dead now, his name is Mick O'Brien. And this guy lived a high
life and he had this unbelievable car and he had this unbelievable girl. And it was just, I mean,
it was just, and I was over there going, what am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? I'd see Mick,
I'm like, what am I doing wrong? I'm pulling up in a Previa van with four children. And then all
of a sudden, one day Mick just collapsed. The building he had, there was IRS tape around it.
The Ferrari was rented. The whore was rented. And at the end of Mick's life,
I represented him in a social security case. But that guy took so much of my mind, so much of my
space with envy going, what am I doing wrong? Why is he making so much money?
He wasn't, but he was in my head. That's why they put blinkers on horses, blinders on horses,
so they can't see. If your listeners can do anything, put blinders on because all the
glitters is not gold. It's usually not gold at all. Now, one thing I was really curious about
that we were talking on the way here in terms of income inequality, if we balanced the money,
everyone had the exact same amount of money. And I was like, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't
have the exact same amount. Over enough time, would we see the same distribution of wealth in
that the people who are good with business will grow their money? The average person's going to
end up spending it, not investing it. And is that a problem of the person or the system?
The person, because listen, at the end of the day, adults are really children. Like I told you in
the beginning, the reading level in America is seventh grade. You see a guy walking down the
street, you think he's smart, but he's not. He's a seventh grader or sixth or worse. Just because they're older doesn't mean they're
smarter. So we're dealing with grownups that are really children. I asked my wife one time,
I said, let me ask you a question. If we could give up all our money and everybody in the world,
all eight and a half billion people could have a house, three bedroom house, white picket fence,
grill on the back, full refrigerator, and we have it forever.
I said, would you do that? And she said, let me ask you a question. So what? Would that, would the
houses be air conditioned? I go, okay, yes. And then she goes, yes. I said, what if the houses are
not air conditioned? She said, no. She needed AC. And I would too. That's called utopia, but utopia
doesn't exist.
You mentioned that a hundred million is the same as a billion. I'm curious before a hundred
million, are there any actual lines you could draw from zero million to a hundred million and
where like life takes?
I think the number that makes you golden is 30.
Why 30 million?
30 times four is 1.2 tax-free. If you can't live on 1.2 tax-free, I can live like a sheik on 1.2.
I don't have, can't have all the houses.
But if you give me a house and 1.2, house paid off and $1.2 million a year, I can live like a sheik.
So it's 30 million.
I won't have Rolex, huh?
30 million plus a paid off house.
30 million and a paid off house. The first thing I tell everybody listening,
consumer debt, you pay off before you put anything in the bank, before you,
any consumer debt, car debt, anything with crazy interest rates, credit cards, you pay that off.
You and Dave Ramsey.
Oh, I'm Dave Ramsey all the way. And, and then, and then, and then this, this is people will argue
with this. Then I pay off the house. I haven't had a mortgage since 1988. I had a case that I
settled. Dave, David Vega versus Key Capital Leasing. It was my first big case. I took the
money and I bought a house and that's the last time I've ever had a mortgage. The number one
payment every month in every household in America is a mortgage payment. You pay off the house,
you get 30% off your mortgage. You pay off
the house, you get 30 million, you put it in tax-free bonds. And why tax-free bonds? Even in
the great depression, less than 1% of the tax-free bonds defaulted. People will pay to flush the
toilet, water, sewer, you know, electricity, tax-free bonds. And it's nothing's, nothing's
foolproof. But I believe that the magic number is house paid off, no consumer debt, 30 million
tax-free bonds, 1.2 million. And that's the magic number. And I believe that the magic number is
house paid off, no consumer debt, 30 million tax-free bonds. And I believe that the magic number is
$100,000 a month tax-free. Now, what do you say to the people, though, that say that investing
in the stock market long-term is going to yield more than the 4%? They're right. They're right.
They're right, historically. But look, I would say two things to them. I'd say there's two books
that are Bibles to me. One is A Random Walk Down Wall Street, and the other is Black Swan.
And what I'd say about A Random Walk Down Wall Street, as long as you're disciplined,
and I'm very disciplined, every month I put $500 in this deal, $500 in this deal, $500 in this deal.
Dollar cost averaging is very important. And as you get older, you reduce your stock. So like if
you're 70, you maybe have 70% in tax-frees and treasuries and 30 in stock. But as you're younger,
Mm-hmm.
and you start taking the weight off. So when you're, how old are you?
36.
36. So you would have, you know, 70% in the stock market because you got time. And if your dollar
cost averaging, and I've been in this, when it's crashing, I'm happy. Sometimes when it starts to
crash, I start putting more in. And when it starts crashing even further, I put even more in
because I got time.
Mm-hmm.
Warren Buffett will tell you that. Time takes care of everything. And even if it crashes, you know,
loses half, that's okay. That's good if you're young. It's not good if you're 70 because you
only have the winning to pick it up. And as long as your dollar cost averaging, you're going to be
okay. And so that's what I would say. You know, my children are, you know, your age and they're
in the stock market. They're slowing it down a little bit because it's too frothy right now,
you know, but what we're praying for is the stock market to crash.
That's what I'm hoping for too.
Yeah.
Now, my introduction to you, by the way, was in the Jubilee video.
Okay.
Where you debated 20 people.
Okay.
What did you learn from that experience?
That malicious envy is on the rise.
What was most surprising to you about talking with those people?
There's, there's jealousy and envy and they don't want to, you know,
go out and get it done themselves. They're just kind of pissed off.
Were you surprised by the video? Once you had completed it, you went home, then you saw it
people's recounting of their thoughts on the conversation to those that don't understand.
There was a 20 V one. So it's you as a billionaire and then 20 people asking you questions. And it
got a little bit combative at times. And then the video ended with one guy saying, well, what's
stopping you from directly helping every single one of us here? We took time off of our job to
come here to film this. You say you help people. Well, here's a direct opportunity to help us.
And you gave them a hundred dollars. And that seemed like it was the,
the end of the video. And it was a happy ending that part ends. And then it goes to everyone
recounting their experience on set talking with you. And most of them said, yeah, you know,
he seems like an okay one, but generally speaking, billionaires are parasites or it's like parasitic
in nature. Or the other person said, yeah, he gave me a hundred dollars, but not all of these
other people. He didn't give them a hundred dollars. I'm curious, like your, your experience
onset and then watching that afterwards. Look, I've given money away. I give a lot
of money away every year. Like right, right this minute we're building at the coalition.
For the homeless, we're building a wing for, uh, women and children. I'm building a boys and girls
club in Tallahassee. I just built a food bank in Appalachia. The food bank here in Orlando is
called the Morgan Morgan hunger relief center at, at second harvest. Rich people have a moral
obligation because I believe that most of what's happened has been lucky. And it may be just like
being the paper boy was lucky. And I do believe what bill Dimitri told me that,
uh, the money does not belong to me. It belongs to God. And so, you know, they're always going to
be, well, it's not, you know, if I had his money, I wouldn't give, you know, you give money away.
And they're like, you know, Oprah Kate in Hawaii, Oprah gave a load of money when I have, you know,
Oprah, you know, Jeff Bezos gave the food bank like 25 million. They're like,
that wasn't enough for a guy. I mean, no matter what you do, you're,
but you can't, you can't, you can't, you got to put the blinders on. You got to do what you can
do. Yeah. Did any of those people ask for a job afterwards or come up and talk to you and try to
get advice from you? No, but one, one kind of called me later. I thought she was wanting to
fuck, but I kind of got this phone call. I'm like, what'd she say? You know, I, you know,
I really enjoyed meeting you and why'd you give her your phone number? She left me a voice message
here on my phone. I didn't give her my phone number. Oh, she just called the office. Yeah.
So I met you at Jubilee. I'm like, then you're thinking this is crazy. This is a crazy person
too. What's really interesting.
I really like the Jubilee with Patrick Bet-David.
And with PBD, he made a really great argument
and someone said, well, why don't you hire me?
And so he offered this person a job
and they disqualified themselves.
Oh, I want these benefits and I want this and that.
Well, he said, would you consider moving out?
Would you consider showing up at this time
and leaving at this time?
Would you do this? Would you do that?
Because they were lamenting about not having a job
and the current job marketplace is very difficult.
And then he said, this is what you would need to do
if you wanted to work for me.
They said, no.
He's like, okay.
I'll tell you two stories
to kind of go hand in glove with that.
You ever heard of that shoe company Zappos?
Zappos.
I forget the guy.
I think the guy's dead.
He's dead now, right?
Tony Hsieh.
But Tony Hsieh used to do this.
When he'd give people a job,
he'd offer them $2,000 to quit the first day.
Dan Martell did the exact same thing.
He stole it from that guy then.
Yeah.
I had Dan at my convention.
And so I looked at that and I'm like, that's smart.
Because, you know,
why train those people if they don't want the job?
Look, we're living in a world where there's a lot of people
that just don't want to work.
Here's a real interesting story.
Getting people to come back to the office was just like,
I mean, nobody wanted to come back to the office.
So I said, you know what?
So these people didn't want to come back to the office.
Here's what we're going to do.
You can work from home.
But guess what?
We're going to put a camera on your computer.
We're going to put a camera up your ass.
We won't look at you.
It'll be a pixel.
The first week, 23 people quit.
Oh my gosh.
It's not that they don't want to work from home.
They don't want to work.
And the people who want to work from home now are like, well, here's how it works.
If you qualify,
we're going to have a camera on you.
We're going to be monitoring you closer than we would.
And we measure keystrokes.
We have this productivity score that's incredible.
And look, what's going on is a lot of people just don't want to work.
And they're pissed off.
But they really need to be pissed off at themselves.
How do you justify that when you also say something like most people that are not successful are financially comfortable?
Just lack the capacity.
If you say someone lacks the capacity, it sort of implies that they don't have the ability to become financially comfortable.
But then if you say, oh, they have the ability, but they just choose not to because they're lazy or they just don't want to work.
Then like, what is the actual you can't come up with a solution if you have two different symptoms.
I mean, there's no there's no perfect solution for all this, but I do believe you have to say, look.
You're going to you're going to punch in.
You're going to swipe a time clock.
And we are going to make sure and measure your productivity.
And if you don't want to do that, go somewhere else.
I mean, at the end of the day.
I am a very strong with a capital C capitalist, very strong capital C.
What does capitalism mean to you?
And what capitalism means to me is because the way we've set up our country.
We became the greatest country in civil in this history of civilization.
That's what capitalism means to me.
There's no civilization that's ever measured up like we have.
And so to me, the proof is in the pudding.
I'm seeing this civilization crumble with malicious envy and the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
So it's like it's we've seen this movie.
We've seen Marie Antoinette was to blame, though.
Because.
If the rich are draining the middle class.
Well, the politicians are.
You cannot be given the rich should not have these tax breaks that like carried interest.
I don't think I carried interest is such a small amount.
It's just one thing.
Look, jets, deduction for jets, all of it, not having a balanced budget.
I don't think that's what the poor people care about, though.
I think for me, it's the display of wealth when they look at Jeff Bezos with a yacht, like whether or not he can do it.
And he got the deduction with the yacht.
Oh, I think with the amount of money he has, he would buy the yacht.
I mean.
Oh, yeah.
Listen, listen, during the during COVID, people were pissed off at David Geffen.
He's out there on his yacht and they're all drinking champagne.
It's it's there's two types of envy.
Remember, I told you there's benign envy, but the big one is malicious envy.
And when they see you two boys walking in with the Rolexes, they're pissed because they don't have it.
It is comparison is the thief of joy.
It's just.
Why?
I don't.
Know.
Why it rains.
I kind of know, but not really.
Clown.
But it's envy.
It's jealousy.
It's there's an emotion.
What about me?
And look, I remember when I was your age, you know who I really got pissed off about monarchies.
God, I hated kings and queens still do.
Why the.
Is Prince Harry getting money just because he was born?
He's a piece of the wife's worse.
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monarchies why does a monarchy why does a democracy need a monarchy i mean what if if
they got rid of king charles and what what would happen what happens to the country nothing they
get more money to me just seems like the internet has really just led to a concentration of wealth
because you could leverage in such ways globally that you never could before so you get extremes
but then it also seems like politically it's easy to weaponize the outliers to get votes.
And now they've weaponized that.
But it's even worse than that because what social media has done is there's people pretending to be rich that aren't rich.
One time I had a guy call me looking for a bankruptcy lawyer.
The next week I see him on social media in Las Vegas in a limo with champagne.
He'd called me the week before to, to BK his business.
It's, it's the pretending of wealth.
There's a book that I tell a lot of people about, not many people have read.
It's called Richest Stand.
You got these neighborhoods in America and the author calls it Richest Stand.
You got Upper Richest Stand, which is the people with the real money.
You got Middle Richest Stand and then you got Lower Richest Stand, but they're all living
in the same zip code.
and they're all going to the same school and they're all trying to keep the lower
richest stand is trying to pretend that they're upper richest stand and there's this competition
and what happens then you know credit cards they go to neiman's they go to you know and it's it's
your it's the envy it's looking you know i want i want the watch i want the dress i want the designer
it's envy and the envy turns malicious because nobody wants to say it's my fault
they want to find a reason for it not to be their fault because nobody wants to say look
here's the real reason i'm a lazy slug have you ever heard anybody say that
not that i could think well i claim that i'm lazy sometimes i think well you didn't shave today but
That's kind of, that's a look.
I actually did.
I shaved my neck.
That's a look.
That's a look.
That's a look.
I've told my kids.
I trimmed it.
Yeah, he's, look, he's, did you trim yours?
No, he's like.
But yeah, it's, nobody is ever going to, they're going to, everybody's going to have an excuse.
They're never going to say, look, here's the real truth.
I just didn't work.
I'm lazy.
No, they're going to say the, the system is rigged.
the system is rigged and the rich are getting richer and the rich are taking care of each other
and the poor are getting poor and poor old me i'm i'm in the i'm in the poor section
nobody wants to take personal responsibility the best way out is of course work work work work
work work work when i worked at disney you know or christmas day you got triple time
and I'd work as long as they wanted to me on Christmas day
because I can open up presents later
but I can't get triple time ever
that's what I always thought
I would think that I would just celebrate Christmas the day after
for triple time
absolutely
even for double time
well
Thanksgiving
day to celebrate it the day before yeah of course but but but but there's something listen there's
also there's that that thing you're the paper boy what did you do to make money when you were 11
anything yeah i worked at a it was a fish marine aquarium wholesaler and i love i was really big
into aquariums and so i worked there after school for free fish and coral and i loved it i wanted
to skip school just to work here's what i tell my kids if work is work you're i love to work
i love to work and i love money and the two go hand in hand if work is work you're
the people who are the most successful you know why you're successful
i love it even this to me it never feels like work somehow we make money by doing this you
must be making a lot that you're you got a lot of viewers but
work if work is work you're that's why you're skipping in here
and that's what people need to do they got to find out what they love
not you don't go to make money you go to do what you love if you do what you love then work is not
work that's that's another secret thing for me you know when my brother got hurt there's a lot
of things that happened in our life and then i wanted to go get revenge for my brother so i have
i've had problems with my brother i've had problems with my brother i've had problems with my brother
i've had problems with my brother i've had problems with my brother
and it's never i've never you know i i hate it when fridays would come
because back then we didn't have internet we didn't have nothing you know i just like you
know with a you know tape recorder at home i mean fridays would come i would be depressed
everybody else is skipping to the parking lot i'm like i wish it was monday because i have so much
to do now who is the most famous person in your phone that if you were to call them they would
pick up
bill clinton and how how is that like to have such a powerful network one thing i i noticed in doing
my research of you is that you remain very warm to people in every and probably because they want
to remain warm to you as well which it does i i don't know if that turns out to their benefit
but it seems like you remain very warm to everybody and i'm curious like how
have you strategized this was this by plan no i think what happened for me is i'm already
and i love people so being warm is like it's who i am i love people i i i'm a connector i wonder how
the average viewer can use this what you've done to their own benefit like how you built a good
now they learn from what bill clinton told me something one time that i think they can learn
because i learned from him i said what's your secret president clinton he said here's what i do
everybody that i meet i treat them like this there's an election tomorrow
and they're voting
and i'm on the ballot and i treat everybody just like that even when i'm not running
and he said i call it one at a time and that's what i do everybody i meet
i'm running off for office they're voting and the election's tomorrow
one at a time it's not mine it's bill clinton's and has this served you very well a lot of people
say your network it's made me that's my talent i'm not i'm not smart i'm not
academically smart i don't believe that it's true but i'm very very smart smart i'm very
treat smart i have x-ray vision i can smell and so look i'm not good at standardized test
thank god my wife is so the kind of she balanced us out with the kids yes smart
but i'm very very street smart and i'm very my social iq is off the charts so i believe those
when you said you're not very smart i thought first there's different smart here's here's how
smart i am i'm smart enough to know what i'm not smart at and smart enough to go find people who
are smart at what i'm not smart at the most dangerous person is the person who thinks they're
smart but aren't smart i know what i'm not smart at i know that but i know what i'm very smart at
so if you have x-ray vision for people i would love to know what you think graham and i
can improve on what do you read from us well you're you you're tort reformers
and you're misinformed about your information you're getting third parties to do that and you're
you're you're business people so plaintiff's lawyers are not your favorite people
uh you think that the system could be rigged against you because of you know greedy uh but
the thing you're good at is you're relentless you're tenacious no means yes
no's gotta mean yes if no means no you're and i don't think you two take no for an answer
and you're both smart
and but you tend to be conservative i think i agree with that i don't know if i would agree
that i'm a tort reformer per se well i'm not i'm not i don't know i'm just it's like trying to guess
your weight right this is this is just what i've heard and we know people closely that are in the
industry on both ends oh i know but we may have dealt with some stuff but you're hearing lies
or not lies but just it's not true
there's an insurance crisis we need tort reform they got it in florida and then the next
the next day state farm issued five billion dollars to their
to their stakeholders it's all a lie insurance companies are liars i do agree with you that even
if we were to change this i don't think the insurance companies would ever say oh wow we
just saved all this money let's lower policies i don't think that's ever going to happen that's
why i told you as i get his broadcast what what tort reform when i would tie it to is i've been
for a long time i've never had one tort reform where the rates got rolled back they were
promised to be rolled back i would agree with you just the opposite happened it went up it's never
stayed flat it's always gone up and the insurance companies have a great business model if they lose
money they raise rates i have one more question and by the way they don't just lose money paying
claims they lose money buying real estate and buildings and and you know hedge funds and all
sorts they but when they lose money they just raise rates and they say it's john morgan that's
causing it and they say it's john morgan that's causing it and they say it's john morgan that's
causing this yeah and the malicious envy it seems like you have a great relationship with your kids
and your wife yes what do you attribute that to and what's the best relationship advice that you
could give for someone who's married uh the best thing i say is about children is your child is one
friend away from total disaster remember i tell you if you smell dogs there's dogs i've had to
remove two children from my children's life along the way it was the best thing i ever did because
both those kids turned out to be exactly who i thought they were
the second thing is you have to have rules and real consequences you can't just pick you got to
you know really do it and then the best thing is you just got to spend a lot of time with them
i mean i lived in i lived on sports fields i lived at the beach i lived you know in batting cages i
you know they were in the car with me constantly and there's only this one window that you get
and when you get to my age and you look back at the tranches in your
life the tranche that was the best was when your your children the time with your children
until you get to be about 15 in your car but from the time they're born till they're 13 14 15 that
is the best tranche you're ever going to see and the kids are the kids are baked by the time they're
five after five the cake is baked you got to spend a lot of time from the beginning to five
and then you just have to level
but you have to have consequences and you have to be steady i mean one time dan i told this i was on
a podcast yesterday the breakfast club i think i said what do you i said well because dan was with
me after i did morning joe and he said well give me an example i said well look you know one christmas
dan came home dan's 37 he's y'all's age dan came home and had christmas break and i said dan i
think you've been smoking marijuana over christmas he goes no i haven't i said i think you have well
i haven't i said well what do you think you've been smoking marijuana over christmas he goes no i
think you have he goes i haven't i said well we're going to find out because i got a peep kit back in
the bathroom by the pool room go pee in the cup okay i said let me tell you this if you fail you
lose your car for the semester if you want to admit it you lose your car for a month there was
this moment where he's just standing there looking at me he probably just reaches in his pocket he
throws me the keys and that was that i drug tested the out of them because you know i use marijuana
every day i mean if i don't have i mean i float to bed i mean i'm i'm flying on a pink pink dragon
when i go to bed but but when they're young that that can fry their minds you know what stoners are
like they're just real slow and i wasn't gonna let that happen to them and you know i have one
boy matt who's you know a star now but he was a surfer and surfers smoked dope and i just drug
tested the out of them mike and kate i didn't have to dan and matt i did
all children are not the same but you have to have consequences one time matt was playing the
all-star game and i was coming upstairs and he was talking his mother because his mother was
late and i heard him scream shut up
Shut up.
He didn't know I was there.
I walked in.
I just slapped him down on the floor.
I said, the day's over.
Go take your all-star uniform.
It's over.
It's over.
You're not going to tell your mother to shut up.
And I called Joe Strada, the coach.
I said, Joe, that's not going to be there for the all-star.
John, you can't do this to the team.
He's a shortstop.
I said, I don't give a fuck about the all-star game.
I give a fuck about this kid.
If you win today, we'll be there tomorrow.
They won today.
We went the next day.
And what about you and your wife?
How do you keep a solid relationship with your wife?
Well, look, marriages are tough.
One time we were interviewed, and the interviewer said to my wife,
have you two ever thought about divorce?
And she said, yes, just never at the same time.
Look, marriage is an unnatural situation because you've got two people that have,
and my wife's very smart and very strong-willed.
But here's what you need to understand.
I've seen, listen, I've seen so many people get married.
And get divorced and all this.
I just decided, you know what?
I'll have rough patches, but I'll get past those rough patches
because I'm just going to stay married to the crazy I know
than marry the crazy I don't know because all these bitches are crazy.
And I'm crazy.
It's bitches and guys.
We're all crazy.
I stay with the crazy I know and love.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Really appreciate it.
We'll link to your book, all your information down below in the description.
Really appreciate your time and giving us extra time on top of it.
Thank you everyone for watching.
We're in a rush.
We got to go.
Yeah.
Until next time.
2.7 million is what I paid for the car.
And what'd you sell it for?
I sold it for. No.
And I will drive this car more than anyone's ever driven a car in a second.
What's the craziest thing you've seen in the car market?
Where to begin?
Stop!
There's more money in the market than ever before.
You believe that maybe some of it's fake.
I know it is.
Anyone who's in the business know that there's some fishy stuff that happens at those auctions.
I had a plan.
I had an idea.
I turned a $600 video camera into $10 million.
What triggered the audit?
I owed like a million dollars.
Holy crap.
I was in a dark place.
It was tough.
Then I just have to turn it on for the camera.
Is marriage on the horizon?
Soon.
When are Strad kids gonna have?
When will it happen?
It'll feel just right.
It's Cambria amazing, all right.
Bring a date, your team, or even your mom.
Book direct at choicehotels.com.
See you on the roof.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The speaker, a billionaire personal injury attorney, emphasizes authenticity, righteousness, and financial transparency in business and personal life.
He attributes his success to patient wealth-building, risk aversion, and avoiding greed, with a focus on long-term investments and asset preservation.
His business model revolves around high-value personal injury law, where he targets unjust lawsuits and fights for victims, rejecting frivolous claims as a form of justice.
He leverages branding, marketing, and viral campaigns—like defaced billboards—to create "purple cow" attention, demonstrating deep understanding of human attention and perception.
He highlights the importance of privacy, using tools like Delete.me and Even Realities to protect personal data and maintain control in a high-risk, high-stakes environment.
His net worth is defined by liquid assets, not just business valuations, and he stresses that true billionaires have real, accessible money in bank accounts.
He warns against greed and herd mentality, citing the tulip bulb and crypto bubbles as cautionary tales of unsustainable, speculative gains.
He advocates for holistic personal and business evaluation—assessing character, lifestyle, and red flags—before partnering or investing.
Summary:
The speaker, a self-described "liquid net worth billionaire" in personal injury law, shares insights into his success rooted in authenticity, patience, and ethical business practices. He emphasizes that true wealth is measured by accessible liquid assets, not nominal business valuations. His legal work focuses on justice for victims of injustice, rejecting frivolous lawsuits that exploit the system.
He built a powerful brand through viral, attention-grabbing marketing strategies, like defaced billboards, which generate massive public engagement. He warns against greed and speculative investments, citing historical bubbles like the tulip trade as lessons in unsustainable growth. Strategic asset protection, privacy tools, and financial transparency are central to his approach.
He stresses the importance of assessing character and lifestyle when choosing business partners or investments, drawing on personal experience and real-life examples. His philosophy blends entrepreneurship with personal integrity, advocating for long-term wealth over quick gains. He sees success not as luck, but as a combination of sound judgment, risk aversion, and consistent effort—highlighting that even in high-stakes industries, wisdom and discipline ultimately win.
FAQs
It means having one billion dollars in liquid assets, such as cash or easily accessible investments in brokerage accounts, not just in businesses or real estate.
I built multiple profitable businesses like attractions, real estate, and advertising agencies, and sold them for significant returns. My net worth reached a billion when I had liquid assets in my brokerage accounts.
Patience and discipline are key — the biggest mistake people make is chasing quick wealth. True wealth comes from long-term, patient investment and avoiding greed.
The insurance industry profits from frivolous lawsuits by billing heavily, and many cases are not genuine. People often don’t realize that lawsuits are being used to generate revenue, not justice.
I use layered protections like joint tenancy by the entirety, trusts, and irrevocable trusts, and I ensure assets are properly disclosed to avoid fraudulent conveyance claims.
Look for red flags like 'too good to be true' offers or herd mentality. If something seems overly profitable, it likely is — greed is a major warning sign and often leads to loss.
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