In Search Of Excellence - Dan Martell: How an Addict Became a Tech Millionaire | E117

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Dan Martell is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, coach, and motivational speaker, and he is one of the most inspiring people I've ever had on my show. He has founded five companies, successfully sold three of them, and invested in over 65 software companies. Dan is also the author of the best-selling book Buy Back Your Time, which recently became a top 20 nonfiction book globally. Additionally, he hosts the popular podcast The Growth Stacking Show.  From overcoming a troubled youth, including battles with ADHD and addiction, to becoming a celebrated business leader, Dan's journey is a testament to resilience and the power of transformation. He offers some of the most profound advice I've ever heard on the show for those facing personal and professional challenges.Timestamps:0:00 - Introduction1:48 - Dan Martell's Early Life and ADHD Diagnosis2:34 - Dan's Family Background and Parents' Influence4:41 - Dealing with His Mom's Alcoholism6:48 - Anger Issues and Behavioral Problems8:41 - First Encounters with the Law and Group Homes12:21 - Starting Drug Use and the Consequences15:14 - Experiences in Foster Care20:21 - The Incident with the Roman Candles24:51 - Life in a Group Home with Troubled Youths28:04 - Desire for Revenge and Personal Growth31:47 - Randall's Story of Career Setbacks and Resilience33:06 - Working with Foster Care Systems33:41 - Involvement with Motorcycle Gangs37:24 - The High-Speed Chase and Arrest42:00 - Interaction with Guard Brian and a Life-Changing ConversationSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

I believe everybody's here to do something great with their lives. Most people don't, unfortunately, figure it out in time. I got lucky when I was 17. Ended up diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11. Got put on medication at a young age. Believed that there was something. I was broken. I literally thought my brain didn't work like everybody else's because that's what they told me.

And ended up getting introduced to drugs when I was 13 and just kind of went into breaking the law and became an addict. And I ended up in jail twice by the time I was 17. And my life changed in a high-speed chase where I had a handgun sitting next to me in a backpack. I say this often on social media. My work ethic is a byproduct of my gratitude. And anybody listening, I would encourage them to consider that,

is that if you truly are grateful for what you have, even if it's not a lot today, you should honor that by showing up and doing your best work. And that's like, if anybody spends enough time with me, they would just see that. That's just how I operate. Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers,

athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and the host of Insurance of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Dan Martell. Dan is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, coach, and motivational speaker. He has started five companies and sold three of them, has invested in more than 65 software companies. He is also the author of the bestselling book, Buy Back Your Time, and has a top 20 podcast called The Growth Stacking Show. Dan, thanks for being here.

Welcome to In Search of Excellence. It's an honor. Wow. I got to bring you with me anytime I got to do something because that was the best intro ever. And what's neat is top 20 podcasts, yes, but just happened a couple of days ago, top 20 book in the world. So Buy Back Your Time is number 18 right now. That's amazing.

Bananas for nonfiction, not even business. That's amazing. I don't know how this is happening. Like I grew up in a little town in Eastern Canada. So this is, this is pretty gnarly. Right. So you were born in Mockton, British Columbia. The town of monks. And you were a second of four kids, two brothers and a sister. Yeah. Your mom was an alcoholic and your dad was a sales guy who's gone most of the time. Tell us about your parents and what they were like and the kind of influence they had on you before all this stuff happened. Yeah. It's funny because my dad is my hero. I call him almost every other day. My mom, we talk often, but she's kept quite busy. If you met the family today and we travel together often, we just a month ago, we were all skiing, you know, 18 of us under one roof. Nobody would assume that that family grew up in the kind of situation we did. And there's no way to explain it other than the testament of, I believe everybody's here to

do something great with their lives. Most people don't unfortunately figure it out in time. I got lucky when I was 17, ended up diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11, got put on medication at a young age, believed that there was something, I was broken. I literally thought my brain didn't work like everybody else's because that's what they told me. And ended up getting introduced to drugs when I was 13 and just kind of went into breaking the law and became an addict. And I ended up in jail twice by the time I was 17. And my life changed in a high-speed chase where I had a hand gun sitting next to me in a backpack that's it's kind of gnarly but yeah so like growing up um

it's kind of like hells of hell or sons of anarchy type which is just an incredible incredible story yeah so it's kind of nuts going from that to the life I get to live today, flying around on my own jet and, you know, speaking. It's just, it's, it's funny. My dad, even when we talk and he's like, what's new? And I'm like, Oh, Tony Robbins just asked me to speak again at business mastery. And he's like, how is this happening? I'm like, I just, I say this often on social media, my work ethic is a by-product of my gratitude. And I, and anybody listening, I would encourage them to consider that is that if you truly are grateful for what you have, even if it's not a lot today, you should honor that by showing up and doing your best work.

And that's like, if anybody spends enough time with me, they would just see that. Like, that's just how I operate. Right. So I want to talk specifically about your mom's drinking. Yeah. How old were you when you noticed she had a problem and how did that problem manifest with you and your siblings? What, what age did you say, Oh geez, my mom really has a problem and it's really affecting us. I didn't know my mom had a drinking problem until I was about 12. It was interesting because in hindsight, it all made sense. Once I found out, because what happened is my parents were arguing one night and my dad essentially screamed at her. If you don't quit drinking, I'm not going to continue this, you know, being in this relationship. They got divorced when I was 13. So like at 12, I realized it, but it made so much sense because like there were times when, you know, we get back from school and her cup was sitting

there and we'd go to have a drink. She drank sparkling water, but every once in a while she would grab it. Well, that, those are the times that it wasn't just sparkling water. Right. And I guess my mom, like, and, and, and what's funny is I've learned since then a lot of people that have drinking problems, they drink in private, you know, they hide it. My mom was a stay at home mom raising four kids. And for whatever reason, she turned to the bottle, you know, we've talked about it since, but her parents were both alcoholics. She was adopted. And it was, it was something that, you know, again, she would react, she would, she'd have

an emotional overreaction for things that shouldn't, that didn't demand it. And I guess in hindsight, that's when she was drinking. But again, we just, just assume that's how my mom was. And I think a lot of people just dismiss crazy behavior is like, well, that's just my mom. And my dad eventually was like, enough's enough. And unfortunately, she didn't get her, you know, her vices under control. And they divorced when I was 13. And she kept drinking probably for another 15 years.

You know, she's been sober for a while now, but it took a while. It was a big demon for her to overcome. You had a lot of anger issues as a kid. That's an understatement. When did that start? How old were you? And is that genetic? Was your dad angry? No, no. My dad is the polar opposite of me. Here's what I've learned because I've done a lot of therapy since then is I started having outbursts probably when I was nine or 10. And it wasn't until I was probably 15 that I, you know, in one of my therapy

sessions, one of the, this therapist asked like, why do you think you get angry? And it clicked. Like there was literally, I still remember there's this moment where the question was asked and I blurted out because my dad would show up. And it, I realized that a large part of the reason I would act that way, because there's being angry. And then there was what would happen to me, which is I would see red and it would be all options were possible. If I wanted to throw something down the stairs, I threw, I'm talking like big things, right? If there was holes to be made in the wall, the holes were made. If it was, you know, fighting with my brothers, that's what we did. And it occurred to me at 15 that I did that because in those moments, my mom would have to call my dad to come home. And it didn't matter if he was two hours away

in another city, you know, he was, he was, he was travel a lot for his work. He would get in the car and have to drive home. At some point, your behavioral problems, for lack of a better word, became a serious problem. Your mom and dad thought it was too dangerous for you to live in the house. So they called the police. And what happened then? What could you possibly be feeling at that exact moment? Do you remember the exact moment where your mom said, I'm going to

like, put yourself back there. What happened? So what would happen is i would get so emotionally flooded that i i honestly i was incoherent you know as a kid i don't i know parents deal with this where their kids i've seen my son my oldest one time do this where he just was beside himself like he just could he couldn't even breathe right he was like hyperventilating and just like going crazy. And I knew enough in that moment with my son to create the space for him. My dad would try to control me and it just made it worse. So like when I was a kid, my dad would sit on me, not to hurt me, but literally to stop me from hurting myself. And what happened is when I was about 11 or 12, I think I was 12, I grew. And all of a sudden, my dad couldn't hold me down, right?

Or I'd wear him out. Literally, he would just, through exhaustion, I could go for hours. And during one of these nights where I kind of was losing it, I started screaming stuff that obviously I'm very ashamed of saying, but I would threaten to burn the house down when everybody was sleeping. And it just got to a point where I think my parents couldn't dismiss it because it felt like a possibility. And they just didn't feel safe having me in the home anymore. So they called the police. And were you handcuffed and put in the back of the car with them? No, no.

When they came, I was pretty civil. Where did you go? So it's interesting because I'll never forget it. The first night I got put in this old Victorian home and it's essentially, I guess it's kind of like a foster home, but it's a transitionary because I remember talking to the people that live there and the situation is they were available to have a child with them, but it was short term. And that was the agreement. So like they were almost like the place that kids would go when they couldn't be at their home, but essentially the system didn't know what to

do with them. So I went to this one home for probably five nights. Or no, sorry. No, I didn't. I went to the crisis center first. So I went to a crisis center for seven days because it was 24 hour surveillance because I threatened to take my life. That was, as soon as you do that, they have to do that for my own safety. Against your will. Yeah. I mean, I'm a 12 year old. I don't have a, there's no, I don't want to be here. The other option, I think they would have just thrown me in jail. Yeah. And obviously I, I wasn't looking to get in trouble. I just was mad at my parents, you know? So I went to the crisis center. That was, that was scary. I mean, I'll be honest with you,

like being taken out of my home, place in another home and it was in a side-by-side duplex and, and the staff were there. I mean, the lights are on in my room 24 seven. There's a camera on me. The staff are in the house. I don't know these people. I don't know if they're good people. I'm thinking of all the freaking things I've watched on TV. Luckily this would have been on a Saturday. So I was there Sunday and then Monday I went to school. So they let me go to school. But yeah, I was kind of in that system for a week.

Then I got put into this transition home cause they were like, okay, he's calmed down. And then eventually got placed into a foster home with this guy named Dave. And, um, that's a crazy story cause I was Dave's first. Right. And last. Did you go from group home to group home or you were just in one home and then you went to Dave? Not at that point. No, I went crisis center, temporary home, and then they found Dave and I got placed there. So at 13, your parents got divorced. You thought it was your fault and you started doing drugs at the same time. Did those go hand in hand or

how did the drug use start? Just innocently enough, this guy, I was always the youngest in my grade because my birthday's in December. So I think I was in high school or junior high or something. No, I was in high school. They did like grade nine, but everybody else was 14. I'm 13. And there was this guy named Serge and he was like, you know, hit puberty before me, taller, just, just more older, mature. And, uh, he was the one that was like hey man you want some of this it was just weed like innocent enough and he gave it to me and i lived outside of the city so like i got on the bus went home and i told all my other friends that lived in that neighborhood that had some stuff and we just went to tree fort and smoked it and that was the first time that I felt, I didn't feel sad, if that makes sense.

Escaping your pain. Yep. A hundred percent. I still remember the feeling. Just this like kind of warm hug over me. And that kind of began the, hey, what else is there? You know, talking to Serge. Hey, what else you got?

You got more. And what happened is I had no money. So I ended up starting to sell drugs just to pay for my usage right and um the first time i got in trouble with the law outside of getting taken out of my home and put in a group home was um i sold weed to the daughter of the head of the rcmp which is the police in Canada. Oops, dude. That was like the dumb. My dad, he picked me up and he's like, like, like really? And I'm like, I know. And he's like, why? Her name was Melissa. And it was funny because at first I was pissed off. Cause I'm like, Hey, why didn't she get arrested? She bought weed. Nope, she didn't get in trouble. I get arrested.

And because her dad was mad at me, which in hindsight, okay, I'm a parent now, I get it. You know, he told the judge, Judge McKee, I'll never forget his name, you know, throw the book at him. And I ended up getting six weeks in prison for selling $15 worth of weed. And you were 13 or 14?

No, at that point, I think I was like 14, 15. Yeah. So it took a while because essentially, like I got arrested, then I got put on probation. And then how well are you going to do in school? And then eventually I got sentenced. And he said, oh, we're not going to sentence you now. We're going to wait till the summertime.

So I remember I was like new that summer when I was 14, 15 that I had to go. And I, and I just worked my butt off in school to try to show good to the judge. And he's still nope. So let's talk about Dave and your first foster care home. My, my grandmother was raised in foster care in Detroit, had a crazy life, went from home to home i don't know if it worked or works the same way here but a lot of foster families get paid so they don't care about the kids at all 100 and my grandmother slept in closets wasn't allowed to eat um had this crazy story about all these people who treated her like shit except for one family. Tell us about Dave and then why you lit the couch on fire. Well, I'll tell you about Dave

and then I want to tell about Ron and Ann because I've never shared that ever. Okay. That was a different foster home. So I'm 12, okay? And I just got released out of this temporary youth housing. I get put with Dave. Dave's like, I'm looking back, he's probably like 38 years old, never had kids.

And in many ways, I wonder how did he get approved to have a kid? You know, it's kind of weird. Like it was just him and he lived in this house and he was a professor at the college and I was his first foster kid. And I remember the first time I went there, I went with like the caseworker and she's like, you know, trying to explain to Dave, like, here's how we work. And these are the numbers you got to call. And then she kind of showed Dave, like, you need to do a house tour and a safety thing and blah, blah, blah. So he like shows me around the house,

you know, here's where the fire extinguisher is. Here's where the food is. Here's your room. Is this room okay? He didn't even know, like, again, I'm a 12 year old boy. He doesn't even know what's normal that night after my caseworker left. He's like, well, let's go to the grocery store and, you know, we'll get you, get you some food. Cause I don't know what 12 year old boys eat. And I convinced him that all I eat was chocolate, pop tarts and hot dogs. And he looked at me kind of like, are you serious? And I'm like, yeah, call my mom. Like, she'll tell you that's all I can eat. It's all I've ever eaten. That's what makes me happy. And he's like, okay. And we walked out of there with like $300 worth of chocolate pop tarts and

hot dogs. Like Dave was wacky. Like I ate, I ate 14 pop tarts one time for sure. Easily. Like I would eat them. I would eat that. And then sometimes throw in some hot dogs, right? Pop tarts were the best, by the way. They were were the best i'm pretty sure they're not real food but they were the best yeah and um the apple were my favorite by the way a great great i think because i never was given chocolate yeah i really pushed it and i said let's go chocolate and i od'd on chocolate but apple was the best because some of the apple ones didn't even have the white frosting right they were just yeah the pop tart right green box i remember it very clearly delicious stuff with my fruit loops by the way you gotta hit the fruit yeah man some fake food so so but dave was just a

people pleaser he wasn't trying like he didn't know that i needed an adult in my life he tried to be like a big brother so i mean he's, he's like, what do you want to do this weekend? I'm like, we should go get, you know, check out the, the, the hunting store and see if there's anything we could get to do together. He's like, like what? I'm like, I don't know, like maybe archery or, you know, we go there and I'm seeing this slingshot and I'm like, you know, we should get a slingshot. And he's like, why would we want to get a slingshot? I was like, we could do like practice shooting. And so he bought one. And it was just so funny because he would just do this all the time.

I would get him to buy stuff all the time. I got him to buy me a pellet gun. I mean, I remember one time he come home, I was probably there for like five months and he comes from work and then I showed up and he goes, do you know why all the streetlights are busted out? And I said, that kid at the top of the street,

he's a bad kid. I bet it's him. And he's like, yeah, yeah. I've always wondered that kid's always playing at the park. I'm like, yeah, that kid's the kid. And it was totally me. Like I literally went around the neighborhood doing stuff and he would just believe anything I said to him. So one time we're going camping and I knew on the way to this area, it's called Fundy. So a big national park that in one of the small towns, they had a store that sold fireworks. So I convinced him to stop to buy some fireworks for the fire that night, you know, some Roman candles.

And he was a little apprehensive. He's like, I don't know if that's a good idea. It's a national park. I said, it's, it's, we do it all the time. I've done it with my dad. Don't worry about it. And he's like, all right. So we stop and we buy like a dozen pack of Roman candles.

And that night, you know, do the whole dinner. And then he's like, Hey, you want to shoot those Roman candles? And I was like, you know what? I think I'm going to go to bed early tonight. We'll just save them for another time. And he's like, oh, that's okay. Cool. Now I did that because I, I wanted the Roman candles for me.

So what happened is like two weeks later, Dave was going to the market on a Saturday morning and I convinced him to let me stay home by myself. He's just gonna run out for 45 minutes and come back. Well, as soon as he left the place, I ran around the house looking for the Roman candles. He didn't hide them too well. They're on top of his closet.

And I sat down in his living room. Now Dave was was a single man, 30 some years old, late thirties. He had like a, you know, Chesterfields and leather couches and book, book is a whole wall was like old vintage books. And he was just like, he was a professor. Like, just imagine, you know, what kind of a house the professor would live in. That was Dave. And here I am, I grabbed the Roman candles. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen, I grabbed some duct tape because we need some duct tape and a candle to essentially my idea was I'll cut off 25% of the Roman candles and then reseal the rest, you know, with some wax, reseal the plastic, put them back. He'll never know. Now I got these little quarter stick of Roman candles I can play with my friends at school. And as I'm sitting there on the,

on the floor in the living room, feeling like a mad scientist, I'm proud of myself actually. Cause like I got, I got, I got to work really quick. I'm getting everything. It's working ceiling. Everything's good. Getting a little pile of stuff I'm going to take for myself. And I accidentally hit the Rome, the, the candle into the, the gun pad, the residue that was like left out. And I had paper on the thing newspaper right because it's a carpet and it catches fire and it it went from zero to wtf in like a half a second it was it was scary how like just whoosh and the the stack of quarter sticks i had started catching on fire the full sticks the the left toes were catching on fire. The full sticks, the, the leftovers were

catching on fire and the whole thing is literally. So I jump up, run into the kitchen where he showed me those little white fire extinguishers that are underneath. You know, I pull that thing out, run to the living room and, and it lasted half a second and did nothing. Right. You always wonder if those things really work. We have them all over the house. They don't really work. I don't know what the use case is, but it's not to put out a Roman candle fire. And when I went back with the fire extinguisher, all I see is just green, red, purple fireballs going into the bookshelf, into the couch. And I'm like trying to dodge them. And the whole time it felt like it went on

for 15 minutes, probably lasted like a minute or two, but it literally felt like it was a never ending 4th of July. And the fire alarm's going off. And luckily the fire stopped, the newspaper just burnt and didn't, nothing else caught fire. And, but but when it all ended the house is full of smoke and i just realized i took things too far and i went in my room and i packed up my backpack as fast as i could extra change of clothes and i ran away where'd you go there was another home that you said you hadn't told the story before so let oh the ron the ron and uh ann story let me tell you why the ron and ann story so i so so what happened was i took off went to my friend's house it was a saturday morning and i told his parents that dave said i could sleep over and i slept over and i slept over again on sunday and

then eventually dave and the police trying to find me and they they called because they knew he was my friend his mom's like yeah he's been here weekend. And all of a sudden the cop showed up and they arrested me. So they brought me back to Dave's place and he was in tears. And yeah, he just said, you got to take him. I don't know how to do this. I was 12, almost 13 when that happened. And I got put into a group home. That was when things got worse. I ended up living as a 12 year old with 16, 17 year old young men that had already been to juvenile detention. They were on, you know, some kind of remand closed open custody for some crimes, whatever. And I was living with these people as a 12 year old. So like this, this, this guy, Shane, that looked like he was 30,

but was 18 was teaching me how to shave at 12. You know, it was just pretty, I was learning stuff I should never learned. And that's what kind of accelerated everything. And I ended up eventually getting, you know, family therapy, got released back to my home, but just a drug addict. My parents got divorced again, 13, 14. And I ended up getting in trouble with the law and then put into closed custody, waiting to go to, uh, sentencing. And I ended up in this, this group home, this, this

foster home, it was a foster home, but for people that were in trouble with the law, they were the money people, the people that you were talking about that take kids in for the money. So she was like, you know, that, that evil witch in a thousand Dalmatians, is that the movie? for the money. Yeah. So she was like, you know, that, that evil witch in the thousand Dalmatians, is that the movie? Like the, the Deville woman.

Yeah. She reminded me of her. She had two kids. And I remember the day when I showed up, she pretty much said, these two children are my prize jewels. Anything they ask you to do, you do it.

They were nine and eight. And if you don't do it, the police are going to pick you up and put you in jail. Were you thinking at the time, I mean, you know, you're going to bed at night, right? And you're in a bed and are you thinking, what got me here? Where am I in my life right now? Is this going to be my life forever? Because that's pretty lonely and depressing. I was, I was, I had cried myself to sleep quite a bit it's brutal yeah there was nights where i mean when i was in the crisis center for sure i was worried about the other adults um dave for a while i was like he looks like a perv like this is weird like full-on like what sounds weird right sounds so weird yeah hey come live with me i'm not

even in a relationship like dude you can'm not even in a relationship. Like, dude, you can't even be in a relationship with another person. You know what I mean? Like I could get, if they were in a relationship, they couldn't have kids and they wanted to foster. That's the first thing I thought of actually, when you're like, when I tell people this, they go, I don't think they would allow that today. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. So, so a hundred percent. But again, I just, um, I, just, I guess I learned how to tell myself a story to respond so that I did, it wasn't crippling, but Ron and Ann really messed me up because they actually became, they acted like those people. Ron would drink every night.

And it was funny because he was really kind, but he would drink to deal with his wife. And I don't know if they'll ever see this but i honestly don't give a fuck because like they're they're not they were not good people to me he allowed her to treat me like a dog and if they weren't together anymore i would zero be surprised oh um but i'll tell you why it's kind of a cool thing because i was there for probably six months and, you know, I was pretty influential age 15. And I remember saying to myself, like, someday I'm going to, I'm going to be successful and I'm going to like, I'm going to buy their house and sell it on. You know what I mean? Like, I remember thinking this, like, I'm going to get, I'm going to get them back. I don't know how,

I don't know when. Yeah. So it was like some dark energy, right? Yeah. The first day I get my brand new McLaren. Guess whose house I fucking drove to? I love it. Ron and Anne's. Knock on the door? Knock, knock.

Hey, Dan. No, I didn't actually. No? You wanted to drive over or you did drive over? I did drive over. I parked there. I got out of the Dan. I didn't actually. No. You want to drive over or you did drive? I did drive over. I parked there. I got out of the car. I took a photo. So I have a photo of the McLaren in front of the house. I didn't because I wasn't the same person. Like I just, I'm not the kid that was in that home. I'm definitely not the kind of person that would do that, I'm definitely not. I understand that people, I mean, so many people gave me grace and forgave me for some things that I'm very embarrassed about.

That for me not to assume that maybe they were just in a place that they didn't know how to deal with what they were dealing with. And I'm hoping that they ended up realizing that what they were doing was wrong. That's what I hope. And guess what? That's, that's served me really well in life. So I got the photo. I went back. I could have bought the whole house, sold it on them. I could, uh, you know, I could have found out where they worked and got them fired, bought the company and fire them. Like I did. I'm so funny. Like sometimes I thought this is like, you know, when you have bad customer service, it's like, I will buy this

company just to hire you. Yeah. I got fired from my job after moving to Los Angeles and I had a boss who was a total dickhead, jealous dickhead, a managing partner of my firm. Business was slow. So they were laying people off. I was the first one to go 24 years old in LA, $3,000 in the bank. And I was working basically full-time my third year in law school in Chicago but I had met a girl in LA I went out to see her and I then I was rich I mean I was working full-time for a law firm I made I think $40,000 my third year of law school which is more than some of my parents friends made yeah and so they said come out to Los Angeles and you'll come meet everyone I've been working

with them on the phone so So I go out there, managing partner meets me, hey, come on out here. We're going to try to build a corporate group and I hate the law, so I don't want to be a lawyer anyway. So I get there and they just brought a six-year lawyer

who did make partner in one of the big firms to help build a corporate practice. The managing partner was going to use all of his contacts. He was a well-known big lawyer. And so I get there and there really is no work but one day managing partner calls me in the office and he says hey randy you want my raiders tickets i said yeah i've been there two weeks and my boss uh jim bear i hope you're listening um comes out insecure, says, hey, what's going on? What's happening there? I said, Howard gave me his Raiders tickets. He said, well, what do you mean he gave them to you? Not me? And I said, hey. And at that point, he had it out for me. And I had a review,

and I've never told this story before. I'm not even sure if I've told this to my team or not. But as a first-year lawyer, you know absolutely nothing come out of law school. Nothing. And you're supposed to learn there and then you get a review one year into it. Well, they were going to lay me off regardless, but that wasn't good enough for Jim. So I got a five and a half weeks performance review and I'd written one memo. And the only memo I got, the only memo I wrote was to the managing partner. It said, A plus, amazing job. So it was the only piece of paper that I had back from the firm. I would go around, hey, you know, you've worked for me. But Jim Bearer decides

to write me a performance review. And it was, there were, I think, 12 categories. Excellent, good, fair, less than, and whatever the worst worst ones every box was the worst one every box you know here's a guy who didn't like the fact i got raiders tickets didn't like my personality whatever the case he was very insecure guy and i thought okay that is just so fucked up and i said one day when i made all this money i could easily afford to buy his house and the house next to him, I said, I'm going to buy a fucking house next door. I'm just going to run the radio all day long

and make his life miserable. But I didn't. No. But I did. Here's something funny as well. I like to go on hikes by myself to clear my head. And there's a hike by my house and our company had gone public.

This is a crazy story, by my house and our company had gone public. This crazy story, by the way, our company had gone public and, you know, we can talk about success and sometimes very hard, you know, you're very lonely and you don't know what is going on and you have all these fake friends and people are really not rooting for you. But I go on this hike, and I swear to God, there's Jim Bear. And he's sitting there, and he's waiting for me to come up to him because he could see me coming on the hike. He's 100 yards ahead on the hill. He's waiting for me, Randy, Randy, Randy, Randy. And I just pretended like he wasn't there.

He wanted to be my best friend. He knew you hiked that route? What's best friend. He knew you hiked that route? What's that? Did he know you hiked that route? No, I hadn't seen the guy. Oh, and he acted like. And then there was a third instance where he had started a law firm. And this guy I knew from Northwestern Law School, he was a couple years younger than me.

He reached out to me. I like to help people. I went to, okay. His name was Jeff. Jeff was at a big firm. He leaves to start a firm, comes over for dinner one night. And, uh, you know, he knew I had all his portfolio companies and we were investing the lawyers for all kinds of stuff. He said, yeah, you know, uh, by the way,

I'm partners with, uh, Jim bear and we'd love to pitch you business. Like, are you fucking joking? So I, I never, um, really called Jim, but, uh, um really called jim but uh i sure hope you're listening i sure hope you're listening but i mean this is i think this is like the whole idea is you know it's energy man it's like you could have bought that house and made his life but then it's like what energy are you bringing bad bad jew and I just figure, you know what, whatever happened to Jim, he deserves. I don't root for people's downfall. I want everyone to succeed.

We're going to talk about empathy later in the show, and I've learned as I've gotten older and a little bit more mature that you never know what someone is going through. People do treat you like shit. The foster care stuff is crazy. And you're right, the system is rigged unfortunately

with people that just wanna make income and try to spend the least amount on the children. And that's why I like today, I do a lot of work with foster care. Like speak to parents, speak to organizations, speak to kids. I mean, it's just kind of, it's like a big part of my life. Yeah. That's my thing too. One of the things that I give back to sick kids and foster

care. Yeah. But let's move on. You're 15, 16, you're dealing drugs, you're hanging out with motorcycle gang. So tell us about Sam and his dog. It's kind of nuts. So I've seen a lot of things. I'm assuming this is the story you want me to share, but, um, I was actually at this party with my brother and, and like, you know, these guys were, you know, mid twenties, thirties, and it's the hell's angels that are, you know, in Canada, we have a lot of hell's angels and they kind of run the drug trade. And several times I'd been in a vehicle that I'm just lucky that we didn't get stopped because that would have changed. That would have like caused some serious issues on my, with my record. You're 16 and you're driving in a car with Hell's Angels in the thirties. Oh yeah. Yeah. We do runs up to Montreal. So a 10 hour drive.

You're working for them, essentially. Yeah. I mean, I was helping them. They gave me access to product. Then I would, you know, I would sell. So like I wasn't I wasn't a big dealer, but I sold enough to like four or five guys to support my habits, pay my bills. I wasn't I was on the run. You know, at that point I'd already ended up in jail the first time at like 14, 15. This is after I get out. You know, I remember when I was in, I was like, okay, I'm gonna get out. I'm going to change my friend group. I'm going to do everything different. I lasted less than 24 hours, like just right back into it. So yeah, I was, I was hanging out with people. I'm at a party, everybody's high. And this guy,

uh, Sam who owned the house, he was crazy. Like you meet people and you look in their eyes and you know, they're crazy. Like there's, unfortunately that's just mental, mental, mental illness is a thing. Right. And there's just something missing. And that was this guy. And it's probably why everybody like was scared of him because like he would just be sitting there all of a sudden pull out a gun and like put it in somebody's face and we're at a house party in his backyard and there's like a fire and there's a bunch of picnic tables around the fire and me and my brother were sitting on the table and there's other people there and all of a sudden sam comes out and he's holding his dog. And, you know, he's like kind of like carrying this big like German shepherd. And he's got a rifle.

And we're like, what the heck is this guy doing? Right. But nobody wants to say anything because you don't want the rifle to point at you. So the dog doesn't say much. The dog's like, oh, he's picking me up. And he's, you know, we're hanging out. And he's walking towards the fire with the dog. And all of a sudden, he kind of props the dog up on his lap and grabs the gun and pulls the trigger and shoots the dog. In front of everyone.

In front of everybody. Blood splattering everywhere. I mean, it's nighttime and it's dark outside, so we didn't really see the splatter. But the dog yipped like I've never heard in my life. And then he picks up the dog and he throws it on the fire. And the dog isn't really dead. It was the most, that's insane. I mean, I would love to say that's the craziest thing I ever saw, but that, I mean, no. What's crazier?

I think the time I saw a guy literally sitting just like this grab his gun and shoot the guy in the leg but like put the like if you were a little closer yeah like literally just nonchalant as if no big deal pow right in the right in the hamstring mafia style yeah but it was almost like there wasn't even a reason that guy high-end drugs yeah just like i don't know if he didn't like him or he wanted to scare him or he meant to shoot next to him but and i'm sitting across the living room going yeah out of here you know what i mean like there's just been these moments in my life that are just you know clearly i've had some guardian angels, man. Well, let's talk about a big event that led to you finding yours, which was the high speed chase. So explain how you're on the run from

the cops. You stole a car and then what happened? Yeah. So, I mean, I, um, I had before I stole the car, I actually, again, super ashamed of all this stuff, but I ended up doing a break and enter and I stole some guns. So the reason I was on the run is because my brother called me, told me not to come home because my mom found the guns and she called the police. They were waiting for me. I had a handgun with me in the backpack. I can't come home. Don't know what I'm going to do. I know the cops found the guns. They know damn well where they came from. So now I got a option where like I can't stay in the city. So I decided to steal a car and take off, go to Montreal where I had some connections from the hell's angels. And did you know how to hotwire a car or are you just, we've been doing it since I was 12. Yeah.

You've been stealing cars since you were 12. I cannot confirm or deny, but let's just say transportation wasn't a problem for the martell brothers okay yeah we knew which cars and where to get the tools so yeah stole a car uh had a bunch of drugs with me and some booze and just ended up driving and the whole time i'm drinking and i'm doing drugs and i'm high and uh it's probably driving for like three hours and what kind of car was it um it was a it wasn't even a cool car it was like um an aerostar van okay it's because they you know they're easy to hotwire so like the the

cars you steal are not cool cars right cool cars are harder to steal right kia now i think is a big car everyone steals yeah we're back in the day it was K cars all day long. Okay. You know what a K car is. So yeah, it was this van and so the backpack was sitting next to me and pulling over to get gas off the highway and there's a routine roadblock in this place called Sussex, New Brunswick

on the east coast of Canada. And I see, you know, I'm maybe third in the row and I got nowhere to go. So I just rolled up and told them, you know, I'm maybe third in the row, and I got nowhere to go. So I just rolled up and told them, you know, it's my mom's car, and I forgot my driver's license and stuff at home, and they said, no problem, just pull over. And as soon as they said that, I took off, right? And my plan was to try to get some distance to maybe, you know, run in the woods and try to make a dash. You know, I didn't have anything, just a backpack. So, um, I was in this neighborhood, I saw an open garage

door and I came in caring a little bit too much speed. And, you know, my plan was to get in the garage, close the door and run out the back and maybe make my way. But I think I might've watched too many car chase movies. And I pulled in the, as I pulled into the driveway, I just, you know, the car is a fricking van. It didn't have any aerodynamics. So it just smashed in the side of the casing of the garage. And that's when I went for the gun. And I just kept pulling on it and pulling on it.

And- So wait, so you're in the garage. I'm in the car. You're in it. There's a canvas, you know, like those old army canvas style backpacks with the strings on the top? Handgun's in there, it's a revolver.

You open it up, you get it. I grabbed it, put my hand in the bag, but it got stuck between the seat and the bag. Okay, you couldn't get it out. Couldn't get it out of the bag, and the bag was stuck to the bag okay you couldn't get it out couldn't get out of the bag and the bag was stuck to the seat I couldn't I kept pulling on it yeah for whatever reason the cops essentially rushed the car I wasn't wearing a seatbelt cuz why wear a seatbelt if you have a stolen car and the cops just literally opened the door and just grabbed me and i ended up flying across the front yard

and they kind of frisked me and next thing i knew i was in the back of the cop car and my plan was to pull the gun and let the cops take my life you wanted to i didn't want to go back to jail you don't want to go back to jail no you were going to shoot uh you're going to threaten to shoot a police officer i was not going to shoot a police officer. I was not going to shoot a police officer. I was, I was going to hope they would take my life. At that point were you depressed that from everything you were doing and said, my life isn't going well, so I want to end it or just in that moment? No, I, I, I kind of made the decision.

I made the decision when I stole the car. This was going to be it I'm either gonna get away but I wasn't going back to jail but now you are going to jail and you're going to a adult jail not a juvenile jail yeah tell us about the guard Brian and what he said to you yeah so what happened is is just because of my criminal background and I was, you know, obviously in trouble from a young age, I got sentenced to an adult prison. So it's this place called St. John regional correctional center. Um, and it's cool. Well, it's cool. It's not very cool. It's prison, but it's cool because it had, you had these two youth, um, blocks, you know, part of the rest of the adult facility. They had like,

I think, a dozen kids in each block, cell block. I was in one of them. And it was dedicated to youth that wanted to have like kind of addiction problems that wanted to get some support. So they had like a program that they ran. And I went there. I really wanted originally to go to a rehab center. So this place called Portage. but the judge could see that I was just trying to go there. Cause I didn't want to go to prison. And he said, go prove yourself. And you know, if you show me, you know, through the parole board or whatever, maybe we'll, we'll let you do, you know, the rest of your sentence there. So I ended up in this, this place and I did like, I, I probably did the first three, four months and it's hard, man. There's prison politics. There's

like real, like you hear the stories. If you watch any of these netflix shows like when you go to jail try to stay out of trouble like just stay just to saying to anybody i don't want to get involved you're gonna get involved yeah so like it was really hard to essentially be incarcerated and not get involved in stuff i did a fairly good job but but one, one breakfast I was sitting there eating the breakfast, they let us out of the cell blocks and kind of put us on like a, like cafeteria table style. And, um, I went, I went for the coffee and it's kind of the end of the coffee and I poured it. And then there was this kid named Kirk sitting in front of me and he was talking to somebody when I finished coffee. But Kirk was like, if I don't know if you went to high school with like

these genetic phenoms, but he had like an eight pack. Like he was a muscle. He was only 50. He was a year younger than me, but he was just like built. I didn't look like this as a teenager. And he went for the coffee and I knew as soon as he grabbed the coffee and it was empty, he was going to say something. And he just looked at the table and he said, who's the goof that drank the rest of the last of the coffee? And as soon as he said that, and everybody knew it was me, I just jumped up and I said, I did, what are you going to do about it? And fight breaks out, frigging the guards rushed the unit and they grabbed Kirk and I and they throw us in solitary confinement, which is probably the most horrendous thing you can do to a human.

They strip you down into your underwear, 24, 23 and a half hour lockdown, concrete slab, no mat, no bedding. You sleep on the floor? No, you sleep, well, I mean, it's like the floor, but it's just, it's like higher. Okay. It's just, it's like, there should be a bed there, but they take it away because they don't want to make it comfortable for you and then there's just a one-piece stainless you know toilet sink combo and they don't tell you how long you're going to be there lights are on don't even know what time of day it is you can kind of figure it out by the meals you know but they like open up the thing throw your meals in ask you for your back and what was crazy is when you're in there

all the other inmates are in the in the the the shoe but they're rocking their cells so they're they're freaking out they're laying on their back smashing these steel doors to piss off the guards but the guards on the other side of the door and they probably have earplugs i'm right next to them i'm thinking if one of these maniacs end up getting out like i do not want to be here right you're what i'm saying yeah i wasn't so i wasn't sleeping i'm i'm i'm stressed out and they would let me out into this like open air area for like open air is in like 10 by 10 you know brick walls uh fence at the top like you couldn't get out but at least you're outside

for 30 minutes a day. That was the rule of the max. They had to let you out. But I was there for three days. On the third day, the door opens and there's a guy standing there named Brian. And Brian was one of the guards that he'd been working there for about a decade. And he was, he's kind of one of those guys, you know, like there's people in your life that, you know, if you respect them, they'll respect you. So Brian, Brian didn't talk a lot, but if you, if you didn't mess with them, like if you listen to him, he looked the other way if you need an extra dessert. Right. Or if you, you know, if they knew, if he knew you had taken something from the, the, the whatever room and, you know, an extra pen that you shouldn't have had. Like he, he wasn't too strict pen that you shouldn't have had.

Like he wasn't too strict, but you just had to respect him. If you didn't listen to him, then a lot of those little kind of look the other way stuff went away. So he opened the door and I could just see the face of disappointment on his face. Like he was just not happy and he's just like, come with me. So I walk with him back to the cell block and we actually walk past the door to our unit to the next door which is the guard unit and nobody's supposed to be in there like this is only for you know the guards and and no inmate had I don't know of any inmate that's ever been there because we'd always talk about I wonder what it's like on the other side of that mirror right it's a one-way mirror it's the inside inside. And he says, come with me. And he opens the door. I thought, I didn't know if I was getting jumped. I didn't know if like, he's doing this to get me in trouble, to send me to

some other place. Like I was just like, I followed him and he sat me down in the corner back, you know, to the cell block I'd lived in. So I got to see the inside and he sits me in a chair and then pulls up a chair and sits in front of me. And he just says, what are you doing here? And I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, what are you doing in this place? So I saw a car and high speed chase and guns. And he's like, it was not that.

He goes, what are you doing here? I said, well, I got in a fight with Kirk and, you know, they threw us in the hole. And he goes, Dan, he goes, not that. He goes, I want you to hear something. I've watched you for the last five months. Stay out of, you know, the politics and stick to yourself and work on your GED. And like, just, you stay out of stuff, man. He goes, I need you to hear this if nobody's ever told you this,

but you don't belong here. And there was just something the way he said that. And I think who he was that made me go, why is he saying this? What is it about? Like, he doesn't have to, he's not my caseworker. Like there was, because he'd been working there for a decade, his words planted a seed in me, a belief that I never had my whole life. And maybe other people had said this to me, but he literally said the words,

he goes, you're a good kid. I don't remember ever being told I'm a good kid ever. Like it wasn't part, it was Dan's a troublemaker. Dan's always in trouble. Dan's the person that starts things. Dan's involved. There's nothing good that can come. Like, you know what I mean? Like all the things you could think about, that's what I heard my whole life. And here was a guy saying, you're a good kid. You don't belong here. You need to get out of here. And it took a while for me to accept it, but that moment shifted everything. And about six weeks later, I got released to a rehab center that saved my life. You're listening to part one of my amazing interview with Dan Martell.

Be sure to tune in next week to my amazing conversation with Dan.