Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Bank Robber Blueprint How Anyone Can Rob A Bank Make Millions

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

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You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet. Like the just one tapping, ridiculously fast acting, sky high sales stacking, championed at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today at Shopify.com slash win.

Looking to grow your investing skills and make smarter decisions with your money in 2026, join Her Money's Investing Fix, the twice-monthly Women's Only Investment Club, where expert stock pickers pitch ideas and you help build the portfolio. Since launching four years ago, our member-driven picks have outperformed the S&P thanks to smart, collaborative choices. We've got a strong track record and a community that's learning and winning. together. So go to investingfix.com. That's Fix with two X's and join us. Dude, for some reason, I always had a fascination with robing a bank. I just always thought to myself, it would be so easy to rob a bank. The moment I entered the facility and the door clicked behind me, it was Showtime. I kind of scanned the room and I said, well, I think it's pretty obvious what this is based on my attire. I would like you to take the money and put it out

on the counter. And they all kind of like, look to me on, I went, move. And then they started doing their thing. This was kind of the turning point of my life where I started to actually have a moral compass and I started to actually care about people. I was born in central New York, very small town called Cato. There was like 82 kids in my graduating class and I was about a seven out of ten football player. So that made me kind of a small god in that township and captain of the football team and quarterback and just a very big case of big frog small pond. What did your parents do for a living? Were they in? car salesman car salesman where does the criminal come from that's right i watched the thing where you said you talked about how you have a long lineage of car salesman yeah dude like that that was table talk at

the kitchen table the local vendors and the local bankers and everybody that was like these were the people that were the heroes of my life and the car dealers and when you go to the roots of my criminal story my addiction because that's the root of my criminal story is the addiction um it comes from a young man who just intrinsically burned. I had a desire to do something great and be something huge. I wanted to be a president or an astronaut or a, you know, a freaking action hero law enforcement. I just wanted to do something great. I wanted to make a lot of noise and change the world.

And I was constantly to be told, you know, douse the fire, calm down, you know, know your role, so on and so forth. And I think that's what caused me to look for some sort of release or some sort of comfort or nurture that got my mind off of those things. And I found that eventually. I was to say what, I mean, when was this? Is this, when does that take places or start? Like, is this in high school?

Is it, like, how are you introduced to even doing? Bro, like, I would, we would go to places. And unless we were cracking a beer and hiding it from the cops where we were driving it, it wasn't a Sunday afternoon. Man, I started drinking at like 11 or 12. At some point, you realize it's not okay. But as far as society and their view on it, you know, I just, we're just good of hiding it, man. I mean, it was, it was, in hindsight,

you know, I say this to you and you think upon it and we iterate upon it. And in hindsight, it was like, oh my God, how did that ever happen? You know, at the time I was a 12 year old kid drinking with my old man on a Sunday afternoon. It just was what it was. Went over my buddy's house. His old man was cracking a beer for him and we were playing football in the backyard. Went over to our other buddy's house, got on the snowmobiles, rode and met our dads at the watering hole and played the little shuffleboard pucks and drank booze and the bartender. You know, make sure you boys get home safe. Turn your hand warmers on. You know, you get drunk and forget. You'll go home with cold hands. It was just the culture of the town I grew up in, man.

Jesus. So, I mean, like, did you have any brothers and sisters? One sister. It was kind of the same thing. You know, she didn't, I don't want to say have it as bad as I did. Maybe she had it not as good as I did. Who knows? Maybe she wanted to get drunk at 12 and didn't get a chance to.

I don't know. She, she left. I was, we were three years separated. So she left, went off to college. And now I was 15 at this time. Didn't have my big sister. And now I'm home. And, you know, mom and dad are splitting up at this point.

And things are really getting kind of shaky. And then I started, that's really, you know, I look back on it. And the more times I tell the story, the more things become clear, especially when you're sober and lucid. And I realized that in my mid-teens, I suffered a couple injuries playing football and went to the doctor's office locally and started getting prescribed hydrocodone and percassette at like 15, 16 years old. And I remember, you know, my mom would call the doctor, oh, Luke sprained his ankle again,

Luke tore his shoulder again, okay, I'll call something in for the pain. And I remember this is as black and white and true as it gets. I would be in class. And I remember vividly one memory in Mrs. Miller's English class. I sat there and she was looking at me and I was like, Ms. Miller, I need medicine. My leg hurts. She's like, okay, go to the nurse.

I went down to the nurse and she pulls out this bottle. I remember a little orange controlled substance label on it. And she's like, do you need one? Or Dr. Epolito said you could have two if you need two. And I remember she hands it to me and I'm looking at the bottle. And I vividly remember it because it was seven. $1.5,500 or $325 or whatever, 7.5 milligram percissettes for a 15-year-old,

you know, 16-year-old kid in English class at school. And I actually had a doctor's excuse at one point that if I was passing out or nodding out in class, it was okay because of the medication I was on. So when that's the ecosystem that you grow up in, bro, it becomes a normal to you, you know, it doesn't seem that wild. Yeah, I was going to say when I grew up,

so I'm, you know, whatever, 15 years older than you, Are you really? Yeah, yeah. You're holding up pretty good, bro. Yeah, thanks. I would, you'd walk into the doctor's office and he'd already be pulling out his script. What's wrong? Yeah.

This is what's wrong. I don't know. I'm, you know, I'm anxious. I'm this. I'm that. My dad said you should, you know, that I need some kind of anxiety drug. Okay, well, we've got this thing called Paxil. I think this is.

And you've had, you've talked to me for 30 seconds. Or do you ever have panic attacks? I can write Jasnex. And now if you go. Because when I got out of the halfway house, like I went because I was having extreme anxiety. I'm living in someone's spare room. Things aren't necessarily coming together. I'm barely making my bills.

And I did. I had, you know, extreme anxiety. I actually went to the doctor and I said, hey, I used to have a prescription for Xanax. Can I get a prescription for X? They're like, how long ago? And I was like, oh, well, this long ago, you know, 20 years ago. She was like, yeah, we're not just writing prescriptions like that anymore. She's like, that's just not going to happen.

And she said, you have to first, I can give you this. It's non-habits. So I end up with multiple scripts, never got to Xanax. Because I finally was like, look, they're bleed me. I'm 600 bucks into this. Multiple trips to this. I'm never getting Xanax. And you know what?

At this point, I'm starting to make money and I'm feeling okay. Yeah. Things are coming together. Yeah. So I don't need the Xanax. Right. But, yeah, but 20, 25 years ago, as soon as you walked in, boom, what do you need? Yeah, dude.

And you could tell them what you know. I need this. I need that. My dad was on. I need this. I need more milligrams than that. My God. What do you think I am?

All right. Hold on. Calm down. Yeah, immediately. And now it's way different. There's legislation for it. There's, you know, it's all recorded and everything. And it's because, you know, just like everything else, they were able to monetize it.

They saw that there was just this huge ability to monetize it. They saw a whole new financial market opened up. And then the people at the top of the totem pole were like, Okay, well, we just need to lean into this. And they did, and people got addicted. And then, you know, it's funny because there's a whole medication-assisted treatment dynamic now that enters and monetizes just as well, if not better than the straight, you know, just handing out process. So it's well-funded and it's never going away.

And it's cyclical. I think probably 10 years from now, you're going to be right back to being out. We had a doctor in time. We called him Dr. Dispenser. His name was like, I forget his name. I don't want to call him out. but his last name rhymed with dispenser. So it was like, his last name was like Dispenzo or something like that.

We called him Dr. Dispenser. And I never believed the myth until one day I went in there. And he's like, you know, I see you're a new patient. I'm like, yeah, I came from such and such practice. They don't take my insurance anymore. I'm over here. Okay, great. What seems to be the problem?

And I'm like, well, you know, I've got my back injury, my shoulder injury. I show him the scars from the surgery. And I said, basically I'm at the point now where, you know, of course, I walked in like this. Yeah. I just my quality, you know, all the keywords, my quality of life is low. I just, you know, I feel lethargic. I don't, I don't really feel the desire to move forward in life or be productive because I'm just, it's just chronic, chronic pain all the time.

And he's like, really? Yeah, check. Check. Do you need more of a breakthrough pain medication or do you need something more to get you through the day? I don't know. Frankly, there's times where I'm just, it's nagging pain all day. And there's other times that you nailed it, bro.

So it's like, okay, well, I, and I remember my last doctor, when I went through this last time he gave me a little it was a little green pill oh that's a code on 15 milligram you gave you something that strong yeah it was that one well first it was a pink one and then that didn't seem to do the trick so they gave me the green one and then the green one really wasn't doing so well but i imagine since it's been a while i probably would be okay with the green one well you know what if the green one wasn't doing so well we're going to give you it's more of a cream colored it's a 20 milligram and i'm like thanks buddy you you're reading all the signals properly but but i'm I also want you to, and they would just push it on you.

I want you to also have something that's more of a time release. That'll get you through the day. Dude, I walked out of there with time release and 20 milligram code on for breakthrough pain. Not a thing wrong with me. I mean, it aches and pains from football, but I certainly, you know, there's cancer patients that are on their deathbed that are, you know, getting less prescription than that and doing perfectly okay with it.

So I resonate your sentiment that the doctors would easily dispense this stuff at that time. Did you see there was a thing on, I mean, not that obviously there's the, you know, there's the whole, that family, the, I forget, the Shackleford's or something like, the Shackleford family or something like that. The Purdue Pharmaceutical family? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

I think it's like the Shackleford family or something. Anyway, but there was a, there was a multi-part series fiction, of course, a scripted series on a Netflix called something about something pain. And it was, and it talks about the whole, you know, they basically, they dramatize the epidemic. and how they push it and how the doctors would get kicked back and how the doctors were and how they would get around the law that said this so okay well instead what we're going to do is we're going to have you we'll pay you to come and do this we'll i mean it was yeah it was it was really it was a great it was a great uh series but it's the same thing guys would walk in they say the

right thing they do the right thing they boom boom and of course he's incentivized to it he wants well i'm also going to give you this of course you are well and that's what i was going to say is there was a whole thing going right here in your home state where people would fly down here to these pain clinics because you guys had the loosest regulations on this. And it was so crazy, they were being incentivized to dispense oxy cotton and Xanax. Yeah. These were, this was the cocktail that they would give people. And to your point, the incentives that they were given the doctors were from the people

who sold cotton and the people who sold Xanax, which was Purdue Pharmaceuticals, was cotton. And I'm not sure about the Xanax. But the bottom line was that these two things always aligned from a financial incentive for the doctor. Do you realize how contraindicated those two are? The opiate, a heavy opiate, and opiate is a respiratory depressant. It's a narcotic analgesic, analgesic, however you pronounce it.

People think it gets rid of your pain. It doesn't. It changes the way your body feels the pain. So, for instance, when you have a shoulder surgery and your bones been stapled into, there's acute, sharp pain there. And what the opiate does is it changes the way your body feels that and it makes it a more pleasurable sensation. And it puts you in a state of euphoria.

So mentally you don't recognize the pain as deeply. It's more like, well, there's a warm sensation there and it's not comfortable, but it's not this pain I can't deal with. And it causes respiratory depression. So you watch all the overdose, not all, but the vast majority of the overdoses that happen with opiates are opiates combined with benzodiazepam, like Valium, Xanax, Larazepam, these types of things. So the fact that a doctor would be prescribing cotton with Xanax, bro, that's like, It's like prescribing a suicide cocktail. And the amount of deaths, it was insane, bro. So it was one of those things where there was, there was no oversight or whatever oversight

there was, you know, they were getting lobbied in their pockets padded just like it does in every other element of that ecosystem. But they were killing people left and right, bro. And it was insanity. And then finally it got to the point where it was so wide, people were so widely aware of it that they were like, well, we can't just continue to let this go. We have to act like we care and do something about it. And then, you know, that's when the I stop legislation and stuff like that came through.

and they put a screeching halt to all that. Yeah. I was going to say, I've written, I wrote a story called Pain about it. It was about the American Pain, which was one of the largest pain clinics in Florida. And I also wrote a book called Generation. Does your audience know how much you write, bro?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had no idea, man. I walk in your place, you got freaking, like, world-class paintings that you painted, your freaking author. This guy's many splendored. So I'm like, I know, and then eventually they came in and like you said, listen, they had the, what they call it?

the Hillbilly Express where guys were coming. Cotton Express. Yeah. And they, no, pill billies. Pillbillies. They would drive down I-75 and hit, there was a flight, though, that they called Cotton Express. Yeah, it was like the same flight that they would go like Michigan to Florida,

Michigan to Florida, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, I bet you're right. They did the doctor shopping, that, whatever that program or system is now, so they can't do that. No, they got the legislation in place where there is a computer system that monitors and you can't get it filled and so on and so forth. And bro, frankly, that whole time frame when all that was going on, kind of like, you know, your heyday for your, you know, your financial crimes was during

a heyday for real estate and mortgages and stuff like that. My, you know, the real heavy part of my addiction was in the heyday of opiates and benzos. So I remember to what year is this? What year is? Yeah, so we're talking. I graduated in 2002. So 2000, you know, late 90s into 2000.

What's that? I was a freshman in high school going down to the nurse's office, eating my hydros. Okay. And then, you know, it would just progress from there and it got worse and worse. When it really started getting bad, I remember, I'll never forget this. I was working at a car dealership and I had been, I lost a scholarship to play football because of an injury. Now, truth be told for the fact checkers out there, it was a Division II scholarship. So it was an academic scholarship because D2 schools can't give athletic scholarships.

but it was kind of understood that as an 82 average student that I wasn't compelling in my grade getting, but the fact that I was a strong quarterback in defensive safety that I was getting the scholarship. And then I injured my shoulder and then all of a sudden the funding from my scholarship went away. So you do the math. But the reality of the situation was at that time, bro, we're talking 2000. I was on pills right then and there. But moving into what I'm explaining about the car dealership, I was 19 years old working at this car dealership, taking my year off and then trying to go back to college.

And I remember I go up to the wash bay to pick up a delivery, a car that I was selling to a customer. And it was like a quarter mile or a quarter mile or less up the road. I drive up there and all the guys in the wash bay are just stuck. They're just cleaning cars, big smiles on their faces, slip not playing in the background. I'm like, hey, hey, guys, like, what are you doing? And, huh? Long story short, one of the guy's fathers had cancer and he just had a cocked.

I mean, the freaking Pringles can pill bottles in the medicine cabinet. Right. And he had passed away. So, you know, the kid was devastated. His dad died. But then he went and found this freaking jackpot of all these opiates and penzos and stuff. And he was bringing in handfuls of these pills and just passing them out. And he's like, dude, you got to try this.

I'm like, well, he's like, it's like, it's a happy D. Like, what's a happy D? He's like, it's like, it's called Dilaudid, man. It's a happy D. So he gives me the pill. He's like, now this is like six milligrams or three, whatever it was. He goes, break it in half. I'm like, oh, okay.

He's like, dude. He goes, take it easy with this thing. This is strong shit. I'm like, all right, fine. So I put it in my pocket. Or no, I cracked it and half. I took half of it. Go back down.

I do my delivery. It was very quick. It was like a 15-minute paper and sign and go. And I get in my car and I'm driving home. And mind you, I was the badass of my town. I had a 94 Ford Taurus with three JL-12s in the back of it. It was the Monkey Mobile. We called it.

It said monkey across the windshield. This was Cato, New York, mind you. And I'm listening to Eric Clapton, okay, live. And I'm driving. and then do do do do do do like and then all of a sudden I'm like and this pill sucked it's not doing anything for me so I take the other half right so that about 15 minutes later I get in Decato New York and I'm like that breeze man that breath just feels so good and then like I got my hands on the steering wheel I'm like this is a really nice steering wheel you know and like all of a sudden every

sensation was vivid it was the best way I can describe it man and part of the reason I got so hooked on opiates it was it was like a your mother's warm and embrace. Everything was fine. You didn't have a worry in the world. And brother, I was broken stoned off that pill. And in that moment, I realized that hydrocodone, percocet, all of those kind of precursors to the real heavy opiates were just child's play. And I had to find more of these pills that had the medicine in it, but not the fillers like Tylenol or ibuprofen. And this was my new romance. So from that point moving forward, man, it started to get real heavy. During that time frame, bro, you want to hear a funny story. I was, you know, seeking out

these pills. And I ultimately, you know, I was very resourceful, you know, I was a salesman. I was manipulative. I was a good conversationalist. So I was able to kind of seek out the people that had these pills. Just engage the right conversation. Right. You know, get in the right rooms with the right people. And then you get the guy who was the plug. And then you'd, you know, be looking at the guy like, yeah, okay, I see that guy. I'm going to wait. Yep, next time I see that truck, I'm going to go and say hello myself and get the plug myself and just work your way up the ladder. I ended up getting connected with a guy who was the wholesale coordinator, if you will, for the local distribution warehouse that serviced the mail order VA clients.

So these were veterans, soldiers that had, you know, anti-anxiety pain killers getting mail order sent to their house. And he would go through and he would X out all the expired narcotics, throw them in a tote. and then it was his job to dispose of that. There was no federal regulation to it. It was just put him in the incinerator and call it a day. So this dude would just go out. He would zip tie the bin, closed with all the expired pills, throw it up and over the trash incinerator to the other side.

At the end of the day, he'd go over with this little freaking Toyota Tersell, throw it in the back, drive it back to his house. I would go to his house, man. And I remember any pill I wanted was a dollar a pill. I was buying bottles of 510 milligrams for a dollar a pill. I was buying brown cotton footballs, which are 40 milligrams, I think. because my memory fades a little bit, wonder why, for a dollar a piece. Anything that you could imagine by way of a narcotic and especially an opiate,

I was buying for a dollar a pill. And I would go back and it just, you know, just like everything else in the criminal world, that's a gravy train. You know, you milk it and you milk it and you milk it. And then he was going through and he was expiring them a month early. And then he was expiring them six months early. And then he was actually taking the federal two to two forms and ordering in more inventory. And it got to the point where this guy was actually ordering in for me to

sell wholesale. He would literally ask me what I wanted. I had, you know, customers lined up and I also had what I wanted. And I would tell him he would order it. Dude, seven days later, I'd show up at his house and he'd have a rubber made tote full of any freaking opiate medication you could possibly want. That's how bad it got and that's how easy it was during that time frame. And then, you know, once you get past probably, you know, 2000, 13, 14, somewhere into that range is when they really started cracking down on that stuff. Are you still working a regular job or this to just sell? So at this time, we're talking, I was still in the car business.

You know, what I spoke about finding that guy, you got to understand, man, my decline on using, and just, you know, the hell period of my life was from 20 to 30. I mean, almost exactly. You know, there was the 18, you know, 16 to 20 was getting heavy into these. Once I hit like 19 to 20, that's when it became a business. When I say a business, I don't mean my business, although that's what I tried to pretend it was for a while. I mean my life turned to the chase of opiate narcotics. I was so heavily addicted.

I couldn't function physically without those. You know, I would wake up in the morning. My life consisted of waking up in the morning, pulling the drawer on the nightstand open, getting the pills that I had left myself the night before to make sure I was able to get up in the morning, ingesting those pills, getting in the shower, going and having coffee at my favorite spot where I could, you know, feel my buzz kick in and then figure out what I was going to do that day to, you know, to rob, steal. sometimes I would have a job and be able to hold the job down for a while, then I would go two months with no job and I would be stealing or paunting or whatever. It was 10 years of insanity, man.

But that point was just after high school when I realized I wasn't going to play college football. I ended up getting a surgery. And that was another kind of step in the process or rung on the ladder. I got a shoulder surgery to try to fix my throwing arm. And it went terribly wrong and it restricted my mobility. And those guys, dude, they gave me after surgery. They gave me two bottles full of percocet and hydrocodone. Dude, you're talking a 22-year-old at that point kid that was having shoulder surgery,

a very standard orthopedic surgery. And just to give you some context, nowadays, they give a little local pain killer and like a little ball that disperses over time. And they give them a prescription for like 10 or 15 pills. And that's it. And then ibuprofen. So I could have easily survived on that at that time. Instead, man, they were giving you two, three, four weeks worth of just, you just,

egads of narcotics to get you through the pain. So obviously it was very much overprescribed. Yeah, I was going to say in prison, like you're not getting, all you're getting is IV proffering. It doesn't matter what happened. You leave from the hospital. You might have two pills before you get back to the unit because you're getting IV profen from then on.

Yeah, you want to hear a cool story real quick? So in the Syracuse Justice Center, I went in when I originally got arrested for it was a charge. And I went in there and the long and the short of it was I went to the doctor. for an ailment and I forget how this transpired man but I told her that I was being prescribed three 15 milligram oxy cottons per day for chronic back pain. Very nice lady and of course you know I talked to her oh you remind me my sister where you're from blah blah blah you know we talked a little bit and whatever happened

man I told her that I was on those three I pulled up the two most recent narcotic prescriptions that I was prescribed she went in whatever computer system checked did the research. She didn't look at the dates must have been because it had been years since I had been prescribed those, but I go back to my cell and I'm sitting in there drawing a picture or something like that and the med cart comes down and it's crack 22. My door opens. I come out with like, Lankenheimer, get on the line. It's like, when I get on the line, I walk up to the thing. They hand me a little cup in the bottom of it is a green oxycott and 15 milligram and a half milligram Xanax. And I looked up at her. I was like, thanks. Took it. Went back to bed.

but bro for like six months until they got wise on it, they were feeding me narcotics right in the jail. Yeah, I was going to say that, like in federal prison, like, that would not happen. They don't give a shit. What time frame were you in federal prison? From 2006, basically 2007 until 2019. Okay, so, yeah, so, man, it's a long time, bro. Yeah.

I mean, I was arrested in 2006, but federal prison, it takes a year to get there. you know you got to go U.S. Marshals, they keep you in the holdover while you're going through the whole court process. Don't they have like a 95% conviction rate or something like that? 97.8. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, and that's, you know, but I'm guilty. Like that it affects me because like you're, it's 100% if you're guilty. If you're innocent, it's still 50%, you know. That's crazy. Yeah. So like, I'm not going to trial. I'm just, you know, begging for, you know. Plea deal.

Yeah, please help, you know, something where I can get out at some point. Were you relieved. at all when you found out that what was the actual sentence? 26 years and four months, 316 months. When you see that on the piece of paper that you have to sign and you see 316 months, what does that do to you? I didn't, first of all, I didn't, I never really believed I was going to get that much because my lawyer the whole time was saying, look, we're going to argue this enhancement, this enhancement,

this enhancement. And then she, of course, showed me. What's an enhancement? Well, let's say your base level of just your charge. So just your charge might be, I don't know. let's say, let's say 12, you know, it's like 12 points. Okay. So at 12 points plus your criminal history level, I'm going to get, you're looking at six years.

Okay. They're scoring system for your danger to society basically. Exactly. So six years. Okay. But then we're going to give you two extra points because you have sophisticated means. What does that mean? Well, your crime wasn't simple.

You didn't grab a purse and run. It was a very sophisticated crime. Okay. That's two extra levels. Well, that's an extra couple of years. And then, oh, you sold more than a million dollars from one financial institution. Okay. And then your dollar amount is more than, you know, it's $6 million.

Okay. That's another four points. Okay. And they start, boom, boom, boom, boom. You're changing jurisdiction. And this is happening in real time. No, no. This is while you're reading your thing.

You're like, you look at your base level is this. But then they, you look, and then there's an enhancement here and enhancement here. So I had 20 years of enhancements. And she's like, yeah, but I can beat this one, this one and this one. She's like in front of the judge. and you'll end up with, you know, 12 years or something. And I was like, 12 or 13 years. And I was like, okay, well, we got in.

So I still was thinking 12 or 13 years. We got in front of the judge. That's not what happened. The judge disagreed. He's like, yeah, I think, I think, he's like, I think that does apply. So what's the next one? Right then that was like an extra four years. You're like, oh.

And then he's like, and she says something else. He's like, I disagree. I think, I feel like he, he, uh, um, he disparaged their name. Like one of the arguments was, we'll get right back to this. One of the arguments was that I had an enhancement for using a charitable institution

in furtherance of my crime. And the example is that you're collecting on behalf. Oh. So you're saying I'm from the cancer society. So you tugged on the heartstrings of society by saying I'm with this charitable place to rob the money. And you borrow money. It's specific.

Like the enhancement is specific that you borrowed money in their name. And it was borrowed money. It wasn't stolen money too. Well, no, it was not even that. I happened to have a badge that I made saying I was a statistical survey worker. And I was telling these guys, I'm taking surveys for the Salvation Army to determine where we place our next homeless facility. Okay. So I used the Salvation Army's name.

I could have said nothing. These I don't care. I'm paying them 20 bucks. Right. So the argument was, Your Honor, it's specific to borrow. borrowing on behalf of that organization. Mr. Cox wasn't borrowing money. He was getting information, and he was paying people for it.

He could have said nothing. These people would have given him the information for the $20. The fact that, and I had never even said that I said, this was a co-defendant said that I said, Salvation Army. Okay. So I was, you know, maintaining that I'd never said Salvation Army. I just said I was taking a survey. And they said the fact that his co-defendant said this is irrelevant. Mr. Cox, they never found the ID.

They never found, you know, and the ID said statistical, government statistical surveyor. Okay. So the whole thing doesn't, you know, so she makes that argument. And he goes, yeah, yeah, it is specific to borrowing on behalf of a charitable institution. He goes, but I feel like he, feel like he, you know, he's, whatever he called it, disparaged their name. Yeah. He goes, I'm going to let that one stand. What's the next one?

It's like, that's another four years. Yeah. Boom, just like that. And he just gets the next one, same thing. She got a blah, blah, blah, blah. Nothing. I was like, did I just get 26 years? She could have said that charge is specific to a female and he clearly has a penis.

The judge would be like, I haven't seen it. Like things are changing in society. He was out to get you. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, yeah, so I got 26 years. Well, you take it while you have humility about it. It's like you knew what you did and you ate it. You took it on the chin.

Probably a lot easier to say that now when you're out. I cried like a baby. Let me ask you a question, bro. You've never seen anybody cry like I cry. No, I cried. Pretty good, man. First day in. I was, listen.

I just stopped crying by the time they put me in the van, got me all the way back. And I walked in the unit and my sentence had just been on TV. And so everybody knew my sentence. And they looked over at me. Boom, immediately started crying. I was like, oh my God. Oh, shit. Little did you know you were the superstar in there.

You were a celebrity. Guys are looking at me like, damn. When you got guys that are like, wow. I was just like, oh my God, this is so bad. But anyway, go ahead. Yeah. No, no. The question I was going to have for you is, and it's something, it's something that

crossed my mind and it was, I was nowhere near, like collectively all locked up. It was like shy of three years. So I don't, I can't speak to the amount of time that you spent. But when I, when they told me I was going away for years of my life, like there was a moment where I was like, okay, well, am I, do I really want to make it through that? Like, do I really care? And it was because my quality of life was so low at that point and I had burned all my bridges. Did you ever say to yourself, maybe I'll just end it. Yeah, I did. I mean, like I had, I did, but it was those were brief like I know what my you know like I suffer from depression but I it's it's at that time I was taking Paxil okay so it was maintained but when I got to prison they took me off it they tried to put me

on a couple other medications like you know I forget like well butchutian or some other stuff like Zoloff and stuff but they made me feel like I was yeah the SSRIs they love giving those so I was like I don't want to feel like this so I stopped doing that and then I would wake up in the morning I would feel like I want to I can't do this yeah I can't do this and then but But then I kind of talk myself through it. Like, bro, it's okay. Get up. Get some coffee.

And then you get some coffee and then think, wait a minute. You don't want to do anything wrong. Stupid. This is all in your head. You have to meet your buddy Pete at 12 o'clock. At once. Right. And then, you know, then at 2 o'clock you have to do.

So then at, by 2 o'clock, by the, you know, it keeps getting better. Yeah. And then by the time of the clock, I was like, bro, I'm going to win my case. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to be the best thing ever happened to me. I mean, you know, by the time you go to bed, then you wake up the next morning. and you're like, fuck, I can't do this. Yeah, dude.

But you know it. It doesn't make sense in your head because you know it. I could talk. But I got to that point where I could talk my way through it throughout the day. And that went on for, well, I'll let you know when it stops. Bro, that's so cool. It's cool that you can be honest and open about that. I talk to so many people that are just, they're just full of shit about it.

They like to play the tough guy role. They like to act like they weren't, you know, crying out for their mommy in there. And, you know, I just, when I got in there, man, when I went upstate to prison, I was in Elmira, which is in New York and anybody that's everybody. to Amira, it's a supermax. It's, you know, it's, you smell the blood in the concrete. You know what I mean? You, you, the COs, like, there's facilities that you go into, like in county or in

reception. And there's the spirit of people who know they're going home soon, right? So there's, like, playful jokes on the yard. There's people talking smack, but not doing anything because they're short timers, right? And then you go to prison and you walk in there and you're looking and there's, there's guys that are looking at you, like, you know, could I take him down and take his, rear end, you know, what has he got in his commissary, you know, like just very, the energy becomes so freaking negative.

Like when you walk in there, you just know you're surrounded by the cesspool of society, right? These are predators, you know, sexual predators. These are predators, violent predators. These are predators thieves. They're out to steal what you have. These are predators who get off on trying to write your wife letters. They're like, it's just disturbed. Yeah.

They're real derelict. It's, and it's like you're like, I did bad things. I deserve to be in here. But I'm in here doing a one to three with this guy who's doing 30 years for murder. Does that really align, you know? And then you realize for me, what it was, the most difficult thing for me to contend within there was knowing that there were guys sitting two to three seats away from me at the lunch table who were never going home.

Oh, yeah. That's what I remember my cousin. So my brother-in-law has a cousin. So he's my cousin-in-law. I met him in prison. Like when I got to the media. For the first time, I didn't even know he exists. I don't know.

My mother told me, hey, you've got a cousin there. It's Jack's cousin. I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, his name's reason. I got people in here. So I met him. And I remember after like the first day or two, he said, listen, I'm going to do what you want with this.

He's like, stop complaining. He said, there are people here that are never going home. Yeah. And you know, and so you would go and sit down at a table and guys would be like, oh, you just get here. And yeah, yeah. And how much time did you get? Oh, this.

I'd be like, man, I got, you know, for bank fraud, like I got 26 years. And they'd be like, oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and they're sitting there and I go, what did you get? And you realize, you know, how much time did you get? And you realize, like, oh, no, I'm not leaving. And he's like, I'm leaving. And the guy's, you know, another guy next to him he's got 45 years.

And he's 50. You know, and this guy's got another 30 on his 60-year sentence. And you realize, these guys are all leaving in a box. Yeah, they're going to die here. Yeah. So you stop, I stopped complaining right away. Like, within the first week, it's like nobody, and my brother, my cousin was like, nobody wants to hear you.

Oh, where you cares, bro. You're making everybody to life miserable by complaining. Nobody wants to hear it. We all got our problems. You know, and so he had a lot of good advice. He was insane. But he had a lot of good advice. Crazy people have good advice sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, he had some good advice. But yeah, it's the same thing. And you, it's funny, too, you get to know the guys. As soon as you sit down, you can, hey, what's going on? And just by, you like, even that, that. what's going on, you almost know you're like, this is a serious right here.

Like this is serious. Shut your mouth. And the other guys, you know, he may have 40 years, but he's giggling and joking around. Yeah. This guy will hurt you. You know what I'm saying?

Let me ask you a question. No, I'll finish your thought. Yeah. Well, I was actually going to talk about something that I remember watching an Andrew Tate thing one time. I was watching an...

In lockup? No, no, no. Oh, okay. I was going to say that. He wasn't doing nothing back then. No, this was recently. A year or two ago. And there was like a,

it was like a ticked. or something where he was being interviewed and he was telling a story about how he had gone to, you know, Fish and Chips Place at 2 in the morning. And he said, we're standing in line, me and the girl. Have you heard this? I have heard this, but I want to hear it again. He said there's, this girl. He's, I'm standing in line with this girl.

You know, she's with me. You know, I got a bunch of money. I'm driving a Bugatti. You know, he was, I'm entertained, you know, and she's, you know, she's with me. We've been clubbing all night. We're standing there. We're, you know, four or five people away from ordering. He is in these three guys, this car pulls right up.

These like three black guys get out. Huge guys. He just walked straight up to the front of the line and said, I want this, this, almost shove, don't really shove them out of the way. The people back up. I want this, this, this, this and this. And they said, okay, they immediately get their order. He said, and his girl goes, people are mumbling in line.

And she goes, aren't you going to do that? Are she going to do anything about that? And he goes, he said, and I could look at them and tell. Shut up. Yeah. He goes, there are some people you can look at and you know, this man will, he could have a gun. a knife, you don't know, but I know one thing. He'll go to prison.

He doesn't give him up prison. Right. And he said, and I just looked at it and I said, I am doing something. Shut up. You're safe. Keep your mouth shut. Three minutes of us, us having to wait, three more minutes of this line in this line is not worth me getting stabbed or shot right now for fish and chips.

And then he said, three minutes later, they left. Nobody said anything. We kept going. And that was the right decision. That's the right decision. Sometimes. Bro, because that's the thing. People, and you and I were discussing this before the plot about certain

individuals who say they've done in, you know, been places and done things and that you know they haven't. Because there's certain ways that you move when you're locked up and there's certain ways that you don't move, right? And the biggest baddest that are locked up are not the ones that talk about being the biggest baddest. They're not in their given orders. And orders are given in silence and they're passed through kites and things happen and they happen quietly. And then you hear about them the next day or you just happen to be in the area and you shut it up and you don't talk about it. and everybody else hears about it the next day. I was going to ask you before you told the Andrew Tate story,

did you feel as though when you were locked up that you could look at another individual and see in their eyes whether or not they had murdered before, whether or not they had taken a life? I mean, I, you know, I'm probably, I could be wrong, but I definitely felt either they had or they were certainly capable of it. Nobody looks at me and has a conversation with, me and thinks, that guy will kill somebody to bury the body.

And, you know, it's funny because even when I was, when I was on the run, and I would tell this story, you know, oh, we had, let's say, you know, whatever, 600,000 in cash or something. And I was like, yeah, but my girlfriend and I were arguing about it. And, you know, so she was saying, I didn't give her this much money. She was going to call the police. And guys would be like, why didn't you kill her? And they're like, boy, it's a 600, kill her, you know, kill her, put her in a suitcase, bury her body out.

And I'm thinking, like, you guys are crazy. They're like, make sure you use a Samsonite, but not from T.J. Max, because they don't have a plastic miner. Like, I'm not saying I can't daydream about it. But in the end, I'm not going through with that. Like, I'm not going to, you know, that's not going to happen. No, dude, but they would. Oh, yeah, without a debt. And there's some of the guys that would say it. And you could tell the guys that would kind of laugh about it. And you think maybe. And the guys that would seriously say it. And they're like, and you're like, wow, she'd be in a Samsonite case right now off the interstate. If they were with him. Yeah. The reason I asked that question is because there was, I witnessed. I witnessed. when I would talk to certain individuals, there was like a darkness to their eyes. Yeah. Like, it's very difficult to describe.

And it immediately, not immediately, but at that time I thought it was some sort of like, you know, pupillary defect or something like that. But I later- The shark eyes. I don't know if it's that. It was more of just a darkness, man.

And the funny part is I now realize that not everybody recognizes it. Like, I'll ask my wife be like, don't you check that guy's eyes out? She'd be like, what do you mean? There's just a darkness to him. I didn't really see it. And then, dude, I would do my research and find out the guy had one or two bodies.

Right. And then, you know, when I was locked up, there were certain individuals I met. People that I became friends with and moved with that I later found out, you know, I saw their paperwork and was like, wow. He wasn't kidding about that thing, he said. And I was just curious because I've asked a lot of other people that have been locked up. Some people are like, nope, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Other people are like, yeah.

Like, it's just an, it's almost like an energy. Like, you know, I'm not exactly, you know, I consider myself to be perfectly. capable of handling whatever physical business I need to handle. And I've, you know, that has been proven to myself as much as it would need to be for a man to know what he's capable of. But there were situations in there where had nothing to do with the size of the individual, had nothing to do with their rap sheet, had nothing to do with anything other than in conversation with them, we would get into a disagreement.

And they would be like, you know, you don't want to do this. And I'm like, I think you're right. Yeah. I think you're right. You can have the little Debbie, man. I'm going to go shoot hoops. You know what I'm talking about? Like, there's just,

and I think it kind of speaks to what you were talking about. Just the people that you know would do it. There's just some crazies in there, man. And when you live in that kind of ecosystem and then you get back into the world, man, it's so refreshing. Like, it's so refreshing. I would, it's funny. I always joke guys would be like, what's the difference between being in the medium and being at the low? And I would say the simplest, the easiest explanation is if you walk in your cell in the medium,

and there's a snickers on the bed on your pillow, don't eat it. Don't eat it. I said, if you walk, if you're in the meat, if you're the low and you walk in, there's a snickers on your pillow. I said, you'd be fine. You can have it. They have no idea what you're going to do nothing. You know, you're in a low.

It's fine. But yeah, yeah, it's funny. Listen, I got so many disturbing stories. There were so many guys at the medium that were just like, like serial killers. Like they killed like six people. Killers, cold blood of killers. Whatever. You're like, Jesus.

Yeah, but anyway. let's get back to your thing here where we just went that's cool bro hey so why why do you wear the the black one the black one yeah i like black truly truly all of this so i bought when i originally got married uh to my wife who's wonderful amazing nicky she's the reason i am who i am today um i it was a silver traditional just a metal wedding band and because i work out so much and my diet changes so frequently and i you know i use testosterone and the dosage changes i will retain water at different rates so when i got my wedding ring, I was a size like 16 or 50, whatever the biggest size you can get commercially without having to get like a custom made ring.

That was that size. And then one day I was, I forget what I was doing. I think I was jogging or running or playing basketball and I went like this and my hand moved quickly and off went the ring. And I was like, oh shit, I don't want to do that. So I was going to have the ring resize, but then, you know, a couple workouts later in a high sodium diet. And next thing, you know, my finger's right back to being that big.

So everybody always thinks that I robbed the bank because I was high on. Right. They hear opiate. addict bank robbery. He got high. He was on a crazy vendor. He went in and robbed the bank. And that's really not what it was, man. When I was younger, like, we're getting back into those earlier, like early 20s days. Dude, for some reason, I always had a fascination with robbing a bank. I don't know if it was Ocean's 11. I don't know if it was freaking the town with Ben Affle. I don't know if it was some movie that I watched. I just always thought to myself, it would be so easy to rob a bank, right? And I

never had the balls to like to go through with it, nor did I have really the desire to because I didn't want to go to prison, but I would just look at a bank. And I'd be like, there's a bunch of old ladies behind the counter. Most of them where I'm from have no armed security. Like, they keep a lot of cash in the upper drawers. Like, I'd be there. Like, somebody could walk in here. And the way most of the bank policies are written is it's, if somebody, excuse me, threatens to execute a bank robbery, you must give them the currency, right? Don't confront them. No show of force, because that's the safest thing for everybody involved. So the logical sales. So the logical sales salesman in me is like, I could walk in there, demand the cash. They have to give it to me.

You tell the cops that somebody's dying and it's at least a minimum with a three to four minute police response. Like you've got, how long does it take to walk in there? Say I want the money. Get out. Get in a getaway car. And I rode crotch rockets at the time. Your wife commented about my tattoo there. And I was a very good motorcycle rider. So I'm like, I could, you know, spray paint a bike, black, take the license plate off it, roll up to the bank, run in, demand the cash, get the cash, get on the crotch rocket. and be gone in five minutes. And just they would, I mean, the bikes do 15, 200 miles an hour.

Even if the cops showed up, they're not going to catch me. They're not catching me, bro. A cruiser that does a buck 10. And first of all, you got to have a guy behind the wheel that's got the cahones to whip that thing at a buck 10. And most guys that do crash them anyways, then you got this guy on a crotch rocket whose bike could do 205 miles an hour. And, you know, you would just, I had it planned out in my head, man.

There was like several different banks that I just fantasized about Robin. I was going to roll up on a crotch rocket. I was going to run in, run out, get on the bike and be gone. And then I would have some, you know, trailer waiting down the road somewhere, roll in the back of it, have somebody close the door or myself even and just take off. And I thought to myself, if everything's blacked out, if there's no license plate, if there's another thing too with a motorcycle helmet on with a tin advisor, all they're going to be able to say is a six foot something tall, slender figure walked in and left on a motorcycle.

Like what do they really have to go by? And for a long time, man, I thought about doing that. And, you know, I never obviously executed upon it, but it was always kind of in the back of my mind. So, you know, throughout the period of time that led up to my bank robbery, I just, you know, I rode the motorcycle more, got better on the motorcycle. And the funny part is when the time actually came, the motorcycle did not play into my bank robbery. But I think I just say that to say this. When we get to the point where we discuss the bank robbery, just know that there was a deep seed in me that wanted to rob a bank for a long time. But getting back to the pill thing, man, I was at the point, and nobody believes this when I say it to them.

but the individuals who were closest to me at the time can tell you, I was at the point, I don't know how much you know about opiates or dosage, but let's take, for instance, decodone. If you're going in for a toothache, you get a tooth pulled, they'll give you a five milligram codeon. And they might give you three or four for the next day or two to get through the breakthrough pain, okay? Then if you've maybe got a broken bone and you're a bigger guy like me,

they'll give you a 10 milligram code, okay? Then you get into a 15 milligram, which is what I had talked to the doctrine to give me that I told you in the earlier part of the story, then the 20 milligram, and then you get to the 30 milligram, which is they call them the blue supermans, okay, or the blues or everybody's got their name for them. They're a light blue, very, very small pill, and they're small, and they crush it easily, people snort them, inject them. I was just ingesting them, and sometimes snorting, I never got to the injectable phase. But I would be eating 15 to 20 of those a day. Right. And you're talking

a pill. If you were to take a 30 milligram code on right now, we would be peeling you off the floor and probably given you an arcane. Yeah, you'd either be upstairs, but you might die. I mean, there's a label on it that says, you know, that you cannot start at a dosage that high because there's a potential of death at a certain body weight or below. So that's how strong of a narcotic that is. That's what happens with the people that overdoses, they'll take the codone, the controlled release. And 30 minutes later, they're like, it's not really doing anything. And they'll take another one. And then it's like, and then when it finally does come hit you, it's over. You're done.

That happened to be broke. It's respiratory depression. You're exactly right. And the people who pair the cocktail of that with a benzodia like a Valium or a Xanax or Kalanapin, that's unfortunately what that's like the widow maker. I, at one point, I experienced something like what you just spoke about. There was a time where, you know, things were, this was after the I stopped legislation and things were getting very thin. It was getting very difficult to obtain narcotics. And I would not do.

I just wouldn't. I eventually did. I never injected it. I would snort it in replacement for not being able to find pills because it's an opi that affects the body a similar way. But there was a point where I was getting patches. Now, this is before was the epidemic that it is now. You can go to your local dealer and get pills like it's nobody's business. They're coming over the borders in multitudes that are alarming as even the word for it.

But at that time, there were people that were getting patches. Their grandma or their uncle would break a leg or have some sort of arthritis. and they'd give them the pain patch that would release over time. Well, if you took the patch and you chewed on it or tucked it in your gums, it would release very quickly into your mucous membrane. And I did that. I chewed on a patch. And it wasn't really, I was at the mall, I remember.

And it wasn't really hitting me. And then I'm like, okay, so I took the other half and started chewing on that. And I was like, what the hell? So these were 100, I believe 100 milligram patches. I had 50 in one cheek, 50 in the other, and they weren't doing anything. So then I put another 100 milligram patch in my mouth and started chewing on. on that. I remember that night I woke up to my girlfriend at the time straddling me, like slapping me back and forth across the face, dumping cold water on me, shaking me trying to get me

out of bed because I was overdosing. Because it was controlled release. Because it was just like you said, it was controlled release. I wasn't feeling it. And then once I finally started to feel the effects of it happening, it was later in the evening and I was ready for bed and I didn't get the high. Because you're always chasing that euphoria, that real super high that makes you feel like everything's going to be okay and gives you energy. And for me, it would give me energy to go be productive. I could go sell. I could go make money. But those patches, man, they were so delayed once they finally kicked in. I remember, bro, I went to get out of bed and try to stand up. And I was like, you know, I've never done ketamine, but I've heard people talking about getting stuck on ketamine where

they'll do it and they'll sit in a chair and they can see the conversation. They can hear people talking, but they can't move. That's kind of where I was at. I could barely move. And bro, it was hours that I was just like and I could hear my breathing flowed and I could hear my pulse just barely beating. I was like an alligator in cold water. You know, my heart was beating, you know, barely at all, just enough to keep me alive. Right. And that was a nightmare that I was very lucky. I could have very easily died that night. And if it weren't for the intervention of that individual, I probably would have been dead, which leads me to a crazy story on the topic of the, the member of me telling you about the guy that I was getting the totes of pills from the expired pills. I was doing with those people. They

were friends, if you will, back in my days. You would have friends that you knew were good people and you enjoyed being around, but your friendship just consisted of doing together and hanging out, right? When the shit was on, you weren't friends anymore. I remember I was, like work friends. Exactly. Exactly. Very well put.

So I'm staying in a chair, right? And I had just eaten, I think it was 10, 10 milligram pills, which take a while to kick in. So he had asked me, dude, do you want to get high, stay, hang out and play some PlayStation, some Grand Turismo or whatever? I'm like, yeah, sure. I got nothing better. to do. So I eat the pills. And as I'm sitting there waiting for my pills to kick in, I see him pull out this leather, like, you know, the leather men will use them for their, like, their toiletries

and their bathroom stuff, their little cases, travel cases. He pulls out one of those and he opens it up. And on the side that would have like the scissors and the cuticle scrubber and the tweezers and stuff like that with a little elastic band is, there's a syringe, a spoon, and a lighter. And on the other side, the little zipper part where you would have your, you know, whatever, your band aids and your first aid stuff. There's all these little bags. Like, what the frick? And then it just, I'm like, this is, this is.

Right. Like, John, are you about to shoot? To me, it was such a dirty, dirty thing. I could not. This is a guy who was a licensed pharmacist, and he ran a warehouse, right? And we're in a relatively nice apartment with surround sound speakers and a big TV. Tons of access to pills. That's the thing.

I'm like, dude, you got a bottle full of oxies out there. You can snore it. He's like, Luke, I make the money sell on the oxy. I can get the stuff for $15 a bag. I shoot one bag. I'm good all afternoon. And of course, the bargain hunter in me is like, hmm, that sounds like a decent proposition.

Let's see what this is all about. So I look over at them. And I just remember the ritual of the bag and the cotton. And you know what's crazy, man, is in jail. Did you ever have any substance abuse issues? Or for you, you're just a badass crime committed. For me, it was I was able to get into a little bit nicer living conditions in jail after a while because I agreed I was an addict and I needed

help. And so you'd go to these support groups. And I remember in those support groups, people would tell stories of addiction. And I remember this guy came in to speak and he took a Bick pen and he disassembled the Bick pen and he talked us through in a very illustrative way of, you know, the ritual of burning the spoon and the cotton and all this stuff. And I'm watching these guys, bro. And they're like, they're looking like they're about to.

have an orgasm, right? And all of a sudden, he's like, he's like, okay, and he's like, and then I draw back and he pushes the big pen into his forearm, and he goes, and then I push. And he looks up, three hands go up. And he's like, you got to go? You got to go? Go ahead. And I'm like, what?

And he's like, who wants to tell them what you have to do? And some guy in the back goes, I got to take a shit. These guys were such, they were such like, head. heavy users of intravenous that when the ritual of going through that process, it fucked them up so bad. Yeah. They had to take a shit because apparently for whatever reason when that, I don't know, man, all I know is I'd never been more disgusted and astounded in my life that this guy with

words and a big pen could make three guys in the room have to take a dump. It was incredible. And he automatically knew. He knew it. He's like, he's like, he's running the group for fucking 10 years. Well, that was the whole point of the ritual was he was basically showing us, do you see what losers you are? Like, I can take a big pen and make half of you have to take a dump.

Like, what control do you have over yourselves in society if I have this control over you? And, dude, in that day, number one, I was so glad I never shot with a needle. And number two, I was like, this is not me, dude. I am not this guy. Like, I'm a criminal. I committed my crime. I'm doing my time. But when I'm out of here, fuck this, man.

This is not who I am. So getting back to in that apartment, he takes out this thing and he, you know, sets his whole thing up. And I remember looking at this nasty, gooey, brown liquid in this. a syringe. And, you know, he does the belt, he draws it tight, he finds a vein, he shoots. And I just watch him. And the needle's still hanging out of his arm and he's just nodding out this way, nodding out that way. And then he nods forward and he waxes his head on the window air conditioning unit. And he just kind of slumps over. And I'm like, Elena, like, is, like, is he okay? And she's like, yeah, he's fine. He's just on the nod. And I remember thinking to myself,

what is enjoyable about that? Like, I wanted to get high and play PlayStation. Like, he's dead. And then, so I'm playing, and, you know, his car is sitting there, idling on the screen. And I'm driving, you know, paddle shift. And I look over and I'm like, this is not breathing. So I go over there and I pick him up and I'm like, Josh. And I'll never forget that sound. And you know an addict when you're talking to him. You know, my throat's messed up right now from traveling.

I'm not feeling so well. But when you talk to an addict that's been using a long time, I don't know if you've ever noticed, but they have a very like a very dry raspiness to their voice and it's from that respiratory depression for such a prolonged period of time it affects the way they speak so he's just moaning and making these weird noises so I go back and I sit there she's like Luke leave him alone he's enjoying this and he's like eh and I'm like okay he's enjoying it

like whatever so I go back to doing my thing and I look over and Matt his lips are purple and I'm like that's not normal I don't care how high you are your lips shouldn't be purple so I go and I pick him up and I lay them on the couch and I watch him for a minute and his skin's white and the veins in his face and his hands are blue

and his lips are purple and then I'm watching his chest and I'm like he's not breathing like it dawns on me and then it's like he's having a overdose like everybody listening to this

is like yeah he was overdosing and me in the moment we were just users it's what we did but I'm like this guy's having an overdose so I go to in this I'll never forget this man I said Elena

call 911 911 are you kidding me I'm not calling 911 911 I said you're child's father is dying on your couch. She's like, well, do something. I said, okay, I grabbed her phone. I called 911.

They said, what is your emergency? I said, we have somebody overdosing on, we need an ambulance, and I handed her the phone. Remember, she had the baby on her hip. So there's a baby in there while the dad's shooting. And it was just one of those moments of clarity where I'm like, what am I involved in? Like, what am I doing? So then I kind of just snapped to, and I didn't, I'd never been trained in CPR, but I knew about where his heart was, and I knew that he needed air in his lungs.

So I just lip-locked with this guy and blew in. And I'll never forget how bad his breath was and how nasty that. I mean, bro, but he's dying, man. I'll miss him. So this is a moment in your life where you learn something about yourself. And the thing I learned about myself that day was I do have some nobility even in the throes of addiction. I'm not going to let a child's father die in the house in front of the child. You know, if we were in an alley somewhere to keep it real with you, I might have considered running just because of the state of mind that you're in.

And even then, I don't think I could have done it because my logical deduction skills would have said, I doubt a judge is going to sentence me to jail time for saving somebody's life. You know, that's the lesser of the two evils. So I remember I gave him mouth to mouth and it was the most, I almost vomited in his mouth. That's how disgusting that exchange was. And then I was giving him chest compressions. And then the first responder shows up, doesn't it happen to be a mechanic that I used to work with? So now I'm like in the beginning stages of the rough part of my addiction,

kind of half the world knows that my ass now. The other half is denying it just like I am. I'm hiding away in these little dens with people doing it. Now here, a guy that I know very well who knows me to be a, you know, a sales manager and an upstanding member of society and a good employee sees me giving mouth to mouth to a attic with needles sitting on the counter. And, you know, it was a moment of awakening. It was crazy.

But I just kept giving him out to mouth. And I look at him, I'm like, you want to take over? He goes, no. He goes, rule of thumb is if he's a minute. alive and you're doing a good job, just keep doing what you're doing until the ambulance shows up. So I'm like, not to mention he probably didn't want to lip lock with this addict either. So I just kept doing what I was doing, man, and I gave him chest compressions. And then the ambulance, they showed up.

The medics showed up. And they come in and, bro, they were so nonchalant. It was like, it made me ill. I'm looking at it. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm panicking out of breath. I'm giving the guy freaking chest compressions and mouth to mouth. I'm like, get in here, do something. They're like, oh, don't worry.

we're going to do something. Old boy will be rise and shine in no time. I'm like, what are you guys doing? Andy looks at me. He's like, he'll be fine. And I just, like, I snapped out of it. I'm like, okay, these guys do this for a living. They're accountable if he dies.

They seem to be okay with it. So I back off a little bit. They're probably thinking, look, he can be there for two or three minutes. We'll get him in the ambulance. We're going to hit him. We're going to bring him back. It's going to be fine. It's exactly what happened.

Nar cam. They got it in their pockets. He goes, what do you think, Jimmy? One sticky poo or two? He goes, he sounded like Chris Farley doing the Matt Foley impression. He's like, one sticky poo or two. I'm like, are these guys serious? But, and then you realize what they're dealing with every day and that it's, they've got to have some sort of comic relief to it.

And I'm like, all right, I'm watching. He's like, I think it's just going to take one. He's a little guy. How much did he shoot? I'm like, one bag. Elena smacks me. Like, I was telling them something they didn't already know, right? So sure enough, man, he bends over.

He doesn't even clean the spot with an alcohol. He just, like, like. Somebody just roast the day. I mean, night and day. And then he just immediately, the look on his face was like, I wish I could have gone back to where I just was. He's like, like, oh, shit. Like, are you okay?

Yep, then he pisses himself and everything. And we got to the hospital. And, uh. Makes me think of, sorry, makes me think of the Pulp Fiction. Oh, bro. Wait, what do you see? Dude, I love that movie. I mean, she's just going to die, man.

What are you doing to do? You got to, you want me to stab her three times? No. He says, go get a Sharpie. Right. Who? Who in their right mind at that time? Well, we got to whack this chick directly through the heart piece and the breastbone with a shot of adrenaline.

Go get me a Sharpie. Like, you need to aim. I love that movie, man. But it was very much like that. I mean, aside from having to stab through somebody's sternum with a 10-inch needle, it was very much like that when he came back to. He just, big gaspavarian. There he was. So they took him off in the ambulance and then there was two cops there, state troopers.

and there was the medics and everything. They all look at me. And the cop goes, he did a good thing today. And I'm like, thank you. He's like, you probably did a couple of bad things today too. I'm like, probably. He's like, you did the good thing. And that's my mind makes up for the bad things.

Don't let me catch you doing a bad thing. Yes, sir. And the one guy, like, he knew me. I didn't know him. He's like, look, what are you doing? I'm like, I was just here to hang out and play play play PlayStation. She's like, yeah, yeah. And I don't like donuts or something.

And then he walks out. it was just a feeling of shame man i'm like it was one of those moments of clarity where it's like what the hell am i doing but you know to cap this thing off this is just to put an exclamation point on this sentence of addiction i go to the emergency room because i want to do the right thing i want to follow up i want to and the doctor is talking to him and he looks up at me and he goes is this the guy and josh was like yeah he goes he's got something he wants to say to you and then the doctor walks away and kind of pats me on the shoulder and uh he's like the doctors told me that if you hadn't given me CPR that I'd be dead.

And I was like, ah, no, dude, when they hit you with the narc, and he's like, no, man, they said the response time was like five and a half minutes. And if I'd have been not breathing for five and a half minutes, that it would have been over for me. He's like, you saved my life. And I got a little emotional. I was like, you know, dude, I don't know you that well. We're kind of like, a oddball business partners, but, you know, I couldn't watch you

die in front of your little kid. And he's like, no, I, and he's, you know, of course, got the baby there and she's with him. And I'm emotional. And I'm like, thank God, I'll never, you know, everything will be fine. and, you know, we'll all walk away from this. About a year later, maybe, eight months later, I'm in a clinic, and I see the girl, his old lady. And I said, Elena, she did these big, poofy yellow locks of hair.

You could, you know, see her from a mile away. And, of course, she's put a bunch of weight on because she was on, now she's on she's eating, you know. And I was like, how's Josh doing? She's like, she says, I'm like, what? She's like, Luke, he came home that day and on the way home had me. stop at John's house to get. I'm like, what? And today, that doesn't surprise me. Nothing about it surprises me. But back then, man, and my naivete of being an early user and a younger kid and

still having some hope for the world in society, I could not fathom how somebody could do that, but that's the strength of addiction, man. Overdosed on him, gave him CPR, went to the hospital, had a doctor tell him that he should be dead, and then on the way home stopped for a bag of So that is the power of opiates, brother. But I thought that was a pretty cool story. The underlying things, man, the precursors to somebody's staunch usage or heavy usage is, you know, some sort of deep-seated issue from the past. Like, bro, when I learned that the things that happened to me as a kid weren't okay, like being forced to drink at a young age, you know, watching your parents cheat on each other, assault each other. But like the, and I'm not, this isn't like a woes me thing.

It's just the reality of it, right? You look back and you realize that those things tattoo your soul at a very young age and they mold who you are. And it's like, okay, when I can escape from those things with a substance, like that gives me peace and it gives me the reason to continue to use that substance. So then when you've been down that road and you realize that everybody that's, you know, and I don't want to say everybody because I don't want to speak for everybody. But the reality is the majority, the vast majority, and I would almost frankly say all. of people who are heavy users are doing it because they're masking some previous pain, man. And people will tell it's because their girlfriend broke up with them. People will tell it's because they lost their job.

Whatever the most recent flavor of the week that's negative going on in their life that they can talk about, they'll say that's the use that's for their d-a-d-but-one. But when you really, really dig deep, man, these people have stuff that's happened to them way, way, way before in their childhood. And their addiction issues will not get better until they remedy that. I don't have a desire to use this again, man. I don't fancy the feeling of being not in control of my faculties anymore. That's not appealing to me.

There was a time where I didn't want to wake up unless I could be faded. Now I don't want to even consider the fact that I won't be able to function at my full capacity in doing what I'm doing. The difference is that the dark line is at some point along my journey and it happened in prison in a shot camp. I realized why I used it. And it was because I for such a long time had, and I say that the verbiage that I use is I had my fire doused, right? I had this flame burning inside me to do great things and accomplish amazing things in my life. And I just had people tell me to shut up, sit down, calm down. That's not what people from our town do.

You're never going to get to that level. You don't have that talent, whatever, whatever. So I was, I believed that I was wired incorrectly. My sister was perfectly okay with fitting in and being a. normal middle class, you know, Brady Bunch tale. My father was okay with that. My mother was okay with that. Everybody in my town was okay with that.

Nobody wanted to do great things, right? And they were all okay with it. So what are you going to think as a young man growing up? Are you going to think that 10,000 other people are wrong and you're right? Are you going to say to yourself at some point like, okay, I guess I'm up. Yeah, I was worried. Yeah, dude. So for me, I found escape in the, it allowed me to.

I was finally able to, when I was using, I was finally able to say, okay, now I see. Now I see how you can just get up and go to a nine to five and go to the bar on the weekend and play fantasy football and have a mediocre spouse and, you know, a Labrador and go hunting on the weekends, how that can be sufficient and, you know, something to aspire to. I can see that now. And it took alcohol and opiates for me to finally get down to that level. You take those out of the equation and you turn the Luke Lunkinheimer switch back on and my trajectory immediately goes, you know, diagonal again and I try to do great things. The difference maker is now I'm in control. Like I have information. I have mentors. I have a vehicle to get there. I have people to show me that way.

Because I got very lucky and along the way certain individuals kind of saw what I was capable of and started, you know, feeding me information and assisting me because they believed that I was capable of, you know, a greater purpose. And that's, that's what put me on that trajectory. So, you know, to anybody that watches this that's, you know, dealing with addiction stuff, figure out why the hell it is, man. Like, go way back to the deep roots of, you know, your youth because there's something pretty dark there, I'm sure of it. Let's talk about the bank robbery. Like, how did that, how did that come about? Like, how do you go from, like, what is the leap? You know what I'm saying that says, you know what? It would be a good idea. It's nothing that anybody would,

imagine. It's not flashy. It's not grandi. Here's what it is, man. It's the, it's the, it's the thing to do when you are suicidal, but you're too much of a narcissist to take your own life. That's really what it boils down to. Burned every bridge. Borrowed money from everybody. Stole from everybody. Lost every job. Like, I would go down through and dial every number in my phone and nobody would pick up.

Because, you know, dude, you're just at the point where you've just sucked the life out of everybody. You've just been a black hole of need. I need money. I need a ride. I need help. I need a job. I need a job.

I need any. It's just me, me, me, me, me. addicts are the most selfish people in the world. And I was at the point where I was dating a girl. And I had charges pending too. Like there was aggravated on license operation. There was petty larceny. There was not showing up for court.

I just felt that like Indiana Jones and I think it's Raiders of the Lost Ark where the boulders chasing him when he's swinging down through. Like I just felt this myriad of nonsense creeping up on me and this weight on my shoulders. And I remember I saw like an ad for a place called Passages Malibu. and it was a rehab in California. And I remember thinking of myself, man, how cool would it be if I could just scratch off a lottery ticket? Get like 10 or 20 grand, get on a plane, go to that rehab, be in Malibu, California, away from everybody. I wanted to be away from everybody.

I wanted to be away from the guilt and the shame and all that stuff. Go detox, get off and then start a new life out there, maybe in Texas or, you know, California or something like that. And then one day I had brought my girlfriend to work at a hotel that was by the Syracuse airport. And I had her car. She let me use her car because at the time I was door to dooring these legal subscriptions. And I was crushing it doing that. But the paychecks were like a month. You sold a bunch of it and you got paid a month later.

So I'd sold like, you know, $4,800 worth of stuff for them and wasn't getting paid for a month. So I'm like, what the frick. Now I had just side note, I had figured out how to get the people to pay me cash for a discounted rate and get to money up front on my own. But it wasn't enough to get me what I needed twice. I had a $2,000 a day habit. I mean, so I was like, I'm driving in the car, and then it just, it all came over me. I'd always wanted to rob a bank. Right.

And if ever there were a time where it would make sense and I'd be able to justify to my goddamn mind that I should rob a bank, now would be the time. And I'm like, shit, I don't have a crotch rocket anymore. I got repoed. Damn. I'm like, well, I got this 2003 Ford Taurus. It's like I started justifying in my head how I could get away with it. So it was just that, dude.

It was a fleeting moment. And I'm like, all right, I went to my house. I put on a silver Nike jumpsuit, like a track suit, a hoodie and sweatpants. I put on some Timberland work boots. I went to the local gas station, stole a scarf and a pair of sunglasses and put those on. You know, so I'm on CCTV everywhere in this freaking outfit. And I pulled, I cased the bank back and forth. There was like three different ones I was looking at.

And finally, I'm like, that's the one, the standalone brick building on the corner lot. And I kind of looked and looked at Google Maps and figured out where everything was. I'm looking around and I see that there's a parking lot, like four blocks. up the road. And I'm like, okay. And there's like a building in front of the parking lot. It's like a behind the building parking lot. So I can tuck the car there. And then I look at Google Maps and I'm like, well, there's like a little woods and a little stream that runs in behind these buildings. Then I'm like, okay, there's a sidewalk here, the bank's there. I can park the car here, go to the sidewalk, act like I'm jogging. A couple blocks away, put the bandana in the shades on,

go in, rob the bank, go out the back door, run into the woods. And what I had done at the house, which was actually very smart, is I had put on business attire. I put on a collared shirt with a tie underneath the hoodie. And then I put on my khaki pants and a belt underneath the sweatpants. So I didn't think through the taking the boots off part. That ended up being a little bit of a trouble spot later. So I had this business attire on underneath the sweatsuit. So sure is shit, man.

I parked the car. And then I'm driving back and forth a couple of times. And, you know, it was so stupid of me to drive the getaway car back and forth across the face of the bank four or five times before I went into the thing to try to rob it, but that's not what's going through your head at that time. You know, and people ask me, well, you're just so high on that's why you did it and, you know, your mind was cloudy and you, no, I had no in my system. I needed, I was sweating and withdrawing and aching.

I needed freaking dope, man. But there was like one guy that had any pills and I knew he only had like three or four left. And I knew I could pry them away from him, but I had to do it with like stupid money. So really, if you want to know why I robbed the bank, it was because the normal. stealing DVDs or you know taking a wallet out of the pocket of an old man or the sinister stuff that I was doing at that time it wasn't I did that one time just so you know and I felt terrible and I've not slept well since that but I don't

people think I was stealing old ladies purses every day but I was like this is the only way I can get today I have to rob a bank and in hindsight Matt in my subconscious mind I knew that something needed to change right I could not get off I had tried desperately. I tried to detox myself. I had tried to like taper myself down. I had I just didn't. It was too physically painful. I didn't have the willpower. All the emotions and everything would rush back to me in the moments of sobried. I just couldn't do it. So I knew I was not strong enough to do it on my own, but I was strong enough to have the balls to do something that would force police intervention to make me do it. Right. So in hindsight, the reason I robbed

the bank is because I needed to get sober. And I knew if they carted me off to prison and threw me up in a cage and locked it and threw away the key, that I was going to have to sweat it out and I would have no choice. And, you know, that was why I did it, frankly. You know, at the time, I needed money to get. But, you know, in hindsight, I know that it was for a different reason entirely, or at least my subconscious mind was playing in there. So I parked the car.

And I start going up towards the sidewalk. Man, I just remember how heavy the boots were on the pavement. It was like a warmer day and I'm in I got this sweatsuit on and I'm already starting to sweat and I'm like shit I got four blocks to walk. I didn't really think this through right. So I'm going. I'm like, okay, now it's time to jogger. I got to look like a jogger. And then I'm realizing I'm a jogger with sunglasses on and a bandana over my face with boots on. Now I look like ridiculous. And so then I start running to get to the bank and I just I want this over. I'm either going to get to the door. I'm going to pussy out and I'm going to run back to the car. Let's just get there and then we'll take it to the next step. Right. So this was not some Oceans 11 well thought out. criminal, you know, psychotic mastermind plan. This was just flying by the seat of my sweatpants at that time. So I get to the door and I remember, dude, like the bar that you push to click the thing and go in, it was so heavy. It, like, weighed a thousand pounds.

It weighed nothing, but I was so freaked out, man. So I push it open and, dude, the heartbeat, like against my rib cage, I swear to God, I could feel my heart hitting my rib cage and I could feel my pulse in my throat. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't breathe because the moment I entered the facility. and the door clicked behind me like it was showtime. Right. People are looking at a man who is masked with a bandana on and a track suit on,

and he ain't there to withdraw the right way, right? Hard to explain after they. Yeah, and that was the point. That was the point of no return when they all kind of looked up at you. And I think there was a security guard in there, but he wasn't armed if I remember. That memory is cloudy, so I don't want to call that out. But there was some sort of administrative staff in uniform there

that could have posed a problem at the time, but I chose not to pay much attention to it. And I remember looking up going, well, you're here now, buddy. You better make the call. And I considered turning around and running back out. But it was just, I knew at that point I was getting charged with something. So it's like we just better do it. So I kind of scanned the room.

And I said, well, I think it's pretty obvious what this is based on my attire. I would like you to take the money and put it out on the counter. I don't want anything from the vault, nothing from your safes. I just want today's currency and today's deposits fanned out across the counter. No bans. No tracers, no die packs, and I need it done quickly. And I need it from two of you. And they all kind of like, look to me on, I went, move.

And then they started doing their thing. And at that point, I was like, okay, I'm in control the situation. No gun? With nothing. Not a no, nothing. Just walked in there and started talking, bro. And I walked up to the first counter. And I remember, I'm like, all, guys, let's move quicker.

Move quickly, move quickly. Ladies, no one's getting hurt. You're all going. I kept saying that. No one's getting hurt. You're all going home, but I need you to move quickly. And I remember thinking to myself, well, they don't give a shit. They're not on my team.

They want me to get arrested. I'm trying to make friends here. So I had a plastic bag from a local grocery store and I started scooping the money and putting it in the bag. And of course, I've got gloves on. So I'm like, damn, I should have wore latex gloves or something. I had like motorcycle gloves on. Obviously I hadn't thought this very well through.

But the funny part was I was executing it perfectly. They were doing exactly what I asked them to do. The money was going in the bag. I went to the second teller. I said, very good. Those ones too, because there was a little bit of extra ones and tens in there. And I remember the thought of this is a lot of money. Once I kind of approached the bank and got to the counter, I'm like,

these people probably have like a couple hundred bucks and some change in here. Like was this really? What am I thinking? I think the average bank robbery is $3,500. Is it really? On average. Well, I got just under $10,000. Yeah.

So I did pretty well. And I remember I later found out that there was just a couple decent size deposits just before I went. Like I literally got lucky. So I stuff everything in a bag. I close it up and I look up. I said, thank you. you and I turn I walk away and it would have literally been perfect except some asshole put a velvet

rope right behind the third teller in front of the door so I turn on like to run I go to walk out and right like at my knee level is this little velvet rope so it literally looked like something out of a movie until I turned I walked and then I tripped and fell over that I didn't fall down I kind of like stumbled and I remember saying I tried to who put that there like why it occurred to me to say that I don't know like I was trying to be funny I think it was just inside of me I felt so guilty and I felt so bad. Like I felt like a badass.

Don't get me wrong. I'm robbing a bank. I took your money. I just got your shit. Like I'm a bank robber, bro. But I also remember like these poor scared old ladies. You know what I mean? So I said that and then I go out of the back door and I had it wadded up and it was in my

hoodie. And then I'm like, holy shit, I did it. And I kind of looked around for a minute and it was like, and then like that music, run. Do do do do do do. You know that soundtrack that you always hear in those moments. So I just raced out the back and into the woods. and I remember like I'm looking and I don't hear any sirens.

And I'm waiting to hear somebody say, stop you, thief, you know? Yeah. Nothing's birds chirping and the little stream going through and I'm like, holy shit. So I'm like, I'm moving. And then I go to get out of the woods and I'm like, well, I can't come out. Like, okay, so I take the hoodie off and then I go to get the sweatpants off and I can't get it over my boots. So I'm like, what, what do? I grab it and I ripped it and I finally got the sweatpants off.

So now I'm in like wrinkly dress clothes, sweaty with boots on. But I'm like, this ain't what I walked in the bank with. So at least I'm doing a little bit. bit better. So I cross over. There's like a little bit of a rock pile. I go up to hill and I went up to the car and I'm like, I realized that I didn't have the keys to the car. And I'm like, oh shit. I'd left them in the ignition. I was so freaked out by the process. But you're going to say they're still in the bank. No, I got to go back. I left my keys. No, I left them in the ignition. I left the door unlocked. So I remember I opened the door, popped the trunk. I put the clothes and everything and

I wotted up the money and stuffed it all in there and kind of tucked it under like where the spare tire is, closed that got in the car, pulled out, and I didn't, like, speed away. I did nothing. I just put on the blinker, pulled gently out onto the street and started driving in a southbound direction towards Syracuse. There wasn't, you could hear a mouse peeing on a cotton ball, man. There wasn't a siren. There wasn't a, you know, screeching tire, nothing.

And I'm like, holy shit. Rear views, nothing. Like, I'm like, I got to wait with it. So I start pulling down the hill and up towards the Maddiedale area of central New York. And then all of a sudden, state trooper goes by lights like just mock seven down the road and I'm like I look in the rearview mirror and I'm waiting because I had been in many police chases between drunk driving and motorcycle chases and you know I was in a nonsense period for quite a while so I know what it looks like when a cop goes by

and then the brake lights come on and they tip up because the car's diving because he's climbing on the brakes and then you see it spin and you're like oh shit didn't happen it just blew right by me so I'm like okay so my plan was to go southbound and then turn around income northbound in front of all the cameras that I had have I'd have been traveling the other way. And don't ask me why that was my logic, but I for some reason thought that it would be smart to come back in the other direction towards the bank because what criminal would come back to the place they just robbed, right? So that was my, you know, ridiculous logic at the time.

But I did that and I started coming back down through and I look at my rearview and here's a cop coming up behind me and, you know, lights and siren blaring and it's coming, you know, it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I start to pull over and I'm like, I'm going to pull up. No, I'm not. And then I'm like, and right before I stepped on the gas and went to take off, it blew out and around me and kept going. And I'm like, they don't know. Right.

They don't know the car. They have no clue. And I remember thinking to myself, holy shit, did I get away with this? So then I look at the time and it's like, I robbed the bank 15 minutes before my girlfriend got out of work. And I timed it like that. So I would leave there. And I did. And I pulled down.

I was like three minutes late for picking her up. And she remember she's like, what took you so long? And I remember thinking to myself, oh. my dear, if you only knew what took me so long. The bank robber didn't go as planned. Yeah, so it took me an extra three minutes to knock over the bank. I apologize. She wanted to drive. And I was like, why don't you let me drive? And she's like, no, I want to drive. And I remember like, no, I need to drive because if they come after us, I need to take off. And then I'm like, do I really want to do that, though, because then I put your life in danger and I started having, you know, this morality conflict.

She's the one driving the car anyway. So now they're looking for one person. You're absolutely right. And that's the conclusion that I came to was like, okay, well, all right, then if she's driving and I'm in the pet, yeah, go ahead, sure, you can drive. So we pull away, we start driving, and she's like, why are you all sweaty? I'm like, oh, I was just, you know, I don't know, I forget, but I don't remember what I don't even remember what I told her, to be honest with you. And I remember she's like, why are you all, like, you're all jittery and stuff. I was like, I think I did some, I, I, I snorted a pill and thought it was, or something or vice versa. And I don't, it was so, there was so much adrenaline at that time that I couldn't tell you what the conversation or, you know, or any

of those details. I can simply tell you that she knew something was off and she knew that something had transpired that was less than savory. And I remember we just rode in silence for a while. And she had that look of like resting bitch face. Like what did you involve me in? What is my car involved in? And we just drove. And we got back to the house. And my first instinct was, you know, that there's going to be cars rolling up on the lawn any time now. And I'm going to jail. And it didn't happen. And then we get into the house. And I remember I went in the bedroom. I kind of like a change and I just laid on the bed for a minute and I'm listening and there's nothing. And I remember coming to the conclusion at that time that if they knew who I was,

if they knew what had just transpired and who I was and I was involved in it, I'd be in a cop car by now. Right. I may have very well gotten away with this. So she comes in. We chatted for a minute and I was like, hey, I know we're behind on the rent. I was like, I made a couple moves. We're in good shape.

And I gave her like, I don't know, it was like $3,000 because I counted the money at that point. and there was like $9,882 or something there. And I remember being like, holy shit. I thought I got a couple grand. Right. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, I'm in good shape. I might be able to actually get myself out of this rut.

And my mind went then to getting my driver's license back and getting back in the car business. And like, it was a moment of hope for me at that point. I'm like, I did it once. I got away with it. This is the break that I needed. You know, let me start doing the right thing from here. But then it very quickly dawned on me that I was still withdrawing from opiates. I had no.

So I immediately got on my, my, my cell phone and I started texting the guy that had and so I gave her the money to pay the rent and she's like what did you do? What are you talking about? I made a few good moves she's like Luke when you hustle and sell you make a few hundred dollars you just handed me $3,500 cash I was like we need to catch up on the rent

what did you do I said listen I made a move I made a flip I came across a really good situation one guy's not so happy about it another guy's really happy about it we're really happy about it and she's like is somebody going to come in this house with a knife It's like they don't know who I am. They don't know what transpired because she knew I was into bad shit.

She's like, oh my God. And she hugged me and, you know, she was all happy. And from that moment forward, she never asked another question. It was crazy. So she went off and paid the rent. And I remember I texted the dealer and I was like, dude, do you got any of those? And I asked him if you had those stop signs left. They were a pawn.

I was the, and they were shaped like an octagon. And I said, do you have any those left? The cops will never figure that out. What's that? The cops will never figure out that code. Oh, the stop signs are they'll never know. Yeah. But it was more of like the lingo.

You know what I mean? It wasn't that you were trying to code it to get it to be undiscoverable. It was more like because you knew what the frig I was talking about. So he's like, nope, I don't got any. And I remember saying, Cody, I know you. You're an addict just like me. You never don't have any. How many do you have?

He's like, bro, I got three left. I said, sell me two of them. And he's like, no freaking way. I'll sell you one. And, you know, they were like 20 bucks. It's like, it's $40. It's double the price. I said, sell me both of them.

I'll give you $200. And he goes, no effing way. I said, I'll give you 300 if you can meet because we were leaving to go shopping at the local grocery store. I said, if you can meet me at tops with them in 15 minutes, I'll give you $300

for those two pills. And the thing was, man, I just wanted to get high. I wanted to forget about it. I wanted the adrenaline to go away. I wanted the anxiety to go away. I just wanted to get high. He goes, he goes 400. And I'm like, you little shit.

Bro, you just, you know the type, right? They see a situation. They see somebody in pain. time you capitalize. He was ready for 200. Like 200 he was good. You're the one that put it in his head. You're absolutely right.

I did. And I've done that many times in my life, by the way. I've over presented an offer and ended up screwing myself over. But he's like, I'm like, whatever, just be there. So he texts me, you better be there. And, you know, he knew me. I was the kind of guy that said, did what I said I was going to do. So I remember coming out there.

And I go up to the car and he was in this little blue key of Spectre with his giant's hat on. And he looks up at me and he goes, what did you get? get this money from? Because I pulled out a knot and I peeled off 400 bucks. I said, just give me the bro. And he goes, did you rob a bank? And I looked at him and then I went like this. And I turned around and walked away. And from that day moving forward, he knew. He knew what I had done and he kind of, because he lived down the road from the bank. Like we were all within two square miles of all of what had just transpired. And he knew. But in that moment when I said that like he knew, dude, but he held it down. He never said a word about it. But I went into the bathroom. I remember

man. I went to the bathroom at tops and a half of one of those would have put me where I needed to be. So I took the coating, they had a coating on them and I crushed it all up and I snorted one half. And I went to put the other half in the little cigarette cellophane. And I was like, no, dude, I just robbed a bank. Half of one's not going to do it. And then I put the other one up my nose and, you know, went and got very high and went shopping for canned goods, Matt. That was the next thing that we did after that. And to kind of put a crazy cherry on top, we're, you know, pushing the car through. And of course, the whole time, I'm high as a kite now.

But I'm like looking over my shoulders, people that are looking at me. I'm wondering why they're looking at me. I'm like, somebody's got to know, right? It's like that feeling of paranoia, that something so monumental has just transpired that somebody's got to know. And they didn't, man. And then it was probably two or three hours later. Right around the time the evening news came on, I get a phone call from my father. Or it was a text message, I think.

And it was like, I forget what he said, but it was like, rob any good banks today? Oh, my God. Yeah, and I'm like, my dad's a jokester, right? Right. I'm like, that's a hell of a coincidence? Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, um, uh, LOL, no, you, question mark. No, seriously, did you rob a bank today?

And I'm like, oh my God, the investigators called him. Like, what's going on? Obviously not. I'm shopping with Tara. What's the deal? Right. Well, just saw that North Seneca Federal Savings and Loan, open parentheses, right down the road from you, close parentheses,

just got robbed by an athletic looking tall, six foot something man standing about 200 pounds, leaving in a gold torus. And I'm like, oh shit, they got the description out already, huh? I was like, can't help you, pop. I wish I did. I could use the money. Okay, son, have a good evening.

You too, pop. And then doof, doof, doof, dof, right back in the bathroom, snorted the other pill up the freaking nose. And, uh, I mean, I mean, you can, got to know if my dad just saw this, how many other people saw it? Somebody's going to put it together. You know what's crazy, bro? Five days. Five days? I was on the run for five days. And when I say on the run, I wasn't on the run like you were on the run. I was on the run just in the way that people use that term in jail, meaning that I had committed the crime and there had been no recourse

and I was living my life. Brother, by the time, that had happened on like a Monday. I could be getting a day wrong. Could have been a Tuesday or whatever. But it was like towards the beginning of the week and then the end of the week is when they finally caught up with me dude i got my license back i went to the i went to like all over the course of four or five days i had my father my girl whoever bring me to each township that i had scoffs and i owed money in and paid off all my fines made my court appearances and got all my little certificates of the scoff law lifts so i could get my license back at the end of the week i went to my girl and i was like can you take me to the DMV. She goes, well, I said, I can get my license back.

She's like, you got to be shitting me. Because my whole thing, and of course, as an addict, we tell our story, right? I can't get, you know, I can't get a job right now because I don't have my driver's license. The long and the short of it was, this was a reality now. I'm like, I've got them up. I showed her the receipts. Just take me to the DMV. I can get my driver's license. If we get my driver's license today, this was like on a Friday, by Monday, I will be gainfully employed making $100,000 a year again. And that, quite frankly, would be true because I had a very strong reputation for being a very, very

good car salesman and sales manager in that area. And everybody knew I wasn't hireable because I didn't have a driver's license and most of them knew I was on. So it was Friday morning. We go to the DMV like 10 a.m. I go in there and I wait and wait and wait and wait. Of course, it's the longest wait ever because it's finally when I can actually get some retribution. So I get to the counter and it was, okay, you got this, you got that, you got this?

No, you have one in the village of Weedsport that's not lifted. I'm like, no, I got that one right here. She's like, well, no, there's two. Like, there's not, like, I was just there. asking them what I owed them. If there was more than one, they would have told me. No, there's two in the computer. Got out of line.

Called Weedsport. Weed Sport goes, oh, yeah, I'm so sorry. There is two. But you paid them both. I have to lift it in the system. I'll lift it now. It's going to be 24 hours. And then you'll be able to go back.

I'm like, can you please fax over a letter or something? Like, it was the negotiator in me that kicked it. I'm like, no, there's got to be something. This lady just needs you, not me to tell her that this is valid. So put a court seal on something. Sign it as the court clerk. I'm not the court clerk. I said, ma'am, this woman doesn't know you're the court clerk.

Please, could you just sign? I said, do you, in your heart of hearts, know that I don't owe you any more money? Yes, I do. And I started closing her. I was confining her and closing her. I said, do you know that once I, now that I've paid you, that I'm legal to drive in your jurisdiction? Yes, you are. So then, would you please simply write that?

Just write, you don't have to sign at court clerk. Just write, you know, Luke Lankenheimer has paid. the appropriate scoff laws and is legal to drive within our jurisdiction based on the scoffs that he currently has signed, you know, Eleanor Smith court employee. Right. And she goes, if it'll help you. I don't know if it'll, I said, man, it'll help. Just send it over, please.

So she did. She faxed over. We waited like 10 minutes to call you up. Lankenheimer. I go up there. Okay, weeds pour, sign over the thing. Dut, you're clear. I'm like, and she goes, and here's your driver's license.

And bro, it's just this warm wash. came over me because finally for me dude like not having my driver's license was like kryptonite because I was a car salesman so I get it in my hand I've got my driver's license so we leave the DMV you know the hug my girlfriend's all happy we're all happy so we start driving she's like oh I got to pick up a laundry at the laundry matrim now I said okay would do whatever you got to do I don't care I got a driver's license now I'm happy and I remember dude when we're leaving the DMV I look and I'm like man there's a lot of unmarked cars here there's a gray one over there there's a black one over there and then I think to myself well the police depot is right around the corner.

Maybe they're just stopping for coffee or whatever. And I swear to God, as we left, a couple of them pulled out. And then just, I went from being a normal member of society who wasn't a bank robber five days ago right back into bank robber. Right. And I'm like, oh, shit. And then I looked and I observed and no, they went through a different way. I'm like, okay, you're paranoid, Luke, relax.

Your life's better now. You're going to be fine, right? So then we get to the laundromat and we go in there. we get our clothes and I look and I'm like looking outside the window because it was all glass front and I'm like why did like I keep that was the same two cars and my mind is now I feel playing tricks on me I feel like I'm paranoid I feel like I'm stressed out I robbed a bank four or five days ago I'm seeing things right and uh I go back to sick what's wrong I'm like nothing I swear I saw something no big deal so we get the clothes loaded up we get in the car we start pulling out of the laundromat

the laundromat's like three blocks away from where we live We pull into the driveway right up by the tree where we normally parked. The birds are chirping. I can hear the gravel crushing beneath the tires. I open the door. And next thing, you know, unmarked here, tourists there, Tahoe there, Suburban here, Torres, Torres, Impala. It was like seven cars, bro.

And I'm like, oh, shit. I'll never forget. Snap. She looks over at me and says, what did you do? I said, I'm what you talking about? I don't know what this is. Just do me a favor? She goes, well, I said, don't say a word.

She goes, about what? I said, about nothing. You, right, right, right. And she goes into the house and, you know, she just stormed off. Like, they're telling me, wait, stop that. And she's giving them, like, they didn't mess with her. Like, she could tell how pissed off she was. She goes off and she storms into the house.

And I come on, are you Luke Lunkinheimer? I said, why? Who's asking? Obviously, the police said, okay, what do you mean? Am I, Luke? Why? Is this the police or the FBI? No, it's a police.

Oh, okay. Yep. So I don't know. if this is true or not. But I had read before I robbed the bank that if you rob more than two tellers, it is a federal crime. Something about FDIC insurance or the dollar amount or the amount of people involved. I don't know. I never understood the logic behind it, but I read it on like three or four different forums or Google searches or whatever. Because I did a little diligence before I went in and did this. I tried to be smart about it to some extent. So that's why I only robbed two tellers.

But no, it was local guys, man. It was City of Syracuse, PD. Nodoga County Sheriff's Department. So they're now at the point where they're telling me I'm Luke Lankenheimer. And I'm like, well, if you know I'm Luke Lankenheimer, why are you asking me if I'm Luke Lankenheimer? They kind of looked at each other. And I'm thinking to myself, this is the most Mickey Mouse freaking rodeo that I've ever like, I would figure it would be more well executed than that.

You know what I mean? And I remember thinking to myself, like, are these guys rookies? Like, what's the deal? And then it dawned on me. They might not know that I did it. I might want to just keep my mouth shut and lawyer up. Yeah, I was, yeah, that's what I was thinking the whole time. It's like, so far, like they don't have you.

They got you on camera, but they don't have you on camera. Bro, they would have rolled up and cuffed me if they knew it was me, right? And it took me a moment to, because I was nervous and the adrenaline was pumping. And I wasn't like this career criminal. I had certainly done my fair share of dirt, but I wasn't, I wasn't as well read on it. I wasn't as experienced on it as some may be. And I'm like, it dawned on me that maybe these guys don't have me dead to red. So I was like, yeah, like I'm Luke Lankenheimer.

What's the big deal? And they're like, you're going to come with us. I said, am I under arrest? No. I said, then I'm not coming with you. And for whatever reason, man, they were able to coerce me. Well, you know, they used the typical trick. Well, if you're not guilty, then why don't you want to come with us?

I said, well, because frankly, I don't know why law enforcement is trying to put me in a car, confine me, take me to an undislose location. I was like, it would seem as though you're trying to divide and kind. conquer. And they're like, okay, this guy might know a little more than the average bear. And I said, I want to stay here. I want to stay with her. Oh, you can't do that. We're talking to her. And, you know, I later found out that there were so many missteps in the process that we could have blown this case apart, right? But the bottom line is they convinced me to go with them. I got in the car. So, how's things going? You know, things been a little tough lately financially? I'm like, no?

I don't know. I'm rolling in money. He's like, oh, well, is that because you got some significant money recently? I'm like, yeah, really, where'd that money come from? I said, legal shield subscriptions. I've been doing very well. You're not employed. Who are you talking to? I'm absolutely employed.

I'm a private contractor. Sure you are. And they just played this mind game back and forth of, we know what you did. And, you know, well, what did I do? Well, we'll talk about it when we get there. So we got there and these guys were, I later found out they were rookies. They were real pork chops. They had been told to pretty much not drop the case, but we're never

going to find that guy with these two freaking cowboys continue to go after it and they felt like they had something and I'll get to how they finally found me here in a moment but we get to CID and it's much like this there's two metal chairs you know the typical one-way glass on the wall and the red light in the corner and I'm like well it's kind of cool you know I never thought of be in one of these rooms right so the guy says to me he goes through a series of pattern questions and he's indexing me and I know everything that's going on while he's doing it and he goes so listen man we pretty much got you dead to rights and we just need you to confess so we can take it easy on you. I said you're doing me a favor. I was like, all right, fine, cool. He's like, okay, so go ahead. Well, I need to know what you need

me to confess to before I confess to it. Because at this point, they still hadn't told me while I was there. He's like, you know what I said, bro, if I knew what you were talking about, do you think I would have conversed with you? And I started getting loud with him. Do you think I would have conversed with you the whole way over here? Don't you think I would have lawyered up by now? Like, what are you talking about and this look kind of came over him of like like maybe I'm wrong yeah he's like oh and I'm like sweet I got my hooks in and he's like Luke you're six foot two I said three almost four actually he goes okay whatever you're tall I go okay he goes and you live three blocks from the bank I said the bank is this about the bank down the road for me that got robbed the

day how do you know the bank got robbed the other day oh I don't know it's all over the evening news he's like yeah and you've seen the videos of yourself rob in the i said dude are we gonna play this game or like like it's i didn't rob a bank do you want me to confess to a bank robbery that i didn't do like okay fine uh not gonna happen can i go now like am i under arrest right no but look look like gold ford torus okay uh missing a hubcap athletic looking tall lean guy rob's bank in gray sweatsuit you have a gray sweatsuit um you're driving a light colored Ford Taurus today that's missing a hubcap, you're a six foot tall and you're athletic. I go, well, shit, we better arrest every one of you then.

What are you talking about? I said, you're all given a police issue gray Syracuse PD sweatshirt when you graduate the Academy. Number one. Number two, three of the four cars that you guys drove up on my lawn were light colored Ford Tauruses and half of them were missing hubcaps. And every one of you is over six foot tall and athletic, I would say loosely. So are we going to arrest everybody here today?

and that same look hit him again. Right. And he's like, huh. Yeah, you think you're pretty smart, don't you? I said, no, dude, I'm just really using common sense and logic. At that point, he just kind of got a look of frustration. And he got up. And I said, and he went to walk out.

And I said, bro, am I under arrest? No. I said, then I want to go. Yeah, all right, fine. You got us beat, man. Let me just, I'll just go talk to the sergeant and we'll just get the paperwork and process you out. And you'll be out of here. I said, bullshit.

You didn't process me in. You don't need to process me out. And I get up and I start walking towards the door and he kind of like, now he gets nervous. And he puts his arm up. I was like, what do you? You can't trap me in here, bro. Like I'm not arrested. Let me go.

And then he pops the door. He's like, he's trying to go. He yells down the hallway. And they're like, cuff him. And I'm like, holy shit. And I remember thinking to myself, no one's ever going to believe this. They're breaking the law right now. And then I later found out that when they said cuff him, it was because they had finally

gotten my girlfriend to sign the appropriate statement that they needed against me, which all they did was coerce her. They just said, you know, a bunch of stuff and then said, here, sign this. I looked over the statement later, but it was the biggest pile of poppycock. They used words she didn't even have in her vocabulary and she was just pissed off so they had her sign it, you know. And that's what they locked me up on. And the lawyer that they appointed me was like, dude, there's holes all through this thing. Like, you could literally pretty much walk if we take this to trial. And then I had to, like, at that point, that was after a couple days. of visits and my dad showing up and looking at me like he knew I did it and, you know,

my girlfriend's dad showing up and asking me if I did it and telling him that I did, you know, and then realizing that, you know, they were going to, in order for me to beat it at trial, and I really believe I could have. And the lawyer basically told me we could have. And they had started me with a seven to 14, plead that down to a three and a half to seven, down to a two to four, down to a one and a third to three or whatever. Like they just kept dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping. And finally they got to the point where if I had pleaded to a six five split, which was six months of pro, no, excuse me, six months in county jail with five years of post release that I told them I would do that because by that time I had enough time in there.

I would get time served. I would just walk, right? So at that point, I'm like, okay, criminal conviction. They've got it down to an e-felony or whatever it was, whatever the lowest one was. I can walk in courtroom, plead to this and go home. That's all I cared about, right? And at this point, I had sobered up. Like, I'd been in there for months.

And I was, you know, the pills were out of my system. I was clean. I'm like, okay, I can do life now. Right. And you have your driver's license. 100%. And which they took. But I just remember, and this was kind of the turning point of my life where I started

to actually have a moral compass. And I started to actually care about people and my ripple effects on them and the decisions that I was making and the pain that I had put people through. And I remember the lawyer looks to me and she goes, we can take this to trial. They'll put your girlfriend on the stand. They'll put your dad on the stand. They'll put all these people on the stand. And not one of them can place you there.

There's nobody that can place you there. There's nobody that can place that money in your hand. There's no, she says, there's reasonable doubt everywhere. You can walk. And I'm like, man, put her on the stand. They're going to badger the shit out of her. They're going to make her cry. Put her dad on the stand.

He didn't sign up for this. He's done nothing other than let me borrow money and give me pills. And like, he's been nothing but a good guy to me. And then I'm like, and then my father. That was like the icing on the cake. They're going to put my dab in the stand. They're going to ask him to reference my character. He's going to tell him I'm a piece of shit.

Like, I just don't want to go through that. And I don't want them to go through that. And it's time for me to pay the piper. And it's time for me to just handle my shit. So I told her, I was like, nope, tell him that we'll do a six, five split. And she goes, they're not going to do a six five split. And I said, why? She goes, because this district attorney has said he will either go to trial and lose,

or he's not going to go below state time. So you must do state prison time. You must be tagged with a felony. otherwise he's going to go to trial. But if they do win at trial, he's going to hit you with 7 and 14. The judge is going to give you the maximum sentence. I'm just telling you. So it was like, okay, now it's time to pay the penance for my sins and actually become a man

and do my shit. So I told her, go back there, Tom, I'll take the 1 to 3 and let's keep it moving. And that's what happened. So what's 1 to 3? 1 to 3. It's an indeterminate sentence. So in New York State, it basically means if you're a Boy Scout, you can do one year. Right.

And if while you're in there, you get box time or you screw up or you get tickets, they just add months and so on and so forth. Up to three years? Up to three years. Yep. And then if you get the, if you do the one year and you get out after a year, which between me going in and getting my program, I did more than that, but not much more than that. Collectively, between county bids and the state time I did, you know, we're talking just shy of three years that I spent behind the walls, which is why when I told you earlier, I can't, you know, 15 years. I can't imagine, brother. That's just 13 years.

There's a 13. It's a whole, people hear prison and jail and stuff and like guys like me that have been in and done short time like that. Like we like it's not fun. Don't get me wrong. It's a chunk of your life. And the thing about prison for me, I was kind of scared being a short timer because when you go in and you know that if you behave well and you do what you're supposed to do,

that you could potentially go home in a year or just over or just under actually, you know, with they do the good time and stuff. But knowing that you run into the wrong guy that's doing life and doesn't care about you and gets mad at you and doesn't want you to see your family again, he can just engage in physical violence with you. And if they look at it the wrong way, they can add time to you or if he's got it in good with the CEO. You become,

and you know when you, and you did federal time, correct? State time is different, okay? And I'm not saying it's any easier or more difficult, but I will say this. The federal,

from what I've been told, the federal time is a little bit, it's more supervised. Like there's more eyeballs on you. There's a lot of cameras. Would that be accurate to say? And there's less violence. Yeah. In state.

And the facilities are nicer. Yeah. See, I wanted to say that, but I didn't want to underpin what you went through. I know, it was true. Because it was hell, right? It still sucks. It wouldn't matter if it was writs. It still sucks.

You're told where to go, when to eat, what to eat, sit down, you know, go to sleep. when you can call people, when you can see people, no women. The whole thing, like the whole thing just sucks. It does. It would have been nicer if it was comfortable. It would be nice if it was a Ritz, right? That would be nice. But it would still suck.

People would still complain. People would still be like, I just want to go home. Yeah, people don't understand the merits every day that you have of simply being able to go home and kiss your wife, right? Or, you know, engage in physical, you know, in lovemaking or the things that we take for granted. And, you know, even if some guys only getting laid once a week is, I'm only getting once a week. We'll go talk to somebody's been locked up for 10 years. They'll take that once a week,

no problem, right? You know, and they talk about conjugal visits and it, you don't want that environment, right? And you can't get it in where I was at. You probably, could you get it in Fed? Could you get conjectals and fed? No. There's no conjugal. So it's funny when people talk about that. You're talking like guys that are in state supermax is doing life for 10 murders. They marry some, you know, random chick off the internet. Yeah, they can get a conjugal visit and pay for it. But it's not, People think, oh, you can just go in a trailer and have sex with your wife. It's no big deal when it's not, in fact, the case. Yeah, I think, and even then I think you have to be at a certain custody to do it.

And I think that it's like every, it's like every sick, you get like two a year or four a year or something like that. Yeah. It's not, yeah, it's not what it appears to be. The state time, man, like there's no cameras. Like in the reception facility that I went, I was supposed to go into Elmira reception facility, which is a supermax. And I was supposed to be there for like two to three weeks. and then get transported off to whatever medium facility that I was going to. I ended up there for, I believe it was nearly six months.

So I'm a guy that robbed a bank nonviolently in for my first felony, and I'm in with murderers, rapists in a supermax facility, right? So when we talk about hard time and difficult prison sentences, it wasn't the duration of the time that I was in there. It was the volatility of the environment that I was in. I shouldn't have been in that environment. Excuse me. I should have been in and out of reception.

I should have been to a medium. I should have been doing my time. But somebody, somewhere along the way, they tell me, misplaced my paperwork or my paperwork got mixed in. I ended up there for like six months, man. And then I got granted a shock camp, which meant you get to go to shock camp. And if you do shock camps, essentially, it's a paramilitary boot camp. Yeah, yeah.

You go there, some guy screams at you, it calls you, you know, a jerk and says he banged your mom all morning and, you know, all that shit and pushups and throw your mattress off the window. and chain gangs and all that stuff, which I did all that, but that's meant to get time off your sentence. Okay? By the time I was given the shock program, I actually ended up doing the same amount of time that I would have done without the shock program. I just did six months of it in living hell. So I literally was supposed to go into a medium facility or to a reception facility for two to three weeks, go to a medium and go to the medium for like seven and a half or eight months or whatever the good time would have been and gone home.

I ended up going to a super max for the better part of six months. then getting transported to the Lakeland Shock reception facility where they still make you do the shock program, all the military stuff, but it doesn't count off your time because you're not in program yet. And then getting sent to the shock program. So I ended up doing more harder time than I was ever supposed to do. And it was because I was supposed to be going home early on the shock program. So reality is I should have done six months plus the three weeks of reception. I ended up doing like a year, like just over a year.

by the time it was all said and done. So I can say this. I would have rather done two years or three years in a medium facility, just bidding and working out and doing my thing and eating and whatever than going to hell for a year straight. I will say that. But of course, now in hindsight it was character building. It certainly taught me how to move in the rougher part of prison.

I met some people that were interesting individuals that ended up going in a very bad way, losing their program and going back to prison and doing more time than they would have done in the first place. I also met some guys that the correction system, like myself, it worked. It showed them, you know, I don't want to be here. This is what happens when you screw up. Like, either change your path and do something different or continue to be a recidivist and come back to this environment. And it did its job on me, man. You'll never catch me having some guy screaming in my ear, throwing my potatoes across the room, calling me a little bitch.

And it's never going to happen again. You're never going to catch me putting myself in a position where they're going to take my freedom. And I'm certainly never going away from my wife and kids. So the correction system worked on yours truly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, me too. I'm good.

I'm all good. You know, you've heard this. You know, the worst day out here is better than the best day in there. 100%, man. So I hear you. And the time, it's funny because, like, it doesn't, no time. Any time is too much time. You know what I'm saying?

Like guys are, you know, I got three years. I got, you know, I, you know, I should have gotten one year or I should have, you know, it doesn't matter. You always feel like you, there's only like three people I know. No, sorry. There's only two people I even know that ever when I asked them how much time they got. Didn't everybody says like, well, I got too much time. Like I, they should have, they could have given me 10.

They could be 12 or 15 or whatever. There are only two people I've ever met that said, said that they were totally okay with their time. They were happy with the time. And they got like, no, no, I got it easy. You said two? Two. You now know three. Oh, okay.

Because as much as it sucked, and when I say I did much harder time than I should have and I should have. But the reality is it's the latter part of what I said. I would have rather done two or three years that were easier. But listen, man, I robbed a bank. You know, I walked in, those people went to business, excuse me, those people got up and went to work that day, planning on counting money and depositing checks and cashing paycheing, checks and saying hi to Steve at Dunkin' Donuts on his way home. Like these people went to go live their normal day-to-day lives.

At one point during their day, they didn't know if they were going to make it home. Right. They didn't know if I had a 40 caliber talked in my waist. They didn't know if I was going to plug one of them to make a point to try to get the money. They didn't know if there was a team of guys that were going to run in behind me, kick them all in the head and, you know, take the vault. They didn't know.

And it's the not knowing sometimes that is so, you know, PTSD-inducing and so mentally, you know, difficult for individuals like bro you've done some badass shit in your life right like you've done things and your balls have hung lower than most people would ever consider in their entire life the shit that you did like and i'm not glorifying criminal behavior what i'm saying is man it takes a certain type of to do what you did like when i heard and it's just reality bro like my like and again i'm not trying to glorify what you did i'm just saying bro like there's people and and what did i say to Jess before she went to work, I was like, you know, what you did fascinates me. It requires a high level of business acumen.

Like, take what you did and apply that to a high level Fortune 500 business in some sort of financial strategy to try to cut a corner or save some time or make some money. Bro, and you're a millionaire investor who's revered by Fortune 100 companies, right? No, whatever in your life, whatever time your compass pitched and sent you on the wrong direction, And you ended up doing that same work, but just for the wrong reasons. Bro, you found a way to make millions of dollars to your pocket, right? Yes, you broke the law. But I venture to say, and I can say this with absolute confidence,

that if you had the right mentorship at the right time and the right guidance, you could have applied that same skill level and that same acumen to leverage millions of dollars. Maybe not 10, 20, 30, 11, whatever million it was, maybe 1.6, maybe 800,000, maybe 2.6. three because it's always harder to make it the right way than it is the wrong way and that's why it's called breaking the law but dude somebody of your mental structure and your capabilities does like look at what you're doing now like to you this is your podcast this is what you do it's just your thing right bro there's people watching this they're like mac cox bro like holy shit he's a superstar bro and like his podcast it's ridiculous but but you want to know why though bro it's because you you have the the low hanging

and fruit to say, there's two things about it, man. It's the ability to take a risk, okay, and say, get, I'm going to dash into the fray. I'm going to pursue this thing, and I'm going to kick ass with it because I believe I deserve a seat at that table the same way every other does. It's the same way as I showed you that text message from one of my employees, dude, you're going on inside true crime with Matt Kauff. It was like, I was going to jerk off Donald Trump. He's like, dude, that's the most incredible thing you've ever told me.

Like, I don't know if jerking off Donald Trump would be a positive thing, but my point to be, I just kind of rolled off the tongue. But my point being that it was like some sort of magnificent feat that would be, you know, unmentionable for a period of time. But the point I'm trying to make is this. You resonate with people at a very high level that have interest in what it is that you talk about and what you do. Okay.

And you are a celebrity in that space to them. Okay. I get people that engage in, like I just had several the other day. We're running stronger ads now. I'm building my company. I'm leveraging social media. man, I'm on the plane and I'm in my CRM, which is, you know, your, your, your customer resource management or whatever it is.

It's an acronym for your, how you handle your customers and communicate with them. And this guy's like, wait a minute. I'm actually talking to Luke, big Luke. Right. I'm like, yeah, this is me on my, you know, first class plane seat on Breeze Airways. Yeah, it's like, like, what's up, man? He's like, I can't believe I'm actually talking to you. Bro, I've been following your stuff for a year now.

I'm selling four cars a day instead of four cars a week like I used to. Like, thank you so much. Da-da-da-da-da. I can't believe I'm talking to you. And it's like, okay. So I've had a significant impact on the life of this individual. Why? And it goes right back to what I just said.

I had the balls to say, I'm going to chase this thing and I'm going to do what I want to do. I had a certain level of business acumen that I paired with that ability to take risk and that tolerance for it. And then I just forced myself into that ecosystem and tried to take over. And I am. So I'm simply saying all that to say this. You did an incredible thing. It was a bad thing. by virtue of how society views it,

but you still did an incredible thing. And then you made it through 13 years in federal prison. Bro, most people would crumble. They would check into PC. They would cry. They would write their mommy. They wouldn't be able to handle that. I feel like I did all that.

It just happened. I just ran out of the clock. It's just, yeah, right? But what I'm saying is this. The people that I've met that have done some of the most dastardly crimes, done some of the worst abuse of narcotics, done some of the most. And really, it boils down to kind of the line, the line of symmetry.

Okay. On one side, there's people that have done crazy nonsense criminal behavior, but it's been on the outskirts of reality, right? Like your thing, dude, like crazy. Mine, like, it wasn't a speeding ticket. I freaking walked into a bank and robbed a bank and ran out with cash. Like, most people don't have the balls to do that. Right. What am I now?

I'm an entrepreneur. I'm worth a few million dollars. I'm pushing out into the marketplace trying to make a name. for myself. I'm trying to take over the sales training world, which I will do. You are, you know, you've certainly on a hell of a hockey stick uptick with this podcast. You've got a huge following. You've got a great show here. And you're replanting that seed and you're watering it and you're growing it for the right reason this time. The only difference between that line of symmetry is on the right side, we'll call it the logical and the lawful side. It takes longer to grow that seed,

I think. Right. On the other side, that seed grows a lot faster. and it grows a lot quicker and you can use it a lot better, but it's a pop plant that you can get in trouble for where on this side it's a beautiful rose garden, but it takes a lot more time to transplant, right? So, you know, kudos to you, even though you did some dark shit, but there's not a lot of people that would have done what you'd done.

I don't think there's a lot of people that would have done what I did either. Well, yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. I was going to say that I was good guys in the comments. They're like, if you just, you know, if you just applied that same amount of enthusiasm and knowledge to, you know, the right side, You'd have made, you know, just as much money.

No, you wouldn't have. No. No. Absolutely not. You wouldn't have, no. Like, fraud is way, it may be way more dangerous, but, you know, it's way easier. It's why it's against the law. Right, exactly.

Way easier to do. Yep. But yeah, you're right. I probably would have done something. I obviously, you know, what they do is they apply the, okay, then if you've done it the right way during that span of 13 years, what would have happened, you know, then I wouldn't owe $6 million in restitution. Right.

So I've got it down at like... Is that what it is, dude? No, I got down like 5.7. Okay. I'm good for it, though. So, you know, I wouldn't know that money. I probably would have, you know, a ton of real estate and have a ton of money and be worth a pretty penny. But that didn't, you know, that didn't work out.

And as far as a podcast, you know, it's like, yeah, I think that, you know, I think that I'm the kind of person that's always going to make the best of a bad situation. Like, I told you when I went to prison, like, the first, it really was like the first week or so I bitched for about a week or two. I had a conversation with my cousin and then kind of read for about two, three years and then kind of started thinking like, you're, bro, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're getting out. I mean, I mean, you're getting out someday, but you're going to do some time. You better think of something you can do here that maybe can help you on the outside. And by that point, guys were telling me to write my story. And, you know, so I, I bought some books, learned how to write, you know, how to write, um, nonfiction. true crime, spent probably over a year writing my book, rewrote it like twice, two or three times, got a literary agent, started hearing other guys' stories and thought I really enjoyed writing my story. And if I just compile these stories at some point,

I could get out and I could maybe write books, even though I was already realizing that books were, you don't make any money on a book. And then I thought, and then I happened to get some guys into, I wrote a synopsis and I got some guys, I wrote a guy named Ephraim Deverelli, his story, which is, did you ever see Wardogs? Yes. That's Seth or Jonah, is it Jonah Hill?

Yeah. So Jonah Hill. Ephraim. Ephraim Devoroli. That's him. Yeah. No, shit. Okay.

I wrote his memoir in prison. Did he really come out with the dudes stealing pot and get the gun? No. That's hilarious, though. It's all bullshit. That whole movie is ridiculous. But I wrote that story. And then while I was writing that and my book came out, other people saw me, of course,

following him around, you know, taking notes. Yeah. And so then a couple other guys. So the movie War Dogs is done telling. It is not based on my book. No, but it's based on Ephraim Devoroli whose book you wrote. Yeah, I wrote his memoir. Bro, start giving yourself credit for the shit that you do, man. Well, yeah, but I look at what you did, bro.

What happens is that turns into, I know the guy that wrote War Dogs. So I'm always very specific, like, I didn't write the movie. Right. Even though I'll tell somebody over and over again, then they'll, hey, this is a guy I told you about, they're like, bro, you're the guy that wrote Wardawks. No. No. Not the guy.

So, and the movie isn't actually based on Devoroli. It's based on David Packhouse, which was Miles Teller in the movie. The one that was trying to sell the sheets to the medical places. Yes, yes, which I had him on my podcast. No shit. Yeah, got like half a million. Really? Yeah, it's great.

So, but he, but anyway, so I wrote his and then the guy started coming up to me going, like, bro, are you writing this guy's story? Like, can I read your book? and sure and then I ended up getting a guy the guy approached me and I said he said you know we want to write

my story is amazing and I was like eh I was like he told me the story I was like is it really you know it's not that amazing

without blowing up his spot what were the ends and outs of it that he thought were cool that you didn't think but he thought it was cool just because he was a not pill mill

it was a doctor shopping okay but and you know so he tells a story real quick it was like not great you know and then as we started you know we he kept bugging the shit out of me um and then i remember he said at one point he's bro i'll bro if you write it i'll give you half of whatever we make and i was like that was always going to happen yeah like you didn't just do that you didn't know that

bro that was always going to happen yeah and he said um so i said well tell me again and as we started talking i started realizing like okay well there is something here because it's actually a group of four guys that were all on the wrestling team in high school, doctor shopping. They get college scholarships. He stays here, starts running a pill mill for doctor shoppers and shooting the pills all across the country to his buddies. To his buddies. And they're all this clean cut white kids that you wouldn't expect. Ever expect. Right. And so the more he told me, I was like, you know what, I said, you don't have any exposure. If I could probably, get you into a magazine or something. I said, then I'll write your book. And I said, he's

what do you mean? Are you going to write? I said, I'll let me write a synopsis. So I wrote a little synopsis. It was like 10,000 words. And I wrote the synopsis and I sent it out. How many pages would 10,000 words include to? Maybe 12 pages? Okay. Just a little booklet. Yeah, but you know what's like about roughly like a large true crime article in a magazine. Okay, makes sense. Which is what happened. I got a bunch of, a bunch of reporters that were interested. One guy, one guy, a couple guys were like, I can do it, but I'm in the middle of something. It won't be for a year. Another guy's six months. And then one guy said, I can jump on it right now. I said, great.

So how do you outreach these people, these reporters? Wrote letters. Just literally email them? Oh, no. Or paper mail them. No, letters. Letters. Cites. Then I get email. You know, you can't email people. They have to sign up. Okay.

So I don't have these guys email. Right. So I'm sitting in letters. eventually I get he writes me back I send him the stuff that's crazy dude snail mail good old fashioned snail mail oh yeah tons of so he he ends up getting it into Rolling Stone magazine and um I was actually supposed to be on the article and like two weeks two three weeks before it came out uh he told me that they didn't want my name on the article which was a lie by the way the guy's a complete comeback so so it it ends up but we option it and so when we optioned it they you know

They sold the guys his, the optioned his life rights. And I got a check. And I was like, option to his life rights, but I'm a naive country, man. So was I. I've known. So what does that mean? So here's what happened. I have an idea of what I think it means, but spell it out for me.

So they write this magazine article. Yeah, write the article. And then somebody sees it in Hollywood. So he's a freelance reporter and he says, hey, Rolling Stone, I've got this. Or he's a reporter for Rolling Stone. They don't really. They have some staff writer. Mostly they're almost all free.

I got you. Okay. So they saw it, right? Like some producers, several producers and saw it and came back and said, hey, we want to option this, which means we'll give you $50,000 if you'll give us 18 months to try and put this together. Okay. Try and get a movie made. And if we get a movie made.

That's their life rights. Is the movie when you say option their life rights? Yeah. Well, the life rights really is you can't work with anybody else. But their fear is like this article's out here. What if other people come to him? What if Fox or not five, but what if like Paramount or, you know. Correct.

Okay. So you give us 18 months to try to make a movie. And we'll give you 50 grand for the option. And the option, and if we make the movie, we then buy them. This is just an option to buy it. Okay. So you can't work with anybody else for 18 months. So they're paying you 50 grand to tell you to stay on ice for 18 months and

they try to figure it out. Right. Not me because I didn't option it. The reporter optioned it. And we had an agreement where he would pay the kid some money and me some money. money. Okay. So I got a check for like seven grand. Okay. Um, and then so they, he options it and Warner Brothers picks it up, you know, they option it for 50 grand. And then they had 18 months. Well, if they had made the movie, then the kid gets, then they, they optioned it for like a million

dollars. Okay. So then I'm going to get a check for whatever 18 or 80,000 or something, whatever that came to. Right. So, uh, and then you get the back end, which there's almost never, no money on the back end. So, I mean, they'll tell you there is. They right it up. It seems like it. But they expense everything out and the mood barely makes any, even as the blockbuster. They show it barely makes any money. So maybe you're going to get another 20 grand or five grand, whatever. So anyway, the point is, is that I did that. And 18 months later, they didn't do it, but they extended the option.

They said, well, here's another 50 for another 18. And then, so then they did it again. Like when I got out of prison, I just got in the halfway house. They did it again. And then 18 months later, I got another check. So they're not to option it again. So the point is that when that happened, I was like, this is a thing. This is a thing.

These guys' life rights are worse something, but they're only worth something if it's written down and published. Right. And later found out that, and I actually found out during this process was because initially the guy didn't want to put it in Rolling Soap magazine. I was like, but put you right for Rolling Stone. He said, I know, but I'll tell you right now, he said, I can get it into, it was called, uh, like I'm just I think it's called media magazine like media magazine is an online magazine wait a minute that's an online magazine is right I said no I said I want to hold it right I want it rolling stone I don't know media magazine right anybody can start a website yeah called a magazine exactly and I know that because I have one right now so yeah but it doesn't matter it gives us the ability it becomes intellectual property and gives me the us the ability optionate I was like I don't

care I said look he said well you know it's easier this way and this and I don't think rolling stones are interested, I said, let me explain something. I said, you didn't even try. Right. I said, if you try and they say no, okay. That's fine. I said, I don't mind failure. I have an issue with not even trying.

Yeah, exactly. And he said, well, we'll see. I'll send it over, but I think it's going to go media magazine. Okay. Well, so anyway, it ends up going, the guy, they read it in Rolling Stone, and they're like, holy shit. They actually gave him my synopsis. Okay. So then he rewrites my synopsis a little bit.

and they put it in. Then he dicks, he screws me out of that. So he writes that, but by that point, I'm writing, or by that point, I bumped into somebody else.

I was standing in line one day, while this whole thing's happening, standing in line one day, and this guy, there's a guy who's ahead of me, who I didn't actually talk to me. He'd been in my unit for like four or five months. I didn't talk to him because I thought he was a skinhead.

Okay. And I thought, I thought this guy's making meth. Yeah, in a trailer park somewhere. You got tattoos all over, shit, skin,

you know, thin, everything. Yeah. And somebody came up to me in the line and goes, Cox, what, what we charge with? And I went, bank fraud, wire fraud. And I go through the whole thing. And I always end it with aggravated identity theft.

And he goes, that's what I was charged with. And I go, what? And he turned, and he said, yeah, this is what. This is tweaker Tom standing in front of you. That I thought, which is him. Who is his boz yet? How are you, Tom? And I, and I said, really?

I said, I figured. I said, I thought you were here for like, I said, I didn't say math. I said like, there's something like I go like, and he goes, he goes, what made you think that? And he was saying, like, totally like knows who he, you know what? Do they know that he's covered had to tone tattoos? Okay. He's like, and he's like, and I was like, what are you here for?

And he said, I'm actually here for making credit cards. He said, but they dropped. By the way, this, I remember I told you two people had told me I'm good with what I got. Yeah, yeah. He's one of them. Yeah. The other guy was a guy who had stayed up for like a week. He was a truck driver, stayed up for a week.

on math. Okay. And driving through a... Hit somebody. Killed two teenagers walking through a... Walking through a federal park. Or a federal park.

And he was driving his truck through it. And I remember when he told me that. And for some reason, the first thing that I thought of us, I was like, because he was like, yeah, I got 15 years for, for murder.

Because they don't have manslaughter or anything like that in the federal system. Okay. They don't have like, you know, vehicular or whatever. Aggravated vehicular. They hadn't thought about it.

So they charged him with murder. And I remember But Tyra Claire's premeditation, doesn't it? Yeah, but they don't have to charge. Their only charge was murder. So he had to plead murder. And he got 15 years for running over two people. And when I said, has there anything you could do about that?

And I don't even know why I asked. Like, I was just stupid things I would say. And he looked at me, he goes, I got 15 years for murdering two people. I'm sorry, because he got upset too. Yeah. And he goes, I did pretty good. And he starts tearing up. Yeah.

And he'd been locked up 10 years. You're getting emotional talking about it. Yeah, I know. He was ready to leave. Still, obviously not as much as his victim. He stood up and walked out. You know, because I think once he sobered up, he realized what he'd done. I was locked up with a guy.

His name was Ace. Right. And now I'm going to get emotional talking about it. He was a good guy, dude. Dad, just a good shit. I'm playing basketball with this guy. He's like, what do you hear for, man? He stops.

And you just hear the tuf, tuf, dof, and the basketball stops trouble. and he's like, I killed a couple little kids, man. And I'm like, just weird silence and everything. And I'm like, and then another guy pipes up. He's like, hey, take it easy on yourself. He's like, man, listen, he was, there was, I can't remember, but there was somebody from the side of the road changing a tire. And their kids were standing there, you know, talking to daddy while he was changing the tire.

And he was on the knot off a dope or something like that, came up over the hill in the shoulder. tried to plowed through the two kids and their dad, left the father alive, crushed the two children, and he's a father. Right. So, and he got seven and a half years for that.

And I remember he came back from sentencing, and he's just in his cell, and he was screaming and hitting the walls and yelling. And finally he calmed down, and I was like, bro, like seven and a half years, man, I don't know what to tell you. I can't imagine. He's like, what the fuck you're talking about,

Lunk? He's like, they should have given me life. Right. And I'm like, holy man and so i don't know what he was going through i've never dealt with it myself but i saw it in the eyes of that guy that i met and dude like when you know you've taken the force of life from another human being and you know that you've taken somebody that other people love and cherish and these were just two kids walking through a park dude i just the black cloud that looms over

that guy every day of his life i can't possibly imagine when he goes through what's so funny is there's so many other people that it doesn't affect them at all. They can, them and that's not moving. Those are the people with the cloudy eyes. Yeah, those are the people that are just complete psychopaths. And then there's the guys that just did, it was a genuine mistake. They, like, in, they trade places in a second.

In a second. Take me, giving them their kids back, giving them their dad back. But those are the guys that suffer the most. You know what I'm saying? The guy who doesn't give a fuck. I don't go play ping pong and play spades. He doesn't give a shit. But dude, like, that's another thing, man, that people don't understand.

I don't know if you go through this, but I go through this a lot. even though I was short time and I've been out a long time, man, you know, a decade now. But I, like, when I got somebody driving next to me in a car and they, like, cut me off or something. And I look over and they're like, you, you jerk over, dude. And I'm thinking to myself, I could backhand you. And if I used everything I had and got you in your temple, I could probably end your life. And you're flipping me off through the window, calling me a mother eff, and this, that,

and the third. And to old me, like, I run them down. And then when they pull over, I'd get out and they'd be like, Yeah. Well, my bad, get back in their car and go, but I don't live that life anymore. But the reason I say it frustrates me and I go through this and John, you probably go through this too, man. But you hear these people and we were talking about one of them earlier. Okay.

Right. And they lip off and they just yap and oh, you all smug, all this or that. You've never seen somebody walk up to him and go, what did you just say? I said, I'll kick you out. Okay. And then they walk away. And then when you're sitting there quietly reading your book, all of a sudden you hear,

and you look over and you see arms up, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, and then just the blood start to flow out. And you're like, before you can even realize what's happened, you realize that guy went back to his cell. He got the stick. He came back. He grabbed the guy's wrist,

threw his arm up in the air and tagged him 20 times before he even knew what was going on. And now he's bleeding out. He'll never speak again. He'll never have another visit, another commissary. He's not going to see his release day. He's dead.

chalk line body on the ground because he lipped off and said the wrong thing to the wrong person. I am six foot four, 280 pounds. You'll never hear me talk like that to another human being. It doesn't matter how big, small, what color, none of it. You want to know why? Because I've seen somebody's life end because they said the wrong shit to the wrong person. And I tell you what, man, like, I don't know if you go through that when you see people talking shit like to other people or lipping off or giving fingers through the window of their car.

Like, does that bother you at all? Like, do you ever say to yourself, like, you have no clue what that person could be capable of? Why are you doing that? I mean, to me, when that, that happens, I have that instant, you know, that first anger. And then it drops immediately because I think, I just think to myself, I'm so happy to be outside. Like, you know what? You're right. The extra 30 seconds that or, you know what?

My fault. That my fault that you cut me off. Yeah. Or that I, you know, I'm always, I'm just so thankful to be here. I don't get, I don't let it get my. Now, prior to prison. would have gotten upset. You know, I've done the whole running and screaming, chasing someone down at the gas station. I don't even mean as much with you. I mean, when you see people act that way to

other people. Yeah. Do you, does it, maybe it's like the, I mean, I've seen people just, obviously, I've seen people lose it on the street and thought, what are you doing? Like, what do you, because I've been, that, that, you know, person. And I'm tiny. So, but I mean, you know, but now, now it's it, you know, and I don't really see, I don't drive a lot. So I don't see a lot of people. But I, I think that all the time, like, what, like, it's so, everything is so not important. in the grand scheme of things. And not just that. The worst thing is you don't, you know, I know what you're saying, but it's like, the problem is I think that everybody lives in their own little bubble kind of and they very seldomly see violence and know how bad things would go.

And the worst thing is that if they do, they're usually talking like a sociopath that might, maybe they will get into a fight with you right then. But the worst thing is if he's a, if he's a psychopath, then he's going to go, okay. Just like that guy and he's going to walk off and you think you're okay and he's going to go fill up a gas can find out where you live, put the gas all around your house and light the whole house up with you and your kids and your wife and he'll kill everybody and go home and probably get away with it. And it was two days later. Yeah. And you have no idea why it even happened because it was the wrong person. Your temperature went up and went down in a 30 minute interval. That person's temperature gradually increased over a period of 24 hours and you're absolutely wrong.

Right. And what it is for me is I have this instinct or this desire to like to go to somebody and be like, you have no idea what you're doing because of like what I've seen and what I've been through. And, you know, I guess it's an instinct to try to help maybe or maybe it's just because I'm so, I'm so sick of hearing people talk shit and not do anything about it. I think that's what it is, man. I think that there's, and you know what it is, and not to go off on a tangent here, but it's the culture of social media, right? Like, I watch all day, some people that are in kind of like my ecosystem and the motivational, the sales training, that kind of stuff. And the shit that they say to other people, bro, you would never, if you'd ever actually

done anything real, and when I say real, I mean real, you know what I'm talking about. If you'd ever done actually anything real, experienced anything real, ever been, in that situation, ever been surrounded by those kind of people, ever executed on that type of path, you would not be saying that shit to that person because you know full well at a moment's notice they could pull a gun out of their back pocket and end you right then in there and no questions to ask and not think twice about it. And then I see these people leaving comments in the comments section like, oh, like on my stuff, man, like I'm a sales trainer. I'm 6.4, I'm 280. I'm 40 years old and I'm this big. Yeah, of course, you know, I use testosterone replacement therapy.

All right. Like, you can't not, like, it's funny because I go, they go, oh, Mr. Testosterone Trainer, it's like, duh. Yeah. Like, do you think you're calling out something that nobody knows? I think you don't understand how stupid you look by saying that when the rest of the world was like, well, yeah, obviously he's 40 years old, 6, 4, 280 and got, you know, 20 inch arms. Yeah, well, 19 and a half.

They'll be 20 soon. But, you know, of course he does. You know what I mean? And I want to go to them and be like, dude, you would never say that to my face, right? But I don't care. You know, it doesn't, it's just, I feel like maybe there's going to be an inflection point. Like maybe there's going to be a reckoning at some point where somebody's just going to go off on somebody. There's a saying that it could be an old saying.

And I've only heard it maybe in the last couple years. And it's incredibly wise. And I don't know how old the saying is. But it's hard times create hard men. Hard men create soft times. Soft times create soft men and soft men create hard times. And it's so true. And when I look, when I go to my kids' little league game, and I see a team of 11 kids, two or three of them are tan.

They've got hair on their legs. They've got calluses in their hands. They look like me when I was growing up on the farm playing baseball and tackle football. And you're a kid, right? Yeah. And then the rest of them are pale white. I can still see the imprint from their video game headsets in the side of their head. They've got their gamer tags on their backpacks.

You can see blue veins through their skin. They've got no muscle tone whatsoever. And I watched them run. And I'm like, oh my God, their knees going to blow apart. There's no muscle support. Like, what the hell? And I think to myself, these are the future members of our American military. And then you get into the gender discussion.

And it's like, nothing against anybody who's any letter of the alphabet. I'm the kind of person who says, do what you do. That's the beauty of living in America. But don't for one second think that just because you have the freedom to be whoever you want to be, that that also makes you as capable as somebody else who's built completely different than you. Like there are physical lines. in the sand that don't get blurred. They're just reality, right?

And regarding his statement about some sort of inflection point or some sort of critical mass that we're going to hit, America is a big giant bullseye for the rest of the world. Here's what Americans don't understand, okay? We set the standard, okay? Most Americans don't understand that when you go to Europe, when you go to Australia, when you go to Asia, American companies like McDonald's, Burger, King Pizza Hut, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, they're just as prevalent there as they are here.

We set the standard for the rest of the world, okay? There are other nations that don't participate as directly in their relationship with us, obviously, and there would be adversarial nations. But the reality is this, Elvis Presley, if you go to the UK, they know who Elvis Presley is. You go to Asia, they know who Elvis Presley. Everybody knows who Elvis Presley is. Everybody knows who Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Elvis Presley, Ellen DeGeneres, you know, Tom Brady, Dwayne Johnson, Tom Cruise, you go down through the list.

Everybody who is a prolific celebrity in American society is known all around the world. Only until recently does everybody know who Cristiano Ronaldo is, right? And then all of a sudden it's like, well, we know who Lionel Messi is as well. And then, okay, well, all of a sudden we know who Mr. Good Guy is or Good News or whatever on Instagram. And it's like now all of a sudden there's these little sprouts popping up from all around the world of people who have said, well, the American stronghold isn't quite as strong as it used to be. Let me see if I can stuff myself into that landscape a little bit. And social media and the internet has allowed them to do that.

Now we have other countries, like especially post-COVID, that are like, yeah, let's not follow the American lead on this. Let's do our own thing, right? There's just a turn of events that's starting to happen. We have for such a long period of time taken it for granted that we are the world power. We are the big swinging, you know what, of the universe. It's the United States are bust, and that's just the way it is. It's just like being in prison, bro.

Like there's the OG on the yard. And it gets to a point where somebody goes, bro, O.T. is like 63. Like, he can't fight the way he used to. He can't riot the way he used to. And then somebody challenges him. And then once that challenge happens, either O.T. wins the challenge, and it stays the way it was for just a little longer because everybody understands that he still got it, right? or OT gets challenged and he goes down and then all of a sudden there's a new ruler of the yard.

I believe we're at a point where there's certainly some people out there that are going to test that dynamic in the near future. And it's because they see internal weakness. They don't look at us and think that we're weak as a whole. They look in us and they see, okay, well, Democrat versus Republican, gay versus stray, black versus white, rock and roll versus hip hop, you know, white versus black. They're just creating all these little mini-advert. Exactly. and all these little adversarial arrangements and they almost feel like they're by design,

not to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, but you can back them all up and find little inflection points where it seemed like that behavior was almost induced. Would you agree? And it's like, it's going to break at some point, you know? So you look at somebody like Andrew Tate and not to give him free play, but shit. I mean, it is what it is. The guy has a message. Now, he did the same thing that every other social media influencer has done.

He's absolutely polarized himself to a ridiculous set of values and verbiage and a way of speaking that got him the eyeballs. Well, then you get the eyeballs on him and you pay attention. It's like, well, really, what's the message? The message is be a badass guy, be in good shape, take care of your old lady, be the man of the house, be physically fit, make money, set a standard. Why do you vilify that? So the guy says, yeah, my wife should make me breakfast when I say make her make me breakfast. Well, if that's improper behavior, society will weed him out. There's this natural selection process that happens when people don't like what somebody's saying.

It weeds them out eventually, right? So he's going to be a victim of his own demise if he continues to say things that people don't ally with. Exactly. He just seemed to be making a comeback, but yeah. So why is he making a comeback? Okay. He's slightly changed his message a little bit. He has softened himself a little bit.

So here's what I believe. Okay. if you talk to Andrew and Tristan Tate, okay, I've never spoken to them. I wish I could because I would love to have this conversation with them. I believe if you were to talk to Andrew and Tristan Tate, you would speak to two extremely developed, very affluent, very verbose, intelligent gentleman. Did you see Andrew Tate handily put Piers Morgan away on a chessboard in less than five minutes? That's not something that you do if you're stupid, okay? Pierce Morgan is a smart individual.

And he may not be a chess champion, but I watch the gameplay. He's no slouch. Andrew Tate looked him in the eyes and conversed with him and with one hand, handily just disposed of him. Someone's ability to play chess that way speaks to their prefrontal cortex ability, their ability to make decisions. Not only that, but their strategic planning and just their overall gameplay of who they are as a human being. So my point is this.

These two guys are extremely intelligent. They haven't made the money that they've made off of pimping out girls on only fans. They haven't made the money they've made off of saying cool shit on social media. They've made some money there. Bro, you don't have the type of money they have without some very in-depth business arrangements that are worldwide. These guys do business on the world stage. You know how difficult that is, okay, to break out of just a national economy and do business on a world stage. Currency exchange, different laws, trade.

that's not child's play. Okay. So I'm saying that to say this. If these guys are that well calculated and that intelligent, where they really just sitting there chewing on Stogeys with their shirts off in front of a neon sign saying crazy shit to girls with fake boobs because they believed it would get airplay and that's how they were going to get famous. Or did they say, okay, we need to break obscurity.

We need to get a, we need to create a brand, we need to get eyeballs. Here's how we're going to do that. Phase one. Yeah. Okay. No, I definitely see that. And now it's like, okay, we got the eyeballs. We've done exactly what we needed to do, which was to show how polarized the media is

and to show how viciously the man or the matrix, as they call it, will attack somebody who's trying to bring a wholesome traditional quasi-conservative, strong male role model influence message to society. Like, that should not be vilified. And I'm not saying it should be championed in the way that they're doing it or had done it originally, but I'm saying how evil is it to be a hardworking, in shape, you know, wealthy man? Isn't that what our country was built on? Okay. I mean, it is what it was built on. It's just not what it's becoming. But the problem is this. Everybody loves what America is because of how it

was built. But everybody wants to systematically talk shit and break down America because of what it was built on. It's like, you can't do both. You can't say, but they are. Well, that's the And then the moment things go wrong, it's this is a horrible country, horrible country, horrible country, oh my God, things are going bad with our neighbors. America, can you come help us?

Yeah, defund the police. Oh my God, he's got a gun. Call 911. It's like, bro, you can't fit both of those. You know, it's a square peg in a round hole. So all I'm saying is this. If you were to talk to these two guys, I believe there's a much, much greater agenda there.

And I think it's much more pure than just trying to get hot. hos and drive bugahis as Andrew calls them and get media play. Did you see the whole Pierce Morgan thing? There's several interviews. Yeah. Well, I saw the one. It was just, and I think this was when he initially was, he was really trying to go at

him. Yep. And like, he handled it great. Like, he handled me disposed of Pierce Morgan like he was a school child. Yeah, I don't, I'm not talking about even the chess made. I'm in a chess match. I'm talking about the conversation. The conversation.

he kept saying, well, so you were saying this, he's like, that's not what I said. Yeah. And he like, he kept doing it over and over again. He looked over at the camera and made sure he was making eye contact with the audience. He was great. He was over and over and Pierce was desperately trying to make. And then, listen, now Pierce is like on his side. Like you won him over.

100%. You know why? Because, and this is something that I say, not to plug paid to persuade, but something that I say in the paid to persuade sales training and business discipline, emotion loses every day. Okay. When Andrew Tate engaged in that day, discourse with peers Morgan.

Pierce Morgan was going, yeah, but Andrew, poke, poke, poke. Oh, and you dirty bastard, poke, poke, poke, poke. And you're really a scumbag. Poke, poke, poke. And Andrew was like, right, peers, I see what you're doing, but I didn't say that. What I said was we should treat women there. You know, but you say you don't respect women and women should have no say in the matter. I said, no.

I said if I protect a woman, I provide her shelter and security, then she should be kind enough to make me breakfast in the morning is what I said. And what I said was if she wants to get up and go to work, I will provide her the opportunity to do that, but I wouldn't agree with it, but she's still too free to do what she wants to do. And he's like, yeah, but I don't think that's what you said. Run the tape back peers. It's exactly what I said. And then he like, you can see him. That is what he said. Shit. And then it's on to the next one. Let's go on to something else. And the ability, like, bro, that's just superhuman ability. Okay. Like if you were to sit here and try to, like,

if I, if I were some sort of sinister character and you were to try to break me down in an interview, if the viewers are watching and they see me get emotional and I begin to respond, It shows weakness of character. It shows that I can be infiltrated very easily. And it shows that my pedestal or my foundation by which I stand may not be as true and solid as I claim it to be because I've allowed myself to get emotional. Because here's what happens when people, here's why people get emotional. People get emotional when you start to poke holes in their story. When you start to expose them for what they are.

We just talked about this with a recent individual who was on stage. And when he started to get called out and there were holes that were. were beginning to be poked in his thing. He just got mad. He wanted to fight. I'll just dip. And it's like, no, no, no, my friend. If you can articulate your argument, then you don't have an argument.

You don't have one, bro. You can go to a child. And if the child didn't take the cookie, you can say, you took the cookie. Uh-uh. Well, I see there's a hand print on the cookie jar. There's a hand print on the counter and there's footsteps back to your room. Maybe it was my sister. I don't think it was.

I think it was you. It wasn't freaking me. Well, maybe you went and got it. went back to your room and maybe you hit it somewhere in the room go check my room mom right it ain't in there it's very hard to poke holes in the story of somebody who's telling the truth so the reason that andrew wasn't able to be systematically disassembled by peers in the media or anybody else did you see the interview with vice yes everybody's tried to take him down but he's too poised and that's why he wins the day and quite frankly that's why he continues to become under attack is because they're just they're

just doing whatever they can to try to discredit him him and it's the traditional playbook, you know, sex crimes, you know, de-masculinize him, vilify him, make him a woman hater. The next thing will probably be racism. They'll try to throw the racism card at him. But the bottom line is... That'll be tough because he's half black. Yeah.

Nothing that will try. Yeah, his dad was... Black. Yeah. So you can't... And he was a chest master. It was a... Chestmaster, right?

A chest... Yeah, he was a master chess player. Yeah. Yeah. It's very difficult to poke holes in the story of people... Grandmaster. Sorry. No, that's... You're a grandmaster. But no, that's just the thought is, you know, he's doing so well and his brand's doing so well,

is because when someone takes a hard swing at the foundation and the axe handle breaks, it's like, well, shit, we got to try something else. And then after people witness 12 to 15 breaks of the axe handle, and then you bring in the construction equipment, and then you bring in the dynamite, and then you've thrown everything you have at him, and he still goes, well, here I am, and I'm saying the same thing, and I'm doing the same thing, and I'm the same person. was when I started, you're going to, they're going to make him a martyr. I mean, at the end of the day, they're going to create, they're going to make him into exactly what he wants to be. And all I'm saying is I think that's a calculated plan. Yeah, I, I, you know, listen, when he got arrested

and as they were taken, and, shoot, where was it? Romania. Yeah. And they were taking him away. He killed me. When he's hands behind his back and they're walking down, he looks at it, he says, the Matrix is attacking me. I thought, man, you are 100% all in. Like you're not, like this, this is an act. Like you're not, you know, because there are so many guys that will act. Listen, I've been on podcast where we're talking to the guy beforehand, sit down, and as soon as the cameras come out, it's like, so what's going on?

And it's like, like, are you serious? Where was that guy? Like, what this? Like, okay. Oh, okay. I thought you were real. Yeah, okay. Like I'm the same way on game

How was I? Was I? Huh? I was just me, right? Yeah, you've been the same. Yeah, you were a little bit more of a maniac when you walk out than you are now. Had to make an entrance. But yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, the one thing I'm always good at is like, is not getting upset.

Like, with me and argue with me and scream at me and holler at me. Like, as long as you don't touch me. You know what I'm saying? Like, as long as you're like, like, I will, if somebody gets right up in my face, I get to that point where, you know, because then it's like, okay, you know, my, because I'm short, my first thought has dropped down, scoop up there. Yeah, yeah. You know, my, that's my only go to.

Yeah. But, you know, when someone, you know, but as long as we're just arguing, you can be yelling and screaming and spittle and, you know, bread in the face and calling me names and everything, like, you know, that's not going to. Like, I always like to say, like, you know, or someone will say, hey, I don't, I didn't want to, you know, I, this will happen. Like, I'll be interviewing with someone. They'll like, or they'll introduce me to somebody.

and they don't really want to say con man or fraud. They'll say, well, you know, like the thing you used to, I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. And they were like, oh, I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to embarrass you. And I was like, bro, it's me. Every two weeks, I had a guy strip me naked, asked me to spread my ass cheeks, bend over and cough.

I'm beyond you embarrassing me because you said he went to prison for bank fraud. Like, call me calm man, scumbag. Like, I don't, your opinion of me means about a. as much as that stick of furniture's opinion. Like, it means nothing. That's such a strength, though, Matt. Like, you do realize that, right? Yeah, no.

It's a tremendous strength of character. It's because of that, that I always say this. It's because of that that I think everything has gone so well. Yeah, dude. You know? I definitely didn't think things were going to go like this when I got out. I knew I had a plan. I had a bunch of stories.

I wanted to get out. I wanted to get the stories made. Maybe write books, you know, some of them I turned into books. I want to try and get documentaries made. because I felt like that's an easy entry point into kind of Hollywood, maybe get some series made. Yeah. Maybe get like if I could just get one series made, right? And so I, I, and that was my goal, but I didn't know how I was going to do it. You know, like, I know this is the goal. And if I just do something every day towards it, I'll get there. Right. You know, and so, and that's kind of what I've

been doing. But I think it's because of that whole appreciation and humility and just being like, yeah, this is what happened and just that's the way it is and just um and not being concerned about what people think about it that that as a result of that and just being honest about everything and what my goal is then everything seems to have to be working out and some things I will work on for months and months and months and it peters out and it never happens right but sometimes I work on something for two days and next thing you know I'm getting in check I'm like holy shit dude can I speak to that real quick because I want to provide some value to your audience members right now that might have an entrepreneurial spirit right so I went through this

thing in the early days of being an entrepreneur and trying to get a foothold in business. And I wanted to be famous. I wanted to become a millionaire and make all this money. But like you said, I knew where that thing was off in the distance and I wanted to get there. And I truly believed I could, but it's like, okay, I only know how to get from here to here. Well, what about getting from there to there? Well, I guess once I get here, I'll have the tools to figure that out and then get to the next step.

But it's like, but how do I get like, sometimes it's hard to put together will I actually get there. And I know that if I spend my whole life chasing it, eventually I'll get there, but how do I get there without spending my whole life, right? And how do I maybe fast track there? Because, you know, I'm 40. I know guys that have already got there at 40. I want to get there not like, how do I get there sooner? I say that to say this. For the people in the audience who want to make stupid money, get famous, you know, they look at us right now. And here's what I think a lot of guys that do podcast don't know or don't wrap their head around. That is absolutely true. You have people watching this right now and watching you and me, and they're looking at you and me the same way they're looking at Russell Brand and Pierce Morgan.

Two people in the media and you chuckle, right? But dude, think about this. You're the kid sitting at home on your tablet or you're the guy sitting locked up watching this on TV or you're an individual who has some sort of desire to get bigger and better. But you're looking here. Like this is, we want to get from here to there and there's these steps. Like, we're several steps ahead of where they want to be. I said this on Bradley's podcast, dropping bombs. Brad is a big member of the business community.

And his podcast is very big for people who are entrepreneurial and spirit and they're into motivation and they want to make big money. You know, they watch his show and look at him like a god. So for me to get in that chair and be on that podcast, that was a major accomplishment for me. And I had people back home, people that follow me, other people that know I'm on lower rungs of the, you know, breaking obscurity in the market. Marketplace ladder, like, dude, holy shit, you were on dropping bombs. And it's like, yeah, but you know what?

Once I got there, I was just in a chair at a desk talking to a guy. And it was like my employee that I told you, like, he idolizes you and he watches your show. He's like, I can't believe you're going to be on that show. And now I'm here. And you're not just a guy. You're cool guy. Like, you're really intelligent. I bought your artwork, man, because you're a badass artist.

Like, very, very glad that we had this interaction. But to the audience, dude, we're at another level. Like, this to you is just a podcast. them, it's like, it's a show. It's a big thing in media that we're partaking in. You've got hundreds of thousands of subscribers, man. There are channels that have millions and there are media channels that have hundreds of millions. But the reality is, we are several steps along the path further than they are. So at this point, the value I want to give to them is to understand that you are a felon. I am a felon. You are a fraudster. I am a bank robber. I am a

bank robber. You are any other thing, you know, maybe jay walked at some point. I'm also a addict, okay? We are two people who got really, really bad in our life. You went to freaking federal prison for 13 years. Thank God, I only did, like I said, collectively less than three between the county and the state time, but still, we did something that most people will never do. Broke the law, got a felony, went to prison. Like, we're a very, very small percentage of society. Well, I think it's even smaller than that because it's, and bounce back. Well, that's my next point. We not only went to that depth of hell, but we've also not only, not only, dude, for me to be a recovered opiate addict, I'm like this much of a statistic. To me to be a recovered opiate addict who's a

bank robber and got out of jail and survived is like this much. That makes exponentially lower to that. Now you take in and add in the fact, put my net worth in there, it goes down to here. Now take the fact that I'm 40 years old and on an upward trajectory on my entrepreneurial path. It goes to here. Now put me on podcast, put me in the media, put me on a private jet somewhere, and it's like one in a bazillion, right? So I'm not saying that to be braggadocious. I'm not saying that to be egomaniacal. I'm saying that because I am nobody special. Statistically I am, but who am I? I'm a country boy who played football, lost his scholarship, got hooked on opiates, robbed a bank, went to prison, got out and tried to make something of myself. The only difference

between the guy who would have died of an overdose and the guy that's here today is choices and decisions. When I was faced with a crossroads, I took a risk. I didn't take the safe route. I didn't take the easy way. I made the harder,

morally sound decision, which is always the harder decision and requires the harder work, and I made a decision that required me to work a little harder, do the right thing, and take a big risk. Okay?

Do I spend $200,000 of my hard? earned money investing in the rap battle app platform that I'm building. Yes, I'm going to take that risk. Okay. Now it's got a freaking substantial pre-money valuation and we've got VC looking at it and it's going to be a very, very big thing for me. Okay. Do I take this investment from my employer and start a car dealership? If I go up, I owe him 150 grand and he's not the kind of guy you want to owe 150 grand to. But I believe I can do it. And if he's willing to give me the money and he knows what I've done with money in the past, then I believe he believes in me. So I believe in me. Yeah, let's do it. And I took that risk. Okay. Do you want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars

of your own money and brand this sales training company? And do you want to go spend $50,000 to turn it into a virtual training platform? And do you want to go on podcasts and try to promote it and make it this big, huge thing and try to take on these monsters of the marketplace right now who are running eight and nine figure businesses? Yes, I do. Most people would answer all of those questions. No, I'm not taking that risk, man. Right. So I'm saying all of that to say this, to anybody out there that's interested in trying to become something more than just a guy working nine to five, which there's nothing wrong with, by the way. Some of the happiest people that I know are at peace knowing they got a little bit of a pension. They're going to be able to spend their

latter days with their Labrador skiing in the freaking Greek peak resorts. And that's what it is. And that's happiness for them. But for those who aren't, for those who would like to do a little bit more and try a little bit more. The only difference between the chair I'm sitting in right now and the chair that you're sitting in and the chair that they're sitting in is a few different decisions and some taking of risk. And my question is, would you agree with that? Yeah. Yeah. I think having a long, I think it definitely, I mean, obviously that's 100%. But I think having that long term goal and working towards that goal a little bit every single day is that is such a massive difference between that and the average person. Because the average person,

You, this, we used to do this in a car sale, or not car sales, sorry, in the mortgage company. Okay. I was just thinking, I wonder if they do this in car sales. Okay. Somebody would walk in for financing, you know, and they sit down, they start, they start to fill out the application, where you're just asking them a question. Yeah. And I remember I could tell you just from them sitting down and talking with them and they're answering this one question what their credit was going to look like. About a 95% chance of what their credit was going.

Oh, yeah. And I would say, and it'd be like, how much? How much money do you make? If they said I make $14 an hour. And it doesn't matter if they say $14 or $60 an hour, the fact that you answered that by the hourly. Or if they said, I make $160,000 a year. I would think $160,000 a year,

pull all three bureaus. He's got solid credit. The guy who said $28 an hour. Send him to subprime, Steve. Yeah. Pull one, one. You know what I'm saying? Spend $3.50 to pull.

Don't pull all three. Don't charge. Don't have to have me spending $12 or $10. He's a $5.23. Exactly. This guy's been, this guy, yeah. Listen, I've seen. And it's, it's true.

It's like, because that guy can't think further than an hour or two or a week away. This is the guy who's been laid on it. He can't, he cannot fathom that he, even though it comes up every month. He's always shocked when the bills show up. Shit, the Nimo's here. What do I do? Oh, my God. Rent again?

It seems like it's been a month. You bastards. Didn't I pay this last month? Yes, you did. You're so right, though. You know another indicator of that that I found in the car business? After taxes, I make $6.83.12. Oh, yeah, yeah.

You've deduced it down to the actual ACH that goes into your bank account. Like, we're cutting pennies. You're barely getting by here. And it's, you know, you say those things, and to be clear, so everybody knows, we've both been that guy, right? I've certainly been there. My credit's been in the 400s. I've had a house get foreclosed upon.

I've had cars get repossessed. I've stiffed freaking banks for money. I paid them all back eventually. But the bottom line is I'm not speaking that from a pedestal. I've absolutely been there. But you get to the other side and you see very clearly those indicators. And it's like at my car dealerships, we've created this kind of this way of speaking called the three types of financing. And when a customer comes in, we explain to them, you know, most people don't know this, but there are three different types of car financing.

Has anybody ever made you aware of that? And they're like, well, there's leasing and buying. What's the other type? Oh, no, no, no. Leasing is leasing. It's essentially renting the automobile with a guaranteed future value. Buying the car is buying the car. But there are three ways to buy the car as far as automobile financing is concerned.

No one's ever made you aware of that. Well, no. Would you like to hear about them so you have a good gauge of what we can do moving forward? Yes, I would. No one's ever going to say, no, I've never heard of that. Would you like to hear about it? Nah, I'm good. Right. So they say yes and they engage. We then go on to explain that prime credit is a 740 or higher credit score. You've had multiple car loans in the past. Your financial obligations are met. Your credit obligations are low. You have excellent credit and you absolutely know who you are. You have full spectrum financing and you say financing. You don't say credit. You say full spectrum financing. And then we have banks that work with full spectrum financing. And then we have banks that work with full spectrum financing. Because it's true, the verbiage is true, it's a true statement. That is someone who's a 739 to about a 640 credit score. They have had car loans, they have reasonable obligations, they're pretty okay within their financial means, but they may have a blemish or a collection or a maxed out credit card,

which causes their credit score to be less than perfect. That's what's called full spectrum financing. And then we have what's called subprime automobile financing. These are 640 credit scores, 639 and below. These are people who either have never had a car. owned before or it went bad. These are people who are either maxed out on their credit cards or they've performed poorly on them. Ultimately, these are people who have no credit or have bad credit. And much like the prime customer, these people also know who they are. So when we pursue the automobile

financing for you, which type should we be pursuing for you? That doesn't ask what your credit score is. It doesn't ask how you think your credit is. What that does is it says there are these three buckets of financing types, which one should we pursue for you? And then it's an indirect way of having the customer go, well, I've had good car loans. I'm maxed out on my one credit card. I'm a 718. I'm full spectrum. And you're like, okay.

And you make sure you deduce it down so specifically to, you're literally asking what the bank underwriter is going to critique them by. Right. So have you had a car loan before? Are your credit cards maxed out? Do you have a reasonable credit score? And basically, when the customer identifies all those factors and response to it, you're underwriting them.

at that moment. And then you completely take the question of does this person qualify off the table? And then if they say that they're subprime, no problem. The way we help our subprime customers be much more efficient, we sit them down and we pre-qualify them. So when you go out to test drive the car, you know you can actually drive at home today. Does that sound fair? There's nothing negative about that.

It's all positive. So that's what we use to qualify people credit-wise and not get invasive and it's freaking incredibly effective. But you're absolutely right, man. When somebody says I make X amount of dollars per hour, they generally fall in that. subprime category. Yeah. Yeah.

And then I was going to say you might pull, I might pull two bureaus if they said, you know, I make, you know, you know, $4,500 a month. Then it's like, oh, come on, man. I'm going to pull two. But yeah. What's the biggest spread you've seen bureau to bureau? What? Like trans union to X.

What's the biggest spread on points? I've seen an Experian that's an 803 and a trans union that's a 689. Oh, I was going to say I've seen, yeah, I've seen them be a hundred. 150 apart. Yeah. Which, you know, is, is, which is a lot. Because usually they're, they're semi close. Yeah. Within 20. Usually in 20 points. Yeah. Your mind travels back there and there's some stories, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was sitting here thinking about, as you were talking, I was thinking about different, multiple stories. And I was thinking, yeah, but those don't really, they, they do apply, but they don't apply. I just always found it

comical, you know, it's the same thing. And I know you do it in, and I know that in car sales where you, you know, there's things that you would, people would sign these, they'd sign for these interest rates and variable rate mortgages, you know, the arm product and everything. And people are like, well, I can't believe, why would he even sign for that? And I'd say, what did you tell? How did you convince him?

Oh, did you lie to him? Did you do it? No, I just told him. I said, well, we're going to give you and, you're going to get a, you're going to get a, whatever, a nine and a half percentage rate. Two years it adjusts. You know, it'll go up by, you know, quarter of a point every six months until you pay it off or refinance it.

And they'd be like, oh, I don't, I don't know about that. Well, I mean, here's the thing. you know, you've got bad credit. You know, you've got some credit issues. But in two years, you're going to refinance. You're going to refinance. And, well, how do you all be able to refinance? I'm like, well, and I would say, and I'm sure you can refinance because, I mean,

like your credit card, you're planning on paying this down, right? No one's going to say no. Nobody's going to say no. Are you going to, I mean, you're not going to, like, I know you had that 60 day late or that 30 day late. Like, like, you're not going to, is that going to happen again? Like, no, no, bro. That was told you that was the one time.

What did they say? Nobody has. ever said, bro, I'm going to be honest with you. I never paid my shit on time. I just don't like paying these things on time. I'm not going to pay this on time. Kind of a derelict. I lose a lot of jobs.

Like, I can't do it. Like, I'm probably going to have a problem with authority. I probably just going to tell my next boss off. And quite frankly, I don't think I'll even make the first payment. Yeah. They're always, oh, no, no, bro, I'm going to clean that up. Okay, but this shouldn't be a problem. Sign here.

If they don't sign there, they're saying, I lied to you. Yeah. No, no, of course, of course. And I think in their mind, they believe that they believe that. they believe that, you know, that they're going to. They do. They do, bro. People are so, people will get mad at you for lying to them when you're a salesperson, which, you know, when I was younger, I did do. Now we don't do that. We're ethical selling all the way through. But what I will tell you is this. When I would bullshit a customer,

boy, were you a snake oil salesman? You're a russ scumbag. Why would you tell it untruth? This, that, and the third. Your customer will lie straight to your face because they're lying to themselves. They're actually believing what they're telling you. People have this way, man, of it's, it's like a braiding of wishful thinking, procrastination, and hopefulness for this short-term plan that they've put in place in their mind, but they've made no plan and how to do it long-term. And it's like, well, you know, this car, like we get these people in our dealership all the time. And it's like, okay, so this car right here. Man, an interest rate's 22.99%. Yeah, but after you make six payments on time, you can refinance.

Well, are you sure? Well, Mrs. Smith, I can't tell you that I'm sure. You want to know why? Because next month, if you don't pay your national grid bill and you let it go into collection, well, then you've made a liar out of me. Because if I've said I'm sure and then you let your national grid bill go into collection, no, you're not going to be able to refinance. So that's made me a liar.

Well, I'm not going to let my national grid bill go into collection. Then you'll refinance in six months. Well, let me ask you this question. do you plan on making all these payments on time? Well, yeah, absolutely. I'm going to make them like a, like a Boy Scout. That's why I set up for auto pay. So you're only planning on going up from here.

Yes. And in six months, you'll still be on that same path? Yes. Then there would be no untruth to what I'm saying. Oh, okay, fine. And it's just they don't understand that what you're doing is saying, listen, I can't guarantee you that you refinance, but the onus is completely on you.

Are you okay with that? Because no one, like you said, no one's ever going to say, yeah, I plan on screwing the pooch in three months. I'm just not going to pay my Vicky drawer's card. I'm in a stiff Walmart. And I'm probably going to pump a bunch of gas on my capital one card, go over the limit and just not pay it. I'm actually shocked that a couple of these, a couple of 30 days late since I haven't shown up already because I haven't paid this month. I can't do this is a one time right now. I honestly, this is a, you know, this is a Hail Mary.

I can't believe it. We need to close this today. Oh, yeah. The customers are like, what? You're approved. Really? Well, okay, what's my interest rate? Oh, it's 18 minute.

Okay, sure. Like, where do I sign? Yeah, because they haven't realized that certain things haven't reported on their bureau. Or you go to a customer and you're like, okay, so you need a car, yep, and your wife needs a car. Yep. Well, she's a 580 and you're a 713. Yep. Well, there's no rule that says that you can't buy two cars today.

Right. And they're like, oh, okay. So what you're saying is we can put, what I said, sir, is there's no rule that says you can't buy you. two cars today. And then he looks at her and says, you're going to pay the bill on time? Uh-huh, says the 583 FICO score, who's delinquent on all her credit cards right now. And they're like, okay. And then in the meantime, you know, you're sitting there like, you're looking at this woman going, you're going to, I'm looking at your bureau. You've stiffed everybody. The last three loans that you've had all have a two next to them, which means you had a co-signer and you've

stiffed on all three of those. And then you want to look at the guy and go, dude, she ain't going to pay, bro. Like she didn't pay the last three. But then it's like, well, I can't share her credit information with him that's illegal and for me to say anything opinion wise that like maybe this is the one day where she is going to pay this guy maybe this is her one true love you then you start convincing yourself and you're like you know what i tell you what you're willing to do it buster you want to up your 718 credit score then go right ahead but yeah people are very optimistic and what they plan to do with their with their personal self i was going to say back to the the whole getting out of prison or just people in general um executing a plan it's i've found a

especially from being in prison and listening to these guys' stories or watching guys have a plan, get out, because I was their 13 years. Yeah. So I watched guys finish their sentence. Get out. Violate.

Come back on a violation. Get back out. Come back on another charge. Finish that. Like, that's how long I was there. Finish the new charge. Violate.

Come back and then leave again. It's like, and I'm still here. But, you know, I've seen guys get out. And then I would call guys. You know, they'd get out and they,

you know, What's going on? Did you get the job? Did this, that? You know, just vicariously living through them. Yeah, yeah. And there, you know, it's like, I can't tell you. I don't really, I might know one or two people that, no, that's not true.

I probably, I've, I've been another 10 people. Out of how many, though. Yeah. Oh, out of thousands. But, you know, hundreds that I watched leave. But I was going to say these were guys that were successful to begin with. Like they had maybe, maybe they owned a car dealership. They were doing fraud in the car dealership.

They got in trouble. They went to jail. for four years or something got back out got back in the car into the uh into the um car industry and they were doing fine again yeah you know but they had a long-term plan they could execute that plan they could you know sometimes they sometimes they didn't go correctly you know what i'm saying like it's kind of like it's like i heard somebody say this say this whatever a few years ago where they were talking about um driving in the fog you know that like that's kind of like what like you know you know you need to get to Atlanta.

You're on 75. You're driving the fog. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can only see whatever 30, 45 yards ahead of you, you know, but you keep going. People cut in front of you. Things change. You change lanes. You get off. You get out. But you continue to stay. Sometimes they close the road. You have to move. You're not

quite sure. You know, ultimately I need to be here. I just need to keep moving forward. Even though I can only see 30 or 40 yards ahead of me. But you're still going because I know I'm headed in the right direction and I'm not, you know, Yeah, but you had to get off the road. You had the obstacle.

You had this. You had a detour. Yeah, but that's the, and I'm still moving towards it. Yeah. Like, and that's kind of, like, when I got out, that's how it was. This went wrong. That went wrong. Listen, I had, like, this is, there's been multiple things that happened.

I won't talk about one of them, but, um, just because I think I've talked about before. Well, whatever. So the short version is there's a company called Blumhouse. Okay. I actually had a deal with Blumhouse. Okay. Which is a production. I'm chuckling because it sounds like.

like a porn production company or something. No, you've actually seen probably. Many Blumhouse films? Dozens of them. Okay. Okay. So, and I was, I had a deal. I'm supposed to fly out.

We have a deal for this whole series based on me being in prison. I mean, it's a scripted series. Somebody's that played me. Me being in prison, writing stories. And so it's kind of like Orange is the New Black kind of thing. But it's a grittier version of Orange is the New Black. Okay. I'm a true crime writer.

in prison. I mean, I'm there. I mean, it's me. It's the story. Telling those stories. Whole thing, I'm supposed to fly out COVID hits. Right? Talk about it. Derailing. Yeah, dude. You know, I had another thing where I literally did a whole season of a podcast. Same thing. We're going to go over the stories, slowly, heavily edited everything. I make a comment, I jokingly make a comment to one of the editors or one of the one of the producers and it turns into this whole thing and next thing you know they say yeah we're just not interesting

unbelievable man and it was like and it was so it was an Andrew Tate comment about he had just been canceled and she brought it up and she mentioned it and said something and and I kind of was like I was like yeah I was like yeah I was like that's weird I say I go because I don't agree with everything he says I said there's a few things he says I said but there's a lot of stuff he says that I agree with us.

And it's actually comical. I said he says a lot of funny stuff and a lot of it I find true. And that and it was like like what? And so I threw in and I said like, I said, I don't know. I said, kind of like I said, I saw TikTok the other day where he said, you know, a man has to make all the right moves his entire life. And ultimately he ends up owning, you know, a $40 million yacht. And you can be 22 years old with a makeup kit and be hot.

and that chick has a better chance of it. Just as good of a chance ending up on that yacht and possibly even owning it. Just because she's 22 and pretty. He had to make all the right moves for 50 years to be there. She's 22. She flirts a little bit,

bangs them, ends up with a lot. With a yacht, I said, you know, I said, it's so, it's true, right? And I'm joking. And so the guy, so the one, the one producer, there's two producers. Okay. One producers offended.

We can do a little bit of a back and forth. I don't get upset. She's clearly unhinged. And the male producer, which is basically like a cis, like he's, you know, I mean, just everything about he's so over the top, left ring, liberal, L.A. Cany. Soyboy. I mean, just so. Like, like, it's, and everybody he works with are women.

And they're all in L.A. And it's like, and he's, it's just like, you know, he's like, Matt, I don't think, I think we're going to have to stop. this. We're going to have to have a meeting and talk about this. And I can clearly see that the chick's name is Joy. Clearly see Joy's upset and I'll get back with you. And I was like, all right, click. Deuces. Yeah. And three days later, I get a phone call is Matt, I'm sorry. I just feel like we're headed in different places where I'm always like, are you serious? Yeah, dude. Not just that. I'd work for a year on the thing. And we did have a in the whole thing. We had kind of like if we come to a point, we could walk away. There was this one clause.

There was one clause, but that's the first time it dawned on me like, did I just work a year? You cock sucker? So, but that's the whole thing. Like I've had, and listen, that right there, my comment, which was my fault. It was absolutely my fault. You know why? Because I knew who I was talking about. Yeah, but bro, but how do you expect to engage with a 13-year sentence federal prison

inmate who was a fraud crime committer and not maybe hear an off-color. comment you don't like every once in a while like they were clearly in the wrong business it it and it's funny too because this is a second producer that i was with there was another female producer that i we we had been working with for a few months and i remember and these are the people in charge of the oh absolutely but here's what's funny i remember saying something one time and the next time they had a new producer and and it was a it was not even a joke we were talking about me meeting my wife and i met her in the halfway house these people have never never been to trouble at all, you know. And they grew up in California in, you know, kind of a

liberal arts kind of thing, you know. So, and I'm like, your wife who went off to work as a marine mechanic when I walked in. Yes. That evil villain. Yeah. I met her in prison, in federal prison. Right. I mean, I'm sorry, met her in a halfway house. And so at the halfway house. So when they were like, oh, how did you meet, uh, and I'm talking and I'm talking. And I'm talking. And you know, because part of the show is kind of me talking about my journey. Yeah, yeah. So we're talking. And I said, oh, yeah, yeah. I said, I met her in the halfway house. And they were like, oh, what happened? I was like, oh, you know, met her.

We sat down together and we're, you know, talking stuff and joking around. I said, and guys are there. They're all trying to hook up with girls and stuff. And they're like, oh, bro, what kind of chick you like? I was like, eh. I said, honestly, I have a certain type that I kind of like. I said, which is not what you would think. And they were like, well, what do you mean?

They're like, what? They're like, I see you like a sorority girl or whatever. And I'm like, eh, soccer mom. I said, eh, I said, honestly, I'm thinking ex-stripper. maybe she's got some tattoos. I said she's been arrested a few times. Kind of chick that'll call the cops on you. I said, but she'll bail you out.

I said, you know, a chick that's been around. She's been beaten up by the world. Maybe she'd been married. She's been a little bit. She can watch my back and I can watch hers. Right. I said, but she's down. You know what I'm saying? I said, she's a chick that's going to stick with you through thick and thin.

I said, and that's kind of like I like a tomboyish kind of chick. Yeah, yeah. And one of the guys goes, looks over at Jess and said, what about Jess? And I looked at Jeff and just like, first of all I'm 18 years older than her. And she looked at me and I went, I go, just is about, I said, just about 20 pounds. I said just about 20 pounds away from being datable. She was like 150?

Yeah, like 150, 155 in the halfway house because she gained a bunch of weight when she got to the halfway house. And she looked at me, she goes, you think I need to lose 20? or she goes, you think I need to lose 25 pounds? I go, no. I think you need to lose. No. She was 155. I said, no, she was like 160.

150, 155, 160. And I go, no. I said, you need to lose. I said at 25 pounds lighter, you'd be datable. I think you need to lose 30, but we'll talk about the next five. And she says, she's like, no, we won't because I would never date you. She goes, you're a city boy. I make fun of guys like you.

I said, I feel like there's a connection here. And she's like, there's no connection. So we're going back and forth. And what's so funny is... Meanwhile, she was firing on all cylinders. What's so funny is later... So we're laughing. I'm laughing about this.

The guy's kind of smiling. The chick is not so smiling. And then as I talk about... Oh, yeah. And then a few months later, she ended up losing 30 pounds, texting me, saying, hey, what's up? I'm coming to Tampa. Did you want to...

And this is probably six months later. did you want to have lunch or have dinner? I was like, yeah, because we had still been texting the whole time. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be like a date. I said, yeah, it'll be a date. I said, we'll go to dinner. So I said, it'll be a date. She goes, no, we'll be just as friends.

And I was like, no, I don't want to go as friends. And she says, okay, well, I don't like you like that. I said, I disagree. I said, you don't really know me. I said, we'll go out. It'll be a date. I said, we'll have a good time. And she goes, no, I'm not interested in dating you.

And I went, she said, you can't go as friends? I said, no. And she goes, why? I said, because there's nothing more useless than having a hot female friend. Nothing. I said, the whole time you think we're building a friendship. I love this. I said, all I'm thinking about is trying to give.

Yeah. Because it's ruthless honesty, bro. It's reality. It's not chauvinism. It's the truth. You did her a favor. That producer, gone the next time. She could visibly, like, you could just interface.

And I'm joking about it because I'm thinking this is part of my charge. This is me, right. This is why you guys came here. Right, right. So I'm thinking it's okay. I'm still in the mind frame that you can, because me, I can work with people I don't like. I've been 13 years with people I despise. I was just going to say.

Like I can hang out with you, I have lunch with you every single day. You'll go tell your friends we're friends. Yeah. You have no idea that I'm thinking I'll never talk to you again. Yeah. You know, but still she left. So I'm saying, there were so many times when I was on the path

and something happened. Sometimes it wasn't my fault. Sometimes it was my fault. What was I'm thinking? Right. And listen, Jess, to this day,

I'll get on a phone call with somebody. So I'm working on multiple different productions. And I'm talking to somebody and she, I'm like, hey, I got a thing with so and so. She's like, okay, that's the person and so and so,

right? And I'm like, yeah, and she goes, watch your mouth. Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, no, I will.

She's like, I'm just saying, you're close. Don't, you know, and listen. That's a good woman. Jess is, she would absolutely, she holds her tongue all the time.

Yeah. She's 10 times worse than me. Yeah. So she's like super conservative. Like she's, she had her own like force. Like when she moved the car when I pulled in, I was like, hey, how you doing? I shook her.

She looked at me. Dude, she was scrutinizing me. He's like, who's this coming in here? Like, what's your deal? You know, it's so funny. So, you know, whenever I put somebody in my phone, I always put their picture. You know, you can put the little picture. Yeah, yeah.

So I looked. you up. I found a picture of you. I screenshot it. I cropped it. I did it. Boom. I put it up. And I was, but I was always looking, looking, you know, through the pictures. Oh, then I went, she goes, who are you, who's coming tomorrow? I said, oh, this guy, blah, blah, blah. And I said, here, hold on. I said, I said, you know his story? I said, I said, I robbed the bank. He was like, it was opiates and a bank thing because I don't really know that much. And I said, but I know he's got some podcast. So I started looking up the podcast. And as soon as I showed, I said, yeah, this is him. and and she looked, she was, huh, she goes,

yeah, I think I'll stick around for that. And I said, and I go, I started, let, that's why when you came in and you were here and talking everything, she, she looked over at me and I go, you can go now. Yeah. She goes, I'm getting my son. My first impression was a very attractive woman. And she's, you could tell she just, she's got like, if she, I bet you her and my wife would have, which I'm happily married, so there's no danger there.

She's, um, and, and, uh, the two of them. would get along famously because my wife doesn't have the criminal history but very easily could have right she's one of those people that just at one point that fork in the road she just missed she detoured quick because there was a car in the way and missed hellfire and brimstone right but she's exactly the same way she's very scrutinous for the people that I'm around she she she likes to meet the employees she she any like I guarantee you she knows about you this podcast you know because she's um you know I'm her man and she's protective and the same way that she is towards you I'm sure.

But she's very much like that complimentary with me in the same way. Like I'll onboard an employee and I'll be, and I'll be like, yeah, I don't really know about such and such because X, Y, and Z. And she'll be like, well, remember what you said about so-and-so. And then they did this and then you felt that way. And then they won you over. And I'm like, yeah, you know what?

And then that person survives another day or two. And then I go, holy shit. You know what I mean? That she was right. The one thing I will say about my wife is she's absolutely spot on. spotting trouble. I had an assistant that I hired early on that she was an attractive young girl, right? And I was surprised my wife even allowed it. But for me, I'm thinking, you know, I know what I look like. And I'm thinking that, you know, this girl was so substantially younger than me that if we

were to walk into a speaking arrangement into some sort of, you know, production that it would very obviously be the younger help. But, you know, she was built like a brick shithouse and she presented very well. And it would be like, okay, this guy's got his shit together. He's got a a hot young assistant. He's, you know, obviously happily married there's his wife and kids, but like he's got his shit together because I believe that when a man, especially a guy that's relatively attractive, has a very good looking assistant or good looking people around them. And there's a very clear line that there's nothing going on there. I think it kind of speaks to their character, their professionalism and it shows that they run a tight ship. So that's kind of what I

was going for. And she was incredibly talented. I mean, the overarching thing was she was a talented editor. She was a good camera person. She was good at what she did and she was very creative. But she lost her bearings a little bit on a trip to Las Vegas and, you know, on the arm leaning into me walking down. And it was, no, no, no, no, no. And when I cut that off very quickly, all of a sudden, you know, it was very clear that there was no interest in working for me anymore. And afterwards, my wife was like, ah, so she did kind of have a little thing. And I'm like, well, and she's like, I told you. And I'm like, you know what, damn it, you did, right? And any time along that path where her little radar has ever gone up.

She's been spot on, which is crazy because I wish I could catch it, you know, before I was married anyways. It's intuition. I mean, I'm a huge believer in intuition, you know. Women, and listen, every chick that has ever run around on me, I felt it in my gut two weeks before the hammer drop before it was so obvious that I found out or whatever. You know, and it's the same thing with girls that I've done, ran around on and I didn't change anything.

I changed nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing. Now granted, this is when I was young. I think you think you didn't. I think is what it is. But they walk in, they're suddenly going, what's going on? Where were you?

And you're like, well, I get home every day at 5.30. Same time. Yeah, what do you mean? Where I was? I came straight home. Really? Like, why? What?

You know, like they just, no, bro. And the problem is, is that, you know, same thing. I've been in that situation. And it's the same thing. When someone walks in or something's not right, a lot of times, even when I've interviewed people, people were like, you know what, I, I knew something was wrong. Yeah, but it's behavior, though.

It's behavior driven, I believe. So if you rewind that same sentence that you just spoke back to the point of, nothing had changed. There is a change in behavior. So there's something that I've studied called the frequency of authenticity. There's something called the law of constructive interference, the law of destructive interference. There's Faraday cage. There's people that have been measured in the Faraday cage and the frequencies that they admit,

excuse me, as human beings. And what there is is a clear and true. physical indicator by way of a frequency that leaves the human body that can be felt at a very minute level. But if you pick it up, if you're very astute at picking it up, and you don't even, it's nothing you can try to do. It's just something that intrinsically we have or we don't. You can pick up on these frequencies. And so it is a physical thing, number one. And intuition, right? I feel like that's intuition. But I think it's also paired with when, so if you're madly in love with a girl, you behave a certain way around her. Well, when some other dame has,

has your attention, you're not going to behave the same way, right? Like, you kissed her, but you didn't kiss her the same way. You always kiss her. You usually go to the fridge and grab her a snapple. You grabbed one and set it on the counter and walked away. Like little itty-bitty changes, fractal changes in behavior, that's what I think a woman is sensitive to. So I think the intuition is partially what you're saying, but I also believe there's a behavior

component to it that we don't even realize slight changes in behavior because the reason I believe this is the case is because I've witnessed it in women that have been unfaithful to me. And I've also had women that I've been unfaithful too, which quite frankly was probably everyone I was ever with, except for my wife, sadly. And they've then after the fact, because I've tried to, you know, make amends and rebuild the bridge and, you know, try to, you know, make them, you know, re-basically have some sort of apologetic aspect of it to make them feel better because they did them wrong, right? But the long and short of it is when I do re-engage in conversation with them and they come

back and discuss it with me. It's like, well, don't you know you used to do this, this and this. And then there was like three days in a row where you did this. And it's like, oh, shit, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. So I think that you're absolutely right, but I think there is a physical behavioral piece to it as well. I'd be keen to see what the studies are on that. There's got to be somebody that studied that. Right. Yeah. Well, I interviewed the, I interviewed James Sexton. Okay. He's the divorce attorney. He's like everywhere now. He's been on Rogan. He's been on everything. Really? Yeah. James Sexton. Okay. What's his deal?

He's a divorce attorney, but he wrote it like a self-help book. It was like called Falling Out of Love or something. I forget what it was called. Okay. So to help married couples? I don't even know. I think it is to help married couples. So was his thing? I've seen so many bad relationships.

Exactly. Here's what you. Okay. And he has this whole thing like, you know, just read the whole book. Like, you know, and she just thought he was great. And he was great. Okay. You can't watch this guy without being like, wow.

Smart guy. And one of the things I was just thinking, so I was just thinking to myself, he asked me if he's like bro if you got to come to you next time you come to new york to call me we'll have dinner um so he but but he was talking about like he would always ask a lot of his clients like same thing like when did you know it was over yeah and and he's like it's funny like what women would say same thing with when people cheated women men were always the same thing did you have sex with him that was a question always a question with women it was are you in love with her? I didn't care about the sex. It was, are you in love with her? It was,

you know, and he's just, he's like, you know, this is 20-something years of, and high-priced divorces. So he's spending a lot of time. So he asked the women, were you still having sex with him? No, no, not him. I'm saying when a man and a woman have, when somebody's unfaithful, a man always wants to know from his wife, did you have sex with him? Oh, you're saying that the man was asking. I think you said, the divorce lawyer was asking these people. Okay. I got it. I mixed it up. And I mean, and then if you're a woman and a man cheats, they always want to know. are you in love? Like they're not so concerned.

They're concerned about it, I'm sure, but they're not so concerned. Right. The biggest thing is, are you in love with them? Yeah. Love with her. So, and he would, he said, he asked tons of his clients, the same question too, which was, when did you know it was over? Yeah.

And he said, his, like, he said, it was funny because almost all of them, I'm going to say the women or whatever, and I was thinking it was the women, the women would almost always say, and he had this one client, he said, this one client is the best, best indicator. He said, oh, the marriage wasn't over for another year or two. He said, she was but I knew it was over here. Okay. And it was one thing. She said, he used to stop by this store near his office, and he would buy this granola

that I used to put on my cereal. And so I would go, and the granola would always be there. He would buy it for me. She was in a year ago, he stopped buying it. And he's like, did they stop carrying the granola? I know, but I started having to ask him to do it. And he would remember sometimes. Sometimes he would forget.

Sometimes I'd have to go get it. It was no longer a priority. She's like, and I had never asked him before, but he knew I liked it. So he just started doing it. That makes me emotional for her. Right. What she's going through, man? Right.

And she said, he goes, he is, was there anything else? She's like, no, because she says he was like, it had been like 10 years. And she's like, you know, like it wasn't the sex. because we still have sex two, three times a week. Like everything else, she's like, but that happened and I knew. She's like, and from that moment, I could see everything kind of going down. Like that was the moment I knew and then paid attention over the next few months to the year. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

And bam, he's having an affair or whatever it was, whatever it was. It was that one thing that, and she was like, it was those little tiny things. Like he had, listen, that guy is amazing. Wow. He's amazing. And he does great things for guys too. Because he says stuff to women, because women are always like, he should know this. He should have, and he's like, look, he's a, you did marry a man.

Yeah. She's like, he, he hears 25% of what you tell him. Here's nothing of what you don't. Yeah. She's like, so he's like, and women are always like, what a powerful statement. Right. He hears 25% of what you tell him, so he hears zero percent of what you don't. Nothing.

Insinuating that how dare you, you know, or how could you possibly, not how do you, but how could you possibly expect him to have the intuition to see something beyond what has spoken. That's so true, though. Listen, the guy, the everything, the whole time through, if you listen to one of his things, like I said, he did Rogan, he's done a bunch of, the whole time through, it's nothing but just, bam, bam, bang, bam, it's like, like everything he says. And it's even these little things. Like, he's like, you know, honestly, if you did this, he's like, that would change everything.

Like that one thing, if you did this, I would change everything. If you did, you know, anyway, he's, yeah, he's great. But, yeah, I was going to say, Jess, like, loves him to death. He sent her, his book, bit on a bunch of things. But, yeah, it was, you're right, it was like it was these little tiny things that he said, these little, little tiny, like, nothing, me. I remember two, I always like this. He said divorce is like, what do you say?

Divorces like bankruptcy. It happens very, very slowly. And then all of a sudden. Then all of a sudden. Right. Yeah. And I, it was like, bro, just the fact that you know how many guys would leave here and say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll send you a copy of my book.

Yeah. And then never do it. And you'd have to message him and be like, hey, man, remember how you said? Or then you'd have to go to freaking Barnes & Noble and buy a copy of the book and give it to her. The fact that he remembered to send her a copy of his book, just that shows his attention to detail. Oh, he's, he's, look, I mean, you can't watch the guy without being enamored by him. And I was shocked that he did my, you know, his publicist, like, contacted me. and it was like, like, you just, oh, no, it wasn't.

He had been on soft white underbelly. Okay. And I contacted. That's a badass pod, man. Yeah, it is. And I contacted him. I contacted Mark. And Mark said, you know, like, contact his publicist.

And so I contacted his publicist. Oh, no, no. No, we called. We called. I think Jeff's called. Jeff's called his office. That's what it was. Because Mark was like, he's in the book.

He's in New York, blah, blah, blah. I don't know if he had his number or what, but he's like, here's where he is. You just look him up. He goes, he's got a website. So, Jess called, made an appointment. Boom, next thing you know, he's doing it. And the fact that he would do my podcast was, I was like, wow. And then listen, within, within two or three weeks, he was on Rogan.

That's crazy. Yeah. So, dude, I just, so I take these moments and in your audience, I know is looking for crime and crime stories and shit like that. But, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I'm a business coach. I'm a sales trainer.

I love taking these moments to call these things out. We're in your home. beautiful home, nice place. We're in your podcast and we're talking about your friend and your wife and you making phone calls. Friend that you did prison time with. Yeah, yeah. This Wall Street Journal or New York Times bestselling author who was just on Rogan was here on your podcast just because of a few phone calls. And this is something, I'm calling this out, Matt, because a lot of people don't understand how many human beings don't connect this.

This is just people. This is just networking and communication. When you said, I can't believe he would have me on my podcast, or he would come out and just be on my podcast. And then a week later, he's on Rogan. Dude, his publicist could have ran in and went, hey, Dan, you know that true crime podcast you like with that Matt guy? Yep. He just called. His wife just called.

They want you to be on the show. Like, you never know the type of resignation or the power that you have with other people. So all I'm saying is I'm just taking this moment to tell people to just ask, man. Just act. Yeah. Take action. Take the risk. Well, I was going to say, listen, what's even funnier is that, like,

Because to me, I know how this whole thing is held together with like scotch tape and bubblegum and some spit. You know what I mean? Like people get here and they'll walk in and they'll go, wow. Like I had like I thought we were going to be in like a studio. Like I like people don't realize. And I say even though people that watch me a lot do realize because I joke about it all the time. Like where in my living room? Oh yeah.

We're in your living room. Your fridge is over there. Yeah. Nice. Nice counters. Stools at the counter. Like all of this like this. Like this is a 60.

I got this for like, I think 60 bucks on off or up. I got these things. I built these things. Boziac and I built these. We built all these walls. What I walked in here, my impression was this. You slide.

Oh yeah. It's an illusion. You bad ass dude. It's all a lot. Well, you've got your YouTube play award up there. So you're definitely the real deal. But like, just meaning this, I had the same kind of initial response. Because, you know, I watched your pod before I came on here.

I wanted to familiarize myself. And I knew of you in the story, but I wasn't super familiar with your. show. So I familiarized myself with it. And I'm like, damn, there's been some pretty, you know, good size people. And I'm like, he's got this cool little studio. I like the red wall and the, the solo almost like interrogation room lighting and like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the investigative division, you know, what do you interrogation room feel to it? And, you know, it's got the textured walls with the, with the acoustic material. Like, that's pretty freaking cool. And I walked in here, I was like, oh, you did it in your living room, you bastard. Good for you.

But dude, this is the thing. People need to understand this, right? And, you know, Here's the thing, man, and this is what I think is one of the biggest farces and piles of bullshit in society, is the people, this is how you can tell the difference between an insecure and somebody who knows what they're capable of doing. You know what you're capable of doing because you just called out to everybody watching this. Yep, this is a chunk of wood off of offer up. We put these together. We painted that on the wall. There's the living rooms over here, you know, and your paintings are over there on the other side of that wall. And you're happy and comfortable saying that because you know what you can do.

You know what you're able to produce. You know what's necessary, and you also know that it's not smoking mirrors. There's no magic. It's just people and assets, right? But what drives me nuts is the people who play ball at a little bit higher level that want other people that want the rank and file to feel like it's beyond them, that they can't do this. Oh, this is a major, major production.

I always say there's just two kinds of people, you know. There's those that climb the ladder of success and invite everybody else to come. Yep. And those that kick it out from underneath them. Yeah, dude. That's the truer words were never spoken. And that's so true. And the ones that, and quite frankly, I used to be the ladder type.

I used to be, well, not to pun you, but the ladder, D, D, D, and T, T. I used to be the guy that was just so petrified. Like, I'd get to a rung on the ladder and be like, I saw it off so the next person couldn't get it. But then what I realized is collaboration over competition is the path to success. Like when I started going, you know what, maybe I should just like listen to this. guy and learn from him. And I'm talking about other arrangements, salespeople, sales trainers, business owners, entrepreneurs, mentors, whatever. Like, I was the guy that I accomplished

so much at a young age. I was fed ego. I was told how good I was. And it didn't take long for me to believe it and be like, okay, well, I'm the biggest bad as there is. I'm 20 years old and I can't learn shit. And that was the worst thing that could have ever happened to me was to have my ego puffed up that big at such a young age because it closed my ears off. I was too busy wanting to speak and see and I wasn't willing to hear anything because it's like, well, what can you tell me? I've made $180,000 at 19 years old. What am I going to learn? And it's like, well, Debshed, there's people who make $180 grand a month.

There's people that make $1.8 million a week. There's people that make $18 million a day. Like, you're in such a small pond. You can't see the forest for the trees. So as I kind of, in this past decade overall, but really more so the last four years, really the last three years, the collaboration effort and the networking effort by me in my camp to just be like, listen, I want to put myself as many places as possible. I want to engage in as many conversations as I possibly can with as many people as I possibly

can. And don't get me wrong, dude, I have conversations where I walk away and I'm like, okay, just like the conversation, you know, we were speaking of earlier. A person has millions of followers on social media is one of the hottest tickets right now. And I walked away going, I didn't even answer some of the DM. Like, I can't like, that's just not my style. dude like you ain't going to be here in two years you know what i mean and then there's people that i engage in a conversation with them and it's like that was a big waste of time so there there is you know it's just like any other effort that you make there some of it's going to be made in vain right and you're not going to execute on every single thing but if you don't have the conversations

you don't run into the one where i'm in the alumni chat for the podcast and i talk to the guy who connects me with the guy and then well here i sit or i'm not talking to that guy who then goes you No, dude, you might really like this guy I know. And then I find out that that guy is a YouTuber with millions of views and has a podcast, ends up really liking me and then puts me on that show too. And it's just, bro, it's networking and it's connections. And when people decide to be humble and listen and learn and just take risk and put themselves out into the atmosphere and just say, listen, I'm here. I'd like to shake your hand.

I'd like to talk to you. I'd like to see if there's any alignment here. You would be amazed at what happens. And just to put a cap on that. the understanding must be that I need to provide value, right? Like, what were the questions that I asked you leading up to this? What does your audience want to hear? What do your people find valuable?

What value can I bring to your show? And it's a crime show. We need to talk about the crime. And we need to iterate upon those little stories and facts and bring them value. I didn't come in here and say, hey, man, how quickly can we plug my product? What can we tell them about me? Can we talk about this one thing? It was like, okay, I'm being given this.

opportunity, I need to make sure that I provide the appropriate level of value so I can maybe make a friendship, make a networking arrangement and have some future business potentially, but more so than anything to make sure that I assess and provide the appropriate level of value so I'm welcome back. And then in the future, if there's any reciprocal value that it can be provided, that I have a platform to ask for it. You know what I mean? Not just calling, like, how many guys do you see, especially, you know, when you were locked up,

they're like, yo man, man, let me get a bag of Cheetos. Yeah. It's like, was that a. statement? Was that a question? What was that? Let me get a bag of Cheetos. No. Man, what the hell? It's like, well, did you want to exchange any value? Did you want to give me a new set of playing cards for my Cheetos? A couple stamps maybe. Man, bro, I'm hungry. Let me get a bag. It's like, go bye. And the same thing happens at a much grander scale in the business world. How many people reach out to you? Hey, man, can I get on your podcast? What's your story? Well, you know, it's this and this, but I want to try to do this thing.

and if I get on your podcast that I can maybe have an opportunity to do that. It's like that's the one major disconnect. I think people don't get in the entrepreneurial space, especially when they're starting off, is they're so wound up in, I need to get to this place, right? I need to make sure that I put myself on that platform and I can reach up to the next run on the ladder,

that they don't stop and go, what am I doing for them, you know? Right. And, you know, just to kind of, I don't want to go off on a tangent here about, you know, being an entrepreneur because we're on a true crime podcast, But I think there's somebody out there that's getting value from this. And all I'm trying to do is just explain to them that you need to force yourself out into the marketplace and bring people value.

When I'm kind of stuck in my business and when I'm struggling to find the next step, I just sit down and go, okay, let me give some free tips on social media. Let me just provide people some value, help them get some sales, help them maybe grow their business a little bit. And then something good will come to me. We do that for a solid week. Next thing you know, it's full of DMs. Hey man, how do I buy your sales trading? For whatever that's worth to your followers. All right.

So tell me about the motorcycle chase. All right. So most people won't believe half of this. So where I lived and grew up was a very rural area, right? So I'm on a motorcycle. It's a Kawasaki Ninja X-X-10, which the people that know, Kroch rockets will say number one, 64-280 on a ZX-10.

I wasn't 6-4-2-80 at the time. This was back when I was using it. But I was at somebody's house. Typical redneck area, trailer, you know, little chimney cooking things out the back. And I'm sure you can do the rest of the math. but I was picking up opiates. So I roll up in there.

And I was a very good, I was very good on a motorcycle. So I'd hang wheelies and do endos and fun stuff and, you know, hence the tattoo. But long story short, I went over there and I picked up some, and I'm leaving the place. So I'm riding dirty as it is. The motorcycle isn't registered and I'm getting ready to leave. And I was supposed to meet, I believe it was my girlfriend and a buddy and his girl to go for a ride. And as I'm leaving, and a Swiggo County Sheriff comes up and over the hill. And I'm doing probably 80 and 45 or something like that.

And I'm like, and a lot of times they won't even turn around and give chase because we're just so much faster than them. But this guy was like, he was Johnny Law on a mission. So I see the brakes. I see, you know, the brake lace. I see the car dive he spins around. And I'm like, I'm just going to pull over. Right. And then I'm like, oh, shit, the bike's not registered.

I don't even have a plate on this thing. And then I'm like, I've got a lot of d'clock in my pocket. This is not good. So I kind of let him get up. Like, I let him kind of get up so he could see me. And then I hung a wheelie and took off. And it sounds crazy, but there's been times in the past that by doing that, a lot of guys that know better, especially a lot of veterans, you'll ask him, like, dude, guys riding like that, I'm not going to go chase him because he's going to kill himself is what they'll say. So that was like my first attempt at getting out of it.

Now, this dude, Matt's it. He's like on a mission, super trooper. He's coming after me. So, dude, when I say there's two high speed chases that I've been involved in in my life. One was when I was much younger, did not have the skills on the motorcycle to be riding the way that I was. went back later and looked in one of the corners I had gone all the way from inside the white line on the right shoulder. There was a skid mark from me hitting my rear brake and drifting on accident all the way through a four lane road across the center line over through the other lanes out into the shoulder, into the dirt, back around and back into the corner and going. And bro, there are Italian super bike riders that can't pull that off and I did it by accident and that just shows you how close I was to death.

There was a guardrail three inches away from where that freaking tire mark was. That was high-speed chase number one. This one, I actually could ride. I was actually well-practiced on a motorcycle. It was a thousand-cc-superbike, and I was, there were times during this chase when I had to be reaching almost 200 miles an hour. But this guy was relentless, man. So imagine this.

Imagine country roads, no shoulder markings, no center line, gravel on both sides of the road. It's a very volatile place to be riding this type of speed. So I take off, I go up, I make a left onto a highway. And as I look back, I see, dude, this guy, when I say this guy must have been given this little Dodge Charger everything it had, he should not have been keeping up with me how I was riding. So I took off, I went down the major highway, it just opened it as wide open as I could. I'm doing 200 miles an hour in and out of cars. I get far enough away where I know I'm out of his eyesight.

I turn the motorcycle around in the middle of the road and I start immediately heading back towards him at Mach 7 as fast as I possibly can. My thought process then being when he sees me pass him back in the end, other direction going this fast, there's no way he's going to turn around and give chase. Well, the minute I cross up over the hill, he's coming this way. Another cop is coming off a side street. They say when you're riding a motorcycle, you can't beat a helicopter or radio. They're right. So as I'm going this way, the cop pulls out almost hits me.

I think, frankly, he may have been trying. I don't know. But I continue to go down that same road. I double back on the other road, the road that I had come from where the trailer was that I was buying the... I go down there through the twisties. I get back to the guy's house. I pull up in his, don't ask me why I did this.

I pull up in his driveway. So I'm at this point maybe 30 seconds ahead of the cops that I've gained that much ground. And I don't know at this point if they've actually turned on the same road that I have in judging by the sounds, the air, the birds chirping, likely they haven't. And I asked him to give me his shirt. I was wearing a Kawasaki riding jacket. I took my Kawasaki riding jacket off. I gave it to him.

He was a $300 jacket. He was happy to get it. He didn't ask questions. I said, give me your shirt. He had this baggy ripped up, tie-died shirt on, and I'll never forget how bad it smelled, man. It was disgusting. So I took my helmet off. I put the shirt on.

I put my helmet back on. I ripped the visor off. I broke the visor and threw it. He's like, dude, what are you doing? Got back on the bike and took off. He had to maybe put two and two together at one point. I leave the guy's driveway. I go back up to that same spot where I make the left to go on the highway.

I turned on the highway. I start to put away. Both of those cops are sitting at the gas station. It's on the corner of that road. And I pull away. I look over. I nod. They look up.

Looked at each other. Looked back to me. Nodded. I kept going. The other one. And I'm kind of watching in my rear view. They look at each other. And they go back to what they're doing.

And I drove away, dude. Crazy. Is it because you think they thought you were someone else? Or do you think that they thought they lost sight of you? They thought they lost me. Yeah. Yeah. They saw that guy.

Like, it was such a staunch difference. They're what, I had been moving so quickly. They never really got a good look at me. They just knew that they were chasing a green motorcycle. They knew that they were chasing a relatively good rider in matching riding gear. And when I, and I purposefully did this.

When I turned the corner, I started going, I overreved it and dragged the clutch and kind of like, uh, uh, made it look like I didn't really know what I was doing. And then kind of, uh,

and then kind of clicked. And when you, when you miss the shift in a bike, it'll kind of go like, uh, and it'll go into gear. And the bike riders know what I'm talking about. And you can do it by kind of feathering the clutch

a little bit. So I basically tried to feign that I did not know how to ride the motorcycle and I was pulling away and I wasn't shifting well and so on and so forth. That combined with some holy stinky tie-died shirt from some redneck meth cook with a broken visor on my helmet, it was enough for the visual cue to not be enough for them to pair me, you know, mentally with the guy that they saw riding, drove away. Go back home, parked a bike, went on about my day, man, but it was pretty intense. Nice. So what are you doing now? What am I doing now? I'm not I'm not racing motorcycles anymore man. Um, kind of so, you know, they, they know, I've talked about being a car dealer. I've talked about the entrepreneurial journey, if you will. What I discovered, I, it's crazy, man,

the same, the same guy that employed me several years ago, I had actually stolen from. I worked for him. He made me a manager of one of his stores. I was rustproofing and cleaning. dealer's vehicles in exchange for he discovered that fired me disliked me so badly he met me off-site at a gas station with security to hand me my last paycheck and recorded on video basically saying you're not welcome on any of my properties if I ever see you there again

I'm gonna have the cops called immediately you're never to come within an inch of my place again otherwise it's gonna be concrete shoes for you and he's not connected guy so that wasn't that wasn't a joke this same individual who his life and success is built on kind of a rebound and a second chance story. When I got out of prison, I had been recruited, if you will, by a guy that I used to work with who had a car dealership that he had built while I was in prison. But he was failing miserably. He was a car salesman trying to be a car dealer that didn't know what he was doing. So he engaged me and said, listen, I'll give you all my stuff. I'll

give you my checkbook, my line of credit, my cars, my trailer, and you go do this thing, use all my resources and we'll split whatever you make. And then he went back to work in his 9 to 5. So I did that, made an incredible amount of money, got us into a bigger facility, more cars, bigger line of credit, just started growing the business, doing what I do. And he ended up robbing me.

He was an active user. He ended up robbing me for at the time was like $40,000 or $50,000, money that I had left aside to pay my taxes with and just put me flat on my face again. So I'm a guy that was fresh out of prison who had started to do this business stuff

and was succeeding at it and then got kicked directly in the balls and went back to zero. So I was pretty messed up over that. But the same guy that I had stolen from before and had fired me, reached back out to me and was like, listen, I believe in second chances. You know, he's very religious.

I wouldn't be who I am without a second chance, you know, given to me. I want to pay it forward. I want to give you a shot at your job again. And it was a six-figure job. And I was like, you know, all right, man. Like, I may as well give it a shot. So I went and worked for him. And he noticed because he's a very intelligent businessman that whenever we would talk about the car

business and my hustling cars for this other guy, that I would just, I would glow. I would get very excited about it and I would talk about what I was doing. And I just, he saw a different Luke talking about that than he did selling rustproofing for him on a daily basis. So one day he just walks into my office, puts his feet up on my desk and goes, what did that guy? What was the split with him? I'm like, what do you mean? He's like your old business partner, what was the split?

So I told him. He writes it down on a piece of like a legal pad. He goes, and how much money did you need to get, you know, front and to get that thing going? And I told him and he writes it down. He's like, okay. And what was the rent at the building you were at? and I told him he writes it down and tears it off and folds it and puts it into his pocket. I'm like, what was that all about?

He's like, I like to know things. I like business. It intrigues me. I was just curious. Stupid, naive me, I didn't think nothing of it, right? Two days later, a day or two later, he comes into my office and he's got that same piece of paper. And next to every number, he's got it crossed out. And, you know, instead of 50, it was 55%.

Instead of 1,500 a month, it was $750. And instead of, you know, $40,000, it was $100,000. And he goes, that's the offer, take it or leave it. So the offer for what? He says, I want to stake it. you to start your own used car dealership. We're going to be partners. You're going to buy it from me in four years for $36,000 no matter what you do with it. We're going to split everything 55, 45, 45. You'll get 55 that way. You never steal from me because I'm giving you to lion's share.

I'll give you a rent of $750 a month for your first year and then we'll go up from there. It says, and I'll give you $100,000 to get started. I said, you want me? No, sir. I said, can I have 24 hours? He goes, yeah. And I said, and the only reason I'm saying that is because I don't, I did not expect this today. I'm not quite sure how to process. Everything in me tells me yes, but he goes, take 24 hours, we'll talk tomorrow. And I went home and I talked to my now wife,

who was my girlfriend at the time, who had offered me because she saw what I did with the other guy's place. She'd offered me $80,000 of her money left over from a settlement that she got. She got ran over by a tractor trailer. It was terrible. I mean, real bad, yeah.

And, dude, I've seen people get a million dollars for a broken finger. Right. Okay, this scum lawyer got her, $250 grand. She's got metal through her legs. She's got rods and pins and her. She was almost crippled completely. A tractor trailer. The guy was unlicensed. He was undercertified. He was over his clocked hours. He drove, you know, completely the wrong way through. It was just, she should have gotten millions of dollars. She still to this day has many issues with it. And, you know,

typical small town lawyer looking for a quick settlement. But anyways, she had offered me money and said, go do it with this money. You know, build our life. I know you can do it. And I didn't have the confidence in myself because number one, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't that accomplished. It was only like 11 months I had built that business. We hadn't even been through a full fiscal business cycle. Plus, you know, I was fresh out of prison. I didn't think much of myself. And I didn't want her and my relationship because I truly did care about it. I mean, we got married. I love her to death. I didn't want it to be founded on money or borrowed money. So I just wasn't willing to do that. But when this guy came and it was his money, and we're talking about a guy that's worth 50, 60 million

So when he says I'm going to give you money and I think you can do this, it inspires a lot of confidence within yourself to say, well, if he thinks I can do it, then maybe I got a shot at doing this. So I took him up on the offer, man. And it was just piece by piece, brick by brick. I was still working for him, calling the DMV, finding out what I needed to do to get my license, shopping around insurance companies, trying to get bonded, trying to get lines of credit, just trying to put all the Legos on the board to build the foundation and build up from there, man. And, you know, a year in, we made a couple hundred grand. Two years in, we opened a second store, made a half a million, three years. And it just went up from that. Now we have three stores.

I bought him out in 2020. The company's the highest rated independent used car dealership group in central New York. The company has been valued at over $12 million. And it's strictly off the back of hard work, man. It's just hard work and discipline. And nothing more than, I'm not a particularly good car dealer. I'm not good at turning inventory. I'm not good at policy.

procedure. What I'm good at is training salespeople. The people, when you come into my store, within five minutes, you're qualified. We know what you're looking for. We know what your creditability is. We know what type of inventory we do or don't have for you. Like the sale is over within the first 15 minutes. The rest of it's just test driving the car and facilitating the paperwork. And people would come into my stores and the vendors and people would be just like, like, they would hear my salespeople talk. And even, who the hell taught them to talk like that? Well, I did. What I realized over time to get to the point of what I'm doing today is that I was not a good car dealer. I was a fair to Midland car dealer. What I was exemplary at was teaching

people the skill of qualifying a customer, selling, persuading, and closing a deal. So I found it very entertaining. I found it very bombastic, you know, what guys like Grant Cardone and, you know, Bradley and Tony Robbins and, you know, the leaders of that kind of business and influencing space were doing. I saw the people who were doing sales training now, and I bought some of their trainings, and I went through them, and I just saw how they were just fundamentally flawed, and they were all based on word tracks and scripted lines and sentences and rebuttals. And the problem is salespeople, man, they don't, it's a lack of confidence. The best salespeople are super confident. They know they're going to close the deal. They go in

and they close it. Those guys can use training. They will get better, but they're always going at least survive. It's getting the guy from zero to 60, which is difficult because sales can be a very difficult and a very intimidating thing. What we do is we don't teach them things to say. We teach them the framework and the skill set so they can say it themselves. Earlier in the show, we talked about authenticity and we talked about that frequency of just knowing when someone's full of shit or not. That happens with a customer. So the most effective way for somebody to sell and persuade another individual is to just be honest and factual with them. And if they can do that in a way that has the foundational framework which funnels them into selling that individual, something that

works for that individual, then it's an infallible close every time. They will literally close every closable deal. So I decided to create an online training platform, which is what all the competitors in that space are doing. I did it based on a completely different set of fundamentals. And I spent the appropriate money to get it produced and, you know, to script it and do all the videos. And we've just recently launched it. That's what paid to persuade is. And it's taken off like a rocket ship. We have people leaving our competitors, the other big voices in the space, if you will, and every new customer that we're signing daily is, you know, I bought so-and-so's training and they're just teaching me things to say.

I bought so-and-so's training and they're just teaching me things to say. No one's teaching me why I'm saying how to say it or what answer I need to get. I need to connect the dots. We connect it for them. They engage and we're the most effective sales training in the world. I can say that beyond a shadow of a doubt. So that, sir, is what I'm doing now. Okay.

It's paid to persuade. You know, can I plug it shamelessly? Yeah. I mean, yeah. So for the people that are out there that are in sales, what I try to do is I try to give them free value so they can execute upon it and actually get better and use little bits and pieces of our framework. So if they follow any of my social media is it's Luke Lunk, Lunk, L-U-K-E-L-N-K, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, any of the Metas X, it's all at Luke Lunk. Daily, we give free sales tips, we give free entrepreneurial advice, motivational stuff. It's basically just it's a place a salesman can go and check in daily.

and at least every couple days they're going to get some sort of nugget that's going to be very valuable for them. And I do that for a reason because the more free value I give, it seems to be the more people come to us looking for the other piece or the other half of the puzzle. And then as far as the company's concerned, they can, you know, if they engage with me on social media, I answer every DM myself or they can just go to pay topersuade.com and, you know, they can book a call with me personally right there and, you know, and get the rest of the information. So I appreciate you. Let me share that. Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button.

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