Noob School - From Harvard Hoops to Injury Law: Lamar Flatt’s Path

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

When I sat down with Lamar Flatt — former Harvard basketball player, USC law graduate, and now partner at Best & Flatt, P.A. — I knew we’d cover a lot of ground. Lamar’s story takes him from the court to the courtroom, starting his law career in Savannah, GA, before returning to South Carolina, and he’s built a reputation as both a sharp attorney and a lifelong learner. In our conversation, we talk about why curiosity matters, the importance of always seeking knowledge, and a perspective we discuss called “ant theory.” Imagine a closet that, to a colony of ants, is their entire world. They don’t realize there’s an entire house beyond it, or even more beyond the house. The same goes for us as humans: there’s always more to discover if we keep looking and keep learning. Along the way, Lamar shares stories from his own path in law, how he approaches cases, and the mindset that’s carried him through challenges and opportunities. If you’re serious about growth, staying curious, and seeing the bigger picture in your own life and career, this episode will resonate. Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.co I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsLSubscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends#salestrends

All right, welcome back to Noob School episode 155 Lamar. Wow. That's a lot. I'm honored. Yeah. I'm honored to be the 155th person you've invited. Well, here's the thing. For someone as important as you, I want to kind of warm up a little bit.

Okay. You know, I wanted to get my chops. I'm getting the best John. I think so. I think so. Because if you wait too much longer, I'll be like on the downhill, like bored with it, you know? Yep, yep. But this is peak.

you're still very much within your prime. Yeah, I get it. So, clearly you can probably tell Lamar and I know each other. I always tell you that I have a friend here with me today, and this friend goes back until I think we were like 12 years old. Yeah, I mean, we used to play tennis against each other. It didn't know each other that well. And then when I went over to Christ's church in age 14 or so,

then we really started getting mischievous. Yes. Lamar was a much better tennis player than me, and he was winning tournaments when we were 12 and 13. He was already about the size of you is now. He was so big. I wasn't that tall at that time, but we didn't know each other very well.

Right. But then when you came to our school, we got to know it to other like because we became basketball teammates. Yep. And you were within one inch of me. You never quite caught me. I know.

John 6.7. I'm 6'8. Yeah. I mean, I've lost about half an inch. How much have you lost? I think I'm gaining. Yoga. You get me a stand-up straighter.

But, you know, that's true. But it's funny. One inch, you seem a lot taller than me, to me. Really? Yeah. But I see you with other people. I'm like, good Lord, look how tall he is. I'm like, I got to remember myself, I'm the same size as Lamarius pretty much.

Could it be that I'm thinner? Well, you are thinner, too. Tall or in thinner? What the hell? Did you ever get, like, heavy? Yeah, I've gotten up to, I've gotten up to, I think, 280. Okay. Was my max, six foot eight, 280.

Yeah. And I said, yeah, I don't want to start pushing the three, the big three. Yeah. So I lost pretty quickly about 45 pounds. As soon as you got there. By the way, John, I've got a joke for you. Okay. Why are fish so thin?

I don't know. Because all they eat is fish. So fish is your secret? Yeah, that's what I did. That's how I lost my 45 pounds. It's just every time we went out, fish, fish, what's the fish? And then instead of fries, I would eat broccoli. Yeah.

It wasn't that hard. And then once the weight starts coming off, you didn't tell me we're doing a weight loss, you know. Who knows what we're doing? We're freewheeling. We're giving out information for free to Delamara. Once that weight starts coming off and, you know, you kind of look forward to stepping on the scale. or whatever. You get a little momentum going.

But it's really all about starting. Yeah. Fish is a good start. I mean, fish. Does you cook fish at home? Well, I mean, seriously, if we want to talk about this, the things that I did to lose 45 pounds is I gave up fried. I was like, all right, I've got to do something that's going to,

that I'm going to stick with. I mean, I can't do something crazy. Right. So I said, I gave up fried foods. That's fairly easy to do. And I gave up desserts, which is kind of hard, but I did it. And then every day on the way home from work, I would make myself eat an apple. It was like a natural appetite suppressor.

So I would come in after, you know how you come in from work and you're just like, give me something to eat? I need some fries. I need some snacks. I was stuffed from an apple. So literally every day, I mean, as you know me pretty well, John, I'm pretty OCD, a little bit OCD. Every day eating an apple. Yeah. So I'd come in and just stuffed.

Yeah. And that's how I did it. But it's whatever works. People say low carb, low fat, sugar. That's great. It's just what works. There's probably multiple ways to do it. Yeah.

What did you do to get to 280? Well, that's the easy part, right? Yeah. You know, and I didn't look gross, I don't think. Because we're so tall. And I was working out a lot. Yeah. He's still lifting weights and everything.

But yeah, I just, just, let it loose, let it rip. Whatever I wanted to eat, I ate. It almost got to be a contest. Like, I'm going to see how big I can get. So, anyway, now I try to keep it, you know, in the 240 range. Yeah. We have great discipline for that.

You have better discipline than me on that kind of stuff. I do advocate weighing every day. Yeah. I like to see where you are. A lot of people say, you know, throw away the scale. No, I like to catch it. before it takes off. I like it too because whatever happens that day on the scale,

you can think to yesterday and think, what did I do? Yeah. And occasionally notice something like, don't do that again or do more of that, you know. Yeah. Well, the other thing I like is if you've gained a couple of pounds, it catches it. Yeah. And you're like, maybe today I ought to give up that extra slice of pizza.

Yeah, yeah. You know, also as we get older, I don't know about you, but like digestion and stomach aches. It's like a natural, like I don't want to eat junk now because I'll feel that. Right. So that makes it a little easier. Yeah, it does. Yeah.

I've cut some foods completely out for that very reason. First one for me was like crispy cream donuts. Oh, yeah. When I was, you know, when I was in my 20s, I was like, oh my God, let's get a box of those things. And now if I ate one, five minutes later, I feel like horrible. Yeah, I mean, there's certain things like crispy cream donuts that I just don't, I just don't. I don't go because one crispy cream donut has, I don't know, 350 calories and tons of sugar.

I mean, and you can eat them in two bites. Yeah. So why? I know. It's so good. Well, let me go on my introduction of Lamar. Great tennis player from an early age, a basketball player. Lamar lived in Clemson.

His father was a noted math professor over there. So you came from a small. background and I used to go over there and hang with you sometimes. That's pretty cool. But Lamar, you know, back in all the way up to those times, Lamar, as far as I can recall, didn't ever make anything other than an A in school. So all A's all school and then on the SAT missed the perfect score by one question. Yeah, I think my SAT might have been a little bit lower than that, but it was a good

SAT. Yeah. But I mean, I don't know how we were even friends because you were on a different, you're on a different level. I remember hearing you talking to some of the other like high SAT smart people about like after the test, they were like, remember that question about so-and-so? I remember it was A, B, and C, of course A and D were no good. It was B or C. I was like, I don't even remember the question. You guys were, you know, you had it, you had it done. So it was, you know, I would have liked to have been more in that area. I don't think I was allowing myself to get there. I think I just kind of had a, like it was almost I didn't want to be one of the smart people.

You know, the SAT and, you know, getting admitted to these schools and all that, it's so much of it, you know, very, there are so many smart, smart, and you're very, very smart. But a lot of people don't figure it out that it's important to study and work hard and be smart until they're 25 or 30 or 40. and very few people, you know, stress academics when they're 16 or 17. I was one of those people, maybe growing up with a college professor. I think that probably helped. So it's really more that than how smart you are. I mean, because I always say the most important question on the SAT is, is this a test worth studying for?

Because I studied for my SAT. And most, you know, 99% of the kids just went just. showed up and hungover. Yeah, hung over and took it. So yes, I was motivated academically, you know, at a pretty young age. I think that's, it says more about that than necessarily how smart you are. Well, yeah, that's an interesting point. I remember like your your background with your dad and being over there at Clemson Network, you know, I still had some hang-ups about, you know, it's summertime, burn the books. I can't wait for vacant for, for, for, for, for, for, for,

or summer vacation, you know, just versus like, this is a learning time. We get to learn stuff. I always like to read. That is one thing. I always have always had a book going. And I still, to this day, I'm reading a great book right now called Midnight on the Potomac about the end of the Civil War and the Lincoln assassination and the beginning, you know, the reconstruction and all that. So I think it's important to always have a book going. Yeah, that's pretty

That I'm always working on That is a very common trait Of successful people It's like the most common trait You think so? Well just based on all my studies and reading Like they talk about different things That are common among

You know Warren Buffett, Bill Gates You know all those people They read Like crazy Well I was excited like this morning I came down At the kitchen table And I read this chapter on

In this book Midnight on the Potomac, and it was on the John Wilkes Booth, his background. I had always thought that John Wilkes, in fact, I'll ask you, what do you think John Wilkes booth his level or success level as an actor? Do you think he was like a big actor? Do you think he was a journeyman? What is your view? My guess would be journeyman. Right, mine too. He was incredibly successful. Really? Yeah. And this writer goes back and covers all these newspaper clips. He was like the hottest young actor in the country. I had no idea. And he has all these reviews about what a genius he was. Nobody plays Shakespeare like John

Wilkes Booth does. And on and on and on. In fact, Lincoln's son Tad had gone to one of his plays and because he was the president's son arranged to meet him. And Booth gave him a present or whatever and all this. But he was crazy. He was a mad, you know, he was, he was a great actor because he was mad good, mad genius. Crazy. Yeah. Nicholson crazy. Yeah, Jack Nicholson type crazy.

But I thought he was a journeyman. I mean, yeah, because it's funny because he obviously got branded with one thing. Yeah. And so you assume there's nothing else. Yeah. Golly, it's crazy, crazy time. But I love learning stuff like that. Yeah.

Well, that's good. I told someone yesterday, I've learned more since I turned, you know, probably 50 than I learned before. including at college, everything else. I mean, because of the internet and my interest in learning. Right. And you can learn so much easier now. So, yeah.

So try to finish the story this time. So Lamar almost aces SAT and was a standout basketball player. He was one of the best players in the South, certainly at times, best player in the state and tennis. It's probably some stuff I'm missing. But he had his choice of, where to go to college and ended up going to Harvard and playing basketball at Harvard. And after his career at Harvard, where he studied economics, right.

He went to South Carolina law school, which I think is because you knew you wanted to be in South Carolina. That's right. That's right. I was ready to get home and knew that I was going to live in South Carolina, so chose to come back to the University of South Carolina. Yeah, yeah. And I guess Clemson didn't have a law school. That's right.

That's too bad. If Clemson had a law school, I probably would have gone there. Yeah, you'd be the first student. You'd be like, I'll let's start one. At the time, USC was the only law school in the state. There is one now in Charleston. Yeah, yeah. And how are they doing, by the way?

I don't know. I don't hear much about them. Okay. There was a lot of buzz at first, but have not heard a lot lately. Yeah. I assume they're still there. I think they are. But Lamar is very, probably tell already,

he's very much of an individualistic thinker. and he quickly knew that he wanted to have his own law firm. So I don't remember what you did between law school in 1992 when you started your own firm. Right. I worked for, well, actually it's funny, my very first job, my wife is also a lawyer. And so she got a job with a defense firm in Savannah. And there was another, there was a guy down there in Effingham County right outside of Savannah, a young guy looking for a partner, a law partner. And so somehow or another said, Lamar, this might

be perfect for you because we know you don't want to work for anybody. And so yeah, my actual first job was as a partner in a very small law firm. And so we did everything from real estate closings to some criminal defense. I mean, I got sworn into the bar and was in court that day. Wow. Yes, literally the same day. So did a little bit of everything. A small. town Effingham County, Georgia. And then we decided we were going to actually move. Laura got pregnant. I don't know how she got pregnant.

What happened? Yeah, I don't know what happened. But we decided to move into Savannah. And so this is before the internet, you know, and I just got up the yellow pages and sent my resume in to pretty much all the law firms in Savannah. And I got a call back from a man that owned a personal injury law firm. John Wright Jones was his name, big old guy. And he offered me a job.

I wasn't picking personal injury. And I went to work for him, and I was like, something clicked. And I was like, I think this is what, this matches up well with my skill sets. Why? Well, with personal injury law, I mean, I don't envision myself sitting around an office, reviewing contracts. Somebody comes to you and says, hey, we want to buy this. laundromat here, would you do all the paperwork for me to buy this laundromat? Doesn't that just sound tediously painfully boring? Horrible. Yeah. Billing by the hour. Yeah. Keeping up with your

time. Working late. Working lots of hours. But you know, you're grinding. Yeah. And whereas personal injury work is very personal, you know, you're meeting with clients all the time. Every case is different. And it is paid, not hourly, but based on percentage of what you recover. And if, you know, some people don't like the fact that you can work on a case for two years and if you lose the case, you get paid nothing. Now, I don't like it either. And that doesn't happen very often. Yeah. But some people can't handle that level of risk. Right. So that makes it opportunity for you. Yes. It makes it a little bit. It makes it kind of stimulating to me. Yeah. Yeah. Gets the adrenaline going. Yeah. And so what's it like, you know, when you're when you're doing a case like that and when you're, when you're, you're doing a case like that and when you're, when you're I guess you're competing with like a lawyer for an insurance company or something? Yeah. I mean, typically I do mostly automobile accidents and mostly workers' comp on the job injuries. So typically with an auto accident case, we're not dealing with a lawyer on the other side yet

because I'd say 90% of the cases settle out of court. what we're doing is we're monitoring the treatment, making sure they get whatever treatment they need to get back to 100%. And we're just helping them out with issues that come along the way, like getting their car fixed or whatever. And then once they're done with their treatment, we'll submit a demand package to the insurance company, let's say state farm or nationwide or all state.

And I'd say 90% of the cases settle at that point. But about 10% of them, you just don't, get an offer that you're satisfied with. So then we file suit against the other driver. And that's when a defense lawyer gets involved. Okay. Okay. So it's your job then to get all everything, all the bills and stuff,

all that organized and tight. Yes. So when you present it, they're like, oh, this is real. You know, we better pay them. We call that a demand package. Okay. We'll send out a demand package. Yeah.

pictures of the car, all the medical records. That's a big part of what we do is accumulating all of the medical records, all the medical bills. You know, you'd be surprised a lot of the clients don't even, they're not even sure which doctor they went to. Yeah, he's down on Whitehorse Road by the Wendy's. I'm like, I don't need directions. I need the name of the doctor and preferably their phone number. So, yeah, gathering all that. and then negotiating.

Big part of what we do is negotiating. Yeah. I bet you're good at it. Well, thank you. I mean, it drives me crazy when I see things on TV, like, you know, pawn stars. You ever watch pawn stars? We're like, we'll give you $250 from that and they go,

okay, okay. I'm like, don't take the first offer. Are you kidding me? You got to say something. You know, come back and ask for $500 and go back and forth a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And so how long, it's called Best and Flat, so Laura's maiden name was Best, right?

That's right. And so you had to marry someone with a maiden name close to A for the phone book. I picked her out for that reason. You couldn't find anyone with an A. Nobody with A that was available. But yeah, at the beginning, you know, people all the time say, where do you get your cases? At the beginning, and look, personal injury law, I'd say it's like college football coach, 80% of it's recruiting. 20% of it's coaching.

Interesting. And I would say in personal injury law, 80% of it is getting in the cases. 20% is being a lawyer and handling the cases. So tell us about that. That's the sales part of this. How do you get them? Well, at the beginning, because we started our firm, I worked, again, I worked for a firm in Savannah for a while, moved back to South Carolina.

And then I knew all along I wanted to have my own practice. So Laura and I hung up the shingle in 92, made best of business. made Best and Flat back in 1992. We had some good friends, you know, some people you know, like Ear Philpott, you know, Irf from the tennis days, that fortunately sent some cases to us to actually try, to go to trial and try, and we would split the fee, so that kept me busy for a while. You know, several other people that I'd known for a long time. Lawyers would associate me on their cases, and I was trying a lot of cases.

but the yellow pages, believe it or not, the yellow pages, because there was no internet back then. And you alluded to it, best and flat, we were the second ad in the Yellow Pages phone book. And that was actually a great resource. I mean, people would get into a wreck, people would have an on-the-job injury, and they would go whip out the yellow pages,

go to attorneys. And it was very expensive, but we had a full-page ad. In fact, we had the double truck. They called it the double truck. Both sides? Yeah. Both sides. And we were the second ad.

Yeah. And it didn't hurt that it said Harvard graduate in there, you know, and had our pretty pictures. My wife's very pretty. Yeah. And got a lot of calls from the Yellow Pages. Yeah. Cool. Well, that was probably a big investment, too, though, to do that.

Yes. I mean, that's a little big part of your budget, I would think, at that age. Yeah, it was. very expensive. I don't remember exactly what it was, but we had some money saved up. I mean, neither of us came from wealthy, you know, both of us came from middle class families, so we didn't have tons of money saved up. We also had three young children at the time, four and under. Yeah. We had three children, four and under. Yeah. And we both left, we left steady jobs. So some members of our family weren't, weren't thrilled that we were doing it. You're leaving the job.

Yeah, when you've got these young children. Yeah. Well, it, you, It would have made more practical sense for whoever had the higher paying job to stay. Yeah, maybe. The other one opened. Right, but I needed the B. You needed to be. You had to have the B. I had to have the B.

That's funny. That's funny. And then what you find is, I remember a lawyer at a seminar I went to said, the most important marketing you do is to your existing client base. And man, that has been true for me. You know, you've got to do a good job for these people, and you've got to be personable, and you've got to be responsive and all that, and hopefully make a nice recovery for them. But if you want them to refer their friends and their brothers and sisters and family members to you,

you know, you've got to stay in touch. Yeah. So market your existing client base first. How do you do it? How do you stay in touch with them? Well, first of all, I'll always talk to him on the phone. Mr. So-and-so is called you represented five years ago. He wants to talk to you about the Clemson Tigers.

I'll be in the middle of a brief or whatever with a deadline. My thing is people first. People before the work. People first. Or I'll come out and they'll drop by and I'll come out and so-and-so drop by to say hello. I will always go out and talk to them. So I always think people first. You know, we'll do think, one thing we do is we send Christmas cards out to all of our existing and former clients.

That, you know, somebody I might represent it 20 years ago is getting a Christmas card from me. Yeah. So that helps to remind them. Yeah. And so, you know, things just start snowballing. But again, none of this works unless you do a decent job to begin with. Right. Yeah.

But I'll tell you what, Lamar, as a sales coach, most people don't do. it. Most people somehow get a customer, can do a pretty good job, make the commission, now looking for the next one. All they got to do is just stay a little bit in touch with this person to get more business. They don't do it. That's right. They don't do it. So. And don't you think, don't you find a lot of people, and I find this with lawyers, they want to just be fed the work. Well, yeah, the ones that like to work late and work by the hour and you know bill lots of hours that's a that's a whole other animal than you but they expect somebody else to give them the work right I think when they start as just recent law

school graduates that's what happens right yeah partners give them their work to do and the partner charges the higher rate I was always thinking how am I going to generate the business how am I going to get the work I mean always in the back of my mind even when I was working for these other firms which I only did for like three years I'd be like How would I get this case? I was always trying to think that way. Well, I mean, that's a good lesson for our folks watching is, you know, just taking responsibility. And when you have your own business and you have to create enough revenue to pay for your family,

there's no backup plan. That's right. You've got to figure it out. So you can sit, you can whine about it, and you can complain and wish that and wish that, and wish, whatever, you know, but you just got to figure it out. The other thing, too, is if you're going to work for yourself, you have to know yourself. Somebody told me, said, man, I could never do what you do because I don't think I would ever show up to work.

You have to know, I mean, you and I, having played basketball together, you know, you know how hard we both worked at our basketball. And frankly, I mean, like when I was in college, I think that I kind of butted heads with my head coach because he was one of those guys that was always kind of on you, very negative. I'm like, I don't need motivation. Right.

I don't need you trying to motivate me, especially with negative negativity. I don't respond well to negativity. Me either, yeah. I don't like negative energy. But I have an internal clock, and I know when I need to be at the office, and I know what I need to do,

and nobody needs to tell me when to show up. You're that way. right? Yeah, definitely. I like working on various projects, whether it's the podcast or a book or a business or sales coaching. I enjoy all of that. But I wouldn't enjoy if I had to come someplace and be there at a certain time. Yeah. And kind of a lot of people kill time all day. I mean, COVID saved the world to some agree and that we all kind of figured out why don't we just get people to deliver on the goals that we agree to. And let's quit worrying about what time they're in the parking lot.

You know, it doesn't make me any money if you're in the parking lot today. Right. You know, it's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But some people can't do that. Some people need the structure. That's true. That's like, yeah.

I mean, they'll go broke if you tell them, show up. You do the amount of work that you feel like you need to do to accomplish this. task. You and I can do that because that's the way we're wired. But a lot of people can't. They have to be told when to have breakfast. Yeah, and we do a lot of the people that do work for me are on a project basis. Let's look at this project. Let's agree on a price. You're going to deliver it to me in three weeks and I'm going to pay this much money. It takes you five minutes, fine by me. It doesn't help me or hurt me how long. long it takes you to do it.

Yep. The old knowing where to fidget, you remember that story about some engineer. It was back in the, it would have been Henry Ford. It was one of those big, JP Morgan, it was one of those big, big industrialists.

The factory went down. Yeah. You remember the story? No. So they called this guy, the only guy in the world, the country that could get their factory up and running. And he comes in,

spends an hour, gets the factory up and running again. It might have been Ford. And then they get the factory running. So then he submits the bill, which was quite high, quite high back in the day. And the owners wrote back and said, you know, let's just say $10,000 for fidgeting for an hour. And the guy goes, you're right. He struck through the bill and he said, $100 for fidgeting for an hour. $9900 for knowing where to fidget it.

Yeah, that's it. So that's kind of it. That's it. I mean, that's the thing. And I think that when we finally had to work remote, people started to figure that out. Honestly, I was on the other side of this 20 years ago. I was one of those people, like, want to be first in the office and stay late. And why is Lamar leaving at five?

I mean, what the hell? Doesn't he care anymore? You know, and so I've been saved. Work smart, not hard. Yeah. Well, now let's flip this around, though. Okay. If all you're doing is sitting in your living room,

staring at your laptop all day long, doing fully remote work, and you're not building any relationships, how are you going to bring that business in? Well, I think that's a different question. I think that part of, part of the job requirement, you know, for someone like me or you, is to be out there generating a certain number of business from meeting people, doing stuff.

So I'm always doing things like a podcast or, you know, seminars or training people or whatever. And I've always heard that, and I believe this, if you call it networking, you're probably doing it wrong. You know, you just, you just be nice to everybody. in my line of work, you never know where that case is going to come from. You've actually sent me cases over the years. I don't show up to you and go, hey, John, you know. You got anybody you can send me for a personal injury case? You know, it just happens naturally.

Now, here's a practical tip. Here's a practical tip for your listeners. I make sure that early on one of my neighbors who liked me thought I was good, said, oh, I never knew you did car accidents. So my sister was in a wreck, so I sent her to so and so and so. So I decided I'm never again going to have a situation where somebody doesn't know what I do. All right. And I'll have Maytag repairmen come to the house.

Heating and air people come to the house. And every single one of them, first of all, you're nice to them. You just be nice to everybody. be personable with everybody. Everybody's got an interesting story. If you'll listen to them and talk to them, their stories are interesting. And part of it is you've got to genuinely like people.

Right. You can't really fake that. You can't really fake that. But if you don't like people, then you probably not, maybe not do something like this. But then when they're leaving the house, I say, oh, by the way, here's what I do. And I'll give them a card.

And they're always like, oh, great, thanks. And I can't tell you the number of cases I've gotten from people that I was at your house working about five years ago, repairing your washing machine. And my wife's very personable too. So they saved the business card? Yeah. Or they just remember us. Look us up. That's wonderful.

I just saw something from Gary Vanderchuk, one of the guys I follow. and he said, because he has a lot of social media coaching, and he said, he goes, all you people are like trying to get likes on LinkedIn and Twitter and all that different stuff, he goes, just exactly what you're saying. He's like, you've got to go to everyone you know, everyone who's in your phone, and give them a quick little video that says, hey, Lamar, just real quick, you know, want to let you know,

I'm going to give you one ask. This is, you know, as a friend, this is, I'm going to let you know what I do. And if you, if you ever have this problem or anyone in your family, I want to take care of them. Otherwise, don't worry about it. I won't bother you again, click. And he says you do that like,

let's say your top 10 possibilities, you do individual, and for the rest of them, just do it in batch. Yeah. You're one of my friends. I want to let you know. Just so that won't happen again. Don't know.

Just so they'll know what you do. And now, let's say with Facebook, you can just every now and then say, hey, I promise I'm not going to, I'm not going to bother y'all on my personal, we're going to go back to dogs and food and grandchildren. Yeah. But I wanted to let you know I started a new job.

Yeah. You know, please, let's say you're a real estate agent. Our friend, Barclay. Yeah. Barkley Rickman, I told him I would mention his name. Barclay Rickman, my man. He does a nice job, Greenville Real Estate. Yeah.

There you go, Berkeley. But yeah, he'll do some, every now and then he'll put in something that he sold or listed or whatever, but 99% of Facebook is fun stuff. Yeah. Well, I'll have to get Barkling on the pot. I told him. That'd be cool. Yeah.

So how's like AI affecting your business? I mean, our business is, you know, personal injury work is not all that technologically driven. I think people that try cases, and I tried a lot of cases when I was younger. but now I don't do like the really big products liability suing GM and you know we're going to try this case for the next six months I think in that you know there's a lot of technology my line of work is is more you know first of all most of my clients are not that technologically sophisticated so you got to call them email but yeah I have not had a lot of involvement with with AI, quite frankly. It's easier to research a quick question.

Yeah. You know, what's the law in Georgia on, you know, crosswalks? Yeah. Boom. Yeah. You can get the AI answer. It's amazing. Yeah.

I love that part. I used to go to the Supreme Court Library to research things. Never, never, haven't been to the library in quite a while. I'm telling you, when I see people building like a campus or something, a huge, like $40 million library. I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah. Those kids aren't using those books

anymore. Yeah, exactly. It's, what's going to happen in libraries. Oh, the other thing I would recommend, you know, I, if you if somebody, if you're working on a case and somebody, let's say a defense lawyer, or you see

another plaintiff's lawyer, uses a nice little form that you like, copy it, steal it. plagiarize. No, I mean, it's okay to use a form that you like. So you just, they would be. I keep a file. They would give you a form that they want you to fill out or something like that.

You might see a subpoena the way it's worded. Okay. You might see another complaint that you like the way it was worded. Yeah. And you just save it. And I've got a great form. Now it's mostly on the computer at first. It was just papers. Well, can you tell us about a case or two?

something really interesting case or a big one or something where you did something really cool to win? Yeah, I mean, we've had a lot of, like I said, most of my cases are car wrecks. I've had one case that was an environmental hazard where there was a leak of a toxic chemical. Yeah. And unfortunately, it led to the death of my client's mother. and we were able to find the leak came about as a result of a defect in the way they were maintaining the chemical

so we were able to get that one resolved that may have been my biggest case that I've had over my career but you know most of my cases you probably wouldn't find them terribly interesting they're typical on-the-job injury very early on one of I had a case where a migrant farm worker was harvesting

sweet potatoes and was on this sweet potato digger and sat on the edge of the sweet potato digger and just would pull up the potatoes imagine doing that all day long yeah yeah and all 10 of her toes got chopped off by the by the potato harvester and it was we found out that they had taken off the guard because the guard slowed it down oh my gosh so you know we got expert witnesses and all that to come in and say that was that shouldn't have been done that a guard would have protected the person's foot so and what do you get per toe yeah I mean you don't get a set amount per toe but like in workers comp you actually do they do assign a value to each body part uh-huh if you're working and you chop your finger off

there's a value for that assigned for each body part you don't in workers comp you don't get pain and suffering awards and all that. It's more statutorily driven. Got you. Okay. How do you like living in Columbia? Well, having grown up in Clemson, you know, it's a little different. I've remained a Clemson fan.

Now, as you know, we've bought my childhood home. Yeah. And we have a daughter and son-in-law that live in Clemson and they have twins. So we spend about half of our time now in Clemson in my childhood home. Are you the one that called our childhood dog a fat little yip-y up?

No, that was it Robbie. That'd be Robbie even. Was that Robbie that did that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Got my mother, Matt. Then was Joy. Yeah, Joy.

I remember. Yeah. It was a fat little yip-y up. Joy and your dad together were, uh, that was something. That was something. Yeah. I remember your dad, your dad was at least as big as you or bigger, wasn't he? Well, he was 6-6.

I'm six, but he was a big guy. He was big. He was about 250 pounds. But he used to make, big arms, big hands. They had a hoop, a basketball hoop of course in the driveway. And he would make Lamar shoot foul shots.

And he would stand there and yell. No! That's right. He would yell at me. Yeah. And you became a great shooter. Lamar would practice so much. His fingers would, would,

brake, it would blister and break from shooting in the wintertime. Yeah, because you get dry. I mean, I would go out there. I can remember like there'd be NFL playoff season, and I would take the radio out and just put it on the back of the car and listen to an entire three-and-a-half-hour football game while shooting baskets. I enjoyed it. That's another thing.

Boy, you've got to, you, now let's talk about that a little bit. you've got to and you know Scotty Shuffler was talking about this the other day with golf right and Nick Saban talks about it a lot you've got to not just be about the final goal if you're only about the final goal you're going to burn out

right right and boy a lot of people do that they might go into medicine because it's a great way to make money yeah well let me tell you something you got to live it to be a successful doctor right so you better find something And I enjoy what I do. I enjoy it.

I actually enjoy my work. You better find something that you can enjoy the process. Yeah. I think so too. I mean, I totally agree. I coach a lot of young people, some in college, some just out of college. And the mistake that they make over and over again is they don't really prepare during college for what they're going to do next. I'm not talking about your architect.

and your pre-law people and your biology majors and your engineers. It's a whole different subject. But, you know, liberal arts people like myself. And then they get out and they're going to panic mode to get a job. Right. Right. And so they, who knows, they just want a job. And so they might be, you know, selling paper over here or technology over here or whatever.

And if they pick the wrong index. industry. Yeah. And worse yet, do well enough to get stuck in it. Yeah. Then the rest of their life, they're just kind of stuck doing something they don't really like. Yeah.

You have to be purposeful. Yeah. About what you want to do. Yeah. So, you know, I loved running sales at a software company. I really like that. But what I determined, once I became a sales coach and started coaching people in sales and training sales teams,

I like that 10 times more because I really didn't like software or, I mean, I like the software business, but I didn't like really the market we're in. I have no, I love maintenance people, but I had no commonality with maintenance people. Right. But when I walk into a room full of salespeople, that's my thing. That's, you know, that's. We're speaking the same language, you know. That's your home base.

It's my home base, but it took me until, you know, 45 years old, figure that out. Yeah. Yeah, I would just say you've got to, you know, and look, you get paid to work. So sometimes it is work. Sometimes you've got to dig a ditch. Yeah, sometimes you've got to dig the ditch. And or harvest the potatoes, right? Yes.

But, you know, if you can, find something that you have, you know, some that you can enjoy. Again, going back to sports. I liked the feeling of shooting baskets. I liked the sound of the ball. I liked the sound of the swish. The sound of the net. Certainly I wanted to be a great basketball player. But if all I was interested in, if I was doing something that I hated, that's when you burn out.

Now, we were talking about losing weight. You've got to find something that you're going to stick with. Because if you're like, I mean, how many? times have we heard people, I'm going to get in shape. I went out, I woke up at five in the morning, and I went out, I'm going to run five miles every day, rain, sleet, or snow. I'm going to run, and I'm not going to, I'm going to skip breakfast, I'm going to skip lunch. And then, and they stick with it a total of what, 72 hours? Yeah. You know, it's just burnout, burnout, burnout. So, you know, I feel like I've always been pretty honest with myself.

And I think you are too. Try to be honest with yourself. Yeah. I love the, you know, when it comes to that kind of thing, I love that Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. Yeah. Because every day, a little bit better, let's change this to this.

And I think that we should be doing the same things. Yeah. You know, how can our day get a little bit better every day? Yep. And I'm kind of a seven-day-a-week person. I don't treat the weekend very much. different than normal days. Yes.

That's another thing, too. I decided, one of the reason I wanted to work for myself is that I didn't want to have my mood dictated by the calendar.

I mean, I know so many people that on Thursday evening, they come alive. Yeah. Because Friday's almost here. Yeah. And then by Saturday night, they're already depressed. They're like a day ahead.

It comes Monday. They're emotionally a day ahead. And then here comes Monday morning and they are just morose. They're morose on Monday morning. Yeah. And I think it should be completely different. Every day should be a great day. My mood is no different on a Monday morning than it is on a Friday night.

Yeah. Yeah. I try to enjoy life. Yeah, enjoy life. And, you know. If you talk to me, you would not know what day of the week it is by the mood that I'm in. Right. which gets us to alcohol.

Okay. How did we get up? Because we're not waking up with a hangover on Monday morning. Well, I mean, is alcohol required to have a good time? Well, it used to be. Yeah. I mean, back when we were younger, it did. It was hard to have fathom a good time without drinking.

Well, yeah, and I'll take your cue on that story. But Lamar and I, you know, let's just say the group we grew up with, drinking was a very normal thing. It was in our heads. At Christ Church Episcopal School. But don't tell any one. Putting in a plug. Pete Cooper did it. Putting in a plug for Christchurch.

It was, so it was very normal. And it, you know, it doesn't make sense now in retrospect, but it was normal to really work hard at being a great athlete and then go out and drink a lot, you know, and then have a hangover. And just your body's like, what are you doing? So anyway, I think we all learn to it. probably over enjoy alcohol and still be successful.

And at some point, I think maybe I was in my 40s, and I saw Lamar in Columbia, and he looked so good, he looked so skinny. And I said, what are you doing to look so good? And he goes, well, I stopped drinking alcohol. And you said you had like a medical, you had a medical thing. I had low platelets on my blood work, and platelets are what causes your blood to clot. They thought I might have leukemia. I had three young children right around the time I started the firm.

And I had to go to the cancer center to get ruled out for leukemia. And they said, good news is you don't have leukemia. You've got a thing called ITP, idiopathic thrombose, basically low platelets. And the bad thing is you shouldn't drink alcohol. And I'm like, you're sitting there telling me I don't have leukemia. And all I have to do is not drink. I said, you could chop off my left arm right now. So that was easy.

Yeah. But I remember, though, in my head, I was like, you've got to be kidding. How can you do that? Because it was such a big part of our lives, you know, that you'd have to work. You'd have a beer. On the weekends during the games, you'd have a beer. Everything kind of had a beer with it except for like when you were actually working, you know. It's the way we celebrate.

You celebrate, you know, or you're sad or, you know, whatever. You're going to the game. You're going to the game. You got to have beer. Part of Stroa party. Yeah. Champagne. Let's party.

Yeah. So all that stuff. And, you know, of course, I really just thought you were insane or I couldn't understand it. And then I left. And it was several, at least five or six years later, I was talking to like a, let's just call it for my benefit, a life coach. We don't want to call it a therapist. And she said, she says, she goes, well, you really like to drink. drink, don't you? I'm like, yeah, I like to, well, don't you? I mean, doesn't everyone? And, and she said,

she goes, we've ever thought about not doing it? I'm like, I know. But I know somebody. Yeah, I know someone that does. And she said, well, if you ever want to try it, you know, it'll just, you know, go 30 days and see how it feels to you. And I was like, oh, my God, it's like a, it's like your brain, and go, whoa. But anyway, fast forward through all the details. I eventually stopped long enough where my brain was like, oh my God, this is great. I told Lamar, when he got here, I'm like, no alcohol for me is a superpower. You can work so much longer. You're clear-headed.

You sleep better. You're healthier. Don't do stupid things. You've always got a designated driver handy. Always a driver. No, I mean, to me, the hardest part was breaking the half. habit. It was just a habit. I was a two

glass of wine a day. Absolutely. I get home from work 5.30 or 6 o'clock. Need that glass. Get that glass of wine. Get the Wall Street Journal. Go out by the pool with the dog. You know, drink a glass of wine,

watch the kids play, you know, go some, you know, start to feel a little bit relaxed. Yeah. And then get a second one maybe at dinner, start to feel really relaxed and then I would stop. You know, I never had like a problem, never had DUIs or anything like that, because I knew when, I didn't like the feeling of, like, I never wanted a third or fourth glass, typically. But breaking that habit, I would say the first 30 to 60 days where you're looking for it. Then you stop looking for it. Yeah. And then you do feel so much. And of course,

nowadays it's all the rage, right? Yeah. All you hear about it is, you know, alcohol is a poison. I think it's been six years for me. How long for you? Well, I started, all right, so I did that. I did 18 years after the blood scare. Then my doctor said, you know, your platelets have kind of normalized.

You can start drinking again. I'm like, really? Don't tell me. Why did you tell me? So I started drinking again. That's what I was really referring to most of the two, the two glass of day since then. Yeah. Then I had, last fall, I had a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation.

You familiar with atrial fibrillation? I am, I must say. Where your heart starts racing for no reason and bumping all over the place. So I had to go to a cardiologist, I had to wear a heart monitor, and they said, you know, you can either stay on meds the rest of your life, blood thinners the rest of your life, or you can have this procedure called ablation. So I had the ablation done this February. And the same thing. The doctor says, the ablation worked, okay? Obviously, you know you can't drink, right?

You shouldn't drink. I'm like, what? So sure enough, if you Google, A-Fib and alcohol, it's not good. Even a small amount of alcohol. Yeah. And I said, I've done this before. So I have not had a drink since last December. Nice.

Again, have it at first. Yeah. You know, when you go to a wedding, or a college reunion or a golf trip with the guys. You miss it. You miss it. But a Christchurch reunion, high school reunion, you know, you'll miss it a little bit.

But once you get out of the habit of looking for it, the benefits far outweigh. Yeah. Like Lamar, you're such a thinker, you know, rational thinker, when you actually weigh, Just to agree there are some benefits to drinking. It is fun. Exactly.

You know, and it's nice to sit around and drink white wine and eat shrimp at some restaurant. I can't say I don't miss it ever. Yeah. For me, it's more every now and then, like when we're sitting outside having lunch somewhere, you know,

and everyone's having a glass of wine, a little sunshine. I'm like, that looks pretty good. But I remind myself, that's going to lead me to an afternoon of nothing. Right. Well,

you start with, You start with the sleep. Yeah. Because I had a habit of waking up, I mean, like seven or eight times a night. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, waking up a lot. Yeah.

You quit drinking. I guarantee you your sleep will improve. No. That's a guarantee. Well, it's kind of a trick. My life coach, I'll trick all these people, too, if they've thought about it. If you're thinking about trying not drinking, then you should just go 30 days and try it. Right.

And if you can't go 30 days, then you really need to stop. Yeah. You know? It's a catch 20. It's a conundrum. It's a conundrum. So let's talk about something else. Lamar and I basically invented the, that we might be living in a simulation.

Yes. In a high school. We did. We did call it the ant theory. We did call it the ant theory. And our theory was, you know, if you have this colony of ants, they're living like in a closet, they're going to build their, you know, their whatever, build whatever they're doing and have their little civilization in this closet.

And they think that's it. And they don't know that that's just some ants in a closet over here and there's all this other stuff going on. And that we might be the same way. Yes. But we just think our world's so big to us. We think this is big, but it might be as big as a closet. Yeah, I mean, we just happen to think that we're at the top of the evolutionary chain.

Right. I mean, would we know if there was something above us in the evolutionary chain? Well, of course, we have God. We won't do God in this podcast. But I think this is before either of us really started necessarily believing in God. But we'll do God another time. Yes. Because I am a God believer.

Okay. But let's take God out of it for the time being. Would we know? If there is something above us in the evolutionary chain, would we know it? We would think we're it, right? we would think. Now you see the sun and the wind and the stars. I mean, people would worship.

I mean, imagine back in the old days you encounter a volcano. Yeah. You wouldn't think that that was supernatural. Or an eclipse. Or an eclipse. Yeah. Or the corn grows every year. You know, so many things.

And so now, you know, particularly with what's going on with the computers and AI and processing power and all that, They're like, more and more people are like, oh my gosh, the odds are getting greater and greater than we are in a simulation. Because you can start to simulate on these supercomputers now, you know, what people look like and all this stuff. Yeah. So it would imply that we're being almost messed with by superior. We on earth are the ant farm. We're the ant farm. That we talked about being in the closet.

Maybe, maybe. Maybe. It's a possibility. We're not saying we are or we aren't. Yeah. We might be. And if we are, we can't understand how. Yeah.

Well, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know what you don't know. So. It falls under that kind of order. We'll have to come back and update everyone on the ant farm because we might have new information. Well, no, I mean, every now and then, I will, I'll still think about it. I'll, I'll squash a bug, you know, a roach. And, you know, I think, all right, what if?

you know, a hurricane coming in is just us getting smushed. Yeah. Because we're being annoying or a nuisance or whatever. And they wouldn't care a wit, right? I mean, it's like you kill on a rudge. But again, I'm a God believer now. But, yeah, I mean, getting back to that, yeah, it would, it reminds me of our aunt. Yeah.

Of our aunt thesis. Yeah. And we listened to, we enjoyed listening to Static too, remember? Yeah, and you know what, on that one? Was that just to get attention? from girls? No, no, no. I really, I think we really believed, and I think we're right, that there was like subtones and the vibrations were, it was like different rhythms. Yeah.

And I've read, and I wish I'd have saved it for you, or I heard a story on how they were taking some of the crosswalk sounds, you know, like, the ticking sounds, and they were taking clips of that and turn it into music like punk music and stuff like that. So I think we heard something in there that reminds us of some kind of some rhythms or something. Because it wasn't, it wasn't all exactly the same. It was like, it was something very primeval. Well, I've told you my static theory, right? Tell me. All right. Static theory, you know how you're driving, driving back in the day when you listen to radio and you're you're tuning in to radio stations and there's some static on it and you're like oh man there's some static on it i wonder where this

station's emanating from and you find out oh well this station is from orangeburg and we're going east towards orangeburg so it's going to get better so i'm going to continue listening to this station with a static on it because I know the static is going to get better. But if you hear that the station is from a city that you're going away from, you're less likely to continue listening to it. Yeah. Because you know that it's going to get worse. Right.

So basically my static theory is that our willingness to tolerate imperfections or annoyances or displeasure is dependent upon whether we perceive it as getting better or getting worse. Like if we know when you're doing your push-ups or you're doing your rope jumps and you know that you've got, you're going to do 100 rope jumps and you get past 50 and you know now it's going, it's downhill. It's downhill. It gets easier because you're perceiving that things are getting closer, things are getting better. So that's my static theory.

I like it. I like that. I like that. Let me ask you three more questions. And then we can... Go have a non-alcoholic brew? Yeah, I'd love to. Do you like non-alcoholic drinks or do you just stay away from them?

I like them. I do too. Yeah, I like me. I'm an advocate of that. I like the Guinness, non-acophobic. They're good. I do Beck's, Heineken. Corona has a really good non-alcoholic.

It's hard to get wine. It just tastes like grape juice. Okay. Favorite all-time book. I love to kill a mockingbird. I'm going to put that up there. To Kill a Monkey Burmere. You read it over and over again?

And I love Catcher in the Rye. Yeah. Those are two of my favorite books. Those are like high school reading list books. I tell you what, I read Catcher in the Rye for Christchurch summer reading. Yeah. And I thought, Holden Caulfield, this sounds great. You know, he skips out of school and he, you know, and then I read it again when I was in law school.

or shortly after law school. And I'm like, this doesn't sound so fun. And then I read it when I was like 30. And I'm like, oh, he's mentally ill. He's mentally ill and seriously depressed. And he ends up in a facility at the end of the book. So it just, it's like a kaleidoscope. Yeah.

You see what you want. You see where you are. It's a brilliant book. Interesting. I had to reread that. Yeah. You would enjoy it. All right.

Favorite movie. Gosh, there's a lot of good movies out there. I mean, I'll just name something that I like. I love Silver Linings Playbook. Did you ever see Silver Linings Playbook with Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro? Of course, I love the old ones like the Godfather. Jaws. I liked Jaws.

That was a good one. A few good men. Love that one. As good as it gets with Jack Nichols. Love that one. Yeah, those are some. of them. Jaws was, the book was on our summer reading list when we were in high school. Peter Pinchley, right? Yeah, that was a good book. It's one of the first books I read in high school that I liked.

Yeah. I remember our good friend, Chris, his parents were getting in a tug of war with him about reading it. No, I'm not going to read. They said, we'll pay you, I don't know, $100 for a book. So he goes and it's the old man in the sea of Ernest Hemingway, which is like 80 pages. And they're like, no, that doesn't count. You said, yes, it does. It's a book. It's one of the classics. But what about a favorite band? Beatles. The Beatles, okay. Yeah, I'm a Beatles guy. Yeah. Do you listen to them a lot? I did. Yeah. And on Facebook, you know how they have

the Facebook Reels? I'm just full of Beatles. Caitlin Clark videos and then old Johnny Carson and David Letterman Yeah those are good And toenail fungus They figure out what you like and what you need Yeah

Do you like watching Caitlin Clark's little Have you seen any of her little I don't think I watch her It's a little bit like Pete Merevich or Larry Bird But I mean Oh oh oh I need to I love her But I need to add her to my thing I've seen her playing golf

Yeah She's, man, she's class act. I just love her. But the way she plays basketball reminds me a little bit of Pete Merovich or, you know. Well, yeah, she's just in another league than those people she's playing against. And can pull up and shoot threes. I mean, there's one I've seen where she's just practicing threes at practice. She makes like 20 in a row of them.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's incredible. I got a lot of belief in her. So I think we've done it all. think what we have to do, though, is we have to come back again and flesh out some more of these things. Or maybe some new subjects. I love talking with you about all of it, and particularly of the Ant Theory and Static and Stopping Drinking and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, it's been delightful to have you here. Thanks for coming down from Columbia.

Well, I'll tell you what, John and I have been friends since, you know, we're life partners, aren't we, John? Yes. We've been friends since middle school brats. It's, you know, talk about a treasure to have, that's another thing. Have, you know, cultivate your friendships. Yes. Cultivate your friendships. Yeah. So I'm blessed to have you in my life.

And, you know, we have never, never really left each other. No, we haven't. But on the cultivation thing, that's another, you talk about cultivating your customers and your friends are in the same category. You know, when you're, when you're like getting married and having children, and you're starting a business and you live in different cities. I mean, it's very easy to deprioritize your friends because you get payrolls, company, all this, you know, all the stuff. But you have got to say, these are my 10 best peeps, you know, and I'm going to call them,

you know, every month or two. Well, and texting has made that easier. Yeah, it has. But, yeah, I mean, a year can go by very quickly. Yeah. And then it's five years. Right. And then it's 10 years.

It's like, I haven't talked to my best friend in 10 years. I know, I know. But you know, you talk to the mailman every day. It's crazy. Yeah. But yeah, that's a really good point. And, you know, it would have been really interesting. I always tell Lamar, if we'd have gone to Harvard together and played basketball

together, I was the one who let Lamar down. I didn't get in Harvard. Okay, how could I? But I definitely would have gone and it would have been a different outcome, I think, on the basketball. We'd have had a good time. And one more thing before we depart. Yeah. Because this is important.

You know, I had a very, I had a very disappointing college career because, you know, as you know, I had the opportunity to go to schools to just play basketball, but I didn't feel like I could turn Harvard down. And for whatever reason, the coach at Harvard, and frankly, he was not a very good coach. He got out of coaching very, very soon after I left there and never coached again, and he shouldn't have. But he just didn't see the same potential in me that I did. And again, he was always, he thrived on negativity. So I had a very disappointing and frustrating college basketball career.

I was mostly coming off the bench. I thought I should have been starting. I thought the offense should have run through me, damn it. Sure. And so that really, really frustrated and disappointed me. I still sometimes we'll have nightmares about it. Like I'll wake up. But I have really come to understand lately that those, like I wouldn't change it now for

anything. I wouldn't change. Like if a magic wand came into my life and said, you can go back and rewrite your college basketball career, I swear I wouldn't. Because I realized that that provided such fuel for me. Like when I came out of college, I had a chip on my shoulder. And I have used that as such fuel. Yeah. So thank God for your disappointments. Yeah, absolutely. And the hardships. Yeah. Be thankful for them. Yeah. do something with them. You know, like I pray. And one of the things I will pray sometimes is thank you for my disappointing college basketball

career. Thank you for putting that coach in my life. And it also defuses and defangs them. Good. That you can do that. Well, I know you as a hell of a basketball player, regardless of what that goofball thought. So don't worry about it. Thank you, man.

All right, buddy. All right.