THE ED MYLETT SHOW - John Morgan: Life is Luck

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

He started with a paper route. Now he runs America's largest personal injury law firm, spends $600 million a year on advertising, and owns OJ Simpson's Bronco. John Morgan doesn't just understand luck. He's spent his entire life engineering it. John is the founder and chairman of Morgan & Morgan, the firm that has recovered more than $30 billion for its clients and built one of the most recognizable brands in the country. This interview is a masterclass in how the most successful people in the world create conditions for things to go right, and what most people get completely wrong about the role of chance in their success. John brings one of the most unfiltered, fearless, and genuinely wise business minds I've ever sat across from. He breaks down the three types of luck and why two of them are entirely in your control. He talks about moonshots and bullets, about what the stagecoach companies got wrong about the train, and about why the best stock market you'll ever invest in is the one you're building yourself. He also gives a jaw-dropping answer about whether all of this is worth it. Here's what you'll gain from this episode: The Three Types of Luck: And why you'll never look at someone's "lucky break" the same way again. Bullets Before Bombs: The framework John uses to decide when to go all in and when to stay patient, and why most businesses fail before they ever get there. The Best Stock Market You'll Ever Invest In: This the most profound thing said in nearly 900 episodes. You'll understand why when you hear it. You Can't Teach Hungry: The one trait that separates the people who make it from everyone else, and how to spot it in minutes. The Stagecoach and the Train: An urgent warning for every business owner right now, and what to do about it. I push John on things people are afraid to ask someone of his stature: whether entrepreneurs are born or made, how AI is actually hitting his businesses right now, and what he thinks about the hunger you either have or you don't. John Morgan is the real deal. Go get his book Life is Luck and go listen to this episode. I think it's one of the most in-depth conversations I've had on this show in a long time. Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/mylett See how K12 Powered Schools can help unlock your child’s full potential! Enroll online today at k12.com/mylett Visit Upwork.com today to post your job for free, and connect with top talent ready to grow your business. Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/mylett #rulapod   👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ INSTAGRAM ➡️ FACEBOOK ➡️ LINKEDIN ➡️ X ➡️ WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So I wanted to have this man on the show for a while. I mean, I've watched him on TV for, you know, forever. And he is not only as he an attorney, but he's built one of the great brands in the United States, really in the world. And I wanted to pick his brain, obviously, about the brand that he's built, but also the success he's had in his life. He's become an incredibly wealthy man. He's also helped other people get very wealthy as well. but he's somebody right when I tell you the name of his company, the name of his firm,

you're going to know it immediately. And I can't wait to pick his brain. He's written a bunch of books, but the one we're going to talk about today is called Life is Luck from Morgan and Morgan. Mr. John Morgan, welcome to the Ed Milet Show. Good to be here. It's great to have you. You're going to all relaxed there in Florida, and I'm over here working in Cleveland,

so hopefully we'll make some magic today. So I'll be honest with you. I was going to have you on because I've always been a fan of your work. And then I heard the title of the book about luck. And I'm like, I don't want to bring a guy on that wants to talk about luck because that's going to discourage people. And then I read the book and I went, okay, all right, that makes sense to me. So let's define a few of your philosophies first. In the book, which is brilliant, by the way, you guys, go get it.

You talk about there being really three types of luck. And so I wish you would illustrate that for the audience and then give some depth to it because it's really awesome. Well, the three types of luck are pure luck, planned luck, and practice luck. Pure luck, and by the way, luck can be bad luck and good luck. Sometimes people think luck is always good luck. No, luck can almost be bad luck. Pure bad luck is being struck by lightning. That's pure luck. That's pure luck. Pure planned luck is Ben Franklin looking up in the clouds and seeing, all this movement and taking a kite and a key and stretching it out to the clouds and go, that's land luck.

Right. And practice luck is we watch people, football teams are down with 60 seconds left in the game on their own five-yard line and 95 yards ago, and they go down the field, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and score, and you go, that was lucky. No, it wasn't because the last things these pro teams and college teams do is they run two minute drills in practice over and over and over again. I write my book about Grand Hills lunch. Yes. He threw the pass to Kentucky.

I told him one time we were flying back. I said, that was the luckiest thing. He said, no, it wasn't luck, John. He goes, we practiced that play every day in practice. And we tried it with Wake Forest, but I threw it down the side. didn't work. So we said we were going to do it at the top of the key. And when the time came for Grant Hill to make that pass to Christian Leitner, they had practiced that play, which is the most iconic play in the history of college basketball. They practiced it every day at the end of

practice. And when it came time to go, Coach Kay calls them over to the sidelines. He says, Grant, can you make the pass? He says, I can make the pass. Christian, can you make the shot? I can make the shot. Let's go win this game. And that practiced luck turned into the greatest luck ever in college basketball. Broke my heart because I'm from Kentucky.

I was watching that game live. I remember thinking that. I did not know the backstory. I thought that was just pure luck. Right. And we look, and that's why the book is misleading because people think luck is, hey, I'm rolling dice.

well, I also talk in a book about casinos. Life is a bunch of casinos. There's this casino and that casino, and we have all these casinos we can go in to find our luck, to find our success. And when you get in those casinos, there's all sorts of games you can play. To be lucky or unlucky.

Now, you go into the casino. There's rules in the casinos. The dealer deals you two aces. What do you do? You know? Split them. Okay. You're a degenerate gambor.

You split them because that's the rule. You get hit. You're sitting on 16, but they're showing 10. What do you do? You hit. They're showing five. What do you? They're showing five.

What do you do? You stick. All those rules. Now, there's slot machines that are loose slot machines. Where are they loose in the bullshit casinos off the strip or in some little honky talk in Reno. The better machines that the better casinos have are not loose. So if you go down off the strip, you have a better chance of winning. That's what life is all about.

So when I talk about luck, I'm talking about, looking for luck, finding luck, enhancing luck, improving luck, and it's the same as a casino. It's the casino you choose. By the way, if you go in a casino and play Kino, you're going to lose your rear. It's so funny. Who's the degenerate gambler now? But your point is really well taken in the sense that I want to pick that apart a little bit and from a business perspective too.

So one thing I find with this like Instagram entrepreneur. era is I think people think winning in business is a whole lot easier than it is in the real world. That's number one. And one thing that you have to do if you're going to be a degenerate gambler or a gambler in general is have some risk tolerance. So I see a lot of people that say, I want to be wealthy, I want to be successful, but they want to keep their foot on first base before they go to second. They're afraid to get caught stealing theoretically.

And so talk about risk, how that's applied in your life. And also the fact that preparation minimizes that risk. But you still have to take some. What about those two things hand in hand? Well, the famous quote from, I heard it first from Daryl Royal when he was coached in Texas, you know, luck is when hard work and preparation collide. We've all heard variations of that. But what I would say about risk is there are risks.

There are some risks. There are small risk. And then there are some risks that I talk about in the book called moonshots. Yeah. these are these are B-H-A-G big hairy audacious goals and so there's two different ways to look at a moon shot is when you fail on a moonshot the rocket blows up and you die and you have to be aware that you might die and if you're going to die uh have a plan B that you're not going to be totally dead so one of my moonshots years ago is I built this attraction called Wonderworks

I had, you know, and the house is turned upside down. It's like a side center. I built it 30 years ago. I raised Pete money, OPM, other people's money. If you don't have money, that's how you get money. And it turned out, now if I'd failed, I don't know what I would have done. That was a boon shot. But it made it.

And here we are 30 years later. I got six of them and we have no debt, 33 million in EBIT. Wow. That moonshot worked. But that was a very risky. For most businesses, I talk about bullets before bombs. You kind of got to go in small, test it, tested, tested, tested, and then expand it, expanded, expanded. But just like the casino, there are rules in life, location, location, location.

The greatest concept in the world won't fix a bad location. True, true. If you, one of the mistakes I made in one of my businesses, I built a little amusement part, but I didn't have enough parking. So I've revised that to location, location, location, parking, parking. If you don't have parking, people can't come. And then the other big mistake people make is undercapitalized. They start thinking, we're going to come in, this is going to be popular, we're going to make money,

and we're going to pay for some of this out of our cash flow. Yeah, that's right. Look, in America, 25% of business, small business go out of business year one, 43% by year five, 65% by year 10. And that doesn't count that they might have been better off working for somebody and just making a salary when it's all set.

My daughter had a boutique. and she liked it and she was lucky that she had me as a father because she would have been better gone and take the job with Ann Taylor and moved to Atlanta. She'd have made more money than we made at the Violent Clover. But it was a win for me because I kept her in town. I relate. I got to see her. I didn't want her to go to Atlanta.

But it was ticking. She worked her butt off. Retails hard. How do you know? Like someone's listening to this. I think that's a great point. And I've been asked this question for 20 years, and I don't know that I even believe my own answer half the time. How do you, and I wonder if you have a really strong opinion about this, how does someone know if they have the juice for that, like to be an entrepreneur?

I mean, there's really what's never celebrated is being a great number one or a number two at a very successful company. You get most of the upside with almost none of the stress or the risk that comes with it. And by the way, we should celebrate people to the number one, two, or three at another company more often than we do. It's all of us, the theoretical, you know, the rock star entrepreneur that had this big cash out. But these people behind the scenes that help you and I built what we've built, we wouldn't have it without them. But how does someone, do you have a test? How do you know which one you should be? Who should be an entrepreneur and who shouldn't be?

Yes, I do have a test for that. And listen, you're right about that. Because when I look at my organizations, if I miss two or three different people, I don't have the success I have. Likewise. You know, sometimes I watch these football quarterbacks giving all the thanks to their offensive line without my offensive line. I used to think that's just BS, but let me tell you something.

It's true. It's true. If you don't, and that's why they take, that's why they buy them all Rolexes, and that's why they take them out to dinner before every game. Look at Brady's 10 Super Bowls, the seven where they could block he won and the three where they couldn't, he lost. And look at my homes.

Yeah, look at the homes. All of it. And that offensive line, line. If you don't got that offensive line, you're going to be sacked. In your business. In your business, you mean. In your business. You've got to have that support. Now, why do I call the book Life is Luck lessons from a paper boy? Because here's what I believe. I believe that some of us, and this is a lucky part, just like Shaq was born seven foot one, some of us were born with an entrepreneurial seed.

I had a paper out. I don't know what you had in 11 or 10. I would bet if it wasn't mowing grass, I don't know how old you are, you look young. If it wasn't a newspaper out, there was something you were doing. I'll meet you in the middle. I had a baseball card business,

an auto detailing business, and I sold sodas at the golf course. I'm right with you. I had that gene early. I'm not surprised. And Warren Buffett calls it the ovarian lottery. Some of us just get this thing. Yeah.

And most kids aren't working. You know, if you remember your friends, they weren't working. So true. And so for all us paper boys, I worked at a golf course too. I went out and did range balls and worked at the pro shop and got tips. And you kind of learn a lot in a golf shop too. They do. So you're bored with that.

Now, what I would say to people, there are tests. Briggs-Meyers an unbelievable test. Sure is. A lot of people don't test people. One time I brought in all my people and we gave them all the test. And then the person who was facilitating told everybody, you go to table one, table two, table three, table four. And when I looked at all the four different tables, the one table was the high A personalities organized. The other table was the high A personalities disorganized.

And then there was this one table with the high A personalities, organized. one table with these sad sacks, the lowest producers, the aeors of the Disney parade, just over there, head down. And it was so, I like,

so I said, you know what, I got to start using these briefs. So if you're running a business and not testing before you hire, you're making a big mistake. Because it's right there. The hardest thing about a business is people.

It's a fact. It's the hardest thing. thing about any business, whether it's my attraction business or my hotels or my law firms, it's always the people. And so look, you need a test. It doesn't cost hardly anything. And all of a sudden, you know it. I had a real estate company that we owned and we would test the people coming in.

It was like, this person is going to be a superstar. This person can be developed into a superstar. This person shouldn't be hired. And this person don't even just get them out. Get them out. Get them out. And save yourself the time. So if you're going to play this casino game, give a test.

Briggs-Myers is free. And there's other tests that are even better than Briggs-Myers. It shows if the applicant is lying about their answers. You're right. By the way, guys, when you Google it, it's probably going to be Myers-Briggs. Yeah, Myers-Briggs. But they're interchangeable. I wrote in the book about dyslexia.

No, but they're both. I just want to make sure when they Google. I'm convinced I'm dyslexic, so that's why I said it. Well, I'm convinced you're super wealthy in spite of that. So that's, by the way, you've written enough books. You can't be that dyslexic. But I want to ask you, you know, I, I, this luck thing, I, I just had some young men were visiting my place and my son was one of them.

They were talking about, you know, the blessings that I've had. I call them blessings. But I said, here's my friends. my biggest luck or blessing was that I sort of stumbled. I didn't do it intentionally. But this is a formula. I'd like you to talk about it. I did figure out what the, I don't have a lot of talents. And that's not false humility. I do have a couple, though. And one of them is my ability to communicate and persuade and transfer energy verbally or in person. I think that's a skill of mine. I'm intense and I'm a competitor. I happen to pick businesses that took advantage of my

And I don't think enough people, I think they get into what they like, but maybe not what they would be naturally good at. I don't think business has to be that difficult if you actually choose something that's in your lane or your sphere of genius. And do your point about testing, maybe it's just some self-awareness. What are you good at? Is it organization? Is it structure? Is it problem solving? Is it, you know, steam rolling through a problem? But for me, one of the great blessings of my life is very young, I found business is, but one in particular, that took advantage of a couple talents that I had that could develop into skills. Started with a talent, became a skill. Is that true for you as well? And what would your advice be about that? Listen, I've been taking IM8 for a while, like a couple years.

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and every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on TNT and streams on HBO Max. Get ready to witness Duncan like you've never seen before. Dunkman on TNT presented and commissioned by Shaquille O'Neill. It's very true. And look, my talent has been, I'm a connector. I like people. being with people it charges me up. Some people don't like to, are introverts.

That's me. Okay. Are you an introvert? Very much so. Yeah, it drains me. I would never have said that. I never would have thought that. I know.

So, so you're an excited introvert. So here's the thing I'd say about that. First of all, you got to know who you are. Yes. You got to know, you got to be in the most dangerous person in the world is the person who thinks he's something he's not or thinks something not. So what I say to that point is this, you got to know who you are. I know this for a fact.

I'm not that smart with test. I'm not that smart in math or science. I just know it. But here's the thing I am. I am smart enough to know what I'm not smart about. And I'm smart enough to go find the peak. who are smart at what I'm not smart at. And so I read a book once on Rockefeller and it's called Titan and books as big as the damn Bible.

And I only underline one thing. They said, Mr. Rockefeller, you're not a geologist. You're not a scientist. You don't have an MBA. You don't have a this. You know, you're a bookkeeper. How did you build this incredible oil company by not being a scientist? Here's the only thing I underlined.

Rockefeller said, I hire scientists. Yep, very good. Okay? So look, by the way, Steve Jobs did not create Microsoft. Was this he did or whatever that guy's name. It's Apple and it's Waz. You're exactly right. You're exactly right.

Yeah, Waz was the guy doing it. That's correct. And Jobs saw how smart Wai. was that's right that's right he's and he just harnessed waz there's such you make such that's to me I think you just called out the most perfect example of what you're describing even in the book you had waz and his genius which was he could build those boards it was a board company originally and then you had jobs which was his marketing ability his intensity his passion his energy and perfectionism perfectionism relentless work ethic you're exactly like 10 million percent

agree with you on that. Speaking of intelligence, I didn't know I was going to ask you this, but it made me think about it. I've asked it on about every fifth episode now if I have an entrepreneur on, which we're talking about intelligence here, knowing your own intelligence. We would have a really silly episode if I let you leave here, and I didn't ask you about artificial intelligence because it's obviously, I just was watching a clip right before I came in here of Alon Musk, Elon, right? And I'm wondering how that's impacting your businesses and any counselor advice you'd give to people about this wave we're currently in and where it's coming. Do you think it's overcooked, over exaggerated, it's bigger deal, how it's going to impact

businesses and yours? Well, it's not overcooked and it's not overhyped because it's here. And look, all I know is I'm probably on Claude 20 times a day myself. Wow. Okay. My just, just myself. And so once I get. gave a speech called the stage coach and the train.

And the essence of the speech was the stage coach company heard about the train, but they never paid attention to the train. They heard it moved a few inches and then it, but they were like, how's that train going to go over water? How's that train going to go around mountains? How is that train going to go through mountains? Look, we're at the stagecoach in the train moment right now.

The train is leaving the station. AI. Now, the problem with AI is the same problem you had back in the 1860s with the gold rush. The same problem you had, you know, with marijuana, everybody wanted to get into marijuana because that's the next great thing. Whenever you have a gold rush, you're going to have more fools gold than real gold. You're going to have more zirconian than diamonds. And for me, I'm not a gemologist. You spread all these things on and say, John, which one's the diamond and which ones is a zirconian?

I don't know. So I'll tell you what I did. I just recently hired a very, very, very expensive guy from Amazon that was in their AI. And why did I do that? Because I need a gemologist. I'm not a gemologist. I need somebody to tell me. me what are diamonds and what is the conians what's fools gold and what's real gold so what i would say

to everybody is this look it's happening i mean i'm already using ai in my call centers we we we get 300 three million four million calls a year and so we're trying AI out right there right now but it is going to happen in a very big way i can't tell you all the different ways i could use it my law firm, but I'm already using it. But the big thing to be careful about is don't run out just because it's a fad, just because everybody's in AI. It's like, listen, I don't know if I offend anybody when I say this because it's like crypto to me.

I don't know. And if I don't know, I don't buy. And when Lamar Odom is selling crypto, I'm also not interested in that. It seems like everybody's selling crypto. Crypto's got gold chains and Russians in the front seat of a Ferrari. So I kind of always watch who's selling what. And to me, the guys that are making money in crypto or the tolls getting it coming and going. But I don't understand it.

And I tell you, I'm tempted to go there. And you know what? You know when you lose money, when you're greedy, when you're greedy. And my greed is pushes me towards crypto. Yep. But I got to keep saying to myself, John, you don't even know what it is. Yeah. So if I can't explain it to myself, and listen, I've been into Claude many nights trying to understand crypto.

You know, I need, you know, I need to, somebody needs to write a book. They used to have all these book for dummies. Somebody needs to write a book called crypto for dummies. It's true. So I can understand it. Well, when you figure it out, send me an email or call me because I'm in the same boat. And by the way, same exact thing. I've dabbled, but I really don't know.

And I certainly don't want to miss out on that gold rush, but I also don't know that it's not fools gold. And I just literally don't know. I want to ask you something. Sometimes we can overcomplicate things in business. And one of the things I admire something about you, I want to just tell you this personally, too, when I meet somebody young or even that's coming in a bit,

the scariest person to me, and you talk about this in the book, to compete against. Like if I have to compete against a company or a business or a person, The scariest person for me is the hungry one. Like they're hungry, right? Like it's an underestimated, undervalued trait, hunger, like just flat out. It used to be talked about all the time with Napoleon. Now it's desire.

Like someone who wants it so bad, they're going to, they'll sleep in the office. They'll, you know, and so I want you to talk about that. But also in your case, I don't know how old you are either, but we're both not young guys. Like this, we're taking a Saturday right now and we're helping people. You're still hungry. And you've been a, in the metaphorical sense, financially, a very well-fed man. You're incredibly wealthy. You built all kinds of different businesses.

There's something in you. It's that dog that guy, you know that thing, right? Like, talk about that. One, how important hunger is. And two, how have you kept it as you've had so many successes in your life? Well, the very first book I wrote, wrote was called you can't teach hungry okay and people sometimes people would say what does that mean yeah say to them if i got to explain that to you don't read the book don't don't bother because it's it's just

something in us it goes back to the paper boy it goes back to you at the golf course it goes back to me selling candy in school. There is just something there. Look at your face change even when you start to talk about it. Right. There's just something there. And what it really is, I think, at the end of the day, you get to a point

where, you know, how much is enough? And, you know, I used to think, you know, at one point I thought $10 million was enough and then I thought I thought $30 million with your house paid off is enough. 30 million with tax-free bonds, get your

1.2 million a year free. And, you know, I'm living like a chic on 1.2 million. I mean, with my house paid off because the number one check we write every month is the mortgage. But then what happens is you keep going. And this is why I write in the book a little bit about youth sports. While you see so many jackasses coaching youth sports, because most people don't get to get up every day. and win or lose. But in business,

we get to win and lose or win or lose every single day. That competition, that having an idea that this is a great idea. I just rolled out a new concept called Downtown Flavor Town. And it's with Guy Fietti,

and it's basically Guy Fietti meets Dave and Busters. So I'm not. It's nothing new. It's nothing revolutionary. It's a redemption arcade with food and booze and bowling alleys. But I looked at it, I go, David Busters has a monopoly on all this. What if I took a figure like Guy and matched it with that and my expertise? And so I've built two of them.

What I get in last night, yesterday I did $120,000 in my location in Myrtle Beach. I look every morning I wake up I love it numbers numbers numbers numbers numbers but what about is that that that business is not going to change my life at all but you know what the satisfaction

of finding the location building it out saying this is going to work and when it works it's like a Broadway play when you're there at that Broadway play that you've written the music and the people are standing up and there's cheer you guys

I was right I knew what they wanted. And there is a satisfaction that's bigger than money. It's bigger than money. It's really well said, John. That's really well said. Yeah, it's just bigger than money. It's like I figured out what America.

I built an attraction. Everybody's like, oh, my God, called Alcatraz East. It's a history of crime and punishment in Pige and Forge. And I built it. First, I failed. I built it in D.C. and I write about this in the book. I built it in D.C.

I called it the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, but I couldn't do the building. I should never have gone to D.C. location, location. It's too much, too many things are free. D.C.'s tough. But I built this masterpiece. Now, the other thing about luck that we don't talk about is failure can still be your friend. Most people never use failure.

for the next thing. But I took that failure in DC. I said, you know what? This was a masterpiece. I moved everything to Pigeon Forge, a tourist town. I built what looks like a prison in the 1800s.

I call it Alcatrazis. It's the history of crime and punishment. The exact failure, I mean, everything in it's the same, is printing money in Pigeon Forge. rent money. But I had to take that failure. I had to get over that failure and believe in what I had done and then take that failure,

rework it in a better location, in a better city. And so I would say to everybody out there, you know, it's very important that your failures turn out to be assets going forward because if failure just freezes you and put you on the sideline, you failed for no reason. You got nothing out of that failure. It's really, really great point. I'm really glad that you said that. This is a little bit becoming like a masterclass on life and business. Morgan and Morgan of all your businesses, almost no one listening to this has not heard of them. I want you to speak to this for a second. I just really want to know your opinion. When I got into business, I'm 55. So when I got into business, it was morely, it was really

becoming, it was more important who you knew. Like, could you make connections, right? I feel like something's happened the last 10 or 15 years where it's not who you know, it's now who knows you and branding. How do you feel about that?

Did you intentionally build this brand? And when you're building these other businesses, you've dropped the name specifically a couple times here, which is smart, right? So how do you feel about how critical it is for someone either build a personal or business brand? or both.

Well, look, when I first started, you know, there was no computers on our desk. So, I mean, I remember when I first saw a Blackberry for the first time, I was in a Yankees game with some guys in New York and they had all these blackberry. I was like, what are these things? You know, and I was like, it was like being on Mars. And I went back and I got my URL, you know, for the people.com that the next week I started thinking about what's my URL. me. Wow. Okay. But in the beginning, Morgan and Morgan was, it was me out there knocking on doors. I lived in union halls. I went and shot pool and threw darts and played shuffleboard with the plumbers and the pipe fitters and AFVIL. I mean, that's where the business came from. Okay. in 1979 the Supreme Court said lawyers could advertise you couldn't even advertise up until 1979 or 77 and Bates versus Arizona and then I go well so there was other firms that were

advertising I didn't want to be a TV lawyer I thought that was beneath me but all these TV people were getting cases they were sent them to me and I was living out of their not their good cases. Right. I was like, if you were driven by and see a guy in a dumpster eating a whopper, that was me. I was eating half-eaten woppers out of the dumpster. But then I saw what was happening, the stagecoaching the train.

And the train was leaving the station. Interesting. The state, and I had to make a decision because I didn't want to do it. I had to make a decision, do I get on this train, do I ride this stage coach, you know, into the sand. And I decided to do it. And as it turned out, it was a big decision. I remember me and my wife were at the beach and the kids were little and, you know, it was

risky. And I said, but this, this, I use those words. The train is leaving the station. And so I did it. Today, you know, ever, if you ask 10 people who own, who started Amazon, I don't know how many people could say Bezos. Right. It doesn't even matter.

Right. And we don't care where the stuff's come from. All we know is when we type in, you know, a suntan lotion somehow in our doorstep before we go to sleep. We just want it now. We just want it now. So I was good at marketing and I kept plowing my money back in. If people ask me, how do you scale? The best way you scale is when you're young, take your profits and feed the business.

A lot of people take their profits and buy boats and buy cars and houses they can't afford. I didn't make a million dollars until I was 41 years older, but I thought I was making all this money. No, I was flooding my money back in, you know, Orlando, then Tampa, then Jacksonville. And now, you know, my first year, my budget was 100 grand, and this year we'll spend 600 million in advertising. On all things, all places. So look, marketing is here.

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Dunkman on TNT presented and commissioned, by Shaquille O'Neal. Guys, I just want to step back because you're in a lengthy interview here. That lesson of investing back in, my father was not an entrepreneur, but he was a smart guy. And when I'd be making money, my dad, I'd say, Dad, should I buy this? Should I buy that? My dad said, I'd put that money back into the thing you control that you can drive the earnings on. And I'm sitting here today in this conversation with this other very successful entrepreneur

because I did exactly what he said. I took money back into that business. I tried to expand it. I tried to put capital in a place I could control its growth the best, not in some other company, not even. That doesn't mean I didn't buy a bunch of investments, life insurance, and real estate as I went along. I did. But my main investment was back into my own business on a very regular basis. And one thing, and here's one thing that people forget about that.

Every dollar you put in, you get to almost immediately write off 40%. People do forget. People, that's a big lesson. Think about this. think of every dollar you put in the stock market. You've got to deduct 40%. Well, the best stock market I've ever invested in, you're looking at it. And I will bet you, and I will bet you this, the best stock market you've ever invested in, I'm looking at it.

Yep. I'm going to tell you right now, this last five minutes, by the way, no one's ever said what you just said in the history of 900 episodes on the show. And I'm telling you all, that is one of the most profound best clips we've ever had on the show, is what we just talked about investing back in. But one of the reasons is that is a deductible. You got a 40% return if you're an entrepreneur before you even got a return on your return. Right. Awesome.

Right. I'm asking you this. Like just a broad question because we're going to, we're a limited time. You look back at your life from the paper route to now. And I just watched an interview with the guy from Navidia and they said, hey, if you knew now how hard it was to build what you were going to build, you know. And what advice would you give the young you? And he really thought about it for a second. You know what he said?

He goes, I probably wouldn't have done it. If I knew how hard it was going to be, I probably wouldn't have done it. I thought, well, that's an honest answer. That's a real entrepreneur. I mean, I don't know whether I agree with that or not, but that's a real answer. I'm wondering, let us into your life a little bit. Has this been worth it? All the risks, all the ups and downs.

By the way, here's what I know about you because you're an entrepreneur. You've had people betray you. You've had people talk bad about you. You probably had litigation. You probably had false starts. You probably had mistakes. You've probably had people take advantage. You probably made a couple bad decisions.

All of that to say, you're also one of the most successful men in the country in your own right. Is all of that crap worth it as you sit there at your desk here on a Saturday morning? Was it worth it? So someone listening to this is wondering, they're going through that hard part right now. And they may be negotiating in their mind debating it. Should I keep going? Is this worth it? What's the honest answer?

And I'm very curious to hear what you have to say about it because I don't know. Well, the honest answer is like building that upside down house when I was in my 30s, I would never do it today. What we know is this, the reason insurance is so expensive for 16-year-olds, the younger you are, the more risk adverse. You don't, you know, you'll drive out and squeal out and take crazy chances because we don't, we don't, we don't, we don't, we have. haven't developed enough fear. And that's the advantage of youth. The advantage of youth is, you know, when we're swinging that bat, it's like we're in a batting cage.

We're just taking, we're just ripping. When you get older, you get a little bit more timid. The average, the, all the great, I write about music in my book, all the great music is written by people in their teens and 20s. There's not many people write songs. And so what, what I would say is, what, what, What I would say about that is when I look back at all of it, and the same I guarantee for you, if somebody had said to you when you were 18, this is what your life's going to be, you would have said, how, why?

Yes. What's a podcast? Right. And because here's what happens in our life. First of all, you've heard this said before, the journey is the reward. for me the climb has been way more fun than getting to the mountain i believe you on that with you the climb the climb it's the chase it's it's it's getting to win and then going up and going up and going up and going up and you're being successful and you're growing it's the climb is the joy when you get

to the top of count mount kilomajaro now you got to go down that looks harder that looks harder to me than going up or you can just stay up there and walk around and circles or what I choose to do is keep climbing new mountains like downtown flavor town or new offices so here's what life is there's a great poem and you've heard it by Robert Frost the two I came to the road to a fork in the road and I took the road less traveled yep I think I took the roads less traveled and the end of that poem Robert Frost says, I took the road less traveled. And that has made all the difference. When we come to these forks in the road, as young people, we don't really know what's down either road. We don't,

we don't really know. We're looking, we're looking at stars, but we might be walking off a cliff or we might be walking into a gold mine. We don't really know. But sometimes you have to walk down that road to a dead end and sometimes you have to walk back and keep walking down another road. That happens to us too. But the exhilaration of winning and the climb, you get to that next level, you go, you know what, I was right. It's way, way, way more important than money. Because for me, I'm not a, I don't live, I could live a much better life.

But for me, you know, the food I like is stuff like, you know, cube steaks with fried onions and fried potatoes and cabbage. I don't need. I'm not a caviar, you know, guy. I'm from Kentucky. I like, I like the pressure cooker. So good. Green beans and pressure cooker.

So that's what it is now. Yeah. You know, and listen, I will tell all the people who's listening, who's thinking about retiring. Remember what Bobby Bowden said. once you retire there's only one more big event that's good i needed to hear that too trust me sometimes i i dance with that thought and by the way we and by the way you know you don't have to do what we did i mean look the grind in the beginning was unbelievable and the way i look at

my life now it's like this i'm not over in afghanistan fighting hand to hand to hand you got it I'm over at McDill in Tampa with drones and I've got computers up. And at 12 o'clock, I leave the office and we go to Karabas for lunch. You're right. It's all perspective. There's different ways to fight the war. That's right. The older you get, the more, especially this day and age.

Look, you're in Cleveland. I'm at the beach and we're working. That's right. And what you're doing today is going to help your business. And what I'm going to do it today is going to help my business. And we're still working. I was thinking too, I'm going to ask you one last question. Just sitting here listening to you, how cool it is that we're, I do this and yet it dawns on me periodically.

How cool it is that people can listen into something like this. This didn't exist 20 years ago where you could listen to someone who's accomplished what you've done and two guys just kind of chop it up about life and business and pull lessons from it. Like this age we're living in, if you really want to go for it, there's no shortage of information between AI, between a podcast like this. Like, this is just really a blessing. Like, even for me to sit here with you and, and have this conversation, it's like, what a great time to be alive and to decide to do something great and make your dreams come true.

So you just, that's how much I'm grateful for the conversation. And listen, and you're in the same boat. You're younger than me. But look, where do we get our information before? We just read books. Tons of them. Just, just, I couldn't read enough, you know, the millionaire next door. Same here.

I mean, I'm just reading, reading, reading. And now we get to, you know, watch Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos talk about, or Warren Buffet. You can't get enough of that guy. Yeah. And it's supplanted books to a degree. You're right. But by the way, you and I are both still avid readers. And that's one lesson, too.

I want to ask you this last thing. This is just, it's nothing to do with business. It's just like an eclectic thing. You're talking about how, like, you like cube steak or whatever. You're a quirky, interesting dude. So my son, I said, find something on this dude I can ask him about. that's kind of unique. And so you could collect art, which I'm sure you have done some.

You could collect lots of different things. Is it true? And why the heck did you do it? That you own OJ's Bronco and Ted Bundy's Vokeswax? Is this true? Is that a fact? I own, that's in my crime museum in Pigeon Forge. The grand finale, when you go, I got everything.

I got, listen, I got, you remember the movie when Al Pacino said, say hello to my little friend? Of course. I own my little friend. You do not. I own Martin Luther King's death mask. I own so much memorabilious crime memorabilia. But at the end, because I know people like cars.

Americans are fascinated with cars. I drive out, there'll be people, you know, with corvettes, you know, at a parking lot on a Saturday, thousands of corvettes with the hoods. I'm like, what are they doing? But they like it. So what I did for my museum, I said, look, I'm going to have a grandfather. is going to be cars. So what I got in the grand finale, I got,

John Dillinger's sedan that he got shot through, Bonnie Clyde's death car from the movie, Ted Bundy's VW. I just got the Murdoch golf cart from the Murdoch killing. You do not have that. I got John Bonaise bicycle, but the grand finale is OJ's Bronco. Oh my gosh.

You know, that's my Mona Lisa. at my museum. So anybody listening, Alcatraz East, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, flavor towns right behind us, and right down the road is Wonderworks. You can do all sorts of things in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. You're a force, man.

Now, I've done a lot of podcasts. None of them have finished this way. That was damn good. Hey, John, I've enjoyed this very much. Me too. Thank you. And by the way, everybody, John's book is life is luck.

If you think this was entertaining, imagine the book. You're going to learn a ton as well. So, John, thank you. Everybody else, God bless you. Max out your life. This is the Edmund, Sean.