What a $1.5B lifestyle is like, according to a self-made billionaire

Insider

John Morgan has an estimated wealth of $1.5 billion, according to Forbes, placing him on its 2025 Billionaires List. Morgan started his personal injury firm, Morgan & Morgan, in 1988. Today, he has offices in all 50 US states and employs more than 1000 lawyers. Morgan pioneered legal advertising, putting his face on ads across hundreds of US cities. Other than his law firm, Morgan owns a collection of science museums, malls, billboard companies, and even a crime and punishment attraction that houses the original white Bronco that O.J. Simpson used to flee from the police. Morgan sat down with Business Insider to discuss how he accumulated his wealth, the tragic motivation that led him to personal-injury law, the power and responsibility of wealth, and the dangers he believes a globally increasing wealth gap will one day create for both the rich and the poor.

Transcript

00:00My name is John Morgan. Forbes recently named me a billionaire after I started the largest

00:04personal injury law firm in America. This is everything I'm authorized to tell you.

00:10I don't like to say I'm a billionaire. When I started out as a lawyer, I was driving around

00:16in a Nissan Maxima with a sunroof and a leather package, and I felt like, here I am. Today,

00:23you know, I have 7,000 people at Morgan & Morgan, 1,400 lawyers. Nobody's going to outwork me.

00:29My life is really not a billionaire's life. The only thing that makes it a billionaire's life

00:43is the way I travel, and I have a G5. That's the ultimate luxury. Other than that, and I do have

00:52houses, but they're not the houses you would think. You know, my house in Hawaii is very nice, but it's

00:57not, I don't think it's a billionaire's house. The house I live in here, you know, it's big. It's

01:03nice, but I bought it, built it a long time ago. I built a bunch of houses for me and all my children

01:08at Ponce Inlet, which is 40 minutes from here on the beach. I have a house in New Hampshire,

01:13and I started going to Maui, and I'm like, you know, this is unbelievable. It's like if heaven was a place,

01:23it'd be Maui. It's like the air was just born. Everything's brighter. Everything's vibrant. There's whales

01:31coming out of the water. It's like you're in Jurassic Park in your backyard. My wife and I were driving

01:37around looking at houses. There was a house under construction. We pulled up, and we looked at it,

01:41and I said, what do you think? Because it wasn't a big, it wasn't very expensive. I mean, it was expensive,

01:45but it wasn't expensive, and it was six million bucks. You know, beautiful, you know, 6,000 square foot,

01:52five acres. Listen, I get high every single night in Maui. I float to sleep. So if you're out there,

02:02fellas, guys, everybody, come see me. We'll smoke a joint and drink some rosé. You know, I grew up in

02:12Kentucky, and I like simpler food, for example. You know, I'd be just as happy with, you know,

02:20to dinner for tonight if, you know, if I had cube steaks, smothered in onions, and fried potatoes,

02:28and cabbage. I'm like, you want filet mignon? No, I'll do this. I'll choose this. So I get to eat

02:39cheap, too, because that stuff doesn't cost that much. So that's lucky. My clothes, I look, I walk

02:45in my closet, I'm like, will I ever buy another shirt? Will I ever buy another pair of shorts? Maybe.

02:51Just on vacation. I'm like, well, that looks, but not really. There's nothing really that I want.

03:00And that's a good thing. I mean, here's my week. This Friday, I'm going to go to Keeneland,

03:07to Lexington, where I grew up. I now own racehorses, so I'm going to see my racehorses run.

03:13The following week, I'm going to go cut a commercial with John Daly in Arkansas,

03:17and then I'm going to fly to Del Mar to see one of my horses run in the Breeders' Cup,

03:22and then I'm going to have some fun in California, then I'm going to come back.

03:26I don't own a whole horse. I own like 25% or 50%. I do a deal with these guys who own American

03:33Faro and Justify, so I breed my mares to Faro, so I get a Faro colt or filly every year.

03:41I haven't lost that much money, but I'm from Lexington, Kentucky, and can you imagine growing

03:51up poor in a city and then coming back and owning racehorses in that city? So I got a lot of nice

04:00things, but it's not like the houses are already paid off. There's not really money going out now.

04:07I spend about $2 million a year living, and most of it is insurance and upkeep of my homes and,

04:17you know, like these dogs that travel with me. You know, I never leave without the dogs.

04:21To live exactly what I'm living now, if I had $50 million, 4%, $2 million tax-free,

04:30and not the jet, then I'm okay. I have always told my children to say,

04:36we're comfortable. They used to ask, my kids would come and say, people are asking us if we're

04:41rich. I said, you just tell them we're comfortable, and that's all they need to say, because they

04:47were comfortable. And look, if you have $100 million or $1 billion, you're basically living the same life.

04:55Before I went to law school, I sold Yellow Pages for 18 months, and I made a load of money.

05:07I was one of the greatest, if not the greatest Yellow Page seller in the history of AT&T. I could

05:13just sell it because I believed in it. You know, the Yellow Pages would Google back then.

05:18And so I made money. I was able to go back to law school. When I graduated from law school,

05:25all I applied was to personal injury firms because I knew what I wanted to do.

05:29You know, I'd made like almost $70,000 selling Yellow Pages. My first job doing personal injury,

05:35I had a $10,000 base and a 10% of whatever I would close. And I think my first year, I made like $15,000.

05:411982. And then the next year, I made $32,000. And the next year, I left and started my own firm.

05:48I started my own firm in 85. Advertising was just starting with lawyers. There was a Supreme Court

05:55case called Bates v. Arizona in 1977 that allowed lawyers to advertise. Up until that time,

06:02lawyers could not advertise, even though we had a First Amendment. Bates v. Arizona said,

06:08look, the First Amendment applies to this commercial speech. Sometimes you can just see

06:13the future. And I saw it. So it was still very verboten to advertise as a lawyer. You're like,

06:22my God, you're a lawyer and you're advertising? That's so beneath you.

06:26And it kind of was. I was embarrassed about it. Because the people who were advertising were the

06:32people who were kind of s***. And the people who weren't advertising were the good lawyers.

06:36I went and borrowed $100,000. Remember the flip in the coin? And so, is it going to work? I don't

06:45know. I've thought many times, what happened if that $100,000 had not turned into some cases? What

06:54would have happened to me? I don't know. That was just a left turn that worked out. I was so embarrassed

06:59that I had a friend of mine who's one of my best friends. He owns a bunch of Cadillac dealerships

07:05now in Sarasota, Manatee. And he was real good looking. And I said, you know, I'm not good looking.

07:14So I said, you know what? I had Vance do my first commercials. But then what happened is the Florida

07:20Bar mandated that if you were advertising, you couldn't have someone else. You had to do it.

07:28And then reluctantly, I had to take, you know, my fat face, which I, you know, I've always felt like

07:34my face is fat. And I couldn't use Vance anymore. So then I had to be the face. And when I look at

07:40those ads now, I'm like, who the f*** was calling this kid? With advertising, you know, it was a total

07:47paradigm shift. I mean, now I'm talking to everybody. They weren't great cases, but the phone

07:53was ringing. If I started today, I wouldn't be John Morgan. I had it all to myself. I didn't have

07:59competition. Today, you know, I have 7,000 people at Morgan & Morgan, 1,400 lawyers. I'm in all 50

08:06states. We have 100 to 200 trials on the docket a week. What I kept doing because I was young,

08:19and this is what a lot of people make a mistake, is I kept feeding expansion out of my profits.

08:25I didn't want a boat. I didn't want a plane. I didn't, I just wanted to grow. I was in Orlando,

08:32and I was doing well. But then I started thinking, well, am I hitting diminishing returns? In other

08:40words, could I get more money if I took this money and went to Tampa? And so I went to Tampa.

08:48I used to call it the teacups. When the teacups seemed to be pouring over, when I seemed to be

08:52thinking I was at diminishing returns, I'd go to another city, another city, another city. That's why

08:58I bought my partners out. They wanted to keep the money. And I said, well, why don't I just buy you

09:02all out? They go, okay. I got a call one day, and my reception says, Johnny Cochran's on the phone.

09:10So I pick up the phone. Hey, John, what is Johnny Cochran? This is Johnny Cochran calling you from

09:15Los Angeles, California. Hey, man, how you doing? I'm like, who the f*** is punking me right now? I mean,

09:22this can't be Johnny Cochran. And he's telling me that he was going to start his own firm and that

09:28he had heard that I was a marketing genius and would I be interested in helping him with the

09:34Cochran firm? And I was so convinced it wasn't really Johnny Cochran. I said, well, I said, give

09:40me a number. I'll call you back. Okay, man, listen, I'm getting ready to go to New York. I have a

09:47condo right above the Russian tea room. And I'm like, oh, this is calling me. So he gives me the

09:54number. So when I hung up from him, when I hung up from Johnny, I called the number in New York City

10:02and the answering machine. I'll never forget it. It's his voice. It's the greatest answering machine

10:08of all time. Voice message. Hi, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be

10:16used against you in a court of law. If you decide to give up that right, leave your name and number

10:20at the sound of the tone. I'm like, it's Johnny Cochran. I threw in with him, which kind of exposed

10:27me to doing things nationally. We were in Memphis and DC and LA and New York. And so when I got with

10:37Cochran, I was outside of my comfort zone. And we had a lot of fun. We grew the business. I have two

10:47things that will go on my tombstone, one of the other. Grow or die, or nothing is about today,

10:55everything's about tomorrow. Those are the two guiding principles of my business life.

11:01Grow or die is very important to me. And so I just kept growing. So I wouldn't die.

11:17There are certain people that are born with an entrepreneurial seed. I'm an entrepreneur.

11:23I don't just do law. I have attractions and hotels and shopping centers and those types of things.

11:30But I'm always looking for opportunity. A lot of people see these things and go, you know,

11:35why bother? Well, if you say why bother and don't bother, you end up sitting at your desk

11:44eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by yourself. Being a paper boy, being a paper girl

11:50is the ultimate enterprise. Because you're little, you're small, but you got to be up every day,

11:56seven days a week, 365 days a year. You got to go deliver those papers in the snow and the sleet

12:02and the rain and the heat, whatever. When my kids were little, I used to go to the science center.

12:07I was like, this is b****. These science centers are b****. The kids didn't like them. Nobody liked them.

12:13I go, you know, here's what's missing science centers. They should be interactive.

12:17Touching, feeling, doing. That's what I'll do. I'm going to build an attraction. I'm going to build a

12:25science center, but I'm going to turn it upside down called Wonderworks. That was 1997. And today

12:32I have six of them and an EBIT of 33 million with no debt. I built a small little theme park on I

12:41drive out of here called Magical Midway. And it was, had multi-level go-kart tracks and rides and

12:47stuff. But my mistake was I didn't have enough parking. I thought because I was so close to all

12:53the hotels that I didn't need parking. Thank God that I had one ride that basically carried the

12:59whole thing, thrill ride. And I was able to sell the park and lose a million bucks. That didn't work.

13:06At one time I owned a lot of Marriott hotels. Why did I keep building Marriott hotels? Money to make

13:13money. And I have these attractions. Why do I have them all over the country? To make money. And I

13:22enjoy business. I don't hunt. So I never understood hunting. I really don't understand fishing. That's

13:32where most people off. And they call it recreation. To me it's total boredom. I hunt money. Nobody's

13:41ever built an attraction for crime and punishment really. So I built an attraction that I call Alcatraz

13:47East in Pigeon Forge. It looks like a 1980s prison. And I have all this memorabilia. It's a history of

13:55crime and punishment. When you get to the end, the grand finale is the, you know, Ted Bundy's VW,

14:04John Dillinger's sedan, Bonnie and Clyde death car from the movie, OJ's Bronco,

14:12John Bonet's bicycle, and I just recently got the Murdoch golf cart from the murders.

14:18It takes people three and a half, four hours to go through this thing. And it prints money.

14:27I'm giving America what they want. And by the way, if you're offended, stay the f*** out.

14:39Before I was out hustling business, I would look, when I worked for the phone company,

14:44I was a member of the union. I was, so I joined, I thought I might go into politics. So I joined

14:50CWA, AFL, CIO. So when I got out, I spent a lot of time in union halls at meetings. And then we go

14:59out drinking, throwing darts, shooting pool. And these union people were sending me their business.

15:05So I was getting tons of business because I'm a union guy. I'm, I'm AFL CIO. And so plumbers,

15:12pipe fitters, bricklayers, hotel, motel. And these are the people I'd rather be with. I, I, to this day,

15:21I don't like walking in a country club. I feel like I don't belong, but I do belong in a pool room

15:29with a cocktail. Are you any good? In pool? No. But I'm good at the cocktails. If I went out back

15:38in the day, if I went out and got drunk and went to bed at four o'clock, but had a six o'clock

15:44breakfast, I was at the six o'clock breakfast. I might've been reeking of ketosis, but I was at

15:52the breakfast. I show up. And so, you know, it keeps you hungry. I consider myself a catastrophic

16:00thinker. I feel like I, this could all disappear in a minute. And it's, it's still with me. It's

16:07these, I've had dreams where I've lost everything and it's a recurring dream. I'm, I'm out in the old

16:15car and I'm out of money and I'm almost out of money, but I'm not out of money. And I don't know

16:22how I'm going to make it. And I'm just, you know, just out there. And then I wake up and it was a

16:31dream. And, uh, you're happy to wake up because you're back here instead of back there. Every

16:40morning I wake up and get numbers. I get numbers from my attendance and at my attractions. I get

16:49numbers from new cases signed up the day before. I get all sorts of leaderboard reports.

16:58There's two emotions, the emotion of winning and the motion of losing. The emotion of winning

17:03is powerful, but the motion, the emotion of losing is like this. To give you an example,

17:12if you walk out of this room and you find a thousand dollars in an envelope, you'll be

17:19like, wow, that's an emotion. Nobody's money. Oh, it's mine. But if you go to your hotel room

17:25when you get back and the safe is open and the thousands missing, you're going to turn

17:30this city upside down. You're going to be, the cops are coming. I mean, your day is the emotion

17:39of losing, the emotion of winning. The, the power of both is totally different. So when

17:46I lost, I, you know, I was very upset. Some people are born lazy and we, we get mad at

17:54them, but it's not their fault. You know, I say it all the time. You know, a lion is born,

17:58he's king. A sloth is born, he's . All he was, all he did was be born. Just can't get

18:04out of bed. Can't get out of the tree. Comes down the tree once a day, just go back and go, collapse.

18:08I'm a lion. And listen, everybody wants to be a lion until it's time to do lion s**t. And

18:19lion s**t is taking down the gazelle, ripping the carcass open, taking the meat out, face

18:27bloody, take the food back to the pride. I'm also someone who has what they call imposter

18:34syndrome. In other words, I don't know how this happened. And I'm going to be found out

18:43one day. They're going to find out that I really didn't know what the F I was doing, but I'm

18:50still pretending like I'm doing it. It's weird. But it's also good because when I found catastrophic

18:58thinking and imposter syndrome, it made sense that I was an only the paranoid survive guy.

19:07I believe luck has had an incredible amount to do with what happened to me. Life is a thousand

19:16left turns, a thousand right turns, a thousand U-turns. And a lot of times those turns come

19:24when you're just at the stoplight and you flip a coin. It's not like you knew where you were going,

19:29you just went right instead of left. But one different turn could have changed everything.

19:40And I'm not arrogant enough to not understand how many times I flipped a coin to go left or go right

19:48and ended up here. So I think it's helpful because I think when people start making money,

19:57they think they're a lot smarter than they actually are. And that arrogance is how they lose. But I also

20:06understand this, that you don't find luck unless you're looking for luck. My leadership style

20:15is this. I understand that you can't buy time, but you need time. So how do you get time? If you can't

20:25buy it, how do you get it? You get it by finding people in your organization that emerge, that just

20:34emerge. And you go, there's something about that guy. There's something about that guy. There's

20:41something. They are send, delete people. There are people that I send something to

20:49and I delete it and I don't think about it again because I know it's going to be done.

20:53And then I test it by delegating a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.

21:00I then ruthlessly, ruthlessly delegate. This is your job. This is your job. This is your job.

21:08This is your job. And I know it's done because there's send, delete people.

21:14And you know what that has given me? Time. Time to do the strategic things that I want to do

21:24for the law firm. Once you learn to scale and delegate, then you get what you can't buy, which is time.

21:32My childhood was, it was good until it wasn't good. Both of my parents ended up having bad drinking

21:47problems. And I was the oldest of five. And my dad lost, you know, every job possible. It was one of

21:56these, you know, you come home with cars in the park, in the driveway. You're like, here we go again.

22:01I didn't have a bad childhood. I had a great childhood. I had a huge paper route. So I always

22:06had my own money. And then ultimately my dad ran out of opportunities and had to take a job. We moved

22:15when I was 14. And then when we moved, that's when I understood that we were financially insecure.

22:25And because the house we'd been in was a house that my grandmother had died and left us money to

22:30move in. It was nice. And now you're in Florida. But it was, it was real. It's like, okay, we're not,

22:38we're not, we're not financially secure. And then it went downhill from there. Our mother finally left.

22:45My dad kept drinking, but we just kept, we kept moving on. But the great gift

22:51that my dad gave us was every time he would get fired, I'd walk in, he'd be sitting at the table,

22:59stocking feet, one ads. This is when there were one ads. And he would say these words,

23:09whatever you do, be a professional, nobody can fire you. And it was seared in my mind that I was

23:18going to be, I was going to do something where nobody could fire me. I wasn't going to be

23:23in his position. The big part of my life was when my brother, Tim was 18, he was paralyzed.

23:29in a diving accident as a lifeguard at Walt Disney World. And that injury is what changed all of our

23:37lives and what made me go into personal injury. I didn't know what a personal injury lawyer was

23:43until Tim got hurt. But I was a sophomore at the University of Florida. My dad called me up.

23:50He said, Tim's been in a diving accident, lifeguard, he's paralyzed. He can't move anything from the

23:58from his head down. We were poor. So when you're poor in the medical, when you're poor,

24:05it's a bad place to be whether you're trying to get medical help or legal help. So you're vulnerable.

24:10To be powerless, hopeless, helpless is the worst feelings in the world. Then you walk into the

24:16hospital and your brother's on a gurney spinning 360. And you look at him and you're like,

24:23how the are we going to get out of this? He was injured on the job. It was a contentious deal with

24:30Disney. Disney became the enemy because they were the ones trying to

24:35to fight Tim for his benefits or claim or whatever. And he hurt himself trying to rescue,

24:44they thought a little girl had drowned in the Polynesian Lagoon. And they treated him like the

24:49Taliban. And they just litigated. And I became enraged. Enraged. And I said to myself, I said,

25:00everybody then, I'm going to come back one day and I know what I'm going to do now.

25:07And it was just very crystal clear. Disney was a big enemy.

25:12Disney was a big enemy just because the way they treated him, you know.

25:19And then I saw, you know, there's so many Tim's out there because most of us are helpless,

25:25hopeless and powerless. You know, when I met with the doctor, when Tim was being discharged, I said,

25:29uh, what's the prognosis? And he said, if he lives to 30, I'll be surprised. And I said,

25:40wrong. From that day forward to this day to day, my life has been inextricably linked

25:47to Tim's injury. He passed away last summer.

25:5865. And he worked with me every day.

26:03The good thing about all the bad that happened to me is it made me more empathetic,

26:20more compassionate, and I think more caring. And I think that that has been a benefit

26:27to me and my business. There's so many Tim's out there because most of us are helpless, hopeless,

26:34and powerless. You know, 40% of us don't have $400 in the bank. 60% of us do live paycheck to

26:40paycheck. You know, when, when I made all this money, that's why years ago I spent my own money

26:46to raise the minimum wage in Florida to $15 an hour. Then I passed the minimum wage. They all told

26:52me that wouldn't happen. I passed out with 60 something percent of vote. Income inequality

26:58is what will take this country down. At the end of the day, I don't care what civilization you're

27:06talking about. At the end of the day, people finally have enough and they just come and take it.

27:14The minimum wage, the federal minimum wage is $8 an hour.

27:17It's in our best interest to pay people more. So they don't come and take it.

27:28So even the $15 an hour that I've done in Florida, still not enough.

27:35Spent the same amount of money twice to legalize medical marijuana in Florida

27:39because that's what gave Tim relief. It was just so crazy that here's this plant that's put into

27:48earth by God for us and it works. And we're going to say, you can't have it. I took some of my money

27:54money and try to do good with it based on, you know, my life experiences and temps. And me and Tim

28:05barnstormed the state and passed. They told me that it would never pass. And I passed medical

28:13marijuana the second time with with 73 percent of the vote. I've got some free clinics that I've

28:19support around the state of Florida. I'm building right now a women and children's pavilion for the

28:28homeless in Orlando. They need health care, too. Health care should be a civil right.

28:38Just because you're rich doesn't mean you should be the one that lives and the ones that are poor

28:43have to die. Every day I'm David versus a Goliath. I'm Goliath in my space, but I'm not Goliath compared

28:50to who I fight against. Remember, I'm in the opioid litigation for 10 years now. I've represented states

28:55and cities. I'm on the big team in Cleveland. I was on the BP oil team when the spill happened in the

29:02Gulf. I represent the fires in Hawaii. I settled that case for $4 billion. Where I live is Lahaina.

29:09That's where the fire burned everything. Those are my neighbors. I represented black farmers,

29:14and I recovered $1.2 billion for black farmers who were discriminated against in the 50s and 60s.

29:20Last week, my son got an $11 million verdict against Target. They'd offered us $200,000.

29:27Target's a Goliath. I see myself as a David because I do have finite funds. I can only spend so much on

29:36these cases. A big case can cost millions of dollars just in cost, and I don't get paid till

29:44the end. I still haven't got paid on opioids in a lot of these cases. I've sued tobacco so many times

29:52for what they've done to us. This tobacco industry is in the business of premeditated murder,

29:58premeditated murder. They call new smokers replacement smokers. They know what they were

30:06doing. They laced their cigarettes with additives to hook us as kids. They gave cigarettes away to

30:13children. They gave cigarettes away to servicemen because they knew they would hook us. They'd come

30:18up with a filter. They go, oh, we've got a filter. That's going to solve all your problems. Look at this

30:23brown stuff. See, it's the tar and nicotine. You're like, oh, good. No, that's not stopping

30:29anything. What they do, they spray a chemical on the cotton that when it gets hot, it turns brown.

30:37But they're in the business of killing people. That's their business. They know that all these

30:42people are going to die from lung cancer. But they have so much money. When I try the case against

30:50tobacco industry, they take me all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

30:57When they come to try a case against us, they take a whole hotel down. When they bring their

31:03witnesses, they have people who go pick up the witness and bring them to the trial and take them

31:07back. It's like a Grisham novel. And they have unlimited money because of public company. And that's

31:14why I'm David. And that's why they're Goliath. A lot of these cases take years and years and years.

31:19So in a sense, I am David because they have unlimited money. And the insurance companies

31:24can get more. They just up and just raise your rates and fill their coffers back. I can't do that.

31:30I have to win every single day. I got to keep winning every single day. It seems like that's the

31:37new thing. It seems like everybody's a billionaire. If you know what you're worth, you're not worth

31:44it. And it's true. Eat the rich. I would say I understand where you're coming from. I understand

31:55it because I've been it. I've been you. I've been in places where I didn't know how I was going to get

32:04out of it. I didn't know how I was going to make it. I've been up against the wall. And it's a terrible

32:13feeling. You know, what I talked about earlier, the hopeless, helpless, powerless. It's like, you know,

32:18where do I go? I would tell them to keep peacefully demonstrating, you know, the no kings thing they

32:29had. I didn't see that coming, that there's all that many people that are upset. I didn't think

32:36anybody was that upset. But I also understand that there's a limit. You know, I'm not a democratic

32:44socialist because I don't believe socialism works. I believe what works would be compassionate

32:53capitalism, where we try to do the most for the most with the least. We kind of just take care of

32:59them. The arguments that pissed me off were the people who say, I don't want to pay a dollar more

33:04for a hamburger. I'm like, you selfish . Why? Why? And then they would say, well, if you raise the

33:16prices, then the wages are going to, you're going to need more because the prices, if you raise,

33:21if you raise wages, you're going to, and you, then prices are going to have to be raised and you're,

33:25it's going to be an endless battle, an endless circle of people suffering, which I don't buy.

33:34I think at a certain point, people make enough money that they can have happiness.

33:45My three children, lawyers, work for me. My son, Matt, is unbelievable. My daughter has a

33:50structured settlement company called Monarch that structures settlements. And my son-in-law works

33:57there. And why is because I love them and I want to be with them. And that's why I built all the houses

34:06together at the beach. That's what moves me is my family and being with them. I don't under,

34:15I would not understand life without them. And now I got all these grandchildren. We always used to go to

34:22see movies on Christmas day. And we went to see this movie called My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And at

34:28the end of the movie, they were all living on the same street. The families were. And then the lights

34:34go up and my, my daughter goes, Oh my God, look, daddy's crying. Look at that. Look everybody.

34:39Daddy's crying. I'm in the movie. I'm like, shut the up. But that movie has like, you know,

34:45that'd be a great thing for all of us to live on the same street.

34:48What I never did is like these rich people buy their kids, great cars. I never did.

34:57You know, I gave them like an eight year old navigator and they had to work

35:05and they had to pay for their insurance. And look, they live my lifestyle. So,

35:10you know, if I'm at the Four Seasons, they're at the Four Seasons. So there's a, you know, how do you

35:14do it? But first of all, you got to spend a lot of time talking to them about what's important.

35:21One time it was Christmas time. And I said to the boys, I said, one was 17, one was 15. I said,

35:29have you all got your schedule for Wonderworks for this Christmas break? And Mike goes,

35:36nobody from Bishop Moore's working over Christmas. I go, that's

35:41and Matt goes, no, nobody's working. Nobody's working. I said, I know that's not true.

35:48No, it's true, daddy. I go, here's why it's not true. You two are working. You two MFers are working

35:57and you're going to work 40 hours. But here's the good news. Because I own it, you can work from eight

36:02to five, 12 to nine, five to two, but you're working. You don't have to work on Christmas day

36:08because I own it. If I didn't own it, you might have to work on Christmas day. But there will be

36:13people from Bishop Moore working this Christmas, Mike Morgan and Matt Morgan.

36:20And you know, I had to fire Dan once. He was just a screw off at Wonderworks and they thought he was

36:26the father's son. And I said, Hey man, you're fired. And I said, you're not going out until you get a new

36:32job. Now you got to go get a new job. Well, I said, Dan, so he gets a job at Boston market,

36:41you know, cooking chickens or something. He comes in like a week later, he quit Boston market. I said,

36:46why'd you quit? They had me washing dishes. It made me vomit. I said, really? I said,

36:52I thought you were supposed to be cooking chicken. No, they had me in the, they had me dishwashing.

36:57I said, think about that, Dan, they got you doing the worst job in the place. That's what they think

37:01of you. And now you've quit. But here's another thing, Dan, you're never going out of this house

37:06except to school to look for a job. And then he got a job at Firehouse Sub and he excelled at Firehouse

37:14Sub. It's interesting because I, I was always very envious and, and kind of like pissed off that people

37:22had money just born. You know, that doesn't seem fair and nepotism I've never liked. And now

37:32my children are the people that used to bother me. They're the spoiled people with the silver spoon

37:40stuck up their ass. And, you know, you just keep hoping and, you know, you know, I had a thing with

37:49Matt the other day. He was like, I said, are you coming to Hawaii? No, we're going to the Breakers

37:54after Christmas. I'm like, what are you doing at the Breakers? Just walking around being rich?

38:02That kind of turned me off that he's just going to go down to the Breakers in Palm Beach. I said,

38:07but my children have become the very people that I used to look at and go, that's not fair.

38:13So what I've done with that is I just hope and pray that they, and I think they have. I think they

38:24have heard me loud and clear. And what I have told them is this thing, the money belongs to God.

38:32Don't think this is your money. This luck that's come our way. I don't know why. And I, I think

38:43they've heard it. I hope they've heard it. They certainly, they certainly talk like they have.

38:49So I, you know, I won't know until I'm dead and looking down to see if they're really doing it.

38:52If you have a hundred million or a billion, you're basically living the same life. I don't like

39:04change. I got the same wife. I got the same kids. I got the same friends. All of my money is going to

39:14go into a trust, Morgan Family Trust. My daughter is going to run it. And then what I hope to do is to

39:22say, say, say, this is a trust, but I hope to do is to have other silos where my children can put

39:27their money inside silos. So I'll have my silo and then their four silos, and that we could have

39:35money going out for the things that, that, that we think are important. I'm not, I'm not up for,

39:43I'm not up for trying to start something from scratch. I'm up for, hey, there's a food bank

39:49to be built in Appalachia and then I build it and then I'm done other than, you know, donations I

39:55give. I mean, I still give money to the Morgan Morgan Hunger Relief Center, especially now, look,

39:59this new administration, we we're, we're losing funding for food at the, at Morgan Morgan Hunger

40:07Relief Center. So I've stepped up my giving there. I'm 69 years old. I have had more fun

40:15and seen more people. And I've met popes. I met all the presidents. They've all been in my house.

40:22I've raised hell. My best time has been in union halls and drinking beer and drinking whiskey and

40:27throwing darts. And my children's childhood was unbelievable. And my high school was unbelievable.

40:33And my college was unbelievable. Sadly to say, my best days are probably behind me if I'm being honest.

40:41But I, I got good days ahead of me now because I got these six grandchildren, which has, which has

40:47transformed my life because I'm getting to do it again. And I'm getting to enjoy this innocence and

40:54this love. When your grandchildren are running to you, there's no love like that.

41:02So I got that to look forward to.

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