Billionaire's #1 Rule for Getting Rich | John Morgan

How did you become a liquid net worth billionaire? Where did the money come from? I have an attraction business that does 33 million a year in EBITDA. I've made a fortune in real estate. I had a billboard company that I sold. I had an advertising agency that I sold. What are you selling all these companies for? Like, I'm curious how much- I sold my billboard company to Lamar for 13X. And then your real estate portfolio, how did you make the money there? How much money do you have in real estate? Only thing I ever put on my financial statement is my basis. A lot of people themselves, they go, hey, I bought this house for a million dollars, but it's really worth $3 million. Why? Because you could sell it. I would say the same as a stock. There's appreciation of equity. Maybe something is worth what somebody will pay. Correct. So on my financial statements, the only thing I put on my financial statements is my basis. And you don't account for appreciation? No, because I'm not going to jerk myself off either. At what age? When I sell it, when I sell it and it goes liquid, then it goes into my brokerage account. And that's real money then. And until it goes in my brokerage account, it's not real money to me. The guy that, you know, a hero of mine is a guy that started Patagonia. Oh, yes. Yvon Chouinard. That's the guy you ought to go interview. I would love to. I would love to. I've seen him speak one time. He's the one I heard, I'm not a billionaire. They made him a billionaire. He said, I'm not a billionaire. I don't have a billion in the bank. It's so funny. Even Jake Paul. said the same thing, that he wouldn't consider himself a billionaire until he has a billion liquid. Yeah. When did you become a liquid net worth billionaire? Recent. It was recently. Yeah. Liquid. And the main things that contribute- Well, don't forget, I'm also, I've got children. I'm making my money, but I got four children that I'm fanning out serious money to. And where do you think most of your net worth crossing that billion dollar mark came from? Was Was it appreciation of stock? Was it the active income from your law firm? Was it the real estate? Law firm. You also have a lot of profitable businesses besides the law firm. What do you attribute these ideas to? And why do so many of them seem to hit? Well, some don't. I mean, I've had a few losers. Look, Warren Buffett, his whole net worth and success is basically 11 or 12 stocks. It's not what you would think. It's not this bunch that's like this. I feel like I have a pulse on what people want and what people like. I'm also risk adverse and debt adverse. Like when I do my businesses, if I don't have the money, I'll go get partners or I'll do a private placement memorandum. And when I started building the attractions, I raised the money, OPM. People in real estate are much more risky than me because it can just take you down. And what I do is I call it, I got the A side and the B side. The A side is my cash that I use to invest. The B side, once money goes over to the B side, it's never, ever touched for the rest of my life. All it does is throw off, you know, 4% tax-free-ish. So if I got $100 million, I make $4. If I got $200 million, I make $8. If I got $1 billion, I make $40. And what are you making that with? Tax-free bonds, T-bills, and interest rates. Wow. Between 3% and 4%. Some of it's tax-free, some of it's not. What are the differences that you've seen between the type of people that make millions, tens of millions, and hundreds of millions? Is there a personality trait? Is there a mindset that they have differently? Look, everything is different, but I would say that the people who really get filthy rich are patient. I didn't make a million dollars until I was 41 because I was pouring everything back into my businesses. Some people pour it into boats and Ferraris and whores. And I'm like, that's a non-performing asset as far as I'm concerned. So the mistake they make is they want to get rich quick. The biggest mistake they make is greed. Greed is not good. Greed is dangerous. And by the way, and I have been greedy and made mistakes. And it goes like this. How do you know if you're being greedy? If it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true. If you see somebody offering, hey, we're going to pay you 11% interest, run. It's a lie. If I could take everything I have and have only invested in an instrument that gave me 8% compounded, that's all I would want. That's all I would need. But don't you think that you go from a place when you have less money of like trying to gain appreciation, rapid growth to the point of asset protection and capital preservation? Like there is a kind of tipping point. Well, the book I like is the tortoise and the hare. I'm the tortoise. And so what's the most amount of money you've lost due to greed? It really wasn't lost money. It was I lost, I wasted my time. I went with some people who kind of, me, I mean, to put down what I lost, I lost so much time around with them. Were there red flags or something that you should have identified? Always. What are the red flags? Here's a red flag. Let me explain it to you in Kentucky terms. You ever been walking in the woods and felt your foot slip like that? Loose ground, yeah. No? You're like, was that dog ----? Oh. And then you keep walking and then you keep walking to your car. And you're like, as you're walking to the car, you're like, no, that's probably pine needles. That's probably grass. That's probably wet leaves because we don't want it to be dog. We don't want there to be dog ---- on our, our shoes. And then you walk to the car and you've been, you've been thinking about dogs the whole time. But by the time you get to the car, you're convinced yourself it was leaves or pine needles. And then you get in the car and then you shut the door. Do y'all know that smell I'm thinking about right now? All three of y'all know that smell I'm thinking about right now. And here's the lesson for everybody out there in Podcastville. If it smells like dogs, there's dogs in life and in love. And we can sense it, but the reason we don't is greed. Really quick, I just got to say that if you're running your business out of your personal bank account, you are one bad client away from a real problem. We're talking your personal savings, your home, everything you own is on the line. That, of course, is why we're partnered with Northwest Registered Agent. For $39 a month, plus state fees, they form your LLC and make sure you're actually protected. You get your state filing, operating agreement, membership certificates, and banking resolutions, all the paperwork that makes it official. Once you're an LLC, your personal assets are generally kept separate from whatever happens in the business. 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