The Hardest Working People Make the LEAST

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. How can tech speed a tech-now app requires Wi-Fi or data connection data plans all separately? 5G where available. Financial growth begins long before the first investment. It comes from understanding what you're building toward. What's at stake? And what success looks like for you? At Oppenheimer, we bring bold thinking guided by the full strength of our expertise. To put capital to work building and protecting wealth that last generations. Put the power of Oppenheimer thinking to work for you. With this management, capital markets, investment banking.

1:03Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. People wake up and go, oh, damn, wait and hold up. They change all of that? Yes. It's real. This is a wholesale attack. It is targeting black people in every federal agency. It's wrong. WIFO have never allowed that reckoning to last more than a decade. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the IHOT radio app Apple Podcast. Or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't you don't become successful by being lucky. Your book title is Life is Luck. What does that mean? All right, what that means is this. Life is a thousand. Left turns, a thousand. Right turns, a thousand. You turns. And a lot of the turns are just flip a coin. You just do it. Now, everybody who is successful or not everybody, most people who are successful don't want to say I was lucky.

2:05They want to say hard work, hard work. Well, here's what I want to tell you about hard work. The hardest work in people in America make the least. That's true. Make the least. That's a fact. I'm with you. No, don't ever, don't ever, have you ever, have you ever taken a shovel and tried to dig a hole? You're done that? No, I have. It's hard. It's like terrible. Forget it. It's like, and if you have some frost on the ground, you know, you hit, you like forget it. The hardest work, you know, in the fields, pick a strawberries and throw in watermelons. And that's the hardest work in America. And they make the least. So what I recognize is this, there was a few things that happened in my life that changed everything for me, like Jerry Billings.

3:08What if I didn't go to Jerry Billings? What if I hadn't bought it? What would have happened to me? I think I might have still been okay, but what would this have happened? I had a big case early in my life. I build these attractions across America called Wonderworks. And they print money. There's a houses are turned upside down. And you walk in, you're standing on the ceiling. And I got six of them. And I got no debt. And I make $33 million a year in EBITDA. But guess what? I did the first one in Orlando. I did the second one in Pigeon Forge. I did the third one in a Myrtle Beach. And then I did one in Syracuse in a mall. And it's a total disaster. Total disaster. If I had done that one first, I might not have done none. I might have just been it. But I did it in Orlando.

4:09Sometimes it's just that it's not that your idea was bad. Your location was bad. Your city was bad. Or you didn't have enough capital. And so there's so many of confluence of events that make... And if I had to say to you guys, tell me the lucky... I'll ask you, what's the luckiest things that happened to you in this world that you're in? The luckiest thing that's ever happened. You're supposed to say I met him, but keep going. I have to get the top of him. Well, let me say this. Let me say this. Because I'm going to answer that question. I'm going to tell you something. I'm glad you don't live in Orlando because you two would be... We're hanging out after this. I'm telling you, I'll keep watching him laughing at you. I'm like, I got to separate these two guys. But we've been fortunate a lot. We've been fortunate to run into Steve Harvey, who's become a great mentor to us business partner. We've been fortunate to start the show in a time where people really was interested.

5:09We was fortunate. I hate to say it, but even COVID, because that was an acceleration period for us. But we also put ourselves in position to be fortunate. It's not like we was just random people on the street and it's like COVID happened. And it's like, oh, now we're going to become... Never eat alone. Never eat alone. Listen. The way you find luck is you're looking for opportunities. That's in your control. It's not all luck. If you don't play the game... God, be in it to win it. Yeah. And if you never take a shot on goal, you never make a goal. Wayne Gratsky. So you create the luck? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't want to take too much away from it. Listen. Grant Hill is a partner of mine in some businesses. And one time, I'm from Kentucky. He played at Duke. So we might be talking to him. You are? Yeah. Dude, how did you have that happen? 90s. I grew up just watching Jamal and Mashburgrin and Travis Ford.

6:10Oh, yeah. And that was it. Oh, yeah. I was like, he's from the Bronx. It's going to be my team. Yeah. And it's just been my team. Well, we're midday and real close with Kyle. He's out in Arkansas. He's not with us anymore. No, but he should be. Kentucky's your team? Yeah, it's always a must. But exclusively? Yeah. College? For sure, college team? 100%. I knew I loved you. You know something different. You never wrote for Michigan. You never. I didn't. Greg is a Michigan fan. You never wrote for Michigan? To have five. Did you? I wanted them to do well. And any point in time that you wrote for Michigan? No. So think about this. Think about this. There's three types of luck. There's pure luck. Yeah. There's plan luck. And there's practice luck. Pure luck is catching lightning in a bottle. We're just getting hit by lightning. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast. Here's what you missed. And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against

7:11their own economic interests, and they complained about the very thing they were seeing. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off. I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all going to scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same van. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the black information network. 12 seats. Those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going to heart in the south now. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcast. Whoever you get your podcasts. Bad luck. Good luck. Case lightning in the bottle. Then there is planned luck. Benjamin Franklin is seeing these electric stuff. He's like, you know what? I'm going to drag this key out with the, you know, and he catches lightning.

8:11That's planned luck. Then there's practiced luck. Because luck comes in all forms and facts. So when I grant our fly home from somewhere, he had this pass. You know the pass. 1991. He throws a ball down. Christian lightning turned around. Game over. I go, I said, grant that. It's just that broke my heart. I said, that was the luckiest shot in the world. He goes, look at nothing to do with that, John. I will you. I said, like, wow. Explain that to me. He goes, we practiced that play every day in practice. And once we had the same play, but we, we were doing it down the sideline instead of underneath the basket. We had it, we did it against Wake Forest. And I threw it, but it was on the sideline and it blew up. And so then we changed it. They were going to endbound it from under the basket to the top of the key.

9:12That happened every day in practice. So now we're against Kentucky. Coach K calls timeout. He brings the team over. Grant, can you make the pass? Yes. Christian, can you make the shot? Yes. Hands in. Let's go win this game. What's planned, look? What's practice luck? You swatched football. The two-minute drill. You're like, how in the world are going from the five to the, I mean, that's lucky. They practiced that two-minute drill every single practice. It looks like luck. So there's, you got to sort, you know, the wheat from the shave. There's pure luck. There's planned luck. And there's practice luck. But the way you find the best luck in the most significant luck is if you're lucky.

10:15Is if you're looking for luck. And the way you look for luck is you got to always be looking for opportunities. And when you fail, that, believe it or not, is your best luck. You're like, why? Because the lessons in failure are the road map to success. I had an attraction that I built in DC called the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. I had CSI laboratories. I had, you know, all this memorabilia. I couldn't build it the way I wanted it. Bad luck. I mean, you know, everything's free in DC. I should never gone there. So all of a sudden, I failed. But my wife keeps saying, she's, John, this is the best thing you've ever done. So, well, you know, I got other attractions over in the smoky mountains. She goes, you need to build it again. I said, to take this failure, she goes, it's not a failure.

11:16It was the wrong city. So, you know, I did. I took everything. I packed it all up. Then I got a location in Pigeon, Forge, which is Gatlinburg. And instead of calling it the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, I call it Alcatraz East. And it looks like a 1980s prison. You drive down the road. You're like, holy, you know, you got to pull in there. And it prints money. It prints money. I failed in DC. I packed it up. I changed the name. I built it for sod. And the grand finale, when you come there, I got these four cars. Ted Bundy's VW. Bonnie and Clyde Death Car from the movie. John Dillinger's sedan. And the final piece, OJ's Bronco. You got it. I got it.

12:16And when you go through this, when you go through Google Alcatraz East to see all this stuff I got in there. And it just prints money. It makes me six million bucks a year. Got no debt. Now, how many people would take that failure and say, okay, here's what I learned. I should never go on a DC in the first place. Why? I went there because the spy museum was supposedly doing good. I didn't go there. I was stupid to go there. I couldn't make a facade other than just a regular office building. I spent too much money. And the first one I had in America's most wanted in the basement. I spent too much money. But I took all my mistakes and everything I learned. And went and did that. In Florida. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast. Here's what you missed. There should not be a single law enforcement agency. It does not have body cameras. It's real. Black farmers have been under attack.

13:16This is just the latest example of them just slapping DEI on anything. It's raw. And I'm sitting here going. They are playing y'all for fools. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcast. Oh, wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHot Podcast. Guaranteed Human.