Secrets of Winning Arguments Every Entrepreneur Should Know | Ryan Umina DSH #1290

What you're doing, okay?

And I'll teach a little something that's about argumentation.

Never try and untell the other side story.

You stick to your version of the truth.

They tell their version of the truth.

When you start trying to untell their version, they got chucked when you lose.

You're definitely going to lose because now they're just, you're playing their game.

All right, guys, got Ryan from SCTC Pros.

First guest from from West Virginia represent.

Yeah, big shout out to West Virginia.

Let's go.

Yeah, yeah.

Went to law school out there.

It's an interesting place.

You know, it gets a little bad of a rap sometimes, you know, nationally, but it's an absolutely stunning place.

And they're actually doing a lot right now.

A lot of manufacturing jobs going in there, big businesses.

Berkshire Hathaway, one of their companies, putting a big manufacturing plant

down there.

And then people don't realize there's all sorts of,

you know, interesting people

that come from there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Little place I grew up.

So I grew up just south of where like West Virginia University is.

It's like the next little county down, like 15 minutes away.

And you're talking that whole county, the county has 60,000 people.

And people like Nick Sabin's from there.

Wow.

Mary Lou Retton's from there.

Senator Manchin, who, you know, a couple of years ago was probably the most powerful senator in the Senate

when he was the tiebreaker.

He's from there.

Starting center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Zach Frazier's from there.

Dante still starting defensive tackle for the Arizona Cardinals.

They played at a 800-kid high school in West Virginia on the same team.

And they're, you know, two of the 700 starters in the NFL.

That's crazy.

It's an odd little place, man.

It's cool.

A lot of great,

great folks from there.

Yeah, quality over quantity is what they say, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's always nice.

You know, I love getting out here,

you know, in these larger stages and, you know, chatting with people and representing for all those guys back home.

Yeah.

What made you want to become a lawyer and what type of law do you practice?

Yeah.

So,

you know, path to becoming a lawyer,

you know, I finished undergrad a little bit later in life.

I was like 25.

And so I had some time to,

you know, think about what am I actually good at?

You know, I spent, hey, I spent a summer in like hospitality management and things like that.

I was like, maybe I'll just work at a resort.

And I was always pretty good at public speaking and, you know, liked some academic exercises.

And, you know, one of the things about becoming a lawyer that I would tell anyone who's thinking about it, you have to really practice, even if you can speak well, reading, writing, and then like philosophical logic, right?

You need to understand true logic.

And so like I minored in philosophy

and really appreciated the academic exercise of that.

And so,

you know, when I went to law school, I was just very focused on being a trial lawyer.

It's just what called me.

And people would say, what is a trial lawyer?

I tell people, it's like, you ever see a show, you know, the practice or some of these other,

you know, lawyer shows?

Suits.

Yeah, yeah.

And with the exception of maybe some of the corporate stuff they do in suits,

which, we handle some of that stuff, I do a wide range of things.

I've tried

a lot of cases

for someone my age, but I've tried

many criminal cases.

We've handled stuff in the civil rights arena, a lot of

kind of catastrophic injury, wrongful death, people being wrongfully killed.

And then, you know, our practice, probably 20-ish percent.

We do a lot of

business work, you know, medium-sized and large, small businesses.

We do a lot of work for that.

Makes sense.

What was the first case?

Was it a win?

Yeah.

So I had a great run in trials early on.

Right.

You know, I was at a point,

and again, I worked, they tell you in law school, like, you're not going to see the inside of a courtroom for 10 years, seven years.

And I just, I just chose not to believe that.

And

I, so I was on like competitive, get a trial for them.

And they were like traveling trial competition teams

every semester starting my second year.

So, so four separate teams and, and, you know, won the school's like trial competition.

So, I mean, I really worked at getting good at it.

I would, I would set up a

computer.

I'd go up to the law school on like a Saturday and, you know, set up my computer in the jury box and sit there and be all by myself.

Wow.

You know, practicing and watching and critiquing myself.

Yeah, you know how to do it.

I mean, you watching yourself on camera, sometimes it can be so painful.

It's all uncomfortable.

Hearing my voice, it's like, oh my God.

Yeah.

And, but, you know, that's how you, that's how you learn.

And so first, uh,

first

case all by myself was

the first two before that.

So

very first case.

um pretty heavily publicized but i was more you know second chair just really did like the work of it i was fortunate when i started out i don't practice now but i ended up um you know, I did big law my first summer.

And then I was like, I don't, I don't really think that's my speaker.

You've worked under a big combiner?

Yeah, I worked for like a, one of, my first summer was with one of the, you know, largest law firms in the country.

A huge, I mean, and they've merged since then.

They have about a thousand lawyers, like giant, giant firm.

Yeah.

And, uh,

which, you know, love those guys.

And I have a lot of friends that work in that environment, but it just wasn't for me.

I wanted to be, you know, in court.

So

I had an awesome mentor of sorts who was a

judge at the time he still is a judge he's a federal judge now but

he let me come and just kind of tag along for the summer you know and really you know taught you know you walk into the courtroom he's like all right here's what really just happened right here's what's really here's what they're really saying right interesting Yeah, it was invaluable.

And then I went to work at a smaller firm, but these, they were very well established.

So we had some, you know, significant cases.

So first trial ever um

it was uh really hot button issue it's right on the heels if you recall the brock turner um case uh you know this the stanford swimmer right and so the allegation was that our client um

at a party uh sexually assaulted a girl yeah um

And not that she didn't consent, but that she was too intoxicated to consent.

Right.

And of course, you hear that and it's like, oh my gosh.

And this, the allegations alone nearly ruined a kid's life.

But he, you know, kicked out of school.

Damn.

Oh, yeah.

Kicked out of school.

I mean, and it was picked up nationally, story-wise.

Yeah, this was Peek Me Too movement, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so you're talking, the AP picked it up.

It was coast to coast news.

And,

you know, when I got into it, I started realizing and kind of uncovering.

So

the witnesses are the girl, and then she went to this party with her friend.

And the, you know, our client, this was her ex-boyfriend.

And what ended up coming out,

you know, you watch the interviews that they went and gave to the police and

they give one version of events and they say one thing about how much they've drank.

And they say, and then when they're in the student conduct hearing, now they're telling a completely different version of events.

But then what the saving grace for this young man was

there were cameras all over this.

It was a fraternity house.

And this, it's not like the

stereotype that you would think of.

This gentleman does not look like

Diddy cameras.

No.

And

he was a really, really good young man.

And, you know, that group of guys, they were a good group.

They actually got that house only because a rowdier.

returning got kicked off campus.

Okay.

So they got to move into this new house, but cameras everywhere.

And it was very clear that what happened was the girl ditched her friend at the party to go hook up with her ex-boyfriend and left her ditched at the party.

And then when they're leaving, her friend's yelling at her for ditching her at the party.

And

she's like, leave me alone.

I think I just got raped.

And then her friend really starts pushing this narrative.

Well, what we, you know, came to find out and uncover, you know, she, they try to tell the story that she goes up to the room and beats on the door and they come to the door and she's trying to pull her out of the room and he's pulling her back and slams the door.

This is a story that they tell.

You watch the videotape.

She comes to the door.

She has a conversation.

She says goodbye and leaves.

He's nowhere to be found.

Wow.

And then the alleged victim attempted to say that, you know, because they're saying like, you're so drunk.

He didn't forcibly do any.

You're so drunk, though.

You can't give consent.

And they're like, What?

They're like, What happened after?

Like, when she's talking to the police, he kicked me out of the room, and I'm carrying my clothes down the hallway, naked to the bathroom, crying.

Lo and behold, in the video, they walk out of the room, they're holding hands, she's fully clothed.

They go into the bathroom, she realizes she forgot an earring.

He goes back, gets her earring for her that she forgot, because you'd remember that if you were so, you know, incoherent that,

you know, and takes her, takes that back to her and holds her hand, walks her down the stairs, didn't need her.

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That's great.

Except Aries' text.

She didn't hold her hand.

She freely kind of bounced down the stairs and goes to her friend.

And then when you see she engages the friend, the the friend is angry, right?

And

it's, you know, and then, and then,

you know, what we kind of later found out is it sounds like

it maybe they maybe weren't just friends, the two gals at the party together, right?

So she didn't want to tell her, hey, I bounced on you to go hook up with my boyfriend, you know, da, da, da, da, da.

And it turned into police went and pulled this kid out of his bed at four o'clock in the morning, interrogated him all night, arrested him, charged him.

He had to stand trial.

He was kicked out of school.

That's crazy.

You know, they're just, their inconsistencies were so much.

You know, we had a four-person was a retired,

you know, female school teacher,

not guilty, you know, yet gave the kid his life back.

So that's not,

did he get back into school?

Did they let him?

He transferred.

He transferred.

That's what, that's what happens.

And I mean, in a college town, you know, obviously that topic, right?

And it's been talked about a lot lately, sexual assault and consent and all of these things.

And that topic is a very sensitive issue, man.

But I would tell you, I have seen, and it's scary.

I've seen a couple incidents now where

here's how it always happens.

And I've probably seen three cases like this, right?

Here's how it always happens.

A young lady goes out and she ends up hooking up with some dude and she has some sort of significant other that is not that dude.

And then she says, well, I didn't want to or something like that.

And then significant other says, well, then that's, you know, you've been sexually assaulted and we need to do something about it.

And that's a scary thing, man.

I have two sons

and I've seen it firsthand.

We've defended them.

And,

you know, very hard to win because of the nature of the allegation.

And fortunately, the ones that we were involved with, we did, but we had truly innocent clients.

That's the scariest.

That's scary, man.

Scariest thing you can do.

I mean, it doesn't matter.

You try cases for money.

You try cases for someone's freedom.

I don't care how much money it is, dude.

Nothing as live as when you wake up and you're driving to a courthouse.

And if you don't win, this person's getting years or life, you know?

And typically if you're going to trial, it's like there's big years on the table, you know, plus 10.

So yeah, it's.

There's a lot on the line.

Yeah, it gets you out of bed differently in the morning.

And, you know, you're still a human.

It's like,

you know, even to now, it's, you know, we've done dozens of trials now and

probably over 20 jury trials.

If I say we, my, my wife and I practice together.

Nice.

Yeah, we've, we've tried many, many cases together.

She's excellent.

And,

you know, so you still, it's like you look yourself in the mirror and you put your suit on and, you know, the jury walks in and it's like, you know, counsel, you may give your opening, you know, argument

and it's, it's live, dude.

You got to stand up, go look a jury in the eyes and deliver.

It's an art, man.

It's a fun game to play.

A lot of psychology.

Tons of psychology.

I would say I learned the most about psychology as really studying the craft of being a trial attorney

Because you study everything and you learn, you know, one of the, one of the most significant things,

people don't make decisions for the reasons that they think that they make decisions.

People make decisions based on their previously held beliefs.

And then they're just trying

to fit logic into that previously held belief.

And then they justify it.

But by the time they're hearing the rationale for their decision, they're justified.

Wow.

So they make their decision early on then.

And for reasons that they don't realize.

Wow.

For reasons that they don't realize.

The primary reason that people

make decisions are survival or the appearance of danger.

Right.

And so, are you familiar with Mazlau's hierarchy of needs?

Heard of it.

Yeah.

So it's like a triangle.

On the bottom is like, you know, survival scarcity, you know, water, your basic needs.

And at the very top is self-actualization.

And there's, you know, these different levels.

And basically, if the need below isn't met, you can never get to like self-actualization.

Yeah.

And

where a lot of messaging for different things, you know, politics, we see this a lot.

It's, it's, they're trying to keep you in the survival state because if you can get someone afraid, if you can grab on to fear,

then

you have them.

Right.

The egg prices in politics.

They got a lot of people in that one.

The gas prices.

All of it.

Yeah.

And that's why, you know, it's unfortunate that that's the manner in which that's why politics feels so negative, right?

Could you imagine if

they didn't have to do that?

It's just so powerful.

If they don't do it, the other side is going to do it.

Right.

And if you can put someone in a fear state and get their mind into a survival state and make them believe that them and their DNA, right?

Them and theirs

are in some sort of danger or will lack some sort of resources.

You got them.

You got them.

Yeah.

And that's what it all really comes down to.

So, you know,

people will intentionally create fear.

That's why it's so hard.

Certain criminal cases are hard because

If that person sitting next to you seems like they would be a danger at all to the community,

they won't even really care to hear the evidence.

That person is a threat.

Yeah.

And then they have confirmation bias.

So you really want to try and get a jury.

It's nice when you can talk first.

Yeah, that's a good point.

So I'd imagine the conviction rate on criminal cases is higher than

yes, overall.

Overall, yeah.

And,

you know, especially in the federal system, you know, people go to Toronto, the federal system.

95% or something.

Crush it.

Crazy.

Yeah, they have, I mean, immense talent.

It's not even so much the resources.

Yeah, the federal government has a lot of resources, but they just get very talented,

thorough attorneys.

Being

an AUSA

is a pretty prestigious post to hold.

AUSA.

Assistant,

like

assistant U.S.

attorney.

Oh, okay.

So you have the U.S.

Attorney's Office for like every district.

Federal courts are broken down, you know, on the trial court level.

You have a bunch of districts in different states, and then each district might have multiple courthouses

and

just kind of

divided up.

So that's the kind of the trial court level.

So you have a U.S.

attorney for, you know, you have the attorney general and then

they have a specific U.S.

attorney for every federal district

that runs that.

Like a very famous one is

Southern District of New York.

Southern District of New York, the U.S.

attorney there is a very, very, very prestigious post because of the litigation that happens

in that district, right?

And then everyone that works under them is an AUSA.

Got it.

Yeah, that's what they're called.

Yeah, they're lethal.

Yeah, they're, you know, smart cookies, right?

They're smart.

They're, they're really, really smart.

And then, you know, a lot of them go on to, you know, larger firms or, you know, maybe into teaching or or different things like that yeah what was your toughest case was it a criminal case

yeah

yeah I

well toughest toughest case I've ever had no it was actually a civil rights case and it was like first first kind of

case that someone just brought in like to me And it was a,

it was a shooting, a police shooting, and he had run, right?

And,

you know, they try to say he was basically being a threat with the vehicle and they shot him.

He was unarmed, right?

And,

you know,

factually,

right?

Factually,

yes, it was likely a bad shooting.

If you really looked at the physical evidence at the scene, because basically he had run and he ran out through the country and then they were already shooting at him, which they had no right to shoot at him.

So he got pulled over and was on foot running?

No, he was running in a car.

And then they cornered him up at a

well pad, right?

And the big critical piece of evidence in this was this.

He's in a Jeep.

It's a stick shift Jeep, right?

And they attempted to say he was coming at them, right?

And coming at them and shoot him.

so if that is true then yeah he could have absolutely shot him however um they had pulled the body out of the jeep and everything and it was noted in the report that when they came the jeep is still running

well a stick shift cannot run in gear Wow.

A stick shift must be in neutral to continue to run with no one in the car, which means unless he somehow in his last dying moment shifts the car into neutral, he couldn't have been trying to run you whatever, because he was like backed up into the weeds.

It was like a dead end.

And

then they shot him and then,

you know, killed him.

It was horrific.

And, you know, they made a pretty substantial offer to settle that case.

And, you know, family just had a different number in mind.

Learned a lot about client management and that.

I mean, it was a significant offer.

And, you know, you're getting a trial and you're doing great.

And, you know, then people say things, you know, like your own witnesses that don't reflect well.

And then they're not even looking at the evidence.

They don't care.

Once they decide they don't like this person, and I don't think they're doing it consciously.

It's just confirmation bias.

Right.

You know, once they decide, no, I kind of feel this way instead.

They will, and this is what people do.

They will subconsciously diminish evidence that goes against what they're already thinking.

And they will amplify evidence that they, you know,

supports what they're thinking.

Yeah, I see that in debates all the time.

They'll just completely disregard the other party's statement.

Yeah, yeah.

And because of those things, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, people will just like,

you could take two geniuses, and let's say they want to argue about politics, right?

Two astrophysicists, you know, super smart dudes.

on very opposite ends of the spectrum,

every argument that they make to each other that they think is good and logical will actually just reinforce the other one's previously held beliefs.

It actually just makes it worse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In persuasion.

So here, I'll give you a little free tip.

Okay.

Okay.

In persuasion, the easiest thing to do is to get someone to agree with you about something that they already agree with.

Right.

So you can take a premise that you believe that they're already going to agree with.

Right.

And we do this in jury selection, right?

You want to take like underlying themes of your case.

And, you know, we had a case once,

it was a business case, insurance company breakup, all right?

And

the one insurance company or the agents, they were going off and starting their own, their own thing.

And all they, all they, they hadn't contacted anyone.

They hadn't done anything.

All they had done was get in touch with the actual insurance companies to sell the lines.

So, you know, travelers, farmers, all that, like they have to be set up with them to sell their insurance, right?

So that was as far as the conversation that they've had.

And, you know, and for them, it's like, well, you know, why did they do that?

It's like, well, they're not even going to think about quitting or leaving or doing their own thing if they can't actually sell anything.

Right.

So we came up with a theme of, or not a theme, but in jury selection, we asked,

raise your hand if you've ever heard, don't quit one job until you have another.

Every single hand goes up.

Smart.

Yeah.

Every single hand goes up.

And

they,

we got through like openings, you know, the first day and we get there the next morning.

And we had been trying to, you know, we basically proposed in the beginning,

you know, and this was at the time I was the junior attorney on this case, but

when I was still working for the guys I started with.

So great mentors.

So, you know, from the beginning, they were just like, hey, listen, we'll leave.

You leave.

You know, we'll take what's ours.

You take what's yours.

And we're not exchanging any money.

Like, see you later.

Like, we're just going to, we just want to go.

We just want to be free.

And

so we walk in the second day of trial.

And, you know, that's how we ended up resolving the case.

Jury goes home.

Right.

Wow.

So it's resolved.

We're not paying anything because they were, they were suing us in that case.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so we walk out, me and the, you know, the partner I'm working for,

and we hit the sidewalk and one of the jurors comes up and she's like, she's like, why'd you guys settle?

And we're like, well, we didn't, we didn't have to pay anything.

And, you know, we just put it behind it.

She goes, she goes, they didn't have anything on you.

She goes, everybody knows you don't quit one job until you have another.

And I love it.

Yeah, man.

So, so those, those little kind of, you know, when people ask me stuff like this, like, when when you see someone speaking publicly or speaking like that, right?

It all looks very seamless, but it's tools in a tool belt.

It's a polished craft.

And that's what makes it look so seamless, right?

Right.

And you can just grab all these little things from your tool belt, but, but the, the, the things that you learn along the way and getting those skills, they're so unbelievably transferable to, um, especially like business, I mean, life and understanding people, but, um, you know, shifting into entrepreneurship and such.

I was just telling someone yesterday,

you know, if there's a young, younger person or I don't even know what young means, right?

Relative, right?

Yeah.

So someone that's like unsure and never thought about it, like

people thinking about going to law school, like I would highly, highly recommend if someone's thinking about going to law school, even if they want to be an entrepreneur, they want to do their own thing, especially if they want to work for themselves.

Put in the work, like do the time and

get really good at it.

And then go, go just, you know, you don't have to go do a whole career in it.

Go be a public defender for three years.

Go put in some time in the trenches and it'll build humility.

It'll build a lot of things, but, you know, go to trial.

And that exercise, I always joke, like, you know, if I, if I do really, really well in my like grandkids' trust, I'm going to put this in there.

They're going to have to.

go to law school,

try three cases for an indigenous person and win.

I love it.

And then you get your trust.

That's cool.

Yeah.

And

the reason for that is, I mean, you develop public speaking skills.

You understand persuasion.

You're cool under pressure.

At least you eventually get there.

Right.

And

you're just so much more effective.

And not to mention, I mean, you pass the bar.

You have a pretty good understanding of most of what you need to know on the...

the things that people have to pay lawyers for

to do in business, which once you start really going in any business especially if there's anything with compliance regulatory that's sometimes your greatest cost it's good to know yeah legal legal is a big cost for a lot of business owners massive costs yeah so i mean you can shortcut so much of that like i mean we still use outside counsel of course and we still do stuff like that but i mean we're able to save tremendous amounts tons of money yeah because most businesses allocate you know 10 to 30 percent of their their revenue right to legal depends on the industry yeah yeah and uh yeah we're able to shortcut so much of that i mean super super grateful.

So, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, okay, somebody dedicate five years of your life to that.

Plus, they do get out in the business world.

I mean, I think you just get a lot more respect.

You know what I mean?

The rooms that you go in.

Oh, 100%.

Take it much more seriously.

It doesn't matter how old someone is.

You know what I mean?

Lawyers are respected.

Yeah.

A lot of jokes, but when you actually get there, you know, to your face, you generally

jokes are fine.

No, this is fascinating because basically you're telling me if you're convincing, if you're persuasive, you could beat facts in a courtroom.

It's pretty mind-blowing.

Yeah.

That's really interesting to me.

It's, it's all you're doing, okay?

And I'll teach a little something else about argumentation.

Never try and untell the other side story.

You stick to your version of the truth.

They tell their version of the truth.

When you start trying to untell their version, they got you.

That's when you lose.

You're definitely going to lose because now they're just, you're playing their game.

Now, you do see that, you know,

in, you know, politics as well.

Some politicians are a lot better at that, but there'll be all this noise and all this, they don't even, they're not even going to respond to it.

They're just going to keep telling their version of it, right?

Because

it just makes you, I don't, I don't want to say it makes you look weak, but for your argument's sake, it is.

All a trial is, okay, I really studied and I've given some talks on like the history of the jury trial, right?

And it's, it's fascinating.

You know, it starts back in like Germanic tribes, like 800s, and the folk, the people.

And, you know, somebody has an issue, you know, farmer Bill took my pig and,

you know, rest of the tribe, what's up with that, Bill?

And they would just, it would be like a jury.

They'd tell their side of the story, you tell your side of the story.

And then the folk, the people decide.

And then that evolved through England and you ended up with like

knights would sit on the court.

That's where you get the 12 person.

There would be 12 knights that would sit on those courts.

And then it continued to evolve.

And then, you know, we took England's, the basis of England's legal system.

But at the end of the day, all you're doing, these are conflicts between typically friends, people, or the government and a person.

Excuse me.

And

all you're doing is you're going to get some strangers from the neighborhood.

You're going to tell your side of the story.

They're going to tell their side of the story.

The judge is going to be the referee.

And that's that.

That's it.

That's at its most basic sense.

It seems much more complex than that.

And for me, it helps to simplify it like that.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

When was the transition from trial lawyer to entrepreneurship?

When did that start?

So it was.

It was ongoing, you know, and something else I want to say, like I, I'm, uh,

you know, I finished law school um i was 30 i started law school at 27.

um and uh

you know i've been out about nine years now and

i started you know when i first started i was working for for people right

and you know started little things i always knew you know wanted to get into business i didn't know i didn't know how you know big or anything like that and i had a pretty limited understanding of kind of like the world that i'm in right now i'm rapidly like seeing like big business and how it works and just the people that I'm meeting and the friends and just these other projects that are coming to us.

But started off first thing, me and my other friend

back in West Virginia, Shirag Desai.

He's up in Morgantown, excellent attorney.

We were both sitting there, had a little bit of money, and we started a commercial cleaning company with a sweat equity partner.

Put like most of the janitorial equipment on, I mean, we had like $15,000 between us.

Like we just graduated, just started working.

And

yeah, put up a little bit of cash, put a bunch of stuff on my Overstock credit card.

You could get a ton of commercial cleaning stuff on Overstock, surprisingly.

And yeah, we started that.

And, you know, you do banks and businesses and things and,

you know, buy a little rental property and things like that

and a couple other small businesses.

And then beginning of COVID, took my first like big swing.

attempting to respond to the market.

And I guess opening my own law firm.

So that was 2019.

You know, I didn't think of it as entrepreneurship

at the time as much.

I just wanted to control my own life and destiny.

And

so 2020,

so my first year had a monster first year.

It was crazy.

Really?

Like the law firm?

Yeah, like seven figure years.

Damn.

Yeah, that's what I said.

And there's a lot of overhead with law firms too.

And a lot of

yeah, there's, I mean,

there's,

there's a, a, a lot to it, right?

And the cost and everything, but, but there's a lot of ways to skin a cat, right?

You can do, you know, profit sharing and things of that nature.

But I mean, we just, we just, I don't want to say, I hate even saying unfortunately got some big cases because, you know, typically big injury and death cases are like somebody, somebody lost something, right?

Maybe a life.

And you don't even,

I don't know, you know, it's like, it's, it's, it's a weird thing to experience because it's like, great, you, you, you got a really good result for this family.

And you, you, you helped them and you got them a large sum of money.

Like, that's great.

Yeah.

Um, but somebody gave something up, right?

But, but yeah, it's a skill that is, you know, well paid in these environments.

And

so I had a big year and then kind of just grew too fast, right?

I mean, hurried up and hired a bunch of people.

And this is like January, February 2020 oh COVID all right yeah and

so I was getting a bunch of calls and they're like listen they're like everyone needs wills power of attorney medical power attorney nobody could get them and then I noticed that they rapidly started changing the notary laws in every state that for the first time in history for these documents right you used to be able to a couple states at the time you could e-sign a notary could e-sign on like some real estate transactions like Florida had a law of Texas but now they really started changing it.

And,

you know, that was the only way that you could get people in nursing homes and hospitals and these things,

these documents, which those the people who felt most at risk were like, you'd be surprised how many people don't have their affairs in order.

And then now everyone's in quarantine.

The people who are most high risk, you definitely can't go see and you definitely can't take a notary and witnesses in there and lawyers.

So created a solution for that.

But, you know, I was very green in that size, you know, trying to launch something nationally and respond to it.

But, you know, I had a lot of cash, so put up a lot of capital.

And,

you know,

tough lessons in entrepreneurship, right?

I had some,

I think one of the toughest things in a lot of entrepreneurial endeavors nowadays, because you necessarily have a tech component, is if you don't have actual talent.

in your tech space that can actually do what they say when they say they're going to do it, you're in big trouble.

And I'm telling you, anyone listening, if you're an entrepreneur, any, I don't care if they're your friend, your brother, if they cannot deliver on the tech, they got to go.

These days, yeah, it's important.

You're screwed.

Your whole business is gone.

You know what I mean?

Anything is going to be, have a back end driven on tech.

And if it can't move rapidly and quickly and you can't go to those people with problems and they not have an ego about it and be personally offended when, you know, they didn't get an A plus plus on the first time.

They have to to go.

And that didn't used to be how it was, man.

I was so overly nice.

That was my biggest problem in business.

You know, I still struggle with like disciplining people and things of that nature.

But in any event, you know, with that, I learned,

you know, I had to shut it down.

Just I had, you know, was paying way too many people.

I should have just done it a lot leaner in hindsight, right?

But that gave me the foundation.

for, you know, kind of the business that I've been focused on now since 23

in the tax credit space.

I mean, I learned all about branding and I understood what pitfalls to look for.

And I understood all of those things.

So that's something else.

If anyone, you know, especially the young entrepreneurs or heck, even the older ones, right?

You know, there was a time where I thought certain failures that I had were absolutely catastrophic and I was the biggest idiot in the world.

And, you know, on and on in any other negative thing you can feel about yourself.

And especially when, you know, you had just made more money and then you just lost more money than you could have ever imagined you would have lose in your life.

You know,

in the blink of an eye.

And because you're going for it, you know, go, you got to go for it.

You got to live.

Yeah.

So many people, you know, they're afraid of experiencing that moment.

And as someone who survived that moment, it's horrible.

Don't get me wrong.

Very painful.

But who you come out at on the other side is absolutely fantastic.

And you will come to welcome that and you will come to be grateful for that.

And you would not change a second about your life and all of that pain

if you're doing it right.

Yeah, I agree.

It's happened to me and it was needed and I grew up, grew much better from it.

Yeah.

And I think once you get to that relationship, right, just kind of with life, and I was probably a,

I don't know how many other people do, right?

But I, I was probably late to the game because I was so focused on school and law school.

I didn't, I didn't spend a lot of time on personal development until kind of after that when I, you know, you get to this place and i'm i'm doing you know surface level well got a couple little things going for me i'm overall doing well early 30s you know had won some cases you know i'd proven to myself you know i am a good lawyer i'd proven to myself other things i was you know uh financially well off enough and then you realize um oh wow this what you know this thing that you're chasing uh doesn't make you happy after all

And,

you know, it really just comes down to thought patterns, right?

What do you believe about yourself?

What do you believe about the world around you?

What do you believe about where you can go in life and what you can do?

I think most depression in life is

people are just stuck.

They're stuck in a job.

They're stuck in a relationship.

They're stuck in some sort of

situation, right?

And

then they have told themselves

either they're not consciously aware of it or they've justified why to stay stuck

rather than move forward.

They think whatever the pain is on the other side of getting themselves unstuck is too scary.

And so people will live their whole lives there.

100%.

Whole lives.

And

so this entrepreneurial journey, man, when it came up,

I learned about, you know, kind of the business that I'm in.

I had never heard about like the tax credit space.

And, you know, I hired all those people right when COVID started and did not lay anyone off.

And

so I was eligible for some, I met an insurance broker one day.

And they're like, have you heard of the, you know, employee retention credit?

And I'm like, no, what's that?

And they tell me.

And of course, you know, I'm like the poster child for that.

Yeah.

And,

you know, you were burning money during the pandemic.

Yeah.

I was a poster child for all that stuff.

I was trying, you know what I mean?

I was trying to get it going for everybody.

And I was trying to keep people employed.

It was really, really important to me.

And

so,

you know, as a, I consider myself a fairly sophisticated consumer.

And they tell me, you know, the fee structure and all of that.

They're like, hey,

let it doesn't cost anything.

Let us see if we can get it for you.

And if we get it for you, give us 20% when you get it.

And you're going to get a bunch of interest.

That's going to be like 15 to 20% on top of this number.

I'm a lawyer that works on percentages all the time.

And that was a much lower number than I'm used to seeing.

So I was like, great.

And I understand the value of having a specialist.

You know, I can't tell you how many cases that come to me.

Medical malpractice, for instance, right?

I have a person that is what he does.

And I just send them his way.

And, you know, and sometimes we'll work on them together and everything like that.

Or, and I like, and I did early in my career, just like work with specialists a lot.

Like, so if i got a really significant case in a particular area i'd go find the best person yeah and just split the case with me makes sense yeah so you know going back to that understood the value in it and i said man i'm pretty entrepreneurial like if anything like this comes up give me a call and then he calls me back a couple weeks later um

and tells me about you know they're the credits for sick and family leave for self-employed people some people call it the s etc self-employed tax credit that's a nickname, you know, industry term.

They're the credits for sick and family leave.

And they're from the same legislation that the ERC came from, right?

And all these other programs, right?

There was the EIDL loans, the PPP.

And, you know, what people saw, PPP was for businesses who kept people employed.

ERC is for businesses who kept people employed.

EIDL was for businesses, right, that had certain other markers.

So

these credits, um, initially employers could even claim them for their W-2 employees if they had to miss work.

So,

uh, what they ended up doing when they expanded it, they opened it to self-employed people, which

self-employed

is a very, very broad term.

Okay,

it is

uh anyone who is 1099.

So someone could have a normal W-2 gig.

And then if they're also a 1099 contractor and so like, let's say someone's a DJ, right?

And I don't know, maybe they're accountant by day, DJ by night, right?

I think John Summit was actually that for a while.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I think he was actually an accountant.

He was an Illinois guy, University of Illinois.

Yeah, yeah.

So

actual fact, right?

Guy's an accountant during the day, DJ by night.

Well, if during that time period, he couldn't go DJ because clubs are closed because of this, he can still claim this credit for that income, right?

And

you can use the basis

either the greater self-employment income that you had in 20 or in 2021, whichever is greater, but it's for 2021.

And there's two categories.

There are sick leave credits, which that is anything under the COVID sun, right?

Everyone got COVID.

Everyone got COVID.

If the business had to be shut down, if you had to quarantine, I mean, government shutdowns, on and on and on and on and on.

Up to $511 a day.

And for 2021, there's 20 total days, 10 in the first quarter, so January, February, March.

And then

10 in the second two quarters combined.

Nice.

And yeah, so that's up to $511 a day.

And then the family leave credit,

that is up to $200 a day.

And there, it's a, it's 50 and 60 days.

So it's actually 110 days at 200 a day.

So, you know, it's up to like 20 something thousand in value just on those.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And no one knew about that.

No one.

No one knew about it.

And I'm a legitimately self-employed person, right?

uh have been for like six years i have no w-2 income it's like i if i don't generate it,

yeah, I mean, fully self-employed.

And I understand, you know, some days you get, you know, massive checks comparatively, right?

You know, once you, once business starts going, like, it looks like a big check, but like, you got expenses.

So, you know, the value of money changes rapidly.

Very quickly.

Yeah, especially as you grow.

So,

but like, yeah, I mean, there's days like, okay, had a great day.

And there's days where it's like, I need to find like $10,000 or $20,000 by like tomorrow.

And it's just the nature of being an entrepreneur.

Right.

And I had a lot of moments like that during, you know, kind of a growth period for me.

And

so for me to be able to create something that random people all over the country, self-employed people, get on there, type in their information.

They don't even have to upload their tax documents.

We have contracts that allow us to pull the data directly from the IRS.

They just verify themselves.

We're partnered with IDMe.

So if someone goes to log in their IRS account, IRS.gov, ID.me, what pops up?

It's the same exact login on our page.

Yeah, that's brilliant because you probably lost a lot of people at first when they had to upload their tax returns.

So maybe 5 to 10% of people, and then that had a 40% error upload rate.

Now

it's about 82% of people that start, like give us their name, answer all the questions, and we pull the wow.

That's a really high rate.

Yeah.

And then 50% of them are eligible.

And then the overwhelming majority ultimately,

you know, complete the process with us.

That's brilliant, man.

Helping people get the money they, you know, they, they need.

Sean, it's the coolest thing I've ever done.

It's like what I try and imagine is, and don't get me wrong, like I've done a lot of cool stuff in law.

Uh, and I've done a lot of cool stuff in life, but you know, let's talk professionally, right?

Done a lot of really cool stuff.

And with that, I mean, I mean, truly, we've had the opportunity to change people's lives um but that's one at a time

this

uh we've helped tens of thousands of people um get you know average refund that people can expect about five grand right um but it's up to 32 too right and uh and we see that all the time right all the i mean a lot of big numbers But I can't tell you how many people and customers that we've had the opportunity to talk to or they've, you know, given us, I can't talk to everyone now.

We've gotten pretty, pretty big.

Over $100 million in refunds now, right?

Yeah, yeah.

In counting by the day.

And it's, I mean, we're just so proud of that, man.

Yeah.

Well over $100 million.

And we think, you know,

it will well exceed that.

And that sounds like a lot, but.

Tens of billions were earmarked for this.

And I bet you not

$2 billion has been claimed.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

To put it in perspective, ERC, because business owners are used to getting tax credits and they're not like, is this real?

Right.

They're like, you know, their accountant and insurance.

Somebody calls them and they're like, hey, here's this thing.

They're like, done, you know?

Yeah.

And

for, you know, where you have folks who are mostly like,

I don't want to even call it sophistication.

It's just knowledge, right?

That programs, a tax credit program for someone

is not a crazy thing.

And it's just how we'll see the Trump administration do a lot of tax credit programs.

And sometimes they're refundable.

Sometimes it just offsets, right?

But yeah, it helped

well over $100 million.

And when you talk to these people, it's like life-changing.

We had a lady right around

Christmas.

She was down in Mississippi.

You know, her refund wasn't giant.

Let's say probably like

three, four, five grand something in that range and uh you know we went to debit we we typically don't debit our fee until they get paid that's that's how we do it and uh you know people that owe a massive amount in back taxes and there's they're not getting the check it's just gonna take down their back taxes we just do a super reduced rate for them because they're coming out of pocket right um and we want them to be able to do it uh we want them to be able to get it um the folks though that you know pretty much everyone else um they have the option.

They don't have to pay anything until they get paid.

But the lady around Christmas, her

car had, it went into repossession, but it had not been physically repossessed yet.

And then she got her money and she got her car out of repossession, but she didn't have, you know, she spent it all to get her car out of repossession.

And when I heard that, I was like,

that's amazing.

That's exactly why we started this company.

That was the coolest thing.

I love that.

Yeah.

And I was like, hey, Merry Christmas.

Don't worry about it.

This is why we started the company.

You know, good luck in the new year.

Reminds me of, you know, Dave Portnoy.

Yeah.

He started the thing during the pandemic.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, helping small businesses.

Dave does great things.

I really love it.

Yeah, shout out to Dave.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'll link the SAT stuff below if anyone's watching this.

I might qualify.

Yeah, they really should check it out.

And then if anyone,

I should mention too, you know, because a lot of our team was big in ERC.

Like our team team probably combined, I mean,

hundreds of millions.

I mean, that's our ownership.

Our affiliate marketers,

massive ERC help.

And these are the good guys, right?

We don't work with, you know, obviously there, anytime we have a government program, okay, anytime there's a government program, you may get

people out there that are bad actors.

They had to pause ERC for a while because of the.

Yeah, had to have a moratorium and all that.

And that's unfortunate because these these were created to help people yeah right and um

you know

we uh we have painstakingly done everything that we can and it was you know kind of on the heels of all that blow up but we're like there's a time frame we have 40 80 million people and we have to get them a safe secure good way to do this and we need to build a uh uh a company specifically for this that you know it has the security with their sensitive data.

It has, you know, does do all of the right things in compliance, does look out for their sensitive data.

I mean, on and on and on and on and on.

You know, we did everything.

It's like, how would, if this were me, this were my information, how would I want to be treated?

And

so we've set up, you know, just awesome there.

And then we also have

ERTC, so employer retention tax credit, ERTC refund.com.

And so that's hard ending, April 15th, right?

So I highly recommend if anyone

thinks that they might be eligible, right?

Free check your eligibility with us.

We use, you know, only experienced CPAs that, you know, have filed these, really know it, and they can check the eligibility and we can get those in prior to the deadline.

And then the people, because there's hundreds of billions of dollars.

That's what I'm saying.

ERC, 600 billion in claims were filed, right?

Yeah.

Even if 20% of those were fraudulent, which they weren't, I mean, I'm sure it was a very small percentage.

You're talking that's still nearly almost 500 billion in ERC claims.

And then, you know, some employee America, you're talking this 40, 80 million people.

And some of them are so scared, they've only claimed $2 billion.

Wow.

So, I mean, think about that.

Nuts.

Yeah.

250x on the ERC.

It's like, you know, a lot of people are afraid.

Like, oh, am I going to get audited?

Am I going to get in trouble?

It's like, why?

Why would you get audited or in trouble for claiming, you know, what's going to be on average, five grand that you should have gotten on a tax credit?

Yeah, I don't think they're tripping about five grand.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, what are you afraid of?

Like, you think, do you know what it would cost to go back and audit someone over a $5,000, even if they get $20,000?

Like, I don't think people realize how much money is actually out there in the world.

Yeah.

And how many, and it blows my mind.

I was looking at statistics the other day and it was like, you know, I was like the top,

top,

like

one out of a thousand households, right?

It's 0.1%.

And I swear it said, so one out of a thousand households.

has a in the U.S.

has a net worth of $158 million.

One out of 100 have a net worth of like $11.2 million.

And I checked those stats like 10 times.

I'm like, really?

One out of a thousand households have a $158 million

net worth.

Wow.

And, well, and you know,

Sean, it's interesting.

It's something I started paying attention to a few years ago.

When you travel around, we're here in Vegas.

I just left, I was in Tampa, Miami,

Fort Myers, and then driving all down the coast.

And it's like, look at how many neighborhoods upon neighborhoods upon neighborhoods of 5 million plus

dollar houses there are, or how many buildings in Miami that it's a billion in real estate there.

And I'm not going to come on the Miami real estate market, but they're mostly full.

Okay.

And you can go everywhere in the country.

And you will find that around the world, everywhere that's cool.

Neighborhoods and neighborhoods of multi-million dollar residences.

And it's like, who lives in all of those, right?

And I think people don't realize that

there is that much wealth and abundance out in the world.

And so to be in a mindset that,

you know, you're going to get over a tax credit that Congress specifically created for you.

You're going to get audited and they're going to try and wreck your existence over five grand.

It's it's an irrational thought.

I think a lot of people are scared because of the PPP fraud articles that they blasted everywhere.

Oh, yeah, and ERC and all, you know, and

maybe some of it, especially, you know, last administration, they're just trying to slow it down.

Yeah.

Because it's work.

It's work for them.

But, you know, they're actually processing faster the last couple of weeks.

They probably got some AI these days, I bet.

I hope so.

But yeah, they're processing everything much more quickly.

You know, normally I should say, you know, it can take 16, 20 weeks, sometimes longer for the IRS to process these.

For anyone

over

$3,000 or more on the refund, not in Colorado or Iowa,

we can get them most of their money over 70%

in about seven days.

Damn, that's fast.

Yeah, yeah.

We got an awesome partnership with a great banking partner.

They're a huge SBA lender.

They're a big PPP lender.

You know, our lending programs, you know, their

FDICs looked at it.

They're registered with the Treasury Department.

Nice.

So, you know, it's all done right.

And we have over a billion dollars available to lend.

We'll link it below.

Yeah.

Anything else you want to close off with here, Matt?

No, man.

Thanks so much for having me, Sean.

I look back to see you soon.

And yeah, man, I just hope

people before the deadline coming up again, that's April 15th for most

self-employed folks.

And then the anyone who filed an extension back in 22 for 21, they'll have a little bit more time.

Great thing is our systems look at the dates and we know whether or not you still have time.

So come check it out.

Free to apply.

Takes about 15 minutes.

You're going to need your ID in a camera, either on your computer or your phone to verify your identity and find out how much you're owed.

I love it, Matt.

Can't wait to do some business together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks for coming on.

It's a lot of shout out.

Thanks for watching, guys.

Check out the links and I'll see you next time.