MATTHEW FORNARO

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times cuz you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Folks, Vos here from the Chris Vosshow. com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and s. most amazing minds, the most amazing people, the most amazing authors come with you, share their stories of life, how they can make your life better and all that good stuff. And then of course along with amazing guests, there's an idiot with a mic who tells jokes. Uh refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives because if that didn't convince you, I don't know what will. Go to goodreads. com. LinkedIn. com Chris Foss won the Tik Tocky and uh what is it? YouTube. com Chris, Facebook. com/chrisfos. Uh today we had an amazing young man on the show. But we're going to be talking about his ways that he can help businesses be better and all that good stuff. And you'll probably learn some law stuff, some legal ease, law stuff maybe, as we go along. Well, we'll learn some Latin on the show, maybe that, too. Uh, we have Matthew Fernaro on the show with us today. He is attorney of law in Coral Springs, Florida. Uh since 2003, he served businesses and individuals through his uh Coral Springs Parkland and the greater Brower County community as a trusted business law attorney. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation where he represents clients in matters such as contract disputes, commercial and residential real estate conflicts, antirust, unfair competition claims, trade secret protection, and landlord tenant disputes. His practice spans a wide bane range of businesses and civil matters. He advises clients on IP law, UCCC and creditor disputes, employment litigation and representative owners, homeowners and condominium associations. He has extensive experience in customer finance and creditor rights, including collections, post judgment recovery, as well as handing handling escalated legislation. Today's Monday for me, evidently for the brain. Uh beyond litigation, Matthew assists business with the drafting and revision of critical legal documents, guiding entrepreneurs through the formation of business entities and ensuring all required documentation is properly structured from the start. We'll probably talk about why that's important. Matthew, why uh welcome to the show. How are you? — I'm good, Chris. Thanks for having me here. I'm excited to be here. — Thank you for coming. Uh give us any. com's websites. Where do you want people to get to know you better on the internet? — Sure. Go to fineralelegal. com. just my last name, F O R N A R O L E G- A. com. It's got all my stuff on there, links, all my contact information, all my goodies. They're all there. — There you go. Matt, you ever considered radio with that voice? — I sometimes have, but uh you know, I — I'm sure people have told that to you, right? — I'm wait. Yeah, I'm waiting for the right opportunity. It's only been 48 years, so — you could start a podcast for your uh for your attorney law service. So, uh, Matthew, give us a, uh, doss, uh, or I'm not a dot com. Give us an overview of, uh, what you do there and how you do it. — Sure. So, you know, I've been an attorney since 2003. I've had my own firm for 11 years, and we focus on helping small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups with their legal needs, whether it's litigation or transactional. And we represent all kinds of businesses whether virtual uh web- based, app-based, brickandmortarbased and through all phases of their life from before they start to after they end. Uh so uh let me ask you this. uh why is it important we mentioned in the thing to start uh actually let me fall back a little bit and establish a better foundation uh with businesses um why is it important to to do I'm sorry I'm having a Monday here uh with with uh the work that you do who is your ideal client and are you relegated only to Florida — sure so my ideal client is obviously like I just said, business, preferably a small business, but I work with businesses of all size, entrepreneurs and startups at any point in their business life. Preferably, it would be great if they could start out before they get in business because we can probably do the most good and help them the most there. But I represent them all throughout the course of their life. And I represent businesses. I'm licensed in Florida, DC, and New York, but I have

clients all over the country. — There you go. So, you can serve them all. And uh so people come to you there they want to start their businesses or they're entrepreneurs they need to get going. Why is it important to be properly structured in the you know the right business entity from the start as we mentioned in the bio? — Sure. So, you know, when you start out in business, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders, startups, creators, whatever you want to call them, they're very excited to get into business and they want to start right away and start doing stuff. But you have to use a lot of due diligence. caution. You have to do a lot of strategic planning and uh thinking things out because you want to make sure before you get started that you have all the right foundations in place. And obviously one of the biggest ones is having the right business organization because if you have the wrong business organization, you're going to have legal problems, financial tax problems, you're going to have a whole bunch of uh liability issues and things like that. So what happens is when clients come to me as part of the foundation process I go through with them, we figure out what the best business organization is for them based on their circumstances. And I also work with preferably their accountant or if they don't have an accountant, we'll bring in an accountant to figure out from a tax standpoint or from a financial standpoint also what's the best business organization for them because legally you can do it a couple different ways, but financially if you do it the wrong way, you're going to get killed on your taxes. — It's, you know, the most important thing before you even start is make sure you pick the right thing before going forward. — Yeah, definitely. I I've been count giving counsel to my uh uh someone in my family who uh is wanting to start their very first business and they're going into it with a partner which is always going to end well. Uh — no. — Uh I love your answer, dude. You just go no. Just emphatically no. — That's it. Uh, and I it sounds like you've been through some experiences like mine and I'm sure in your uh attorney work you've seen lots of you know battles between uh partners but uh you know I explained that to him the setup is important you know for most of my life being an entrepreneur starting at 18 I built companies to be empires. I wanted to have a cluster of empire of companies uh that would last in perpetuity that I could retire with. Um and uh sadly life doesn't work that way and there's a 2008 housing crisis that brings the economy to a halt, wipes my empire off the map uh and my partnerships um betrayed. Uh so uh but since then I found out by having a lot of great authors and uh and thought leaders like yourself on the show who uh educated me on building for an exit and how at the beginning when you're starting up a company you decide are you building for perpetuity or an exit you know are you building something you can easily sell and if you don't set it up right as a entity you know CC corpor LLC partnership whatever it is, you've got to think about that. Is that correct? — Yeah. I mean, you got to, you know, it's all part of the game plan from the inception through the end. So, you want to make sure that you have a mechanism where even if you don't know if you want to get out later on or continue on, you got to make sure you have an off-ramp — built into your operating documents or your governing documents that says how you do it just in case you want to do it. — Yeah, that and uh I get all these solicitations to buy the Chris Fos Show podcast these days. I think it's the new scam or something. But uh you know, don't name your company after your personal name if you're considering selling it in the future. — No, you can sell it. You just may have to like false. So — Chris Vos used to be here podcast. Anyway, uh so uh what are some other things that you're seeing in the marketplace that maybe are uh some leading topics of mistakes entrepreneurs are making or maybe things you find yourself helping entrepreneurs a lot in your practice? — Sure. So, it goes back to a little bit of what we were just talking about. They just jump right into business and don't do the necessary due diligence. So, one of the first things they should do is before they even start is to plan out everything, map everything out and have a written business plan before they even spend any money or do anything. And a lot of people skip that step. So, that's an important step. Then the next thing is what we were just talking about picking the right business organization. You have to bring in professionals to assist you and that's what the professionals do. A business law attorney, an accountant, a commercial banker, a commercial insurance agent. These are all professionals who are there to help you deal with their particular niches or issues so that you can focus on the business and make business decisions. So a lot of people kind of skip that or they kind of try to put that hat on themselves and do it

themselves. than picking the business organization. You know, they somehow picked the business organization based on what their mom told them or their barber — based on something they saw off the internet. And um — you know, they don't put in the right uh governing documents. They just go online to their secretary of state website and just register and think they're in business. And then going forward, they don't have contracts in place for anytime they have a relationship with another business or another person which governs the relationship. So — sometimes they just skip over that and do things on a handshake or not. And they don't have like terms of service, they don't have disclaimers, they don't have, you know, various things in place and, you know, sometimes it works out and they go along and things don't happen, but sometimes they do and there's very bad consequences when they do. So, those are a lot of repeated issues that I see that a lot of businesses and a lot of entrepreneurs get themselves into because they don't do the due diligence or the follow through or the necessary steps because, you know, they're so eager to get into business, they just want to get going and they kind of step over that stuff and it comes back to bite them on later on. — It really does. You've got to have those foundational elements, contracts, things in writing. You know, you mentioned the handshaking. So uh I was advising someone else uh starting their business recently and they said uh they said uh hey you know and I'm just giving counsel from a business aspect entrepreneur not legal counsel let me make that clear because I'm not an attorney uh but Matthew is and — I am but advice not legal advice but okay — there you go and uh we got all the disclosures out of the way now but I he was he I was like well so what's the deal on this company? How do you get paid? Well, the the other guy has an LLC and I'm going to work with him. Uh and I'm like, "Well, is your name on the LLC? " Uh and he goes, "No, we just we're going to start this thing and we just decided that it's going to be a 7030 split. He's going to take 70 and I'm going to take 30. " And I go, "Of what? " — No. — Well, every dollar that comes in. Well, that's not the way a business works. There's expenses. And then if you if you make a profit, — it might be a 7030 split or whatever the hell you decide to do. — But you know, everything's on handshake, everything's on whatever. — Uh let me ask you this. Do you agree with this term, and I'm pretty sure I didn't make this up. picked it up somewhere. You never know who your partners are or sometimes who your wife is until the money is on the table, right? That's when you find out. out what your partners are like because some people they see a very small amount of money that trickles in at the beginning of a business deal and they'll lose their [ __ ] minds. — Yeah. — Um Yeah. I mean, you don't know who your partner is till the money's on the table or the money's missing from the table. — You don't know. You don't know who it is. I mean, everyone goes into business with the best of intentions. I mean, — they do. Everyone's hugging and kissing — Yeah. No one's in there like, "Yeah, maybe they'll give it a shot. Maybe it works out. If not, I hate you. " You know? No one's like that. Everyone's — buddy and everyone's got the best of intentions. But life happens and you know — things happen. People are not who they think you think they are. They think you are. You know, situations change and — if you don't have it in writing, it doesn't exist. So your boys with the 7030 split, — it's a he said deal. So, you know, even if they have stupid text messages or whatever claiming that shows what's going on, — it would be great if it was reduced to an operating agreement, but yeah, I mean, it happens. — And I learned a long time ago, I wrote about this in my book, Beacons of Leadership. You if you don't own it and control, in my opinion, you can tell me uh if I'm wrong, but you know, I mean, when you build big companies, you have to bring on a lot of people and you have to share ownership. But to me, I just learned the hard way after partners over 35 years of business and owning companies, dozens of companies that if I don't own it or have the controlling 51 plus% interest in it, I don't do it. I don't invest in it. I don't play in it unless I'm the final boss. Um, I just don't do it. I've had too many things where, you know, people get see $5,000 show up on the table in the first month or whatever and lose their [ __ ] minds. you think that it was a large amount of money for him. Um, and then the greed comes out or well, you know, we need to renegotiate this or whatever. But having it in writing like that's so important putting down who owns what stock. And the other thing is too is if you don't own an interest in the LLC or the company, the CC Corp, the S Corp, the whatever it is you're joining, you you're just an employee. You could be fired without cause probably at any time, especially if you're kind of operating without

uh you know, any sort of implied contract maybe. — Yeah. I mean, unless you know it's in writing and unless you're a member of an LLC and you have, you know, your membership certificates or unless you're a shareholder in a corporation and you have shares, unless you're a partnership and you have a percentage of the partnership, you're just there at will. I mean, in a state like Florida, — where I am, where it's at will employment, which just means you can be fired at any time for any reason. — Um, you know, they can show you the door anytime they want. There's no obligation to keep you around for any reason, unless you have some kind of equity interest in something. You're gone at someone's whim. — Yeah. And I mean, like I said, when people see that money on the table, they go, I have to split this with this idiot. I own this company. And Yeah. I just learned a long time ago. I live by that rule. I mean, it's a little hard to do that if you have a, you know, some big company where you're having to sell on Silicon Valley to, you know, VCs and stuff. Clearly, they're going to take an interest in the company. But in that case, I would have to uh obscure that rule. But for the most part, any I've just learned it's such a nightmare to deal with partners, especially if they don't have a business acumen. You know, that really leads me to a point I need to bring into more of my council. probably something important to talk about here is the acumen of the other person. Uh I I'm so many times, you know, I'm the person who started dozens of companies uh and everything that we've done and built. Um and usually if I'm going into business with something, they usually don't have my business sort of acumen. They've never built multi-million dollar companies. They don't they've never managed that a large of money. They never had thousands of employees. Uh and so usually they're on my carry list. I'm not, you know, how important do you think that is to when you go into business to look at your partner and go, how much business acumen they have compared to me? Who's the lead in this situation? And uh do I need to assess for their flaws? — Well, I personally think that's important. You know, I've seen it across the spectrum of people with, you know, their partner or business affiliate, whatever you want to call them. knows a lot about business and knows nothing about business. And you know, I mean, some of that can be overcome based on if the other person's bringing in money or — Yeah. — you know, sweat equity or bringing in a lot of enthusiasm or a lot of knowhow. — But if you just kind of got a dud as — your man next to you, I mean, you're going to have problems. So, I mean, that's why you again, you want to have everything in running. You want to make sure — that if you're the brains behind the operation and someone's coming in with you, well, what are they coming in with you for? What are they bringing with them? I mean, — it's great that you can be the business mind, but you know, if they're bringing in money, okay, great. Then they're bringing money. Or they're bringing in technical knowhow a contact list or something like that, then great. But if they're just kind of there gluming off of you, then that's not good. And before you even get into business, you may want to think, well, what do you need this person for before you figured that out later on and then you know they got their hand out looking for 50%. — Yeah, I you know I experienced that with my first partner of our first multi-millionaire company when we started. Uh I was the business brains and part of the financer. he knew how to uh do the business that he was working for the business and we were creating a competitor uh or not a competitor. I wanted to serve the business but we knew the competitors and so he thought he knew more about business than I did. So we would argue, we started arguing very early on about billing. And one of the things I'd copied from a competitor that we were building against was billing every two weeks instead of every 30 days because they were the largest serviceer in our market and they were billing every two weeks. And being in business before, I understood the importance of cash flow because, you know, you can build all you want and do all the work you want and make all the quote unquote revenue you want, but if you don't collect it, doesn't mean [ __ ] — Yeah. And when you're a startup, you know, cash is king. You know, that burn rate and everything else. — And so I said, "Okay, well, we're going to go ahead and bill every two weeks. " And he was like, "You can't do that. You know, the rule of the law is you got to bill every 30 days. " I'm like, "There's no rule that says that. " And you know, the initial arguments that we had in our business, I finally sat down with him and I said, "Look, we're going to change the the thing. I'm the leader of this company. I'm the CEO. I have far more experience than you and I want 51% of this company or it shuts down now and you take 49. I I'm a you know me, you know, I've been friends with them most of my life. And I said, you know me, but I can't be sitting and arguing with you over [ __ ] that you don't know and you don't understand even if I explain it to you because you think that's the way it should be because someone else did it that way. Um, and that was really

important because after that we didn't have to argue about stupid [ __ ] anymore because my law my rule was the law and I had the experience to back it up. I mean, don't do that if you don't have the experience to back it up. But, uh, in the end it bit me after 13 years. But, uh, we had a good run. — All right. Well, at least you had a good run. — Yeah, we were like, uh, you know, the band that breaks up after every 10 years. Some people don't have any runs, so at least you had a good run. — Exactly. Yeah. Uh, but that's a good example of, you know, really assessing your partner and their business acumen, I think. Um, the other thing I want to ask you about while I've got you on the line, uh, is, you know, this is something I discovered too with partners, perform, I don't know if perform is the right word, but performing agreements. So, one of the problems I always had in my companies is I was the I'm that type A alpha CEO, leader, big mouth, you know, all the things, right? And usually my best partner is somebody who will do rudimentary [ __ ] I'm the visionary. I'm the innovator, but I don't do rudimentary stuff. I don't do the same accounting over and over again. That's it's needed, but I just don't that's not my key point. And so having a partner for a lot of times who is the opposite of me who can enjoy doing that but if you asked them to do anything visionary you'd be like hey can you come up with some ideas and they just draw a blank but if you give them a task they can do it over and over again really well and if they're a business partner hopefully you can trust them which I did and I think he trusted me for a long time — and uh so but when it really came to what was driving value in the company it was me and there really wasn't a performer between um that we should have worked out saying if one person drives more income or does more work or is working more longer hours. You know, I was the guy who was always taking stuff home. I was always working weekends in the office. He was doing none of that. Um and when he left the company after 13 years, uh I literally replaced him. Hey, I went from somebody I was paying $40,000 a month to someone who was uh I replaced with a $2500 secretary. That's how much work was being done by him in our company. — And how irreplaceable was. And I just sat there just going, why have we been paying this guy all this money all these years? And so perform wise, is that something you should analyze or maybe put into contract like if I'm going to do x amount of work and get paid in direct proportion and if you don't do x amount of work, maybe you know we renegotiate this thing. — Yeah. I mean that's definitely in any operating agreement for an LLC or your bylaws for your corporation, whatever. I mean you should put in what the people do. — Yeah. and have if it's not in those documents, have it say that it's going to be in a separate set of documents that you then can, you know, re-evaluate as time goes on or whatever. But yeah, it should definitely be reduced to writing. It should spell out, you know, — Chris is the thought visionary person and he does this and then Chris is, — you know, sidekick does this and if they don't do this, then this happens and things like that. So, yeah, it should definitely be in there and should be spelled out. — Yeah. And that way in court you're covered, right? You've handled litigation for probably stuff like this before. — Yeah. I mean, if you either did it or you didn't do it. If you didn't do it, you're in breach of contracts. — And then if it's not written, then you know, it's just open-ended hearsay. And people like I've heard judges say, "Well, that's cute, but you don't have a contract. " — Correct. It goes back to what we were talking about with the 7030 thing before. Whatever your word versus their word. — Yeah. you know, he's going to show up and said, "Chris said he's going to do all the work and just pay me because he loves me. " So, — do you, in your experience, I mean, you've been doing this for a long time, uh, 20 plus years. Uh, in your experience, do you ever see any partnerships that really survive into perpetuity or is it just a matter of time? — You know, that's a good question. I mean, I would say I've seen long-term business affiliations between people, — but I would say at the end of the day, pretty much everything has an ending. — Yeah. — I mean, whether it's acrimonious or whether it's harmonious or whatever. I mean, I don't think, you know, there's very few businesses that go on forever in its original intent, in its original form, with its original cast. I mean, it's like a TV show that goes on for a long time. You know, the cast people come and go and whatever. And that's kind of how most business organizations are. Other than like the alpha or the owner or whatever, you know, the head honcho, — the supporting cast comes and goes. And

a lot of time in business, the partner or the business affiliate or whatever, — they tap out, they sell out, they get bought out, they get, you know, kicked out. And, you know, I would say for the most part, yeah, that's probably a true story. That's true. So, that is a true — Yeah. All the more for my rule then, you just cemented the rule. I'm going to make a monument to it now. Uh the rule of if you don't know, if you don't control it, don't do it. I don't know. I mean, if you're an investor and you're investing in like, I don't know, some Silicon Valley startup, yeah, I get it. But for me, most of my stuff is about me and my money and usually a partner and whatever I'm building and I like tinkering in control of it. But yeah, you know, it's kind of like, you know, people just don't always get along and sometimes over time things changes, you know. Um, my big partnership fell apart because we got I got Yoko owned by his girlfriend. — Yeah. — You know, she came in and was like, "You don't need him. You can do your own thing. you could make your own money. — Yeah. He tried that for two years after and failed miserably. — Hit with Yokoono Uno instead of Linda McCartney. So there you go. — Yeah. Exactly. There you go. Uh there's a joke there somewhere, but I'm not going for it. — No, I don't know. It's a pretty good metaphor I came up with. — Yeah. There you go. It is. Yeah. But uh maybe I'll maybe I just should just go into partnership with vegans from here on out. Maybe there's the Linda McCarthy joke. Rest in peace. He's a wonderful lady, I'm sure. Uh so is Mr. McCarthy or Yeah. Paul McCartney. Did I say McCarthy? Okay. It's Monday, folks. Even though it's Thursday here at the Chris Show. — Well, you got the wear and tear of an entire week behind you. So, it's Thursday evening. You got uh you got a lot of miles on you from this — and I'm pretty sure I'm mid-stroke at this point. So, uh, — uh, what, uh, what haven't we talked about maybe that you want to, uh, let people know that you do and some of the services you offer or maybe some of the topics that you think are current in today's environment? — Sure. So, if you want, we can talk about uh, the effect of technology, particularly AI on business. — Oh, let's do that's a favorite subject. — What are you seeing in your end of the woods? Well, I can tell you from me personally from I love AI. Um, I use it in my actual law practice. business, you know, running my business and things like that. I love it. It's great. It's the greatest thing that's ever happened. However, I am responsible for it. I take control over it and I make sure I quality control, vet, and check everything that it sends out before it does anything. And that's what the issue with AI is, is that people just kind of blindly hit print, hit send, and let it go out in the world. And when bad things happen, oh, thought it was okay. — Yeah. — So, and that's kind of the moral of the story is that I think AI is great for any business of any size, any uh point in their life. I mean, there's AI for everything, but, you know, you got to make sure that at the end of the day, you're in charge. You're the person who's in charge. to make sure what you're putting out there is correct and useful. — Yeah, I learned that the hard way. I had my first AI muckup, I guess. I don't know what you call it last week. So, I shoot a lot of models on u uh and I do a lot of photography. I do street photography, model photography. I do everything. I love photography. And uh so, we'll usually hire models to do a portfolio shoot at a studio and stuff like that. And one of the gals that I shot with before, she'd seen an ad that I was running for uh new models to expand my portfolio. And I've already shot her, so I didn't want to I'm trying to broaden the portfolio. And she wrote me and said, "Hey, Chris, you know, I'd really like to do that job. " I think we're offering like $200 for an hour or two to show up and photo photograph. She's like, "I really would like to do that job. " And I was in a podcast like this and I have a giant camera that fits over the screen. That's kind of why my head's always bobbing around. And uh I looked at her email and I swear to my life I typed out and pretty sure I saw it, but I saw that I typed out, you know, I'm trying to expand my portfolio. Uh yeah, sorry. Um we we'll shoot you another time. Well, if you got the new Gmail, it's got that Gemini crap and I haven't figured out how to install it. Uh, but if you hit the wrong key, which I think is usually a backslash or forward slash, it will auto populate the thing. So, it did that without me noticing it behind the screen that I, you know, hit the keyboard or something and I sent her a message say, "Great. Uh, we have you booked. We'll give you $200. Uh, it's for next week on whatever, you know, that. " — Mhm. — And sent the email. Well, I thought I sent a different email that I had typed out, but the automator overran it. — So, a couple days later, she writes me just all excited and uh so elated that she got the job. She I really need the money. And you know, she's a great girl.

And I had to let her down. realize that I just got [ __ ] by AI. — Yeah. — And it's cuz I did what you I didn't do what you said. Make sure that you qualify it before it ever goes out. double check it. — No. Well, then you know that's at least at max it only cost you upsetting her and maybe 200 bucks. I mean my industry — Yeah. have been ravaged by AI because these attorneys are, you know, there's a lot of lazy attorneys, a lot of whatever you want to say who just, you know, cut and paste whatever AI they're using sends and they file it with the court and then the court and the opposing council's like, "What the hell is this? " — Yeah. — And they've been sanctioned a lot of — Oh, yeah. embarrassment, public sancture or public censure, sanctioning, monetary fines, bar grievances, all kinds of stuff because these attorneys just take what's given to them, don't check it, and just file it. And now, you know, you've got serious legal consequences that go with it. So my industry's probably been hit harder than most industries regarding AI stuff because really — of the you know the high stakes and uh whatever but there's a lot of there's a huge movement now of people trying to uh make up for it and try to you know uh quality control stuff. But you know it's the same thing with any business. I mean the AI is great. It's a force multiplier. It does everything but you got to make sure you're in charge of it. — Yeah. I mean you're right. It was a It was very minimal mistake, but it was a very powerful lesson. I'm glad I learned it on something that wasn't, you know, — uh, worldchanging or a big deal or, you know, thousands of dollars or whatever. Um, you know, uh, business deal. Yeah, I'll send you $10,000 or something it types out, you know. — You're lucky it didn't respond to the Nigerian prince email or something. — Oh, yeah. Here's my bank account, my uh, Go ahead and — dip into there. Um, yeah, that's really interesting you guys have had that widespread. I remember seeing the first report of the first attorney at least that made the news I guess uh where he'd used chat GPT to to for his plea or his response whatever they submit to the court and uh that did not go well. — No. There's all you know I'm a big LinkedIn troll and uh you know I get my feed all day long of just people getting sanctioned left and right stuff and they just haven't learned yet. — Yeah. And it's got to be embarrassing as a law firm because you look — you look kind of incompetent like you — you can't just — draw that stuff up and people's lives sometimes are on the line you know with what you're doing. You're — you know this isn't like uh especially if you're doing criminal law I guess and put people on death row or murder — one's liberty is at stake and you know you're citing hallucinated stuff or whatever. So — and I've had JPD lie to me. Um so there you go. Uh so people can work with you. They can work with you across the nation if I understand that correctly in advisory and uh stuff. How do they consult with you or find out if they're a fit for your service? — Sure. They just reach out to me. Go to my website forleal. com. Shoot me an email, call me, send me a message, text me, reach out to me on social media, read all my uh if you want any cool information that's not hallucinated or whatever, you can go on my website. I got tons of blogs and videos and all kinds of stuff for resources for people in business, wherever they are. There you go. Well, thank you, Matthew, for coming on the show and uh giving us some great answers and making me uh more believe in the crazy [ __ ] I believe in. Like uh you know, if you don't know if you don't control that sounds so crazy, it's true. — Yeah, it really is true. And I mean, you really I think you have to vet your partner's uh character. I think if there was one thing I would do and going back now is I would vet their character. what are their skills at? You know, because the things we learned about me being a visionary and him being a rudimentary sort of person, — we just kind of fell into that. We didn't plan that at all. — And I think in the future I would it was a great partnership for 13 years until Yoko showed up. — Um — but uh that's sometime that's having the Beatles, baby. — Yeah. Well, I'll tell you when I talk about partnership, I don't want to get too off topic, but — you look at like uh the breakup of my favorite duo of all time, Hall and Oats, and all the uh if you read what each one of them says, you know, it's uh very similar to your story. So, — yeah. Who would have ever thought those guys are one of those lovey songs would fall out of love. — Yeah, exactly, man. I'm glad I saw them in concert three times because they're one of my favorites, even though, you know, I'm uh I'm well, I'm a child of the 80s, so they were

number one when uh when I was around. But yeah, it's very interesting to see their business relationship fall out and what they each have to say about their business and things like that. So — hopefully they kiss and make up and we'd all like to see him on stage. Probably sounds like you're a fan. I'm a fan. Uh, I mean, I grew up in the 70s and 80s, too, where I mean, they pretty much ruled the radio. Like, every other song was one of theirs because they had such a huge library of hits — and uh I think that I think it was them and Steelely Dan pretty much 247 and then some disco crap. — So, uh yeah. So, you just um Yeah. So, Matthew, thank you for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks for uh my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads. com Chrisphos LinkedIn. com Chris Foss one the Tik Tocky and Chris Foss on Facebook and YouTube be sure to be good to each other stay safe we'll see you guys next time you've been listening to the most amazing intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life warning consuming too much of the Chris show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter younger and irresistible sexy consume in regularly moderated amounts consult the doctor for any resulting brain Hey, Matthew.