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Khudania Ajay: (00:03)
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to this very special show of the KAJ master class today we have got John C. Marley, senior serial entrepreneur and he will tell us about business about his special tips, how one can be a successful entrepreneur. Welcome to the show, John. It's so nice to have you here.
John C. Morley: (00:26)
AJ. It's a pleasure to be here.
Khudania Ajay: (00:29)
So coming straight to the point John, can you tell us about entrepreneurship and a successful one at that and share your tips. So first tell us about your business, what you do, and entrepreneurship as a whole.
John C. Morley: (00:44)
So I'll kind of cut my big story in half because it's long. I started in school and when I was in college, I had known for a long time that I wanted to start my own company. I started a company called JCM and Son and I was doing IT support for $10 in person per hour for the entire thing, regardless of how long or short it took me. And by phone only $5, you weren't going to make any money doing that. But I was doing it for my passion. When I graduated, my dad gave me a choice, "Do you want to go work for somebody? Or do you want to work for yourself?" And I was like, "I think I want to work for myself." He's like, "Well, I have a company. If you want to take option B, which is you work for yourself? I suggest you go take a vacation for maybe a couple of weeks and I'll pay for it."
John C. Morley: (01:35)
"And when you come back, then you'll have a clear head and you'll be ready to go. But if you don't want to do that, I'd ask that you go look for a job as soon as you come back." I said, "No, I'm going to work for myself." So he had a company, it was a land surveying company and we took JCM and son and he was there for several years. He wasn't a tech person but he had started something. And then after several years, I changed it into a company called JMOR connection because my friends kept telling me I was running a paint company and I said, "It's not a paint company." So we changed it to JMOR connection and quickly, I'll just jump ahead. When I was a junior, I had a friend in college and he said, "John, you're never going to do marketing. You're an engineer. You don't know anything about marketing or advertising."
John C. Morley: (02:14)
I said, "You're right. I don't and I'll never want to learn." That's what I said back then, my one company was 32 or 30 years young. It's all about 10 to 11 years ago. I realized something, AJ, they were ripping me off. They didn't know what they were doing and my dad was paying his hard-earned money before I even was making any money. Then I was writing all my checks out to this big company, still a business. I'm not going to mention their name, in New York. They're on Wall Street and they didn't know what they were doing. But what I decided to do was with all this going on, I said, "I can't do this anymore and I get to stop listening to what people tell me and do what I believe I can do."
John C. Morley: (03:00)
And I believe I can be a marketer. I can be an advertiser but I have to research a little bit. Skipping ahead, I bought a $150,000 print production machine. I didn't know what I was doing. I took 40 hours of training and went back, it was Xerox at the time. I got the machine then I went back to the advertising company, I knocked on the gentleman's door early in the morning and I said, "Sir, I want to say, thank you to you. We had a good run and we're done. And he was like, "What are you talking about, John? I haven't had my coffee yet. Can you just give me a second? Do you want coffee? You want a donut?"
Khudania Ajay: (03:42)
Being yourself and this is the good part of this show. You can be yourself and through being yourself, you can share your real story with people. So take your time. No problem at all.
John C. Morley: (03:55)
So what happened, AJ is I was knocking on the door and I know I want to get but I want to be polite. So I say, "We had a good run. Thank you and we're done." And he was all crazy. He then gets over here. He says, "Let me go pick the phone up. Let me call" and he said, "Chris, can you come in here a minute? I got Mr. Morley here. Why don't you come and say hello?" "Oh, sure," he comes out and said, "Oh, Cindy made those muffins you like, and we got homemade biscuits and we got toast." And I said, "I don't want any of that." He said, "Do you want to go to Diner?" I said, "No, I'm all good. I just came here Chris to say, thank you." He said, "So you're welcome buddy. You're welcome. Sharon's been waiting all night. She didn't go to bed. She was working on a brand new campaign. That's going to knock your socks off. You want to see it?"
John C. Morley: (04:44)
I said, "No. We had a great run, Chris and we're done. Thank you." And he's like, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I was here before your manager and I'm here with you and maybe I should be a little blunter. You're fired but I want to be polite about it and say, thank you." He said, "All right, well, why don't we go? Why don't we stop this nonsense? Let's grab your coat. Let's go to the dinner across the street. Let's figure all this out and then we can take a look at what's going on." I said no but they kept being persistent. And I said, "I'm not interested in being ripped off by a company and the first sign which I should have fired you years ago was when you take me out to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, based on the amount of money I pay you on a deposit, I'm working with the wrong company and you did this multiple times."
Khudania Ajay: (05:40)
So, John, I'm sorry to interrupt you. We'll take that story from here that I've interrupted. I just wanted for our people, how does one know one is ripping you off? In your case what was it?
John C. Morley: (05:55)
Okay, so here was the thing, again I was very naive in the marketing advertising. I knew nothing about it. And so the first clue but it was like they made a mistake but I figured I can't do better. They had errors in the print. We did eight and a half by 11 and they didn't check things properly. So I had said to them, "next time can we change the deadline?" "Oh sure John, we could change the deadline. Your deadline was yesterday. Ours is today." I said, "So then when we got plenty of time." They said, "No, no, if we have to change a deadline, there'll be $500 more to you because we have to change our deadline." I said, "How does all that work?" They said, "Well, we don't print it. We send it to somebody else." I said, "This is a real racket but I stayed with them."
John C. Morley: (06:40)
Then they did the lunch thing with me. I said to the gentleman, "Let's go do breakfast." They said, "Okay, fine." So I'm going to use arbitrary amounts of money. If I set them a hundred dollars, they took me for breakfast at a diner. If I set them to $50, they took me to Bengan for lunch sandwich, coffee, and dessert. If I sent them $500, they took me to Ruth Chris with a steak and a nice dinner. So at one time, I told them, "I'm going to send you $100," but I sent them the $500. They called and said, "Mr. Morley, this is Brian Gatos." I said, "Yes, how are you?" They said, "Listen if you know this but Brian has two kids and both of them, they're teething right now." I was like, okay. She was like, "I don't mean to disturb you but Brian's wife had an accident last week and her car is in the shop."
John C. Morley: (07:26)
I said, okay, alright. And when I did the reverse, this is when I told I sending them $250 and I sent them the $500, so when I did this whole thing, they came back to me and said that the only time that he can meet you are actually at night because in the morning he'll be at the doctor's office. He has to take Brenda and Chris to the doctor's office with me and then at lunchtime Phil is coming in, to do an audit. So we only have 8 o'clock available to take you to dinner. So that seems a little fishy. I did it reverse one time. I say that I'm going to spend $250. I sent her a hundred.
John C. Morley: (08:07)
She was like, "Oh, John, how are you? Listen, I hate to do this to you but Brian has to fly. He's flying internationally and he gets to fly out late because of the way the time zones work." And I said, "Well, let's just do lunch or another time." She said, "No, can't do lunch because they're having an emergency planning meeting. The only time he has available for you is 8:00 AM for a quick sandwich at Joe's deli." So I started to realize this but what made me understand this is that AJ, didn't know what they were doing. They didn't understand marketing. I was paying them money AJ, to learn about my company. And when you are writing or when you're marketing, you have to learn a little bit but you shouldn't have to learn everything about marketing and advertising. They were making mistakes. They were with me for so many years and they kept telling me, "You have to put more money and more money in."
Khudania Ajay: (09:07)
But how did they survive in their own business? What, I guess you were not the only client for them.
John C. Morley: (09:13)
So, they are a fortune company today, still a big fortune company. These are some new people from college that have been there a couple of years wet behind the ears, became friends with them. And the company had a big reputation but they didn't. These new people didn't know anything about their marketing. They were the juniors. And I said to them when they called me when they heard out that we were successful, first two years we failed miserably. I built print production, graphic media, digital video center, video design, and production. They called me up. When they heard we were successful and said, "John, I want to come over and take you to lunch. We want to talk to you about your clients. We know you're getting a lot of them and we know this is a little bit out of your comfort zone."
John C. Morley: (09:59)
He said, "So what we want to do is take you to lunch and want to see if we can help you a little bit, might be a little more for you to handle. So we want to take those clients from you and keep your name on there. We'll do all the work. You keep your name on, charge them whatever you want to charge. We'll charge you a little bit and we'll have a professional firm. That'll be designing it." He said, "You know you're good but you're not good when it comes to like big companies." I said, "Why don't we take some of those people that you're going to lose? The people haven't called you in months and haven't paid their bills. Why don't we take some of those people, meet with them and help them with their plan?"
John C. Morley: (10:39)
"Get them some continued business return back to you and they have a profit. How's that for a concept? And you can keep your name on it. We'll just do the work." He said, "Oh, John that's above my pay grade." What made me know that I had to fire them was, I was taking my money and I was paying them and they didn't know what they were doing. And I just kept sinking, deeper and deeper in debt with them. And then when he says to me, "We're going to give you a 40% discount on all your past bills and anything going forward." I said, "You should have done that, years ago." So any company that's trying to court you that much and that has to play games with the way you meet based on the deposit. That's not something you want to work with. They didn't know my business. They didn't know how to promote me. They didn't know what magazines were, they didn't know anything about me.
Khudania Ajay: (11:35)
Did they know about restaurants?
John C. Morley: (11:36)
They knew about restaurants. They took me to the fanciest restaurants, Ruth, Chris, and Dana. And we always had a conversation at a meal table. That's how they worked and when I had a question, "Oh, John, let's go to lunch. This is hard to do over the phone. Let's go to lunch and we can discuss it." What on a napkin? They were like, "Well, we'll bring a pad if you want." They always did it on a napkin. I said, "Why don't we bring a pad?" So that's kind of what got that. And then I wanted to be able AJ, to take my ideas and have them executed at 2 a.m. So if I had an idea for emailing, I didn't have to wait a month, a week, two days, I could print it and mail it the next day. And it would be in the people's post offices. So that got exciting to me. And then I started realizing that we're good at what we do but we just didn't have that big name. So I always try to tell people from the beginning, we may not be for everybody but I'm going to tell you in the beginning truthfully, what it is you need to take the next step, whether you're a small business or big?
Khudania Ajay: (12:41)
So, after taking over your company fully, how exactly did you run and what were the services or products that you were providing?
John C. Morley: (12:52)
I own several companies right now. I own an IT technology company. My main background is I'm an engineer and our slogan is Wall Street trusts us with their IT Technology needs, shouldn't you? I have a level nine clearance with Wall Street.
Khudania Ajay: (13:07)
What is level line clearance?
John C. Morley: (13:10)
So that means that we can do almost anything a level 10 can do except, and I'll tell you what that means. We can do all the work, everything but a level 10 person. A level nine person can't take the equipment that is not theirs or bring equipment that's not theirs to the site. That's a level 10. They have to have blood taken every time. I don't want to get involved with that. So we design the security and the backgrounds and all that's pretty tight but then when I said, I have this and you tell people, you have this because a lot of people want everything done for $5. They want everything done very cheap. And I always say to people, "Look, if you call us, it's going to take us less time and we're going to guarantee our labor and we're not going to try to upsell your push. We're just going to get you what you need." The other company is a full marketing print, production, graphic media, digital design, and video company. And I built that because I knew I needed some kind of vehicle AJ to get my message.
Khudania Ajay: (14:08)
Would you like to tell their names, John? Will that be okay with you?
John C. Morley: (14:09)
Oh, absolutely. So the other company is called Neighborhood. The first company's called the JMOR connection, www.jmor.com. The second company is called neighborhood publications and our web presence is www.ourprintconnection.com. I learned and then the third one is JCM academy where I do all kinds of motivational. I've done keynotes for Yale. My first keynote was for Yale in 1999, "Minor, major inconveniences of Y2K."I didn't get paid for it but I built some great connections. And I started to understand that I was good at this but then I didn't pursue that because the advertising company told me that I was no good at it. The one thing I'm going to tell you and all your people is to never listen to somebody else. When they tell you can't do something like Henry Ford said, "You believe it, you're right and if you believe you can, you're also right."
John C. Morley: (15:00)
So I started letting other people's programs run through me but I didn't know what was happening. So about a year or two after I graduated college, I got certified in hypnosis Neuro-Linguistic Programming. And I took the silver medal. I was tired of paying people to solve my problems I said, "Why am I just figuring this out? I'm an engineer. I got certified in it." They said, "Are you going to become a doc?" I said, "No, no. I'm not going to become a doctor. I just want to help myself get my goals to achieve faster." The first goal that I achieved was to get a car. The first car I had was a Chevy S10. It was a used car and I wanted to get a car after that, which I did. I got a Jeep but then I wanted a real luxury car. And I don't ask myself how this happened. I can tell you how it happened. I did the mind work. Every day when I came home and sat in my chair, I pictured myself in that car. Now, at that time it was an MDX Acura. I knew that I wanted it. I went to the dealership, I drove it, I felt it, I smelled it and I used the features. I came home every night, closed my eyes. I just felt in the car in six months, AJ that car was in my driveway.
Khudania Ajay: (16:14)
Okay. So is it that you want to say that if you want to get something in your life, you got to keep on working towards it and thinking about it.
John C. Morley: (16:24)
That's a good lesson. It's not just thinking about it because most people will think all day and say, "Why am I not being successful?" They think and they work hard but they don't get anywhere. And it's because thinking's not enough. So you can visualize, two things you want to create and propel towards your goals. One, you have to have the intention. The second thing is you have to realize that you have to put the feelings and the emotions forward. So your heart is a big proponent of getting you to your goal. So with the car, I knew in my mind what I wanted but then in my heart, I created the feeling, what did it sound like? What did it feel like? And I just kept driving and kept believing. I'm getting into my new car.
John C. Morley: (17:09)
I'm getting into my new car. I could see myself enjoying it. And when you do that, the feelings because our world is all connected. And what I mean by that is there's energy everywhere. If you've ever been around somebody and the energy's not good, you want to move away from them. But other people you want to be drawn toward them. Well, we do the same thing in our life. And when I did this, I said, "Wow." I said, "I just manifested this car." And it all happened because I was sitting in my chair every night, maybe five, 10 minutes, I'd close my eyes to meditate but I would be driving my car. I already felt what the car felt like. I also took the picture and put it on my screen saver on my phone and my laptop. So I was seeing that car.
John C. Morley: (17:57)
Now I wasn't thinking about, "Oh my gosh, I don't have the car," that wasn't in my mind because remember what you think about you bring about. And so if you think about that you don't have it. Then lack going to bring more lack into my life. I'm like, "I'm so happy with the car I have and this other car is going to be even greater." And then I got it. So when you want to manifest something in your life, I think the hardest thing for people to understand is why it doesn't happen tomorrow? Like, you do something but it doesn't happen and that frustrates people. The reason that it frustrates people is one big reason and that is that they don't have a big enough, why? So why did I want this car? That was probably the big why.
John C. Morley: (18:39)
Yes, I could feel it. Yes, I wanted it. It was a luxury car but why did I want it? I want it because it had the top of a line navigation system and I got lost. Most gentlemen will never tell the lady, we never want to ask for what directions but yet I'll take directions from Silicon Sally in the car. And then I started realizing something else AJ, that I wanted to be a voice online. I didn't have any podcasts at the time. I started with blog talk radio in the United States, grew my blog talk several years ago and I just started doing a tech show, JMOR Tech Talk Show, which is still on today but not on blog talk. After several years I said, "I want to get on national radio."
John C. Morley: (19:26)
How am I going to get on national radio? I'm nobody but I kept pitching myself. People are saying no but I say, "That no is just getting me closer to somebody saying a yes, right? And one day somebody came back to me and said, "John, we're going to give you a try." I said, "How big your station is?" it was said, "We have 48 stations in the United States and we syndicate to all of them and we broadcast from the upper state, New York and you could do it from home and all right." So I got on with them and we were doing very well. We grew the audience up to a nice size and then about a year or two later, we decided to get into advertising for them to start. I had the numbers because you have to have the numbers to get the people to advertise.
John C. Morley: (20:09)
I said, "What do you think we could get at?" He said, "I don't know, 50,000 few million." I said maybe 2 to 3 million. So I had the number in my head, three and a half million. I had a guy call me and he says, "John, I'd love to be an advertiser of your show." I said, "Oh that would be great." I said, about three and a million. And he comes to me and he gives a check to the advertising because it's not me, It goes to the station and I would get 60% of that money but here's what happened. The check went in. I never got any money. I didn't get a penny and I feel something wrong with that, AJ. I said, "Why don't I get something in the station?" The DJ said, "Oh, John, you're going to have to talk to the station manager. This is a complicated one. Talk to the station manager."
John C. Morley: (20:57)
He says, "Thank you so much, we got your check. They're going to be repeat clients so they gave us a check for three." I said, "Oh, when am I getting my money?" "Let me let you talk to the station owner because this one I don't even understand." So now I'm talking to the station owner. I said, "Look, can we cut the nonsense and just tell me why I'm not getting the money? I've already heard from two people." He says, "Well, John, it's complicated." I said, "No, it's not. Why am I not getting the money?" He said, "Well here's what happened. He called us. He wanted to advertise with you but not in the way you thought he wanted to buy you out. He wanted to buy your whole program out. He didn't want your tech show. He wanted your nine to 10 slot on Thursday nights."
John C. Morley: (21:39)
I said, "Oh, so what happened?" "We said, sure." I said, "So you just sold out. We worked together for several years." He said, "John money talks, and your show was great but three and a half million was a lot better in my pocket." I had a bad taste in my mouth from that. So I pulled away from media, writing, and things for a while, planning to never go back but then a few years ago I bumped into somebody and said, "Hey John, whatever happened at JMOR tech talk? I said we don't do it anymore. Oh, that's a shame. I have somebody that wants to talk to you. I talked to the person. He says, he wanted to watch the other show and he says, "You know what John, I was reaching out to you."
John C. Morley: (22:25)
I said, "Why you were reaching out to me?" He said, "I was wondering if you sit to do one more show?" I said, "We're not doing any more shows." He said, "Well, would you just do one more to humor me?" I said, "I'll do one more if you want." He says, "I want to be your co-host." And I said, "I never had a co-host." He says, "Yeah but I'd like to be your co-host." So we do a show. We have a lot of fun doing it. The show ends and we agree that we're going to do one more show. We have the show on and I say, "Everyone, thank you so much. I thank my wonderful co-host. It’s always a privilege, a pleasure to be here and now we must say goodbye to JMOR tech talk because this is our very last show." He says, "No, it's not John." I say, "What do you mean? We agreed that today was going to be the last show. This is the second show." He says, "It's the last one we did but that was before you had 10 guests lined up."
John C. Morley: (23:21)
I said, "So I guess we're going to be back. What is it?" He said, "Every Friday night at 5:30." "Well, we'll see you then, and remember to catch us." And so then I got into that and I started interviewing people from around the world. I interviewed last year, the first man to ever talk on the cell phone and invented. So just love to interview people similar to yourself and want to find the truth in the story. And that got me into that but then I realized the show is good about technology but it doesn't help people grow and improve their lives only technically. So I said, "I'm good at motivating people. Why don't I start something with motivation?" So, Neighborhood Productions was born in video productions and I started school because I was doing all the video editing myself. Now I run an internship. We started our very first channel and it was called, still out, Johns C. Morley, serial entrepreneur. And the first segment was called super motivational Friday and one of the shows, it's not a show but they're like short little under 10-minute things. And we did one called invisible ink, "Why you should never lie."
Khudania Ajay: (24:40)
But you see a lot of people lied to you and then.
John C. Morley: (24:50)
So, when people do something, AJ, I don't get angry. I don't get upset. I don't try to harm them. What I try to do, AJ is, educate people. So I had this piece of paper, I took some grape juice and I wrote down the things about to be exposed. And then I said to everyone because it was I called this the other show. I called science Friday with John, on another channel I have called envision networking, envision the future, and envision how we can connect with people. I wanted to take science and connect relationships and improve people's lives. So I did that and I started writing it visibly and then I said, "Why you should never lie to anyone because sooner or later you're going to go to a party that party's going to be amazing until Mr. or Mrs. Grape Juice show up to the party and they expose you for the true liar that you are. That's what was written on my paper.
John C. Morley: (25:38)
People laughed and there were a lot of other ones we did, we set rockets off. We said, "Do you have the rockets of desire?" So there are a lot of great things on that channel and I realized that I had a gift because I wasn't just doing. And then, of course, we have a channel that does product reviews and we do an unboxing, which I love to do but that doesn't motivate people. That's tech stuff, which I love to do and then I started doing something called a weekly series. I became a national streamer on LinkedIn. Probably over a year ago, which is not easy to do and about a few hours before this, I actually streamed and we streamed anywhere from eight o'clock, six o'clock, in the night until maybe 10 or 11.
John C. Morley: (26:30)
And the theme for this week is, "What's on your mind" tonight was episode one. So I stream for about 20 to 40 minutes. Last week the theme was, "How and why is gratitude important in your life?" So what I find is that when I get to do these things and then every once in a while I get a letter back or I get an email or I get a message, "Hey John, you changed my life. I had one lady that I helped her get a job because I helped her look at the perspective, which is that if we changed the way we look at the things we look at change" and then came from a very wise person that passed on Dr. Dwayne Dyer, you may know, who I follow for many years learn from Port Angeles. So if we change our perspective right now in life, then everything's going to change.
John C. Morley: (27:16)
It would change our perspective about somebody else. They're going to change the way they approach us. We can never try to have a motive to try to change someone. But if we change the way we are, it may change the way they are. But if it doesn't, you can't be upset. So I had a landlord and they were not being very polite. So I decided to do a video, not about them, but just in general about landlords around. I said, "ladies and gentlemen, this is John C. Morley, Serial Entrepreneur and I'm here with another great, fantastic day. I'm actually at one of the properties but for security reasons and to preserve the guilty or the anonymous, I'm not going to tell you where I am or what building but I want to let you know something, you got to be humble in your life. I don't care whether you have a dollar to your name, nothing to your name or you have millions of dollars and you own buildings all over Franklin lakes."
John C. Morley: (28:11)
"Doesn't matter. You have to be humble because even though you have this money sooner or later, it's going to bite you. You're going to get people that are not going to like you. Things are going to be hard. And if you just little bit humble might go the long way." And then I said to them, "This isn't addressed to anybody specifically but I hope that all the landlords, especially in our town and around the United States will start treating some of their tenants better because it's not about showing how much you have. It's not about using the courts to try to make what you want to happen because it's not fair and you have more money. So you can pay off 10 attorneys. So suddenly everything you want becomes, right." And I said, "That's not how our life should be." So that's what I do when something happens in my life, I pull up my press badge, national association of press. I'm going to do a story on this and they come and say, "John, you can't shoot here." I said, "Why not?" "You're not allowed to do your stupid videos of motivation here." I am like, "Well, I'm not doing a motivational video today." "But what are you doing?" I said I'm doing a documentary on what's happening in our town and what our residency to be aware of." "Oh, did you get that approved by anybody?" "I don't think I have to. It's public news."
John C. Morley: (29:32)
One thing that you'll know AJ and the rest of our viewers, when you do something good, there're going to be people that don't like you and I want to share another great story. It's a hard story. I had started the chamber. Well, I took it over five, six years ago and when I took it over, there were a lot of bad people in it. What I mean by that is they were stealing. Every one of their kids was getting scholarships. Not a good thing. I took it over and became president of it because it was going downhill. Before I did that, I went to the town council said, "Hey, I think I could do some good with this. I'd like you to nominate me." Of course, they love me.
John C. Morley: (30:14)
Then didn't know what happened. I started becoming a bull and a China shop AJ, because I said, "I'm not dealing with dirty dishes. I'm going to throw them all out, buy all new dishes and put all new racks in." I started giving people heart palpitations started giving people control issues that they had lawyers coming after me. And I said, "I haven't done anything wrong." They said, "No, but you're moving a little too fast and we're not happy with the way you're doing things." I said, "Well, there's a better way we could address that. We don't need to be rude." I had a gentleman I'm not going to mention his name. He called me in the office said, "I want to talk to you. I had designed a program to look for local shopping in the town." He called me to his office and I went.
John C. Morley: (31:06)
He said, "John, I just want to let you know something, you know the program you're going to put together for the local." I said, "Yeah, it's pretty good." He says, "Very good. We're launching it and you're not." I said, "Excuse me." He says, "Well, we're launching it, and your Chamber's not, nor are you okay." And I said, "Can I ask why?" He said, "Because I said so." He says, "How many people do you have in that chamber right now, 20? 30? When are you just going to give up? When are you just going to realize that you're just wasting your time with a chamber?"
John C. Morley: (31:46)
I didn't want to say the way I felt but I just listened. I said, "I want to give you a truthful answer when I'm going to give up. Just give me a minute. I want to think, I don't want to give you the wrong answer. I'm going to give you the exact hour, minute, day, and second, then I'm going to give up. Just give me a minute." I sit back in my chair and he's like, yes, I'm going to give up. And I said, "Sir, you know what? I'm going to give up when a baby boy or a baby girl tells their parents that they no longer want to learn to walk anymore.
John C. Morley: (32:32)
Scratch in his head. He goes, when the blank is that, I said, "Well, you are very intelligent, man. You have two kids you've raised, a boy and a girl. When did they ever tell you that they didn't want to learn to walk?" He said, "Never." I said, "I always knew you were intelligent and bright and give the right answer. That's when I'm going to give up." He says, "John, you're arrogant. Now get the blind to get my office." And after that point, AJ, I realized I wasn't going to have his support. It was political but I realized that if everybody likes you in life, you're not bringing your A-game. Everybody wants to make friends and of course, I want to do that too. But if somebody likes you, that's great and a lot of people like you but if you don't have a few people, I'm not saying they hate you but they're kind of like challenging you a little bit.
John C. Morley: (33:37)
You're not bringing your A-game and if you're not bringing your A-game to the table, somebody else will and you'll be replaced. So they found that I was threatening to them, even though I wasn't, I was always very polite. Whenever I tried to do things, to help the town, they magically found a legal angle that I was breaking some law. When the law people came, they're like, "John, I don't know what you're. They just told us to come down here and have you leave. I can't even see why we even have to tell you to leave but we're asking you to leave." And it was just funny. So I started realizing that politics is funny and you got to bring your A-game every day because if you don't somebody else will, and in life being a serial entrepreneur, which is where I want to go, it's not an easy journey, AJ. So there is a serial entrepreneur and then there is an entrepreneur, right? There are two different things.
Khudania Ajay: (34:37)
Yeah. Can you elaborate on this the entrepreneur part and the serial entrepreneur part because what an entrepreneur at all?
John C. Morley: (34:46)
Absolutely. So in the typical world, most people will usually work for a company, right. The other way you can earn money is basically to work for yourself. So an entrepreneur is someone that has their own business, right? So what is a serial entrepreneur and an entrepreneur? I'll tell you how you get started. You don't go paying $10,000 to join some academy called entrepreneurship. That's going to do Jack for you. A serial entrepreneur is somebody that starts multiple companies. So I've only been a serial entrepreneur, for probably about 12 or 14 years. I was an entrepreneur when I started JMOR. And then I realized that nobody was helping me get where I need to be. So I got to figure out how to do that.
John C. Morley: (35:42)
That's when I got creative and that's when my entrepreneurship kicked in and made me a serial entrepreneur because I have more than one venture, more than one company. So if you opened a Pizzeria and now suddenly you decided that you're going to open up a loan business, you're a serial entrepreneur. Some people are investors but the reason people do this is, companies don't treat people right? One of the first companies I worked for AJ before I got out of school, I knew it was part-time. I worked for a government agency and they're paying me not even 10%, of what I was worth. I just went there for the experience and I said something to them. After a couple of years, it was three days before I was supposed to be vested. It was on Thanksgiving.
John C. Morley: (36:29)
About a month or two before it was a traveling where I had a journey from site to site. I was a TCS, a technical services coordinator way below my qualification. I was a lot higher than that and I would help people with their computers, get them ordered, plugged them in, really didn't take a lot, and make sure the purchase orders were correct. I remember coming back one time and I got chastised by the office manager. I said, "Can I help you? She said, "John, it's 01:28. Well, we show that you left that facility at one o'clock and it should take you 17 and a half minutes to get here."
John C. Morley: (37:13)
I said, "Well, there could be traffic." She said, "We checked, there was no traffic at that time. Why did it take you extras so many minutes?" I said, "To be very honest with you, I stopped to get water because it was 102 degrees out." She said, "Yeah. That's not permitted." I said, "Okay. I won't do it again." She said, "Yeah. Bring your water or something but you're not to go getting water or snacks or food on our time." I wasn't getting lunch. I was just getting a beverage. It doesn't matter what it is. So I realized at that time, AJ, that the writing on the wall was there to leave. I realized I was going to be vested in less than two weeks, three days before Thanksgiving, I walked into the HR person's office. And I said, thank you.
John C. Morley: (37:59)
She says, "What do you mean?" I said, thank you. She said, "Why are you saying, thank you?" I'm saying, thank you because we had a good run, sound familiar, and we're done. That was the first time I used it. And she didn't understand what that meant. I said, "Well, Mary, it's really simple. You're all wonderful people. You know, we're only here for one reason, I'm here to become a better version of myself and to help you become a better version of yourself, I want to thank you for helping me realize how to become a better version of myself. What that means in English is today is my very last day." And she didn't get it. The rest of the people were like, "Well, John, we need you." I said, "I'll do what I can." She said, "Well, you'll have to do it tomorrow morning." I said, "No, today's my last day." "So what do you mean you're quitting you? No, you got fired? I said, "No, I chose to leave the establishment." She said, "Well, why would you do that? I said, "It's not fitting with my culture." That's when I realized that an entrepreneur is somebody AJ, they're not rude but they're people that are going to like I did the bull in the China shop, right? A person that worked for a corporation that took over this, would be more what our political party would've wanted because I would've followed more of the steps and I would've taken a hundred years to get it close to what they wanted. Our town doesn't like change. So because I come from the background that I make progress, to give an example, I was doing a charity drive.
Khudania Ajay: (39:36)
Is it that change is so difficult. It's learning that even a place like the US and which is so close to New Jersey or around the New York area. Those people don't want to change. Don't they see the winds of change or is it the same everywhere? Because being in India sometimes I also feel that.
Speaker2: (39:55)
It's everywhere AJ. It's not just New Jersey, it's all around the world. It's just that in New Jersey, they're a little more abrupt in how they show it and other parts around the world, India and other parts. They're a little kinder about change. Like AJ, I know you're trying to show me this new method and you're a good person. I'm just not interested and they'll be a little kinder with you. Here it's kind of like they'll use whatever words they want. I was at this charity because I do a lot of charity events for my chamber, by the way, I wear a 501C3, which means, and I had that happen because we do a lot of charitable work. So most of the chambers are 501C6 which is not IRS forgivable. It's only tax-deductible. So I made us a full charity, 501C3.
John C. Morley: (40:46)
On the main website of this organization, they had taken off our link to our thing and I said, "What happened?" It's not there and I call, so we get to the supermarket where we're doing food drives for one of the local charities that we do every year. They said, "John, this is amazing what you're doing." I said, "Yeah, I know it's wonderful." She said, "I have a question for you." I said, "What is it?" She says, "Why are you not on the bubbles website?" I said, "You know, that's an amazing question." She called one of the local reporters. They came out and she says, "John, I have a question for you. Why are you not at the station? Why are you not on their site?"
John C. Morley: (41:30)
I said, "You know, that's an amazing question. Why don't we pop their phone number down below 973? And why don't we all call them and ask them? Because I've wanted to know that for months and nobody gets back to me." She says, "That's an amazing idea. We're going to pop that down, everyone watching, call this number." Oh, they called them. They were cursing me out. I think 500 people called them and then they made a statement to the media saying, "There was an update going on with our site and it was an oversight on their part and they are listed now number two." But why do you have to do stuff like that, AJ? And you have to walk the level.
Khudania Ajay: (42:10)
So I got two questions for you here. One is that in your life you experienced, even when you work for somebody or even as an entrepreneur, people were behaving very differently and almost trying to rip you off, it happens everywhere. Now I want to understand from you, why do people do that means they are comfortably placed? Still, they want to rip you off even in a place where you are working for somebody. And they are doing things like not letting you go have water or snacks. It's almost like being inhuman. Why do people do that? What makes them do that?
John C. Morley: (42:53)
So this was a government company that's how they were very addicted but they had a very bad thing. And I had that happened in another place where I did a part-time job and a similar thing happened. I was upstairs on the third floor with the executives. I was hired there part-time as a technical inventory consultant for computers and tech and I was fixing some stuff too on the phone. I was up on the third floor with the VIPs and one of the ladies there, the vice president. She said, "John, would you like some breakfast?" I said, "Oh, I'd love to test breakfast. I'm working around." She says, "Don't worry about that help you, have some eggs, have a donut, or have some orange juice." So I was finishing my breakfast and just as I finished the breakfast and talking to her, she says, "Can you take over my computers?"
John C. Morley: (43:46)
"Absolutely." I said, "I'll come right back." I get a phone call. "John, Greg wants to know where you are." I said, "I'm upstairs." They said, "He wants you back at your desk right away." Now my boss was in California, not even in New Jersey. I said, "I already can feel this is short-lived." "Hey Greg, how are you? It’s nice to talk to you." He said, "Where were you, John?" I said, "I was on the third floor." "Where were you at? 09:18?" "I believe I was just leaving the men's room." He said, "No you weren't." I said, "Oh, I was talking to the lady, the VP." He said, "Yes you were, and what was in your hand?" I said, "What was in my hand? Oh, the lady upstairs. She asked me if I wanted breakfast and I said, sure and she let me have some." He said, "We don't do that." I said, "What do you mean you don't eat with those people? She invited me." He said, "Yeah. You don't do that again or you'll be fired."
Khudania Ajay: (44:47)
Well, is it a class sort of a thing to difference?
John C. Morley: (44:50)
It wasn't a class difference. It was their ego in the sense that they didn't want you to be partaking in that it wasn't a class difference. It was the fact that if you were somebody that could get along with them, they didn't like that because most of the people hated them. I liked them. I thought they were great people. A lot of them worked there. They would invite me and say, "Hey John, would you come over? We're having a party." "Oh great, I'll bring a cake or something." And then they come over and say, "John, what are you doing?" "Oh, I'm on lunchtime". "Oh, why are you at lunch at 11?" I said, "Well, because they're having a party." I said, "I am on my lunchtime, I could do whatever I want?
John C. Morley: (45:28)
"You can but at 11:49 or 11:59, you get to be back downstairs." I said, "No problem." So they were just very concerned that you were after their job and things like that. And then what happened AJ, want to tell you, and I'll tell you why. I think this is happening. I went down to my desk and I was helping lots of people. I had just saved the company. I don't know, close to a million dollars and I was very happy with this accomplishment and the vice president. I was helping her. I fixed her computer and everything. And she's like, "Oh my gosh, this is great." I got her a whole new computer.
John C. Morley: (46:02)
And something happened. I was helping somebody and then this guy Greg's calling me but I was helping one of their employees on the phone with support. So I said, "I'm not going to grab him." He's probably just going to ignore me. I get a call, I get somebody walked said, "John, you know, Greg's looking here." I said, "I know I'm in the middle of a call. He's going to already badge me out." I said, "You know what? I'm making an executive decision. This is my mind. I'm going to tell." I delayed an email that was going to be sent in 15 minutes. I logged out and walked up to HR and I said, "I just want to say, thank you."
John C. Morley: (46:44)
She says, "What's the matter." I said, "Today's my last day. So if you want to walk me out, here's my badge. I can't work for a company that treats people like second-class citizens and can't respect people. I have no time for anybody at your company that can't address me properly." And she's like, "Well, we're not for everybody." I said, "You lost a good person." So I think the reason people are doing this AJ if I had to guess, one reason is they're afraid of your job. But the reason people are ripping people off it's because they feel that if they do that, they're getting power. I had a friend of mine and we were bowling one night and we went for pizza and I still remember this. It was only maybe five or six years ago. And we went to the restaurant.
John C. Morley: (47:30)
It was 11 p.m. or 11:30 at night. They closed at midnight. So we were just finishing up bowling. We went there and this is where I can relate it to, he was a financial person at the time. He was a junior financial analyst. So they have a little bit of an attitude. We come in there and I'll call Mike for argument sake to preserve the guilty or the innocent. We come up to the pizza counter and he goes to the guy Armano, "Where are your specials?" I said, "Mike, the board's right there." He said, "I don't want those stupid specials. I want the real specials." I said, "What are you doing?" He says, "You know what I'm talking about?" I said, "I don't know what you're talking about." He said, "Armano I want the real specials. Listen, that pie that you're charging us six bucks, a slice buddy. It's 28 minutes before your clothes. That pie doesn't cost you two bucks to make. I'll give you two bucks a slice and I'll give you a buck, a slice and you're going to throw it at anyway. You're making more than 200% profit fit on that pie."
John C. Morley: (48:26)
And I'm embarrassed like this. And then he doesn't say anything and then he walks away. He doesn't even give him a chance to respond because they're like that. And I said, "Just go sit down. I'll take care of it." He says, "I'll take two of the pepper out, two special. So it should have been $10 and I had two. So it was five. He didn't want the drink of the soda because he says, "I don't want it." He was aggravated. So I pulled my wallet. I'm going to pay for it and I said, "Sir, what do I owe you?" He said, "Just give me five bucks."
John C. Morley: (49:00)
He just give me five bucks. He had done all that argument. So he would benefit. Meanwhile, I was the one that benefited. I went to the table and said, "Mike, what did you do that for?" He's like, "Yeah. I don't want to pay the real price." So it's the people, AJ that are in the financial and these are people that are making a lot of money. It shouldn't matter what you're making. But a lot of these people that are making this are taught this from the ranks up. Most millennials have this thing where they leave a job six times. My friend had a job, he was getting X. He went up from let's say 80 to 150 to 250 then 500. Now he's making almost a million dollars but he did it very rudely. And the thing that I don't like, what he did AJ, is he has interns working there.
John C. Morley: (49:53)
But you know what? Let's say they do a good job. He says to his boss, "Oh, well I did the report. I spent all night doing it." Now if they do a bad job on it, "Well, what do you expect? I gave it to Brenda. I was trying to break him in and I'll do it myself next time." So I didn't like that kind of mentality. I see this happening because it's a power thing. And I see it around the financial people. It's very bad. Even some doctors will have this kind of attitude that they believe they're above you. I remember going to one gentleman who was a boy, he still owns several buildings. He's a landlord and I said to the person, "Why can't you be nice? I put my slacks on the same way you do every day, my left foot first and then my right foot, you put your right, and then your left. We're not that much different than each other." And he had adopted this thing because it was power to him. And my message to people that are like fighting to get power. You're going to lose it.
Khudania Ajay: (51:14)
So it is the arrogance of power. So, John, you are the owner of so many companies, and do you think that arrogance means that it's so powerful or you are powerful?
John C. Morley: (51:23)
Well, this guy that I was friends with for a while used to live in my building, every morning when he left in the morning, he'd almost knocked me over. I didn't even know who he was. And at one of the meetings, I joke with him, we were friends and I said, "I know who you are. You're the guy. You're<