I believe everybody's here to do something great with their lives. Most people don't, unfortunately figure it out in time. I got lucky when I was 17 ended up diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11, got put on medication at a young age, believed that there was something I was broken. I literally thought my brain didn't work like everybody else's, because that's what they told me. And ended up getting introduced to drugs when I was 13. And just kind of went into breaking the law and became an
addict. And I ended up in jail twice by 2017. And my life changed in high speed chase or at a handgun sitting next to me in a backpack. I just, I say this often on social media, my work ethic is a byproduct of my gratitude. And anybody listening, I would encourage them to consider that is that if you truly are grateful for what you have, even if it's not a lot today, you should honor that by showing up and doing your best
work. And that's like if anybody spends enough time with me, they would just see that like, that's just how I
come to In Search of Excellence where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and the host of insurance of excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas
of our life. My guest today is Dan Martell, and is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, coach and motivational speaker. He has started five companies, and so three of them has invested in more than 65 software companies. He is also the author of the best selling book, buy back your time, and has a top 20 podcast called the growth stacking show. Dan, thanks for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence
it's an honor. Wow. I gotta bring you with me anytime I got to do some because that was the best intro ever. And what's neat is top 20 podcasts. Yes, but just happened a couple days ago, top 20 book in the world. So buy back your time is number 18. Right now. It's amazing. Nonfiction, not even business. That's amazing. I don't know how this is happening. Like I grew up in a little town in eastern Canada. So this is, this is pretty gnarly,
right? So you were born born and mocked in Yeah, British Columbia, a town of monks. And you were a second of four kids, two brothers and a sister. Yeah, your mom was an alcoholic. And your dad was a sales guy who's gone most of the time. Tell us about your parents, and what they were like and the kind of influence they had on you before all this stuff happened.
Yeah, it's funny, because my dad is my hero. I call him almost every other day. My mom, we talk often, but she's she's kept quite busy. If you met the family today, and we traveled together, often, we just a month ago, we were all skiing, you know, 18 of us under one one roof. Nobody would assume that that family grew up in the kind of situation we did. And there's no way to explain it other than the testament of I believe everybody's here to do something great with their
lives. Most people don't, unfortunately figure it out in time. I got lucky when I was 17 ended up you know, diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11. got put on medication at a young age, believed that there was something I was broken. I literally thought my brain didn't work like everybody else's, because that's what they told me. And ended up getting introduced to drugs when I was 13. And just kind of went into breaking the law and became an addict. And I ended up in jail
twice. But I was 17 and my life change in high speed chase or I had a handgun sitting next to me in a backpack. That's it's kind of gnarly. But yeah, so like growing up. It's kind of like hells of our Sons of Anarchy tight, which is just an incredible, incredible story. Yeah. So it's kind of nuts going from that to the life I get to live today flying around on my own jet. And, you know, speaking. It's just, it's funny, my dad, even when we talk and
he's like, what's new? And I'm like, oh, Tony Robbins just asked me to speak again at business mastery. And he's like, how is this happening? And I'm like, I just, I say this often on social media, my work ethic is a byproduct of my gratitude. And anybody listening, I would encourage them to consider that is that if you truly are grateful for what you have, even if it's not a lot today, you should honor that by showing up
and doing your best work. And that's like, if anybody spends enough time with me, they would just see that, like, that's just how I operate.
Alright, so I want to talk specifically about your mom's drinking. Yeah. How old were you when you notice she had a problem? And how did that problem manifest with you and your siblings? What what age did you say? Oh, geez, my mom really has a problem and it's really affecting us.
I didn't know my mom had a job. Working problem till I was about 12. It was interesting because in hindsight, I, it all made sense once I found out because what happened is my parents were arguing one night and my dad essentially screamed at her. If you don't quit drinking, I'm not gonna continue this, you know, being in this relationship. They
got divorced when I was 13. So like, at 12, I realize it, but it made so much sense because like, there were times when you know, we get back from school and her cup was sitting there, and we'd go to have a drink, she drink sparkling water. But every once a while she would grab it. Well, that those are the times that it wasn't just sparkling water. Right. And I guess my mom like and what's funny is I've learned since then, a lot of people that have drinking problems they drink in private.
Yeah, they hide it. My mom was a stay at home mom raising four kids. And for whatever reason, she turned to the bottle. You know, we've talked about it since but her parents were both alcoholic, she was adopted. And it was, it was something that, you know, again, she would react, she would she'd have an emotional overreaction for things that shouldn't. That didn't demand it. And I guess in hindsight, that's when she was drinking. But again, we just just seemed that's how my mom
was. And I think a lot of people just dismiss crazy behavior is like, well, that's just my mom. And my dad eventually was like, enough's enough. And unfortunately, she didn't get her, you know, her vices under control. And they divorced when I was 13. And she kept drinking, probably for another 15 years. You know, she's been sober for a while now, but it took a while. Is a big demon for her to overcome. You had a lot of anger issues as a kid. That's an understatement. Where
did that? When did that start? How old were you? And is that genetic? Was your dad angry?
No, no, my dad is the polar opposite of me. Here, here's what I've learned. Because I've done a lot of therapy since then, is I started having outburst probably when I was nine or 10. And it wasn't till I was probably 15 that I, you know, in one of my therapy sessions, one of the this therapist asked like, Why do you think you get angry? And it clicked? Like, there was literally I still remember there's this moment where the question was asked, and I blurred it out, because my dad
would show up. And it, I realize that a large part of the reason I would act that way, because there's been angry, and then there was what would happen to me, which is I would see red, and it would be all options or possible. If I wanted to throw something down the stairs, I threw, I'm talking like big, right? If there was holes to be made in the wall, the holes were made, if it was, you know, fighting with my brothers,
that's what we did. And it occurred to me at 15 that I did that, because in those moments, my mom would have to call my dad to come home. And it didn't matter if he was two hours away in another city. You know, he was used us travel a lot for his work. He would get in the car and have to drive
home. At some point. Your behavioral problems, for lack of a better word became a serious problem. Your mom and dad thought it was too dangerous for you to live in the house. Yeah. So they called the police. And what happened then what could you possibly be feeling at that exact moment? Do you remember the exact moment where your mom said, I'm gonna like put yourself back there? What will happen?
So what would happen is I would get so emotionally flooded, that I honestly, I was incoherent. You know, as a kid. I know parents deal with this where their kids, I've seen my son, my oldest one time do this, where he just was beside himself, like he just couldn't even breathe, right. He was like hyperventilating and just like going crazy. And I knew enough in that moment with my son to create the space for him, my dad would try to control me. And it just made it worse.
So like when I was a kid, my dad would sit on me not not to hurt me, but literally to stop me from hurting myself. And what happened is when I was about 11, or 12, I think I was 12. I grew and all of a sudden my dad couldn't hold me down. Right or I'd wear him out. Literally, he would just through exhaustion, I could go for hours. And during one of these nights where I kind
of was losing it. I started screaming stuff that obviously I'm very ashamed of saying but I would I would threaten to burn the house down when everybody was sleeping. And it just got to a point where I think my parents couldn't dismiss it, because it felt like a possibility. And they did just didn't feel safe having me in the home anymore. So they called the police.
And were you handcuffed and put them back in the car with no, no, when they came, I
was pretty civil. Where did you go? So it's interesting because I'll never forget it the first night, I got put in this old Victorian home. And it's essentially, I guess it's it's kind of like a foster home. But it's a transitionary. Because I remember talking to the people that live there. And the situation is they were available to have a child with them. But it was short term. That was the agreement. So like, they were almost like the place that kids would go when they
couldn't be at their home. But the essentially the the system didn't know what to do with them. So I went to this one home for probably five nights. Or no, sorry. No, I didn't. I went to the crisis center first. So I went to a crisis center for seven days, because it was 24 hour surveillance because I threatened to take my life. That was as soon as you do that. They have to do that for for my own safety against your will. Yeah, I mean, I'm a 12 year old. I don't have. There's no, I don't
want to be here. The other option, I think they would have just thrown me in jail. Yeah. And obviously, I I wasn't looking to get in trouble. I just was mad at my parents, you know, so I went to the crisis center. That was That was scary. I mean, I'll be honest with you, like being taken out of my home, place in another home, and it was in a side by side duplex. And the staff were there. I mean, the lights are on in my room. 24/7 There's a camera on staffer in the house. I don't
know these people. I don't know if they're good people. I'm thinking of all the freakin things I've watched on TV. Luckily, this would have been on a Saturday. So I was there Sunday, and then Monday went to school, so they let me go to school. But yeah, I was I was kind of in that system for a week. Then I got put into this transition home, because they were like, okay, he's calmed down. And then eventually got placed into a foster home with
this guy named Dave. And that's a crazy story, because that was Dave's first. Right? And last,
did you go from group home to group home? Or you were just in one home? And then you went today?
Not at that point? No, I went crisis center, temporary home, and then they found Dave, and I got placed there.
So if 13 Your parents got divorced, you thought it was your fault, and you started doing drugs? At the same time? Did those go hand in hand? Or how did the drug use start? Just
innocently enough? This guy had, I was always the youngest in my grade, because my birthday is in December. So I think I was in high school or junior high or something? No, I was in high school. They did like grade nine, but everybody else is 14. I'm 13. And there was this guy named Serge. And he was like, you know, hit puberty before me taller, just just more older, mature. And he was the one that was like, Hey, man, you want some of this, I was just weed, like, innocent enough. And
he gave it to me. And I lived outside of the city. So like I got on the bus went home. And I told all my other friends that lived in that neighborhood that had some stuff, and we just went to a tree fort and smoked it. And that was the first time that I felt I didn't feel sad, if that makes sense. Escaping your pain. Yep. 100% I still remember the feeling just this like, kind of warm hug over me. And that kind of began the Hey, what else is there? Talking to surge. Hey,
what else you got? You got more. And what happened is I had no money. So I ended up starting to sell drugs just to pay for my usage. And the first time I got in trouble with the law outside of getting taken out of my home and put in a group home was I sold weed to the daughter of the head of the RCMP, which is the police in Canada. Oops, do that was like the dump my dad, he picked me up and he's like, like, like, really? And I'm like, I know. And he's like, why
her name was Melissa. And it's funny because at first I was pissed off because I'm like, a Why didn't she get a risk that she buying weed? Yeah, nope, she didn't get in trouble. I get arrested. And because her dad was mad at me, which in hindsight, okay, I'm a parent, I get it. You know, he told the judge this judgment key, I'll never forget his name, you know, throw the book at him. And I ended up getting six weeks in prison for selling $15 worth a week.
Or you're 13 or 14. Now at that
point. I was at 1415. Yeah. So so it took a while because essentially like I got arrested and I got put on probation and then how well are you gonna do in school and then eventually I got, I got sentenced. And they said, Oh, we're not going to send you now. We're gonna wait till the summertime. So I remember I was like new that summer, I was 1415 that I had to go. And I just worked my butt off in school to try to show good to the judge. And he still Nope.
So let's talk about Dave and your first foster care home. I loved my grandma, my mother was raised in foster care in Detroit had a crazy life, went from home to home. I don't know if it worked or worked the same way here. But a lot of foster families get paid. So they don't care about the kids at all. 100%. And my grandmother slept in closets wasn't allowed to eat. Had this crazy story about all these people who treated her like she
had except for one family. Tell us about Dave and then why you left the couch on fire?
Well, I'll tell you about Dave. And I won't tell but Ron and Dan because I've never shared that ever. Okay, that was a different foster home. So I'm 12. Okay, and I just got released out of this temporary, you know, youth housing. I get put with Dave Dave's like, I'm looking back. He's probably like 38 years old, never had kids. And in many ways, I wonder how did he get approved to have a kitchen, you know, it's kind of weird, like, it was just him.
And he lived in his house. And he was a professor at the College. And I was his first foster kid. And I remember the first time I went there, what was like the caseworker and she's like, trying to explain to Dave like, here's how we work. And these are the numbers you got to call. And then she kind of showed Dave, like, you need to do a house tour and a safety thing and blah, blah, blah. So he like showed me around the house. You know, here's where the fire extinguisher is. Here's
where the food is. Here's your room. Is this room, okay? He didn't even know like, again, I'm a 12 year old boy. He doesn't even know what's normal that night after my caseworker left. He's like, Well, let's go to the grocery store and, you know, get get you some food. Because I don't know what 12 year old boys eat. And I convinced him that all I eat was chocolate pop tarts and hotdogs. And he looked at me kind of like, are you serious? And I'm like, Yeah, call my mom. Like
she'll tell you. That's all I can eat. It's all I've ever eaten. That's what makes me happy. And he's like, okay, and we walked out of there with like, $300 worth of chocolate Pop Tarts and hot dogs. Like Dave was wacky, like I ate 814 Pop Tarts one time, for sure. Easily, like I would eat them. I would eat that. And then sometimes throw in some hot dogs, right? Pop Tarts were the best. By the way. They were the best. I'm pretty sure they're not real food. But they were the
best. Yeah. And Apple were my favorite. Great, great, I think because I never was given chocolate. Yeah, I really pushed it. And I said, Let's go chocolate. I Odede on chocolate. But Apple was the best because some of the apple ones didn't even have the white frosting, right? They were just,
yeah, the Pop Tart. Right? green box. I remember very clearly Licious stuff with my Froot Loops. By the way, you gotta hit the
Frank Yeah, man some things. So, so But Dave was just a people pleaser. He wasn't trying. Like he didn't know that I needed an adult in my life. He tried to be like a big brother. So I mean, he's like, What do you want to do this weekend? I'm like, we should go get a check out the hunting store and see if there's anything we could get to do together. He's like, like, what I'm like, I don't know, like maybe archery or, you know, we go there and I'm see the
slingshot. And I'm like, you know, we should get a slingshot. And he's like, why would you want a slingshot? Like you do like practice shooting, and so he bought one. And it's just so funny, because he would just do this all the time. I would get them to buy some old time gun to buy me a pelican. I mean, I remember one time I come home, I was probably there for like five months. And he comes home or work. And then I showed up and he goes, Do you know why all the
streetlights are busted out? And I said that kid at the top of the street. He's a bad kid. I bet it's him. And he's like, yeah, yeah, I've always wondered that. He's always playing at the park and like, yeah, that kids the kid and it was totally me. Like I literally went around the neighborhood doing stuff, and he would just believe anything I said to him. So one time We're going camping. And I knew on the way to this area is called
Fundy. So big national park, that in one of the small towns, they had a store this whole fireworks. So I convinced them to stop to buy some fireworks for the fire that night, some Roman candles. And he was a little apprehensive. He's like, I don't know if that's a good idea. It's a national park. I said, it's it's we do it all the time done with my dad. Don't worry about it. He's like, Alright, so we stop. And we buy like a dozen pack of Roman
candles. And that night, you know, do the whole dinner and then he's like, Hey, you want to shoot those Roman candles? And I was like, You know what, I think I'm gonna go to bed early tonight. We'll just save him for another time. And he's like, Oh, that's okay. Cool. Now I did that because I wanted the Roman candles for me. So what happened is like, two weeks later, Dave is going to the market on a Saturday morning and I convinced him to let me stay home, you
know, by myself. He's just gonna run out for 45 minutes and come back. Well, as soon as he like, left the place. I ran around the house looking for the Roman candles. He didn't hide them too well, they're on top of his closet. And I sat down in his living room that day was a single man 30 Some years old late 30s he had like a, you know Chesterfields and leather couches and book book is a whole wall was like old vintage books and he was just like he's a
professor. Like, just imagine you know what kind of a house the professor would live in. That was Dave. And here I am. I grabbed the Roman candles, I grabbed a knife from the kitchen, I grabbed some duct tape because we need some duct tape and a candle to censure my idea was I'll cut off 25% of the Roman candles and then reseal the rest. You know some wax, reseal the plastic put them back, you'll never know. Now I got these little quarter stick of Roman candles I can play with
my friends at school. And as I'm sitting there on the on the floor in the living room, feeling like a mad scientist I'm proud of myself actually. Because like I got I got I got to work really quick. I'm getting everything's working sealing everything's good getting a little pile of stuff I'm going to take for myself. And I accidentally hit the room the the candle into the gun pad the the residue that was like
left out. And I had paper on thing newspaper, right, because it's carpet, and it catches fire. And it it went from zero to WTF in like a half a second it was it was scary how like just fruit and the stack, the stack of quarter sticks I had started catching on fire, the full sticks, the leftovers were catching on fire. And the whole
thing is litter. So I jump up run into the kitchen where he showed me those little white fire extinguishers that are underneath, you know, I pull that thing out run to the living room. And it lasted half a second and did nothing
right. You always wonder if those things really work all over the house. They don't really work.
I don't know what the use case is. But it's not to put out a Roman Candle fire right. And and when I went back with the fire extinguisher, all I see is just green, red, purple fireballs going into the bookshelf into the couch like and I'm like trying to dodge them. And the whole time, it felt like it went on for 15 minutes. Probably lasted like a minute or two. But it literally felt like it was a never ending Fourth of July to peer to and fire alarms going off. And
luckily the fire stopped. The newspaper just burnt and didn't nothing else caught fire. And but when it all ended, the house is full of smoke. And I just realized I took things too far. And I went in my room and I packed up my backpack as fast as I could extra change of clothes. And I ran away where
to go. There was another home that you said you hadn't told the story before. So oh
the run the run in. And story. Let me tell you why the Ron and story so so. So what happened was I took off, went to my friend's house. It was a Saturday morning. And I told his parents that Dave so I could sleep over and I slept over and I slept over again on Sunday. And then eventually Dave and the police tried to find me and they they called because they knew he was my friend. His mom's like, yeah, he's been here all weekend. And all of a sudden the cops showed up and they arrested
me. So they brought me back to Dave's place and he was in tears. And yeah, he just he just said you got to take him. I don't know how to do this. I was 12, almost 13. When that happened, I got put into a group home. That was when things got worse. I ended up living as a 12 year old with 1617 year old young men that had already been to juvenile detention. They were on you know, some kind of remand closed, open custody for some crimes, whatever. And I was living with these people as a 12
year old. So like this, this this guy Shane that looked like he was 30 but was 18 was teaching me how to shave at 12 You know, it was just it was just pretty. I was learning stuff I should never learned and that's that's what kind of accelerated everything. And I ended up eventually getting you know, family therapy got released back to my home, but just a drug addict. My parents
got divorced again. 1314. And I ended up getting in trouble with the law and then put into close custody waiting to go to sentencing. And I ended up in this this group home this this foster home, it was a foster home, but for people that were in trouble the law Yeah. They were the money people. The people that you were talking about that take kids money. Yeah. So she was like, you know that that evil witch in 1000 Dalmatians that the movie like The DeVille. Well, she reminded
me of her. She had two kids. And I remember the day when I showed up. She pretty much said these two children are my prized jewels. Anything they asked you to do. You do it. They were nine and eight. And if you don't do it, the police are going to pick you up and put you in jail.
Where you think at the time I mean, you know you're going to bed at night, right? And you're in a bed and Are you thinking what got me here? Where am I in my life right now? Is this going to be my life? forever, because that's pretty lonely and depressing. And
I was I was I had cried myself to sleep quite a bit. It's brutal. Yeah. There was nights where I mean, when I was in a crisis center for sure. I was worried about the other adults. Dave for a while. I was like, he looks like a perv. Like this is weird. Like full on.
Like, what sounds weird, right? sounds so weird. Hey, come live. And
I'm not even in a relationship. Like, dude, you can't even be in a relationship with another person. You know what I mean? Like I could get if they were in a relationship that couldn't have kids. They want Foster. That's the first thing I thought of actually, when Yeah, like when I tell people this, they go. I don't think they would allow that today. And I'm like, Yeah, you're right. So 100%. But again, I just, I guess I learned how to tell myself a story to respond to that I did.
It wasn't crippling. But Ron, and Ann really messed me up because they actually became they acted like those people. Ron would drink every night. And it was funny because he was really kind, but he would drink to deal with his wife. And I don't know if they'll ever see this, but I honestly don't give a fuck because like, they're, they're not they were not good people to me. He allowed her to treat me like a dog. And if they weren't together anymore, I would zero be surprised. But
I'll tell you why. It's kind of a cool thing. Because I was there for probably six months. And, you know, I was pretty influential age 15. And I remember saying to myself, like, someday I'm going to, I'm going to be successful. And I'm gonna like, I'm going to buy their house and sell it. You know, I mean, like, I remember thinking this like, I'm gonna I'm gonna get them back. I don't know how I don't know when Yeah, so it was it was like some dark
energy, right? Yeah. The first day, I get my brand new McLaren. Guess whose house I fucking drove to?
I love it. Run Ads.
Knock on the door. Knock knock. Hey, yeah, I didn't actually know.
You wanted to drive over or you did drive. I
did drive over didn't park there. I got out of the car. I took photo. So I have a photo of the McLaren in front of the house. I didn't because I wasn't the same person. Like I just I'm not the kid that was in that home? I'm definitely not the kind of person that would do that. I'm definitely not. I
understand that people. I mean, so many people gave me grace and forgave me for some things that I'm very embarrassed about that for me not to assume that maybe they were just in a place that they didn't know how to deal with what they were dealing with. And I'm hoping that they ended up realizing that what they were doing was was wrong. I that's what I hope. And guess what, that's that's served me really well in life. So I got the photo. I went back. I could have bought the whole house sold
it on them. I could uh, you know, I could have found out where they worked and got them fired about the company and fire them like I did. I'm so funny. Like, sometimes I feel like, this is like, you know, you have bad customer service. Yeah, like, I will buy this company just to hire you.
Yeah, I got fired from my job after moving to Los Angeles and I had a boss who was a total dickhead jealous. They had a managing partner of my firm business was slow. So they were laying people off. I was the first one to go 24 years old in LA $3,000 in the bank, and I was working basically full time my third year in law school in Chicago, but I had met a girl in LA I went out to see her and I then I was rich. I mean, I was working
full time for a law firm. I made I think $40,000 my third year of law school, which is more than so my parents friends made. Yeah. And so they said come out to Los Angeles and you'll come meet everyone. I've been working with him on the phone. So I go out there Managing Partner musi Hey, come on out here. We're going to try to build a corporate group and I hate the last guy. We want to be lawyer
anyway. So I get there. And they just brought a six year lawyer who did a partner, one of the big firms to help build a corporate practice. The managing partner was gonna use all of his contacts. He was a well known big lawyer. And so I get I get there and there really is not work. But one day Managing Partner calls me in the office. And he says, Hey, Randy, you want my Raiders tickets? I said, Yeah, I've been there two weeks. And my boss, Jim bear, I hope
you're listening. Comes out insecure says hey, what what's going on? What was happening in there? Said Howard gave me is Raiders tickets. They said well what do you mean he gave me you not not me. And I said hey, and at that point, he had it out for me. And I had a review and I've never told this story before I'm not even sure if I've told him on my team or not. But as a first year lawyer, you know absolutely nothing come out of
law school. Nothing and just supposed to learn there and then you get a review one year into it. Well, they're gonna lay me off regardless, but that wasn't good enough for Jim. So I got a five and a half weeks performance review. And I'd written one memo. And the only memo I got the only memo I wrote was to the managing partner, it said A plus amazing job. So it was the only piece of paper that I had back from the firm. I would go around, hey, you know,
you've worked for me. A Jim bear decides for me a performance review. And it was there, I think 12 categories. Excellent, good, fair. Less than and whatever the worst was, every box was the worst one. Yeah, every box, you know, here's a guy who didn't like the fact I got Raiders tickets, didn't like my personality, whatever the case, he was very insecure guy. And I thought, okay, that is
just so fucked up. And I said, One day, when I made all this money, I could easily afford to buy his house and the house next to him. I said, I'm gonna buy a fucking house next door. I'm just gonna run the radio all day long and make his life miserable. But I didn't know. But I did hear something funny as well. I like to go on hikes by myself to clear my head. There's a hike by my house and our company have gone public. This crazy store, by the way, our company have gone public.
And you know, we can talk about success and sometimes very hard. You know, you're very lonely and you don't know what is going on. And you have all these fake friends and people are really not rooting for you. But I go on this hike. And I swear to God, there's Jim bear. And he's sitting there and he's waiting for me to come up to him because he's he could see me coming on the hike. He's 100 yards ahead on the hill. He's waiting for me, Randy, Randy, Randy, Randy. And I just pretend like he
wasn't there. You want to be my best friend that wrote, WhatsApp did he
know you hiked that now what I
hadn't seen the guy and he acted like it. And there was a third instance where he has started a law firm. And this guy I knew from Northwestern law school, he was a couple years younger than me, he reached out to me, I like to help people. Okay, guy's name was Jeff. Jeff was at a big firm, he leaves to start a firm, come over for dinner one night. And, you know, he knew I had all these portfolio companies. And we were investing the lawyers
for all kinds of stuff. He said, Yeah, you know, by the way, I'm partners with Jim bear, and we'd love to pitch your business. Like, are you fucking joking? So I never really called Jim but backed, I sure hope you're listening. But I
mean, this is I think this is like, the whole ideas. You know, it's energy man. It's like, you could have bought that house and made his life. But then it's like, what energy are you bringing
that baju. And I just figured, you know what, whatever happened to Jim, he deserves, and if he I, I don't root for people's downfall, right? I want everyone to succeed. And, you know, we're gonna talk about empathy later in the show. And I've learned as I've gotten older and a little bit more mature, that you never know what someone is going through. And so people do treat you like shit. I mean, the foster care stuff is prey to it.
And you're right that the system is is very unfortunate with people that just want to make income and try to spend the least amount on the children. And that's, that's what I like today. I do a lot of work with foster care, like, speak to parents speak to organizations speak to kids. We do. I mean, it's just kind of it's like a big part of my life.
Yeah, that's my thing, too. One of the things that I give back to sick kids and foster care, yeah, well, let's move on. You're 1516 you're dealing drugs. You're hanging out with motorcycle gang. So tell us about Sam and his dog.
It's kind of nuts. So I've seen a lot of things. I'm assuming this is the story you want me to share. But I was actually at this party with my brother. And like, you know, these guys were, you know, mid 20s 30s. And it's the Hells Angels that are you know, in Canada, we have a lot of Hells Angels. And they kind of run the the drug trade. And several times I've been in a vehicle that I'm just lucky that we
didn't get stopped. Because that would have changed that would have like, caused some serious issues on my with my record,
you're 16 and you're driving in the car with Hells Angels in the 30s. Oh,
yeah. Yeah, we do runs up to Montreal. So a 10 hour drive.
You're working for them, essentially. Yeah,
I mean, I was helping them they gave me access to products that I would you know, I would sell so like I wasn't I wasn't a big dealer, but I sold enough to like four or five guys to support my habits pay my bills. I wasn't I was on the run. You know, at that point had already ended up in jail the first time like 1415 this is after I get out. I remember when I was in I was like, can we get out we don't change my friend group. I'm going to do everything different. I lasted less than 24
hours. Like just right back into it. So yeah, I was I was hanging out with people, I'm at a party, everybody's high. And this guy, Sam, who owned the house, he was crazy like that you meet people and you look in their eyes. And you know, they're crazy. Like, there's unfortunate. It's just mental mental mental illness is a thing, right? And there's just something missing. And that was
this guy. And it's probably why everybody like was scared of him, because like, he would just be sitting there all of a sudden pull out a gun and like, put it in somebody's face. And we're at a house party in his backyard. And there's like, fire and there's a bunch of picnic tables around the fire. And me and my brother was sitting on the table. And there's other people there, and all of a sudden Sam comes out, and he's holding his dog. And, you know, he's like, kind of like carrying this big,
like German shepherd. And he's got a rifle. And we're like, What the heck is this guy doing? Right? But nobody wants to say anything, because you don't want the rifle the point at you. So the dog isn't saying much to the dogs like, Oh, he's picking me up. And he's, you know, he's, we're hanging out. He's walking towards the fire with the dog. And all of a sudden, he kind of prompts the dog up on his lap and grabs the gun and pulls the trigger and shoots the dog in
front of everyone in front of everybody. splattering everywhere.
I mean, it's nighttime, and it's desert night. It's dark outside, so we didn't really see the splatter. But the dog yet like I've never heard in my life. And then he picks up the dog and he throws it on the fire. And the dog isn't really dead. It was the most. That's insane. I mean, I would love to say that's the craziest thing I ever saw. But the I mean, no. What's crazier, I think the time I saw a guy, she literally sitting just like this, grab his gun and shoot the
guy in the leg. But like, put the Like if you're a little closer. Yeah, like literally just nonchalant. As if no big deal. Pow, right in that rate in the hamstring mafia style. Yeah. But it was almost like, there wasn't even a reason. But if that guy high on drugs, yeah, just like, I don't know if he didn't like him. Or he wanted to scare him, or he meant to shoot next home. But, and I'm sitting across the living room going. Yep, out here. You know what I
mean? Like, there's just been these moments in my life that are just, you know, clearly I've had some guardian angels, man. Well,
let's talk about a big event that led to you finding yours, which was the high speed chase. So explain how you're on the run from the cops. You stole a car. And then what happened? Yeah,
so I mean, I had before I sold the car. I actually, again, super ashamed of all this stuff. But I ended up doing a break and enter and I sold some guns. So the reason I was on the run is because my my brother called me told me not to come home was my mom found the guns and she called the police. They're waiting for me. I had a handgun with me in the backpack. I can't come home. Don't know what I'm going to do. I know the cops found the guns they know damn well, where they came from.
So now I got a option. We're like, I can't stay in the city. So I decided to steal a car and take off go to Montreal where I had some connections from the Hells Angels, and
you know how to hotwire a car or
you just we've been doing it since I was 12.
Yeah, you've been stealing cars and you are well, I
cannot confirm or deny but let's just say transportation wasn't a problem on the Martel brothers. Okay, yeah, we knew which cars and where to get the tool. Yeah, still a car out a bunch of drugs with me and some booze and just ended up driving and the whole time I'm drinking and I'm doing drugs and I'm high and it's probably driving for like three hours and I was gonna car was a it was a it wasn't even a cool car. It was like an Aerostar
van. Okay, because they they're easy to hotwire so like the cars you steal or not cool cars, right cool. Cars are harder to steal
right Kia now I think is the big car. Everyone steal? Yeah, we back in the day was kei
cars all day long. Okay, car is. So yeah, it was it was it was his van. And so the backpack was sitting next to me and pulling over to get gas off the highway. And there's a routine roadblock in this place called Sussex, New Brunswick on the East Coast, Canada. And I see maybe third in the row, and I got nowhere to go. So I just rolled up and told them you know, it's my mom's car and I forgot my driver's license and stuff at home and they said No
problem, just pull over. And as soon as they said that I took off, right. And my plan was to try to get some distance to maybe, you know, run in the woods and try to make a dash you know, I didn't have anything just the backpack. So I was in this neighborhood, I saw an open garage door and I came in carrying a little bit too much speed. And you know, my plan was get in the garage, close the door and run out the back and maybe make my way I think I might have watched too many car
chase movies. And I pulled in the as I pulled into the driveway, I just, you know, the cars, the frickin van it didn't have any aerodynamics. So it just smashed into side of the, the casing of the garage. And that's when I went for the gun. And I just kept pulling on it and pulling on it and fluid.
So you're in the garage. I'm in
that car, your canvas, you know, like those old army Canvas style backpacks with the strings and the top hanging guns in there. It's a revolver.
You open it up, you get it?
Could I grabbed it, put my hand in the bag, but he got stuck between the hat, the seat and the bag. Okay, you couldn't get it out, couldn't get out of the bag. And the bag was stuck to the seat. I couldn't I kept pulling on it. Yeah, for whatever reason the cops essentially rushed the car. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Because why wear seatbelt if you have a stolen car, and the cops just literally opened the door and just grabbed me. And I ended up flying across the front yard.
And they kind of forced me and next thing I knew I was in the back of the cop car. And my plan was to pull the gun and let the cops take my life.
You wanted to I didn't want to go back to jail. You don't want to go back to jail. Now you're going to shoot, you're gonna threaten to shoot a police officer
gonna shoot a police officer I was I was gonna hope they would take my life.
At that point. Were you depressed from everything you were doing and said, My life isn't going well. So I want to end it or just in that moment? No,
I, I kind of made the decision. I made the decision when I sold the car. This was going to be it. I'm either gonna get away by wasn't going back to jail.
But now you're going to jail. And you're going to a adult jail. Not a juvenile jail. Yeah. Tell us about the guard Brian and what he said to you.
Yeah, so what happened is just because of my criminal background, and I was, you know, obviously in trouble from a young age, I get sent to an adult prison. So it's this place called St. John regional Correctional Center. And it's cool. Well, it's cool. It's not very cool. It's a prison. But it's cool, because it had you had these two youth blocks, you know, part of the rest of the adult facility they had like, I think dozen kids in each block. cellblock, I wasn't one of them.
And it was dedicated to youth that wanted to have like, kind of addiction problems that wanted to get some support. So they had like a program that they ran. And I went there, I really wanted originally to go to rehab center. So this place called Portage. But the judge could see that I was just trying to go there because I didn't want to go to prison. And he
said, go prove yourself. And you know, if you show me, you know, through the parole board or whatever, maybe we'll we'll let you do you know the rest of your sentence there. So I ended up in this this place. And I did like I probably did the first three, four months. And it's hard managed prison politics. There's like real like, you hear the stories. If you watch any of these Netflix shows, like when you go to jail, try to stay out of trouble, like just stay just to saying anybody. I don't want
to get involved. You're gonna get involved. Yeah. So like it was really hard to essentially be incarcerated and not get involved in stuff. I did a fairly good job. But one when breakfast I was sitting there eating breakfast, they let us out of the cell blocks and kind of put us on like, a cafeteria table style. And I went, I went for the coffee and it's kind of the end of the coffee and I poured it. And then there was this kid named Kirk sitting in
front of me. And he was talking to somebody when I finished coffee. But Kirk was like, I don't know if you went to high school with like these genetic phenom, but he had like an eight pack. Like he was a muscle and he was only 50. He was a year younger than me but he was just like, built. I was I didn't look like this as a teenager. And he went for the coffee. And I knew as soon as he grabbed the coffee, and it was empty. He was gonna say something. And he just looked at the table and he said
Who? Who's the goof that drank the rest of the last of the coffee. And as soon as he said that everybody knew is me. I just jumped up and I said I did what are you gonna do about it? And fight fight breaks out friggin the guards rushed the unit. And they grabbed Kirk and I and they throw us in solitary confinement. Which is probably the most horrendous thing you can do to a human they strip you down in your underwear 2423 and a half hour locked down. concrete slab No Matt No
bedding. You sleep on the floor? No, you slept well. I mean, it's like the floor but it's it's just, it's like higher. Okay? It's just it's like there should be a bed there but they take it away because they don't want to make it comfortable for you. And then there's just one piece stainless, you know, toilet sink combo. And they don't tell you how long you're going to be their lights are on don't even
know what time of day it is. You can kind of figure it out by the meals now but they like open up thing through your meals in ask you for your back. And what was crazy is when you're in there, all the other inmates are in the in the shoe, but they're rockin their cells. So they're, they're freaking out. They're laying on their back smashing these steel doors to piss off the guards. But the guards on the other side of the door and they probably have earplugs. I'm right next to
them. I'm thinking if one of these maniacs end up, getting out, I do not want to be here, right here. I'm saying, Yeah, I wasn't. So I was asleep. And I'm stressed out. And they would let me out into this, like open air area for like, open areas in like 10 by 10. You know, brick walls, fence at the top, like you couldn't get out. But at least you're outside for 30 minutes a day. That was the rule the max, I had to let Joe but I was there for three days. On the
third day, the door opens. And those guys standing there named Brian and Brian was one of the guards that he'd been working there for about a decade. And he was he's kind of one of those guys, you know, like, there's people in your life that, you know, if you respect them, they'll respect you. So Brian, Brian didn't talk a lot. But if you if you didn't mess with them, like if you listen to him, he looked the other way if you
need an extra dessert, right? Or if you you know if they knew if he knew you had taken something from the whatever room and you know, an extra pen that you shouldn't have had like, he wasn't too strict, but you just had to respect them. If you didn't listen to him, then a lot of those little kind of looked the other way stuff went away. So he opened the door and I could just see the face of disappointment on his face. Like he was just not happy. And he's
just like, come with me. So I walk with him back to the cellblock and we actually walk past the door to our unit to the next door, which is the guard unit. And nobody's supposed to be in there like this is only for, you know, the guards that and no inmate had I don't know of any. I mean, it's ever been there. Because we'd always talk about and wonder what it's like on the other side of that mirror. Right? It's a one way mirror. It's the inside. And he says come with me and he opens
the door. I thought I didn't know if I was getting jumped. I didn't know if like he's doing this to get me in trouble to send me to some other place. Like I was just like, I followed him. And he sat me down in the corner back, you know, to the cellblock I lived in, so I get to see the inside. And he sits me in a chair and then pulls up a chair and sits in front of me. And he just says, What do you do in here? And I said, Well, what do you mean, he goes, What are
you doing in this place? So I saw a car and high speed chase and guns and he's like, it was not that he goes, What are you doing here? I said, I got a fight with Kirk. And you know, the throw is in the hole. And he was Dan, he was not that. He goes, I want you to hear something. I've watched you for the last five months. Stay out of you know the the politics and stick to yourself and work on your GED and like just you're
you stay out of stuff, man. He goes, I need you to hear this if nobody's ever told you this, but you don't belong here. And there was just something the way he said that. And I think who he was. That made me go. Why is he saying this? What is it about? Like he doesn't have to he's not my caseworker like there was because he had been working there for a decade. His words, planted a seed in me a belief that I never had my whole life.
And maybe other people had said this to me, but he literally said the worst he goes, you're a good kid. I don't remember ever being told I'm a good kid ever. Like it wasn't part it was Dan's a troublemaker. Dan's always in trouble. Dan's the person who starts things. Dan's involved, there's nothing good that can come like you know what I mean? Like all the things you could think about. That's what I heard my whole life. And here was a guy saying, you're a good kid.
You don't belong here. You need to get out of here. And it took a while for me to accept it. But that moment shifted everything. And about six weeks later, I got released to a rehab center that saved my life.
You're listening to part one of my amazing Interview with Dan Martell. Be sure to tune in next week to buy amazing conversation with Dan