Lanny Morton's Blog

My life story in 1198 words

I grew up in Minnesota (In and around Minnetonka, yes, the home of the Tonka Toys).  It was an awesome place to grow up as the people were nice and I love playing hockey and there was plenty of ice.

Our family moved to Arizona when I was 12.  I immediately became best friends with Dave Beer who ended up making me my first cocktail at age 15 (Crystal light and Vodka), we ended up throwing up that evening (Thanks Dave) and I began a career of drinking booze from Age 15 to about age 34.  It is a career that I am grateful is over even though I had a lot of fun.

I went to Saguaro high School.  Great place, great people.  Super fond memories of a lot of great friends.

Went to the University of Arizona after that.  Thought that the education was going to set me up for massive success, crap was I wrong.  I am not sure why I had the expectations that I did, but I couldn’t get a decent job out of college.  I ended up waiting tables at the Arizona Center and substitute teaching in the Phoenix Union High School district (wow, was that an interesting experience).

I ended up working at a printing company, making plates for the printing press.  That was where I had my first really shitty job.  I was making $8/hour working with nasty chemicals with an asshole supervisor named Don who liked to bark orders and be a prick.   I worked real hard and got promoted to be the feeder of a 40″ press.  I am not sure if you have seen a 40″ hiedleburg 8 color press before, but feeding paper into that thing sucks ass.  I remember it was hot and miserable and the paper was heavy as hell.  Atleast I didn’t have to work with that prick Don though so I was grateful.

I ended up in sales at the printing place.  That was waaaaay more fun.  I got to work with Frank Woods.  Frank really tried to mentor me, I didn’t realize it at the time.  I was too young for his good advice and didn’t realize that it was good advice until years later when I was ready for the information.  I wish I wasn’t such a dumb ass who thought he knew everything.  I am grateful for Frank and have fond memories of some of the lessons.

I left Woods litho to run a sporting goods store and be a partner in it.  It was a Play it Again Sports store in Mesa Arizona.  That was an amazing experience where my confidence in business skyrocketed.  I took a store that was doing just under $600,000 in annual sales to 1.15 million in 3 years.  Our store became #2 out of 850 stores, it was cool.  At the time, I became discontent with running the store and thought that I didn’t like the job, looking back, I really didn’t like myself (too much drinking) and thought the job was the problem when the problems was me (Wasn’t aware of it back then).

After Play it again, I became a sales rep for Itech and some other hockey lines.  That was a fun year, I had a map of all the “In and Out burger”s in my car and went around calling on hockey rinks.

After that, Went back to selling print sales.  I sucked at that and conveniently used 9/11 and the dot.com bust of 2000 as excuse as to why I sucked instead of taking responsibility.  This would be one of my most painful times of my life but also the time where I learned the most.

At the end of 2001 and beginning of 2002, I lost my house, my marriage, My aunt Sherrie (Cancer) and My grandpa (stroke, a week after Sherrie died).  I was so broke it wasn’t even funny.  I was driving a mini van that I traded 2 sets of golf clubs for that leaked so much oil that I had to add a quart a day.

It was in that moment of total misery that I had my biggest defining moment.  I remember saying to myself, “ok god, i give up.  It’s up to you”.  I stopped caring about money and started focusing on helping others.

I met Deena (Now my wife) and things started to change.  I went to a Bob Proctor class in August 2002 and my whole mindset shifted.  It was the education I needed that I never got in college on how to really be successful in life.  (in all areas, not just money)

Deena and I took $800 and turned it into over 3.3 million in annual revenue within 3 years.  We ended up being in Entrepruener magazine twice, fox news and accepted the life time achievement award at the Webby’s (The internet equivelent of the Oscars) on behalf of eBay’s 233 million users.  The other recipients were the founders of youtube (Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, two awesome guys by the way) and David Bowie.

Link to Entrepruner article:

http://budurl.com/33kf

Link to fox news Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTnf2cJUxLQ

Link to webby award video

http://budurl.com/mjc6

In November 2007, Deena and I started working on our Vemma business.  This was my first residual income stream and gave us the flexibility to get rid of our sporting goods business.

In January of 2008, I came up with idea of sixminutestosuccess.com and asked Bob Proctor if he wanted to do it.  He said yes.  We created it and the experience of doing it was and is priceless.  We are learning a lot every day.

In June of 2008, we talked to Daryl Hataway and Daniel Caine about buying our business.  I really thought it was a good idea and I trusted them and sold them the business with NO money down.  After we closed on the sale of Sportscloseouts.com in August, 2008, Daryl and Daniel moved the business to Reno.  After they bought the business, they made 2 or 3 payments then stopped paying us.  They paid a total of $5000 to vendors and liquidated inventory (Over $250,000 worth).  In January of 09, I took back the domain names and the ebay account which sent Daniel on a very strange fit of rage.  He ended up getting into the SGR email system and sent a defaminatory email out to 16,000 people saying I was a crook and sent me a ton of text messages threatening my life.  It was an interesting experience and I wish Daniel and Daryl well.  They taught me more great lessons about business deals and what NOT to do.

2009 has been the best year ever.  Sixminutes is going great.  Vemma/Verve is fun and aswesome, all is well.  We are working on a couple of new ideas that I am excited about.  We are getting a second place in Maui to hang out in. (Friends are welcome there anytime )

Our focus is on helping other people create freedom in their lives and having the ability to quit their job if they choose to.  I think the current economy is a great opporunity for people to realize that multiple sources of income are not just something to want to have but that they are very necessary.

Enough about me.  If there is anything I can do to help you, let me know.

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Lanny