CENTRAL FLORIDA “Hold on one second,” John Morgan interrupted, seconds into our interview. “I’ve got a big deal goin’ right now. Biggest deal of my life. Hold on.” Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. That is John B. Morgan, Esquire, perhaps most recognized as the baby-faced visage and voice of the longest running and most ubiquitous advertising campaign throughout Florida, “I’m John Morgan. For the people.” Although inching toward retirement age, he’s still keeping a pace that few ever achieve in their younger, most productive years. John once told me the self-actualized caveat he gave to Ultima Morgan, his wife of 34 years — and the other Morgan in Morgan & Morgan — before they were wed: “My life is a rollercoaster. It is always spinning. People get on for a ride, then they get back off. But I am always moving. You can get on and off as you please, but this is who I am and I’m not going to be someone different.” Three decades and four kids later, they are still together and John is still on the ride, still entirely on his own terms. But he’s not the same man as he was when he got married in 1982, or even a couple of years ago. He’s turned 60, become a grandfather and his youngest son, Dan, became the last of his three boys to become a lawyer and join the family firm. (“I’m a senior! I was at Chick-fil-A and the cashier pulled me to the front of the line and gave me a free small iced tea because of my advanced age!”) His priorities have shifted. “It’s a transition,” he says with a clarity of purpose, “moving from success to significance.” That’s not to say that Morgan — the cherubic-looking chairman of the eponymous Morgan & Morgan law firm (which recently opened offices in Philadelphia, the ninth state in which the nearly 350-lawyer firm has offices), owner of the Wonderworks chain of amusement parks (featuring John’s favorite attraction, the 114 | INFLUENCE SUMMER/FALL 2016 Upside Down House), Marriott franchisee, perpetual thorn in the side of just-ousted Democratic Party Chairman and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, general of a self-proclaimed medical marijuana “Army of Angels,” and serial entrepreneur and investor — is contemplating anything resembling retirement. He’s just taking an evaluative step back. “I’m much closer to death than … not. And I just gotta make sure I got all my shit straight. I spend a lot more time thinking about the life after than I did before.” “ IT’S A TRANSITION, MOVING FROM success TO significance.” — JOHN MORGAN But while age has brought out Morgan’s reflective side, he’s also at the point where he knows what he wants from this life, and has the means to live each day almost exactly as he chooses. For Morgan, that means, primarily, his three C’s — climate, clan and comfort. The trio go handin hand and, on any given day, he has them all in spades. On a hot, Central Florida day in May of this year, John Morgan stood in the center of a circle of people, holding court inside a hospitality suite at Orlando’s Gaylord Palms Hotel and Convention Center. He had just delivered a nearly hour-long speech to more than 1,000 attendees of the Marijuana Business Daily Conference and Expo, finishing to a standing ovation. (“Getting 1,000 potheads on their feet is a major accomplishment,” remarked one of the conventioneers.) The intimate audience in the suite listened, rapt, hanging on his every word. I walked in on this scene as it was already underway, expecting John to be regaling the crowd with war stories from the medical marijuana campaign, or answering questions about the business side of the marijuana reform issue. He was doing neither. “I am on a constant mission,” he told them, “to stay between 60 and 80 degrees. Can’t be too hot; can’t be too cold. I’m just chasing that perfect temperature.” This hunt for thermometric perfection — the “climate” part of “climate, clan and comfort” — begins with his home base of Lake Mary, just east of Orlando off Interstate 4. Further east, in the sleepy beach town of Ponce Inlet, is “San Clemente,” the waterfront property John named after Richard Nixon’s Western White House. When the sweltering Central Florida summers knock him out of that 60 to 80 degree comfort zone, John heads to his lake house in New Hampshire, just outside of laconic Laconia. (“New Hampshire is beautiful for, like, six weeks between July and September. After Labor Day, it’s over. Winter. Get the fuck out.”) The most recent addition is his condo in Maui, Hawaii where, for the last two years, Morgan and his family are spending more and more time each winter. And just in the last few months, Morgan has signed
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