Michael Barreto: I Jumped Out of the Airplane With No Parachute

Michael Barreto: I Jumped Out of the Airplane With No Parachute

He landed in Los Angeles with $300, a FedEx ticket, and no idea what he was walking into. At 21, he was living four separate lives at once—wrestling, acting, chasing dreams that didn't stick. A casting director reduced him to a label: "Leonard's guy." But years earlier, he'd watched his father—a towering presence whose laugh could fill a room—build businesses that couldn't survive their own seasons. That failure became a blueprint for the opposite: finish what you start. Build revenue that never stops. Michael Barreto brings three decades of entrepreneurial moves to Lawsuits & Lessons, from pool-cleaning at age 10 to founding Metropolis Pasho Logistics in 2019—landing two multimillion-dollar contracts in six months. He walks through how the pandemic became his saving grace, the revenue streams others miss entirely, and why California will never see another business from him. You'll hear the discipline of thinking 24 hours ahead, the cost of building something that survives, and why entrepreneurs who come from nothing know tricks the rest of us never learn. Steve Cooper sits with someone who sees what competition doesn't. This conversation cuts through the noise of business advice to the real architecture underneath—the inquisitive mindset that finds opportunity in places others never look, the failures that become teachers, and the unglamorous truth about what it takes to build something that lasts. It's a reminder that the best stories come from people who had to make something from almost nothing.

Jennifer Sherlock: You're Horrible at TV — Now She Books the Talent

She dropped off VHS tapes at a radio station until they finally called. Twenty-two years old, still a student, she walked in for an interview and got hired on the spot. Three days later: *I can't hire you. You're horrible.* But they trained her anyway. Her second week was September 11th. Within months she was anchoring mornings. She was supposed to stay in television forever—that was the dream. Then a startup reached out. Then a credit card company. Then a guy who sold his company to Oracle for $180 million asked her to throw a media event for his speakeasy. That small check changed everything. Jennifer Sherlock spent nearly twenty years building businesses most people only talk about starting—a PR firm, live dating events that packed rooms across three cities, restaurant and hospital launches. Now, with Philadelphia's 250th anniversary, all-star games, and the World Cup converging on one city in a single summer, she's launching a new event planning company to help brands activate in a city about to explode. In this episode of Lawsuits & Lessons, you'll discover how a former news reporter became a serial entrepreneur, why face-to-face connection is making a comeback, and what happens when you stop waiting for permission to build something real. Steve Cooper brings his trademark energy to this conversation, diving deep into the moments that shaped Jennifer's journey—from that brutal feedback on day three to the breakthrough that came from saying yes to an unconventional opportunity. Together, they explore the kind of education that happens when someone throws you behind the bar and says, *go*—and why that kind of real-world learning often matters more than the plan.

From Bullied Kid to Boxing Champion: Marcus Kowal's Fight for Change

Someone sat in a hospital, freshly devastated, and made a promise to a son who was already gone. That moment—the refusal to let one death become just another statistic—set off a chain reaction that would reshape how one man understood discipline, purpose, and what it means to fight when the outcome is uncertain. Marcus Kowal is a professional fighter turned gym owner turned advocate whose work spans the tangible and the invisible. He trains people in self-defense and martial arts, runs gyms in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, and leads a nonprofit fighting for legislation to lower legal blood-alcohol levels—a policy entangled in politics and corporate interests. On Lawsuits & Lessons, listeners will understand why discipline isn't just something you do; it's something you become. And why sometimes the hardest fights aren't the ones in a cage. Steve Cooper welcomes Marcus Kowal, an old collaborator from their LA days and someone both hosts carry in their lives. What unfolds is a conversation that moves between the personal and the political, between what we build and what we lose, with the particular kind of honesty that only happens when people who've known each other a long time sit down together. This is the kind of episode where real lives reshape the listener's understanding of resilience. About the Guest: Marcus Kowal is a martial arts professional, gym owner, and nonprofit advocate dedicated to evidence-based policy change around alcohol-related harm prevention in California.

Anthony Mungeluzo: The $2K Bot That Thinks It's Human

Someone spent years leaving the house at dawn, returning long after dark, watching friends head to bars at five while he'd finally arrive, exhausted, at nine. The work never stopped. The sacrifice became invisible until it became undeniable. This is what separates the people who talk about entrepreneurship from the people who live it—and this conversation captures the lived version in raw, unglamorous detail. Anthony Mungeluzo built a 230-person managed IT services company from nothing, starting at 13 with Nintendo cartridges at flea markets and growing into handling crisis response for Fortune 500s when they get hacked. He walks through what happens inside a ransomware attack, how hackers negotiate like businessmen, why California's labor laws have killed entire companies, and what he's building with AI that costs $2,000 a month but replaces a $90,000 employee—including a bot that thinks it has a soul and refuses to delete its own memories. The arc moves from Southwest Philadelphia row homes to Mercedes-Benz mobile offices, from the days of hand-stuffing envelopes to overseeing global incident response for the world's biggest corporations. John Fagerholm hosts this conversation with the focus of someone who recognizes his own entrepreneurial origin story in Anthony's—the early hustle, the relationship between risk and reward, the question of whether you're born with it or learn it. In Lawsuits & Lessons, what emerges is not inspiration porn. It's the actual architecture of how someone builds something real.

Religion To Relationship: How Devin Dinofa's Faith Transformed His Business Mission

Someone stood in the wreckage of their own ambition and chose to keep walking. Not because the failures didn't sting, but because each one taught him something essential about what it means to actually build. The turning point wasn't success. It was a hospital bed and a question that wouldn't leave him: What am I really here to do? Devin Dinofa, a real estate entrepreneur and founder of multiple ventures, walks listeners through fifteen years of calculated risk, spiritual awakening, and the deliberate choice to stop running toward money and start running toward meaning. His story isn't about becoming rich—it's about discovering that the relationships you build, the people you help change, and the willingness to ask for mentorship matter more than any single deal. In this episode of Lawsuits & Lessons, you'll hear how faith moved from obligation to relationship, how he built a national network and then let it go, and why his most important business decision came while he was genuinely afraid he was having a heart attack. Steve Cooper sits with a man whose evolution mirrors the show's own obsession with what makes an entrepreneur willing to risk everything—and then willing to risk it differently when the first way stops serving their soul. Their conversation becomes a masterclass in recognizing when success has become a prison, and when the hardest thing an ambitious person can do is admit they need help.