Clint Russell From Liberty Lockdown | Hn 277

Adam Haman (0:07)

Hello there, and welcome to Haman Nature. I am Adam Haman, and I'm honored to be joined by one, Clint Russell, host of the Liberty Lockdown podcast. How the hell are you doing, man?

Clint Russell (0:16)

I'm pretty good. I survived Canada.

So did you. So yeah, I'm back at it, man. Thanks for having me.

Adam Haman (0:23)

Yeah, I was going to make the joke. You look really familiar. I was just on a cruise for a week, and I could swear I seen a guy like you walking around this whole time.

We were both on the Tom Woods cruise. How did you like it?

Clint Russell (0:36)

A bit oxygenary and for me personally.

But the ship was very nice. The food was great. The caliber of the ship was great. Obviously, the Tom Woods audience was fun. And it was great to meet a bunch of people that have listened to me for years that I've never got to meet before. And so it's always novel in that regard. And checking out Canada was nice. It wasn't anything too jaw-dropping, but it was very beautiful. So all good on my end.

Adam Haman (1:05)

Yeah, I went on all of the Contra Cruises with Tom and Bob, and I've been on both of Tom's cruises, and I just love them. And it's not really the destination of the ship or even the events. It's the people. The people you meet there are so great, and you'll make friends for a lifetime.

Are you in New York City? Is that an Airbnb I see behind you?

Clint Russell (1:28)

It is indeed. Yep.

I just got in, I don't know, 36 hours ago, give or take, and finally have my studio set up for Robbie to arrive, but I am having technical difficulties with my headphones. So hopefully this audio will come across crisply for your audience. But yeah, Robbie the Fire will be here in about 40 minutes, and we're going to do a show. It'll be the first one I've done in about two weeks. So good to knock the rust off.

Adam Haman (1:54)

Knock the rust off, exactly. We'll say hi to Robbie for me. I had him on once before, and I just scheduled an interview with him in a couple of days. Robbie's the best.

So yeah, our technical difficulties knocked a little bit of time that we had together. So I'm just going to jump right in to stuff. Tell my audience, the five of them who haven't heard of you before, a little bit about yourself. You're like me, I think. I was playing poker for a living, and if I understand correctly, you were a private equity and mortgage broker guy. And both of us got our careers just completely and utterly derailed by COVID. So tell us all what happened to you.

Clint Russell (2:39)

Yeah. I mean, I was a private money mortgage broker.

I was brokering a couple of hundred million dollars worth of deals, and 2020 came around. And honestly, it didn't derail me in the sense that like they came around and they shut down my company. I worked from home, so they couldn't do that. But it shut me down in the sense that it no longer allowed for me to analyze risk properly.

Adam Haman (3:01)

Right.

Clint Russell (3:02)

You know, as a poker player, you'll understand that very well. It's like never being able to see your opponent's cards. Like they never have to show. That's kind of what it felt like in trying to analyze the risk of the market. And obviously, I had no idea as to what the government's programs would be to try and alleviate the financial strains that the lockdowns were creating. We had no understanding of how long the lockdowns were going to last or how pervasive they would be.

It was just pure darkness. And as someone who takes their job seriously, who doesn't want to lose their investor's capital, I took it seriously and I shut down. So that's how it happened.

Adam Haman (3:46)

If you're going to extend the poker analogy, it's not even like you can't see your opponents or their cards or anything. It's like, is the table even there? Are the rules changed? Can I make it out of the parking lot with this money? I mean, 800 pound Godzilla is just changing the rules in a cruel and capricious manner. They shut down the casinos here for a few months, which was dystopian, you know, to drive down the strip and see everything dark.

And for me, I just, I don't know if something broke. It's bad enough that they did it. But what really ruined me is that the people I play with every day, you know, my friends, my customers, my compatriots, they just rolled over and sort of begged for more. They just bought into the whole slop. So I spent like two years hiking or playing golf, just like doing anything to take my mind off what they did and what we allowed them to do.