Jon Morrow: The Man Who Changed the Rules [From the Archive]

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This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.

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Presenting The Archive. Classic episodes that remain timeless. The raw, unfiltered conversations from the early days in which people shared their failures and showed us exactly how they rebuilt everything from the ground up.

Jon Morrow (1:10)

One of the things that just happened recently is all of the adults with my disease formed a private Facebook group. And there aren't that many of us.

James Altucher (1:21)

Right, because we even mentioned in one of the articles... That you're like one of the oldest people around.

Jon Morrow (1:25)

I'm one of the oldest with my type of my disease. I'm the only one over 30 with my type that I think doesn't have a ventilator.

So yeah, in part of my world, you know, I'm ancient. But yeah, it's really cool to be involved with them.

James Altucher (1:41)

And let me just ask, do you find most of the people in the 20s who are on this Facebook group a little bit scared?

Jon Morrow (1:47)

Yeah, you know, I'm actually not very popular amongst people with my disease because most people, they grew up in a world where everyone is tweeting them differently, like they don't have any expectations for them. That's one of the greatest trials of having a disability is living in a world where people don't expect you to do anything. Where most people expect that, you know, you're just gonna be at home watching TV, just trying to survive, you know, live out your days as best you can.

And because of that, most people with disabilities don't have any expectations for themselves. In their world, that's not normal. It's not possible.

James Altucher (2:37)

I mean, do they get, when you say that you're not very popular among them, is it because you've achieved so much and you push them? I mean, part of, I think a survival strategy is to achieve. Because they say the two most dangerous days in a person's life are the day they're born or the year they're born and the year they retire. Those are when people are likely to die. The two years when people are most likely to die. And you're basically saying don't retire just because no matter how great the disability is. There's always things to achieve and to do. And I should mention by introduction, Jon Morrow, you've written tons of blog posts that are so extremely valuable. You've built multi-million dollar businesses and we're gonna talk about that.

But it's kind of in the context, it's almost bad that it has to be within this context, but it is what it is.

Jon Morrow (3:33)

Sure.

James Altucher (3:34)

It's in the context you were born with spinal muscular atrophy.

Jon Morrow (3:38)

You got it right.

James Altucher (3:39)

And what does that mean?

Jon Morrow (3:42)

So what it means is, I mean to get a little bit technical for a moment, our bodies have two different types of nerves. We have motor nerves and we have sensory nerves. So your motor nerves are what allows your body to move. They're all over your body. Your sensory nerves are what allow you to feel. Okay.

The motor nerves in my body, because of a genetic defect, they don't get enough protein to repair themselves. So over time, the motor nerves die all through my body.

James Altucher (4:16)

So when you were young, well, let's say when you were a little boy, were you still kind of running around a little bit or was it fast?

Jon Morrow (4:25)

So my disease, I was actually diagnosed at six months old, which is really early. There are three different types of my disease in general. So they have type one, type two, type three. And type one is the most severe, type three is the least severe, right? They thought I had type one because I never walked. I never even crawled properly. The reason why my mother took me into the doctor, she noticed I was trying to crawl, but I was kind of like dragging my legs behind me and it looked awkward. And she was worried. So she took me into the doctor and that's when they did a muscle biopsy back then. Now they have genetic testing to where they can see exactly what's going on. But back then they did this muscle biopsy and they determined that I have spinal muscular atrophy and they thought that I had the most severe type.