Michael & Karl Malone: NBA Legend Cigar Conversation
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They say cigars are the great equalizer and they must be because it is the only way to explain how I am sitting down with NBA Hall of Famer, all-around legend,

Carl Malone. Carl, thank you for inviting me to the Legends Cigar Lounge. Thank you for being here. And thank you for this joint venture, the Mayflower Carl Malone Cigar Pack, which is available. You have to be 21 years old or older to order some exclusion supply. Got to get that out of the way up front. And you also got to say,

We do not encourage anybody to smoke cigars. If you like them, you like them. If you don't, you don't. Yes. I don't discourage them, but it's totally your choice. There you go. So I am smoking your cigar. And, sir, you are a legend not only in basketball, not only in so many civic endeavors, but also in cigars. This is a great smoke. Wow.

Touche. No, we have a partnership with LawRaw. Yeah. And we created our cigar. So we're excited to be partnering with you guys. We're doing wrapper, filler, and Dominican binder.

but it's got a hint of pepper in it. Yeah. And I like that no matter what. Yeah. During the day, that's my go-to and, uh, love smoking your stick. So I was asking you the question earlier, Michael, how did this happen? And I'll just, I'm just going to enjoy the moment and say, hell, it doesn't happen. So we, we're excited. So I'm, I'm excited. Uh,

I mean, I'm half joking about cigars as the equalizer, but I'm half not. Because you said something to me that instantly struck me as true, which is people, they'll smoke a cigar because it's their wedding. They'll smoke a cigar, I just graduated college or something. But you said, no, when you were smoking the cigar, that's the happening. Yes. Well, my thing is a cigar to me.

It's icebreaker. Yeah. It really don't matter what your bank account say. Yep. No matter what car you're driving, what house you live in. And when you look at Legends, where we're at right now, this is family owned. And you notice we don't have a lot of TVs. No TVs. Because to me, when I come and smoke with a person, I want to get to know that person. Yeah.

And it really don't matter where you're from and the people you meet. If you're just willing to turn that TV off, put that phone down. Yeah, yeah. How do we know, Michael, who's sitting beside us right now? To me, cigar is like...

You've been knowing that person for a while. Yes. And we're just meeting. Yep. I'm not a politician. Michael, not either. So we just call it like it is. A cigar, just like we've been knowing each other. Yeah, that is it. I find when I travel around, I give a speech or wherever I'm going.

The first thing I look up is not the hotel, it's not the restaurant, it's the cigar lounge. Where is... Because I know I walk into the cigar lounge, even... It's not like everyone agrees politically or even... But if I see a guy smoking a cigar, I think there is someone instantly...

I can talk to. There is someone we're going to have really something in common. I know what kind of person this is. This is going to be my kind of person. It's one of the best rules of thumb, I think, I find in terms of socializing. And what I've found also, have you ever seen anyone pissed off?

In a lounge smoking a cigar? Now you could have just had a bad deal go south. Yes, yeah. But I've never met a person pissed off in a lounge. Right. First of all, if that's your mojo, let me go to another room. One of us excuse ourselves because to me, smoking a cigar. Yeah. So I had my first cigar. We jump all over the place. And you guys are going to earn your money. You can edit it back. So my first cigar ever, I was 25 years old. Hmm.

And I wanted to be the coolest captain on the team, so to speak. And so me and the guys went out. So I wanted to act like I knew what I was doing. Well, the cigar that I knew from a little country town up here in Summerfield, 45 minutes north where I grew up, was Money Christos. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course. So I'm the cool, you know, stock cool, too. But I was the cool captain that smoked cigars. So we had a couple of days off.

So I smoked when I played, but I had to have two days off, two to three days off. So there was a certain place we would go. We would have those two or three days off. Thanks, Coach Sloan. But I had a money crystal. Yeah, yeah. Now, I had to play the part now. We was in Miami. I took the guys out. Well, first of all, I did all the things, and I lit this cigar up, and I act like I'd done it forever. My teammates didn't know it was my first cigar.

I was hooked in at 25, Monte Cristo. And that was my cigar. You could not tell me anything else. And that was my cigar. And I've been ever since. So I'm 61 now. 61. That's good genes. And maybe being one of the great athletes of your age. I say it all the time. My ancestors. My mom and my grandfather. I thank them for the genes. Now, I got to keep working. Yeah. And...

I'm on the hunt. I'm on the hunt every day with my family, whether it's peace, whether it's just hanging out. That's our mindset. Well, this is something I noticed. I mean, you say with a cigar, it's how you really get back in to know somebody. It's the first thing I noticed about you, even before I landed in the airplane.

It's not that you're the NBA legend. It's not all this other stuff. The first thing that really hit me before we sat down was where this lounge is. We are not sitting in the middle of Manhattan. We're not in Beverly Hills right now. We're in the middle of Louisiana. I said, what brought Karl Malone, after all his insane international success, what brought Karl Malone to this part of Louisiana? And someone said, it's his hometown.

Yes, well, Mike, I grew up 45 minutes north, right at 167. Yeah, yeah. The border is 33. We're less than a half a mile off I-20. Yeah, yeah. So when we moved back home, the family had a truck. We moved back home 20, almost 21, 22 years ago. Of course, Legends is where we're sitting at in Ruston, Louisiana. Well, I went to Louisiana Tech. Yeah.

Over here. Yeah, I grew up there mama's boy. Yeah when we got back I will This started off legend started off about that size and I was just going to do it for the boys But then all of a sudden my wife and daughter got in it. They I love hunting And then my son's down here. We're in the timber business. Yeah, so this burnt wood Didn't come from our property. So that's the concept and if you look in the bathroom, you'll see green tin of course

It's hunting season, and I'm somewhat of a savage when it comes to that. So if you go in the bathroom, you'll see green. That's hunter's green. I was driving my wife and one of my daughters crazy, and they said, Dad, we got it. We know what you like. So we just let them go, and you'll see mounts in here because my whole family, we hunt. I grew up.

four years old hunting with my grandfather. - Wow. - So this lounge is who we are. And we got to thinking about names and everything.

We just thought about legends and we added the cigar to it. But a lot of people, you know, they grow up, they have interests. You obviously have a lot of varied interests, all sorts of different businesses, even beyond, you know, your global fame as an athlete. But then a lot of people, they just forget about home. They just kind of, you know, they go on, they have that success and then they move to the penthouse and wherever. But you came back.

So the next time you come Michael because I have a feeling that we're gonna be doing this more and more We're going to spend a day out in the wilderness Doing the things I do so I run heavy equipment every day. Yeah, yeah caterpillar equipment. So I'm an artist. I'm an artist Okay, our canvas is our properties my paintbrush is caterpillar equipment. So that's my therapy every day So the day I left

I wanted to get back home. I went to Utah and that's... I think I read about that. I think I heard about that. Well, that's history, but I'm passionate about Louisiana. I love Louisiana, but I'm passionate about North Louisiana. So I'm big into heritage and roots and DNA. That's just my little brain. So moving back home, I feel grounded. Yeah.

Albert Einstein not quoted for a word for a man to know his true purpose on this earth. He must stay in touch with Mother Earth, not just walking, touching the soil. I feel alive here. I love cities. And Utah did things for my family that I'm forever grateful. But I want to come home because I feel so connected here. And tobacco, when you look at it, it comes from the earth.

So it's so many different things. So next time you guys come, we're going to spend a day, heavy equipment, different things like that. Because to know a person, you have to accept that person for who they are and what it's about. So my first thing is I want to know about you. If we want to spend an hour together, I'm not in a hurry. So you know my ways. When I take my shoes off, and to me,

Like moving back home, just that icing on the cake for me. And now to be able to do things and see my family doing the things they do.

But it all started with this little kid in North Louisiana with his grandfather, Leonard Jackson. What you're describing is actually my thought behind Mayflower Cigars. Because I thought, you know, look, I come from the new media world, digital media world. Everything I do is online. It's all kind of disconnected from tangible stuff.

But I like the real world. I think it's important that we're incarnate creatures. I like spending time with people. I want to be in the cigar lounge. I want to be talking to people. And that's what I love about the cigar is the cigar is not digital. The cigar is a real thing. In a way, it's kind of like a clock. You can measure time as the cigar goes down. It's something you have to do digitally.

With a person, it's ephemeral and you're in a real space and then it's gone. Then you go get another cigar. But I love that. And the Mayflower name comes because, though I look fairly Italian, on my father's side of the family, there's some English and they go back to the Mayflower.

And I really liked this heritage. My grandfather discovered this in his retirement. And I liked that idea of, wow, you can kind of trace back a family's history and it coincides with the history of a country. And then tobacco, you know, is the crop that built America in many ways. And, you know, tobacco is discovered by the Europeans with Columbus. I mean, all the way back to Christopher Columbus, 1492, the Taino Indians had cigars.

I think they would smoke them up their nose. I haven't tried to do that. But one day if you try it, I'll try it with you. Let's just go with it. But I love that idea that you don't want to be disconnected from roots, I mean from real roots. When you said you like driving heavy equipment, you're the artist painting on the canvas of the earth. I thought it would be so funny. How many world-renowned champion athletes at your level, there aren't very many at your level,

How many of them wouldn't just hire a guy to go clear property? I mean, you're like the only guy that would do that probably. Well, my grandfather, Leonard Jackson, if you're looking at me, you're looking at him. If I did that and he said to me this, when you become successful, if you have one acre or a thousand acres, and I was five or six years old, he said, be willing to

to defend and lose your life for it. And it didn't resonate at the time. And then he said, become a steward of the land. We have been blessed and fortunate enough. So I made a promise to me that when I turned 60, that I'm going to spend every day on a piece of land, whether it's ours or someone else's,

And that's my connection. Everybody got whatever. But my connection with the land and the equipment is I never change the landscape on what Mother Nature do. I just add to it or clean it up. Yeah, yeah. So we're land developers too. We're going to start some projects. And whatever that land doing now,

The drainage, everything. I don't change it. So this goes back. We are our heritage. We are our DNA. Yeah, yeah. That's who we are.

Good, bad, and different. That's what made me. I wouldn't change it now. Wow. But the fact of the matter is when you stay connected with land, it just aligns me. So we spend our times in places like that. Utah, I love the mountains. Alaska, I love streams. I love the calmness because I stay calm until I have to go up a knot. But it all comes back. People say cotton. Yeah.

It's what, say, our country was built on. Bound and crop. I put tobacco, sugar cane, cotton in that same area. Yeah, yeah. Because someone worked it. See, this is where I go. Yeah, yeah. I've been fortunate enough to visit...

Laura a number of times, Leon and the whole team there. But I love going out to the fields. The farmer, when it's small, you have to water it. Yeah, yeah.

To me, the respect you should have for a cigar, think about someone other than yourself and the work that go into it. And not just him. I mean, they say 300 hands touch a cigar. Yes. You've got the guy who's growing it, who's watering it. You've got the guy who's tending it. You've got the guy who harvests it. You've got the guy who ferments it. You've got the guy who cures it in some cases. Then you've got...

Even before you get to rolling the cigar, you've got the filler. You've got the binder. You've got the wrapper. You've got to select it. You've got the blender. Think of all these people. This handmade luxury that you can get for, call it, $15. And one thing that's amazing about it is all the hand to touch it. I don't think a lot of people know this. Just about, I'm not going to say all the time.

But what I've witnessed at Law Aurora, and I think this is true, people don't, the cap, call it ring. Just about more often than not, that final touch is by a female because she have the softest. No, no. Yes. So that's, you know, those me, I don't consider myself a cigar connoisseur.

or master at it, I just say what I like and I'm willing and we are willing to learn those things. So all the little nuances, I noticed that. So I asked a question to Mr. Leon, Mr. Jeremy Leon, I asked him the question and it just, they're softer. So they cap, that's what I tell people all the time.

It's not even just one cap. It's three caps they put on them. And then at the end, I tell people, if you can just be just at top, because if you cut too much, of course, it raffles. But anyway, you're looking at me like, man, I wasn't really expecting all this. No, that's really – No, I'm messing with you. Seriously. There's something really profound about that. I mean, there's something really –

Yeah, just, I don't know, the way you're talking about cigars, many times, that's part of why I wear the velvet jacket, you know, it keeps it. But the way you're talking about cigars, it's the way a lot of cigar guys talk about it. You think it's in the details, it's in the intricacies, it's in the complexities of it that really distinguish it. So, you know, you have a very consistent approach.

I mean, it's very, very reliable. But no two cigars are going to be exactly the same. No, no. And what I tell people all the time, whatever cigar you like, dare to try another one. I know we all have our go-to. Yeah, yeah. And of course now, our house sticks, Barrel Aged by Carmelone, of course. That's the main one. Then the Mayflower. Yeah.

That's right. By Michael. That's right. That's his second favorite. You know, so on and on. Yeah, naturally. But once you get past those two. Once you get past those two. The fact of the matter is, I tell people, you know, about a cigar. It's a passion of mine. Yeah. And when you're passionate about it, you learn about it. Some people don't realize a cigar have three stages. Yeah. To it. And they say this. Now, if you want to just go there now, and Michael will be looking at me now like, damn. So, yeah.

Let all of us cigar aficionados, let all of us say something here. Everybody's watching. So let's take a test. Let's show you something here. When you're out smoking like with someone, they're watching how your cigar burned down. And they're going to say either can afford another stick or you're really cheap. So here's what we do, everyone out there. Take your thumb.

Put your thumb on the end of your cigar and wherever the joint of your thumb at, that should be the top of your label. And when it gets like that, that's when it's time to finish your cigar. So I would smoke it right to the top. Very good. You know what I'm saying? He's looking at me like, damn. Katrina over there like, what the hell is going on here? No, I'm really impressed.

No, perhaps I shouldn't be. But even the way you're talking about the way you look at land, because what you're saying is,

I don't want to go in and totally do something new. I don't want to, when you say how the water moves and how the, I want to, I just want to augment it. I want to, in a way you might say, perfect it. What's already there, you want to perfect what nature has already given you. And I think about it with a cigar. I'm not going to take a Connecticut Shade wrapper and, I don't know, some kind of,

Dominican fellow. Dominican fellow. I'm not trying to take that and make that into the fullest bodied cigar you ever saw. I'm going to use a different wrapper for that. I want to work with the materials I have and then add the artistry to perfect it, to bring it to its full potential. But I want to work against its potential. I want to just set off a bomb on land or something like that. Well, and the thing about it is, let...

The wrapper, binder, and filler, let that cigar do what it do. Yeah. Now, that's what that cigar going to do. Like you just said. Yeah. Same with land. Let it do what it going to do. You can't get no more out of it. Try another cigar. Yeah. You know, that's, but it's that passion about it. And that is where our company, PF, is going now. We're going to really heavy on the cigar distribution business.

And we're going to carry everyone, of course, barrel aged and the Mayflower. And this partnership, to me, I want it to grow. And I want to say to you and your team, we'll work out our schedule for whatever you're doing for us to launch it. We are, and I'm not a person to just put my name on it. Because I don't want to embarrass you one day when they say, really?

Because having a conversation like this we get to know each other so as we go down this road Yeah, we're just gonna help each other be successful. Well, so so this is then the next thing I want to know Because you're talking about how look you you're at peace. You got your legs up you like you're taking time with your cigar You're very very in touch with the land and you mentioned something earlier You said and then sometimes if I have to turn it up a little bit, you know that's and that's what makes me think about the hunting you're wearing

camo. You've got a lot of animal heads around here. So how does that, that seems like almost the opposite. One is all about relaxation, kind of placid. The other is very aggressive. You're pursuing an animal. How do you flip into that mode? Well, what I discovered about oneself is I'm result driven. I'm on the hunt and I stay focused on that task and I like to start it

from the beginning to the end. I used to couldn't put it all together, but our brain is a filing cabinet. So close that filing cabinet every day. Well, it's the same thing me. I can go from zero to mark. I don't like the middle area unless it's rest area. But being able to do that, it keep me hungry. It keep me on the hunt. Peace.

my machines on a piece of property. It could be your piece of property. I am getting so much out of your piece of property that we're walking on and we're having a conversation. Yeah, yeah. I'm grounded. Every step I take, I'm on the soil. Yeah. So is that the, because it strikes me, most people you talk to, they'll have like one interest or two. Most people you talk to, especially someone who's succeeded at your level,

All they want to talk about is basketball, or all they want to talk about is whatever business they're in. But your interests are so varied, and it seems like you have a very intense focus on all of them.

This isn't the sort of thing, you're not just saying, La Aurora comes to you and says, hey, we're going to put your name on a cigar and forget about it. You're obviously, you're smoking the cigar, you're helping blend, you're very focused on it. So how do you maintain that kind of intensity, even on all these broad interests? Hunting, land development, cigars, obviously basketball. Well, it's where I'm at, and it's through my eyes. Michael, no one sees...

anything the same. You see it through your eyes. So where I'm at with my life is my family, my kids, my grandkids. So I'm 61. I got more time in the rear view than I do in the front windshield. So my drive now is how has it ever been? Because you're looking at a kid that only one person believed in me, my mom. I didn't want to play basketball. Really? No. Really? It might shock you, but they got a lot of tape.

So I grew up in the country here, four brothers, four sisters. My dad committed suicide when I was five years old. But no, no. Let me say something. I was a loner, but I was a mama's boy. So I was colicky as a little boy. So my mom graded lumber in Georgia Pacific. She was green chain. She graded lumber. So when she came home, she was tired. She had four boys, four girls. She had eight kids, single parent. Wow.

And I was a baby boy, so I was colicky. That means people don't know I cried a lot. Yeah, yeah. I've had some colicky. Well, we had a military channel and Cartoon Three Stooges Western channel. Every time this one plane would go out on a mission in Vietnam and came back, I wouldn't cry. I would stop crying if it was a 45-minute mission or hour and 10 minutes. I wouldn't cry.

Well, when I got older in the eighth grade, I wanted to know who flew that plane. And it was a Harrier jump jet. Only Marines flew that jet. So I met my recruiter from the eighth grade and only one person told me. And I wanted, we had a little country store and I wanted to become a full bird. Wanted to fly in the Barksdale Air Force Base refuel. I wanted to buzz our mom in a little country store.

We had a little field across the road, our little farm where we raised our garden. I wanted to land it there and I wanted to walk across the field. Only one human told me, I know you would, my mom. So that's what I wanted to be, a pilot. Well, I met my recruiter from the 8th grade to the 11th grade. He said...

You got to be great in math and you can't grow anymore. And I grew three and a half inches one summer. So basketball worked out well. I say it to say this. There's nothing you can do to stop it. I can't stop growing. I say this. So go back to what drives me now. It's not more. It's honing what we got. It's passing it on because that's all my ancestors. That's all my DNA. My grandfather said to me,

Young man, when you grow up to be successful, you only do things first class. And if you cannot afford it, you save your money because when you leave here,

That is your legacy. That is your DNA, how you leave it. So me and my wife, Kay, we're passionate about our kids and grandkids and now passing on. So my drive now, I wake up every morning between 3.30 and 4 o'clock. I do my little meditation, make mental notes, and I do a little crossword puzzle. That's activate my brain. Then I go train. And then I'm on the hunt, but it's not for me.

It's on the hunt for my family and leaving them something more than what we had. And to see that drive that they have now, they keep me hungry. They keep me on the hunt. So that's my focus. So those interests we have, Larry Miller introduced me to a guy named Andy Madison. And we have automotive there, but down here we do land and timber. So my drive is not for me.

It's being a steward of the land. And everybody talk about their legacy. I want every day

When they walk this land, they're seeing it every day. This is like going with the wind. It's about the land. It's Tara. It's about the land. But that actually does make sense of it because even you mentioned the cars. You've been involved in the car business. No, we are. You are actively involved in the car business. Yes, sir. No, I mean that's what I mean. You have so many active businesses. So you think what unifies all of it? Well, you've just explained it.

It's very grounded and it's about your family and it's focused on the future. So then going back the other way on family, what would have happened if you didn't have that one person who believed in you? What would have happened if your mother had just... Look, she would have had a good excuse to not be that focused if she had eight kids, a single mother. So what would have happened to Carl Malone had that not happened? Who knows? Like, who knows? It would have been...

We wouldn't be sitting here, you and I, how? But one person, you just need one to believe in you. And to me, when you get that one person, that's what matters. Because when you both have the same visions and the thoughts, you're thinking about everybody. See, in our world, the first law of nature is self-preservation. But I like to think like this.

When a person think about everyone else in the room except themselves, try it one time. That person will always be taken care of. Think about it. The law averages, but we don't. So to me, take all you need, leave the rest for someone else. So we're not taking it with us. Be teachers. Share. Share from the heart. Don't share when the cameras are on. I still feel...

As we're sitting here right now, Mike, I feel this right here. My mom is going to come in and shake me and say, boy, get ready for school. This, this, it seemed to me like a dream that I'm living in. Yeah, yeah. So. That's an interesting connection that had not occurred to me about this partnership because my mother was such an influential figure in this cigar business. You know, I mean, she was.

She bought me the box of cigars where now the Mayflowers are made at the same factory that that box of cigars came from. Some of which are still in my humidor. I had my first cigar actually with my mother. It's kind of an odd thing. How old are you? I am 34. And I've still been smoking cigars for most of my life. It's just amazing. I don't know how the laws in various jurisdictions work. It don't really matter. Yeah, yeah. We're just here. I always say though for someone of Italian descent in New York,

having your first cigar at 15, you're actually a little old. You could start a little younger. But I really liked it. I never liked cigarettes. I never got into any of that. I wasn't like a big... I wouldn't go to like Keggers or anything. But I really liked the cigar. I'm not just flattering you in your answers. You give me two or three paths I want to go down. But the one I want to get back to is when you said your grandfather said,

If you're going to do something, do it first class or don't do it. And it reminds me of advice a buddy of mine gave me in New York. He was working in finance. But he wouldn't spend his money, really. He wouldn't buy new clothes. He wouldn't buy fancy dinners or anything. He would make a lot of money, but he wasn't spending a lot of money. But he might buy a glass of really expensive scotch every now and again. But otherwise, he wouldn't really spend his money. And I said, what's that about? He said, it's the barbell strategy.

What's the barbell strategy? Barbell strategy is you're either going to get things that are really, really cheap or really, really expensive. But he said, I don't want, I don't really want things in the middle. And, you know, dollars don't always equate to quality, but I think the point on quality is really good. You're either going to really go for something, you know, go for a really seriously well-crafted cigar or don't have a cigar, but please don't give me

Please don't give me a crappy cigar. I don't want cigars that bad. I want it to be either really good or I'll abstain. That's okay. I don't need to be chained smoke. And you think about this in your activities in life. Would you have been content being a middle-of-the-pack basketball player? Oh, that's cool. You got to play and then... Michael, some people are built like that. No, no, no.

You can blame it on my heritage, my DNA, my grandfather, great-grandfather. No, no, I'm alpha. Yeah. No, no, look here. I know for the pack now.

I'll do respect to the pack. Yeah. It takes every type to make that pack. Yeah, yeah. But no, sir, the way I was... You're not going to be in the middle. No, sir. Where I was built, I'm the alpha. Yeah. Like, I respect the other alpha now. Wherever you squat, wherever you hike and piss now, I ain't going to piss on that spot. But now when I hike and piss over here now, I'm raking that, sir, respect. That's your spot. That's my spot. That's your spot, yes. Well, that's how I'm built. Mm-hmm.

But I owe it to the man above and how I was created to get the most out of this body. That's the respect I have for my grandfather and stuff like that. And the respect I have for the team that drafted me. Yes, you can call it whatever. In the way I was wired and built, I owed that to the Miller family.

to give them every single thing I had. They didn't draft you to be middle of the pack? No, sir. Let me tell you how real that got really quick. And Adrian Dantley, Hall of Famer, he taught me how to be a professional, number one. Now, here's when it got real to me. My second year, we have plays. They were starting to run some plays for me, which was Adrian Dantley's. And lo and behold...

My second year playing, we drew the Dallas Mavericks. They had Lando Blackmon, Mark Aguirre, Sam Perkins. They had that squad. So they was top of the pack. Well, we played one. Lo and behold, Adrian Dantley got hurt. He was out for the playoffs. So we drew them first round. Well, they start running all the plays. So we played. Of course, they beat us in the series, but we made it a hell of a series.

Well, I didn't know anything. I used to stay in Dallas and train with a guy named Ken Roberson. He was my classmate here at Louisiana Tech. So he was teaching me how to run. So we would stay right. We was able to work out at SMU. So I remember we would go over to the Premier Club and that's where we do our weight training. And I never forget this. We just finished up two and a half, three hours training, finished up with the weights training.

And I was out shooting some shots. And a guy come out to New Kent. He said, hey, tell Carl he might want to come see this. So he said, his teammate of his. I was like, what? He said, Adrian Dantley. So, of course, I go in, press conference. They had traded Adrian Dantley. Now, this is when it got real for me. Yeah.

And I get a phone call from Coach Layton. He said, hey, do you remember the end of the year meeting we had? You know, that's the end of the year meeting. We all come in and they'll tell each individual what we're working on and all that. He said, do you remember that? I was like, yes, sir. He said, tell me what I said. He said, remember the end of the meeting I said to you, hey, so being the playoffs, are you ready to carry a franchise? And of course, me being full of little piss and vinegar, I said, of course. Well, lo and behold,

The starter team get traded and it's the off season. I got a phone call. Well, right then I had to make a commitment that if I was going to be what they believed in, and there's nobody else did. Yep. And I didn't want to let them down. So because, you know, it's one thing to say it in the meeting. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Of course I'm ready. That's what actors do. Can you ride a horse? Yeah. Yeah. Can you tap dance? Oh, you bet I can tap dance. But then you have to perform. Right. And I'm going to say this to you.

I'm not afraid to die, but I'm afraid to fail. And when I fail, I've let a lot of people down and that's on me. So when that happened, I made a commitment that I had to change my body to be able to carry the load. And I did not want to be middle of the pack.

I wasn't, I'm sorry. People can take it. No, hell, I'm not sorry. I wasn't put on this earth to be middle of the pack or the back of the pack. So I put everything back to animals. So our family crest. You got an insignia, right? Is the buffalo. Yeah, yeah. That's our family crest. You know, our crest. Well, the buffalo.

is the only animal on this earth that when a storm brew on the plains, first strike of lightning or a roar of thunder, the man, the leader of the pack, the alpha, he turn and women, children, all, they turn and 90% of the time or more is the only reason a buffalo stampede happens.

They turn and face the storm. They run into the storm head on, right? That is the alpha, that leader. And they're all following him. Right. And here's the rest of that story. Our families, we all go through it, right? But at some point now, dad got to step up and he got to face that and he go through the storm. So guess what? A buffalo is the only species that only in the storm half the time.

Think about that. Now, why is the buffalo running toward the storm? Forgive my ignorance. Why? They face it head on. Yeah. Right? He's in it half the time. Yeah, yeah. That's why he do it. They turn and he run. It's dangerous coming. We're going to face it. And guess what? We have pictures on our phone, men, my sons. Yeah. It's the leader, the alpha, which all of us are in our home or wherever else. Yeah.

He have icicles hanging this long off his beard. And he got a head about this size. And he's the first one to come through that storm, right? Looking like that. Now, ask yourself this question now. Every person that's a man, right? When he come through this storm and I show you this picture, what do you think he's thinking right now? I'll tell you.

Here's saying right now, whatever son of a bitch want some of this right now. Come and take it. No, no. No, I'm going to meet you. Well, when I show you this picture, it's going to, well, that's life. That's us. Families. It's not always roses. You're going to take shots. But guess what? At some point in time, daddy. Yeah.

You've got to turn and face that something. You've got to look them in the eyes. That's who I am, and that's how I live. There was a popular book probably 10, 15 years ago called Anti-Fragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Because you think certain things are fragile. They fall off the table. They break. Certain things are durable. They fall off the table. They get a little deformed, but they'll be okay.

But he says there's this third category, anti-fragile, the thing that falls off the table and actually gets stronger. The thing that when you subject it to rigors and trials, it actually comes out tougher, scarier maybe. And that seems to me what you're describing. And to me, it's like, who are you? We all get tried. Yeah, yeah.

But you really don't have to talk about it. Yeah, yeah. Like, look, okay, so after all the talking, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why talk? My grandfather, I will never forget this. I played marbles. My grandfather was my height, my size, never lifted weight. He was a mule logger. And this guy would every day, not every day, once a week,

Well, you know, when you had a little moonshine, my grandfather was a moonshine. A little local recipe, yeah. So I was playing marbles one day where this guy had did this, I know a number, a couple of times. And my grandfather homesteaded a couple of acres. So that was his acre. And this guy kept coming on this property. And I'll never forget it. I was playing marbles. And I heard boom, boom, boom. And it was over with. He was dusting them off.

I'll never forget this because as time went on, I asked him about that. He said, at some point in time when a man challenged you on your piece of dirt this time, to me, it's too much talking. People just talk to talk. I'm result driven. I'm not going to apologize for that. And no excuses either. No excuses. No excuses. Because let me tell you something.

When you got your last 500 bucks, don't bet on sports. Don't bet on nothing, none of that. If you got a set of them, you bet on yourself. Yeah, right. And you don't want to fail. Because when a person starts that inner competitive nature with oneself and respect that other person, that's when it comes together. But then you become a teacher. Einstein, one of my favorites. I love him because he had the wild hair. Yeah.

To me, he was a genius. He was a teacher on his deathbed. To me, he was my hero. I know we went from a Marine pilot flying a Harrier jet to Einstein. What the hell? Yeah. How many NBA champs say, you know, my big hero actually is Albert Einstein? I don't know. I started off with the wild hair and I wanted to know who he was. And then I knew he was the ultimate teacher. See, to people, sometimes they think not teaching is

It's smart to me. It's not.

Because when you die, all of that go. But when you become a teacher, you try to teach where people can understand your teaching. Yeah, yeah. So... It's this theme that seems to be running through everything you're doing, which is not just about you. It's not just about building something for yourself, but it's about this kind of legacy. And not even a legacy just from you. You keep talking about, it's actually my grandfather. It's actually my mother. It's actually... It's the legacy running in both directions.

That's a beautiful thing. Well, but those are two people that believed in all my crazy ideas and not one time shot them down. Brothers shot them down. Sisters shot them down. Friends, they didn't. And they say on that other side, you replay this back. So to me, every day is euphoric to me. It's like I can't explain it, but what I like is people now believe

It's starting to want to know me, which is so weird to me. Did they not want to know you before? No, they looked at, as people do, 90% of athletes. Yeah. The real world look at us as just jocks. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. And if that's how they think, but athletes to me, everybody want to look at,

Hard time athletes went, didn't have this. There is so many success stories out there that people never want to talk about, but it don't seem real to me. Are you kidding me? This little kid that was a run of the family? Yeah, yeah. Why did the man above look down and say that kid? Yeah, yeah, right. So to me, when we leave here, what we leave, what we leave,

The way you put it, too, it's going to seem like a paradox for some people because on the one hand, you're saying, look, I've got this intense focus. I've got this drive. I'm obviously very self-disciplined, all this. So on the one hand, you get that total like I'm harnessing my will and my efforts for this thing. But then the other side of it you keep coming back to is, yeah, but –

Had my mother not believed in me, I probably wouldn't be here. Had, you know, run to the litter, and why was it me and not one of my siblings? Why was it me and not some other guy? I don't know, because God looked down and said, that guy. And that's not through your own effort, but it's like the cooperation with the circumstances that you found yourself in led you to this very spot on the couch. And then, Michael, here's the rest of it. Do we ever realize this? The day...

that we take our first breath and whine, whine, whine, we start to die. Think about that. Been dying since the day I was born. So I want to say something to you. You brought up something. And I go back, you use a different word, but it's simple. The simplicity of life is what we're missing. So I discovered, even though I'm driven and I want to be driven the day I die, so the fly...

Anybody know that movie, The Fly? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, now we're going to go somewhere here. When Michael leaves here, he's going to be like, God damn. Okay, The Fly. All right, this is where I'm at. People don't realize this. About a year ago, it came to me. The Fly. When he opened up his closet, notice something now. He had seven of the same outfits. So I'm going to tell you why here. Yes.

Black loafers, black socks, black pants, black underwear, black turtleneck. And the star of that fly, he got the hotel.com with the aliens coming down. He's one of my favorites. I don't know his name. The significance of that. A fly.

fly insect only have five to seven days on this earth a fly. So what came to me about a year ago is the reason being he don't have time to worry about what he's going to wear. He have to eat, breathe, die.

I'm the fly. I don't have time for... Oh, I'm smelling the roses now. But I'm the fly now. I want to tell into this thing to hand something off that Picasso, that masterpiece, that artist. So the significance of keeping things simple. Yeah, yeah. But think about this other kind of duality here, which is you are...

top athlete and the language you keep using is all this language of artistry or even in you know Einstein you know science and mathematics but but you keep talking about artistry how many athletes talk about art I don't how many athletes view the world through a lens of art gosh that's what it is are you are you serious like yeah now we know how we really are yeah

how big and massive, but we never see it. We don't take the time to see it. So yes, okay, you can actually say top athlete, they are artists. Look at that. So I don't know. Right, right. Yeah, there's a lot. They make it look like, dang,

That's artistry. Right, of course. When you watch a really incredible athletic show, when you watch a real just whatever sport, whatever the feat is, the first thing that really strikes you is not necessarily the strength, though you see that, but it's the grace of everything, right? All the movements going in the right direction totally meet the moment and it all just comes off. Is that not artistry? Right. Come on. So-

I know we've talked about so many different things, but that's my brain. When I smoke a cigar, it's like deep to me. Yeah, yeah. Down to a very artistic thing in itself, a cigar. Even the way you're talking about the land and the creation, it reminds me of this great quote. I love this quote from Alexander Pope, which is, All nature is but art unknown to thee, all chance direction which thou canst not see.

You think all of that from you're a little kid and almost nobody believes in you. Almost nobody believes in you. And then you just wind up here. You couldn't have possibly planned it. You have your own ideas, but you couldn't have planned all this out. I planned that I was going to be in the military. That's what I planned. But I said this, I had to be in some type of operation like scout sniper operation.

Because I can be alone or with someone. But knowing that those people are dependent on me for their life, that's a...

I don't know. That's a responsibility that I would have welcomed. So I was going to be in the military, and I wanted it to be some type of operation behind the scenes. But even that, the way you're talking, it's about the individual. I can be alone. I can be working. But it's not disconnected from everyone else. And I think of it not to be too...

cute about it, but you think about that with a cigar. A cigar is on one hand the most social of luxuries. It's about sitting in a lounge and talking to people. But you can also, and I do this many nights, I sit alone with my cigar and I'm with my thoughts and I'm looking up at the sky and I'm in conversation with God or maybe with myself. But it's both

perfectly solitary and perfectly social. And somehow that makes sense. You're the star athlete. It's all about you. I mean, you are the guy. But it's also about the team and the game and the franchise and the legacy. And somehow both of those things exist at once. And to me, when I have a good stick, I see everybody do it when they light that cigar up the first time we do this. Yeah, yeah.

And it's just, and then to be able to have a conversation with people and hear where they're from and history about that, knowing now where the Mayflower name came from. See, that's personal to me. And it's not me, but you got to know how I feel about Mayflower.

My heritage. Yeah, right thing now you're part of that story. Yeah, you're in the now now I'm in the story of the cigar Yeah, that's right. So our partnership is going to be amazing and I tell you what However, we got her you believed in it And I make a promise to you now Me and my family will not disappoint you or embarrass you guys. I

Whatever ride we go on, we'll go on it together. I never thought you would. That was not a fear. I hope I can live up to that on my end. And I'm Carl Malone and I'll prove it at Macy's. Carl, I could sit here all day, certainly to the end of this cigar, probably the end of the second or third cigar, if you would care to join us for these cigars. If you're 21 years or older, older, some exclusions apply as the lawyers tell me. And you can get...

The La Aurora barrel-aged Carl Malone cigar, which I'm smoking, and it is excellent. It's got different blends of tobacco, too. You know, the Mayflower Dusk, which you're smoking, is an Ecuador Habano wrapper. It's a Sumatra binder and Nicaraguan filler.

For the Dawn, it's Ecuador, Connecticut wrapper, Cameroon binder, and Nicaraguan filler. With the La Aurora Carl Malone, I'm getting different flavors. I'm getting a lot of that pepper. I'm getting a little more strength, actually. There's a little more strength coming in here. It's really magnificent cigars that will complement each other very, very well in your humidor. Carl. I appreciate it. And I would like to end by saying, what would it be like one of these days...

Some lounge reach out to Mayflower and Michael and his team and say, you know, we would love to host you guys there. And I would say we've got the talking out the way. Let's do it. Let's do it.

If Michael Knowles is good for anything, it's Mayflower cigars. And luckily, boxes of Mayflower's premium handmade cigars are now back in stock with limited quantities. Now's the time to sample Mayflower's signature blends and stock up on your favorites. Plus, get yourself a beautiful Zykar double guillotine cutter. Don't wait. These will sell out. You must be 21 years or older to order. Some exclusions apply. Go to mayflowersigars.com today.