John J. Mack

And the bankers and the people who were running the debt business, like John Westerfield, and the people running the banking side, like Hook Slaughter and Guy Metcalf, and the team of people on the investing side, like Sonny and myself, we were all partners.

And we also really benefited from the culture set by John Mack.

And Bill Lewis, Jim Alwyn, and Owen Thomas.

And they just set the culture.

I could do it.

And he sat me down.

He said, look, if I can get John Mack to show up at every client meeting I ever do, I would do that because the likelihood of success goes way up.

That was that.