Scott LumleyFalling Down and Getting Back Up
On Down to Business with Jack Miller, hosts Jack Miller of Gelt Financial and Todd Cohen interview Scott Lumley — entrepreneur, real estate investor and business turnaround operator — about a life that has been a repeated cycle of falling down and getting back up. Lumley describes running away from home at eleven, surviving abuse, and escaping into rodeo, where he racked up more than 400 professional wins and 14 world titles. He recounts bankruptcy, a federal case, and the night his brother’s suicide interrupted his own — the moment that redirected his life. Lumley explains his memoir Don’t Look Me Up, whose proceeds go entirely to suicide prevention, his startup guide Underdog to Champion: The Entrepreneur’s Pocket Guide, and the companies he runs today. His advice to anyone flattened by life: get to one more day.
Key takeaways
- Bull riding taught a reflex that became his operating principle in business: hit the ground, get back up.
- His brother’s suicide — which happened at the exact moment Lumley was contemplating his own — was the pivot from surviving to building.
- The whole recovery philosophy compresses to “one more day,” plus a deliberate daily decision to wake up happy.
- He treated a legal fight as a business calculation, not an ego fight — and made the call the numbers supported.
- “My adversity has given me my diversity.” Every setback became an education he now uses in business.
In his own words
“They took my reputation. They can’t take my integrity.”— Scott Lumley
“Writing the book was like being naked in the middle of a street. Because you’re exposing everything in your life when you do something like this.”— Scott Lumley, on Don’t Look Me Up
“Everybody thinks that to make money you’ve got to be a king among men. I think I’m simply a warrior.”— Scott Lumley
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