458 Discovering Rockstars & Defending the Wrongfully Convicted with Jason Flom

"Preparation + skill + perseverance equals luck." - Jason Flom If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/458 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 458 with music exec legend, Jason Flom.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this episode, guys. I am super pumped. We've got a big guest on. His name is Jason Flom. And I'm going to share a little bit about who he is in a moment. Before I do, I want to make sure you guys check out something right now. My new book, The Millionaire Morning. Now, this is a free book that will actually ship a physical book to you. All you do is pay for shipping and handling. It's The Millionaire Morning, The Morning Mindset Habits and Routines That Will Make You Rich. We talk about how to break free of the mindset that is holding you back from earning more. Also, the 10 steps to developing a millionaire mindset, the top habits of millionaires that you can actually start applying every day.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't matter where you live, what gender you are, if you have been to college or graduated or not, what career you're in. It doesn't matter any of that. You can start applying these habits today. And the keys to building the right relationships to grow your business. Check it out. Get a free copy. We ship it internationally as well. TheMillionaireMorning.com. Go get your free copy right now and let me know when you get it. Again, TheMillionaireMorning.com. Today's episode, we've got a big one. It's almost like a two-parter. It's almost like two interviews in one. But they somehow tie together, so I wanted to keep them together because it's so powerful. Now, if you don't know who Jason Flom is, he is the guy that discovers rock stars.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  And he also defends wrongfully convicted inmates. And just the, the life he's lived, the people he's met, the things he's experienced and what he's done are so powerful. He is the CEO of Lava Records and Lava Music Publishing. He was previously the chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, Virgin Records and Capitol Music Group and is personally responsible for launching acts such as Kid Rock, Katy Perry and Lorde. The New Yorker described him as one of the most successful record men in the past 20 years, known for his speciality in delivering monsters. Artists who he discovered and developed during his time at Atlantic Records include Kid

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  Rock, Matchbox 20, The Chorus, Hayley Williams, Skid Row, Tori Amos, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Jewel and Sugar Ray. From there, he moved to Virgin Records in 2006 where he discovered the mega star and signed Katy Perry. And then when he moved to Capitol Records, he went on to oversee the careers of artists like Coldplay, Lenny Kravitz and 30 Seconds to Mars. And again, in this interview, we cover some amazing things. First, we talk about the stories behind how Jason discovered superstar acts like Lorde and Katy Perry. What separates a true star from all the other talent they are competing with and how he can spot the difference between them. Also, why Jason is so passionate about correcting our legal system and what he's doing about it.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  The crazy stories of wrongfully convicted people who Jason has helped exonerate and get out of prison. Also, what anyone can do right now to support changing the defects in our legal and political system that has been corrupting things for a long time. This one was a lot of fun for me. For one, it's exciting for me to learn about how someone can go from working in a mailroom, essentially, to being the CEO and discovering some of the biggest acts in the world and also continue to build your industry in your industry, but also build outside of it and use your influence to serve greater causes like what Jason is doing with the wrongfully convicted. Before we get into the episode, I want to give a quick shout out to our review of the week over on iTunes.

• 4:05Lewis Howes?

  That's right, every week we're talking about the best reviews and we're getting a lot lately, so thank you to everyone who's left a review over on iTunes. And this one is from John Burrito, who said, absolutely life-changing. This show has transformed my morning and Afternoon commutes into a time of personal growth, reflection and empowerment. Thank you so much, Lewis, for your bravery, honesty and your giving heart. You have opened my eyes to what is possible in my own life. And your show has connected me to the messages of some of the greatest minds in the world. Thank you, thank you a million times. Thank you. Keep the greatness coming. So thank you so much to John Burrito.

• 4:45Lewis Howes?

  And again, I love the last name there. And again, this is another one of those episodes where I think it's going to fill you with great inspiration and insights about how to reach the top of your industry. But also how to make an impact in the world and hear about the story of what Jason does to serve so many people who were wrongfully convicted. Make sure to check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com/458 where you can see the full video interview and all the other links back to what Jason is up to as well. But without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one, the only Jason Flom.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have Jason Flom in the house. Good to see you, man. Thanks for coming in.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  What's up? Thanks for having me.

• 5:32Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited about this because a mutual friend introduced us, Ryan Blair, right? First introduced us and I started learning more about you after he connected us and we chatted on the phone. And a fascinating life, fascinating story, first starting in the music industry, still in the music industry, but you've broken a number of big names who are just a few of the names that you've kind of like either discovered or helped develop into becoming superstars.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Oh man, I mean going.

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  I've got a list of like paragraphs of them.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Going in reverse chronological order, I guess you go Lord and Jesse J and Katy Perry and Paramore, 30 Seconds to Mars, and then going back further Kid Rock and Matchbox 20, and then even further back, Stone Temple Pilots and Skid Row. You know, Jewel and the Chorus and Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I get a kick out of that one because. It's sort of, I think, a little ironic that the biggest Christmas act in history was created or co-created by a Jew.

• 6:27Lewis Howes?

  That's funny.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Again, Jesus Christ, or whatever.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it's been, listen, the music business has been very, very good to me, and it goes even further back, but I don't want to give you some of those names because then people will date me.

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Well, Trans-Siberian is such a huge hit, too. I knew one of the violinists. I think his name's Mark Wood, I think. I'm not sure if you know who that is, but I think he performed in it. But there's a lot of different acts in Trans-Siberian now. There's like multiple or no?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Well, there's two touring companies.

• 6:51Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Which is a brilliant thing, right? The fact is that they could be playing Seattle and Philadelphia the same night. It's amazing. You can't really go wrong with that.

• 6:58Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Because it, yeah, and the shows are so consistently phenomenal, you know?

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  The light show, I've been to one. It's cool. The lighting, the music, it's like high energy. It's awesome.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  The narrator and the thing, it just makes everybody feel good. You know what's interesting about that is that they don't have an intermission, and they sell less concessions than any other artist because nobody leaves their seat. They all sit there like they're witnessing, you know, a miracle, you know?

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  Christmas miracle.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Nobody leaves their seat. It's crazy. I don't think anybody goes to the bathroom. You know, like, it's funny because I think some of the promoters would love it if they would put an intermission so they could sell some sodas.

• 7:33Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Yeah, that's funny.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Not happening.

• 7:35Lewis Howes?

  Now, so you've been in the music world for, how long has it been now?

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Well, I started on July 31, 1979.

• 7:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  I was given a staple gun and some double-sided tape and a bunch of posters and went out and climbed around on ladders and what these-

• 7:49Lewis Howes?

  Go promote this guy. Go promote this act, yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Well, we used to have things called record stores. Some of your listeners will remember that.

• 7:54Lewis Howes?

  I remember them.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  And they were great. They were places where you'd go to buy records, you know what I mean?

• 7:58Lewis Howes?

  And then it was CD stores, right?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, record stores became, they're still called record stores, yeah.

• 8:03Lewis Howes?

  CDs.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  All that, tapes and, yeah. And so I would climb around and it was, I immediately fell in love with the business. I mean, it was like, they were paying me $4 an hour. I was getting all the free records I could carry home and running around putting up Led Zeppelin posters. I was like, this is it. I found the greatest job in the world. I'm 18 years old. It can't get any better. That's it. I've arrived, you know? And so it was at that moment that I realized I gave up on my rock star dreams at that point.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  You wanted to be a musician?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Oh, I was absolutely sure I was going to be a rock star, even though I was aware of the fact that I wasn't talented enough.

• 8:32Lewis Howes?

  Guitarist?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I was a guitarist, yeah.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  And you sang as well?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  No, I can't sing at all. I can't sing at all. They used to let me sing one or two songs. That was the time when people could go to the bathroom, anyway, because it was my group. But I could only sing one note, so it was bad. But, yeah, we played some clubs in New York and we did a lot more rehearsing than gigging and- Anyway, you know, but I got a job. My dad, who was a sort of a legendary attorney in the, you know, throughout that time, and an amazing, amazing man, he was my hero, but he gave me a year between high school and college to become a rock star. And my mom vetoed the deal. So my mom, who had never cursed in her life before that time, said, bullshit. If he's living in my house, he's got to work or go to school. Now I'm in Manhattan, you can't just get an apartment.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  They're not, it's not cheap. I had no money. So I had to live in the house. So my dad, the famous, the, one of the most famous negotiators of the 20th century, had to go and un-negotiate the deal he had just negotiated with his wayward son. Cause you know, I was stoned all day long and I had hair down. You know, I mean, it was crazy, right? So anyway, so he knew somebody who knew somebody who got me an interview at Warner Communications. I walked in the interview, hi, because it was 10:00 in the morning and you know, that's, I had enough time to smoke a couple of joints by then. And walked in the interview, slumped down the chair, I said, you're going to work at Atlantic Records. And I went and I fell in love with the business the first day there. And I was like, you know what? My dad had told me and my brother, do whatever you want to do. Try to be the best at it, but just make the world a better place. He says, if you do that, you'll be a success in my eyes. Well, I wanted to be a success in his eyes because he was my

• 10:04Speaker 01

  hero. So I found, I knew I was never going to be the best guitar player. This was around the time the first Van Halen record came out. And in case I needed a reminder, I was like, okay, fuck it. You know what I mean? There's no point. That I can't do. You know? So, I mean, so, you know, I was adequate. I was good. But anyway, so I, but I, but I, walking around the halls of Atlantic Records in those legendary times, and those were really fun times to be in the business, I realized I could be the best at this. Like, this is something, I love this. It was my favorite label. You know, I'd had the label, it's Apple and an ACD, whatever, all those records, Bad Company, back in the day with the A spinning around. People who are young haven't experienced that, but it's pretty fun when you get vinyl. And vinyl's making a comeback.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Which is great. So to watch that, that A with the, that little floral, like whatever that thing is called, the little like circle thingy, spinning around. It was just like part of my, you know, it was in my soul. And I was like, wow, this is, you know.

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  And now you're working there.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the crazy thing is after my crazy journey, like 20, almost 25 years to the day from that, like day of walking in there, they, they asked me to become chairman of the record company. And I was like, uh... Yeah, you guys sure about this? It was like me? You know, and we know what's crazy is that my first thought when they offered me that job, which of course I wanted, I was like, wow, I mean, do I, does that mean I get to like decide whether it's a snow day? That's so weird how your mind goes. I was like, and for you people in LA that don't know what snow days are, you know, or in the, in the, you know, or in the southwest, right? Snow days when you actually like, don't have to go to school because it's snowing, right? Now, you know, with global warming, we won't have any more snow days anyway, but that's beside the point.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  But yeah, so it was, it was a, it was a crazy journey and it was really, it was a-

• 11:48Lewis Howes?

  And so you started, you know, as a, you know, a low level, four dollar an hour posting posters up or whatever you're doing, promoting records, I'm assuming to, did, doing every single job there? Or did you kind of make some big leaps or what happened? You started managing artists or what was the process?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Well, so serendipity and synchronicity are a big start of my story, big part of my story and luck, right? I think, you know, you have to be lucky. And, but I think there are ways to get lucky too, and we'll talk about that. But the fact is, what happened was, I decided I needed to find a band. Because if I found a band, maybe they'd give me a job finding bands. And I was like, but how am I going to find a band? I have a staple gun and some double sided tape, not exactly the tools of the trade. So I was like, okay, I set my mind, I said, okay, there's a, there was a magazine back then, a music industry trade magazine called Album Network. And I was like, okay, Album Network had, it was the bible of rock radio. It would tell you everything you needed to know about what was going on, which records were going up, which were going down, which were coming out, what the programmers thought of this, all this stuff, right? And how to advertise it for different records.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  So I decided if I, in the back of the magazine, they had the playlists of all 190 rock stations around the country and rock was my thing back then. So I decided if I studied these playlists, and my eyes were real good because I was 18, 19 years old. So I was like, if I study these playlists, maybe I'll find a record that's being played on a station that isn't already signed. And then I can try to find out about that group and maybe that would be a chance for me to like, bring it to somebody. So that was my thing. So, and have, and they printed the name of the station and the phone number and the name of the program director. So I could just call and pretend I was somebody important, which is what I would do. And half the time they would take my call anyway because they didn't know me, but half the time they would.

• 13:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  And then most of that time they would say, no, no, no, that's already signed to, you know, RCA or whatever they would say. So as fate would have it, one day I'm looking at this, I'm staring at this list, and there was a station in Long Island called WBAB, and they were playing a group called The Lines. So I call up the program director, his name was Bob Buckman. I get Bob on the phone, I go, "Bob, what's The Lines?" He goes, "It's nothing. It's a favor. I put it on the radio as a favor to somebody. You don't need to worry about that." And I said, "Well, if you were me, who would you sign?" It's the type of thing you would say, right? Like, "Let me just go play handball."

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  So I was like, who should... I mean, I had as much chance of signing anything as you did of making the handball team. That's basically it. I didn't sign anything. It was a ridiculous thing to say.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  And how old were you?

• 14:04Speaker 01

  I was probably 19, maybe. 18, 19. You know, I could barely sign my fucking name back then. So anyway, I don't know if I'm allowed to curse the show. Anyway, so, so I said, "Okay, I'm going to..." So he says, "Let me tell you about Zebra." I go, "What's Zebra?" He goes, "It's the most requested band at the radio station."

• 14:22Lewis Howes?

  And they weren't signed?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  I go, "You mean, most requested local band?" He goes, "No, genius." He goes, "Listen, let me tell you something." He goes, "Number one at the station is Zebra, then two, three, and four in some order was Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Aziz Ansari."

• 14:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  I was like, "Oh, my God, this is it. This is it. How do I get ahold of these guys?" Right? So he says, "Hold on, I'll call them on the other phone." So they lived in New Orleans. They'd been playing clubs for nine years and selling out everywhere. They'd play New York in the summer because it was too hot in New Orleans, and then they'd play New Orleans in the winter because it was too cold in New York, and they were big in both markets. Anyway, they'd given up on getting a record. It was passed over by everybody.

• 14:55Lewis Howes?

  But they were selling out?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  But nobody cared. Yeah. So I didn't say that the music business is a logical place. You'll never hear me say that. So anyway, so what happened was, the next day I get to my desk, and there's a FedEx package. Now FedEx was kind of a new thing back then. Again, I'm dating myself, but it was like glowing. I was like, "What do I do now?" You know? So I opened it, there was a record in it. I'm like, "Great, now what do I listen to?" So I go to one of the guys whose job it was to do this, the A and R, right? And I said, "I figure this guy must know what he's doing. He's got an office." I go in his office, I said, "You're about to hear the next big thing." He says, "Really? Just listen to it?" I go, "No, but I'm telling you." Because I knew, like intellectually, I had statistically.

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, everyone's requesting it.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  It's gotta be good.

• 15:35Lewis Howes?

  Selling out, yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Right? So, so I put it on, the guy gives me five, 10 reasons why it's no good. So I go back to my desk to call this guy Randy. Tell him that his stuff's no good. And as I'm dialing the number, I said to the assistant that we called secretaries back then. Now, it's politically incorrect, but I said, Mary, this doesn't make any sense to me. The kid, this guy is number one on the station, selling out everywhere. And the guy just told me it's no good, and I'm calling him to tell him that his stuff's. She goes, it doesn't make any sense to me either.

• 16:04Lewis Howes?

  That's why it hasn't been signed yet.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  So I said, yeah, probably so. So I call him up. Well, how many great ideas do we know that were, that were, that were accepted on the first go around?

• 16:12Lewis Howes?

  No, not many.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  So that's one of my, my central tenets. But anyway, we'll get to that. But so, anyway, so I call him up, and I said, listen, the guy says no good for this reason, that reason. But I'm gonna give it to the president of Atlantic and see what he thinks. Now, I didn't know the president of Atlantic. I mean, I knew I should stay away from him when I was high and the smoke was captured in my hair. And I was like, I looked like Cousin It. And it was like, you know, so, but other than that, I fit. So I went and I made a cassette of it, and I put it on his secretary's desk. It was like a wall of cassettes on her desk that he was probably never going to listen to, right? Because everybody's doing the same thing I'm doing, hoping that he's gonna pay some attention. So that's where the story gets interesting. So he was, he grabs, sometime the next few days, he grabs a few cassettes to listen to on his way home. Well, he happened to live in Long Island.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  So he's listening to Zebra in the cassette deck and decides that he doesn't like it and pops it out. And the same song is playing on the radio.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Because he lived in Long Island, the station was tuned to WBAB because that was the hot station. And so now, you can imagine, he's like, huh, I found this out much later, right? Because all I knew is the guy, the next day, the guy comes in and says, this is genius. And I was like, huh, yeah, oh, yeah, I knew that.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  You're welcome.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  So, but that's what happened. So that was my break. Because at the end of the song, the DJ said, that's the most requested song in the history of WBAB.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  No way. So he was listening to it like.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  We need to get these guys.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Because he was smart. I mean, he was a guy, he's the guy who taught me that your opinion is not nearly as important as the public's opinion.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  That's it, what the market wants.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  So when the public makes that movement where you reach in your pocket and they put down your money, that's it. Well, in this case, they were just making requests, but even still, yeah. They were buying tickets. Because back then, there was no downloading. So anyway, it was great because when the record actually finally came out, and it was a whole twisted saga to get to that point. But when it finally came out. The kids all cut school and bought the record because they'd been waiting years for their favorite band to put out a record. So they were like snatching it out of the boxes. They couldn't even stamp the price on it, which was only like $3 back then. And they, $3.69 I think. And they, you know, and it was like, and everybody's looking at me like, I know what I'm doing. I'm like, yeah, I know what I'm doing, but I didn't know what I was doing, but I faked it. And I, you know, and then, yeah, and then the next band I worked with was Twisted Sister and then things got interesting from there.

• 18:15Lewis Howes?

  And they're like, they're like, okay, go find the next big act and go find the next person and.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, not exactly. I mean, he's still, you know, the music is funny. It's always like, what have you done for me lately, you know?

• 18:24Lewis Howes?

  Right. If you're not doing something this year, it's like you're dead to me, right?

• 18:27Speaker 01

  You're the guy that used to be the guy who discovered the, some guy, you know, it's.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  It's no more relevant or whatever. Yeah.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta stay, you know?

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  Well, luckily you've broken like a thousand big artists, so.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  Sounds like you've had a good career.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been amazing. I mean, it's been, uh, it's been amazing to be able to do something that I love and work with people that, uh, you know, I just, uh, you know, I wanted to be a rock star, so I love the whole rock star thing. I love rock and roll. I love the lifestyle. I love the, the, um, larger than life aspect of it. And so I've always, I've always tried to find stars as opposed to just records, you know, like I, I like rock stars. I like.

• 19:07Lewis Howes?

  Who is the, the star that you enjoyed meeting and building up the most? Or that just took off a great run and was like so amazing to you to watch?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Um, you know, the, I guess it's funny, the two that I'm probably most proud of for very different reasons. Um, one is Tori Amos, you know, just because she's so profoundly gifted and, um, and it was a, it was a very difficult process, uh, getting her to where she had to get to, but.

• 19:42Lewis Howes?

  She had like a unique voice who was different. They didn't know where to put her at, right?

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, her first single had no drums in there and like the first album did nothing. People didn't even know she had an album called Why Can't Tori Read that didn't do anything. Now you have to, I think it's worth $500. I should have saved a box of them.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Each one's worth like $500 on eBay or something, but. But yeah, that, I don't know, that one still has, for some reason, really stuck with me. Maybe also because it's very different than a lot of the other acts I signed, although, you know, very recently, I was, I bumped into this little prodigy named Lord. And so, and there's a, there's a, there's a through line there somewhere, right?

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  Blake loves Lord, right?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Everybody loves Lord.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  So how did you, how did that happen? Like, did you just find her, you heard her, or what, what happened there?

• 20:26Speaker 01

  I was just going through my inbox one day, and there was an email from a woman named Natalia Romashevsky, who is a, she worked in the, putting music in TV ads, like a jingle business, sync business, whatever. She was somebody I knew who had, would send me music time to time, because her job is to listen to as much music as possible, try to find the right music to put in the head. Yeah, that's it. So I, and I'd never heard anything that she had sent that I was particularly into. And she sent me this one email, and this, which I now have framed in my office, an autograph by Lord, and the subject line was "Hot Shit." And then it just said, "Unsign New Zealand female, listen." It had a link to her SoundCloud. And then she put a disclaimer on the bottom, which is kind of funny.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  She said, "Not sure if this is your type of thing, but thought you should hear it." Right? So I took one listen, and "Royals" was the first song on it.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  And I called Natalia, I was like, "What in the world is this?" And she goes, "I don't know." She's like, "I just got it, like, a friend of mine in London sent it to me." It had only been out for two days. Like, it had 200 plays on SoundCloud at the time. So I was like, "We ought to find her." So I found her on Facebook, I think.

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  How old was she then?

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Fifteen. So I emailed Ella, Lord's Ella, and she emailed me back. She didn't know who I was, I mean, she's 15 years old, living in New Zealand. Why would she? And she sent me back an email and said, you know, "Just contact, who to contact and whatnot." And the next thing I know, I'm on a conference call with her parents and her manager, and, you know. I remember telling, and I can imagine it's sort of probably strange to be, you know, one of her parents, right? She's 15, she's in New Zealand, you got this guy calling from New York, who's like, you know.

• 22:02Lewis Howes?

  This is a record guy, like, what is going on?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  I was like, I remember saying on that call that she's gonna win Grammys.

• 22:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  And I was right. I mean, there was, you know what's funny too, that, I don't know why, I think this way, because I sort of like, I sort of, I'm very interested in energy and stuff, right? I'm not like, super new agey or anything, but I am interested in.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  But you got the beads, you got the whole, you know, you got the thing.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  I got my stuff, so, um, yeah, there's a story behind all of these too. But, um, so, the interesting thing that dawned on me was, she wrote Royals because she saw a picture of George Brett in a Royals uniform.

• 22:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Which is odd in itself, because there's no baseball in New Zealand, right? Like, where did she see that? I guess online, right? It must have been on something.

• 22:40Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, that's hilarious.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  And then what happens is Royals becomes the biggest song in the, in the country by far, and number one at seven formats, which never happens, and, and, and huge all over the world, and the Royals, who are perennially terrible at baseball, become the best team in baseball.

• 22:57Lewis Howes?

  Kansas City, right?

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, that year, they went to the World Series, and the next year, they won the World Series. What happened? Like, it's weird, right?

• 23:05Lewis Howes?

  Energy.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  The Royals are one of those teams that just doesn't win.

• 23:08Lewis Howes?

  Never.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Right? So, all of a sudden, they win. Royals, I don't know, like, sometimes, it could be a coincidence.

• 23:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  But maybe not. I don't know, somebody, if anybody has any theories, let us know.

• 23:19Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy, how old is she now?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  She is 19.

• 23:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's a pretty quick process. Like, right when you discovered her, and you found her, you were just like, okay, here's the next step, we're gonna put this out, and then it just kind of took off?

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was a little more involved than that, but she had, the music was there.

• 23:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  And, you know, she.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  She was writing all her own stuff, and?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  She wrote the whole first record with a guy named Joel Little.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Who, who was a guy that, yeah, they did it in the Little studio in, in New Zealand, and like, with very little, you know, I mean, it didn't cost a lot of money, nothing fancy, no bells and whistles, no, no samples, no, no features, no, you know, just like, pure inspiration. And it's interesting, and I read, when I was reading the obituary of Bobby Fischer, this is a random fact, but, I was, in that obituary, they said that there's three things that children can become geniuses at, which are music, math, and chess. And, sort of an interesting thing to take a minute and think about, right? Because it's true, we know Mozart was seven when he was doing, like, writing symphonies and stuff, right? And you see, there was a kid on 60 Minutes not too long ago, who's like. A prodigy of life. He's written more symphonies than some of the masters. I think he's 11 or 12 and his parents aren't musical.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  The music just comes to him. He writes them all like he just writes, they just come out. He never changes a note. It just like flows out of his brain.

• 24:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  So, so yeah, and it's, and the reason they said that that is the case is because music, math and chess are all based on math. So somehow, and we need a neuroscientist to explain this to us, I guess, but.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Fascinating.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I find it interesting.

• 24:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man. And what was the vision for you? Like, you know, you have a vision probably for every artist, but just talking about Lord. What's the vision when you find something like that? Do you say, okay, here's what we're gonna do for you or here's where it's gonna go or do you? I mean, how do you even do this? Like some random girl from New Zealand, 200 views. How do you take it to like the biggest super, one of the biggest superstars in the world in the next two years?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Well, this, listen, it's, we market magic, right? It's a strange business. It's not a product that you can see. It's not a product that you can, I mean, you can hold it in your hands in the sense of actually holding a physical disc, but you're not holding music.

• 25:25Lewis Howes?

  It's a feeling.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  It's a feeling, right. It's something that comes.

• 25:28Lewis Howes?

  Experience.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  It, it touches you and it touch, and it's interesting. It's, it's really pretty much untestable too, right? And I find this interesting because you know, like movies, when they make a movie, often they'll take an audience and they'll put them in a theater and they'll show them the movie and people go, I don't like the ending. Or I don't like when the guy dies in the thing and then they'll change it, right? Cause it's research and, but in music, you can't do that because movies are a thing you go to go see and you can simulate that experience. This is about my theory. I don't think I can prove it. So you have an audience that's basically put into the actual experience that they would be having if they went to a theater. But when you ask people to listen to music and give you an opinion, you're removing the spontaneity and the magic that happens and you're turning them, you know, it's like if you're thinking, you're stinking, right?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  And so you're actually, it's.

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  Am I? No.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  No, you're all right. I mean, I can't smell anyway.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  So yeah, so it's an interesting thing because it's not something you, no one's ever been able to figure out a way to play music to a group of people in a room and then walk out of there and go, this is a hit, this is not a hit. Except that, you know, there was a guy many years ago who, it was a crazy story, but that's beside the point. You know, who's the first guy to figure out that if you put it, took a record and put it on in a club and people all got up and started dancing, it was probably a hit. Now, it's dance music, it's a specific thing. It's logical, though. This is the only science we have in the business. Other than that, it's, it's like alchemy. So, but with the, with Lord, I mean, the thing was really, um, you know, just to take our time was our strategy and not rush and not like just go to pop radio, but take it instead to, um, you know,

• 27:06Speaker 01

  what we call AAA radio, uh, then alternative radio and then ultimately pop, but let it build with the

• 27:13Lewis Howes?

  Grassroots feeling.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  With the people, the, the tastemakers, you know what I mean? The, um, for lack of a better word, the cool kids, you know? Um, and, you know, that's, and that's what we did. Uh, but in the case of Lord, it was.

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  But it happened pretty quick. I mean, 15 to 17, she was already selling, you know, platinum.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Well, she had two monster number one hits, you know? And, you know, she also, like, I, I remember when she told me the name of the album was gonna be Pure Heroin and I was like, I, I actually, it took me a day and a half to recover from the genius of that, right? Like Pure Heroin with an E on the end and Lord has an E on the end and it's just like.

• 27:48Lewis Howes?

  And was her name, does she call herself Lord then, or was it?

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Well, she's always been Lord as long as I've known her. And the crazy thing is, you know, I saw the first show she ever did, which was in Auckland, the first show she ever did with her own material, right? She had done shows in high school and things like that, singing covers or whatever. But I was at this little club in Auckland, probably 70 people there, but she was Lord. I mean, you know, sometimes you see artists, like they start off and they're really bad and then they have to grow and, and you get better. You do hundreds and hundreds of shows, you get better. She was Lord. I mean, she was on stage owning it, you know, like.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  15.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  15, yeah, so.

• 28:22Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty amazing.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Pretty amazing, yeah. She's amazing, she's a.

• 28:25Lewis Howes?

  So you knew when you saw her that you were like, yes, this is, this is gonna happen, this is big already?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I heard it, when I saw it, it was just like, and I was just lucky to get it when I did because, uh, within weeks, other labels were calling and they had gotten out and it was, you know, it was one of those that it was hard to listen to that record and not really, you know?

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  We all make huge mistakes and, you know, all the creative businesses are fused, are filled with incredible stories of the biggest things, you know, being passed on, whether it's Harry Potter or Star Wars was dropped from the label that was on, or even Katy Perry, who I worked with, was dropped by two labels before I found her.

• 28:59Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Or, you know, there's just, there's so many examples, right? The Confederacy of Dunces one is one that always sticks with me and, um, it's one of my favorite books. And, you know, the problem is that nobody, nobody in the music business, in the job that I'm in, bats 400. You know, like, it's like baseball. You can't bat 400. Like, if you're right three times out of 10, you go to the Hall of Fame.

• 29:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  You know, just like baseball. And so, the thing is, it's true, I believe, in the book business, in the movie business, in the, you know, in the creative, any of the creative businesses. Like, we just, we're, you know, we're guessing the best we can.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  But, anyone who takes their own opinion too seriously is gonna get bitten the ass because

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  we don't know. You never know. And it's also

• 29:44Lewis Howes?

  The market tells you.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  It's also, like, it's not a, there's nothing, there's not, it's farthest thing from a perfect science. And, these are, you know, they're diamonds in the rough typically when we meet them. Like, Lorde's different, right? In every way. Like, she had a finished song, like, Royals was finished.

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  There's nothing to do. The imagination was there. And so, but normally, we find an artist and they may not even have the song that's gonna become their career.

• 30:07Lewis Howes?

  So you gotta work with writers, and you gotta put them together, and you gotta figure it out.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Right, or they write the songs, or whatever it is, yeah. But so, you know, and sometimes you'll kick yourself. You'll hear somebody and you'll pass on it, and then it's on the charts, and you go, how did I? You know, like, and that's, you know, I only allow myself to kick myself these days for 48 hours maximum. You know what I mean? You can't, like-

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  Who's the biggest person you passed on that you actually had a conversation with that you were like, eh, I don't think it's for me, it's not gonna be that good, like, I'm not feeling it? And then it was just like, home run.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  I spent years in therapy trying to forget. Answer that question. So, I don't know.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Is there anyone you remember?

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Well, listen, I think I had the first meeting with Bon Jovi back in the day, you know? I mean, and my bosses didn't wanna give him some, I don't know, whatever. And I take some responsibility for it too, but I was not in a position to sign anything like that. But I could've pushed harder. I certainly could've pushed harder for him. Now, you know, Bon Jovi's an interesting one because I think everything worked out the way it was supposed to in a certain way because he, his first record was marginally successful, right? And I think this, that was the second one or the third one that was the big one, but- He was signed to, I think, Polygram. And that label was failing. Like, it was going out of business. And they said, "We're gonna put everything behind this guy." They were smart enough to realize that he was their way out, so to speak.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  And some genius that was working at the label at the time said, "I have an idea. Let's make him write with Desmond Child." And Desmond Child was a guy, if I remember correctly, he was writing disco music back then, right? And so it seemed like a strange combination. You have this sort of long-haired rocker guy from New Jersey, and this disco, gay disco songwriter guy. Like, it wouldn't seem logical.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  But it worked.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  They wrote those big songs. They wrote "Living on a Prayer," and "Want It Better Alive," and all the songs. And like, so had I signed him, that doesn't happen.

• 31:56Lewis Howes?

  It wouldn't happen.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  You know, there's no part of me that would have been smart enough, or lucky enough, or crazy enough to put him together with Desmond.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Who became a very important songwriter and a good friend.

• 32:05Lewis Howes?

  So that worked out. Wow. And then, so Katy Perry is another interesting story. And I have a lot of stuff I want to ask you about everything else you're doing now, but this is fascinating to me. So Katy Perry was passed on a few people before you? Or she was with labels before, and then it didn't work out? They dropped her, and then you found her, or what was that?

• 32:20Speaker 01

  She was originally signed as a Christian artist.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  I remember that, yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  And then dropped. And then she was signed to Columbia Records. And they couldn't figure out what to do with it. They tried putting her in a group, and they tried different things, and then they didn't want it. And then, how I found her was that I, when I took over the job running Virgin Records, I hired a woman named Angelica Cobb to be our head of publicity. And she had been the number two in publicity at Columbia. And so, but not too long after she started at Virgin, she's very talented. And she said, "You know, there's a girl at Columbia's getting ready to drop named Katy Perry. And I think she's a star. You should meet with her." And I was like, "Okay." So I met with her. Actually, we had lunch at the Polo Lounge. And she walked in, and I was like...

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Immediately taken by her. I was like, this, this girl's going. Same feeling I had when I met Haley Williams the first time. I was like, this, this is a star. And she's, without hearing a note of music, I was like, she's going. Her energy, her. The way she carries herself, you know, my thing about stars is they walk and talk and, and, and wear clothes differently than normal people do. You could take the same clothes off the rack and put them on somebody else and put them on them, but they look great. And you're like, how's that? That's weird. You know, they might not even be great looking. Yeah. Not all of them are great looking, but they carry themselves with a certain je ne sais quoi. That's just like bam. And I am pretty good at recognizing it. So with Katie, I had that feeling immediately. And then it was funny because I got her music. I loved it. I went back and played it for the top executives at the time.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  And they were like, this is horrible. Wow. Like, don't do this to us. You know, like literally like that, like a visceral reaction, like, you know. You're running the company this time, right? I was running the, I was the chairman and CEO. Yeah. So, but, but even still, yeah, but even still you get, you know, everyone's influenced by something, somebody says to you, you know, like no matter who it is, like somebody walks in, it's like, and you're like, hmm. And so for a moment I was like, wait a minute, like. Maybe it's not that good. Yeah. And so it was a month or so later, I was in my garage working out and I was listening to, um, I was listening to it on my headphones and I was like, oh my God, I'm, I'm an idiot. Like she's great. I hope she didn't sign with somebody else. I may have blown this thing, right? And so I called her up and she was working at this little place in LA making $10 an hour. She was working out the, uh, what was the store?

• 34:31Speaker 01

  It's called Taxi. The clothing store? No, no, this is when she was working at a demo listening service. Oh, okay. That's funny. And I called her up and then, you know, that's how it all, that's how it all started. You said, I want to do the deal. Let's sign you. Let's figure this out. And then. Yeah. I spoke to her manager and got the lawyers involved and, you know, and then, and then, and then another serendipitous moment, you know, I invited her to our Grammy, but that was in December. I invited her to our Grammy party, which was of course in the beginning of February.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  And she arrived with a guy named Dr. Luke, who I knew because I had actually given him his first break when he was a guitar player. It started out live, I gave him a record deal and.

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  He's hitting, you know, tons of hits he's written, right?

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  He and Max are like the top hit writers, right?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Luke went on an insane roll. And anyway, so they walked in together and I was like, oh my God, you guys know each other? Like, yeah, we're friends. I was like, well, you got to work together. Fantastic. And then I sort of, it had some fits and starts, but I sort of like really pushed hard for that collaboration. And of course, that became, you know, again, did I know it was going to be that? No, but did it work out? Yes. I mean, they.

• 35:33Lewis Howes?

  Kiss the Girl was a big hit, right?

• 35:34Speaker 01

  They wrote Kiss the Girl and Hot and Cold and all the rest of her hits up until very recently were co-written with him, except for Firework, which was written by, I think Katie wrote it with Stargate.

• 35:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  So, which is always a funny thing, but you know, because it's fireworks, it's a funny song. I thought it was only fireworks. Baby, you're, is there a firework? Is that a word? Does anybody know?

• 35:56Lewis Howes?

  Firework.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Can you have one firework?

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, one firework, I guess.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  I'm not an English major.

• 36:05Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I thought it was one of those words that was only pure.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  But it worked. It was a huge hit. I mean, that was a monster song. One of her biggest ever.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, amazing. Well, congrats on all of this. I mean, I could ask more about that. My brother's the number one jazz violinist in the world.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  And your parents were opera singers, right?

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  They were opera singers, yeah. And my brother played with Les Paul in Times Square for 10 years. He played at his funeral a number of years back. And so I've grown up in the music world, kind of watching him struggle as a violinist, jazz violinist, which isn't, you know, a big industry.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:36Lewis Howes?

  But he's made a name for himself and really like grown as an entrepreneur and selling himself, even in the jazz world, you know? It's like, it's crazy how hard you have to work to kind of like make money in the jazz world, but he loves it.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like that old joke, right? Was he a definition of an optimist? A violinist with a beeper?

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  But he made it work, so that's great.

• 36:58Lewis Howes?

  For me, it's fascinating. I just love the industry and I've had, you know, I've had Scooter Braun on a few times and hear about his stories of success with Justin Bieber and all the things he's doing now. It's, it's pretty cool to, to learn about what you guys do and how it all works. It's fascinating to me.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, Scooter's, he's.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  You know Scooter well, too, or?

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's an amazing, amazing guy. It's interesting because I saw him recently and he told me that. When, I guess when he was a kid, he, he came to see me or something when I was running, one of the labels I was running and he said I was really nice to him and gave him the time of day and whatever. And I was like, oh, I, I mean, obviously I wouldn't necessarily remember because he was just a kid.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  But, uh,

• 37:34Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's good. It's ni- it's nice to be nice.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. It pays off in the long run, right?

• 37:39Speaker 01

  That's another thing my dad told me, you know, when I was, I must've been 10 years old and my dad, we were at a party in New York at somebody's apartment and he introduced me to a guy and we walked away and he said, "Son, that's one of the richest guys in, in America." And I was like, "Wow, Dad, how'd he get so rich?" And he said, "By being friendly." And I was like, "That always stuck with me." And you know, for me, I don't know how to be unfriendly. Like, when I've tried to be mean, like in business and stuff, or try to be an a-hole, like, it's, it's laughable. Like, so I mean, it's not like I've never lost my temper, but I'm pretty even temper. Like, I don't know my temper. I mean, it's not, it's not that serious. Um, so, yeah. But anyway, so it's good, it's good to know and I'm, I'm super proud of what he's doing. I mean,

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  He's, he's on an incredible roll.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he is. Unbelievable. Hit after hit and star after star. Um, but speaking of getting upset and not getting upset, he likes his little transition here.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I see where you're going.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  He likes his little transition here. I, I could talk, we'll have to come back on and talk more about the music world. Uh, but you're doing some incredible work in the criminal justice space. You've got a podcast right now, uh, that is called Wrongful Conviction, correct?

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:45Lewis Howes?

  Wrongful Conviction. You're the founding board member, member of the Innocence Project, which has exonerated nearly 350 wrongfully convicted individuals. Is that correct?

• 38:55Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 38:56Lewis Howes?

  And you're, you're really part of the movement that's trying to bring awareness to the, the criminal justice system, how messed up it is and how there's all these people that go to prison for so long. And my brother was in prison for four and a half years. Not wrongfully. He got caught by selling drugs to an undercover cop and, uh, I think the, the, the time was maybe wrongful. He was spent, uh, spent, sent, sentenced six to 25 years for selling two sheets of LSD to an undercover cop because the judge wanted to make a, uh, an example of him in Ohio at the time with the whole drug stuff happening, I guess, in the early 90s or whatever. So.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  And I'm sure that magically worked and nobody did LSD again after that, right?

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, right, exactly. But, uh, you know, he actually talks about how he got out in four and a half years on good behavior and. Joined the prison band and actually learned jazz and blues and hip hop because he was the only white member of the band and that's all they played was gospel and church music. And that's actually what helped him reinvent himself from a classical violinist to the most prolific jazz violinist in the world. And so he looks at it as like, he's not mad at all. He's like, which I don't understand, you know, like all this time, he was only four and a half years and the people you work with are 35, 40 years that they spend and you're telling me stories beforehand about how they're not mad and they forgive and

• 40:16Lewis Howes?

  even if it's not their fault and they didn't do the crime, they get out and they forgive, which just blows me away that they're not angrier about half their life being gone because of something, the system being wrong.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's one of the things that drives me every day to want to do more to help prevent future wrongful convictions and to help the, you know, get the people out who are in, you know, my, my driving, and to help them once they do get out, you know, my driving passion for almost 25 years has been getting people out of prison who don't belong there and reforming the system so that people like your brother don't go in in the first place. Because I'm glad he had a positive experience in there, but he's in a very, very small minority. And the fact is.

• 41:00Lewis Howes?

  I mean, he went through some crap. I mean, there was definitely stories of like, I can't believe that you went through these certain things in prison, but his experience afterwards is positive, you know?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  You know, I'm on the board also, of various organizations that have been, that are at the, at the center of what I call the war against the war on drugs. Because I don't believe that anyone should go to prison for something they put in their own bodies. And the fact is that we have a lot more important things to worry about than, than people doing nonviolent drug crimes. Like, and should they even be crimes? We can debate that, right? The fact is, I'm, I'm very gratified that after working on this stuff since 92 or three, to see that, you know, marijuana is becoming legal, right? And on the state level anyway, and that, you know, things are moving in, at least on the state level, in a more sane direction and more in line with the rest of the world. Right? The rest of the world doesn't do what we do.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Like, you know, and I'll talk to politicians and I'll say, you know, If another country did to our citizens what we do to our citizens, we'd invade. We'd be like, we're coming in. We got tanks, we got planes.

• 42:05Lewis Howes?

  We're gonna save them, yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  We're gonna say, we can't do this. You can't, we lock up people at the highest rate per capita of any nation in the history of the world, right? We have 2.2 plus million people in prison in America.

• 42:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. You know, I was just in Iceland five months ago. I think they have like seven people in prison or something.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Lewis Howes?

  In the whole country.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Greenland doesn't have a prison.

• 42:25Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, right?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  If they have somebody really, really terrible, they send them to Denmark. But they don't have a prison there, you know, like, so, yeah, Iceland is, I've always wanted to go there. It must be extraordinary.

• 42:34Lewis Howes?

  It's unbelievable.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  I can't wait. I'm gonna go.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  You gotta visit, man.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go. So close to New York.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  And go see the prison. It's like in the middle of like, in the middle of like this oasis land of like beauty and it's unbelievable, yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and, and.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  Minimum security, you know, it's like.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  No, and it's interesting, right? If you go to places like Scandinavia, right? They have the opposite approach. Like, they're all about rehabilitation.

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  They are, yes.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  There are prisons there where the warden, when you, when you get sent to prison, the, whatever the group, you get off the bus and the warden says, listen, you are gonna be potentially my neighbors when you get out of here. I'm gonna treat you the way I would wanna be treated myself. And they have, you know, I mean, the prisons there, like, they go to an extreme. I mean, the prisons there, if you look up the pictures of the world's nicest prisons, you'll see they're in Norway and they're nicer than any college dorm in America.

• 43:17Lewis Howes?

  Beautiful, right?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  And they're beautiful. It's ridiculous. So, I mean, it's actually over the top, but maybe that's, that's closer to the right approach. This punishment thing, like, punishment, like, and the thing that drives me crazy is nonviolent drug offenders, right? That's how I got into this because I read a story in the newspaper about a kid who was serving 15 to life, like your brother.

• 43:35Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 43:36Speaker 01

  But he was serving 15 to life for a nonviolent first offense in New York State. And I was like, what?

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

  To life.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  15 to life. I was like, what? No, no, that's not okay. Like, I freaked out. I was like, I have to do something about this. And so.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  I ended up getting, to make a very long story short, I ended up getting a music business. A defense attorney I knew from the music business, because at the time I had Scott Weiland and Sebastian Bach, and they were getting arrested a lot. So I had this guy in speed dial, so I called him, I said, "Is there anything you can do?" He said, "There's nothing you can do. It's the Rockefeller drug laws. It's just the way it is." I was like, "Can you talk to the..." Because I had spoken to the kid's mother by now. I called her up. Her name was in the newspaper article. And I was like, "We gotta help. We gotta do something." So he, as a favor to me, agreed to take the case pro bono. And several months later, we found ourselves in a courtroom in Malone, New York. I was sitting there holding, the mother's name was Shirley Lennon, the kid's name was Steven. And I was sitting there with Stan and Shirley and me in the courtroom. And the judge, who looked like a conservative guy, who was an older guy with white hair, but maybe you can't judge a book by its cover. And, you know, the arguments were made back and forth,

• 44:33Speaker 01

  because the lawyer had found some technicality. He'd been in for nine years by now. Oh, my goodness. And the kid in shackles, you've seen this, right? The leg irons, the shackle to the waist, the whole thing. He was a nonviolent first offender. And so, and the judge says something like, "I haven't heard anything in this court today that under section this, statute this, but on the other hand, under the thing above..." He goes with some legal mumbo jumbo, and I'm sitting there, I don't know what's going on. And he goes, "A power granted to me," and he goes, "The motion is granted." And I was like, and Bob, the lawyer, comes over and I was like, "What just happened?" And he goes, "We won." I was like, "We won?" I go, "We won?" I go, "That's incredible." Like, that's the best feeling I've ever had in my life. Wow. And I'm sitting there with the mom and the thing, and like, it's like out of a movie, right?

• 45:13Speaker 01

  And so, I was like, "I'm gonna do more of that. That's what makes me tick. I just found it, right?" That was like my eureka moment. I was like, "That's it." So now, I was like, you know, and as somebody who had been a messed up kid when I was a kid, you know, I had been in the wrong place at the wrong, I wasn't any major drug dealer or anything, but I'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time enough times that all I had to do was get unlucky, and my life could have taken a very terrible turn. Yeah. Because all you need to be is be in the car with somebody who's holding it, or be in the house. Because the way the crazy laws in this country work is if everybody says it's not mine, it's all of yours, right? And I don't know too many guys who are dealers who would say, "Oh, yeah, that's my stuff." So everybody goes, not mine. Then it's like, well, guess what? You're all going down for the same amount. So, um, and in fact, Steven had had a guy.

• 45:56Lewis Howes?

  My brother too. There was like a group of five of them or something that all went down for a number of years.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  And it's, and it's because they weigh the, the sheet, right? That's the crazy thing with the LSD laws. They weigh the sheet that it's on and people out there should know this. Like, don't do that, right? Because, or they can weigh, you know, if they want, they can weigh the, uh, if, if you put it in a, a container with some sort of, you know, uh, water or, or orange juice. What do people put it in? I don't know. I don't do drugs. But the thing is, if you do, um, then they can weigh that and charge you, it sends you to prison for nine thousand years. You know, it's like, it's crazy. And why? Like, why? And so, you know, and this kid, by the way, Steven, he, he turned into be a successful businessman. He has a contracting business. He got a couple of kids. Last I heard and everything was fine, you know? And like, um, it was funny because, uh, uh, five months after he got out, I got a letter from his sister who I'd never met.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Joanne, I think her name was. And it said, Dear Jason, you don't know me, but you got me pregnant. Now, that's not something a guy wants to hear, generally speaking, right? For the fact that I was married at the time and I was faithful. So I was, I knew that wasn't it. But so she says, and she didn't have the same last name as him either, right? So she says, well, how did this happen? Well, you know, for the last several years, my husband and I have been trying to conceive. And the doctor told me that the stress of my brother's incarceration was preventing me. And now I'm pregnant and I just thought you should know. And I was like, oh, very sweet. So, yeah, so I became addicted, like literally addicted to this feeling. And so at the time I found out about this organization called Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and I joined their board. Uh, they had just started up and it's exactly what it sounds like. It's, it's an organization dedicated to removing these mandatory sentences and giving judges back the power

• 47:31Speaker 01

  that they were supposed to have in the first place, so that a judge could have looked at your brother and said, you know what? Maybe he wasn't dealing, or maybe he wasn't the guy. And anyway, he's a virtuoso violinist and maybe he, and he should go to a, you know.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  Six month thing or something, whatever.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, a program or a rehab or whatever. I mean, look, you know, my thing is, if, if people do drugs and they don't hurt anybody else and they don't operate a, a, you know, a car or, you know, put somebody else in harm's way as a result, but they want to sit at home or they want to go to a concert, whatever it is, and they're just going to walk around and be dopey. Like, fine. Who cares? Where's the problem? There is no problem. Like, there's no problem. So the problem is not drugs. The problem is the war on drugs. That's the problem. And it has a very, very real consequence. It's, there's so many real consequences and you know, the philosophy, and I want to get to the innocent stuff, but the philosophy of this movement is, it's called harm reduction, right?

• 48:27Speaker 01

  So what we, first thing we have to do is accept that drugs have always been and will always be a part of society, right? Cavemen did peyote, we know that, right? Little children spin in a circle because they like the feeling of being dizzy. It's never going to change. You can't, you can't prohibition your way out of it. You can't interdict your way out of it. You can't, anybody watch Narcos, like, come on.

• 48:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  So you can't.

• 48:48Lewis Howes?

  Love that show.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Right, so incredible.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  So unbelievable. So, so the fact is, what you have to do is accept that and then figure out how to reduce the amount of harm that drugs do to society. And one of the problems with, with that is that, you know, this mass incarceration thing is, and a lot of the conservatives now are on the, on the right side of this. The libertarians, right? They don't like all these prisons and all this money being spent and all this, they call it this big government, right?

• 49:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  So we have a good coalition of the left and the right now to try to remove, you know, to try to get rid of this insane, you know, war on drugs, which now we know Nixon admitted, Nixon said to Haldeman, who now admitted it, right? In an interview, that he didn't want a war on drugs. He wanted a war on black people and hippies.

• 49:27Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  So he called it a war on drugs because he couldn't call it that. And like, and still we're not gonna, so anyway, yeah, and your brother unfortunately got caught up in it and, and so did so many, you know.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  Two point, well, not 2.5 million, those are in prison, right? But so many of those are on drugs, did the drug stuff.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  A lot, a big percentage of those are in for nonviolent, very low level drug crimes. It's insane.

• 49:47Lewis Howes?

  And just to talk about, because I had this thought also, I watched the Mike Myers documentary on, what was it called? Have you seen this documentary about like, he goes to all these other countries and takes the best ideas from these countries and says, America, we need to do this. I don't know if you've seen this documentary, it's pretty fascinating.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Michael Moore, isn't it?

• 50:04Lewis Howes?

  Michael Moore, what did he say?

• 50:05Speaker 01

  I haven't seen it yet, Where to Invade Next is called, yeah.

• 50:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes, oh my gosh. So he went to. These prisons in whatever Denmark or these other countries and they're literally like in resorts.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  You know, they have their own bikes, they're they have their own homes. And like with lakes and stuff and they're just riding around, it's like they're living in a compound. Like in a Malibu beach resort or something, they just can't leave the compound, but they're allowed to do whatever they want, when they want. They all have knives, like they're cooking, they talk to all the chefs. And they have like big butcher knives all in the uh the kitchen. And Mike's asking like, what did you do? He's like, I I'm I'm in here for murder. And they're like, when they let you have knives, like cutting up onions or whatever with the rest of the people in here, like, yeah, they trust us and they want us to, you know. Rehab, whatever, and they want us to feel safe and they want us, whatever it is, it's like crazy almost.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, they have their own rooms with locks on the doors on the inside.

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  And and I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they have less violence in their prisons than we have in ours.

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  And you know, it's it's interesting, there's a guy named Tony Papa. Who's a guy who was sentenced to fifteen years to life in New York State for nonviolent first offense. He actually painted his way out of prison, he became a museum painter in prison and then was pardoned by the governor after twelve years.

• 51:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Now he works at the Drug Policy Alliance, which is the leading organization, I'm on the board there too. Sounds like all I do is serve on boards, but there is all this stuff. Once in a while I like to play golf or ice hockey, but anyway, so um so, yeah, the uh Tony, um, you know, he says. He has a great saying where he says, if we can't con- control the flow of drugs in a maximum security prison. How can you possibly hope to control them in a free society, right? And we know, and that's true, like in anyone that works in a prison or you talk to that's in a prison says you can get drugs, you people do drugs.

• 51:51Lewis Howes?

  Crazy, isn't it?

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Crazy, right? So the fact is, um, it it's it's it's pure insanity to try to think that you can. You know, the uh whatever criminalize your way, whatever law enforcement your way out of this, my grammar is terrible, but but you know what I'm trying to get to, like you can't. You know, you can't police your way out of it, you can't interdict your way out of it. You have to accept it and then give people that need the help a chance to go to rehab. Yeah. Which I did. And, um, you know, a- and help people just go on with their lives. A lot of people, they don't need rehab and they don't need anything else. They just, they just need to be left alone. Right. A lot of people, it's the overwhelming majority of people that do drugs are fine. And by the way, a lot of them are working in the most responsible positions in our society. Right?

• 52:37Speaker 01

  I mean, so it's like, it's fine. We made a problem out of a problem that isn't a problem. It's not a problem. You know, I mean, there are, there are some problems associated with it, of course. I'm not going to be Pollyanna-ish, right? I mean, there's people who get really [BLEEP] on drugs and ruin their lives and ruin the lives of their families. Yes. But, you know, but don't get me started talking about drugs versus alcohol or whatever, right? And the, and at the end of the day, it's still the same thing. It's harm reduction and, and pulling, tearing families apart by throwing parents and other, or children in prison. And then what happens to them when they're there? And then the fact that they can't get a job when they get out. And then it's like the ripple effect is so terrible. What it's done to the communities, particularly urban communities in this country is, is just, it's,

• 53:21Speaker 01

  it's like a hurricane that hit these communities because of this ridiculous drug crimes and sweeps and things. And like, stop. Why don't we change it? Well, we have to change the laws and there's a lot of movement in that direction. You know, there's, there's more momentum on it than ever. People, you know, the public, it's interesting to see, right? We're in what I call the new age of activism, right? Ever since, um, whatever that was, that, that very dark day, November 20th.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  You know, people are in the streets, people are voting, people are starting to realize and people, and it started, you know, before that. What are we talking about Ferguson? Or are we talking about? I'm talking about nationally, right? Oh, got you. You know, the Women's March and all that other stuff too, right? But, but so many now are going to have a scientist march, there's going to be a, you know. Everything, yeah. Everything. So, um, the, but, but even before then, people were starting to vote and, and decriminalizing. You know, people are now, uh, uh, death penalty laws are falling around the country, right? You know, unfortunately, there was a terrible setback in California and in Nebraska on the last election, which is beyond my comprehension, how you could have a death penalty speed up law in California that actually passed on a referendum. Wow. Is insane. Like it's, if you want to guarantee the execution of innocent people.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  This would be how to do it. And then, and then it's crazy anyway, because California doesn't even execute people. They just like put them on death row, which I don't think anyone should be executed, but that's beside the point. So, because you, because I can't live with the idea that we should execute one innocent person. You know, that we should be okay with that. And we, and we know that we execute lots of innocent people.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably 10% of the people have been executed.

• 54:50Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I would say so. So.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  Just because if they're, if it matches the crime and they point it to that person, they're gonna get executed.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Well, that's the perfect segue, right? Because, you know, when you deal with subjects of innocence, that's really my, you know, my, uh, my consuming, uh, passion for the last.

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  Have you gotten anyone off death row?

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, we've gotten 20 or 21 people off death row so far.

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  And gotten them removed from it and then removed from prison?

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they're innocent. You know, they're innocent. And we know that there's been multiple people executed that were innocent as well, like Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas, Jesse Taffaro, um, in Florida. Um, they were innocent, but they're gone. I mean, we executed them as a state, we executed them. And, and I don't, I don't see how anyone can be okay with that. I mean, I think, you know, reasonable people can have a debate about whether the death penalty should exist. I don't believe so. It's been proven, you know, over and over again, it did not be a deterrent to anything. And it's barbaric and it's expensive and you can't take it back, you know? You can't take it back. Those guys, those people can't come back. They're innocent. They're, they're gone. You know what I mean? So, and then, and then there's so many other problems with it.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Um, but, a- and then, you know, the fact is that we're fifth in the world in the number of people that we execute. Like, really? You know, the only countries ahead of us are like, uh, China, I think Iran, Saudi Arabia, and, um, there's one other, and it's not a good list to be on, you know, like. So, it's, it's just so bizarre. Like, Western Europe, they don't execute people. They have to execute people. But the, but, but back to the other thing, I mean, the growing awareness, um, that has result, partially been a result of pop culture, right? Because with shows like Making a Murderer and.

• 56:34Lewis Howes?

  Such a crazy show.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  And other ones, people are becoming more.

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  Frustrated, they're getting mad, like you did 25 years ago, right?

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 56:41Lewis Howes?

  Like, this is not okay. What are we gonna do to change it, right?

• 56:44Speaker 01

  That could happen. By the way, whoever's listening. That could happen to you. You're not immune from it. It could happen to anybody. I mean, excuse me. It typically happens to people who are poor, you know? I mean, the overwhelming number of people who are wrongfully convicted are poor, but not all of them, you know? Marty Tankliff, who's been on my show, Wrongful Conviction, was a kid from a wealthy family in Long Island, who was 17 years old and woke up and found his parents murdered and was framed for the murder. No way. Yeah. And, and, you know, his story is so deep. I mean, you have to get into the whole thing and you should hear him. He's very eloquent. He served, uh, Marty served 17 years in prison? For the 17-year-old? He got charged as an adult? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  I mean, and the story is so twisted. I mean, it, the, this, the, I mean, first of all, you wake up and you find your parents. Well, his mother was dead and his father was dying. Oh, my gosh. Right? Oh. And he calls the cops. He's holding his dad, you know? Oh, my gosh. And his dad's bleeding, you know, profusely. Meanwhile, there's a note on the dad's desk, which is a note, a promissory note from his business partner, who owed him a lot of money and it was demanding that the money be paid. And that guy, you know, the, the problem was the dad, who was an honest businessman, who was a successful businessman, had gotten into business with this guy who had a chain of bagel stores in Long Island. It turned out, he found out that they were fronts for a drug operation.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  And, and the other guy's son was dealing with some of the cops in, in Long Island at the time. And it was like, they didn't want, they didn't want to arrest that guy. And he was the obvious suspect. And Marty, when the cops came, said, "That's the guy that did it. He threatened to kill my dad. He owed him all this money. He was the last guy to leave the house last night." Like, they, and that guy, by the way, went and faked his own death, moved to California. No way. Changed his name, shaved his beard, his head, grew a beard, like, but why would you look? I mean, I'm not a law, I mean, I'm not like a, I mean, I'm not a detective, but I don't know. Maybe you should take a look at that guy, right? But they didn't. They just decided that they were gonna get Marty. And that's what they did. And, you know, and then it gets so twisted because, you know, he was living with his sister

• 58:55Speaker 01

  while he was waiting for his trial until she found out. That 80% of the will was in his name. And then she decided that she wanted that money.

• 59:02Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  She threw him out and got involved in trying to get him convicted.

• 59:06Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  She became the sole heiress. You can't inherit money when you murder your parents.

• 59:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I mean, it's like Shakespeare, right? This is like right out of Shakespeare, like a tragedy of.

• 59:15Lewis Howes?

  And how does he cope with it? Does he forgive everyone and moved on, or?

• 59:20Speaker 01

  He's an amazingly positive guy. I mean, you know, he's like, he just graduated law school. Um, you know, he's, uh, he's gonna take the bar. He does a ton of public speaking.

• 59:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  And he's, you know, he's very, he's a big part of the movement to prevent wrongful convictions. And it's amazing because I recently spoke at Georgetown. And then the professor took me to a class that he teaches in a prison there called Jessup. So I actually was in Jessup Maximum Security Prison. Um, and this professor happened to have grown up with Marty. Like, they were, they grew up at the time, they were babies together.

• 59:53Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 59:54Speaker 01

  And that's why he went to law school, because he wanted to help his friend. And he told me that Marty had 17 appeals. And every time it would fail, and this guy would go to see him and he'd be like, Marty, I'm so sorry. But they'd say, Marty, be like, why, dude, come on? We got this. We're gonna, we're gonna do this.

• 1:00:07Lewis Howes?

  Next time, we got it.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, we got it, we got it. Like, I mean, it sounds like, you know, I mean, probably, probably has the same, a lot of the, it's all the same DNA that you've got, I guess, right? He's like, because he was facing impossible odds.

• 1:00:19Lewis Howes?

  There might be a chance, let's go, yeah.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  But ultimately, uh, you know, he, he, he got it. And now he's out and he's married and he's, you know, he's doing great. Uh, he got a settlement from the state, which is, you know, deserved. And we talked about that before, a lot of these guys don't get anything. But he was able to prove the misconduct that led to his.

• 1:00:36Lewis Howes?

  So he got a bigger settlement than most.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  He got a, he got a good settlement. I mean, enough to start a new life. And now, like I said, he's, you know, he just graduated law school. I'm super proud of him. He's just, he's just a sweet, lovely guy.

• 1:00:46Lewis Howes?

  17 years.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, 17 years, and that's, you know.

• 1:00:49Lewis Howes?

  It's a lifetime.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Typically, the people that we exonerate, I think the average amount of time served of our, uh, of our, you know, exonerees is about 14 years.

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  And of course, then there's the ones that are sentenced to death, which is a whole nother level of insanity. You know, like, I mean, just imagine that for a second.

• 1:01:07Lewis Howes?

  How do they feel when they know they're going to die and then they get out of it? Like, what do you?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I asked them that on the podcast.

• 1:01:15Lewis Howes?

  What did you do?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  On wrongful conviction, I tried to highlight those moments, like the moment when they were convicted, the moment when they were exonerated, what did it feel like, you know? You know, I was thinking about Sunny Jacobs, who we were talking about before. I mean, when she was finally freed, you know, she said she just walked out of the courthouse, like into the sunshine in Fort Lauderdale, and she was like, now what do I do? Like, she had a box with like, a couple pairs of underwear, a couple t-shirts, a couple pairs of pants, and she said she had her Walkman and like $40, and that was it. And she's like, whoa, you know, what do I do now?

• 1:01:48Lewis Howes?

  How long was she in for?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  She was in for 17 years also, coincidentally, now that I talk about Marty. But she was sentenced to death, and her husband was executed. Her husband was a guy named Jesse Tofaro. They were convicted, and this is a story, if you only listen to one episode of my podcast, and this is all of them, I mean, the stories, each story is crazy. Like, for every week, I'm like, I thought I had heard everything, you know? And now it's like, this one is crazier than the last one. And then you get to Sunny's story, and it's like, okay, somebody who's like, stop, this is like, I can't, you know, it's unbelievable. Like I said to you, like, we were talking earlier, I said, if Quentin Tarantino and Victor Hugo sat down and tried to write the craziest screenplay they could come up with, they would stop short of this. They'd be like, they'd need a lot of alcohol to get to this place.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  And then they'd be like, no, we still gotta pull out a couple of these elements. Because Sunny's story, in a nutshell, right? She, she and her husband, Jesse, were in Florida with their two kids. And the kids were nine and 10 months old. And I think the son was Eric and the daughter's Christina. And they were in a car, they took a ride, their car broke down, and a friend of Jesse's offered to give them a ride across the state to go to her parents' house, where they were gonna get some, a car or something, to go back to their home in North Carolina.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  They're at a rest stop and a cop comes and shines a light in the window. And the driver, unbeknownst to them, was a felon and didn't feel like giving him his license and registration. So instead, he pulled out a gun and shot the cop. And then runs around as the gun battle ensues with the other cop, who was a visiting, actually, Canadian constable. So he's killed the state trooper and now he's shooting it out with the constable. Sunny's in the back, they had been sleeping. She's in the back now laying on top of her kids, trying to protect them from this gunfire. And he ends up killing the other cop. And so then he points the gun at them and he's like, get in the cop car, right? And she's, Sunny says to her husband, I don't want to get in the cop car, this guy's crazy. And he says, we have to, we're witnesses now, he'll probably kill us too. So they go to get in the cop car. And just some of the details, right?

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  So her son gets out of the car and he's sleepy and groggy and he slips in the dead cop's blood and falls, right? Like Tarantino, right? Yeah. And they have to scoop him up, they get in the cop car. Then they, they end up going through this neighborhood and it's morning. And the guy realizes driving a cop car is not a good idea. So he stops and grabs a guy who's getting his newspaper or something, an old guy, and makes him get the keys to his car and then kidnaps him. That happens to be an orange Cadillac. So now you've got the six of them in this orange Cadillac. Oh my gosh. And of course, there's a roadblock and then there's another gun battle, right? And Sunny's back laying on top of her kids. And like, so I said to Christina, because Christina, the daughter, was on the show with me and she had never spoken publicly before about what it was like growing up, having her

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  father executed and her mother in prison for her entire childhood and adolescence. And she was there, yeah. And she was there, yeah. And, and so I was like, holy, you know, you survived two gun battles before you were one year old, like you're kind of a miracle baby, you know? I mean, so, before everything went wrong. And then the cops arrested all of them. You know, Sunny was like, finally, they're going to save me from this maniac. But instead, they, you know, they, they hit Jesse with a rifle butt and, you know, they want, when cops, when cops get killed, they, they get, you know. They go after everybody. And they want after everybody. And so she's, you know, the story gets so much crazier because she was sentenced to life by a jury and the judge, whose name was Maximum Dan, was a former state trooper

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  who had a little electric chair on his desk that he would, you could touch and it would ziz like that. So he over, he overruled the jury and sentenced her to death. And so, so she was the only, that's not legal anymore, except in Alabama. It's the only state where a judge can do that. Just one guy's opinion. Right, so, um, so now, so then she ends up on death row where there's no, there's no one else on death row. There were no other women on death row because there hadn't been anyone sentenced in a long time in Florida at that time. The death row was a woman, so she was all alone. And the guards weren't allowed to talk to her because they didn't want them becoming attached to her. And then they would execute her and then they would feel bad. So she literally didn't get to speak to anybody for five years.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  And ultimately, you know, getting to as close, as quickly as I can to the end of the story. The kids were now being raised by her parents. Her parents, five years later, are in a plane crash. Oh, my gosh. So the grandparents die, right? Christina, by the way, the daughter, now has a son named after her father who was executed, Jesse, and a daughter, Bella, named after her grandmother, who was killed when she was taking care of her. So, I mean, you know, you can't make that up either, right? So, anyway, the kids end up in foster care. The husband ends up getting executed after 15 years. And then, and then it just gets crazier from there. 15 years. Yeah, 15 years in prison and then executed. And then, and his was the execution where the electric chair supposedly malfunctioned,

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  although we think it may have been intentional, and flames shot out of his head. So they executed him three times. Oh, no. Yeah, well, you can't execute somebody three times, but they electrocuted him three times. And after that, they took the electric chair out of circulation. So, um, so, yeah, and ultimately Sonny was, um, oh, here's, I gotta tell you this part of the story. So, and there's so much more, you have to hear the rest of the details on the show, but on wrongful conviction. But Sonny ends up, her new lawyers end up finding the only witness against her, which was a jailhouse snitch, right, which is a common thing, right? The cops will get somebody else that's in jail and they'll go to them and say, like they did in this case. This is a woman who was arrested for passing bad prescriptions. She was a college student in Florida. And they said, look, you got a felony hanging over your head.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Or you can just tell us that she told you that she did this. You'll be doing society a favor. She killed two cops and we'll let you out. So she testified and she said, in the court, she said, she told me she did it. She loved it and she can't wait to do it again. Now Sunny was a hippie, right? She wasn't trying to, and by the way, like I said on the show, like if you're gonna go kill two cops, do you really bring your kids? Like, is that really how you roll?

• 1:07:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  I mean, like, that doesn't make any sense. And Sunny, it's crazy, like she'll say one of her sayings and I've seen her speak, she's amazing. She says, "I went into prison, a wife, a vegetarian, a wife and a mother. And I came out an orphan, a widow and a..." An orphan, a widow and, oh, there's another thing I'm thinking of in a second. An orphan, a widow and a... Ah, I forgot.

• 1:08:11Lewis Howes?

  A meat eater or what?

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Something. No, no, not meat eater. But anyway, it was great until I just screwed it up. But anyway, so it'll come back to me. So they found the witness against her, who now lived in Wyoming. And they went and saw her and told her what she had done. And she felt terrible and she wanted to make it right. But she said she was so scared of the prosecutor because he was so scary to her in the first place. And he was still there. She comes to testify. You're not ready for this, by the way. She flies, they get a trial, they get a hearing. She flies to Florida.

• 1:08:40Lewis Howes?

  The witness just saw that she didn't do it.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  The witness who testified and said falsely that she had heard her say that she did it.

• 1:08:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  The jailhouse snitch.

• 1:08:47Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  Who made up the whole story. Now we call them incentivized witnesses. They're no longer called jailhouse snitches.

• 1:08:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yes.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  But they're incentivized witnesses. She comes to court. Sunny's brought in after being through this unbelievable saga, right? She gets on the stand, testifies for the defense, says she made up the whole story. Apologizes to Sunny. The prosecutor gets up to cross-examine her. And you'll hear Sunny on my podcast talk about how she doesn't talk. And then she starts breathing heavily and she's holding her chest. And Sunny's like, "What's going on?" And then she's like... Oh my God, she's having a heart attack. She had a heart attack on the stand.

• 1:09:30Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  And Sonny's like, don't die.

• 1:09:32Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Don't die, you can't die. And she had a heart attack, it was wheeled out of the courtroom.

• 1:09:37Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  She lived, but her testimony was no good because you can't use defense testimonies, you can't cross-examine the witness.

• 1:09:44Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  So Sonny goes back to prison.

• 1:09:46Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  And ultimately, this woman was allowed to testify by videotape.

• 1:09:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  And so she was eventually freed. And now, you know, she's a, she's a yoga teacher, she teaches meditation, and she, um, she lives on the coast of Ireland with her new husband, who's also a death row exoneree that she met at Amnesty International. But yeah, you can't make that up either, his name's Peter Pringle, he's incredible. He was convicted of killing two cops in Ireland and sentenced to death, it came within 10 days of being executed before he was exonerated. So he served 15 years, they have a lot to talk about. And now they run this place called the Sonny, uh, the Sonny Center, where they, my daughter's on their board, and, and they bring people over, uh, other exonerees, and they teach them meditation.

• 1:10:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  And yoga, and they teach them farming, and they, they just help them get their life back together.

• 1:10:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Which is the most transformative thing. You know, I find for these exonerees, I get so much gratitude in my attitude from being around them, because like you said, they have this, this amazing, this sense of grace and this lack of bitterness, that is like, you know, if we all had that in our daily lives, you know, we just, things would just be better, right? People be, be getting more stuff done and, and, and feeling happier and stuff, but they have this surreal ability to just transcend this experience and forgive, and like, you know, it's, it's totally nuts. And so, and the thing that seems to drive them the most is helping other people, helping other exonerees.

• 1:11:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  And so, you know.

• 1:11:18Lewis Howes?

  They know the pain they went through, you know?

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  And they want to prevent other people from having to go through that. There's such a selfless, like, love that they have for each other and for, you know, it's my, it's, it's my.

• 1:11:30Lewis Howes?

  Incredible.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can see I'm kind of obsessed.

• 1:11:32Lewis Howes?

  I mean, I got into this. Kind of frustration around it when I saw Making a Murderer, you know. I mean, originally with my brother, you know, seeing that happen and what that was like.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  Very personal.

• 1:11:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and then seeing Making a Murderer and watching it, I was just like, you know, documentary or no documentary, you know, they obviously they skew it in one direction, but it's like, and other people had their opinions about it, but I'm like, either way, it's messed up the system and how people are convicted and what it's for and all these things, and it doesn't matter if you didn't do it or not.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:12:00Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't matter if you're innocent or not, which is messed up to me, which pisses me off, right?

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's somewhere.

• 1:12:06Lewis Howes?

  And now I'm watching The Night Of.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:09Lewis Howes?

  Have you seen that one?

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'll be like, episode two, and I'm like, this is crazy, right?

• 1:12:13Speaker 01

  Episode five. Yeah, they, they, somewhere it went from trying to solve the crime and, and, and get justice to trying to just get rid of the case.

• 1:12:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  You know, and, and, and that's, it's so bizarre because the other thing, Louis, that, that people need to understand is that in 50%, around 50% of the cases in which the Innocence Project has exonerated the innocent person by finding the DNA that proves without any doubt.

• 1:12:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  That they didn't do it, we've also gotten a hit by putting it into the central database of DNA that exists in this country now. Uh, I think it's called CODIS or something. And anyway, um, what we find is that in 50% of the cases, we identify the actual perpetrator. And in almost all of those cases, that individual has gone on to commit other horrible crimes, other rapes, murders, stabbings, whatever, and those people never needed to be victimized if the, if the system worked correctly. And I always say there's, there's a lot of good cops, there's a lot of good prosecutors.

• 1:13:21Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  But there's, there's, there's too many bad ones, and the ones that are bad do an incredible amount of damage, not only to the people who are wrongly convicted, but to the other victims of the actual perpetrator who never got taken off the street in the first place. And that's unacceptable, no matter how you feel about law and order, or this, or that, or whatever, that's gotta be unacceptable to everyone.

• 1:13:41Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  You know, you, you, we, we, we got, we have to get back to a place. Of motivate, you know, we need to have prosecutorial accountability. We don't have any in this country. There's no other profession where you can just completely screw up, destroy someone's life and just be like-

• 1:13:58Lewis Howes?

  No accountability.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Oops. No accountability. You don't get disbarred, you don't get disciplined, you don't get thing, you don't get sued. You can't get sued if you're a prosecutor. So this is one of the things we're working on too. I mean, we're fixing it and we're getting closer in a certain case where we, you know, you know how many prosecutors in this country have gone to prison for intentionally, wrongfully convicting someone?

• 1:14:19Lewis Howes?

  Zero.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  Two.

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  Two.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  The DuPont Cross guy who served one day.

• 1:14:23Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  You should watch that movie too, by the way, on 30 on 30.

• 1:14:26Lewis Howes?

  I've seen it.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:14:27Lewis Howes?

  The guy who was like just going after the whole team?

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  That guy, Nifong, yeah.

• 1:14:31Lewis Howes?

  But there was nothing-

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Sick bastard. Yeah, we've now discovered another case where he-

• 1:14:34Lewis Howes?

  All the press and media around it, what he said and how he, oh-

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Those kids were, I mean, that-

• 1:14:39Lewis Howes?

  Didn't do anything.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  They didn't do anything, but they were lucky. They had the resources to defend themselves, right?

• 1:14:43Lewis Howes?

  Luckily, others-

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  And that one incredible attorney, the young attorney that read that 2,500 pages of, they tried to throw him off the trail, but he got it, right?

• 1:14:51Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  But so he, so him and then there was a guy named Anderson in Texas, who sent this guy, Michael Morton, to prison for 25 years before we exonerated him for the murder of his wife. And intentionally withheld three pieces of exculpatory evidence. And everybody watches TV knows you can't do that. It's called a Brady violation. You have to, if you have exculpatory evidence, first of all, you shouldn't be prosecuting the case. If you have evidence that proves that the guy didn't do it, you should, you should be dropping the thing and looking for the real killer.

• 1:15:17Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  And in his case, again, the guy turned out to be a serial killer. But-

• 1:15:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  The, the other thing is you have to turn it over to the defense. But he didn't do it. And eventually we found that evidence and, you know, and we also found that in that case, the prosecutor had said on the stand, they had, they had an incentivized witness in that case. And he said that he didn't make a deal with the guy. And we found notes in the prosecutor's own writing where he made a deal with the guy. You know, where he was going to let him out of a robbery conviction if he, you know, so- And he, this guy ended up getting sentenced to 10 days in prison.

• 1:15:44Lewis Howes?

  That's it?

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  He served three. He was disbarred at least, and so was Nifong.

• 1:15:48Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:15:50Lewis Howes?

  Sad.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  And here's the craziest thing, you're, this is, so Michael Morton, you, you gotta, you gotta hear this guy speak. He's been on 60 Minutes three times, and he's the only person. But anyway, he, he talks about how he was in prison for 24 years and seven months. And then he'll go 24/7, like, it's pretty ironic. But that's beside the point. He's a guy who is, like, you can literally see a halo over his head. And he's been on my show, on wrongful conviction.

• 1:16:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  But he is a guy who, at the hearing for the judge, who the prosecutor, Anderson, had become a judge by now. He was arrested in his chambers, right? And at the hearing, after he was, had pled guilty of these, you know, three felonies, which turned into misdemeanors.

• 1:16:33Lewis Howes?

  He was a prosecutor, and now he's the judge for the case.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Right, that happens a lot, a lot of these bad prosecutors become judges. So, at the hearing in which he was to be sentenced, the judge, Anderson, who was the prosecutor, who took this guy's life, literally away, for the murder of his wife, and made an orphan out of his son and the whole thing, right? So this judge is now going to be sentenced. And the presiding judge says to Michael Morton, who's there, is there anything you'd like to say? And Morton says, "Your Honor, I hope you'll show mercy on this man." And I'm watching this and I'm going, "I want to kill this guy." And I'm not even a violent guy, like, I want to strangle this guy.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  Not, you know, I mean, like, the guy that did this, like, how can you do that? Like, how do you, how do people sleep at night? What the, what are you thinking? Like, I mean, so, yeah, so it's, it's really is, it's, um...

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  It's inexplicable, but it's beautiful to see, you know, and, you know.

• 1:17:38Lewis Howes?

  I feel like we could talk for like five hours about this because I want to know more about your thoughts on making a murder and your thoughts on the other, what's the other documentary about the woman we were talking about?

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Oh, Amanda Knox.

• 1:17:49Lewis Howes?

  Amanda Knox, which just blowed my mind as well. It was in Italy, right? Or something, which is crazy. Don't get into it because we could talk about it forever.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  No, no, no. But she's been on my show twice. She's incredible. I'll just say that. She's incredible, incredible, like an ethereal being.

• 1:18:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes. If you guys want more information on this, make sure to check out Wrongful Convictions with Jason Flom on iTunes. Because this is fascinating stuff. I mean, we could talk about this forever, but.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, Spotify, Google.

• 1:18:15Lewis Howes?

  All those places. Exactly. I want to ask a final couple of questions because again, we could go on this forever. And do you have a hard out or now you're good? Okay.

• 1:18:25Lewis Howes?

  I'm beginning this from a lot of my female friends lately, but they're very frustrated about what's happening in the world. They feel this passion and this anger or whatever it is, they want to make a difference. But a lot of them feel helpless. What can these people do who have a passion for making change, but feel completely helpless? Or they do one march and then they're like, okay, now what? What can they do to actually impact some type of movement like you have done or impact some type of change the way you've done it? What would you, what would your advice be to people out there like that?

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Oh, listen, there's so many.

• 1:19:02Lewis Howes?

  Whatever their cause is.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  There's so many incredible organizations that you can join up with. I mean, whether it's change.org or whether you can, I mean, I think it starts with writing letters and making phone calls to your.

• 1:19:14Lewis Howes?

  Does that work? Does it help her?

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  I mean, look, we live in a strange, altered reality, but it always has worked. I mean, we saw even with the confirmation of that. Ah, I don't, I don't wanna, I wanna choose my words carefully. A Betsy DeVos, right? Um, which is one of the most surreal nominations in the history of this country and now appointments. Um, but there were two senators who said they changed their vote, two Republican senators that they changed their vote because of all the pressure they got. So, I think.

• 1:19:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:19:45Speaker 01

  You have to, yeah, you have to make phone calls and write letters. It's extremely important. I mean, they, they care, politicians care. If they get enough letters, enough, enough phone calls on a certain subject, they, they know it.

• 1:19:54Lewis Howes?

  Cause they wanna stay in, they wanna be.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  They wanna stay in, that's what, that's one of the things that drives them, right? So, so that's one of the things you can do. But then, go, I mean, whatever your particular area of interest is, if you're a woman, maybe you wanna go, uh, you know, check out Planned Parenthood's website, or maybe you wanna go to, I mean, there, there's just, um, there's, there's dozens and dozens of organizations doing incredible work all over the place now, right? There, there's more springing up. I mean, it's so, it's actually, as much as I wish we weren't in the state that we're in, it's exciting to see the number of people that are signing up to work at, at, at the ACLU, or to become.

• 1:20:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, they're getting involved with any type of, uh, you know, these, there's so, any, any one of these organizations that's trying to do good, right? It's just, it's just about doing good. I mean, now, you know, it, it feels like we're being swept away by a wave of, of the opposite, right? Of like, just like selfishness and, and xenophobia and, and evil and wrong and persecution, like, so what do we do? We react, right? We have to, we have to become activists. And it's, it's happening. These marches are amazing, right? These things are like, we haven't seen that, it's, it's, it's the new age of activism, right? We haven't seen that since the 60s.

• 1:21:11Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 1:21:11Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, and if your thing is, you know, if your thing is, um, um, you know, criminal justice, if you hear some of these stories and you're outraged, then. You know, go to innocenceproject.org, you know? Go to F A M M, Families Against Mandatory Minimums.org. It's F A M M dot org. Or, or the Drug Policy Line. So, hearing the stories about your brother. And again, it just makes me more motivated. Like, I don't, that shouldn't happen. I don't want that to happen to the next kid who's just trying to get high and go to a concert and not bother anybody.

• 1:21:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  Like, if you're bothering somebody, if you're gonna hurt somebody, I get it. Then you'd need to be, you know, we need as a society to protect ourselves. We don't need to protect yourself from yourself. You should be able to do with your body what you want to.

• 1:21:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  And that's, and that's basically that. So, it's weird. We're okay with everybody having guns and shooting each other, but we're not okay with somebody getting high. What's going on here? Like, are we in Alice in Wonderland? It doesn't make any sense.

• 1:22:04Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  You know, so, yeah, and by the way, the good news is, you can Google, like, you could probably Google, "I'm a woman and I'm angry, what do I do?" I would be interested to see what comes up, you know? It'll, it'll steer you in the direction of a lot of great things. I mean, there's, uh, listen, we, we need to help more than ever. There's more people willing to help than ever. That, you know, the amount of, I mean, I was so excited to see, um, you know, the talent agency, UTA, you know, I don't, did you see what they just did?

• 1:22:28Lewis Howes?

  What'd they do?

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  They canceled their Oscar party and they're doing, um, they're taking all the money they're gonna spend on the Oscar party and giving it to ACLU, right? And they're gonna have a protest instead. There's like, there, there's, you know, to see, to see organizations getting involved in that way, but individuals, every individual has, has to get involved and, and do something. Like, I hope I answered the question.

• 1:22:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  I rammed on.

• 1:22:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm also curious about, you know, you've been around a lot of celebrities and people of, with massive followings, massive influence, but I'm curious about how, you know, Hillary had every celebrity endorsement promoting her, for her, and there was like zero celebrity endorsements, and they were all against, it seemed like, at least from my point of view, against Trump. And yet somehow, it didn't work in order of moving the needle for Hillary, but... Having not, you know, people against Trump, everyone against him, it seems like he still was able to make it happen. So our celebrities actually as influential as we think they are in making change? Or is that completely irrelevant?

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  No, I don't, I don't think it's completely irrelevant. I don't know. Um, I mean, you need a social scientist to talk about what the actual impact of somebody like LeBron James, who took such a courageous stand, or any of them, Jay-Z, or any, you know, what impact does that have on changing people's opinions? There's, there's such a small section of people in America who are undecided, you know? And so you're trying to influence those people. Then there's, for reasons that I'll never understand, um, you know, people have this visceral dislike or stronger of Hillary. And I don't understand it. I mean, the woman has spent her life. Did she make mistakes? Of course she made mistakes, right? When you're a public figure for as long as she is, there's gonna be something, right?

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  But the fact is, the idea that people, I don't know if it was misogyny, I don't know if it was, um, uh, uh, but it was, it was, it was misplaced. Whatever it was that was bothering you about Hillary, it, it doesn't matter, you know, it's like, you, you, when your option is catastrophe, right? And the other person is somebody you think might have done something with some emails, like, i- it's not rational. And now that you see what's happening, although there's a lot of Republicans, I was seeing today on the news, a lot of Republicans are like, at these town hall meetings, yelling at their representatives going, don't take away my healthcare. But I voted for Trump, don't take away my healthcare.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, well, uh, and people are saying, well, I didn't think he would actually do it. Like, and you're going, all these people voting against their best interests, it doesn't make any sense, like, how, I, I, it, it's, it's monumentally incomprehensible, but, you know, and, and it breaks my heart, because I think if, if Biden would have run, he probably would have won all 50 states, you know what I mean? Like, and, and then there's the other problem, which is that she won by 3 million votes. I mean, what kind of country do we live in? It's like, we're supposed to be the greatest country on earth. Go to another country. Next time you go to Iceland, or wherever the hell you go. Ask him who won the popular vote and they're gonna put you in a, in a facility for overnight. They're gonna be like, this guy's, he's confused. He needs to be in a safe place with, you know, where he can't hurt himself. Right, right.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Like, there's no popular vote, idiot, right? There's no popular vote. There's a vote. What do you mean, popular vote? There's a vote. The one who got more votes was the winner. Yeah. The one who got less votes went home and that's it. And so, not only do we have a country where 3 million more people voted for Hillary, and then there's all the other people who are completely out of their minds that voted for Jill Stein or, or, you know, what's his name, Johnson, right? Who couldn't name one world leader. But then there's, then there's the other problem, which is that if you look at the senate, right? Because of, because of the way the electoral stuff breaks down, right? I think, what is a statistic I saw that of the 48 Democratic senators, they received combined like 73 million votes.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  And of the 52 Republican ones, they received a combined total of like 40 something million votes. So it's like, we, you know, we live in a, in a, in a system, which is archaic, where somebody's vote in Wyoming is worth four times as much as your vote in California. Right. Does that make you a quarter of a person? You look like a full person. But are you like 6'1"? 6'4. 6'4. I mean, you're at least a whole person. You might be a person and a quarter. I don't know. But your vote counts 25% as much as some of the people. And the sad thing is that it's actually, you know, paradoxically worked out in a way where, you know, the people who are

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  less educated, let's say, are the ones who have a much higher influence on the outcome of the elections. And so, I don't know whether the, whether, what the effect was of the celebrities on the outcome of the election. But I do know that, you know, at the end of the day, the, the damn thing was decided by the director of the FBI. The Russian interference. It was a perfect storm, you know, of, you know, of terribleness. Wow. And, you know, even with all of that, right? The fake investigation of Hillary and the Russian thing and all the other stuff, which at one time, there would have been like every politician in the country going,

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  this is, we have to overturn this. Russia interfered. Russia, right? Not like Canada.

• 1:28:02Speaker 01

  Russia.

• 1:28:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  But it's like, oh, yeah, Russia, we'll have an investigation or something, you know, when we get around to it. So it's pretty, it's pretty bizarre, you know, we live in a very strange alternate universe. She won, but she lost. Senate, we won, but we lose. You know, the House of Representatives, same thing, it's all gerrymandered and, and they, you know, so, I mean, I don't, I don't know, I mean, it's, it's scary.

• 1:28:27Lewis Howes?

  Politics will be your next thing you go after, after you can solve the, uh, the case of the criminal injustice system, right?

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah, maybe, I don't know, maybe we'll go, maybe we'll get into it together.

• 1:28:36Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  I would do that with you in a second.

• 1:28:38Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  And we can drop some knowledge on everybody, it'd be a lot of fun. But yeah, I think, look, you know, you're not, the, the message I want to give people is you're not, you're not powerless. The situation is scary as hell, probably scariest times that ever in this country since at least the Revolutionary War. And, um, but you, but you have, you, what we can't do is cower in a corner, right? I mean, I, I allow myself a certain amount of time each day to be angry and, uh, and to be, you know, depressed. You know, I'll read a story like the one in the newspaper this morning about that poor woman in Arizona who was just deported, you know, and now her kids are like, like sitting there like, why? And, you know, they, you know, and then, then you go, okay, what am I gonna do today?

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  I gotta do something about this. I gotta make my voice heard.

• 1:29:26Lewis Howes?

  You can be angry, then you gotta take action.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's happened in, in other countries before. I mean, it's, you know, you, there's a lot of people out there. We need, everyone needs to get involved. People are doing it. That's the good news. They're doing it. And so this number of signups at the organizations that are trying to do good is off the charts right now. And you need to be one of those people. So find your groove, whatever that is. Whether it's one of the organizations we talked about, whether it's something completely different, whether it's volunteering at a shelter, whether it's helping animals, whether it's, you know, working with the homeless, whether it's, you know, there's gonna be more and more of that, right? So we need more and more people to help. Until we can get this ship righted.

• 1:30:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:06Speaker 01

  And you're one of them. Whoever you are out there, you have the power to make a difference. You're listening to the show, so you obviously want to make a difference. Because otherwise, why would anybody be listening to your show?

• 1:30:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Nobody listens to this show that's lazy.

• 1:30:16Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, no.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  People are wanting, you know, they're, they're, they're finding their groove, right? They want to find their groove. So, so that's, that's, if I could leave you with one thought, that's it. Like, get, get mad, get, get up and get after it. And let's, let's, let's, let's do this together. Let's, let's make a difference.

• 1:30:31Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Okay, a couple of final questions.

• 1:30:35Lewis Howes?

  If this was your last day many years from now, many years from now, you've done, you've done everything you've wanted to do. You've changed systems, you've saved lives, you've gotten people out of prison, you've done all these things you want to do. And you're in your, your, your last night of sleep and then you're not going to wake up again, right? And all your friends and family are there and they say, you know,

• 1:31:00Lewis Howes?

  if you could share three lessons, three truths of all the things that you know to be true, of all the experiences you've had in the music world and the criminal justice world and everything else you've done, if it boils down to three truths, what would you write down on a piece of paper and, and give to us as kind of these lessons that we should live by, these principles?

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  Well, um, one I would say is the one I got from my dad, which is, you know, the, the do whatever you want to do, try to be the best at it, but make the world a better place.

• 1:31:33Speaker 01

  And with that, then with that part underlined, you know, make the world a better place. It's, I call it selfish altruism, you know, I have derived more satisfaction from helping even one person. Take any one of the cases I've worked on and getting one person out of prison that doesn't belong there than from all of the, you know, great experiences I've had in the music business. So that's probably number one. Number two would be.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  I have this different take on the old expression preparation plus skill equals luck. You know, my version is preparation plus skill plus perseverance equals luck. So I would say that's a lesson that I've learned that I would want to share because I think that, and we talked about this a little bit, you know, the greatest ideas in history, almost all of them were rejected and most of the people who came up with them were told that they were insane and should go do something else, right? Whether it's the Wright brothers or, you know, whoever, you know, just it's easy to find out, right? I mean Fred Astaire was told that he couldn't, you know, had, what was it? Can't sing, can't dance, can act a little, right?

• 1:32:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  The agent told him. So from the greatest inventions, I'm sure the guy who came up with the wheel, they were like, yo, ugh, you're stupid. We don't need wheels, we're good.

• 1:32:52Speaker 01

  Get him out of here, he should have trademarked it. Anyway, so, um, so that would be number two. And, uh, number three would probably be, um, maybe the first thing that comes to mind, and you didn't warn me you were going to ask me this question, so this is off the top. But I would say, and this is something I learned from reading you, um, which is, or it's my interpretation of one of the messages that you put out there, which is fake it till you make it, you know? And what I mean by that is, um, if you get an opportunity, and Richard Branson talks about this too, right? If you get, one of my great heroes. So if you, if you get an opportunity and it looks like it's something that's, you know, too big for you to handle, too, too out of your skill set, take it.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Figure it out.

• 1:33:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  You can, you know? I did, you know, and you did. And so, I mean, you've done it several times. So, um, yeah, I would say that's, uh, those are probably the, those are the three that, you know.

• 1:33:52Lewis Howes?

  Come to mind now.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  Spontaneously, yeah.

• 1:33:54Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Well, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Jason, for your incredible caring ability. And not many people, you know, who are at the level of success that you've achieved in your industry, the top of your game there, are committed to taking time out to help one individual at a time to save their lives. And I think it's unbelievable, the amount of commitment and dedication you've had over the last 25 years. In what you're doing to make an impact and what you're doing to make a change. And you've done it on the ground, helping individuals one by one to being on the board of how many foundations you're on the board of to now running your own podcast, which I want everyone to go listen to Wrongful Conviction, to bring the awareness even more to people.

• 1:34:35Lewis Howes?

  And I want to acknowledge you for caring, even at the level that you're at, that you're still want to give and serve and support people. And it really matters when you're making a huge impact in the world. So I acknowledge you for that incredible gift.

• 1:34:48Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. That means a lot coming from you. And, you know, I do it. It just seems second nature. And as I said, I feel extremely lucky, even blessed, to have found a cause that speaks so deeply and clearly to me. And to be able to be in a position to, you know, help is a gift. And I think to varying degrees, everybody is, you know, even if it's just a random act of kindness to a stranger, whatever, you know, walking down the street. I mean, walking, you know, an old lady, whatever it might be, you know, like you have the power to do that today.

• 1:35:30Speaker 01

  So, and, you know, and I recommend it because it makes, you know, it feels good.

• 1:35:36Lewis Howes?

  It's good to do.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  That's that selfish altruism thing. Exactly.

• 1:35:39Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Before I ask the final question, where should we connect with you personally? Do you have your own website or just go to the podcast, follow you on social media? Where do you like to hang out?

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, I'm glad you asked. I take my Instagramming very seriously.

• 1:35:53Lewis Howes?

  I just started following. Yes. I'm gonna be watching everything now.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  So my Instagram is at It's Jason Flom. It's I T S Jason Flom. I will make you, hopefully I'll make you laugh and cry and think. And, you know, one of my other passions these days is saving the rhinos. And so you'll see some fantastic rhino pictures and videos as well. They're my favorite animals and they're. You know, on the verge of extinction, which makes me sad and insane. So, um, so yeah, so there's that. And also, you know, I have a clothing line called Christian Benner that I work with, which is an exciting thing. It's Christian Benner dot com or at Christian Benner on Instagram. So, but yeah, Instagram is my jam.

• 1:36:35Lewis Howes?

  Cool.

• 1:36:36Speaker 01

  And please follow me and, and you know, you'll, you'll get some, hopefully you'll get some inspiration from that.

• 1:36:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And it's podcasts on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, all those places, right?

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, the podcast is everywhere. It's easy to find. And as I said, Spotify and,

• 1:36:54Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  And Google. And so, um, and I think it's, uh, you'll.

• 1:37:00Lewis Howes?

  If you like this conversation, you'll love more of it. So.

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  It's, it gets into really amazing detail.

• 1:37:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, these are, all I'm really doing is providing a platform for these incredible people to tell their stories. And it's, you know, it's a, it's a, I don't know if I could call it a thrill, but it's a, it's an honor for me to be able to work with them and to help them and to get those stories out there so that people hopefully will.

• 1:37:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:25Speaker 01

  You know, be, be more aware. And when they serve on juries, they'll be more, they'll be less likely to just believe what they're being told by a government official, whether it's a prosecutor or a policeman or a forensic somebody because they've heard the podcast and they're like, well, wait a minute. I know that this isn't always true. Like, you know, like, let me just take a more skeptical, more informed view and not, you know, and not just accept it because there's a lot of factors that go into these wrongful convictions. And you learn about them on the show.

• 1:37:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Very cool. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  Wow. What's my definition of greatness? Um, my definition of greatness is.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  I don't know, I think greatness is something that can be achieved on a global scale, or can be achieved on a very minute scale, a microcosmic scale. I think greatness can be found anytime you get into the zone. And what I mean by that is like, anybody who's doing their thing, and doing it in a way where they're very present, and they're focused, and they're positive. You know, I mean, it's great, you know, I love, I love being on your show, because I always like to be around people who are sort of tapped into something, you know, whether intellectually, or spiritually, or, you know, metaphysically, or motivationally.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  And so, you know, that feeling that everybody has occasionally, of not having your mind be somewhere else other than where you are, right? The thing that Eckhart Tolle talks about. Right, power of now. The power of now, yeah, is, I think that's greatness. I think anytime you can achieve that by doing something positive. If robbing a bank's your thing, and that gets you to that place of being present, then I'm not going to sign off on that. But, you know, anything you can do, whether it's, you know, if it's surfing, if it's, you know, if it's, you know, a sport, or if it's a, if it's an act of kindness, or if it's volunteering, or if it's being on a, you know, in a great conversation like this one, I think that's greatness, you know?

• 1:39:34Speaker 01

  And, and the more you can, you know, I believe that the quality of life is proportionate to the amount of time you can spend being present, and how present you can be when you are. And so, if you can find what gets you there, and it's something that's, in some people, it's meditation, or mountain climbing, or whatever it is. Extreme danger always does it, right? But you can always spend so much time in extreme danger, like swimming with sharks, or, you know, something like that, or, but, you know, you could always, I'm sure if you had a, you know, a mountain lion chasing after you, you'd probably be, you know, really focused.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  And so, for some people, it might be sex, or whatever it is. But again, there's a limited amount of time you can spend doing that, too. So, whatever it is that you can find, if it's reading. Get into that, try to spend a little more of your time than you're doing now doing that. That'll be, find your greatness that way. And then hopefully that can flow outward and you can, you know, like, you know, have an effect on other people because you're more in your own zone, which to me is, is probably an odd definition of greatness, but that's mine.

• 1:40:37Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Well, make sure you guys check out Wrongful Convictions. Jason Flom, thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  Thanks, Lewis.

• 1:40:47Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this one. If you did, a couple of things of my request. One, share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com/458. Tweet it out, post it on Instagram, share it on Facebook, and tag me and @JasonFlom and let us know what you thought about this. Also, the full show notes where you can connect with Jason, learn about his podcast because it's incredible. Go listen to it and download it. You're going to be so inspired about what he's doing over there with the Wrongfully Convicted. So make sure to check all the stuff he has out and send him some love of what you thought about this interview and what you learned the most. Also, if you've not left a review yet, make sure to leave a review over on iTunes and potentially be one of the reviewers of the week.

• 1:41:32Lewis Howes?

  We'll see. Every single week, we give a shout out to those who have the best reviews. And thanks to everyone who left reviews this last week. We all have incredible gifts in this world and it's our job and responsibility to figure out what they are and make the most of them. I'm so glad we were able to have Jason on because he's making the most of his gifts and he continues to inspire me and so many other people. I hope you guys enjoyed this one and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.