Lesson Plan
In this podcast episode People, Pain & Potential, Andre Norman discusses his work in prison reform and the importance of delegation in building a successful team. He also talks about the Academy of Hope, a violence reduction program he helped create, and the business side of solving problems in the prison system.
Objective:
To understand the importance of addressing pain in order to unlock potential and achieve success.
Group Discussion Questions:
- Why do you think addressing pain is necessary for personal growth and success?
- How can acknowledging and working through personal pain lead to greater success in professional endeavors?
- What are some ways that we can help others address their pain in order to unlock their potential?
- How can we create a culture of healing and growth in our personal and professional lives?
Introduction:
In this episode of Escaping the Odds, Andre Norman discusses his experience transitioning from inmate to prison reform expert. He emphasizes the importance of addressing pain in order to unlock potential and achieve success.
Feature Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ycXB3wY8oQ
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be entirely accurate or free from errors.
Transcripts:
(00:00)
Hear the stories of men and women switching hustles and escaping the odds through entrepreneurship after prison. Not only will these stories inspire you, but also unlock business tips for financial freedom.
(00:16)
I'm Andre Norman, the founder of Academy of Hope. The goal of Academy of Hope is to diminish violence inside the prisons. Every day, we go inside and we meet with the men. We engage with the men. We help them understand that they have a greater goal other than just fighting and being incarcerated.
(00:40)
There's a large percentage of the criminal justice system that are violent offenders, and there's very little conversation, if any, about how do we fix that. Our unit's been open for eight months now.
(00:52)
We have some of the most dangerous or violent people in the state of South Carolina. One unit. We haven't had one fight. We haven't had one fight, one assault on staff or each other. Same prison, same food, same showers, same blankets, same everything, except for we speak to them like humans.
(01:19)
Everybody has potential, but it's not the potential to stopping their growth. It's the pain. Our goal, our plan and our mission is to heal the pain, then give their potential a chance to take over. Because if you keep speaking to somebody's potential or what you're seeing, speaking to the wrong end of prison is where people end up.
(01:42)
It's not where they started. We go back to where they started the pain, and we sit with them in their pain, in their embarrassment, in their weak moments. We help them get strong. That's what AOH is.
(01:59)
It's. Thank you all for tuning in to another dope episode of Escaping the Odds. I am your host, Aaron Smith, where we interview the formerly incarcerated who are now successful entrepreneurs. I got a good brother on here with me today, mr.
(02:12)
Andre Norman, doing extraordinary things within the community, actually within the country, internationally. Like, the man is really doing his thing, and we're really going to get into his backstory and just kind of find out how he gets to where he's at right now.
(02:24)
So I want to introduce Mr. Andre Norm. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing wonderful, brother. I appreciate you having me. No, absolutely, man. I've been following you for a minute and just really seeing your journey, man.
(02:34)
Inspiring, man, especially for a cat like me who has spent some time incarcerated as well. And I just wanted to really just get your story, man, and kind of get behind the business of what you're doing and even some of the nonprofit or philanthropic things that you're doing as well, just to kind of let the audience know who you are.
(02:52)
I mean, we can get to grew up in the hood, went through the drama with mom and dad, went through the bad public school system, got to schools broke, got outside of Hustling to buy the stuff I needed to be accepted.
(03:04)
Got to high school, I was already three years off track. Quit football, quit track, quit band, quit this, quit that. You quit all the positives only leaves you negatives. So I'm in the street full time now.
(03:16)
You know what that takes you? Penitentiary to the graveyard. But in court, seven to ten, two nine to tens, two tens, 215, and put me in the van. They dropped me off at the penitentiary. I'm 18 in the penitentiary, and I spent the first six years living a penitentiary life, thinking that I'm winning and I'm doing my thing.
(03:35)
Then six years in, I realize I'm the king of nowhere, that nobody about no place. I'm at nothing. What I'm doing, it means nothing in the real world. I changed my direction. It was like, I'm out of here.
(03:46)
And I said, I'm going to go home, go to Harvard, be successful. Yeah, next eight years. Taught myself to read, taught myself to law, went to anger management, went to social proof, went to self help groups, went to college.
(03:59)
Flip my case. I'm in the books versus Norman. I came out of there after 14, and for the last 21 years, I just been on a grind to help people. Wow. Okay, let's go back a little bit, man. That first six years before you had that shift in mindset, what was that whole experience like with you being in jail?
(04:19)
Because I know you had a significant position behind the wall. So how did all that play out. In that played out, man. When you first come in, you get in on a team. You say, what part of town you're from?
(04:29)
East side, south side, west side. And from this block, that block, you get in with your people. And I got in with my people. And I'm seeing the prison commerce. I'm seeing the hustle. I'm seeing how stats and status works.
(04:40)
And I want to participate. I want to be big like anybody else. Right. I'm a rookie trying to be an all star, and that was my goal. And I did what you needed to do to get that status of all star and nine state transfers.
(04:54)
I got kicked out of Massachusetts after nine months. They sent me to the feds on the federal transfer. Louisburg Terrahold, Atlanta Auto Wonderful bus, trains. And you seen stuff, mountain, Oklahoma.
(05:07)
But it was just a quest to know it. It was like I was like Dorothy on a wizard of Oz. I'm running down a yellow brick road trying to see wizard. When I finally got to the wizard, I pulled the curtain back, and it was all fake.
(05:21)
And so how did that play on your psyche? I mean, it was like I gave up my mom's. I gave up my family. I gave up my freedom. I gave up any aspirations I had to be the wizard. I wanted to be the wizard of ours.
(05:36)
And when I got there, it was like Toto and Dora, she found out it was all fake. It was all this big world that we created in our minds to justify our not succeeding in a regular world. Yeah. And so I want to go back with you said, I didn't realize that you had went to federal prison as well on a transfer.
(05:56)
And I know you named some prisons. In the 90s, even still to this day. 80s. So even worse. Right. The Lewisburg line of USPS right. Was like a stop. But the thing is, I can tell you 1001 prison stories, right.
(06:19)
I've had riots on airplanes, federal airlifts. I've been charged and convicted of stuff behind the wall. All that is nothing. I'm saying that part of the nothingness. Exactly. I can tell you a bunch of stuff that really doesn't do anything but tells you how far down that road I went.
(06:37)
Exactly. I'm saying most people don't make it to the wizard. See, a lot of people lived in Oz, never made it to the wizard. They just lived in Oz. Dorothy kept going until she got to the wizard. There was tons and tons of people in ours that was just completely content where they were in ours, and they accepted that their wizard was up on the hill.
(06:57)
Right. I was Dorothy. I went up the hill. I needed to see the wizard, and I got to see him, and I saw for what it was, it wasn't real. Yeah. And so you really didn't have any flak outside of people just not really believing in what you wanted to do while you were incarcerated.
(07:14)
But was there any kind of support system, like, maybe sometimes I know my own experience. There may be somebody inside the institution like, okay, they're going to kind of give you a little leeway to be able to do some of the things that you're doing because they see the change that's happening in your life.
(07:29)
Did you have anything like that for me? The place I was in my system at the time, I didn't have a lot of opposition to anything I wanted to do. Okay. Because of who I got to be in that little road work or the wizard of Oz thing.
(07:43)
Right. If you get a guy who just got off the bus, he can't make a decision like that. I'm six years in nine state transfers. All the rest of the stuff I have accumulated means something in this little wonderful fantasy world.
(07:57)
Right? I want to do something different. People are happy. Drake going to put down his knives, you're going to stop being a lunatic, he's going to get out our way. It was a good moment for the rest of the population that I didn't want to be a psychopath no more.
(08:08)
Right? I'm saying, nobody believed that I could do it, but they didn't care. They were like, he over there, occupied. He didn't went crazy. That was the word. Dray didn't snap. He over there. Yeah. Now go ahead.
(08:21)
Nobody wanted to poke the bear. So the bear wants to stop chasing people and go read a book. Who won't bother the bear, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Nobody want any smoke at all. This was like, what's the upside of getting me to put down my book?
(08:36)
Yeah. Now, initially you started off with eleven year sentence, is that correct? At a seven to ten, I should have did twelve months. I should have done twelve months. I got convicted. I should have got convicted and sentenced, went to prison.
(08:56)
I filed my appeal, I won my appeal. I went home in twelve months. Right. But instead I went to trial. I took off on trial. In the middle of trial, I took off. I call like eight new felonies. What do you mean you took off?
(09:10)
I was on bail. If you ain't got bail money, you ain't a hustle. No bail. If you got no bail, I understand. But if they got a bail on you, you should be in the street. So I had a bail, I'm in the street, I'm going to court.
(09:23)
Halfway through my trial, I saw it didn't look good, so I was like, I'm out of here. So I go off. They kept the trial going and they found me guilty. But while I'm on the run, I pick up like five, six new felonies.
(09:34)
So they catch me. They sentenced me on the first one. I go to trial on the next set. That's why I get the two tens and 215. And subsequently, when I started, I taught myself the law. I reversed that first case on appeal.
(09:48)
Meaning, had I set myself, still took the bid the first day, I'd have went to prison, filed my appeal in one in twelve months and went home. Right. But instead, I got scared or whatever, and I ran. And when I flipped my case, it didn't matter because I got all these new cases sitting on top.
(10:06)
Right. And then also, if I'm not correct, you caught some more cases while you were incarcerated, too. Right, I caught two cases. I got convicted twice inside. I caught a bunch of them, but they convicted me twice.
(10:18)
Okay. And of course, I added a whole lot of more time. So how much did you send? Ten more years in two and a half consolidatory for the last time, I caught cases. Okay. Wow, man. All right, so that changed moment.
(10:30)
All right, now you got eight years left to finish out your bit. What were some of those things that you decided that you were going to do? Like to kind of prepare? First, I had to tell myself the truth.
(10:40)
Who is Andre? Andre is black. He's uneducated, he's from the hood. His parents ain't that educated. He ain't got no financial support. He's angry, he's violent. I just said, who is Andre? And the one thing I came up with that was really, why am I here?
(10:57)
Who am I? My number one thing was, Andre is a quitter. I'd have never guessed that. That was my real crux of why I was in jail. I was poor. My number one reason for being in prison was Andre was a quitter.
(11:14)
Wow. And when I fixed that see, we say we're in jail because we're poor, because the system is rigged. You can fix the system, you can fix poor, you can fix whatever. But if I don't fix the quitter part, I'm going to come back.
(11:30)
Yeah, I'm going to go out and quit some more. Just in a nicer car, in a nicer house. So I finally identified it. The thing that actually put me in prison, that put me on path. My father taught me as a young man, when he walked out on us, it's okay to quit.
(11:45)
And from that day, first grade on, I quit on anything I didn't want to do. It was too hard, man. You know that. Man, you set a mouthful right there, man. That really resonated with me, because that was my issue as well.
(11:59)
And when you quit, you're looking for the easy way out, you know what I'm saying? Like that immediate gratification, which we all kind of struggle with. And it's always something easy that you can always lean back on hustling, you know what I'm saying?
(12:12)
More so than starting a business or working at nine to five because it comes easy to you, right? It's right there. Well, at least for some people. And so that was my issue as well. Okay, so now one thing you said you were going to do was go to Harvard.
(12:27)
Yes, sir. So how are you preparing yourself, of course, outside of learning how to read? Because prior to this, you were like, was it totally illiterate or just like. No, I was functional. Okay. I can read magazine, but I wasn't reading any books.
(12:45)
Right. I wasn't sitting down reading books and studying, and my comprehension was horrible. I could read, but the comprehension behind the reading was null and void. Yeah. Did you find, like, your self esteem had kind of increased as well because you own this new path inside of that kind of environment?
(13:05)
I know people looked at you differently now because you were a leader before, and we'll get into this, too, kind of like the parallels of leadership on the streets and also what you can do in the boardroom as well.
(13:14)
But did people look at you and want to follow in your footsteps as they did when you were doing the negativity? Initially, people thought I went off. You know, people on side, they snap. I didn't see people snap, and they was whatever they were, and then they just walk around, shuffle, and you got so initially those are like mandradi went crazy.
(13:33)
You he's walking around talking about going to college, he's talking about going home. This dude got 100 years. He's talking about going home. He's crazy. Draydad guy, they always want to wild out draydad want to take it to a murder versus an assault.
(13:45)
Dray. That guy is always an extremist. Yeah. So the extremist is talking about something extreme again. But in a totally different direction. So people didn't really give me a hard time then. It's kind of like, whatever.
(13:56)
Do you Michael Jordan went and played baseball. They're like, okay, we don't working out. But imagine if you would have came all star in baseball. Yeah. Imagine if you became a hall of Famer in baseball.
(14:08)
But he said, I'm going to play baseball. The whole world said, Mike, do you you still mike, we going to send the cameras. We don't have a whole bunch of hope in that. Yeah. And he did. You said 100 years, man, I can't even fathom you.
(14:27)
Add it all up. Seven to ten, two, nine to ten, two tens, 215 to 20s, or five and two tens. Yeah. That's 105 years. Wow, man. So how did you even wrap your mind around that? It's like, don't you know, you don't you just do the time.
(14:41)
Right. Whatever they gave you, they gave you. You get in with your team, and it's like the day to day politics. Nobody's talking about going home. Nobody's talking about working on a case. Nobody's talking about man elevating to another level.
(14:53)
We talk about making money. Who's going to be on whose ball team, what sports coming on this weekend? Who can knock a fat chick to send us some money? That's it. Wow. Nobody going home. Yeah, plug me in one of our girls.
(15:09)
We get that line going, and who can we flip on a staff? That's the whole mindset of the list of people I was with. How do we come on the money side? Right? Okay. So now you're out eight years. You got your GED and mentally, like, you put together.
(15:28)
What were some of your first steps that you went to time? I started working with young men in juvenile. My first day out, I went to a juvenile home, and I started talking to kids. I was about 90 minutes.
(15:40)
I did my first talk, and I do trauma informed care. I don't do scared straight. I mean, I was in jail because I was a quitter. Quitting isn't. Violence quitting. Isn't that's based on trauma? The trauma my father leaving created that thing in me around quitting.
(15:56)
So you can't basketball that out of somebody. You have to help them understand their deficiency, their pain, and fix their pain. So people aren't broken, they just have broken parts. Right. When did you kind of establish the whole business side of what you were doing?
(16:19)
I worked with a gentleman in Boston. He ran a nonprofit, and he hired me. And he just hired me because I had a name and I could do this outreach thing. When I first got there, I spent my time doing outreach.
(16:32)
So they sent me out to the hood. I talked to the gangs, I talked to the kids. Everybody knew me. It was easy. But during my breaks, I would sit with the secretary, and she taught me how to answer phones.
(16:41)
Then I sat with the accountant, and he taught me accounts payable, accounts billable invoicing taxable income. Then I sat with the director. He taught me about hiring and training and interviewing. Then I sat with the grant writer.
(16:53)
That's what was that? I did $25 million over the next four years. Wow. Because they would write these grants around helping us or people like us, but they weren't us, so the nuances weren't there, the deep insights that made perfect sense.
(17:07)
It sounded good on paper, but it wasn't real. When I got with the grant writer, her writing and my understanding experience, we produced some stuff that was off the chains. Wow. So how does that whole grant writing process work where a person can actually make a living from?
(17:28)
So the money all went, the nonprofit and so it covered my salary, covered everybody's salary and the rest of that. But some people just charge a percentage. If I came to your agency, say me and her came to your agency, we wrote you a grant for half a million dollars, you would pay us a percentage of that grant.
(17:44)
So we would charge percentages. But if we did, we probably made, like six $7 million off raising 25. Right. So what I'm hearing, though, too, is like, you had a team coming out, like people that kind of groomed you, just like how you were groomed in a show.
(17:58)
No, I had people to try to use me. Grooming was a golden goose, right? And they threw me on a team, and my partner sized boss saw me as a golden goose. No respect, no love. It was all usury, right? But in that, he got what he wanted.
(18:16)
I got lessons, and I learned the game. Exactly. I didn't even realize I was being used. I thought I was going to be given an opportunity, but looking back, I was being used for his benefit. Relative to Andre can generate money, can generate revenue.
(18:29)
Andre can generate this. And he didn't really care about me. He cared about what I do for him, which is, at the end of the day, I ain't mad. But when people come over from the penitentiary and they want to grab you, this agency, and throw you on a staff, what value are you to them?
(18:45)
LeBron gets paid 30 million. What do the buses get paid? Right. So you're an asset until you know more, and you ain't got that quick step, then they cut you. I had someone tell me that similar thing where don't let anyone pimp your story out, because they will all day, all day long.
(19:06)
And it's like that really struck with me, because we could come out and we can start doing the work, whatever that work may be. Like going back in, speaking to the youth, whatever. Just reform work, whatever it is.
(19:16)
The business side. We want to help people, we don't. Business side. My first lesson. My boss took me to a place in Harvard. They had an after school program, and it was one of the top programs in the country.
(19:28)
And the kids stopped coming. The program fell off. They did everything in the world to get it back on. They brought me out to talk to me, so I went to the thing and they told me all the information, everything else, and I said, well, what did the kids say?
(19:40)
No, we brought in this specialist from Sweden. Well, what did the kids say? This guy from Chicago, what did. I said, no. Who talked to the kids? Light bulb went off. We need to kids to find out why they're not coming, and then we can get them back in.
(19:54)
As soon as they got it, they shuffled me out the door. Thanks. We get outside, my boss said to me, he said, Drake, give me 200,000. I give you 200,000, dude, you know, I'm fresh out the penitentiary.
(20:06)
He said, man, you $200,000 worth of information, but some food you didn't even alike. And from that day forward, I understood the value of information. To me, I'm being helpful. It was beneficial to the kids.
(20:23)
They say they already spent a couple of hundred thousand spending all these specialists and couldn't figure it out. Yeah. So they brought me in. I fixed it in ten minutes for free. Yeah. So let me ask you this, Andre.
(20:35)
How did that all those experiences there, right, being used in this new game, how did that help you far as with your own leadership when you had your own team? Because I know you have a team now. So how did that help you not do the same thing as someone else?
(20:52)
Not assuming that you got that kind of character, but just you learn from it. My thing is to say we come up on the team concept of a family concept. Everybody eats, everybody's protected. There's that.
(21:05)
I came home when you get out of penitentiary? Oh, you made it. Use a king, use a boss, whatever. I always told people I was never the boss of my team. I never claimed that the doodle's boss, our team was on a natural life sentence.
(21:18)
So I could easily, like I've seen other lanes do, come home and start talking about they were the boss and this and that. Nobody can really fact check it because he shipped off an ADX. Florence, right?
(21:27)
I came home, I said, Yo, man, I got two OGS that ran our team. I was secretary of state, but let's call it what it is. And the next thing I did, I went back and we got the number one dude with that life sentence.
(21:42)
We flipped his face, we got him out. I don't leave my homies in the penitentiary. I'm not going to send you money to be comfortable and try to sneak you a cell phone. I want you out here, homie. Come up by my house in the next hour.
(21:56)
He's been out for ten years now. That life sentence. We got him out. The next homie, we got him out on the life sentence, on life pro, we got him out. I got one homie still locked up in Pollock, USP.
(22:07)
We want to get him out. So all that send you money, books, now we send in lawyers. Yeah. Where's your people at? Right. Oh, he's still doing 100 years. Why aren't you going to get your people? I'm trying to come up with a play right now.
(22:24)
I was watching TV a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months, and they let big Meech's brother out for the COVID And they didn't let him out. And he was I was like, Yo, man, we'll take meets into our program like that.
(22:36)
I said, Listen, I'm trying to reach out to his lawyer and say, listen, we got a certified program that's nationally recognized, and he can come work with us if that'll help that man. I don't know the man.
(22:46)
Right. If I can help him get out the penitentiary, I'm thinking about trying to help you. What can we do? Can we build a platform big enough? We need that man. Yeah. I need him on my team. Well, it's more beneficial for him to be out here than to be inside, but you need that person that's going to advocate.
(23:07)
Yeah. I'm building a platform where I can back in Massachusetts, we can walk in and pull Cast out of prison. Now, we try and do it nationally. We can say, yeah, we vouch for you right now. If the attorney General vouches for somebody, they coming home.
(23:24)
Yeah. We try to get that status. I need him out here. Yeah. I mean, the money is whatever status you don't see, you go online. Dudes don't know me till they know me because I'm not trying to be nobody's face.
(23:37)
Yeah. I've been out for 21 years doing the work, and I can give you a list of people we got out the penitentiary. I can give you list of businesses that we built. I can give you national programs that came out of my front room.
(23:48)
Yeah, I think nowadays, one thing I noticed, man, when I came home, is like, with social media, people feel like, okay, if you got this huge following, it's like, oh, you got the likes, you got the comments, you got all this kind of stuff, right?
(24:04)
That's what to kind of go after, you know what I'm saying? And if you not focused, man, that's one thing that I said. I would speak to the guys about this incarcerate because I know when I was in, that's one of the main things that people want to do.
(24:16)
Oh, man, I got to give me IG I got to give me a Facebook. I got to get on the book and this and that or whatever, right? But one time I was listening to you, one of your interviews, you talked about that far as, like the whole social media facade, if you will.
(24:29)
That doesn't make you make a brand. That doesn't make you a genius in business or whatever, right? Because you got 50,000 followers. Can you speak on that? I'm going to get one, like today. The dude I've been following since I was twelve years old, he told me how to stay alive.
(24:43)
And I got off the bus at the penitentiary. It's coming by my house today. I don't care if 30,000 people I never met in Iowa like me. Monte is out. Yeah, he got a family, he got a company. We do business, I can see him.
(24:57)
We go to the mall, we can go to get something to eat. I ain't talking about talking him on some hidden cell phone. He out. Yeah, that's the like, I got my other homie is out. I got to do it down in USB polok.
(25:08)
We want to get out. I need a like from him. All these new people I don't even know. I don't care if you like me. I ain't here to get I'm here my goal and my job is to get my soldiers out. There you go.
(25:21)
All this. I want to go to a club and be flashy. You ain't doing up for your home. You send them some pitches, send him a lawyer, help him find that case. Go to his parole hearing. Go to his parole hearing and have enough statue to say, yo, I'm out here doing this and this.
(25:37)
I can vouch for my man. I can go to a parole hearing and vouch for my man. Who are you? I run the national I run the number one best violence reduction program. I've created this model, this program.
(25:48)
This program. I worked in 30 countries. That man needs a chance to come free and stand next to me. Yeah, I'm doing I'm building a platform that I can leverage people out of the penitentiary. I don't want to highlight penitentiary, all that.
(26:01)
We hid this here, and we can hustle like that. No. Create a bridge. That's part, man. Let's talk about the Academy of Hope. The Academy of Hope came about two and a half years ago. There was a riot in South Carolina.
(26:17)
Seven men got murdered and 30 got wounded. They locked the entire 19,000 prison system down 24 hours, closed the doors. And from that day to this, nobody's ever been charged or arrested. So you got seven dead bodies, leaders from different sides, and you got 30 dudes with wounds.
(26:34)
And the intelligence from the police said, when you open these doors, they're going back at it. So they kept them locked down. They said, we can't open these doors. They in here with hatches and phones.
(26:43)
They just waiting to get out and get at each other. Somebody saw me, and they said, Drake, can you come to South Carolina? Took my big homie. He had never gone back to prison. He had never gone back inside of a prison.
(26:56)
I said, Yo, Dom, I need you to come in here. I lied. I said, I need you to come watch my back, man. He couldn't say no. So I got my man Dom. I got one in another homie. The three of us went to South Carolina, went into the prison.
(27:09)
They're like, just one joint where they had to murder said 2000 people. We went up, talked to one dude through the door, talked another food through the door. This is stupid. They brought nine dudes into the day room, like, this ain't going to work.
(27:20)
They said, Open all the doors up. No, we can't do that. I said why? They said, man, they going to kill each other. They're going to kill you. We sign waivers. Open the door. They let 300 men out for the first time since the riot.
(27:34)
We had conversations with we went dorm to dorm, prison to prison for six days. Ten prisons, 8000 people, not one fight. So what was the substance of that conversation that you were having with each of these individuals?
(27:51)
First thing they said is, who are you? I said, we didn't niggas that got your door open, that's who. First off, who are you? We didn't nigga. Got your dolphin. First shower, call your mom's, grab a few.
(28:01)
Let's build. Yeah, go get the shower real quick, man. Wash yourself up. Come on. We're going to build. Who are you? I say I'm here. A, get your doors open. B, keep your doors open and see. Show you how to get out of here.
(28:15)
Yeah. No prison program to show you how to be comfortable. I'm talking about going home. Yeah, I did 14, flipped my case. I'm out. This is my big homie. He did. He had a life sentence. 29, flipped his case.
(28:26)
He out. This Motherhome. He flipped his case. We out. We want to show you how to get out of here. Yeah, I ain't trying to show how to build no, do some wood craft shit. I'm going to show how to go home, right?
(28:37)
Because that's what we do. We had real hot thought, and they were like, Yo. Nobody came in here talking about, let's go home. Everybody's like, hey, let's do awesome craft. Let's do some basketball, man.
(28:47)
I got time for that. I'm coming here to show you how to get out. And there wasn't one person who wasn't with that program. We've been there for two years now, and in the two years we've been there, no stabbings, no staff assaults, no use of force.
(29:10)
We had one fist fight in two years. Now, it was a COVID fist fight. Do it. Arguing about hand sanitizer, right? There was no retaliation. That same fight a year ago would. Have been a murk people involved.
(29:22)
But you treat people like people, and they respond like people. You treat people like animals, they respond like animals better than them. We don't carry vests. We don't wear microphones or radios. We go in and we just talk to them.
(29:39)
We own dorm. We run it. And it's based on what we know, what works. I've been back. Yeah. One of the last things I want to hit on, man, is delegation. I know. That was something I had an issue with. I'm still kind of struggling with that.
(29:57)
And I realized it's a trust thing to learn how to delegate and allow other people to your team to kind. Of help you do so you got a trust problem. You hiring the wrong people. You hiring the wrong people.
(30:12)
If Warren Buffett was saying that he's going to take over your finances, you won't micromanage him. Absolutely not. You trust he can do it. Right. If Michael Jordan said he going to run your basketball squad, you got a problem with that, it's done.
(30:26)
Right? The only problem you have with delegation is the people you're delegating to. They are people. If you had right now, I don't know how many people on your team, if everybody on your team could be A players kevin Durant, Kyrie, Irvin, greek Freak, LeBron.
(30:43)
If you had a whole team of All Stars, how many of your problems will go away that you got right now? No problems. So your problem isn't the problem, right? Your problem is the people you got handling your problems, right?
(30:57)
I don't know none of them. I don't know none of them. But I know for a fact if you had a team of All Stars, 95% of your problems go out the window. So who are you hiring? Right? I'm trying to hire people for $10 an hour because you don't get $10 an hour work.
(31:13)
I was hiring people at 1012 1520. I was trying to okay. Trying to do the math. I don't hire for hours anymore. I hire for results. Got you. So it costs me more, but it stresses me less. And that's worth the cost.
(31:30)
And I can scale up. I can't scale with an inferior person on a team. That person's, a weakness, is a liability. So I'm paying. Not have liabilities. Yeah, and without liabilities, I can grow and scale.
(31:47)
Give me a top. When you build the chain, give me a top. Five people you want on your squad. If you don't have assistant, then you're the assistant. So you need a crazy admin, someone who can manage your schedule, set up your appointments, all that type of stuff.
(32:03)
You're saying handle the business, handle the invoicing, handle all that follow up. So when this is over, you won't get an email from one of my assistants checking in with you. I ain't going to worry about none of that.
(32:13)
So you have to have a top flight admin. You can call chief of staff. You need someone who handles your digital stuff. So your zooms, your podcasting, your posts, your social media, someone who just manages that.
(32:27)
I'm saying, then you're going to need a copywriter. I don't write that well. So you need someone that's going to write your ads, write your stories, manage your emails, make you look good on paper, in words.
(32:39)
Then, of course, a video person who can shoot video and edit video, that whole piece. A PR person isn't super necessary, but you need and then again, it depends on what your business is. Depends on what your business is.
(32:55)
But you need admin for sure, copywriter for sure. I'm saying digital marketer for sure. I'm saying in the age of what it is now, you need a digital person, something that can shoot and edit videos. Four people, almost mandatory.
(33:08)
I'm trying to hire your cousin. I can dig that, man. I can dig that. Well, look, man, thank you, brother. Man, you gave up so much information, man. That's is for, man, not only just an inspiring story, but for people to listen, man, to actually get some gain from and to be able to actually apply to life into their situation.
(33:32)
Businesses want to do business with us, agencies, the states want to do business with us. We solve problem. The question is, what problem do. Who owns that problem, and what does it cost them not to have it fixed?
(33:45)
Yeah. So the state prison systems have a problem called violence. I can fix that problem. And because I can fix that problem, I'm saying they're willing to pay me to fix that problem. It's a business transaction now.
(33:58)
I only treat people with humanity kindness, and my goal is to get them out of jail. They don't care. They just don't want their staff getting stabbed. How do you price that? How do you price tag? Well, not exactly.
(34:09)
What do you look at to determine, say, okay, this is some novice you know what I mean? Or innovative. How do I put a price tag on that? Well, it's going to be worth my time going into negotiations and numbers.
(34:22)
So why do you pay James Harden $50 million to play basketball? The revenue generates what it comes down to. What revenue is this generated, and what is the pain point? Are you going to get fired, Aaron, if I don't do your podcast?
(34:38)
If that's the case, you won't pay me. Different. If we ride in the car and Juan's driving, I got a bag of weed. You got a brick of dope. We sign, go up. I don't care. You won't pay Juan whatever he needs to pay him to keep going, I'm like, pull over.
(34:54)
I don't care. I got a bag of weed. So not stopping is more valuable to you than it is to me. So what is the value proposition for the person that's in the car? You versus a bag of weed versus a pistol?
(35:11)
When you walk into a scenario, you need to understand negotiations. There's a guy out of California name is Chris Voss. He wrote a book called never Split the difference. Read it. Okay. And I guess I wrote my book.
(35:26)
The Ambassador of hope is more about the journey than it is negotiations. Never split the difference. Crazy learning what you do well. Because you speak well doesn't mean you can negotiate well. Because you negotiate well doesn't mean you can deliver well.
(35:48)
So everybody LeBron doesn't negotiate his own contracts. If you had a $10 million deal for LeBron, you can't even talk to him. Got to talk to Rich Paul. Yeah. LeBron will hear about it after Rich hear about it.
(36:00)
If Rich thinks it's a good idea, I got 50 million for LeBron. Go see Rich. Right? Or you hire negotiators. You can't micromanage your way to the top. You only micromanage your way to the bottom, man.
(36:18)
I love it, man. Love it. Thank you, brother, man, for coming on, man. You helped me out. You have my number, man. It's all at me, man. Yeah, definitely, man. Yeah. I got to sit down with you. But, man, thank you again, man.
(36:34)
It's been a blessing, bro, to hear your story, man. Everything all the game, man. It's remarkable, man. So this podcast will be heard on YouTube. Check us out. Escaping Odds.com spotify. iHeartRadio, man, you name it, we there.
(36:49)
IG Instagram. Podcast, Facebook. Escaping the odds. Escaping Odds.com. Let's continue to support continue to support Andre Norman's movement throughout the country, internationally as well. Once again, brother, thank you.
(37:03)
Thank you, man, for coming through and chopping it up with me. Until next time, we like to say here, unlocking freedom, man. Opportunities over penitentiaries, man. For sure. Yeah, definitely. Okay, man.
(37:13)
We'll be in touch, man. Thanks a lot, bro. All right. Peace. You you.
