Andre Norman — Believe in Second Chances

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Andre Norman in the house with Bill Georgia.

Hello.

Hello everyone. Oh, I'm so excited about today's conversation. This is a time for something new and different, that's for sure. I'm going to introduce our speaker in just a minute. I want to tell you this is a special conversation. We have a lot of conversations. This one goes more into the personal realm, into leadership realm. Our guest today, Andre Norman. Andre and I first met at some EO of it years ago, but we were looking and thinking about everything happening right now. I was talking with my wife the other day, I saw, I saw Andre go live with somebody else and I'm like, oh, we gotta get you on the show right now, right? No stranger to the world of scaling up people who've been around birthing giants, some of the EO chapters, gathering of titans like that you may know, have seen Andre. Andre, have you done a talk for any of our scaling up summits?

Not yet. This is my first scaling up summit speech.

All right.

Great guy. Now don't get me wrong, Vern's a great guy and it's only a matter we just got to connect.

We gotta.

Oh my God.

So welcome everyone. Listen, Andre Norman is a guy who teaches all about second chances. Tenacity and passion have led him to create transformational programs and help people to turn their lives around, whether it's executives or youth or in any category. But this wasn't, and I'll let him tell the whole story. But nearly 20 years ago, Andre Norman was serving a hundred year sentence in prison and running all the gang activity within the prison. But he had an epiphany in solitary confinement and through a lot of hard work, personal work, with his GED in hand, he was released and he's made it his life's mission to help people figure out how to turn their life around. And he's worked across the world. Honduras, Bahamas, Sweden, Guatemala, Liberia, trinidad. Lectured on TEDx stages, Harvard University, London School of Business. Anyway, welcome to show Andre.

Thanks for having me.

So I'm so glad to have you. You know, one of the most powerful things that I did last year was go coach in a supermax facility with Kat Hoke.

Oh, Cat's my girl. Yeah, cat's official.

And Lori and I went along with some of the others and what a life altering experience that was. She's also been a past guest on the show. We love promoting her and her thing. And of course 2.0 can't do that right now. But, you know, I, I was just altered by that experience. Right? Like, I was nervous to go behind locked bars and I was nervous to go face people who I just felt dangerous. Right? Oh, shit can happen there, right?

No, shit happens.

But a different kind of shit happened to me. I, I just was moved by people's humanity and, and by hearing people's stories in that environment. So, you know, when you see people change their lives with that kind of background, it's moving. So there's so much happening in the world right now and so many touch points that I just think it's great to have you. So welcome again to the show.

My pleasure being here. My pleasure being here.

Let's start off. Why don't you tell folks your life story a little bit so they get a little more background in your words. Right.

My life story is I grew up in the city of Boston. You can call it disadvantaged situation. Parents was troubled, stressed out, and it was tough for them. And that tough and that hard life fell on me. I grew up at a time where it was busing, where kids used to throw rocks and call us niggers on the bus. And they didn't want us to go to schools because we were black. We lived in neighborhoods that were segregated and overly policed. This is the 60s and 70s and I mean, you just grew up. It is what it is. You don't know that. It's not supposed to be like this. You just know this is what you're dealing with. And I wasn't really an academic. I kind of fell through the cracks and I got disenfranchised. And I just thought kids used to make fun of me in school because I wore old clothes and dirty clothes and that was like the worst. I moved. All the things that ever happened to me in my life, I could take one thing back. It was the ridicule. I went through in the sixth grade, and that pushed me or prompted me to sell drugs after school. I used to sell weed in the park to kids so I could buy the clothes so I can be cool and accepted. And once I get on that path, that path took me straight down the line. And it's a single street. It runs straight from the first time you sell weed on that street. Ends up in prison. And like so many other people like me, I ended up in prison. When I got there, I felt like, okay. It was a reunion of all my friends from the dummy class, all my friends from special needs, all my friends from the principal's office, all my friends who got kicked off the football team. We were all there. It was just like a big place where quitters went. It wasn't so much for criminals, it was more so for quitters, because there's a lot of criminals who never go to jail, but all the quitters go to jail. And it was just a building full of quitters. And I was, like, one of the best quitters there was. And I spent the next six years participating in criminal activity. Just, this is what we're going to do. We're going to be criminals on top of being criminals on top of being in prison. And after six years of that, I realized that I would become the king of nowhere. I was the boss. I was a gang leader. Call me what you want, but I was a king of nowhere. I really couldn't do what I wanted to do. I did what they allowed me to do. And I said, well, if you're the king, walk out of here. That's what I told myself. If you're really the king, walk out of here. Give yourself what you want. Your freedom. And I realized that I didn't want to be the king of nowhere. I wanted to be something different. I wanted to be successful. So I said, I'm going to go home, go to Harvard University and become successful. And everybody thought I was crazy. My friends, my family. But I wrote my plan down, and I went back at my ged, went to school, got my. Got that taken care of, Went to programs, went to anger management, went to counseling for the next eight years, 20 hours a day, Taught myself. The law reversed my case on appeal. I came home not just with a dream, but I came home with some stability in my life, some belief in myself and a direction. And I started working with poor black kids. Then I started working with rich white kids, and I started working with Latino kids and with poor professors and teachers and police and for the last 21 years of this world, I've been traveling from Honduras to Guatemala to Costa Rica to Saudi Arabia to Australia to London Business school to Harvard Law School. I was on the phone this morning with the country of Liberia. Excuse me. I was on the phone this morning with the country of Nigeria, helping them fix their prison system and looking at how that works. And I worked with the White House under George Bush, and I just been. Every day, I get up and I ask a simple question. What can I do to be helpful? That's it. When I woke up this morning, it's like, okay, you're gonna be on this podcast. What can I do to be helpful? I can tell you a wonderful story. Well, I can ask myself, what can I do to help you or anybody that's listening in this podcast? Because even though people have companies and they have great lives, we know that they're struggling. There's always a struggle behind the. Behind. Behind the facade, and we want to get to that and help people heal.

You know, I think it's really easy to pretend there's no struggle, that everything's fine most of the time and regardless of your circumstances.

Right.

You can get comfortable anywhere.

Definitely. I mean, money doesn't remove hardship. Access to power doesn't remove hardship. Owning a company doesn't mean your kids are perfect. I was on the phone this morning with my son, and he's having struggles. He's 15. His friends are hanging in front of the building, and the neighbors are complaining. And I'm explaining to him his choices of friends and what he's responsible for. Two years ago, he ordered a vape. I'm the substance abuse king. My kid orders a vape. Why? Because he's a kid, and that's what kids do. So I don't care how much I dress up or how much I fly around or how many stages I'm on, My son is open to the same thing everybody else's kid is open for and your kid as well. And I don't know how many married couples argue that's part of being married. You're gonna go through some tough times. It's not all bliss and honeymoon. So let's get past. So you dress well and then start telling the truth. You got problems, and we want to help you with your problems.

You know, it's interesting, we. We opened referencing Kat Hoke and her program hustle 2.0. And over the weekend, a friend posted in one of the entrepreneurial chat groups. Right, the message groups, and about asking people, did they have any background Selling anything illegal was their first entrepreneurial experience. Selling stolen candy or weed or whatever. And an astonishing number of us did things like that.

Right.

But I personally had this face and this name, right? Bill Gallagher looking like the most clean cut, innocent thing. And. And so I got excused. I didn't go to prison, you know, for doing minor kinds of things. So first of all, it's useful to notice.

It'S not just you didn't go. There's a safety net for you. Yeah, there's a safety net to redirect you. And there's no safety net for poverty. So it's not just black anymore. It's poverty, and you are poor. Yeah.

Yeah. It's really. And. And. And that turning around. So. And you were telling that story. The other thing that struck me is you talked about, like, seeing your life differently and making new plans, that kind of thing that happened while you were in prison. Right.

So I'll try to confine me.

Yeah, man.

I mean, you. Your chain starts from when you started. So, I mean, when you're ready, you have to let go of the old and move into the new. I was talking to somebody yesterday, and the best example I could give is Dr. Dre, the rapper. He was in a deal with Suge Knight. They co owned Death Row Records. It was the number one agency in the world at the time. And he decided it was a bad relationship, and he went to Sugar and said he wanted out now that now the business, the legalities, the contracts, he said, listen, just sign me out of here. You can keep 100% of everything. Everybody thought Dre was crazy. You just walked away from a multi billion, multi million dollar business into nothing with nothing. He says, I am the talent. I am the architect. I'll rebuild it. Suge Knight's now in prison. Dr. Dre is a billionaire, and nobody's remembering the data. He walked out and believed in himself. Had he stayed with Suge Knight, he might have still. He might be in jail next to him.

Yeah, well, there was definitely a change. And. And Dre's talked about that, about his past, his mistakes and that kind of thing, and has tried to move past that. Of course, Dre's huge business success today.

But that started when he said to himself, this partner is not a good partner for me. And he walked away from the entire business. He said, I don't want any money, any royalties. Just let me go. And he went out and he built himself a healthy environment with a healthy team. Now he has a healthy business.

You know, it's funny, I think all of us have, you know, more or less drama, but at any point in our life, we have people who are good and bad influences on us. Right. And that, that 10 people that you spend the most time with have more to do and say about your values in action, your behaviors, your choices, your habits than anything else. If you want to kick your addiction, you got to get new friends. Because if your friends are all addicts, it can be really hard to change or whatever it is. Right. Cheating people or making bad choices of any kind.

Definitely. I mean, you are the people you surround yourself with, even if you want to acknowledge it or not. That's literally what I told my son this morning. You are them. I don't know them, but you are them.

Yeah. So talk to me about was your epiphany and your shift in your conversation with your mom. I know in getting ready for the show, you, you said something about that.

I mean, what happened is my mom came to see me when I was in solitary confinement.

Yeah.

And I just got charged with two attempted murders and convicted. And I'm in solitary. And I just got back from a two and a half year ship out from going around the country when she came to see me. I'm like locked in a cell with shackles on and all the rest of this madness. And she's talking to me and I'm talking to her, my prison talk, like, yeah, mom. And she's trying to talk to me about the trumpet and the stuff I used to do as a kid. I'm like, lady, I'm out of that. And she just walked out of there kind of crying, and I'm like, why is she crying? I'm. I'm the boss of this place. I'm in charge. And she did. She's not getting it. My dad's been in jail and my cousins are in the street. She should understand this. And in her mind, she lost her kid. And at that moment, I'm in solitary confinement, locked in the cell 24 hours a day with no sunlight. I just got 10 years added to my sentence. I mean, I'm so far removed from society. Is not funny. And I think I'm winning. I swore that I was winning. You could not tell me in that moment that I wasn't winning. I had manifested my mind that because I achieved this mythical, fictitious status, that I was winning. And you couldn't take that from me. I overlooked the fact that I was confined. I overlooked the fact that I was locked in a cell in the basement. I overlooked the fact that I had to walk around with shackles all day. I looked all of that because I wanted to believe what I wanted to believe. And it was like two years later, I had my epiphany when I realized that I was a king of nowhere. I'm like, I'm the king of this place. And I said to myself, if you're the king, let yourself out. If you're really king and you're really in charge and you're really in control, give yourself the thing you say you want most, your freedom. And I could. Then I had to accept the fact that I wasn't king. It was just all made up.

I think it's really useful. Notice the prison that you're in, right? Whether it's the real one or the invented one. Notice the place you've gotten comfortable. I think it's really useful for any of us at any time. There's always some place that we've gotten comfortable. We've become blind to that. We don't even see anymore. Let's see if we can show that now. So I'm going to switch here. Let's see.

Share Screen SCDC confirms that shocking new video obtained by WIS shows an inmate at the Lee Correctional Institution attacking a guard with a makeshift weapon.

You see one of your own getting assaulted. It's very concerning.

But as the attack continues, you see another inmate step in and intervene, saving the lieutenant's life.

Begging and cleaning for the guy to stop. You don't let him go. He wouldn't stop, so I had to physically grab and pull him off.

That inmate, whose identity is being protected, is a member of the Academy of Hope. WiS interviewed him back when the program was launched in 2019.

The beauty about the Academy of Hope.

When it came easy for me, I'm in a position where I can teach and help other people.

The Academy of Hope is a program that aims to bring about positive leadership from the system's most influential inmate.

We're taking the gang members at SCBC. We're putting him in a dorm together, about 50 of them, which is kind of unheard of. And we're teaching them how to work out their differences, not with their fists, not with knives, not with guns, but with their mind.

The Lieutenant was able to escape, but his attacker then turned his attention to his fellow inmate.

Towards me, and they wanted to kill me.

According to scdc, both the guard and the inmate who intervened were stabbed multiple times, but are expected to be okay. And because of that, Director Brian Sterling says he believes the Academy of Hope program has served its purpose in a big way.

I can't think of a bigger deal than saving someone's life. I mean, literally, this is a different conversation if it's not for the Academy of Hope and not for that offender.

Drew, Unst, Wis. News 10.

As for the inmate accused of attacking the lieutenant, SCDC has not released his name, but say the case is being investigated and charges are expected.

That's our program in South Carolina.

Someone intervening. And this is your program, Academy of Hope.

Two years ago, there was a riot in South Carolina and seven men were murdered. They brought us in to bring about change. And we took all the top gang leaders and top influences and put them one unit. And we started teaching them how to be better people, how to. How to be one with themselves, how to look beyond themselves, how to be givers, not takers. And two weeks ago, there was a lieutenant in another unit, not our unit, being attacked with the intent of being murdered. And one of our guys put his own life on the line to save this man. Because it's no longer us versus you, staff versus inmate. It's what's right. What's what? Am I supposed to do this right? And is it right to watch this man die in this fashion? And the answer was no. And that inmate was doing a life sentence, so he is serving life. So he's not getting out. But he was still willing to die to save somebody. And this is somebody that society deemed was unfathomable, unreachable, unworthy. But when given the right environment and given the right inputs and the right instruction, they. They can rise. He rose to a level that was unexpected of anybody else other than us. We expect him to do that. We expect others to do that. And that's what you get with good coaching and good training and people who believe in you. You create better people.

I think this also applies to the people on our teams. When you're working with people on their teams and they're doing weird things, people can change. People can do extraordinary things. It may or may not be your particular role as the leader, and if somebod isn't ready and doesn't want to change, it's going to be tough. But there are. When somebody's open and interested and. And a lot can happen, which I think is a great segue. Talk to us about your. Your own mentor, coach. Who did you get? How did they help you? What's. Talk to us about that.

Okay. My first mentor is a guy named. Is a guy named Natan Schaefer. He was actually The Jewish rabbi chaplain at, at the prison. And I met him by chance. And when we met, we just sat and started studying together. I would go to his service every week. It wasn't me to become Jewish, him to become black. He was just a great teacher. So I went every week and I studied with Natan. And he taught me some things that I never learned before. Humanity, respect, forgiveness, giving accountability. He taught me how to be human. All I'd ever been taught since I was little is how to attack, crush, kill, destroy. How to be tough, don't cry, run through a brick wall, suck it up, take it. And then he taught me, no, it's okay to cry. It's okay to be human. It's okay to help people. It's okay to care. So Natan was my was and my first number one mentor. And when I came home, there's a guy named Keith Alper who was an EO member who wanted originally. That's my. If you read my book, you will see Keith in there. Love Keith. He's my number one mentor on the planet. You can go to Rusty Keeley or YPO or Dave Spencer. Joe Pollard, Genius Network. I was just on with him yesterday for the annual event. Vern has chipped in. John Ratliff. I can go down the list. Jules Garfield from London Business School. I mean, I have hundreds. I collect mentors. I collect mentors because when I see somebody who can help me be a better person, I latch on and I go at them with all because I know it's going to make me better. And that man you saw who risked his life is a byproduct of people pouring into me. That wasn't Andre. That was Andre, Joe, Vern, Keith Natan and a thousand other people. Cameron Herald, John Ruling, John o'. Leary. Everybody who's ever poured into me was poured into that man. And that's the result we get when we pay it forward.

So I've seen a lot of folks go through challenging times. I've been through challenging times. I watched my own dad struggle and decline in his life. The thing that I see again and again that makes an enormous difference is being for others, helping other people. You talk about this a lot. Tell us about how you came to realize this, how that altered for you, not just struggling with your own problems.

I mean, my first quest was to get Andre out of prison. And as I started working on my case, my attitude, my situation, I saw the effect it had on people around me. Because there's always somebody who looks up to you. And in My situation, there's a lot of somebody. So as I started going to school, I made going to school cool. And I started going to counseling, mental health counseling. I made counseling cool. I started fighting my case. It made fighting your case cool. Because if Andre can do it, then we should be doing it because he's a boss. And I saw the effect that it had on other prisoners, and I saw the effect it had on other staff and on the staff. And it just. When I came home, my testimony of that, I made it out after all this madness. And I can do good now. It's like, I have to do good. I have to do good. Because I can't 10 years from now fail because anybody I've ever helped is going to say, my mentor failed. Now I don't have to win at everything, but I can't go back. I can't rob a bank. I can't sell drugs. I can't stab people. I have to fail in a legitimate way. Because there are people that I've helped over this last 21 years who are still looking and believing in the example that I set for them. And over the last two and a half years, I've been hanging out with a guy named Joe Polish, and he's helped me rethink the concept of helping people. So speaking to the humanity, not trying to torture people into better places, and understanding addiction. All addictions, not just ones that we acknowledge as addictions. And just being a giver. He has a slogan that says, life gives to the giver. And he's taught me and he's helped me understand. Just give this show up and give this show. I'm on a call the other day with Evan Carmichael, a thousand percent giver. I'm saying, John Ratliff, thousand percent giver. And you meet people who just give at first. It's weird because most people don't come from that space. Once you learn it and it's like, just give, give. I mean, it's like. It's hard to believe that people give more stuff away than they sell. But I've seen it, and I see the result from it. Stop trying to sell people stuff and give them some. Help them, make them a better person, and then they'll come back and buy something from you or not. But give, give, give them the thing they need to stay alive or to take care of their family.

I think it's a really powerful lesson. I notice that I'm proudest of myself when I'm giving. I am by nature, I tend to want to give First, I want to be seen as good, as heroic as that kind of thing, I feel. And there are times when I don't. There are times when I'm not thinking, I'm not aware, I'm just grabbing, doing, preoccupied with myself, that kind of thing. But when I shift that, when I think about what my purpose of my business is, the purpose of our work, there's a shift to that, and there are times that it's terrifying, but it inevitably pays back. At the beginning of the pandemic, I'm like, oh, Frank, my income's going to go to zero now. Nobody could afford a coach right now. I just started getting giving away coaching. What did I do? I had more clients than ever before. We've been busy as heck right now. Right. We've been full, full, full up. The first time that I've really been able to take on a new person, honestly, is. Is like this month. And we've been super, super oversubscribed. But it came because I started giving away stuff like working all hours that I could. Just giving people things right off. Right. Paid back.

There's giving and then there's self care. Self care is not selfish. Giving is always a great thing.

Yeah. You do have to take care of yourself. I noticed in that first little bit, I was, like, working too much, and I said, we got to put some breaks in between some of these things. I'm like losing my marbles talking to people nonstop. Too many conversations in one day and that kind of thing. I started taking walks around the block just to clear my head for a minute.

Well, call me. We'll go. We'll go have lunch together.

Come on over. Come on to my neighborhood. Oh, my God. People were celebrating here this weekend. There were some people feeling good about changes and shifts and things like that. They were celebrating the election and being called for Biden and. And, you know, Oakland is really. Well, the vice presidential, vice president, president elect is from Oakland, Kamala. And there's been a tremendous amount of attention to Black Lives Matter in Oakland and the inequity of our justice system. You feel a lot of pain. Not so much in my neighborhood, but throughout the city. Yeah.

My thought this morning and over the last couple days, and I celebrated, of course, you celebrate win, lose, a draw and. But I was saying to myself, there's 70 million people who voted for Trump.

Yes.

And do we negate them or do we embrace them? So what is a community engagement office look like that goes out to not just engage? Of course, Black Lives Matter needs to be Addressed, of course, prison reform and a lot of other stuff needs to be addressed. But how do we go reach out to these folks if we believe that they've been on the wrong path or in the wrong space or they not really got the right information, are we responsible for bringing them the correct information?

Yeah. What I find it challenging because my first instinct is and tendency is pretty arrogant. Right. I tend first to think that I'm right and I'm smarter than almost everyone. It's really embarrassing, but it is true. And I'm really continually honored, impressed by one of our friends, Van Jones. And Van's also from here. He started Ella Baker center here. I had the privilege to meet him and. And work with him in leadership development some years ago, and he's since gone on to lots of things. But Van went around, he said, we've got to learn to listen to people. We've got to learn to appreciate where they're coming from and not negate them. And these people, whatever side you're on, and I know we have listeners and clients on all sides of the political spectrum, some who celebrated and some who are invalidated. And the same thing was true back in 2016. I led a workshop in a room of 60 people. People the morning after the 2016 election. And I'm like, oh, my God, today we have to talk about business stuff. And people. Some people are celebrating today, and other people are just in shock and grieving. And how do we reconcile that, too, and not get in a fight here today?

Right. How do we acknowledge the president? Doesn't mean we can't get along regardless who the president is. So there's nothing stopping us from reaching out to our fellow citizens and engaging them. That's okay. Whoever's in the White House. In the White House, fine. I mean, does that mean we can't talk? Does that mean I can't help you? Or. Okay, well, we can't, can we Can't. Oh, you're Republican, I'm Democrat. Or you're Independent. I'm a Green Party. We all live in this country. All our passports are blue. I'm saying all our citizenship's the same, and we're gonna be buried on American soil. So have your party. I mean, like, I go to a Patriots game. I'm sure there's some Republicans and Democrats in the stands. We'll sit next to each other. But we care for the Patriots. We can cheer for a team together. Why can't okay. Take that same sentiment and say, okay, common ground. Let's find common ground? Yeah.

Find the common ground.

I mean, I watched. I watched. I'm saying, I go to places. I'm a Patriot fan. There's some people don't like the Patriots, but we can still have civil communication and we can agree to like football. We have separate teams, and we agree to like football. And if we didn't have two teams, it wouldn't be nothing to watch, you.

Know, so that it brings it right back, right to where we started this conversation. Each of us is interacting in the world, and for the most part, in the world of scaling up, we avoid politics and things like that because we're focused on business and helping people grow as leaders and grow their businesses and the thing that they care about. But I'm reminded of the experience in prison with kat hoc docile 2.0, and when I heard people's stories and when we all stepped in line for our different life experiences, when I heard people's stories and I understood that their actions, their choices and the implications of their actions were completely consistent with the world that they knew, it just made sense. Right. That.

That's why you.

Before you shape it, the environment. Right. And they. They recognize personal responsibility and all that kind of thing. And they were in the program to try to. To change things, to. To create a new trajectory, whether they were lifers or. Or had some prospect of. Of a pearl, a release. But I was moved by that. And I think the same thing is true in our tribes that we belong to, our political and other kinds of tribes that we belong to. I'm a member of this sports fan group, and I'm part of this community of interest, and in each place, I see the world from a particular perspective, and then I act completely consistent with the way that I see the world. And to other people, my actions look crazy. You know, the other day I was running into the cold water and the wind and the waves, and things were coming out as ice cold because I was excited because I like to wind surf and foil surf and, you know.

Look crazy to me.

I look crazy to me, right? Think about that for a second. Like, you know, some friends on different sides of the political spectrum now look at each other as if we're crazy and. And yet their choices make perfect sense to them from their worldview.

Exactly. And it's. It's. You have to accept people for where they are and how they got there, that there's nothing wrong with the person, there's nothing wrong with their thinking. I don't. I don't need you to think it my way. I don't need you to see it my way, but let's work. What is our common objective? If it's make America great again, we can still do that. If it's peace and harmony, we can still do. We can still make America great again. We don't abandon the concept. He wasn't the concept. That was a great slogan. We patched, we attacked him and attached the slogan to him. It's a great slogan. Let's make America great again still. Now, what does that look like? Independent of who's in office. That's. Some people think he wasn't going to do it. We have to do it.

Yeah. The personal choice in all of it.

On the business side, I. After George Floyd died, I got hundreds of calls from white business owners and white friends saying, dre, what can I say? What can I say? What's enough? What not enough? What do I support? Do I support? I don't support rioting and looting, but how do I support the movement? I don't support attacking cops, but how do I say I support Black Lives Matter? And I did probably like 30 seminars, Zoom calls with businesses around the country. Explain to them how, how the black experience is and how as a white business owner, how you can actually engage it. And there's three conversations that need to happen. One is with your employees and your staff. If you're the boss, you need to be talking to your employees and staff. Two, you need to talk to your friends and family, people of your age, your brother, sisters, cousins, your mom and dad. And lastly, you need to talk to your kids. Because if we don't talk to our kids, the next generation will carry on what we carried on. I've looked at pictures from lynching back, back in the day when they used to lynch black people. You will see teenagers and 10 year olds in the audience. And the message to the kids was, this is okay. And nobody ever said to those kids that this is not right and this is not cool school. So they grew up watching lynching. And guess what? They did. They participated when they got older. So as we stand here right now at a place of the country having the opportunity to have a conversation about social justice, let's say, how do we meet this middle ground? How do we hit this space of I don't want to shame you, embarrass you and yell at you. How do I embrace you, bring you in and include you?

So you said, we have to talk to employees, we have to talk to friends, we have to talk to family, that kind of thing. What's the message. It seems to me that I'll never understand what it is to walk through. I can be interested, I can be curious, I can look, I can try to appreciate. But I will always walk through life with this skin, with this name, with this face. Right, that's fine.

I mean, being a white guy named Bill is fine. I'm saying your glasses are kind of cool. So you're okay. I don't need you to become a black guy. I sat with Orthodox Jewish rabbi. It was never about me becoming Jewish. He taught me humanity. He didn't teach me to become Jewish. I am no part Jewish, but I have a rabbi as a mentor and that's fine. So in this space, you don't need to become black. You don't need to even like cross over this. Let's understand the humanity part. So shooting people in the street is a humanity thing. People living in poverty is a humanity thing. Bad school systems, education, being through the floor is a humanity thing. We're not talking about, hey, do you like this music or that music or clothes or not? Fashion is not. People being shot in the street, people living in poverty, people going to horrible schools, people being discriminated against. Those are humanity things. And you can, in your skin, in those glasses, in that space, have that conversation.

Yeah. Understanding that. What are you talking about this week? What's going on with people, with you and your life and my.

My thing this week. And to close that out, the benefit of that is talking about the social justice is it's going. Unfortunately, there will be another black person shot by a white cop at some point in this country. And we don't want your business destroyed because of it. We don't want you polarized me. We don't want you driving on the street and be Reginald Denny pulled out of a car and smashed in with a brick. Because of social unrest. It gets to a point of affecting people who don't see it coming. So that's part of the reason we want to get to that, so we don't have innocent people hurt. I'm not for burning, looting and attacking people. So conversations on the front end protect people on the back end. And what I'm talking about this week is my goal for 2021 is my academy of Hope program. I'm trying to sit down and solidify it so I can get it in different prisons, in different places where it's a humanity thing. How do you actually tap into the greater self that you are? And how do we create into a coaching program? Because if we can Take a prisoner who's doing life and convince him that he is worthy and capable of standing up and giving his life to save his perceived enemy. Then what can we teach your coaches? What can we teach your mentees?

So tell us about the Academy of Hope program and then I'll, I'll follow up and talk about the implication for our businesses. Right.

The Academy of Hope program takes leaders. All the gang leaders, all the different gangs, white, black, Spanish, Asian, different sets. We bring them on one housing unit and we have them all living in one unit. It's like a big seminar but it doesn't end.

We'll put the link to the information both it's on screen now but we'll also put it in the show notes for listeners later.

So what happens is we get them all at one unit, then we teach them. So your books we have Cameron, we have so many different books from around the country from different entrepreneurs who've donated books and trainings. Joe Weldon, one of the first founder fathers of NSA donated his program. I can go down the list of people. Ben Hardy donated his books. Michael Bernhoff donated his books. I have booked from everybody in trainings. And we take. Because most of the training and education that goes into prison is garbage. The lowest of the lowest of the lowest of the low. It's stuff that is just garbage. Most of it is just garbage. And it's not first rate front line. How do you build a business? How do you build a life? It's garbage. It's systems. Cassie, Cat run C Spot jump is garbage. So I'm taking first rate people first rate. All those books on the shelf behind you, I want those, I want copies of those because they helped you build a business which means they can help them build a real business. And I take real information, real accountability and straight direct talk to the people in need and we teach them how to be better and we give them expectations. We lay expectations on it. We expect you to be great and we're going to give you the tools to be great. We expect you to stand in and give your life. And we may give you your why to stand in and give your life. So this hasn't been called upon for them before. It's like we accept we expect you to be the worst and do the least. We come in and say we expect you to be the best and give your life. That's our call. And if you can't stand up to that, then you're, we'll tell you you're not. You're not, you're not really fit for this. We want leaders, and we go in and we challenge them in real time to be better, greater than they've ever been asked of before.

So this is something that I talk about all the time and that I practice rigorous, like, intentionally rigorously. I work hard at it. I may be predisposed to it, but this notion of looking to, relating to, and calling forth a future, better version of someone. So instead of relating to you as however you show up right now, I see you in the future as that metaphor. And I keep interacting with that. Not whatever's in front of me right now. I keep calling forth that future, better self.

Right? We. We do a little bit more than call them. We drag them. We drag them to it. We gonna point it out, then we're gonna drag you to it. I mean, it's like Navy SEAL training. You want it, you have to want it. And this is the thing, as being one of the guys in the past, nobody gave me the chance to be my greatest self. I was only given the opportunity to be my lowest self. So when I was given the opportunity to be my greater self, I took it because it was challenging. There's no challenge of being a drug dealer. There's no challenge being a robber. There's no challenge of being a gang member. There was a challenge in being a great human, and Natan challenged me to be a great human, and Joe Pollard's challenged me to be a great giver. I can go down. People challenge me to. To my greater self, not to my lower self.

Yeah. Challenge you to step into the way that they saw you, the opportunity that was there in front of you. So that sounds like that's the first lesson for our business leaders, is to challenge your people to be better than they are today, to be a better future version of themselves. What else have you got? What are your lessons that we can apply in our businesses?

One lesson that I've. I've taken from prison is retention. I grew up in a gang, and I people the gangs my whole life. When I was my young life, and I was in London one time with Deutsche bank, and I'm at lunch, we're doing a training. The guy has this really sad face. I'm like, yo, what's up, money? What's the problem? He said, my VP of sales just quit and went and joined the bank that we're going for a contract with against. I'm like. He says, well, he's worked here for 12 years. They offered him $10,000 in a better parking spot down the street. I'm like, how does that work? He says. I said, never in the history of being in a gang did anybody ever quit our gang and join the other gang and shoot back at us. He straight, happens all the time in corporate America. So I said, how about if I teach your people loyalty like I taught my people loyalty? If I teach you how to keep your people in house and definitely not shooting back at you? He said, dre, you'd be my best friend. We created a corporate retention program based on gang loyalty. And it's. It's crazy, and it works.

Talk to us about that. Tell us a little bit about that. I'm curious how that relates to what.

We do, how to be loyal minus the guns and knives. And then we also. We in. In prison, I do this training as well. There's a guy named Jim do who really pressed me to do this, create this. How to read people. In prison, I have to read everybody in 0.2 seconds. Are you here to kill me? You had to rape me. You had to throw me down the stairs, had to shake my hand. So you had to learn to read people's body language, their language, read behind what they're saying, what they're thinking, all that stuff. So when you go into a meeting, how valuable would it be if you could read everybody at the table next week? You know, who's lying, who's leading? And so we. That's a prison skill set that every prisoner has, knowing how to read people in real time. So we teach people how to read people in real time.

One of the guys in Cat's program, in the prison that I spent more time with in my two days, there was a younger white guy, and he had this just really tough expression all the time. And a lot of folks who've been in the program a little bit longer were a little softer and greater range of, like, expression. But this guy, he just, like, his posture, his. His set of his face, like, everything was, like, tensed. And I want you to know I'm tough and everything like that. And fortunately, I had started to get comfortable there, and. And I said, dude, what's this whole tough thing all about?

Prison, dude. What are you talking?

And I'll tell you, had I met him at any other time in any other. Or even a little bit earlier, I could.

Not that.

Because I was like, this guy could kill me, right? Pardon my language, but, like, I'm sure he could. He was way stronger than me, way younger. Like.

But I.

But I'm. But in this environment, in this moment, in that context, I'm like, what is with this thing? Is this your only, like, presentation? And it, like, it snapped him and he laughed. And then in a few minutes later, he cried after he told me his story. Right. And that whole, like, tough thing, like, faded away. It was. It was a defense, right? I'm gonna look tough, like we do all the time, and I'm gonna hold this thing in whatever negotiation or whatever I'm doing. And it was just a facade, right?

Definitely. I mean, I have a friend that I met through Genius Network, Chris Voss. Me and him are like, great friends now. He's like an FBI negotiator. I'm a former gang leader, but we understand each other instantly. Even though we start from the opposite sides, we understand each other intently, intimately. Instantly. We think the same things. Yeah. So it's like people I get along best with now are people who either was in prison or law enforcement because we. And now entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs just get shit done. That's what I like about entrepreneurs get done.

And that's a pleasure about coaching entrepreneurs. One, they have some money to pay me, and two, but they actually do stuff. And I can remember working with a wider range of leadership coaching in the past, and there were a number of people who. They just weren't going to do much of anything. They want to have insights, they want to breakthroughs, but they're not actually doing anything. And those people frustrated me again and again. I'm like, no, you wanted to beat them up. Go make a difference in the world.

No, no, I just want to. I just want someone to talk to. I want to pay you to talk to me. This is therapy. This isn't coaching.

Yeah, that's. That's a different thing. That's a different thing. So get a mentor. Make a choice. Notice the world you live in. Ask yourself, really, am I in some kind of a personal prison right now? Have I gotten used to and comfortable with some bullshit that it's time to break through? Are you ready to step up to something and if you want to better yourself, help other people get better, this is not just about you. And, you know, leaders know at some deep level, maybe not consciously, but the limits of what you can do on your own are pretty small. But when you work with and through more people. Right. You can do big things in the world. Right? Interesting.

Dan Sullivan made the point this weekend at. At the event. Collaboration is key. He collaborated. His sayings is, I'll collaborate with people. 100 efficient in their space. So you have three people who are 100 efficient in their space collaborating. That's 300 coming out of problem and is you're guaranteed to win. If you're trying to like negotiate your pod, negotiate their part and I'm gonna give 100. You get 100, he gets 100. We go. Yeah, we can't lose. You stop percentages in mind frame and space. When you start negotiating, stuff in and harass me.

Well, it's been such a great conversation. I want a couple shout outs so I'll come back to you in one second. I want to let our listeners know that we've done 230 plus episodes like this on all topics relating to leadership, people, strategy, execution and cash. All the things to do with growing your business and developing yourself as a leader along the way. If the show helped you, you can help us by giving us a review. Type in something out wherever you get the show, YouTube, iTunes is where most of our listeners come from. But stitcher, whatever it is, Facebook live, wherever you get it, give us review positively there. If you want to subscribe or get any of that back catalog, find any of those other topics. You'll go to scalingcoach.com and if you could use help finding a coach in your corner of the woods dealing with the kind of area that you need some coaching and drop us an email to info scalingcoach.com we'll help you find somebody. We have over 200 in our world. Plus then all the other people were affiliated with Be My Honor privilege to help you do that. I want to give thanks to Lucy who's in the background organizing our comments and things like that and getting things ready for the show scheduling. Go Lucy. Also to Vern Harnish, author and creator of Scaling Up Framework and the original Rockefeller Habits. Our audio is edited by Albert Burge. Our show notes are compiled by Ayn Codena and proofread by Tim McGowan. So if you want more information on Andre Norman, you'll find andre@andrenorman.com.

Right?

And it's not even a weird spelling or anything. You're making it too easy for us.

I thought it'd make it easy. Somebody said make it simple. Dean Jackson told me the other day, just make it simple, Andrew. Don't complicate it.

Keep it simple. And also the Academy of Hope program. Learn about that, how to support it, what to do and how to apply some of those things in your own business. Some of that same idea of raising your page people up, having them hope and pull for anything. Andre, anything else for you?

Anybody who's listening knows a governor of a state. I would love to have that governor place me in their state corrections implement these types of programs.

Oh yeah, that'd be cool.

President if anybody knows Biden or Trump on the way out or whatever that is, the president can appoint me for the Fed and any government can put me over the states. Make a difference.

Isn't that awesome? Well one of my old employees worked with Kamala for a couple of years here in San Francisco. Make it happen know as well and we know Gavin in California. So all our friends and listeners and that kind of thing. Some of you know who you are. How do we help Andre bring the Academy of Hope to more places? Andre, thank you so much for spending some time with us today sharing your story. Be ill, as my daughter and her friends call me.

We can do something with that. Be ill. That's original.

Thanks everyone for listening. Keep scaling up. We'll talk to you again next week.

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