Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / Episode 99: Jonathan Osborne

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Episode 99: Jonathan Osborne · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

• 0:00
  And we're live. I love this.
• 0:02
  I I never know exactly the proper way to start.
• 0:05
  You know, it depends what kind of conversation I'm having.
• 0:07
  So Jonathan, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself
• 0:10
  to start and then we'll kind of probe our way through there, I
• 0:12
  think. Yeah, please.
• 0:14
  All right. Well, first of all, good
• 0:16
  evening. Good evening.
• 0:18
  It's nice to be with you today. It's great to be here.
• 0:21
  So about myself, starting in what year?
• 0:23
  Like as a kid or currently, which is what's?
• 0:25
  Better let's start as a kid, all right?
• 0:27
  Yeah, I'm interested in that. Where are you from?
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  You from here? I'm from Miami Gardens, Florida.
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  I know, Miami Gardens, sure. Which now is Miami Gardens,
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  Florida. But when I lived there was just
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  Miami, FL didn't really have the name.
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  It didn't have the gardens either.
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  But I grew up there and lived in in Miami until I was 16 and we
• 0:48
  moved to Vegas when I was 16. Gotcha.
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  Come from a big family. I have three siblings, two
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  parents that's good, that are still still together, still now.
• 1:00
  That's nice. That's uncommon.
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  Right, we all hang out together. It's so nice how often.
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  Yeah. They live here now.
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  They move back. They live in Davie.
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  Oh sweet. OK, we now live in Hollywood,
• 1:09
  right? And we see them all the time.
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  We saw them last night, for example.
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  It's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome.
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  It's beautiful. Anyone or your siblings?
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  They're close. They are not close.
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  I have a sister in Ohio, a sister in Arkansas, a sister in
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  Colorado and a half brother in Miami.
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  Wow gotcha. How often do you make your way
• 1:27
  out to each of those places or vice versa?
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  I feel like they would come here more.
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  Right from here, Yeah, distantly, probably twice a
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  year. OK.
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  And when we go to the other places kind of depends on what's
• 1:37
  going on. So we went to Ohio this year for
• 1:40
  my brother in law's birthday. Which part of Ohio?
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  They live in Cleveland, Shaker Heights.
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  Nice. Yeah, I'm familiar with it.
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  And we'll go to Arkansas in this summer, probably not Colorado
• 1:52
  this year, but I'm good. Where are they in Colorado?
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  In Denver? Denver.
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  Nice. What do you think of Denver?
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  That's lovely. It's.
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  A cool place, right? It's a lot of fun.
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  I drove cross country a couple of times and I always made sure
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  to hit Colorado because I think it's like it's not from
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  Washington. I think it's my favorite state.
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  Like just to. Go through Washington state.
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  Yeah, I love Washington State. Have you driven that far?
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  I have. That's why I moved.
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  That's why I drove to I, I moved to Seattle for a year.
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  I drove from New York and I and like, yeah, my buddy, I
• 2:20
  convinced my buddy to move with me.
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  I told he was working at, he's doing coding at a big corporate
• 2:26
  company and he hated it. And I worked with my dad.
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  It's a little family business. So I called him and I was like,
• 2:32
  if you quit your job, I'll hire you.
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  I didn't speak to my dad. Yeah, but then my dad didn't
• 2:36
  want to do it. So I'm like, I, this guy's pop,
• 2:40
  I'm telling you, this guy's brilliant.
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  It's like until he shows you split my salary, we'll just
• 2:45
  split it together. And, and that way you won't even
• 2:48
  notice when you decide that it's worthwhile, then you'll pay both
• 2:51
  of us, you know, regular salary or, or more hopefully if we
• 2:53
  create that value. It took like a month and 1/2 for
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  that to happen, you know, but he did it.
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  And then for the next couple of months, we were four guys living
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  in a house that cost 4 grand a month, where between us our
• 3:07
  income was like $75,000. We were just living on savings
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  until, until, until we got more money.
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  And then in Washington, in Washington, Seattle, Yeah, in
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  Seattle. And so along the way, we, we
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  drove, you know, so I drove. So I picked him up and I bought
• 3:20
  a 2000 and like 8 Toyota Prius with like 140,000 miles on it.
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  And one of the cylinders actually wasn't firing while the
• 3:30
  entire job like this is burning, burning out through gas like
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  crazy. And my friends like, oh, well,
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  you know, it's all our stuff in the car.
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  You know, maybe that's what it is if you got to Seattle and
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  like, no, that car is that car is not good.
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  And then ended up getting hit. I got like 6:00 in the morning.
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  I was going to synagogue and a woman makes a slow left out into
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  me and we're both OK. Like get on.
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  Are you OK? Stick?
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  Yeah. I'm like, what was that?
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  What are you doing? It's like you're not, you're
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  clearly not drunk. You're not inebriated.
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  Like, what was that? She's like, oh, I don't know.
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  I just, you know, I shouldn't be driving this early.
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  But I got tank ran for the car and I paid like 4500 bucks for
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  it. So she lasted.
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  She she did, she did a good job. And then I was like, I could do
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  this for a living. You know, this is a great way to
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  make a living. But how'd you like grow up in
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  Florida? I thought it was.
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  It was nice. It was the 80s, so I was born in
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  1984 and I thought Florida in the 80s was great.
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  That's all I really knew. My grandparents live close to
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  us, all my cousins live on the same street with us.
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  So it was like a happy. I mean, I now looking back on
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  it, see it as kind of like a small town upbringing, except it
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  wasn't a small town and we didn't know differently, but we
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  had a very traditional family oriented experience.
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  Yeah. And so my wife is from Illinois.
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  She's actually from a small town village even.
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  Yeah. And so.
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  So we all live on the same St. in Miami.
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  And her and her family, they don't live on this just on the
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  same street. They live on the same land.
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  Wow, That's cool. So that's like actual small
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  town. Yeah.
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  Yeah. But our bringings are very
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  similar. Sure, Very similar.
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  The most important things are family, friendship, community,
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  even beyond family. So our neighbors that you know,
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  yeah, that's that's how I grew up.
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  Our neighbors were family to us. Sure.
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  That's how Gayla grew up. Her neighbors were family.
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  And we're trying to create the same thing here.
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  Yeah, me too, man. I grew up like that too.
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  And my dad actually grew up in Miami also in the 80s.
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  He grew up on 43rd and Pine Tree and he's one of six and didn't
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  have a ton of family near them, but they were enough personality
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  themselves, you know, and, and you know, the Miami Beach Jewish
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  community from the 70s and 80s was very small.
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  And so they're also, you know, everyone knew one another and
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  like as time went on, they all kind of branched out and moved
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  on. But you know, like you like, you
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  know, my dad's always still excited to like hear random
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  names. My neighbor over here, 2 houses
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  down his our grandparents are friends and we currently have
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  kids the same age and he lives two houses down from me.
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  So it's 4 generations of our, you know, Stern and Hershman's
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  that are just like just friends and living like down the block
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  from one another, you know, and like we're just talking about it
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  this weekend. It's really cool.
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  It's a beautiful thing. I feel like a lot of people
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  don't have that, you know, degree his.
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  Family was from Miami Beach. Yeah, it's.
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  Awesome. Yeah.
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  I mean, they, they, my grandfather was from Brooklyn
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  originally, but after he did, he got, he went to medical school
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  and then during I guess the Korean War, I think he
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  volunteered, He didn't want to get drafted and he wanted to
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  volunteer and pick where he was going to go and to avoid and to
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  avoid getting drafted and sent abroad.
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  And they went in San Antonio for a couple of years and then they
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  relocated to Miami. But that they've been there
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  since, yeah, late 70s, early 80s.
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  And I don't think anyone ever looked back.
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  They, they still live there now and he's gonna die in that
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  house. He loves that place, you know,
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  like it's, it's and it's nice. It's beautiful.
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  I used to, I, I growing up, I'd go to my dad's old bedroom and
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  go through his stuff and like, see what he had as a kid and
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  like, he found a scrapbook of old girlfriends he used to keep
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  and stuff like that. My mom flipped the shit about
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  but you know, like. Yeah, like pictures of.
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  The yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like humor.
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  I was like, this was Jerry. She was the best looking girl on
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  the grade. And this is like, you know, and
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  yeah, it's Polaroid just legit like that.
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  And I was like, she's like, what is this still here for?
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  But what was what was moving to Vegas like?
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  So I was, it was. So my birthday's in August and
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  we moved in, let's say July. So I think I was 15 technically,
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  but when school started I was 16 and.
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  You were going to be a junior. Rising junior Rising junior and
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  I've gone to the same school since 6th grade and I'd always
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  lived in the same house. And my older sister is she was
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  probably, she had just graduated from high school, so she was
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  going to be going to school in LA and then my 2 younger sisters
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  were like in middle school. So what was it like moving to
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  Vegas? I was actually excited about it.
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  And, you know, in hindsight, I think that's interesting because
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  it was in the middle of high school and I really had no
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  problem just picking up and moving across the country not
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  knowing anyone. My SO I think I had no problem
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  with it for two reasons. One of my parents made it easy
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  because I moved in the summertime before school started
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  and like, joined my basketball team OK during the summer.
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  Oh, cool. I met friends and my teammates
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  back before school started. So that was huge cred my parents
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  for that. I think the other thing is that
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  my personality just kind of is open to change and I still have
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  the same view. So at the time, to be honest, I
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  didn't really think anything of it really.
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  I had my my good friends in Miami.
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  They're still my my good friends today.
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  Sure, and let's go. That's so interesting, though,
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  especially because, all right, when you were growing up with
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  all your like cousins and everything all around you, did
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  you think you were going to miss that or did you think like, ah,
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  you know, that was fun, but like, let's try something new.
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  You're a teenager. What I thought and what happened
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  was they'll visit and they did and we'll and we'll visit home
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  and we do. How'd you like Vegas?
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  What was that like? It's a cool place.
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  It's it's a magical place in a lot of ways, but I think for a
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  kid then this is like 2000. What year was this?
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  2000 Vegas were still New South. My high school in Las Vegas was
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  only 10 years old from when it was built.
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  Wow, cool. Compared with in Miami, schools
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  go back decades and decades. Sure.
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  So it was a modern city, very suburban.
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  We lived in Henderson. Yeah.
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  And. It's cheap.
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  It still is today. And I and I didn't have a
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  perspective of that, but yeah, we went from our house in Miami,
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  which is a lovely, you know, lovely small home in a lovely
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  neighborhood to two-story house. Crazy and.
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  My first job was at a rec center down the street from a high
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  school, so. Did you work as you had to or
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  because you wanted to? Or both.
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  Definitely wanted to. I didn't have to to like pay any
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  bills or anything. Yeah, but I would pay for gas in
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  my car. Yeah, yeah, the fun, the fun
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  stuff, the fun stuff. And like you.
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  Know our parents never said you have to get a job they're more
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  like you have to do your homework yeah.
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  And I was a pretty serious athlete.
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  So it was, it was, it was extra, but it was important to me to.
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  And you stayed for college, right?
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  Working. You like working?
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  Yeah. He's like feeling productive.
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  It's crazy. I mean, it means that you like.
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  Sure, you like. So what about you like the work
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  that you do? Or you like the feeling of
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  working and being productive? Or you like both?
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  You like both? I like the work that I do, but
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  if I didn't do this work, I would do some different work.
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  OK. And at that time I was a gym
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  monitor at a rec center and my job was to set the the cones up.
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  And the. Kids camp to clean up and I was
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  very social. That's another aspect of work
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  that I like The, the, the connection with other people,
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  whether it's your your colleagues or even the, the, the
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  kids who come to the direct. The families were my part of my
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  tribe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  I one of the hardest things about my job, even one of the
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  best things and hardest things that it's completely remote
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  pretty much right. So I do sales, you know, and I
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  communicate with the warehouse 100 times a day and, you know,
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  make sure everything gets that. I sell medical equipment,
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  ultrasounds and patient monitors and stuff.
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  And you know, I'm communicating at the warehouse.
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  I'm dealing with customers, but everything can be done on the
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  computer on my phone, But I was just sitting in my living room
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  all day for 10-12 hours and I'm like, I'm going to go crazy.
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  I actually picked up, started picking up part time teaching
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  just to get out, just to like go and interact with my I, I was
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  going crazy. I'm a very social person and it
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  drove me nuts to just be at home with just, you know, the phone
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  and A and a blue screen all day. You know, it drove me crazy.
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  Who? Are the customers.
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  Generally private practices, the equipment we sell are
• 12:09
  refurbished. So a new ultrasound machine
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  could run anywhere from like if it's a regular machine you see
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  like in the movie and the TV shows or whatever could run
• 12:17
  anywhere from like 75 to 150 grand.
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  The average cost of the machine that I sell is probably closer
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  to 12 to 15. And I think that a lot of
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  doctors are like, I think especially private practices
• 12:30
  aren't making as as much money as they used to.
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  And actually one of the reasons my dad got into it was because
• 12:35
  it was pretty much economy proof, right?
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  Because times are bad, no one's buying anything new.
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  And in times you're good, there's always people that are
• 12:43
  looking to get a deal anyway, you know, and, and especially a
• 12:46
  doctor that understands that an ultrasound is an ultrasound and
• 12:49
  a pictures, a picture, they're not going to fall for that
• 12:51
  $150,000 scam. You know, they're going to say,
• 12:53
  well, I get the exact same thing for 20 grands or 25 maybe if I
• 12:56
  want to splurge. So why would I go ahead and do
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  that? So it's pretty, I mean, it was,
• 13:00
  it was phenomenal of my dad that he did that.
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  But yeah, so that's so so and then sometimes universities,
• 13:08
  sometimes hospitals or the hospitals have a tendency.
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  They just have unlimited budget. They just, you know, they got
• 13:12
  everything new. And but I was just going crazy
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  being at home, you know, and it's funny because I'm very
• 13:19
  social, but I'm super shy about initiating a conversation.
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  And, you know, once you give me that little space, like once you
• 13:26
  like say, oh, hey, what's up? Then like I'll pounce, you know,
• 13:29
  like I'm totally comfortable. But like, I could sit next to
• 13:31
  you for two hours and I'd say a word to you until you give me
• 13:33
  that initial like green light that like it's OK to talk, you
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  know, so I'm not a door to door salesman kind of guy.
• 13:40
  And so most of my sales come from Google ads where I have a
• 13:45
  company that manages, you know, the people searching keywords.
• 13:48
  I, you know, what pop up, we bid for it.
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  So you pay $0.50 a dollar, $2.00 per click.
• 13:54
  So, you know, we come up to I think the first three ads on
• 13:56
  Google are always paid. The first three search results
• 14:01
  on Google are paid ads. Not everyone realizes that, but
• 14:06
  most of the time if you're buying something, you're not
• 14:07
  getting past the first three web pages, web links anyway.
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  So I, so I figure it's worth it. And all my leads are hot leads
• 14:13
  because anyone that calls me has opted to go to my website, click
• 14:16
  call or get a price or, you know, you want to find out about
• 14:19
  what, you know, why this machine costs XY and Z and whatever it
• 14:22
  is. So I'm already getting that
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  green light from the time my phone rings and I'm totally
• 14:27
  happy to deal with that. You know cold calling is
• 14:30
  exhausting. What's the company called?
• 14:32
  It's called absolute medical equipment.
• 14:36
  So what do I Google to get you as my top link on the on my?
• 14:39
  Feed you can search refurbished GE ultrasound, refurbished
• 14:44
  patient monitor, refurbished DEXA machine.
• 14:47
  A lot of people are buying DEXA for health purposes now.
• 14:49
  A lot of people are trying to get their body fat, you know,
• 14:52
  composition and they're trying to get the whole body scans.
• 14:55
  And we, I think, thank God, we're really living in like, I
• 14:58
  feel like an awakening in terms of health, in terms of just, you
• 15:00
  know, people realizing like, I just can't keep living like
• 15:03
  this, you know, and, and it's great.
• 15:06
  I think it's a beautiful thing, you know, but most of the Duxes
• 15:08
  that I sell now are to gyms and to fitness centers and to
• 15:12
  holistic doctors and stuff like that.
• 15:14
  And, and it's also not it's out of pocket.
• 15:16
  It's not insurance. So, so it's a cash business,
• 15:19
  which a lot of people like and then a lot of 3D40 baby
• 15:22
  ultrasound studios you go to the way we go to one of those.
• 15:24
  No, Yeah, I'll do they're. Freaking man into the regular.
• 15:28
  Yeah, so the doctor. So if you haven't, if you have
• 15:31
  another kid, let me know and we'll bring over one of these 3D
• 15:35
  machines and we could show you the baby in 3D and you could see
• 15:38
  it's you could see it's it's features.
• 15:40
  You see it's nose, it's eyes, it's lips, the shape of its
• 15:42
  ears. You see everything you see.
• 15:45
  And it's kind of freaky because song like yellow and like black
• 15:48
  and whatever, but it's cool. It's cool.
• 15:51
  Yeah, my wife refused to do it for this kid.
• 15:53
  So. So Vegas.
• 15:55
  So you went to Vegas? Sorry, I I get distracted to be
• 15:58
  ramble. You went to Vegas and you and
• 16:03
  you love it. I do still love it.
• 16:06
  You still love it. I don't get back as much as I'd
• 16:08
  like, but I still love it. You still have like a life that
• 16:10
  back there that you. No, I've been gone a long time.
• 16:13
  Yeah. So I graduated from high school
• 16:16
  in 2002, college 2006 and went to DC for law school and went to
• 16:23
  Florida in 2011. OK, so between those times,
• 16:27
  first of all, I know you play college ball.
• 16:29
  I want to talk to you about that.
• 16:31
  Why did you decide to go to law school?
• 16:36
  That's that's the the dream job. Like that's what I thought I
• 16:39
  would always do when I was a kid, so.
• 16:41
  Like. Prestigious.
• 16:42
  Like I would say if you asked me probably when I was 17, what are
• 16:46
  you going to do when you grow up?
• 16:46
  I would have said be a criminal defense lawyer or an NBA
• 16:51
  basketball player. Yeah.
• 16:52
  And you know, I don't even know if I had the the physical
• 16:58
  ability to be a super good basketball players, to be a
• 17:01
  professional. I didn't have like the emotional
• 17:04
  or mental drive to be a tremendous basketball player.
• 17:06
  No, I really didn't and I don't know why.
• 17:09
  Did you love the game? Actually talk about that because
• 17:13
  so Gayla was a soccer player and she played in college as well
• 17:18
  and she would have done anything to keep playing soccer, but she
• 17:20
  had injuries. I never really had any serious
• 17:22
  injuries but I I stopped playing at UNLV just like decided I was
• 17:27
  finished and then played again. Went to Alaska, had a year of
• 17:32
  eligibility. Left in Alaska.
• 17:34
  You played. I did university.
• 17:35
  University of Alaska. Get out of here.
• 17:37
  Decided I was finished. I did Alaska.
• 17:40
  Like Alaska? I've been dying to get over
• 17:42
  there, actually. Did you like it?
• 17:44
  It was interesting. Isn't.
• 17:46
  It crazy. Alaska's not like at 21.
• 17:53
  It's not a did you like it kind of place.
• 17:56
  It's just interesting place and where I was was was so cold and
• 18:03
  dark. I mean, it was like.
• 18:05
  Death throw you off? I was going to ask that.
• 18:06
  Like perpetual darkness or? Light it was like my I have to
• 18:11
  think longer to figure out like what author I I want to like
• 18:16
  compare this to. OK, it was.
• 18:18
  Like it was like. It was like my coming of age in
• 18:21
  a way. Sure.
• 18:22
  So. Because it was challenging,
• 18:24
  yeah. Like Miami, Vegas, I had
• 18:27
  difficult circumstances at every chapter, but Alaska was was
• 18:31
  lonely. So whatever, whatever I went
• 18:33
  through when I was a kid, whatever I went through until I
• 18:35
  was 2021, my family was always close by.
• 18:39
  Yeah, my friends were always close by.
• 18:41
  Alaska was geographically. Isolating.
• 18:46
  Super far and. It's a 5 hour difference too,
• 18:50
  right? I'll give you an example that's
• 18:51
  that still resonates even though it's been forever.
• 18:55
  Katrina happened while I was there and family in New Orleans.
• 18:59
  My dad's from Louisiana, and it was like global news how
• 19:04
  terrible this tragedy was. I would see the newspaper that
• 19:09
  talked about the tragedy in New Orleans and it was like watching
• 19:13
  a movie. It wasn't real.
• 19:17
  That's how far away I was. It was like reading about
• 19:21
  something like in a zombie apocalypse film.
• 19:27
  And that is one thing I remember being so different about my life
• 19:33
  experience up to that point was it was geographically far.
• 19:36
  It was culturally far. It's brutally cold in the winter
• 19:40
  time. And this is metaphoric more than
• 19:44
  literal, but you can only see what's right in front of your
• 19:46
  face. What is that called?
• 19:49
  Literally like you go outside and you're like trying to find
• 19:53
  the car door. Yeah, that's the closest thing
• 19:56
  that you can get to. Take that and apply that to
• 19:58
  life. Yeah.
• 20:01
  Everything else is like, I wasn't literally in survival
• 20:04
  mode. I lived in an apartment.
• 20:05
  We had heat. Yeah, of course.
• 20:07
  But yeah. At school, I could eat the
• 20:09
  cafeteria, but beyond that, it was really, really bizarre.
• 20:13
  And so I remember my sisters being like, you're a lot.
• 20:23
  You're a lot more serious of a person.
• 20:25
  And they didn't even mean like serious demeanor.
• 20:27
  They meant like, you're not like a jokester.
• 20:31
  Like you actually have goals now?
• 20:34
  Since you got there. Since I came home from there, so
• 20:37
  I was there for one school year. Because I bet.
• 20:40
  I bet. Because the loneliness kind of
• 20:42
  forces you to confront you, you know, like who you are.
• 20:46
  You have to get, you have to deal with it.
• 20:48
  That's a fact. Yeah, it's, by the way, it's so
• 20:51
  great that that. I mean, I don't know if I would
• 20:54
  like envy that, you know? But don't you know, but but I
• 21:00
  please. Yeah, but I.
• 21:02
  Yeah, don't envy it and don't and and don't do it.
• 21:05
  Don't. Go to Alaska.
• 21:08
  Well, no, I've been lonely for a year.
• 21:10
  I've been, you know, when I moved to Seattle, it was
• 21:12
  actually, so I've had a lot of loneliness in my life.
• 21:17
  And one of the probably the valuable thing I got out of
• 21:22
  college was I got a creative writing literature degree.
• 21:26
  The valuable thing was learning how to take the everything I was
• 21:30
  bouncing around in my head into my body, my guts and put it to
• 21:35
  what it put words to it, you know, And so when I'm
• 21:38
  confronted, you know, and so I learned that certain emotional
• 21:42
  weights, you know, when you feel the weight of anxiety, you feel
• 21:45
  the weight of loneliness or isolation that those weights
• 21:49
  actually have words that could manif, you know, manifest what
• 21:53
  they are and express what they are.
• 21:55
  And when you do that, you kind of discover why you are feeling
• 22:00
  what you're feeling, you know, and where, where it's coming
• 22:02
  from and who you are, you know, and I would never have had that
• 22:06
  if I didn't have that loneliness and having that.
• 22:10
  And with that understanding, I from my, from not, you know, for
• 22:15
  sure based on my other, you know, I've been in a 2 1/2 year
• 22:18
  relationship. I've been in a year, a year long
• 22:21
  relationship that was very serious.
• 22:23
  My marriage would have been miserable if I didn't have the
• 22:26
  opportunity to really discover like who I am and like
• 22:30
  understand myself so that I could be eloquent and articulate
• 22:35
  about the big things in life that you got to go through with
• 22:37
  the spouse. You know, and even though it's
• 22:39
  really, really painful and challenging and difficult, I
• 22:43
  think that you kind of peel back a lot of the outside layers of
• 22:47
  child like childishness, childishness or childhood.
• 22:50
  And like that really helps convert you into a man.
• 22:53
  Like you say, you said that you're much more serious, you
• 22:55
  know, not demeanor, but like you know yourself now, like you know
• 22:58
  what you're looking for. You know, it's amazing.
• 23:00
  I was. I still was.
• 23:01
  Figuring out what I was looking for, but I was different at 21
• 23:06
  than I was at 19 or 20 for sure. Like that?
• 23:08
  What was playing ball there like?
• 23:11
  So basketball actually was more fun for me there than it was at
• 23:14
  UNLVUNLV was was an honor. I was I was very grateful to get
• 23:20
  to play there. And it was like, and we we were
• 23:23
  never like an elite program during that time.
• 23:27
  But that's because UNLV was still paying for having not
• 23:31
  followed the rules to become an elite program in the 90s.
• 23:33
  So we were still probation and always being supervised by the
• 23:39
  NCAA. A lot of things have changed
• 23:41
  these days. But what I'm going with this is,
• 23:46
  you know, it was literally fireworks.
• 23:49
  Like there was a fire show really, for home games.
• 23:53
  That's so cool. And I'm so blessed my parents
• 23:55
  could come to every game at home.
• 23:57
  Yeah, I had one sister who was still in high school, so she
• 24:00
  could come when she wasn't doing other things.
• 24:01
  That's fine. Alaska was in America, but
• 24:04
  across the world and there was no fireworks.
• 24:08
  And it was a lot more akin to like a high level high school
• 24:14
  program in the sense that the only fans are local people.
• 24:18
  And we actually had some like sold out games, but it was like
• 24:24
  the people from Fairbanks, AK. Yeah, it wasn't.
• 24:26
  Like sure you. Know.
• 24:27
  What are the people? They're like, They nice, really
• 24:31
  like just kind of, you know what?
• 24:33
  I. Can see I mean you.
• 24:35
  Go in different cities, you get different, you get different
• 24:37
  personas. You know, I mean like your
• 24:38
  wife's from Illinois if I can. Compare it having spent some
• 24:42
  time in the Midwest, Fairbanks, AK's like Topeka, KS, OK, if
• 24:48
  that helps. OK, so it's, it's, it's much
• 24:51
  further away. The the temperatures are, are
• 24:54
  brutal in the winter is -50 everyday -40 to -60 was the
• 24:59
  range so that people who choose to remain in an environment like
• 25:04
  this. So they're not the same as
• 25:06
  people in Illinois or Kansas or anywhere else Indiana, but their
• 25:10
  warmth. I think to be honest, I think in
• 25:15
  Hollywood we have a lot of simplicity.
• 25:17
  Like people want to have give their kids a good life, they
• 25:24
  want to have friends, they want to laugh, they want to enjoy
• 25:27
  things. That's kind of similar to how
• 25:29
  Alaska was, but on a more extreme scale because it took a
• 25:33
  lot of work to have basic things, especially during the
• 25:38
  winter time. So that's how I would describe
• 25:42
  it. I think the people there were
• 25:44
  were great. They were great and I think no,
• 25:50
  nothing really extreme stands out to me in terms of highs or
• 25:55
  lows. Everybody was just nice, normal.
• 25:58
  It took. Well, they had boots.
• 25:59
  On all the time like that coats. I could wear a ski mask.
• 26:03
  How do you prepare for I could. Wear a ski mask in a bank.
• 26:09
  Everyone did it right. It was.
• 26:12
  Mr. Osborne, how can we? That was a big difference.
• 26:17
  That was a funny difference. So funny.
• 26:20
  It's so funny. Don't do twice about it.
• 26:22
  Before your generation, a little bit, but young Buck was a rapper
• 26:25
  and he's in Gu and it was $0.50 in them.
• 26:27
  But on his album cover, he has like a ski mask on, but he's
• 26:30
  from like, Tennessee or something.
• 26:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not where, right, But you
• 26:35
  could pull the ski mask on and walk around and nobody was
• 26:40
  suspicious of you. One, because it was cold, but
• 26:42
  two, because nobody's yeah, the bank.
• 26:45
  Yeah, yeah, I'm at the crime rate I'm at.
• 26:47
  The crime rate was real low, right?
• 26:49
  You weed out the criminals real quickly.
• 26:51
  You spend 2 days in the winter here like nothing that anyone
• 26:54
  here has is worth it. They move.
• 26:56
  They move to Vegas, they moved to Nevada, they moved to LA,
• 26:59
  they moved wherever that the weather.
• 27:01
  Is last is not the place for shenanigans.
• 27:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly. I had a couple of customers
• 27:06
  there. I really wanted to go.
• 27:08
  And when I was living in Seattle, I was like, I wonder
• 27:09
  how far it is to drive. It would take too far.
• 27:12
  The same amount of time as it took for me to go from New York
• 27:15
  just to Washington. So far Cross.
• 27:17
  Country is how far Alaska is from Washington.
• 27:19
  You know he. Drove When I moved there, my dad
• 27:21
  and I drove from Vegas to the Port of Washington, OK.
• 27:27
  And then we took a ferry. That's a.
• 27:30
  That's a. Probably 16 hour drive.
• 27:32
  I don't remember exactly, but it was a long drive.
• 27:34
  It was long, Yeah. From Vegas to Port of
• 27:36
  Washington, it took us, we stopped reasonably.
• 27:40
  So I think it might have taken US 24 hours, OK or so on the
• 27:45
  road. And then we took a ferry 3 days
• 27:47
  and three nights. Wow to Haines, AK and then
• 27:51
  drove, can't remember exactly now it's been so long, but I
• 27:54
  think another day wow to Fairbanks.
• 27:57
  So that was interesting too, because one, we got to spend a
• 28:02
  lot of a lot of quality time together as a dad.
• 28:06
  Now, my dad was a, he's, he's retired now, but he was an
• 28:09
  engineer and like very much a busy professional.
• 28:14
  It probably took us a week to get to Alaska and he was able to
• 28:18
  to spend that time to move me to a second college.
• 28:22
  Crazy. And I cherished the trip, but
• 28:25
  also Tom, I appreciate it, but I appreciate it even more now.
• 28:28
  And I, I think easy, easy decision for us, like if our
• 28:35
  kid, if our oldest, he's 4 now, in 14 years, wants to go to
• 28:38
  school in Ireland or wherever you're going to make that work.
• 28:43
  But that's something I don't take for granted.
• 28:45
  And the other thing about the distance was it was the
• 28:49
  summertime. And in Alaska it was the summer,
• 28:53
  but it was cold. And where I lived in Alaska, it
• 28:57
  was light all the time in the summer.
• 28:59
  And then in the winter time, it's dark.
• 29:00
  Yeah. That's the other element of the.
• 29:04
  It throws you off. Loneliness slash.
• 29:07
  Seasonal depression. Despair.
• 29:09
  Yeah, it's, uh, it's tough. And it wasn't that tough.
• 29:13
  Like I knew I was going home in Bay, so it wasn't that tough,
• 29:18
  but still it was tough. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:21
  Because your our brains are wired circuit, you know, they're
• 29:24
  not wired to not have daylight for the very three months or
• 29:27
  five months or whatever it is. Like, yeah, I know in Seattle
• 29:32
  that people used to get seasonal depression from the from the
• 29:35
  from the mist. I kind of I, I understood that.
• 29:37
  And they would get like these UV, like these lamps that have
• 29:40
  like this extra high, like UV or extra bright or something like
• 29:43
  that. That apparently is supposed to
• 29:45
  be a little better to like make you feel like it's a little more
• 29:47
  natural. But it's I found that will help
• 29:51
  to mitigate which Seattle you could do, but you can't in
• 29:54
  Alaska is actually to go for walks and like just be outside
• 29:57
  and get that like fresh air and like really be with nature.
• 30:01
  And like even though it kind of sucks that there's no light or
• 30:03
  not a lot of sunlight, at least you're out with like you feel
• 30:06
  like your whole system is resetting.
• 30:07
  But -40 negative 60. What do you even where you just,
• 30:11
  you just put on layer after layer after layer.
• 30:13
  Then you go to the gym and you take off layer after layer delay
• 30:15
  you just long. Johns sweats at the time.
• 30:19
  It's close with bag gear. Yeah, so pocket warmers.
• 30:29
  Pocket warmers, Little Yeah, those are great.
• 30:31
  Shoes in your in your pockets, in your coat pocket.
• 30:37
  But you don't. You don't go outside, really.
• 30:38
  I mean you. You go to the car, from the car
• 30:42
  to the gym to the grocery store, wherever you're headed, and you
• 30:46
  hope for the best, go for the best.
• 30:48
  There was there were times. One time I had AI was out at
• 30:52
  night. I was going to see my little
• 30:54
  brother from the Big Brothers. Little Brothers.
• 30:56
  Yeah. Big Sisters.
• 30:57
  Big Brothers, Big Sisters thing program.
• 30:59
  His name is KJ You. Do that in Alaska.
• 31:01
  I did, yeah. And I was coming home from
• 31:04
  seeing his him and his family that lived in North Pole, AK.
• 31:07
  I don't. Even know what that is, but it
• 31:09
  just sounds awful. It's North Pole.
• 31:11
  It's a town near Fairbanks, OK. That north of it I bet, right?
• 31:15
  I don't. Really.
• 31:16
  Remember, it was called North Pole and it wasn't that it was
• 31:22
  colder in North Pole, but there were no St. lights.
• 31:25
  So I was leaving there and I was like lost.
• 31:27
  And I had like this is flip phone days, had very limited
• 31:31
  cell service. And I wasn't really panicking,
• 31:35
  but it was a fact that I had to find my way home.
• 31:39
  Yeah. Because you don't make it if you
• 31:41
  don't. Yeah.
• 31:43
  And I don't, I don't remember being that panicked about it.
• 31:45
  Like, I remember driving around and being like, all right, let
• 31:48
  me. Yeah.
• 31:48
  You try to retrace your staff, but everything's like Frozen St.
• 31:52
  Everything looks the same. And eventually I made it out to
• 31:55
  whatever the main road was. Or maybe I saw a car, followed
• 31:58
  that car and they led to, like, where the highway was.
• 32:01
  But the reality was that you slide off the ice into the
• 32:05
  ditch, your car breaks down, you're finished.
• 32:10
  Yeah, tonight's the night. Yeah, you see God tonight
• 32:15
  because. Yeah, wow.
• 32:17
  It's crazy. Yeah, it's so that aspect of it
• 32:23
  is interesting too. Like in Miami, you you can see
• 32:26
  yourself dying any number of ways.
• 32:28
  Sure, in Alaska you see yourself potentially dying a number of
• 32:32
  other ways, but there's no overlap.
• 32:34
  No, no, no, no. It's got to have an impact on
• 32:38
  the ecology of people that live there.
• 32:41
  It's got to make you a different breed of human being, you know,
• 32:43
  and I'm sure you know, for better, for worse, in different
• 32:46
  ways, you know, but got to be crazy.
• 32:50
  So people, I think it's been many, many years.
• 32:53
  I left there in 2006. But I think people, people look
• 32:59
  out for each other. You see a car pulled over, you
• 33:02
  stop. Yeah.
• 33:03
  You to check on them. Yeah.
• 33:04
  Here. You know, right.
• 33:06
  Like you breeze by. Yeah.
• 33:09
  My other thing. About it picked up a hitchhiker
• 33:11
  really and I don't remember that it was that cold that night but
• 33:13
  we picked up a hitchhiker and like gave him a ride it's a
• 33:16
  different place it's different and I think humans are the same
• 33:20
  but the circumstances are so different that you have to
• 33:22
  there's. Different moral code, almost
• 33:24
  like a social code. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 33:26
  And you don't want to be the guy to ruin it for everyone.
• 33:29
  Like no one wants to be the guy that ruins it and no one else
• 33:31
  could hitchhike, you know, because.
• 33:34
  Yeah, it's if you're out on the road at night.
• 33:37
  And that guy, I don't, I don't remember being that cold that
• 33:40
  night, that particular night, but the night that I was coming
• 33:42
  home from K JS house. Yeah, that was crazy.
• 33:45
  I was all right. I didn't need a hitchhike.
• 33:47
  But if I did, I really. Yeah.
• 33:49
  Yeah, yeah, I really needed a ride.
• 33:51
  Yeah. Wow.
• 33:53
  So you were in Alaska for a year?
• 33:55
  One school year. So I moved there in like the
• 33:57
  summer and I graduated from school.
• 33:59
  Actually, I finished did. You get your degree from UNLV.
• 34:01
  Alaska. Really.
• 34:03
  Even though most of your credits were from UNLV?
• 34:05
  Yeah. So I had to do summer school.
• 34:07
  So if school finished, will say in May, I did summer school from
• 34:10
  May to August. Yeah, to get over the threshold
• 34:12
  of credits. Yeah, that you need to graduate.
• 34:14
  Graduate from Alaska because I would have had to, I mean, but I
• 34:17
  had another year of eligibility. I would have had to go back to
• 34:19
  Alaska. Yeah, for another year.
• 34:21
  I guess or go back to UNLV, But it's what I did instead was I
• 34:26
  took summer school, finished at Alaska, then I would say UNLV
• 34:30
  for a master's degree in communication, Then I went to
• 34:33
  law school in Georgetown. Why did you get the master's
• 34:36
  degree? I had to get ready for law
• 34:38
  school. Yeah.
• 34:39
  So you were doing it like while you're studying for the LSAT and
• 34:41
  you're, so you're basically filling time, but responsibly,
• 34:44
  yeah. Yeah, yeah, I had three jobs.
• 34:48
  Really. You know, doing.
• 34:49
  I had a job at the amphitheater selling tickets and picking up
• 34:52
  popcorn. OK, selling well, selling
• 34:54
  tickets, selling popcorn, and then sweeping up the popcorn at
• 34:57
  the end of. The night.
• 34:57
  Nice, nice. I taught public speaking at
• 35:00
  UNLV. Nice.
• 35:01
  Really. As a graduate.
• 35:03
  Assistant. That's fun to.
• 35:05
  To freshmen and my third job was at the United States Attorney's
• 35:08
  office in Las Vegas, which is when I discovered what it meant
• 35:11
  to be a federal prosecutor, right?
• 35:12
  So that that two years was preparation for law school.
• 35:19
  But it changed my life in the sense that I actually found my
• 35:21
  purpose, at least when it comes to being a lawyer, right?
• 35:24
  Like, I wanted to be a lawyer since I was a little boy.
• 35:28
  Most of that understanding what a lawyer was came from TV.
• 35:30
  Sure, either like, like television shows or the news.
• 35:33
  Yeah. But working at the US Attorney's
• 35:37
  office showed me, like, what? Everyone calls the lawyers
• 35:55
  heroes. Yeah, so funny.
• 35:59
  OK, before I I want to, I want to get to the law, but who are
• 36:03
  who are your basketball heroes and what was your playing style
• 36:06
  like? What would you play That's?
• 36:08
  Funny, I'll start with the the playing style.
• 36:11
  OK, do. You remember Michael Finley?
• 36:13
  Yeah, sure. From Memphis, Right.
• 36:15
  Mavericks. Mavericks.
• 36:16
  Right, right, right. He wasn't in Memphis ever.
• 36:18
  Maybe. OK, yes, but yeah, sure.
• 36:20
  When I was in high school, he played for The Mavericks.
• 36:22
  OK, that's the championship team with Dirk and.
• 36:26
  I'm not sure. OK.
• 36:28
  Anyway, yeah, Michael Finley. He played, he played the three.
• 36:31
  He's a lot taller than I like, Probably 6-8 is my guess, but he
• 36:35
  would shoot like from the wings. He was a slasher.
• 36:37
  Yeah, that's right. Occasional 3 point shooter, but
• 36:41
  I I thought as a kid that my game was kind of modeled after
• 36:46
  his and in terms of. He's a good player, he's fun.
• 36:53
  I remember playing with him in two KA lot with with my younger
• 36:56
  brothers. He was drafted by the Sons,
• 36:58
  played for The Mavericks, the Spurs and eventually the Celtics
• 37:01
  won the championship in O 7 to to your.
• 37:03
  Question. There you go.
• 37:04
  Right. Yeah.
• 37:05
  So that's one of my benefits. I don't know why I'm thinking
• 37:07
  that so. I mean, I liked a lot of players
• 37:11
  but but. They're players that like what
• 37:15
  they did, like they, you know, they have like the way they play
• 37:18
  is like a link, like a like, almost like a personal, like
• 37:20
  fresh games. Michael Jordan was definitely my
• 37:23
  year. I had the VHS tapes, yeah.
• 37:25
  And when I was a kid, we didn't really watch TV during the week,
• 37:28
  OK, but I could watch the Bulls game if it was on.
• 37:31
  That's good. I had an exception for the Bulls
• 37:33
  games if my homework was done, sure, as a kid.
• 37:37
  So Michael Jordan for sure. It's probably it to be honest,
• 37:42
  because. You weren't a huge NBA fan.
• 37:46
  You just loved basketball. You just.
• 37:49
  Couldn't I liked the Bulls, I liked Michael Jordan, not just
• 37:54
  his play. He was just an inspirational
• 37:55
  figure. He overcame adversity.
• 37:57
  His dad died. Like I think a lot of the
• 37:59
  narrative around his career is like a narrative that can
• 38:03
  motivate you in life outside of basketball.
• 38:05
  And I think that's what a lot of athletes these days, not that
• 38:08
  they're missing it because I think they're doing fine, but
• 38:10
  that to me is a different. Some people compare like this
• 38:13
  generation to the old generation.
• 38:15
  I don't compare like their skills.
• 38:17
  I think this generation's skills are obviously better, but
• 38:20
  they're like cultural impact is unparalleled.
• 38:25
  What do you think? Why do you think that is?
• 38:28
  Storytelling has changed and access has changed.
• 38:34
  I think we we see too much these days.
• 38:38
  Yeah, it's better to see them as, like hidden figures that are
• 38:42
  like these heroes on the court. Yeah.
• 38:44
  Well, he he was a So to use Michael Jordan as an example, he
• 38:47
  was a hero on and off the court because like in the in the best
• 38:51
  movies, the hero is imperfect, has flaws.
• 38:54
  Yeah. Gambles too much, right?
• 38:57
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:58
  Yeah, and that's what the press would say.
• 39:02
  Loses a family member and is like in the in the in the tunnel
• 39:08
  holding the the trophy, like boohoo, crying with his
• 39:12
  teammates, like on top of him. Yeah, yeah.
• 39:15
  Yeah, yeah. I've never experienced that,
• 39:18
  Yeah. But there's a there's a humanity
• 39:21
  in that that everyone can relate to.
• 39:22
  Yeah. And that to me hasn't been
• 39:26
  replicated. Even if the players that have
• 39:28
  come after him, you know, if they played one-on-one, you
• 39:32
  know, 1997 athlete versus the 2025 athlete, sure, sure.
• 39:36
  The 25 athlete has the advantage, right.
• 39:39
  It's. Just obvious.
• 39:40
  Well, they were like they were, they were sweeping, especially
• 39:44
  when I was growing up. Like cultural basketball
• 39:46
  moments, at least, you know, one moment that I was that was
• 39:50
  personally devastated about. I was so sad.
• 39:54
  Steve, nationally, my favorite players.
• 39:56
  I just love that he was kind of passed first, but could also do
• 39:59
  everything else. And so like, he didn't need to
• 40:01
  pass first, but he just chose to.
• 40:03
  And I thought that was really cool.
• 40:04
  And, and how good he was in soccer.
• 40:07
  I thought it was so much fun that he could have played either
• 40:08
  sport. Super cool.
• 40:09
  Yeah. And and then there's one year
• 40:12
  where it was one of his last years that like, he was going to
• 40:15
  like, he was clearly like getting older and like, and
• 40:17
  they're playing the Lakers. It was him.
• 40:21
  I think it was Amari and Shaq against the league was in the
• 40:25
  win the championship that year. They played the magic with
• 40:27
  Dwight Howard and Jamir Nelson and the whole team and and I
• 40:32
  think the sons lost in seven and like Steve Nash crying at that
• 40:39
  at the end of that game. And like I was like, this guy's
• 40:42
  not going to get a chance chance to he's not going to win the
• 40:43
  championship. The rest of it, like, also it's
• 40:46
  so sad, you know, but then also like when LeBron and Chris Bosh
• 40:49
  came to the Heat, you know, like that was like culturally
• 40:52
  shattering like that like was felt everywhere.
• 40:54
  I feel like, you know, umm, I mean, maybe my own little world,
• 40:58
  you know, but it just felt like everyone, everyone was talking
• 41:01
  about AT shirts were everywhere, sweatshirts were everywhere,
• 41:03
  sneakers were everywhere. Like, yeah.
• 41:05
  And then I don't know, and I don't know whether it's me that
• 41:11
  I lost some interest in it or I don't know.
• 41:13
  Like what you said, like if there's less, if there's almost
• 41:15
  too much exposure, which it's almost like, you know, like the
• 41:20
  way like, for example, Marvel, like people are experiencing
• 41:22
  Marvel fatigue. There's two Every other week is
• 41:24
  a new Marvel, new Marvel movie and new Marvel.
• 41:26
  Show and a new hero. And new hero, you know, and like
• 41:29
  how many of them can you have that you're really, really
• 41:31
  invested in or attacked which. One of the kids invested in,
• 41:34
  yeah, Spider man. Spider Man.
• 41:36
  To this in the same in the same in the same one time and I'm
• 41:39
  going to be teased. It is marvelous.
• 41:40
  What's this? Kids like it's Spidey.
• 41:43
  Yeah, he doesn't stop your kid. You sound like get to know.
• 41:46
  Whoever you want to out here at us, yeah, Spidey's the guy.
• 41:49
  Yeah. How many movies are there?
• 41:51
  There's probably 12 of them. So.
• 41:53
  So you decided you want to be a lawyer.
• 41:55
  What was the biggest, what's the biggest difference between TV
• 41:58
  and television and stuff in real life that you that you've
• 42:01
  experienced in the in the long world?
• 42:04
  I'm curious about that. Like what was your expectations?
• 42:07
  And then like, oh, that's nothing like anywhere near that.
• 42:10
  And did someone tell you that like, oh, this isn't like the
• 42:12
  movies? Or is it like, listen, like this
• 42:14
  is your job and you got to do this?
• 42:15
  And like, that's nothing what I thought it was.
• 42:18
  Well, the reality is, for me, it actually is kind of like the
• 42:22
  movies. Exactly.
• 42:28
  Oh really? That's.
• 42:28
  Not that different. Because then you're going to
• 42:30
  trial, because you're going to trial.
• 42:31
  It's not that. Different than the movies.
• 42:32
  Wow. So nobody told me either way OK
• 42:36
  like the movies or it won't be OK.
• 42:38
  And and I'm not at the pinnacle yet, but it's actually like the
• 42:46
  movies. How so can you?
• 42:47
  Can you give me some? Examples.
• 42:49
  Sure, sure. I'd give you some examples.
• 42:52
  You were you were a prosecutor. Yeah, I, I, I did AI did a
• 42:55
  Google. I looked at your resume, but.
• 42:57
  Prosecuted cartel you did a. You, I did not know that part.
• 43:00
  You prosecuted cartel, that part style.
• 43:02
  I thought. I mean, I didn't search enough.
• 43:05
  I didn't search. I start on Google.
• 43:06
  Really. Start on Google.
• 43:08
  Wow. When, where, what I'll.
• 43:12
  Tell you, I'll tell you all about it.
• 43:13
  So, so it's, it's not like the this was not like the movies.
• 43:17
  There is no camera. So a lot of what you do, nobody
• 43:21
  knows. That to me is really the
• 43:23
  difference. And so speaking for myself and
• 43:27
  others who have been either elite prosecutors or elite
• 43:32
  criminal defense attorneys, there's nobody telling the story
• 43:36
  of what you did or what you saw or what you experienced.
• 43:40
  That's what the movies for. Beyond that, when there is a
• 43:43
  movie. It's like that.
• 43:46
  It's like, do you think, do you think it's because they just get
• 43:51
  really good information and do really good homework when
• 43:53
  they're making the movies and the shows and they're like,
• 43:55
  yeah, you know what? Like instead of just making up
• 43:57
  what we think it is like we're going to talk to like real
• 43:59
  great, positive. I think, I think a lot of times
• 44:01
  the the movies about these types of things, they talk to the real
• 44:05
  people, right? And it's so it's not so it's way
• 44:07
  more glamorous. Sure, you know, because
• 44:13
  whoever's, whoever the actor is is playing the person, but the
• 44:18
  storyline with some embellishments oftentimes is
• 44:22
  close to the truth. And so I would say I've had
• 44:25
  really two significant chapters in my career so far.
• 44:29
  One was the prosecutor chapter, now is the private practice
• 44:33
  chapter. And to be honest with you, both
• 44:35
  chapters are kind of like the movies but in different ways.
• 44:40
  The prosecutor chapter, the the cartel part of it at least,
• 44:47
  which is like the last 2 1/2 years of it.
• 44:51
  I would be sitting in my office on a Thursday and an agent, like
• 45:00
  an actual American hero, like, will walk in and say, we think
• 45:05
  that, you know, cartel that will go unnamed in Mexico is planning
• 45:13
  to use a submarine to transport $50 million worth of cocaine
• 45:23
  from one part of the world to another part of the world.
• 45:27
  We have an informant who knows about this and has information.
• 45:34
  We want to open an investigation.
• 45:35
  Are you interested? So they offer you the case.
• 45:40
  They're like, are you interested in this?
• 45:44
  Yeah. And are you just like you and I
• 45:45
  are? How many?
• 45:45
  How many, typically speaking, if something like the cartel, first
• 45:48
  of all, I'm sure people are afraid to take that case, right?
• 45:51
  Do people not want to get in the bad side of the cartel or they
• 45:53
  don't? We're not.
• 45:54
  We're not generally fearful of that.
• 45:57
  Like in my experience, the professional traffickers of
• 46:06
  drugs or humans or money launderers, particularly
• 46:11
  overseas, it's not part of the business calculus, the risk
• 46:16
  assessment. I kill an American prosecutor or
• 46:20
  agent like that's not, it's too much, it's unnecessary.
• 46:23
  That's not the business. The business is to make profit
• 46:27
  and to avoid being killed or going to jail.
• 46:31
  So to answer your question, when that is brought to me, whether
• 46:36
  it's a literal submersible submarine investigation, which I
• 46:42
  had, or corrupt law enforcement overseas or just a cartel trying
• 46:52
  to move into different types of business in different parts of
• 46:55
  the world, I never felt personally at risk to, like,
• 47:00
  have this conversation about the investigation.
• 47:02
  They're not worried about me. Yeah.
• 47:05
  The person that is actually their their enemy persona, non
• 47:08
  grata, if you will, is a person who's in the organization.
• 47:11
  They're telling you that's an informant.
• 47:13
  Yeah. That person is in danger.
• 47:14
  Yeah. But that person could be making
• 47:17
  a salary from the United States government to provide
• 47:21
  information. Does the government make it
• 47:23
  worthwhile or is it like the rest of the government, like?
• 47:26
  So worthwhile is relative. Sure.
• 47:29
  Depending on where you are in the world, yeah.
• 47:32
  So it wouldn't work well for you because we have an
• 47:37
  infrastructure and societal construct to where we can make a
• 47:41
  legitimate living. So I never really, I didn't
• 47:44
  really judge anyone that I prosecuted.
• 47:46
  But I think people in different parts of the world, especially
• 47:49
  where like their, their government is like people
• 47:55
  complain about ours, right? But there's places in the world
• 47:58
  where like, there is no court. Yeah, there's, there's more than
• 48:02
  one place in the world. There's many places, right?
• 48:05
  Right. So in those kinds of places,
• 48:08
  people have to react to their their situation.
• 48:12
  People in America do too. My point kind of is like, it's
• 48:16
  kind of like the movies. It's to go back to.
• 48:19
  Don't you ask me so. So you so you got this case.
• 48:22
  Do they, how many people do they typically go through before?
• 48:25
  Like are they looking for you to accept them or are they waiting
• 48:30
  to like say like do they interview you to take the case?
• 48:33
  Like how does that go? It's kind of like business and.
• 48:37
  And the same is true now in private practice.
• 48:40
  You do a good job and the rest, the word spreads, Yeah.
• 48:43
  And so it became relational. So if I don't know, I worked
• 48:49
  with, I worked with a lot of tremendous agents, but it would
• 48:52
  be, let's say FBIDEA, Homeland Security, ATF, those are the
• 49:02
  main ones that deal with like organized violent crime and drug
• 49:07
  trafficking. You just do a good job in one
• 49:12
  case and then they will tell their friends.
• 49:15
  So it wouldn't be anyone. Nobody's interviewing anyone.
• 49:17
  It would just be like, hey, we have a lead on XY and Z at
• 49:21
  whatever stage. It could be very, very beginning
• 49:23
  stage. It could be we have a couple
• 49:25
  controlled calls. We've see some drugs.
• 49:28
  We're ready to prosecute In the United States and in the federal
• 49:30
  system. In order to arrest somebody,
• 49:32
  they have to have the permission of the Department of Justice.
• 49:35
  To make the arrest. To make an.
• 49:36
  Arrest and in order to get that permission, what do you need to
• 49:38
  present to them? They they come to us.
• 49:41
  Oh, OK. And they say, to give you a
• 49:43
  simple example, here is a a case where we we bought a crystal
• 49:49
  meth was big at the time. We bought a kilo of crystal meth
• 49:52
  from a person who lives in Hialeah, Hollywood or whatever.
• 49:56
  Yeah, sure. Are you interested?
• 49:58
  I probably would have been. And so I can authorize them
• 50:02
  based on the evidence that I've seen.
• 50:03
  We have to get a, a warrant to arrest someone to go to a judge.
• 50:06
  Yeah. I don't make the decision.
• 50:08
  I make the decision to try. Yeah.
• 50:09
  The judge authorizes it. OK.
• 50:12
  And then they can go out and arrest a person in Hollywood for
• 50:15
  drug trafficking in Broward County.
• 50:18
  But in the federal system, the agents have to have a prosecutor
• 50:21
  sign off on that. The the police, local police
• 50:25
  don't They arrest somebody to take them to jail.
• 50:27
  And the prosecutor makes a decision after the fact, right
• 50:30
  about whether to actually pursue the charges.
• 50:31
  Oh, right. Interesting, that's the
• 50:33
  distinction. Between local and federal.
• 50:35
  Well, I'm going with this is an international investigation.
• 50:39
  There's a lot more things you have to take into account.
• 50:42
  So they would typically bring me in or someone from my office in
• 50:45
  at the beginning and say we want to buy crystal meth from this
• 50:49
  organization. Here's what we have.
• 50:52
  This is what our informant says. These are the recordings that
• 50:54
  we've made. What do you think?
• 50:55
  And it's more collaborative from the very beginning.
• 50:57
  And So what I'm going with this is I basically would Monday
• 50:59
  through Friday, sometimes on Saturday and Sunday, have like,
• 51:05
  I'm not saying this like I'm saying this with all gratitude
• 51:09
  because it was really amazing. Yeah, I would be in my office
• 51:13
  and I'd have like some FBI agents here and then another
• 51:17
  group of FBI agents out outside and some DEA agents, Homeland
• 51:21
  agents, and we would be solving the problems of the world.
• 51:26
  I never did terrorism cases, so not those problems, OK.
• 51:29
  But in terms of? See really are making a big.
• 51:34
  Difference drug trafficking and money laundering investigations.
• 51:39
  As far as South Florida goes, we're doing it, man.
• 51:42
  Wow. It was like the movies.
• 51:44
  And I would travel with them so we would have investigations
• 51:47
  where we would go. Are they nice?
• 51:48
  What do they like? What do these people like?
• 51:50
  They're regular people. Yeah, come to one of my parties,
• 51:52
  we meet. Them.
• 51:53
  Yeah, OK, dude, I'm in, man. They're.
• 51:55
  Regular. They're regular dudes.
• 51:57
  Awesome regular men and women with families who have who chose
• 52:03
  law enforcement sometimes after the military, sometimes instead
• 52:06
  of the military because they want to serve and they do it
• 52:09
  anonymously. They don't get any credit, they
• 52:12
  don't get criticism. And it's amazing stuff.
• 52:16
  This actually dovetails well with something I think is
• 52:19
  probably probably interesting. At least Gala thinks it's
• 52:21
  interesting, right? Like, so when we met, I was a
• 52:23
  prosecutor, and I was never, like, worried somebody was going
• 52:28
  to try to kill me or anything like that.
• 52:31
  But I did spend all my time thinking about the kinds of
• 52:33
  things we're talking about now. What?
• 52:35
  Do you mean in terms of? Crime, like, yeah, I was.
• 52:40
  I wasn't worried for my own safety really, but.
• 52:42
  You're just thinking about. It I did spend all my time, all
• 52:45
  my time, really all my like waking hours, sometimes my
• 52:51
  sleeping hours. Everything become.
• 52:53
  Thinking about the most dark things you think.
• 52:55
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does that do to you?
• 52:58
  That were you down you feel like.
• 53:00
  It I I don't remember it weighing me down, but it but it
• 53:05
  definitely changes you because it has to.
• 53:10
  And I I like the job and I didn't even leave that work for
• 53:14
  that reason, But that's probably something.
• 53:19
  Some of the movies show it though, like some of the movies
• 53:21
  that show like the cop who's like the dichotomy of the cop,
• 53:26
  like training day is an example, like films right where the cop
• 53:30
  is like high level but also like totally corrupt himself or
• 53:34
  himself. That doesn't happen to most
• 53:36
  people, but it can because because you're like sure, cops
• 53:42
  more than the lawyer. The cops are actually in
• 53:45
  relationships professionally with actual criminals, mobsters.
• 53:50
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actual.
• 53:51
  Do you? Listen, you ever listen to Diary
• 53:54
  of a CEO? You know, you know that podcast?
• 53:56
  No, it's a great podcast. And he had on recently.
• 53:59
  I'll send you the link after the most corrupt New York Police
• 54:02
  officer. Like that was this guy's
• 54:03
  nickname and he had a drug operation going.
• 54:06
  He was cheating on his wife all the time.
• 54:08
  He was like, and he was like the, and I hear this a lot based
• 54:14
  on different podcasts I listen to, but like you feel like once
• 54:17
  you get started, you feel like you're already corrupt and
• 54:21
  there's just no going like you can't go back anymore.
• 54:23
  So you just have to keep going. Like you feel like if I tell
• 54:26
  anyone that I moved ahead, you know, I moved whatever amount of
• 54:31
  coke or meth or or, you know, whatever it is, if I tell them
• 54:35
  I'm fired. If I and I and I'm making 305070
• 54:40
  grand a year and I just made 10 grand in a week.
• 54:43
  Man too deep. I guess so.
• 54:45
  Movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:47
  What did you think of the movie The Trials of the Chicago 7?
• 54:49
  Did you watch that? I.
• 54:51
  Don't think that is Yeah, I I didn't see that, so let I've
• 54:54
  seen the poster. I haven't.
• 54:55
  Watched it. Let me know.
• 54:56
  Yeah, if you if you ever watched it, let me know you think it's
• 54:58
  actually one of my favorite movies just because primarily
• 55:02
  the time period. It's based on the 68 Chicago
• 55:06
  riots during the National Democratic Convention and and
• 55:11
  the court case was whether or not the people, whether the riot
• 55:15
  was started by the police or by the protesters.
• 55:18
  And that was the premise of the movie.
• 55:19
  And it was a very politically based movie based on, you know,
• 55:23
  processing is the Vietnam War and everything like that.
• 55:25
  But and, you know, I watched the movie and and then I read about
• 55:33
  a lot of the characters in the movie and that's kind of where I
• 55:35
  saw the the that's where like life and and cinema kind of, you
• 55:41
  know, you know, go apart from one another that like, you know,
• 55:43
  the characters themselves are romanticized as like better
• 55:46
  people than they probably were. Right, right.
• 55:48
  But but the case itself, I'd be curious like what your thoughts
• 55:51
  were in terms of that. But you'll have to you'll have
• 55:53
  to let me know if you ever watched that.
• 55:54
  I will. But OK, so you were prosecutor
• 55:58
  cartels D AM VI and how many years do you do that for?
• 56:03
  In total 4 1/2 years. The first couple years though, I
• 56:07
  didn't do cartels. It was like when you first
• 56:09
  start, you do less organized crime.
• 56:14
  Do cartels deal in Miami a lot or South Florida?
• 56:17
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they're not they're.
• 56:22
  Not associated like Texas or California or like the the
• 56:26
  states that are the states that are bordering Mexico directly,
• 56:29
  you know where it's the. So, so there's like I've been
• 56:34
  gone from that world for some years now.
• 56:36
  So I'm sure it's evolved even since then.
• 56:38
  But the base of organized crime at least for our jurisdiction,
• 56:44
  so in Miami, our jurisdiction was Miami, South Florida, but
• 56:46
  also the Caribbean and South America and parts of Central
• 56:52
  America. Somebody in New York or somebody
• 56:55
  in LA has jurisdiction over other parts of the world
• 56:58
  international. But for the world that we had
• 57:01
  jurisdiction over, the base of the activity wouldn't
• 57:05
  necessarily be in Miami, but the the product would come here.
• 57:11
  And so the money would be generated here and then has to
• 57:12
  go back to the to to home base, right.
• 57:15
  So there's like AI don't know if you call it a continuum or
• 57:24
  there's a route for product in money out that is constant.
• 57:29
  It's always it's an economy. Yeah.
• 57:31
  So, yeah, cartels were busy here.
• 57:35
  But also like, because we had jurisdiction in other countries
• 57:38
  for crimes that touch the United States, it didn't necessarily
• 57:41
  have to directly impact Miami for us to.
• 57:44
  Be in law. US meaning law enforcement to
• 57:47
  have the resources to investigate and then the
• 57:51
  question would as a prosecutor be based on what we discover, do
• 57:57
  I have jurisdiction in the United States to bring a charge?
• 58:01
  And if so, can I, can I bring that charge in South Florida?
• 58:05
  Because the agents would sometimes investigate in
• 58:08
  partnership with law enforcement from other countries, and the
• 58:10
  case would be brought in another country, right?
• 58:13
  If that country has police in a court.
• 58:16
  Which? Sometimes they don't, sure.
• 58:17
  So that's kind of. Like do you take into account
• 58:19
  whether the whether the when you say they don't have a court, is
• 58:23
  that what because it's a corrupt court, because they literally
• 58:25
  don't have a court sometimes or either either either, right.
• 58:29
  So what's your thoughts on extradition?
• 58:32
  It's your thoughts on like. Bring somebody here or bring
• 58:35
  somebody here. Either way, either way, like the
• 58:37
  notion of someone being in another country that is not
• 58:40
  their jurisdiction and like the other country shipping that
• 58:43
  individual back to there. It is what it is.
• 58:47
  Gotcha. I've, I've, I've never defended
• 58:50
  somebody in an extradition. OK.
• 58:52
  I thought I wouldn't. I just never done it.
• 58:54
  And I've definitely extradite people to the United States
• 58:58
  where they were. Because they did crimes in
• 59:00
  America, or because they were being tried for their crimes in
• 59:02
  America? Or both.
• 59:04
  They did crimes for which we had jurisdiction to prosecute them
• 59:07
  in America, and we satisfied the treaty requirements for their
• 59:13
  country or wherever they were harbored to put them on the
• 59:17
  plane. Which is why it is what it is
• 59:19
  which. What it is, it is so so it's
• 59:23
  not. It's the whole.
• 59:24
  Time you're working for the government.
• 59:26
  That's alright. Yeah, that time.
• 59:27
  So you're a government, You're you're a federal employee.
• 59:33
  Got it. And then you went private.
• 59:35
  Yeah. And why did you do that?
• 59:37
  January 2019. So six years ago?
• 59:40
  Yeah. 6-7 years ago. Wow.
• 59:42
  Yeah, yeah, probably 2019. Feels like yesterday, doesn't
• 59:45
  it? Not to me.
• 59:46
  Not to him, to me, man. Listen, dude, I remember 2019.
• 59:53
  Like, the truth is, I think that 2022 to 2025 is the biggest
• 1:00:00
  blur, you know, from when I got like, I think when I got married
• 1:00:03
  and like, my whole life became based on like, being in one
• 1:00:07
  place and like planting my roots and growing upward as opposed to
• 1:00:12
  discovering my place. I think the time goes by a lot
• 1:00:16
  faster when you're in one place settling your roots.
• 1:00:18
  Weren't you 23 and 2019? I was 20.
• 1:00:22
  I don't know. I was born December 95, 2019.
• 1:00:26
  No, I was older until I was 20. I graduated College in 2017 and
• 1:00:31
  I was 20. I just turned 22.
• 1:00:33
  How old are you now? I'm 29. 2019 but six years ago,
• 1:00:40
  2019. 20. 4 Whatever that feels like yesterday.
• 1:00:46
  It does. It does feel like yesterday.
• 1:00:48
  By the way. Dude, I don't know what
• 1:00:50
  happened. I don't know what happened to
• 1:00:52
  2627 and 28. Dude, I don't know what happened
• 1:00:55
  to that 20232425. I remember.
• 1:00:59
  I remember distinctly. I don't know.
• 1:01:02
  I don't know what it is, man. I don't know.
• 1:01:04
  So OK, so you went, you went private.
• 1:01:06
  So you so you let so was did you want to leave or you were ready
• 1:01:10
  to leave? I was ready.
• 1:01:12
  Would you ever go back? Would you ever do that kind of
• 1:01:14
  work again? I would, but as the, as the, as
• 1:01:19
  the chief, yeah, I wouldn't go back and like be in court.
• 1:01:24
  I'd go back as the leader. So then what would, what would,
• 1:01:27
  what's the difference in like day-to-day life if you're going
• 1:01:29
  back as executive as opposed to doing that?
• 1:01:34
  Historically, that would mean in a lot of ways I'm an executive
• 1:01:41
  now and you would have basically a significant role in
• 1:01:48
  recruiting. You'd have a significant role in
• 1:01:50
  executing the the US government's law enforcement
• 1:02:00
  policies. Really.
• 1:02:02
  And it would be focused, though, on your jurisdiction, which in
• 1:02:06
  my case would be South Florida. So I'd be, if I was to do that,
• 1:02:09
  I'd be the chief law enforcement officer for the Southern
• 1:02:12
  District of Florida, which goes from Key West to Fort Pierce.
• 1:02:15
  Cool. So it's more you're not, it's
• 1:02:19
  not policy like you're not like a politician, but you're a
• 1:02:23
  prosecutor who trains prosecutors, who recruits
• 1:02:27
  prosecutors, who make sure that prosecutors do the job the right
• 1:02:29
  way. You don't really set locally,
• 1:02:32
  you don't set the priorities, but you enforce them and you
• 1:02:35
  interpret them. And relationally, your peers
• 1:02:41
  would be like the Miami head of the FBI, the Miami head of the
• 1:02:45
  DEA. So they're not going out
• 1:02:46
  arresting people either, but as a team.
• 1:02:50
  You get bigger picture things. You're doing the biggest picture
• 1:02:53
  things with really like a focus on overall community safety, but
• 1:03:00
  really like the most important part of that to me is, is
• 1:03:04
  hiring. Hiring, it's really important
• 1:03:07
  hiring and training. That's what's that.
• 1:03:11
  Process like is it just that you have to just sift through
• 1:03:15
  thousands of thousands of applicants and?
• 1:03:18
  Your team does when I was hired. This is in 2000.
• 1:03:22
  I'm gonna get more rights, by the way.
• 1:03:23
  Again. Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Cool, I was hired in 2014. If I remember correctly they
• 1:03:27
  were like 2000 applicants and like five of us were hired.
• 1:03:32
  Wow, what stood out about your resume that got you there?
• 1:03:36
  Was it your grades? Was it your extracurriculars?
• 1:03:39
  Was it your? Honest, to be honest, I think my
• 1:03:41
  resume was cool, but there's so many applicants that it wasn't
• 1:03:44
  really my resume. It was a mentor of mine who is
• 1:03:48
  Angel. Angel, when I told him that I
• 1:03:51
  applied, actually directly reached out to the person who at
• 1:03:54
  that time had the job that I'm telling you about.
• 1:03:56
  OK, Willie. OK, so my mentor, my brother
• 1:03:58
  now, but Willie. Angel texted Willie and said I
• 1:04:03
  had lunch with the kid that you should meet.
• 1:04:07
  Wow. And.
• 1:04:09
  How did you meet? How did you meet Angel?
• 1:04:11
  Angel worked with me at the time.
• 1:04:12
  OK, Gotcha. Yeah.
• 1:04:13
  And he had been, he had been a prosecutor before.
• 1:04:16
  And we had lunch and I asked him for advice and he said I advised
• 1:04:20
  you to send me your resume and let me send some text messages
• 1:04:22
  because wow. Good for you man, that.
• 1:04:24
  Applicants that, yeah, I don't think they would have even seen
• 1:04:28
  my resume just because there's so many people.
• 1:04:29
  Sure, sure, sure. So the process then, I think
• 1:04:35
  it's very similar now, although it's been, you know, 10 years or
• 1:04:38
  so. You have like 3 rounds of
• 1:04:40
  interviews and then in the third round you interview with the
• 1:04:44
  leadership team. So what stood out?
• 1:04:47
  I think really more than more than my like resume, it was
• 1:04:50
  really my commitment to serving the community, which I've always
• 1:04:53
  had. But at the time it wasn't like a
• 1:04:55
  second year lawyer. So I didn't really know how to
• 1:04:58
  do the courtroom things that I do now.
• 1:05:01
  But I I could prove that like I was really committed to to
• 1:05:06
  Miami. Like I can prove that that
• 1:05:08
  that's beautiful. And that stood out.
• 1:05:11
  And at the time, that's what that was a that was one of the
• 1:05:15
  things that the office was looking for.
• 1:05:18
  And that's how I got the job. And there are, there are some
• 1:05:21
  people who get the job for that reason.
• 1:05:22
  There are some people who get the job for because they have
• 1:05:25
  the highest GPA because they have, you know, like if I was to
• 1:05:29
  apply, not me, but a person like me was applied.
• 1:05:31
  Now it could be because you actually have trial experience
• 1:05:34
  and you can actually go to court and win without being trained.
• 1:05:37
  Why have you be trained? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:40
  And I bet they take that into consideration, right?
• 1:05:41
  Whether or not you need to be trained and all that.
• 1:05:43
  See, I needed to be trained. You needed to.
• 1:05:46
  When you're trained, you're trained in court, you're trained
• 1:05:49
  privately behind, closed. Doors both both so you get
• 1:05:51
  trained in court and for the for the Department of Justice
• 1:05:55
  prosecutors. There's a school.
• 1:05:57
  You go to school in South Carolina.
• 1:06:00
  South Carolina, two weeks. Two weeks 2, weeks 2.
• 1:06:03
  Weeks trial school. Wow, really?
• 1:06:05
  It's called trial advocacy. Some trial BC program from the
• 1:06:11
  nature. Can what I feel like this might
• 1:06:16
  be a crazy question. I hope it's not.
• 1:06:19
  Does being a lawyer both as a prosecutor and a defendant, does
• 1:06:25
  that give you like, what are the flaws in the legal system?
• 1:06:28
  Do you like if somebody, if you if you meet someone like this
• 1:06:30
  guy was convicted of XY and Z, Do you think that guy had a
• 1:06:33
  crappy lawyer? You think that guy's a criminal?
• 1:06:35
  Like how do you differentiate between like where the law
• 1:06:39
  starts and where like the criminal intent and behaviour
• 1:06:41
  and who the person is at, you know, codes?
• 1:06:43
  That's a great question. Because like, so much is like,
• 1:06:50
  so much is like in the nuance and so much is like, not just
• 1:06:54
  about whether or not like it's beyond.
• 1:06:56
  It's beyond a reasonable doubt, right?
• 1:06:58
  Like that's the standard. That's the standard, yeah.
• 1:07:00
  So I'll answer, I'll answer the question literally and then I'll
• 1:07:03
  like. Elaborate.
• 1:07:04
  Yeah, then I'll poeticize a little bit.
• 1:07:08
  So when I meet somebody who has been convicted, I don't really
• 1:07:11
  think anything. You just think, oh, interesting,
• 1:07:16
  like that's just information that you have.
• 1:07:17
  I don't think anything there's new information.
• 1:07:21
  Yeah, like, all right. It doesn't, it doesn't compute
• 1:07:24
  anything in terms of how they ended up there in my mind
• 1:07:28
  because, and this goes to I think the broader question that
• 1:07:31
  you're asking, because in my mind you can end up there so
• 1:07:34
  many different ways and I have no way to know which way it was
• 1:07:39
  like the bad lawyer maybe. Or a great lawyer.
• 1:07:44
  Maybe, right. Like maybe the bad lawyer, but
• 1:07:48
  as a as a black man who is a corporate defense lawyer who was
• 1:08:00
  a prosecutor, who was a black boy, Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  And you can end up talking to the police when you've done
• 1:08:14
  nothing wrong. Yeah.
• 1:08:16
  It could be because somebody that you know has done something
• 1:08:19
  wrong, which I've been in that situation before.
• 1:08:21
  It can be because you've been mistaken for someone.
• 1:08:24
  I've been in that situation before.
• 1:08:25
  Really. It could be because you're in
• 1:08:27
  the wrong place at the wrong time.
• 1:08:29
  I've been in that situation before.
• 1:08:32
  But to me, fundamentally, the way I've avoided, avoided
• 1:08:37
  negative outcomes from all three of those really goes back to
• 1:08:41
  family and goes back to upbringing and self respect.
• 1:08:45
  And ultimately, this is not something I probably had when I
• 1:08:50
  was super young, but as I got older was like a respect for the
• 1:08:52
  power of law enforcement, right? So this is a very narrow
• 1:08:57
  example. It's a narrow example, but it's,
• 1:09:07
  you know, it's truly genuine to say if a person stacks because
• 1:09:15
  of the neighborhood they live in, the way they're taught to
• 1:09:19
  communicate with authority because they they lack respect
• 1:09:24
  for whatever reason for themselves, you could end up
• 1:09:29
  saying the wrong thing and be arrested for that.
• 1:09:34
  Yeah, that's, that's like 1 extreme, right.
• 1:09:38
  The other extreme is you could actually be a criminal.
• 1:09:42
  I think another extreme is you could be a situational criminal.
• 1:09:47
  So you can be a criminal who has like a who is has like a who's
• 1:09:52
  an immoral predator. Those exist.
• 1:09:55
  Sure. You could be a a criminal of
• 1:09:59
  like an opportunistic criminal of greed.
• 1:10:01
  Yeah, there's all these different ways this can all
• 1:10:04
  shake out. But I guess what I'm going with
• 1:10:06
  this is before you get to the bad criminal defense attorney,
• 1:10:10
  one of these things had to have had to perceive that, right?
• 1:10:13
  One of these stories, right? Had to happen before you needed
• 1:10:17
  a criminal defense lawyer who could be good or bad, right?
• 1:10:20
  You could also be innocent and end up with the criminal defense
• 1:10:23
  attorney. Yeah, that's another path that's
• 1:10:25
  possible. All this to say, when I meet
• 1:10:29
  somebody and they've been to jail or they got convicted, I
• 1:10:32
  don't know which of these pasts brought them.
• 1:10:34
  There. Yeah, that.
• 1:10:35
  So that's what I'm asking. There's enough room.
• 1:10:38
  There's so many different little, like, cracks for people
• 1:10:41
  to just like, slip in along the way of getting convicted, you
• 1:10:44
  know? Some slip in.
• 1:10:46
  Some. Hey, buddy, some really are.
• 1:10:48
  Some are bad, yeah. Bad people, Some are not bad
• 1:10:51
  people, but they made a bad decision.
• 1:10:54
  Yeah, some are not bad people. They had really bad friends
• 1:10:58
  around them. All these things are possible at
• 1:11:01
  the same time. And I don't know who's who.
• 1:11:04
  When I was a prosecutor, my job was to figure out who's who.
• 1:11:07
  It's not really my job now. So I don't really know
• 1:11:09
  day-to-day. If I meet somebody, I have no
• 1:11:11
  idea how they end up where they are because I'm not involved
• 1:11:14
  anymore. Yeah.
• 1:11:15
  And most of my work is, is corporate.
• 1:11:19
  So like, I mean, I guess you have an occasional CEO who's
• 1:11:24
  like truly like truly diabolical businessman.
• 1:11:32
  But most, most of my clients had a business idea and rely on
• 1:11:39
  their team. And when we get the subpoena, we
• 1:11:41
  have to deal with it. But most of the time it whatever
• 1:11:46
  causes us to have to deal with the government wasn't most of
• 1:11:49
  the time wasn't the result of like some corrupt case intent.
• 1:11:54
  Yeah. Yeah, I understand.
• 1:11:56
  It happens. Yeah, from my practice, most of
• 1:11:59
  the time that isn't what predicated right us meeting
• 1:12:03
  with. But you but but your but your
• 1:12:05
  experience has LED you to understand that when you meet
• 1:12:09
  someone who has a record, you meet someone who went to jail or
• 1:12:11
  convicted. Whatever it is, it doesn't
• 1:12:13
  necessarily mean so much about who they are.
• 1:12:18
  At all, at all. And and that's that's my
• 1:12:21
  experience as a prosecutor, but I think that's my experience
• 1:12:25
  also just. What do you think about those
• 1:12:26
  people who have a hard time getting out, like adjusting to
• 1:12:28
  their lives after they get out? You know, like, like, you know,
• 1:12:32
  you get hired, you can't get, you can't do, you can't get a
• 1:12:34
  job, you can't do anything. I mean.
• 1:12:36
  It's the worst possible thing you can imagine.
• 1:12:39
  I can't imagine dude. And coming home is is terrible,
• 1:12:43
  but imagine being like locked up in a cage or in a, you know, the
• 1:12:50
  equivalent of like a like a walk in closet.
• 1:12:55
  So I mean, I I don't really have like what I'll say is I never
• 1:13:04
  internalized or felt guilty about my work.
• 1:13:07
  My work was righteous. Yeah, but jail.
• 1:13:12
  Jail could be improved it. Could.
• 1:13:15
  Be improved. Is that something you consider?
• 1:13:17
  Is that something you consider pursuing in the future?
• 1:13:20
  You're not sure it's? Not on my plate.
• 1:13:22
  It's not on my plate personally, but it can be improved.
• 1:13:25
  Yeah, I understand. And in other countries, like for
• 1:13:27
  example, we went to Colombia for investigations, their jails can
• 1:13:30
  be improved too. But you can have but you can
• 1:13:33
  like see. Your life, you could see your
• 1:13:35
  life, Yeah. In the jail that I visited in
• 1:13:37
  Colombia, you could see your wife.
• 1:13:43
  The jail could be approved. I'm not saying it can't be
• 1:13:45
  approved. They can all be improved.
• 1:13:48
  But you know, the the model, the historical US model of like send
• 1:13:57
  these men, mostly men, some women to like to some faraway
• 1:14:01
  place where they're cut off from family, You know, is to me, to
• 1:14:08
  me, from what I've seen doesn't lead to improving society.
• 1:14:13
  I understand there are definitely people that I've
• 1:14:16
  heard about a few that I've encountered, not most some that
• 1:14:19
  I've encountered that I'm like, send him, send him as far away
• 1:14:24
  from the rest of us as you can, because he will actually will
• 1:14:27
  hurt people, physically hurt people could be rape, could be
• 1:14:31
  murder, whatever. For most people that go to jail,
• 1:14:36
  they, they deserve to be punished if you will.
• 1:14:38
  But on a human level, to me, the separation from from humanity
• 1:14:46
  doesn't do anybody favors. That person and their family or
• 1:14:49
  the rest of us when they get hottie.
• 1:14:50
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't that's not really on
• 1:14:53
  my like my list of things to do. Yeah, but it's something you've
• 1:14:56
  observed. But to me, like that, we can do
• 1:14:58
  better, right? Yeah.
• 1:15:00
  Like the rape, like the rape culture in jail, we can do
• 1:15:04
  better than that. Yeah, we could.
• 1:15:05
  That's not doing anybody any favors.
• 1:15:07
  Yeah. God doesn't look favorably on
• 1:15:09
  that. I can imagine not Yeah, I can't
• 1:15:11
  imagine it's bad. I can't imagine it's well
• 1:15:13
  endorsed. It's like, endorsed and like,
• 1:15:15
  you know, Oh yeah. You know, like.
• 1:15:16
  That's not cool. Yeah, I, I can't I, we don't
• 1:15:21
  we'll have to do probably another podcast.
• 1:15:24
  Take it to get to to get to the to the defence part 10 minutes.
• 1:15:29
  I want to talk about family and balancing family and work and
• 1:15:33
  career and ambitions and sure and balancing your life because
• 1:15:38
  one thing that guy has so much respect.
• 1:15:41
  Guy loves you. Guy, by the way, I, I love him
• 1:15:46
  and one of the reasons why I really, really love him is
• 1:15:48
  because he's genuinely always looking to, he's always looking
• 1:15:53
  to be a better human being, Like authentically like he's like,
• 1:15:58
  what can you do about our husband?
• 1:15:59
  What can you do about our dad? A better businessman, a better
• 1:16:01
  friend. Like he's just always thinking
• 1:16:02
  about that. Like his decisions aren't based
• 1:16:05
  in like what I feel like doing right now, but like, what's the
• 1:16:07
  right thing to do? You know, and that's a really,
• 1:16:10
  and he looks up to you. So like, as much as I enjoy
• 1:16:13
  like, you know, that mentality, how do you like first, OK, how
• 1:16:19
  do you balance it? And what do you you don't have
• 1:16:25
  to answer this if you don't want to, but what do you?
• 1:16:27
  What's your struggle that you feel like or like that voice in
• 1:16:31
  the back of your head that you feel like you have to get over?
• 1:16:32
  Like, for example, mine is you've done enough.
• 1:16:35
  You don't have to do anymore. Or like it's too hard.
• 1:16:37
  Don't bother. Like that's usually like the
• 1:16:39
  voice that I have to get past, You know, this podcast too much
• 1:16:42
  effort. Don't bother doing it.
• 1:16:43
  You know, don't you know, like you did 2 episodes this week.
• 1:16:45
  That's enough. You don't have to do anymore.
• 1:16:46
  So like I'm easily sat content and I'm I hate that I'm lazy,
• 1:16:52
  but I you know, but I have a tendency towards it.
• 1:16:55
  So how do you balance work and life and everything?
• 1:16:58
  And then like, what do you, what ghost do you get past?
• 1:17:01
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:17:04
  So how do I balance it? A couple ways.
• 1:17:11
  So I use my calendar religiously, OK.
• 1:17:16
  And I calendar everything months out.
• 1:17:21
  It was challenging to get this time booked because of trials
• 1:17:24
  which I can't calendar because I don't know when they're going to
• 1:17:26
  happen outside of that. My calendar currently goes out
• 1:17:32
  to September. Wow, really?
• 1:17:35
  Yeah, yeah. And it includes trips with the
• 1:17:42
  family. It includes babysitting for like
• 1:17:47
  nights that I'm local and we'll go on a date.
• 1:17:52
  So that's one thing that. Organizing Health.
• 1:17:55
  Organize, like to the extent possible and that takes a little
• 1:18:02
  bit of attention to detail, but it's not over the top.
• 1:18:05
  But that's what that's been a major, that's been a major thing
• 1:18:07
  for us #2 is communication and intimacy with our kids.
• 1:18:21
  So the communication is, is with Gayla about like where we're
• 1:18:26
  going this year in terms of like as a family, as parents.
• 1:18:33
  So this is really probably boils down to leadership in my
• 1:18:35
  worldview, being a leader of the house in the sense that we do it
• 1:18:40
  collaboratively. But really my goal is to
• 1:18:44
  facilitate her accomplishing above and beyond her own goals,
• 1:18:51
  creating a platform for our kids to do the same, even though it's
• 1:18:53
  even though they're young. And then putting everything I
• 1:18:58
  have to do professionally in, in the community in that context.
• 1:19:04
  So it's it's kind of like leadership goal setting for the
• 1:19:07
  house for myself personally as as her supporter, as her husband
• 1:19:13
  and then as a dad. What happens if that deviates?
• 1:19:15
  What happens if like, something falls off track or like
• 1:19:17
  something doesn't go as you like, you know, improvise or
• 1:19:22
  you? Improvise.
• 1:19:22
  Improvise to be honest. Like I can't think of an example
• 1:19:25
  like that. OK, so most things have kind of
• 1:19:27
  like because you, you're, I'm sure your plans are loosely
• 1:19:30
  enough that it's just generalization like time with
• 1:19:33
  kids. Yeah.
• 1:19:33
  And there's some time with what there's.
• 1:19:34
  Simple goals like we need to go see our family in Illinois,
• 1:19:37
  which is her family. We need.
• 1:19:38
  You'll see my family in Colorado.
• 1:19:42
  So they're, they're simple goals, but they're things that
• 1:19:44
  if you don't, I think to your question, if you don't focus on
• 1:19:48
  them and have a plan, you can easily go a year or two years.
• 1:19:52
  Some people could attend right, without focusing on time with
• 1:19:56
  their spouse, right. So we have trips planned out
• 1:20:02
  where just she and I are going. We have trips planned out with
• 1:20:04
  the kids to where everyone gets quality time with me.
• 1:20:11
  So that's one thing that we've done that has worked.
• 1:20:14
  And then in terms of the voice in my head, I'll tell you, like
• 1:20:17
  the voice in my head recently has been saying this is a Jay-Z
• 1:20:23
  line. I actually used it in my trial
• 1:20:25
  last week. He's a Jay-Z.
• 1:20:27
  Line in trial I did. I've tried to use one in every
• 1:20:29
  trial you. Said you quote Jay-Z or you just
• 1:20:32
  take the line. You say like, oh, as Jay-Z says,
• 1:20:34
  or you say you just take the line.
• 1:20:35
  I've. Said as a in one trial, I said
• 1:20:38
  something to the effect of like, as my favorite poet once said.
• 1:20:42
  OK. This last trial I just said, OK,
• 1:20:44
  which was, is this what success is about?
• 1:20:47
  He says, is this was success all about?
• 1:20:49
  And so the the voice in my head recently has been saying it's
• 1:20:55
  more of a question of like what what's next?
• 1:21:00
  What is the future hold? And when I asked, when I'm being
• 1:21:03
  asked that question, that like voice in my head, it's like for
• 1:21:09
  me, but really it's for us. And I don't know the answer.
• 1:21:13
  And I'm searching for that answer.
• 1:21:14
  And I've been welcoming feedback from clients, colleagues,
• 1:21:18
  friends from Gala, from like, from, from like the voice.
• 1:21:26
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the.
• 1:21:28
  God voice of like I used to dream about the future and and
• 1:21:35
  to be honest with you, the dreams that I had have already
• 1:21:40
  happened. It's.
• 1:21:41
  Great. It's amazing.
• 1:21:43
  And is this what success is about, right?
• 1:21:52
  Listen, I, I, I think it might be though, right?
• 1:21:54
  Like family, balanced life, meaningful work that you feel,
• 1:22:00
  you know, accomplished about. And I guess I, I, I do you think
• 1:22:06
  that it's going to strike you as like, oh, that idea resonates
• 1:22:10
  with me or it's going to strike you.
• 1:22:11
  Like I fall like I'm like, I fall into it.
• 1:22:13
  And then it's like, oh, wow, I really love this, you know,
• 1:22:16
  like, I know for example, I don't like, like you said,
• 1:22:20
  you're OK, you open minded and like trying new things and start
• 1:22:23
  like, I'm not, you know, I'm really not.
• 1:22:25
  And like I judge books by their cover naturally.
• 1:22:29
  Just very, very, you know, and I'll go Netflix just based on
• 1:22:34
  like the name of this, of this stupid show or movie.
• 1:22:36
  Like no, and like, and then like this is all time like crap, I
• 1:22:41
  missed it. You know, I'm like, you gotta
• 1:22:43
  watch it though. So, so a lot of times you'll be
• 1:22:45
  until I start something, I'll realize that that's what's
• 1:22:47
  valuable to me. You know, like I do the when I
• 1:22:49
  do the podcast, I never knew what I wanted to do.
• 1:22:52
  I did an episode and like every single time I walk away from
• 1:22:55
  like an episode and I have it honest or emotional or open hour
• 1:23:01
  and a half, two hour, 3 hour conversation with someone and we
• 1:23:05
  connect and I learn and like we're both being like open and
• 1:23:08
  expressive and honest. I walk away feeling rejuvenated
• 1:23:12
  and alive and like this is what like like if I could do this all
• 1:23:17
  day every day, I would, you know, it's so like so, but I had
• 1:23:22
  to try to even know that that would even be the option, you
• 1:23:25
  know? So like, do you think that
• 1:23:26
  you're going to have to conceive of an idea and then try it or
• 1:23:30
  are you going to have or, you know, you're going to have to
• 1:23:32
  just try a couple of different things and like, oh, this is for
• 1:23:34
  me, you know, like, and I don't know, you know.
• 1:23:36
  That's a great question and I don't know the answer.
• 1:23:38
  Yeah, yeah, that's figure that out.
• 1:23:40
  That's the that's the phase that I'm in.
• 1:23:42
  And I'll tell you. So I, you know, I shave most
• 1:23:48
  like most days, but when I don't like my, my beard is like
• 1:23:52
  getting greyer and greyer. Oh yeah.
• 1:23:53
  And a lot of times this kind of goes back to, like, what I do,
• 1:23:58
  what I do, importance on that. But you know, so often my
• 1:24:02
  opponent in court is like, 70. Yeah, right.
• 1:24:08
  And of late, probably this year that I turned 40 in August.
• 1:24:14
  So I'm like, chronologically getting older.
• 1:24:18
  Like, my beard is graying. Kids are growing up.
• 1:24:22
  They're still babies. So like, that keeps me young.
• 1:24:24
  So I feel young. Yeah.
• 1:24:26
  And then physically you're, you're, you're, you're looking
• 1:24:28
  great. Thank you man, I have a trainer
• 1:24:30
  who's also. Aging, by the way, by the way,
• 1:24:33
  40 could be, you could there's like a you're an age and there's
• 1:24:36
  your body age. And like, I'm sure your body age
• 1:24:38
  isn't 40. I'm sure your body age is in the
• 1:24:40
  year late 20s early 30s. I appreciate that, but my but my
• 1:24:44
  but my mind remembers my age and 30s.
• 1:24:47
  Yes, I'm escaping that I've been here a while.
• 1:24:49
  I'm. Escaping that, yeah.
• 1:24:50
  So where I'm going? With this is it is like a new
• 1:24:54
  this is. This is the stage that I'm in
• 1:24:55
  now, which is I'm 40. I'm blessed.
• 1:24:59
  My parents are still with us. They're healthy, Thank God.
• 1:25:02
  Our kids are growing up every day.
• 1:25:08
  Every day is an adventure. I'm learning every day I'm
• 1:25:12
  teaching something to someone every day, especially
• 1:25:15
  professionally, I'm living the dream that I used to have and
• 1:25:23
  I'm in a very pugilistic profession.
• 1:25:26
  And the people that I'm punishing day-to-day, 30 years
• 1:25:31
  older than me. Wow.
• 1:25:33
  And I'm like, what does this all mean?
• 1:25:38
  And I don't know the answer to the question.
• 1:25:40
  And I actually like that, but I'm searching.
• 1:25:45
  Yeah. So I searched during the day,
• 1:25:48
  through conversation, through dialogue, through observing
• 1:25:50
  others. I searched like in my dreams.
• 1:25:54
  Do you? Do you?
• 1:25:55
  Remember your dreams a lot or. When they matter, Yeah, Yeah,
• 1:25:59
  yeah. But I like in like conscious
• 1:26:01
  when I'm sleeping of like, what's the future hold.
• 1:26:04
  And I don't know the answer to the question and I'm alright
• 1:26:06
  with that. But it's like I found myself and
• 1:26:08
  I didn't necessarily expect this, but when I was 2526, I
• 1:26:16
  dreamed about being a federal prosecutor.
• 1:26:17
  That was. That's cool.
• 1:26:19
  That was the pinnacle. Yeah.
• 1:26:22
  I'm six years removed from the pinnacle.
• 1:26:25
  Yeah. Asking what's the, what's that
• 1:26:31
  cynical? Yeah.
• 1:26:32
  And it's obviously my kids. But they're like, major life
• 1:26:38
  events are years away. Yeah.
• 1:26:40
  And so my job and I think your job is to fill your own life
• 1:26:45
  with fulfillment so that we can be the best parents to our like,
• 1:26:51
  yeah, kids at their milestones. Yeah, yeah, in whatever, in
• 1:26:55
  whatever ways that manifests. So you think you want to be more
• 1:26:58
  present, you want to you want to be around more to help your kids
• 1:27:01
  be, but I don't know to what extent you're around or not.
• 1:27:04
  You know, I'm just I but you know, to be around to help, to
• 1:27:09
  be that. You know, I said this already
• 1:27:11
  and I saw the week, but there's a Springsteen line that is so
• 1:27:16
  great. He's like we're either ghosts or
• 1:27:18
  we're ancestors to our children, you know, and like you have to
• 1:27:21
  choose what you're going to be. And like, you could be a ghost
• 1:27:24
  where like, you know, you're haunting at you're haunting them
• 1:27:26
  and like you're constantly like you're the stuff of their
• 1:27:29
  nightmares. Or you could be like the guiding
• 1:27:31
  light and like live to see you know the way that.
• 1:27:35
  Guiding White back. Me too, man, me too.
• 1:27:37
  But you know what? So it takes so much effort, it
• 1:27:40
  takes so much patience, takes so much work.
• 1:27:42
  But dude, I hope to do this again.
• 1:27:46
  I would love to do another, I'd love to do another recording in
• 1:27:48
  a couple of months or, you know, whatever it is.
• 1:27:50
  And next time we have and I really appreciate your time.
• 1:27:54
  Thank you so much, dude. And we'd even we, I feel like
• 1:27:56
  we're barely scratching the surface of the bucket.
• 1:27:58
  You know, we're barely scratching the surface over
• 1:28:00
  here. But this is a lot of fun.
• 1:28:02
  I really appreciate you taking the time.
• 1:28:03
  Thank you. Thank you, man.
• 1:28:05
  I appreciate it. All right, we'll do this again
• 1:28:07
  soon. Bye everyone.