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Peter King (00:00:01):
You're listening to the PK experience podcast where I tap into the minds of today's impact players. My name is Peter King. I'm the host of the show and my guest today is Andre Norman. Andre has one of the most inspirational comeback stories you're ever going to come across. He was born into poverty, was illiterate, got caught up in a gang culture and ultimately was sentenced to over a hundred years in prison. While he was in prison, he did a two year stint in solitary confinement and it was there that he had this massive epiphany to want to graduate from Harvard University. And as crazy as that is, what's even crazier is he actually did it. He worked his ass off, worked his way up the prison system, developed trust, and ultimately won his freedom, graduated from Harvard University and today is one of the world's leading trainers and influencers in teaching other people how to be leaders and influencers as well. He is one of the world's most highly sought-after speakers and trainers. The impact that he's making in the prison system and outside of the prison system is immeasurable. It is truly an inspirational story, a great honor to have him on the program and in many definitions, the very epitome of an impact player that I love to talk to. So it's a great honor to speak with him and it's my pleasure to share this conversation with you. Here I am with Andre Norman.
Peter King (00:01:31):
All right, I'm here with Andre Norman. Andre, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the call today.
Andre Norman (00:01:32):
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Peter King (00:01:38):
Is it Andre or Dre?
Andre Norman (00:01:41):
You pick it. It's the same difference to me. I've been called both equal amounts of time.
Peter King (00:01:45):
You sign off on your emails to me with Dre. I was like, all right, well, I don't know if you had to be in the circle of influence in order to have the pleasure. So I kinda like Dre. We can go with that. Well, yeah, again, thanks for spending a little time with me this morning. You have an important message and quite a transformational story that it was very inspiring for me to learn more about and I'm excited to share with my audience. For those that don't know who you are, let's give a quick brief overview of who you are and a little bit about your background and of course, that will lead us into probably a million other things.
Andre Norman (00:02:24):
So, well, right now I'm Andre Norman from Boston, Massachusetts and what I do for a living is leadership development. I get to go around the world and help situations and people do better. I've worked in Honduras when they had the highest murder rate in the world. I worked in West Africa when they had child soldiers in the street. When I was in Ferguson, our team ended the riots in Ferguson in a protest. They call us for like extreme crisis situations.
Peter King (00:02:53):
Do you have operators that, I mean...what do you mean ended the violence?
Andre Norman (00:03:00):
Ferguson was in protest for 15 months. There was a non-verdict that came out in December and after that some local folks from St. Louis called me and asked me to come to St. Louis and to Ferguson to help. So I flew to Ferguson, went out in the streets at like midnight, one o'clock in the morning, met all the guys in the street, talked to the guys in the street, find out who, what they were angry about, what they was upset about, identified their leadership, then once I identified their leadership, I started working with that cohort. I had an office at Harvard Law School at the time. So I brought the protesters from off the street at 2:00 AM. I got the mayor of Ferguson, the police chief of Ferguson, brought them to Harvard as well. There was a guy from St. Louis named Dave Spence who was extremely helpful. Dan Kerwin and another guy that was extremely helpful. Two local St. Louis guys who just cared. They wanted to see the madness come to an end. So we all went to Harvard. We had a symposium, the symposium went horrible. (Peter King: You went out to Boston, you mean at Harvard University?) At the law school, and at the symposium, we had the mayor of Ferguson, the police chief of Ferguson, Dave Spence, who had run for governor, and three of the protest leaders from the streets all at Harvard on a panel. And then what happened is they interjected people that I didn't have control over or influence with, they weren't there for solutions. They was there for their own agenda, derailed the whole panel and when it was over we went and all had dinner, minus the agitators so we was able to get some resolutions and peace. And when they all went back to Ferguson, now the mayor knows the lead protesters and they have communications. Then the guy who was the actual lead, we ran him for state rep. His name was Bruce Franks. He ran for state rep. He won. He was in the state house for two terms and he became the guy over the police subcommittee for the state. And he actually wrote crime policy with the governor around making things better.
Peter King (00:04:58):
Wow. So you helped facilitate bringing the parties literally to the table together.
Andre Norman (00:05:05):
Yes, sir.
Peter King (00:05:07):
Understanding what their concerns were, helping them bridge the gap a little bit. Well, so I'm from St. Louis, I obviously remember when that all went down. Had some friends that lived down there who went out the day after Mike Brown had been shot, saw the blood on the streets, was able to connect with some of the community members down there and frankly, just see the see the energy of the people around. And what was really fascinating was for the first, like two to three days, it was very peaceful. I mean, there was tension, but the majority of the people that came out were, you know, I saw single mothers and their children. I saw families. I saw opposing gang members side by side. Everybody was there seemingly saying, "Hey, this needs to stop and what is the solution? How do we rise above this?" And it was a really beautiful thing to see. And then of course, you know, then the tension did spill over. But I'm curious to know a little bit more about what the actual, what were the protesters issues, like where was the disconnect and where was the conflict?
Andre Norman (00:06:15):
The disconnect comes from growing up in a country that you believe doesn't want you. That's step one. So for the 2.2 million people who are incarcerated, a large percentage of those are black or brown. So imagine being a 17 or 18 year old black boy going to court and they say it's the United States of America versus you. I remember sitting in court at 18 and they said those exact words. I was in federal court. It's the United States of America versus Andre Norman. So you take in bad schools, you take in police supervision versus police service. You take in a bad neighborhood, you take in whatever you're taking. I grew up in all the disfunctioning chaos and 18 years old. I sit in a room and they say, United States of America versus Andre Norman. And I feel as though I never had a fair shot initially with the parents I had and the neighborhood I grew up in, and then the schools I went to and then the access and resources available for me. Now I'm getting arrested by the police who take me to a court system. Whereas there's this massive court system, criminal justice system that's put together. It takes this 18 year old kid who can barely read and send me to jail for a hundred years. So I get in this room, judge has education, the D.A. has an education. My defense attorney has education. The clerk has an education, the bailiffs have educations, the jurors have educations. And I'm the only guy in the building who can"t read. You have this massive system. It's designed. The police all have educations. The jailers have education, I'm the one guy. It's like this whole massive system put together just for me to send me to prison. I'm not saying I didn't commit bad acts. It's not about "did I commit a crime?" Now that I'm in the machine of the criminal justice system, it's a massive machine. So now I am 18, me against the country and I lose of course.
Peter King (00:08:20):
Yes. I definitely want to get into that though. Did you not feel represented?
Andre Norman (00:08:27):
Represented?! (laughing) I'll tell you this, this, this is the practice they need to stop. And the sense of the defense attorney and the prosecutor call each other brother and sister. Those are horrible terms. When you're on trial, when the guy defending you, who's going to guide you when the one to lock you up is his brother. We don't get the nuance. The nuance is lost. Is this all bad? So I mean, it's not about was it fail? I mean, the system is, the system is the greatest system on earth. That's all wonderful. But when you're in it and it's you against America, that's a tough pill to swallow. Yeah.
Peter King (00:09:00):
I mean, I'm not even gonna try to pretend like I know what that is. Although I will say, I have had many advantages and sure, even privileges growing up and with education and you know, two parental household et cetera, et cetera. And in just my very limited experience in dealing with the system, the facade has completely dropped away.
Andre Norman (00:09:29):
How about this, you know, anybody at all that has ever had a problem with the IRS? So, when the IRS sends you a letter, you're done, it's their way or nothing. It's you against the IRS, you lose. How many people you've known has ever beaten the IRS? Probably nobody. If the IRS decides they're going to focus on you for whatever the reason, those people are just screwed. Yeah. When the IRS get their bean counters pointed at you, you're just screwed. So it's that type of: you've lost before it started. So if the IRS says, "Hey, Johnny, we're doing an audit and you owe us X amount of dollars."It's done. You can pay them or not. And there is no not. So when it's the IRS versus you, it is best way I could describe it to someone who's never been in criminal justice system. You have for the most part no way to win, when the IRS shows up at your door.
Peter King (00:10:25):
So tell us a little bit about your upbringing and how you talked about feeling like everything was against you. Give somebody who is not privy to that world an idea as to what your upbringing was like.
Andre Norman (00:10:40):
I grew up in a house. My mom had six kids. I was the fifth child. We lived in an inner city. My dad had a habit of beating my mom cause he didn't know how to communicate well. And so I grew up in a house first, second, third. I'm the fifth child. Three, four years old. And I started understanding my mother's being beat everyday and she's going through this and at first when I saw her get beat, I would cry because it was traumatic. "Oh my God, my mother's being beaten," and I would just cry. And after that you get mad like, "Oh my God, this is happening again." And you get mad. Then after that, you get frustrated. Like okay, here comes the dumb stuff. Then after frustration you get to the point of this, it doesn't matter. And that's when you lose a piece of you that that really matters. When you get to the point of just acceptance, you understand, then it's a problem. So after a while of going through and going through, you finally realize that this isn't going to stop and you just come to accept it. And as an eight and nine year old kid that's accepting your mother's getting beat is not a good thing because it disconnects you from parts of humanity and it tells you that violence is okay. Cause if my mother can be hit, there's nobody on this planet that can't be hit as far as I'm concerned. And so you come out of the starting gate with this negative mentality of "it's okay to hit people" and then the stuff that you go through. I grew up in Boston where at the time when I was in elementary school, black kids, and white kids were being forced to be bused to different schools. So in response to the busing crisis, white kids would go on the side of the road and throw rocks at us and call us names. So I'm called a n***a and a porch monkey cause I'm trying to like go on a bus and go to school and then nobody came to help us. Nobody showed up and said, you know something, this is wrong. Let's go get these kids some treatment, let's get them some counseling. We just got rocks thrown at us and that was it. And then finally for me, my dad moved out of the house. Came home from school one day, dad's gone. It's like him and my mom just couldn't make it any more. Nobody sat us down and said this is the situation. This is just not going to be good. I'm going to live over there. You can see me on Fridays and Thursdays. Nothing. Gone.
Peter King (00:13:12):
At what age was this for you?
Andre Norman (00:13:14):
Nine. Ten.
Peter King (00:13:15):
Okay. Was there a sense of relief though a little bit because he wasn't there to abuse her.
Andre Norman (00:13:21):
Nah, I mean, you don't see it as relief. You just look, dad's been there your whole life. He's dad, he's been in since day one, so just one day the guy that has been there every single days is gone. Now granted he was doing negative stuff while he was there, but at the same time you don't look at it like that. You say, that's dad. You separate. You compartmentalize the drama and the fun stuff. But to come home and him just not being there, I took three lessons from these episodes. One it's okay to hit people .Two, I better protect myself. And three, I don't have to explain myself to anybody and as a 10 year old kid, that's the lens I see the world and that's not healthy. It's not productive. It's not going to take me far. And that attitude and that lens took me straight to where people like that exist. Prison.
New Speaker (00:14:10):
----------------------------------------------------
Andre Norman (00:14:11):
So I get to middle school, I, I fall off from the kettle, falls through the cracks. Mom's busy working. Dad's not there. Aye don't have the things I want. All the basic stereotypical drift away. A ministry stopped getting in trouble, started getting arrested for petty stuff that escalates to the point where they send me to state prison now the United States of America versus Andre Norman. Yeah. My question was what was the United States of America when I was eight years old? That is one of, some of them I got, I wanted to say, which I was hungry.
Andre Norman (00:14:44):
I used to go to school hungry. I ate when I went to school. So why couldn't somebody give me a sandwich and I would, if you dedicated me in first grade and had like a really nice lunch, McDonald's back then was huge. I'd have been your best friend. Oh and right. I need you to read this book. Andre. I need you to do this exam. Andre, I need you to color more. I don't know. I want to work on your letters. I hadn't done anything from McDonald's and the first grade anything, but nobody came. I hamburger. I want to save the country. Millions of dollars and tons of agony, but nobody stepped up and said, Hey, let's help these kids at this level. I can tell you this about prison. There's not one person in prison that I met in my 14 years inside and my 20 years since out in 34 years of dealing with corrections, I've never met anybody in prison that didn't go to elementary school. So if you wanted to stop that guy or that lady, you could have caught him in elementary school when he was seven years old, sitting in the first grade and could barely say his name. He had a Dyneema and you said for something of nothing, a candy bar, a cookie, a hug, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You have
Andre Norman (00:15:55):
Well, peanut butter, jelly sandwich. We could empty out half the personal system.
Peter King (00:16:00):
Is it that, I mean it's that simple in that profound, I imagine to just show up and care.
Andre Norman (00:16:06):
You can write. I guarantee you right now, there'll be 200,000 people go to jail 10 years from now and that whatever you had, 2029 100,000 people go to jail. I guarantee the 100,000 people every last one than one elementary school someplace right there. Right there. Right. So we can just ignore them right now and say, well, this kid has a bad home. This kid doesn't have food. This kid has esteem issues. Let's try to fix it while he's seven.
Andre Norman (00:16:40):
Oh, we can wait till he's a full grown adult. 28 years old with two knives in his hand, strapped up on a, on a rec field, try to kill somebody. Oh, let's go try to work with them now. No mean it's so much cheaper. There's so much more practical. There's so much less damage done if you get the guy or the girl they in first grade.
Peter King (00:17:01):
Yeah, that makes sense. Are there people trying to do that? Are there programs that are successful right now that are reaching kids at that age?
Andre Norman (00:17:09):
If there's no content, there's no continuum. If there's a program for elementary school or early learning, early childhood learning, it doesn't go all the way through to high school, so you get a kid in the first or second grade, you provide services, he goes third and fourth grade. It's a whole different set of services. Gets the middle school was a whole other set of services. Whereas if you had a system and say, we know where this kid is going to end up, I guarantee you you walk through the prison systems of America and ask them where they went as far as they and say, it's public school.
Andre Norman (00:17:39):
I guarantee you 90 plus percent people in prison went to public school. Then you can go in any state, I can guarantee you pick a state. New York city, 60% of the population gave him the New York city public school system. You say it, California, 60% of their prisons, prisoners came from LA public school system. You say bar in Massachusetts, systems in and people came from Boston public school system. We know where they're coming from. This is not rocket science. This is not like how do we solve HIV? This is so basic. We know exactly where they're coming from and we know the exact metrics it takes to add up to that. We know if we drink eight beers in a one hour, I'll block all level is going to be too high. We're going to crash our car, right? So we don't do it. We know if we leave a kid in a public school without proper nutrition, without proper guidance, without proper intellectual stimulation, he or she will go off the rails and end up in prison.
Peter King (00:18:40):
Are we not talking on some level though? I'm filling the void of either an absent parent or poor parenting. Does it go even before, you know, prior to school? And, you know, obviously we're looking at what's practical, right? But even at the core level conceptually, is it, is it, isn't it a breakdown in the family unit?
Andre Norman (00:19:02):
It's a complete breakdown in the family unit. And if you go look at families who are in poverty they've been broken for a long time, right? So this isn't a new, new concept of broken families. These families have been broken. If you want to take the black folks all the way back to slavery, family has been broken and they've tried to piece it together. Here it is. But you have, you have a set of people in a system that they don't control. So they've been broken from the time that their babies were sold off the plantation to the next five, whatever the reason were. They had a male.
Peter King (00:19:35):
There's, I know there's true To that for sure. Psychologically the, the weight of carrying that history, but at the same time I think that, I don't know for absolute certain, but I think in the forties and fifties the black family union unit was most of the vast majority of families. Black families had mother and father at home. And then that has trailed off since I think 68 to now. It's like, you know, 25% of.
Andre Norman (00:20:05):
When they created a governmental system that empowers or, and it suggests or pushes for the father to be out the house they ever been called. They have Medicaid and Medicare. They have welfare system. They have section eight to receive any state or federal benefits, you must put the father out of the house period. Now when the, when the system was first created in the fifties and sixties the concept was we don't want to able bodied man getting government assistance. So they all like, well, he's able body, he's able to take care of his family, which was concept. So the rule was put in April, body man should not be in the house if he is when I gave him government. So now the woman has to make a choice. Do I have the farmer in the house who's gonna help me raise these kids? But now I won't get any money. We're going to struggle or do I put him out of the house and I get government assistance and we're going to go without dad and option B, we're going to have our rent paid, wouldn't get these government subsidies, but we have to do it without that. So the government has created a system, systematically pushes the father out of the house. I'm not saying that it's the government's fault, but that's the system. If, if you, if you're a guy with two kids and a girlfriend and you can't get a good job and she needs to go on government assistance, then you automatically have to get out of the house.
Peter King (00:21:26):
Why not say that it's the government's fault? I mean, I look at that and I go, I mean, I know that the spirit of it, at least I'd like to believe that the spirit of it was well-intended and that maybe it at a point in time, like you said, Hey, if there's nobody, if there's not a well labeled person there to help provide, like we can't just let these people you know, fall by the wayside. Let's support them. But where it's morphed into, it really does feel like it's a,
Andre Norman (00:21:50):
nobody's made the change. The initial, I'll say in the interest of fairness, that the initial law or policy was based on the times there was in the sixties and fifties. People prided work. Now if you could get a job as a black man in the 60s is another story. But the baseline is, I'll give the spirit of the law and the policy will initially put out as a good thing now that you've seen over the last 50 years, the back end of pushing the data out of that house, you should say, okay, we shouldn't, I would love that. I'm saying let's resend the dad in the house room because okay, dad's not in the house now what is a byproduct of that? Or 80% of his kids are go to jail. Yeah it is. So yeah, you're winning for losing.
Peter King (00:22:33):
The statistics are, are beyond obvious. You look at I think it's nine. It's upwards of 90% of those that are incarcerated come from fatherless homes, violence increases, addictions, increases abuse. I mean it goes on and on and on.
Andre Norman (00:22:53):
How do I, some point we have to say this policy about dad not in the home and governor system needs to change. That's all I'm saying. Cause right now in 2019 I can have a wife or girlfriend with two kids and she can get government assistance living in house one I can go live in a house and get government assistance for myself. I can get food stamps and section eight for me, it live apart from my family. So the government will pay for me to live by myself. But it won't pay for us to say together. Not that the government should just be adopting our whole country, but, If you have a system that pays for the mother and the two kids and it's same system pays for the father, what you save money by putting them in the same house cause they will live legitimately pay two sets of rents, two sets of food stamps for the same family. But by law or policy, they can't be in the same building, which makes no sex. No. And forget it doesn't make sense. The results aren't what we want. Now that we've had 50 years of data, the results are horrendous. So let's, somebody says, no something, this policy doesn't work. Let's change it.
Peter King (00:23:58):
Right? So let's go back to United States versus Andre. So what at that point did you enter the prison system?
Andre Norman (00:24:09):
I go into prison at 18, and I ended up staying for 14 years. When I got to prison, it was this, I went in scared and nervous and Colleen didn't know what was going to happen when I got there. The craziest thing, it was a reunion of Walmart friends from special needs classes. It's a reunion of Walmart friends from the principal's office. It was a reunion of Walmart friends who got kicked off the football team or quit bad. There was a reunion of all my friends used to cut school and run downtown was a reunion of Walmart friends who were scared to read and stand in front of the class and duty assignments. We all, everybody was there. Everybody was. And even the people I didn't know came from the same scenario. They would, the kids wouldn't read at the front of the class. They would have kids who didn't do homework. They would have kids aren't free lunch. It was just a giant reunion of all people who didn't. Did you saw on track not to make you
Peter King (00:25:05):
Right. So, so at 18 years old you go in [inaudible] was there a part of you that felt like, I mean if you're seeing all your buddies,
Andre Norman (00:25:13):
Yeah, I was comfortable. I'm like, yo, I'm home. This is cool. It was, it was like the smart kids go to college and the bad kids go to prison. When you went from middle school to high school, how many kids at the high school did you know? Lots of them. When I went from high school to prison, there was tons of people. I knew that tons, it was like a writer. It was like that's the next level. If you're a bad kid or a troubled kid, you go elementary, middle, high school, prison. That was just the rap. That was what it was. So it was that same group of kids that three years ahead of you that you're going to see?
Peter King (00:25:46):
I think you almost said a ride. Where are you about to say write a passage?
Andre Norman (00:25:49):
Yes. Write a passage. Yeah, I mean w w what was that like? Was there a,
Peter King (00:25:54):
I mean I've heard some of the videos that you had online and stuff, but I'd love for you to, to expand on what your experience was and where the dysfunction was in the, you talked about earlier in this call, the machine, the system
Andre Norman (00:26:07):
The dysfunction was, it was, I was like when I got to prison, the best way I can describe it, it's like taking a goldfish and throwing them in a, in a, in a, in a goldfish bowl full of water. You just, I was a fish to water. I had been raised, conditioned and trained to be in that environment. I go all the way back from Mingo punishment to juvie probation to being on probation and having to clean. I mean, I had been so conditioned mentally, emotionally and physically for that space. So when I finally got there, I was like, this is what I'm supposed, to me it makes, and it's like your elementary school, then you moved to the middle school, you moved to high school. It's like you belong. Like, yeah, I've arrived. This is my time. It was like I was just, it was my time. It was my place. I'm dysfunctional and violent. I'm angry, I'm frustrated. I don't know how to follow through on things. I quit him saying, I mean this is the perfect place for me. This is what this is. The building is full of quitters. These are the people who finish nothing. We all have finished nothing. We didn't finish school. We didn't finish courses. We didn't finish. I got thousand things. We quit on everything that was made available to us and we took the easy way out. And the easy way is available. But the easy way truly isn't easy, once you get passed up criminal justice courtroom, then it gets really hard. And the worst part about the system is geared to keep you there. It's not geared to turn you around. The criminal justice system is not set up to make better people. It's set up so manufacturing more people just like it.
Peter King (00:27:49):
[Inaudible] Oh gosh, I don't even know where to go with that cause there's so many different, I know there's so many different things that are fucked up with the whole system. You talked on some of the stuff that I saw about you, about the financial engine behind this whole thing. Can you share a little bit about what actually goes on in prison and how the
Andre Norman (00:28:15):
Well, I mean, life is this car. There's a black market in prison. If I was selling drugs and I was in the street when I go to jail and it stopped being a drug dealer. If I was using drugs while I was in the street and you put me in jail, I didn't stop being a drug user. If I was beating people up in the street and you fought me in jail, I didn't stop becoming, I didn't become less violent. So prison is the same as it was on the street. Is this a confined space and everything you do, bounces back real fast. So it's not like I can shoot you and drive across town if I do something to you. I'm walking like two blocks away from you. So every it says you have all people who are hustlers, scammers violent, whatever we were or whatever we are, you just put us all in a confined space. That's it. If you ever go to the NBA, all star game, the first five rows, all NBA plays, the whole building is this NBA players. A third of the building is NBA place because that's their thing. It's like you could grab anybody out of the stands and start a game. You could pick a five out of the stands and might beat the guys on the court. Next time you look at the NBA all side game, look at the first three rows. It's going to be all NBA players new and old. That's what prison is. You look at the first 10 rows, it's all the top criminals for the last 30 years in one donut recipe for disaster. I would imagine. No recipe for criminal activity. So you put 50 basketball players in the building, expect a game to start. Well, you put a thousand criminals in the building expect for some criminal activity to stop.
Peter King (00:29:50):
Well, how do you, I mean the, the ignorant mind for, so forgive my ignorance, but where else would you put.
Andre Norman (00:30:00):
they need that if you've committed a crime, the system that we have isn't the problem. The system of incarceration is not the problem. The system of incarcerating people is not the issue. It's who do you choose to incarcerate? Why do you choose to incarcerate and how long do you hold them there for? That is a problem. And what do you do with them while you have them? If so many robs a bank, they need to go to jail. If somebody shoots somebody, they deserve to go to jail. They deserve to be punished. If somebody hurts my family, they deserve to be punished. If I heard someone else's family punishment is not the issue. The question is one, why are they in this situation? Well, we could've gave this kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some blue Kool-Aid and a hug in a sixth grade and he wouldn't be here right now. So you allowed me to get to this point even though you saw me coming. That's step one. And now that I'm here, okay, I sell crack because that's what's popular in my neighborhood. I'm not even going to ask you how crack got to my neighborhood, but that's a whole another story. Crack comes to my neighborhood from whatever it comes from, and lo and behold, the crack laws I designed and targeting kids in the inner city, AKA black kids. So powder cocaine and crack cocaine is exactly the same. It's just a form. It's it. It's like ice. It's like ice and water. If you have a, you have a tray of ice, you have a glass of water, I'm going to give you a mandatory minimum of 20 years. If you have ice in a glass, if you have water in a glass, I'm going to give you five months probation. It's the same. [inaudible] Is no difference. It's just the form that it's in. So if you take powder cocaine and put it into a hard form slash ice versus it being liquid, Oh my God, it the punishment. Quadruples why? If the punishment is for having a narcotic, what does this make? What form it's in. Coke is Coke, but for some reason Coke in a a rock form is get you a a hundred. It gets you a mandatory minimum of 20 years when coconut powder form doesn't, well, who uses powder coat? Who deals with crack Coke? Well, the inner cities of America was dealing with crack cocaine, the suburbs and the doctors and the other people were dealing with protocol cocaine. So once it turned into crack, we got mandatory minimum sentences. So you targeted an entire demographic of people with a law specifically, they give them a five, 10 times more years in prison for the same drug. That wasn't accidental. That wasn't anything. For those who don't know, crack cocaine used to be East called base. You should take powder cocaine. You take so much powder cocaine, so much baking soda, you put it in a bottle or a test tube with some water and you heat it up and powder with bigger soda and water, it becomes a, it becomes a rock format and you can smoke it. That's it. It used to be called powder cocaine with baking soda is crack. Then they see that as they used to do that for years back in the 80s then somebody said, Hey, why don't we just make it a large qualities? Why they used to have to buy powder cocaine and converted. If somebody got smart and said we'll convert it and then sell it to you, but it's the same stuff. But the law was targeting inner city black kids for lack of a better term. And that's, that law was on the books and it wiped out a whole generation. The drug itself wiped out a whole generation than a crime wiped out the other half. And you can't tell me that. If somebody can get up here and tell me the differential between powder and crack, I want to know it. And why you give one guy 20 years minimum, the other guy gets eligible for probation.
Peter King (00:33:52):
Right. Well it's, some of that I think comes down to just money as well. I mean obviously you get better representation, better lawyers, connections, you know,
Andre Norman (00:34:01):
jail is for two people is for quitters and it's for poor people. Generally rich people or people wouldn't, finances don't go to jail. It's just a given.
Peter King (00:34:10):
So in other words, with a, you know, ice basically isn't he or she going to be able to pay their way to minimize their, their sentence, whatever it like, isn't there a financial component behind a lot of these sentences?
Andre Norman (00:34:26):
The way the courthouse was set up, when you, let's say men, you both get arrested tomorrow for possession of marijuana or cocaine. We won't go to court. The judge is going to look at you and say, okay, your bail is $5,000 he's going to get me and says, honor your bail is $5,000 the differences, your parents can pay your bail, but you get to go home. Right? My parents can't pay my bill. They're on government assistance. They don't have a free 5,000 so I have to stay in jail. So step one, I'm staying in jail because I'm poor. You're not going home because you're innocent. You're not going home because you're guilty. You're going home because your parents had the money to pay your bed. Right, right. Oh, because you can afford bail. You go home because I can't afford bail. I'm going to spend the next 18 months in a prison. So fast forward, once you are in the street, your lawyer can continue your case and almost wouldn't fit him. You just keep pushing the case. Put so and happens January 1st, 2020 you might not go to trial until January of 2023 give me a six month date. Let's keep pushing. The judge doesn't came, nobody's in peril. You had a crack case, you had a weak case. The lawyer keeps asking for continuous. It's continuous is continuous, is everything is four to six months out before long, it's two years later. Nobody cares about this case. It's two years old. Get a kid probation, let it go. That's what happens.
Peter King (00:35:50):
That that alone, that one simple example alone is the difference of an entire lifetime. You take so many and you put them in jail for, I don't care who it is for 18 months, 24 months, that's going to probably fundamentally change that person. I mean, they're going to be forced into a style that.
Andre Norman (00:36:08):
I would say 12 months in. I've been in jail for 12 months and I can't. I'm going to sit here until the end of this trial, which is going to be maybe another year. So then the da comes and says, listen, you've been in for 12 we'll give you a two year sentence. If you plead guilty, so you're going to do another year and he can go home or you can go to trial and I'm going to give you eight years if I find you guilty. So the guys say, well, I already, I know I did it. I'm going to sit here anyways. Give me the two years. I've got one in. I got one to go. When you've been sitting in jail for 12, 13, 14 months awaiting trial, your perspective outline a viewpoint of what are you going to do is drastically different than if you're your home going to the mall every day and it's just kick, kick, kick, kick and kick in it. And it's like, Whoa, you've been out for two years with no problems. The neck tested da wall. Well maybe it was a mistake. He had a bad day. The lawyer says, Hey, my client's been off for two years, or no problem. Why do we need to send him to jail? He's a law abiding citizen. So the da says, you're right. He has been home for two years with no problem. It gives them a slap on the wrist lesson go. Otherwise the other guy's been in jail for 18 months and he can't say I've been a good citizen. So it's like, Hey, you're in there. Let's make a deal. I need this much more time. We'll call it a wash.
Peter King (00:37:23):
a and aren't the, aren't the attorneys turning over all the time too. I mean, you get different representation. You get people that donut, you know, you pour your heart out to somebody and say, this is what's actually going on. This is my circumstance. And then they start to fight for you, but then they, you know, get hired away or whatever, and then somebody else comes.
Andre Norman (00:37:40):
in front of his office. It's a crap shoot. You wrote a dice, you get someone who really cares. It's really enthused and kids about your case. But if I'm the public defender, I'm overwhelmed, I'm overworked and I'm underpaid. And then after a while, then you're going to the public defendant is fighting the machine and public defendant's fighting the machine and it's horrible and it's hard for them, so they get burnt out fast. They get ground up fast, so you got 50 cases you're trying to give you. You can't give you all the 50 cases. We can't give you all the 70 cases. You can't give you all the 20 cases. You go to any top law firm. If anybody of substance walked into a law firm and said, listen, I'm going to hire you in a number one law firm mistake represent me. That person says, sure, I'll take your case, but I got 30 other cases with it. I'm working at the same time. You're going to walk out the door. You will walk right out the door. You're going to hit on my case and 30 other cases the same time. You can't focus on me or at least four of us. None of you. You own 30 more than they might give me 10 more in the process, you know going to take their lawyer. Right. It's just, it's just not a good deal. But that's what we're faced with. And then you have the defendant guilty or not. You have an uneducated person walking into a system where everybody's educated and educated in the law and there they were lost. They lost before they walked in. They can barely read, let alone legal, legal jogging. So you're in a system that you don't understand being governed by people that you don't know locked up in prison that you can't really get a fair shot at. And it says all bad. It can be better, but it's just not, nobody's trying collectively to make the system better. I've seen people held in jail for 30 40 days cause they owe $50 fine. Well the cost to hold somebody for 30 days is drastically more than the $50 fine that he was facing.
Peter King (00:39:40):
Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me at all.
Andre Norman (00:39:43):
It makes sense. If the system is designed to hold you. So in the city where I live, I grew up in Boston. The police will go out in the summertime and ride around in cars or bikes. Notice, pull up on. People will start viewing the street and you have given them your name, your ID, and produced some kind of ID. They'll take your name. They're right in the system. You are officially in the polices. They just ride around the neighborhoods and tag people. It's one of the spot check. They literally ride around the neighborhood in spot-check. They'll see 10 kids on the corner, pull up everybody gonna produce ID they arrive the streets. He 10 more kids. Everybody was blue, his ID and then they go home. They go back to the station. They said, we found these 10 kids on main street, put their name in these kids on these 10 kids. These same kids now let somebody get shot or main street. Those nine guys will be pulled in. Those nine guys are going to get a visit just because you're sitting in front of your house and the police come around the corner. They have the right to stop. They don't do that in the suburbs. Right. They don't ride around on bikes and just pull people over and this demanded identification. If you don't have it, they can take you to jail. They don't do, we are policed. We're not in the inner cities. We're more like we're being policed in a sense of when, that they're not here to protect us, they hit him, protect the community around us from us.
Peter King (00:41:06):
Right? You feel targeted. You feel like a.
Andre Norman (00:41:09):
targeted, it's just like, listen what the bad guys. And that's calls back to the United States of America versus Andre Norman and the mindset. Now there's conditions that lead to that. There are circumstances that produced that. But as an 18 year old kid, I'm not looking at the nuances and the details are no age. My go outside, I got 20 cops in my face talking about, give me your ID.
Peter King (00:41:30):
Right. What I'm hearing from you right now is like, I'm getting a, a representation of The hopelessness, the frustration, the the psychological conditioning of the reality of a lot of inner city kids that are growing up without fathers abuse possibly possible drug addictions or there's drugs around you and you have a, a force that's kind of looking at your every move or even just for no reason whatsoever saying, Hey, you gotta you're guilty until proven innocent instead of innocent
Andre Norman (00:42:00):
Until proven innocent in the back end of the scenario. Look, cops have to do their jobs. Cool. So let's say it happened to my son. The car shot up on my son. They wanted his ID and he comes home. He's going to tell me because I'm dad, I'm going to have the conversation with them. I'm going to explain to them the situation. I might even take them out to the police station. I can do some stuff to show them that the cops aren't against him per se. They're not targeting him that is doing their job. And this is the type of neighborhood we live in, unfortunately. But there's nobody for these kids to go home to that can explain anything. They just have to, they have to figure it out for themselves. So you've got a group of 17 year old kids on the corner or 14 year olds trying to process the police system. Now there's a system and a reason for the system, but the 14 year old kid doesn't process the system or the wise all he knows is what he's feeling now. He could go home to dad and dad can explain to him the system and how to deal with it, how to confront it and he might take them to some events. It's like the power leagues, it's all kinds of ways. They have positive interaction with the cops. But the 14 year old kid doesn't have access to that. All he knows is I'm being harassed. All he knows is I'm being targeted now. I work with police and I work with criminal justice specialist all the time. So I see them now at 52 drastically different than my, I saw them when I was 14 because all I saw was a guy with a gun on his hip saying, gimme your ID and you better not run.
Peter King (00:43:25):
what do you see now?
Andre Norman (00:43:27):
Now I see people who have to be law enforcement who do care and want to make a difference and they're going, I see programs in existence now and things police do that I'd never thought was humanly possible when I was 14 I used to think the police woke up for the sole purpose of harassing me. Now I see cops, I see DA's, I see judges. I see solicitors and trying to actually make a difference. But as a 14 year old kid, the district attorney in your neighborhood is trying to make a difference. You don't engage the judge who's really trying to go out of their way to make a difference. You have no knowledge though. All you know is what comes to your doorstep and that's the cop with the gun demanding your ID. So I couldn't see what I see now because I was stuck in that neighborhood and I can only see what was in front of me. There were tons of people in criminal justice trying to do great things for my life, but I didn't know they existed
Peter King (00:44:22):
Because in the same way they have, they have their own sense of the machine that they're up against and the bullshit of the legal system and the red tape that they have to get through. And you know, I, I mean, I have friends that are cops that, that went in with all the, the, the intention of, you know putting the right guys behind bars, but really there to serve and help uplift people as well. And they're like, did the paperwork that they have to do the endless, the politics that they have to face the corruption in their own. You know, and I don't mean widespread, but just the, just the politics alone. And not even if it's based in corruption, but just, you don't know the right people quotas. You got to have to, you have to, you know, it's like,
Andre Norman (00:45:08):
it's just a tough, it's a tough, it's a tough business.
Peter King (00:45:10):
Yeah. it's a little, it's a little mind numbing.
Andre Norman (00:45:16):
Know the baseline is the 14 year old kid who was left in the school. No sandwiches, no hugs, no coach. I'm an MBA. If you're athletically gifted, people swarm to you. If you academically gifted people swarm to you. If you're just a kid who was a twin on, you're not really athletic. You're not really super smart. You're just a regular kid. You're in trouble. I have a best friend that I met when I was in junior high school, junior in high school. Her name is Morgan. She's from Miami. We met on a trip, I would say were identical as far as our attitudes, our personalities, everything. We became best friends. She was actually like my best friend for life. The difference was her parents were rich, so her father would write a check and send her to private school. So she went to private school since day one all the way through to high school all the way through the college. So the stuff that he wasn't doing, the headmaster was doing, the counselors were doing it, the teachers were doing, they had people on staff to do, so she got all, she didn't get the emotional stuff, but she got everything else that she needed to be successful. So we had the same emotional problems. But she had the academics and the support and at school that walked her through despite her emotional problems. So my emotional problems are the same exact as hers except for I went to a horrible school that didn't have the ability to do the wraparound services to walk me through, cause nobody's writing a check at that level. So my son goes to private school. And he has all the rock ground services he needs. And then some, if he has a bad day, he's going to get through high school, he's going to get into college. And he's just, because the system is geared for him to do that cause I'm writing a check.
Peter King (00:46:58):
What would you say to the person who says, Hey, it's, you know, I, you were dealt the hand that you were dealt. I was dealt the hand that I was dealt. Yes. I grew up in a two parent home. Yes. my parents did well financially. Why is that my problem? How do I, I have my own problems that are, you know, w as your problems. No kid
Andre Norman (00:47:24):
Is not your problem as a 19 year old kid. It's not your problem. What I'm saying is we have a country where people are dying as a result of this not being fixed because at 16, 17, when this isn't being fixed, I'm not hurting somebody. So it's not your problem. Let's go to the Let's go to the person. Let's take the grandmother who lives down the street from me and her grandson is going to get murdered in three years because of the guy in juvie who's coming home, who hasn't had a dad, who hasn't had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, who hasn't had a hug in forever. This kid's going to come out of juvie at 15 and upset and he's going to see this kid whose grandmother's doing everything in the world for him and he's going to see the new press news he has in a new chain. He has these don't want to take it from when he tries to take it, he ends up killing them because the kid didn't want to give it to him. What do we say to that? Let's sit that grandmother on this call and that grandmother says, okay, people, it's not your problem, but I can tell you just because I've got a crystal ball that in three years the kids are going to come out of juvie. Who needs all these services? It's going to kill my grandson because he doesn't get them. Will you help me? Well, somebody helped me by helping this kid become a better person so he doesn't kill my grandson because I can't afford to move. I really don't want to move. I like my house, I like my neighborhood, but this kid is going to get out of juvie in three years and kill my grandson or a pair of sneakers. I bought them. How do we not, how do we not say to that lady, we will help help you.
Peter King (00:48:57):
I just got emotional when you said that, man, because that's what I keep hearing. Like, like the the people that I know that are, that are in a shitty situation, for lack of a better term. The energy that I sitting in my, my arm chair at home growing up here in this, there's, there is, there was that part of me that was like, Hey, I'd love to help. I want to help. How do I help? You know, I I start to step out and try to help. And then you get, you know, there's pressure like, Oh, you think just cause you're, you know, you're white and rich that you all of a sudden can help me, whatever. Like, so there's, there's push back there, there's pressure there to like, well, but okay, but find, but how do I help? Right. There's, there's that sense of hopelessness to try to help. There's also a part of, it's like, fuck it. Like that's not my problem. I don't know how to help. I can't help. I have my own shit that I'm dealing with. I have my own emotional issues. I have. My father wasn't around, even though we had money. Like I have my own psychological battles that I'm trying to fight. But the thing that really cut through to me was what you just said, which was, this isn't a sense of my interpretation of it growing up was often like a victim of circumstance as opposed to what I'm hearing now, what I connect to better more, which is what you just said, which is like, help me, help me. I'm, I'm dying. Literally, my family's dying. We don't have the resources. We don't have the connections. We don't have the education in some cases help us, help me. When I see black lives matter, that's what I hear. Like we're just saying, can you do what do I matter please to you as a human being? Can you please come and help me? I need help. That's the message that I hear that like evokes.
Andre Norman (00:50:54):
When I hear somebody say, well I'm this person who lives in another neighborhood. I got my own problems. What can I do? I'm this one person. Well this is the thing about suburban schools that I noticed. They work, they actually function well and they produce good kids who can read, write and count. So if you just brought the systems, the police in the suburbs work, it's not a lot of kids getting shot down. It's not a lot of kids hanging on the corner. It works. So can you bring the systems from the suburbs to the city? We don't need you to come and like adopt everybody but to school systems and my CVS works, right? MRI, CVS works. So can the people who fund all the private, that's a, you have to pay to go there. You know public school. Yeah, it works. Can we get the system from my CVS over to Roosevelt high school? Can we do some teacher trainings? Some exchange too. We don't need to do this.
Peter King (00:51:56):
Is it this? Is the system the cause though, or is that a symptom of something even more Fundamental? In The family unit, like we talked before, great.
Andre Norman (00:52:09):
There are, there's additional problems other than just a system, but I guarantee you if there's a rash of suicides at MICDS, they're going to come up with a solution. They have a rash of overdoses that MICDS senders motor solutions. Sure. Few years ago they had some racial issues with some people making videos. They came up with solutions. You know why? Because their system, the eco system is built to when problems come, we ever response, we figure it out and we keep it moving. Right. So they have a system that's set up for, there's a lot of single parent homes and they're MICDS, a lot of divorces. Now MICDS, a lot of people, parents are drinking wine over the top. And then MICDS is tons of drug usage, MICDS. But those kids managed to get through drug use, divorce, single-parent emotional described and a bunch of other stuff. They make it through high school, get to college. They still graduate like 99% of their kids somehow with all the same emotional baggage. So my thing is they figured out how to deal with kids, emotional baggage and get them through. Can we get that system? Yeah. Can we get a piece of that system? Can we even have a conversation about how that works?
Peter King (00:53:21):
I mean that system in that ecosystem, is it not just a collection of individuals and that and that at the beginning of the year, at the beginning of the day, doesn't it start with the individual to say, I demand a higher standard. I demand, you know, I got to fight through the adversity. I got to push through the bullshit. Yeah, like you did,
Andre Norman (00:53:46):
but I didn't do it. Involvement adult. I didn't do it when I was 14 15 I didn't know any 99% of what I know now. That's 14 hours.
Peter King (00:53:55):
If a whole generation did what you did and, and, and, and is having the experience, had the experience that you had and now is producing, you know, children of your own in a wildly different experience. We could solve it in one generation. W if we notice,
Andre Norman (00:54:15):
if the people who run the suburban towns and they run these systems at work, all the big companies got big cause if somebody came in showed them how to grow a company. So the baseline has to start as how do we want to fix it? I would say prison reform starts in elementary school doesn't start to depend attention, right? If you said, Andre, we can go to the prison and invest $100 million and probably make it a better people, we can go to the elementary school, invested $100 million and make sure that these kids go to jail, save the babies period. Prison reform starts at kindergarten. [inaudible] That's it. If you want to stop prison reform or keep prisons under control, stop people from going. Then once we stopped people from going, now let's fix who's there, who's coming home next. And what we've done in South Carolina is we've taken the most problematic, challenging people with teaching them to be leaders. So I have a unit, half of my unit is doing life sentences. They have horrendous crimes. They've been extremely problematic in and out of jail. And I'm checking, I'm taking them and I'm training them to be leaders. They're going to be in jail anyways. They know right from wrong. And they actually have a heart that has never been asked to show it. Yeah. They've never been given a chance to show it. So I know because I used to be them. If somebody gave me a chance to show my heart. Yeah. And then I realized why I can be a good guy. I can make a difference. I can't impact people in a positive way. And I started this while I was in prison in the last eight years of my sentence. I just kept doing it and kept doing it to the point. Now I've been home 20 years helping people all over the globe. But it's not, I didn't become a global international speaker because I said so. Right. Because when I was sitting in prison and nobody cared about me and the world was against me, just say to my garages, Andre, I did the dream that I could go to Harvard university. I did the thing that I can become a successful person. Where did that it came from hoping against hope and not caring about what society said anymore. You're, fuck yeah. Society told me I couldn't. My parents told me I couldn't or told me I couldn't. But I finally said, when I was in solitary confinement, NSL put a knife in my hand. I said, F this, I'm going to be successful. That's what I do. Now when I walk into this prison, I'm gonna leave him. When I get off this call, I'm going straight to a prison. I run a prison. I'm going, I'm in South Korea. I be in prison about an hour after this call is over. And I go in. I tell them when I was in solitary in the world, told me I couldn't. That's what this program is. Yeah. And that moment when you had that one thought against all odds, that's what this program is.
Peter King (00:56:59):
What was the lowest point that you experienced in prison and how did you, how did you get out of that culture and the conditioning and the influence of going down a path of hopelessness and despair?
Andre Norman (00:57:13):
In prison, I was in solitary confinement for two attempted murders. I just got convicted of in prison and I was a third ranking gang member in the state and my mother came and seen me in solitary confinement. Well, she came in, she said, Andre, how did you get in jail in jail? And she just couldn't understand what I was doing and who I'm becoming. And she looked at me and I was talking to gang talk. I'm talking to tough guy talk and I'm like, damn, moving up. I'm making stat. I was just talking crazy and she looked at me and she's, she started crying and she left and I'm thinking of something wrong with her. I'm like, I don't know what's wrong with her. I'm winning. In my mind I thought I was winning. I just tried to kill some people unlocked. I just got 10 years added to my sentence. I'm locked in a cell 24 hours a day. I got to see my mothers and chain would change on and I think I'm winning. You couldn't convince me at that moment. I wasn't willing. I thought it was some wrong with my mom. I so disappointed and crushed her that day that I didn't even see it. Right. It wasn't until I got my life together actually when ex asked my mother where I'm at, all my son's in South Clara prison trying to teach people how to do and be better. It was yesterday, he was in St. Louis trying to help a company make a turn around and do some outreach. What was he last week or who's out in California at a youth center talking to some kids. Where's it going to be next week? He's gonna be down in Miami running a seminar. Never given one mother. Be embarrassed to say my name whenever she cry because her son is gone. Crazy.
Peter King (00:58:42):
When did you realize that those were not tears? Cause she had her own issues, but it was because she.
Andre Norman (00:58:47):
was a few years later in a moment I thought, Oh my mom's bugging. Oh she don't get she. I said, she don't get it. I really thought that she doesn't get it.
Peter King (00:58:57):
Oh man. What a, what an image. So it was not until a couple of years later was it just because, did you just get fed up with the whole point? You every,
Andre Norman (00:59:09):
everybody in prison and everybody in life has their epiphany moment. There are people right now working in a company, never been in prison, never go to prison and they hate their job and they're going to wake up one day and say, I this job, n****s I want to do something different. Then they get up and go back to work. There are some people in abusive relationships right now. They see, I hate this relationship and they'll get off the call with their friends, go right back to the relationship. There's some people who drink too much. They'll say, I'm never going to drink again. I'm done drinking. I know it's so good for me. I'm treating myself horrible and I'll go right to the bar. You have that epiphany moment. Then there's nothing to back it up. When I had my epiphany moment, luckily for me, a school teacher came into my life and helped me back to up a GED teacher and she, she believed, I said I wanted to do this and she believed in me. I said, I want to go to Harvard. And she said, sure. So I was like, great idea to me and she helped me get my GED. We sat together for three or four months. I got my GED going towards that goal. Normally if people surrounding you want the old you, they want the drinker, they want the party animal, they want the liar, they want the pressure show up and be miserable in the next booth from them or the next cubicle. Nobody really wants you to be better off cause it means that they can be better off. So there's a term misery loves company. When I had my epiphany, I was able to actually start building momentum towards it and I just kept going. I said, listen, I'm just going to keep going and it's been 28 years. I'm still going.
Peter King (01:00:38):
Hell yeah. So you left, you left you got out of prison. What was that like walking out after all those years?
Andre Norman (01:00:45):
It was scary. It was scary or coming out. Then going in. I came home, I mean eight Tim's are talking to you. There was cell phones. The internet had just come out. The white people jogging into the hood. I mean, why? What is this? How the hell? I'm like, yo, this is not what's happening. When I left, they were like, well, I live white folks won't come around now they live next door to me. It's, I'm going to keep the music down right on the sidewalk buddy. Put it on the curb, take it off on the curb watertight. Not anymore. That's just how the world was different and it was mad. How about this? This is crazy. There was no ATM cards. No went to prison.
Andre Norman (01:01:32):
The the, the contrast of that and just what it was it a decade, 12 12 years? Did you say 14 years? There was no ATM. Card at the prison. Wow. Somebody who went to prison in 2000, 1999 December, they go to prison. There was no internet. AOL. Dot. AOL dial up hadn't even come out yet.
Peter King (01:01:53):
Dude, that's, that's a ho. You know, it's hard to think of all the chains that we've been through cause we, it's.
Andre Norman (01:01:59):
no, no, no. AOL dial up, dial up came out in 2000 did not exist. When I first first came home. You such a title, H T T P. Dot. Doc backs. It was like three websites in the whole world. When I came home I might yell like, Hey man, what's this? I don't know. There was nothing. It ain't we the guy, my house was a computer dude and I was in a program and he, it was like three websites for the whole world. That's what the world was. Right. And you got out of jail in 2000 right? There was no internet, no ATM cards, no driving cars, no electric cars. You can just keep going down the list. Go down the list. No smartphones. You were saying just keep going. No, no desktop computers. No FaceTime, no, no. None of this stuff. Not in some ways for the walk out of prison next month, who's been locked up for 19 years and to a whole nother planet.
Peter King (01:03:03):
Oh damn. That's wild. That's wild to think about. So if we could just shift a little bit into the work that you're doing now the leadership development. What are some of the principles that you're teaching? Let's start with that.
Andre Norman (01:03:20):
I teach men that they have to be men. Let's go back to the baseline. Yeah. And they have to be men. Men have to be fathers. Men have to be protectors. Men have to be teachers. They have to be hunters. Not all beat up, but have knowledge and have a better life. So the entrepreneurial, I use the entrepreneurship spirit because entrepreneurs get stuff done. They create stuff that doesn't exist. They find a way to get it done at their own sacrifice. So I teach entrepreneurship training and skillsets to help these men become better people.
Peter King (01:03:49):
Is it, is it inaccurate to say that a lot of the, if I was, if I was born in a different situation, like I could easily see myself in jail because the system that I was born into as cushiony and patted as it was, I still was frustrated with it. Like I still didn't feel seen. I still didn't feel,
Andre Norman (01:04:10):
Oh, you go to jail from your situation if your parents didn't want to pay your bail.
Peter King (01:04:13):
Very true. Very true. I mean, I've, I've, that's not to say that I wouldn't, but is, is it inaccurate to say that there's a lot of inmates that have that entrepreneurial spirit that are willing to, to go there, to blaze their own trail and.
Andre Norman (01:04:27):
Great businessmen is wrong business is what we always say. So great businessman.
Peter King (01:04:35):
Yeah. are you a w w what's, what's, if you could share, like what's a good case study of somebody that you've helped and, and the transformation that they've made to give people a sense of the impact that your work is doing?
Andre Norman (01:04:53):
Okay. Well, we'll go back to Ferguson. Michael Brown jr died. And as a result, black lives matter protests, a lot of things happened and we came and we did work in Ferguson. We help get people on the same page and move forward. And it's been a few years now, six years. And the one thing that's been constant that has not changed is Michael Brown Sr still doesn't have his son. I forget who you blame. Forget if who was right or wrong. At the end of the day that father is without us regardless who's to blame and he has to deal with that. And every day he wakes up, his son is gone. And when he wakes up, now the world is screaming. Black lives matter. Michael Brown jr. They don't know that man. And let me know when I watch movies and I see quotes in people say black lives matter, Michael Brown jr I'll see rappers, Michael Brown jr black lives matter Ferguson. Everybody has commentary on what's going on in Ferguson and what's going on in his life, who don't even know. He's just became a slogan like half coconut smiles. Like really nobody knows this guy. And he deals with his pain every day to his name and his son, his name is just being flung around like water, like nothing. And the world is this going on around, I mean it's like he's still stuck. I've been mentoring Michael for three years now and I've helped him create himself to be a forgiveness coach. So he actually came to South Carolina for three months and he created a course on forgiveness.
Peter King (01:06:26):
Wow. Wow.
Andre Norman (01:06:27):
So Michael Brown sr is not just an angry man who's upset and disgruntled. He's learned to channel his situation into something that's way more powerful than people thought was possible. He is the ultimate forgiveness coach, right? And that's just one thing we've been able to do in the last 20 years. I had to just pick one. And because you're in St. Louis, I use that one. So Michael Brown, senior forgiveness coach. If you have any scenario where you were dealing with forgiveness or the lack there of, you need someone to come into a workshop or facilitate something. Michael Brown senior can come in and do workshops and trainings on forgiveness. Who better?
Peter King (01:07:08):
I love that. I'm looking at your shirt. For those who can't see it, it says purposed, chosen, blessed, saved, loved. I am that one. What's the meaning behind that?
Andre Norman (01:07:18):
There's a pastor, he's an associate pastor for Lakewood church and Houston, Joel Olsten's church. His name is pastor John Gray, and he's come up to the prison and he's done workshops with the guys and he came, he's like, listen man, I just want to come serve. And this is actually one of his shirts that I got from his, from his church. So we had Stedman Graham come in from Chicago a few times. Talk to the guys. We've had pastor John Gray come in from me from his, from in trouble. [inaudible] Name his church row. Oh, I cannot get them in this church. Why is it like slip my mind? I got Ooh,
Peter King (01:08:01):
get it to me and I'll make sure we'll get it on the,
Andre Norman (01:08:06):
I'm bugging right now. And also the are, how are we doing on time? We relentless church in Greenville, South Carolina, but he's associate pastor for Lakewood down in and for Joel [inaudible]. He comes up, we've had a lot of people come in and just share and build with the guys. Yeah. We had people come from Detroit. We had a brother flying from Utah. The Mormon delegation came in last week and just shared some information. You can't, it's too hard to give out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but we can definitely give out good information.
Peter King (01:08:53):
Yeah. well man, I, I want to be respectful of your time. I know you got a lot of work to do today you're heading down to the prison. But it's been a real pleasure and an honor to speak with you. I would love to keep this conversation going.
Andre Norman (01:09:09):
And let's do part 2.
Peter King (01:09:11):
Let yeah, for sure. Let's do a part two and, and maybe we can do it, you know, in person next time if you're in St. Louis. But thank you again for your time, Andre. This has been very enlightening. Thank you.
Andre Norman (01:09:23):
Yeah, well, again, I appreciate them and I said my book will be out in January, so hopefully they'll get it and follow up. Let's go to my website and pre-ordered a book and life is good. And what the whole story,
Peter King (01:09:35):
the the name of the book.
Andre Norman (01:09:37):
Oh, okay. I mean, excuse me, I'm, I'm lost today. Ambassador hope. Turn poverty and prison into a purpose driven life. I love that.
Peter King (01:09:47):
A and your website?
Andre Norman (01:09:49):
Andrenorman.com.
Peter King (01:09:51):
Andrenorman.com. Beautiful man. Thank you again so much. All right.
Andre Norman (01:09:56):
All right.
Peter King (01:09:57):
Take care.

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