58: Jason Flom | Why Criminal Justice Reform Matters to the Innocent

Transcript for Jason Flom - Why Criminal Reform Justice Matters to the Innocent (Episode 58)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer Jason DeFillippo. Today's discussion is with my friend Jason Flom. He is a music industry executive, to say the least. He's the CEO of Lava Records, but he's been the chairman and CEO of Atlantic, Virgin, Capitol music. He founded Lava records himself. He's a philanthropist who supported and championed a lot of causes and hosts the Wrongful Conviction podcast as well. And today, we're a little bit of…a dive into both the music industry and into the prison system. We're going to learn how one stays relevant in an industry. Well, the music industry, which is always asking, what have you done for me lately? We'll explore the role relationships play at the top of the music game, one of the most competitive industries on the planet, and we'll discover what we can learn from the wrongfully convicted and why many of us are.

[00:00:51] But for the grace of good fortune, just a hair away from a similar fate. Don't forget, we have a worksheet for today's episode so you can make sure you got all the takeaways and the practicals. That's in the show notes at JordanHarbinger.com/podcast and the fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode and the worksheets are how we make sure of that. All right. Here's Jason Flom. I looked you up on Instagram earlier when I was getting coffee and I saw this was your profile photo -- this bulldog.

Jason Flom: [00:01:21] Well, yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because I love to blog my Instagram. It's a very important outlet for me and it gives me a chance to talk about a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today. So my Instagram is, @itsjasonflom, @itsjasonflom, but yes, my book. I'm so excited, Jordan, because my book is coming out on Father's Day. It's available for pre-order now on Amazon and Barnes and noble.com and my book is called Lulu is a Rhinoceros. Lulu is my bulldog, but Lulu is actually not a bulldog. She's the rhinoceros trapped in a bulldog’s body. The cover is her looking in the mirror, Lulu looking in the mirror and the rhinoceros looking back at her. So she goes around trying to get anyone to believe her that her identity is, you know, a rhinoceros.

[00:02:04] Yeah. But in fact that doesn't work because everybody meaning -- everybody, meaning the other animals, or human, et cetera, are unwilling to accept her as anything other than what her physical appearance defines her as, which is a short, fuzzy, you know, little creature with no tail. As she says, you know, what I see when I look in the mirror is a tail that whips in swirls. But what I really have is a little nub that wiggles when I'm happy, you know. So it's a fun adventure that I think is going to help give kids some important lessons about tolerance. And there's a strong anti-bullying message as well and it's a lot of fun.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:42] What prompted you to write a book about this. Look, you're in the music business, but also you do The Innocence Project, now, this type of thing. You're a magnet for causes.

Jason Flom: [00:02:53] For my pretty much my entire adult life, I've been able to find an outlet for my lifelong need to help the underdog. But I've always rooted for underdogs. I always said, whether it's sports teams or whatever, I'm always that guy. And you know, I've taught my kids as well, that you know, if they ever see someone being bullied, I don't expect themselves to necessarily put themselves in harm's way. But I expect them to be on the right side of that and to, you know, provide comfort or solace or support in whatever way. And they've grown up that way. So it's really very gratifying to me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:27] How do you build strong kids that are willing to go, “Hey look, this isn't right”, and I'm going to be nice to this person because I remember when other kids would bully kids that I was around, it was really hard not to just join in. In fact, sometimes it was so hard not to join in that you find yourself doing it. And I still feel bad about this. I mean, this is stuff that happened 25 to 30 years ago that I still feel bad about. You know, so I wish I'd known back then that I would still feel bad about it three decades later.

Jason Flom: [00:03:56] Isn't that an interesting thing that you just said too, right, because it has probably a more profound effect on you than on whoever was bullied. But we don't know that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:05] I hope he doesn't remember it. I hope he doesn't care.

Jason Flom: [00:04:07] I hope so too. I mean, it's a painful thing for me. My brother was a victim of terrible bullying when I was a kid and he was my older brother. We went to different schools and I'm still haunted by the fact that I couldn't do more to protect him. I couldn't do anything to protect him. And you know, he was different and kids are…they're not accepting of people who are different by and large. And so it's a really, you know, it's a troubling thing. There's a lot of troubling things in the world, but bullying is something that is personal to me because of the experience I had with my brother.

[00:04:37] Of course, I mean, everyone's bullied at some point, right? I've even had experiences in my adult life, like when I started playing ice hockey and like, you know, I still remember an incident on the rink that was just I was like, really? Like, I mean, we're adults and you're going to like, yeah. It's like, and it bugged me for a while, you know? And I'm like-

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:53] That's bizarre.

Jason Flom: [00:04:54] Yeah. I mean, it wasn't a physical fight. So like I said, I mean for me, it comes down to helping the oppressed in general and anyone who is down on their luck, I think it's our responsibility to lift them up. And, you know, all the stuff I do, Jordan, falls under what I call selfish altruism, right? I mean, it makes me feel good. Almost all altruism. Maybe all altruism is selfish, right?

[00:05:22] I mean, if someone's going and building a house with some group that they work with, Habitat for Humanity, whatever it is, that's great. And it's okay to be proud of it. You know, like it's fine that that makes you feel good. And I think it's okay to talk about it too, because maybe you'll inspire other people to want to do stuff like that. But, you know, I'm fervently irreligious, but I definitely believe that we are our brother's keeper and I think the same applies to animals. And so I have a love for animals and you know, right now, ironically, rhinoceri, rhinoceroses -- I don't even know which one it is.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:54] I know, I am not sure either.

Jason Flom: [00:05:55] Maybe both are correct. You know, they were more or less invulnerable until humans came along and because of Eastern superstitions. Rhinoceri are now on the verge of extinction. They're basically dinosaurs, right? I mean, they've never evolved for 50 million years the way I understand it, because they don't need to. Who's going to mess with a rhino? I mean…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:14] Poachers, man. People who want erections or something in China.

Jason Flom: [00:06:19] Right. But you know, the crazy thing is, and this is an important message for everyone who's listening, although I don't think anyone here and probably, I mean unless you have listeners in Asia, but…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:26] I do but I hope they’re not scraping rhino horn off.

Jason Flom: [00:06:30] Yeah. Well it is made of the same stuff as your fingernails. I mean, it's keratin, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:34] You can cut off your fingernail.

Jason Flom: [00:06:35] Cut off your fingernail, snort it up, do whatever the hell you want to do, right? Just save your clippings. I mean, and just understand that it has zero medicinal value. It's just a horn and it's so sad. I've been to Africa twice now and I work with an organization called VETPAW, which is Veterans Empowered To Protect African Wildlife, and they're doing, I think, transformative work in terms of training the African Rangers in US military tactics using counter intelligence techniques that they learned, that we paid for as taxpayers, to infiltrate these poaching rings and arrest these guys and put them behind bars where they belong and in the process, hopefully save a species or more than one because they'd protect other animals as well.

[00:07:15] Yeah, elephants, pangolins and things like that. But their focus is the rhino because the rhinos are critically endangered and it's also providing meaningful employment for our veterans, which is something that we don't do enough. You know, it's crazy by the way, we're getting off track here, but to get back to the book, because that's why the rhino was the logical symbol for me in the book, because I feel a very…they’re like my spirit animal. But it's interesting, I had this conversation with my son the other day who actually taught an ethics class at his school. So he's like, you know, he's grown up around me and all my causes and stuff like that. And I'm very proud of him, his name is Mike.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:50] How old is he?

Jason Flom: [00:07:51] He's 18. But he said to me, “Dad, you know, if all the things in society that are unacceptable,” he's like, “the one that just so far off the wall to me is homeless veterans.” He's like, “How do we have homeless veterans?” He's like, “That's just not okay in any way, shape or form. It should be so abhorrent to us as a concept. Like what are, I mean, who are we that we allow that to be the case? These are the people we should be honoring. And again, lifting up, these were our heroes that are now we're stepping over them on the street? Like there should be a support system that's like iron clad that doesn't allow…” And of course then I said to him, and you know what's even worse than that is that the crazy numbers of US military veterans who are in prison in America because of non-violent drug crimes, right? They'd come back, “Wow, you got addicted. Well, no wonder you got PTSD.” And we're going to put you in prison. No, no, we're going to give you counseling. We're going to help you in any way you need it. We're going to send you to rehab, not prison. Oh my God. Then there's no consideration given to them for their service. I don't understand what country we live in anymore.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:09] Well, how do you influence someone to care? I mean your own kids, you have, maybe it's easy to argue, “Well, they grew up with me so they saw me caring about other people.” But how do you even persuade or influence other people around you to care about things like that?

Jason Flom: [00:09:21] That's a question that I've, you know, been trying to address and hopefully I will move the needle a bit and we'll talk about my podcast and I think that is moving the needle on the criminal justice side, which is so important to me. But with the book, back to Lulu Is A Rhinoceros, you know, with her, I think we're going to have an impact because when people read this book, and I've seen it anecdotally already with friends of mine’s children or even adults and I'll stop people on the street and read them the damn book because I love it so much. I'm so proud of it. And I think it is going to have an impact and hopefully they'll prevent bullying incidents and it'll prevent the next Jordan Harbinger from having to have this conversation 30 years ago with me or their shrink or whoever they go to see and say, “No, I still feel bad about this bullying incident.”

[00:10:04] Bullying comes from insecurity, right? And I taught my kids that as well, right? It's because the person, the bully themselves, is very uncomfortable and insecure and they don't like themselves in some way. So they take that out on somebody else who they can victimize, who they feel, and it makes them feel in some very temporary, shallow way, superior or something. But in fact, they're making themselves miserable. So hopefully, of course it's a lofty goal and I recognize that. But if the book catches on, then I know it will have impact on both prevention and cure. It will help kids who have been victimized by these syndromes, these mass societal maladies we have of intolerance and bullying to give them some comfort in knowing that you know, they're not alone and at the same time, ideally it'll help prevent future incidents because of the fact that the message is clear.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:11] So these values have to be instilled early on and that seems clear, but it seems hard to repair the damage and going to what you're doing now at The Innocence Project, you're looking at, I don't even know if you could say, repairing the damage. We're looking at the end-result of a lot of things going wrong in a lot of people's lives and then being played out through the criminal justice system. We'll get into that in a bit because I'm familiar with The Innocence Project and have been for a long time, but I do want to get into a little bit of your story because you have an unusual kind of beginning, or maybe it is the usual beginning for a record executive, I actually don't even know. It sounds like you had lofty aspirations as a teenager to get into music. Mom wasn't so supportive.

Jason Flom: [00:11:41] Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, I had a lot more chutzpah than talent, you know, and so what I lacked in talent I made up for in ambition and I was an expert at smoking weed and I practiced a lot.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:11:56] You practiced a lot of smoking weed or music?

Jason Flom: [00:11:59] Well, they went together, you know, and as they do. And so I grew my hair. I mean, my hair was so long and so thick that I actually couldn't see in the summer. If I forgot to bring a rubber band, it was full like, it was a helmet of hair and smoke that I'd lived in underneath. And so it was quite a spectacle, but I wanted to make it as a rock star. I I was not interested in school. In a famous incident, my dad, who was a legendary corporate lawyer, Joe Flom, which is a good story too, because he was the son of immigrants who grew up so poor that when he was a kid, he and his sister Flo, which is odd, right? Her name was Flo Flom. Yeah. They were immigrant. They didn't speak English. Like I said, her name was Florence, but she went by Flo.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:12:43] Speaking of bullying.

Jason Flom: [00:12:44] She was [indiscernible]. So anyway, so they and their parents moved every month because in those days in Brooklyn, there were landlords who would give you your first month's rent for free just to get you in. And so they were almost nomadic in New York. But anyway, so he grew up very, very poor. But he ultimately became a huge success and in corporate law. And so after I announced that I didn't want to go to college, he came to my room to have a little father-son talk, you know, he come to my room very often.

[00:13:15] And so he gave me a year to become a rock star, or else I had to go to college.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:20] That’s very understanding.

Jason Flom: [00:13:21] I thought that was more than I needed. I'm like a whole year out and, I'm already playing in clubs like, “Yeah, sure. Right. Yeah. Okay.” And then, I thought I was out negotiating arguably the greatest negotiator of the 20th century. But anyway, he went back to tell my mom and my mom vetoed the deal. My mom had never cursed in her life until this point.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:36] So he had to un-negotiate the deal that he had just negotiated with his own kid.

Jason Flom: [00:13:42] So after my mom told him that if I was going to live in her house, I had to work and go to school, he had to come back and exactly, undo the deal he had just done with his fucked up son. I don't know if I can say that on the air here, but yeah. So –

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:55] Humbling experience for a guy who's used to pulled one over on corporation, billion dollar corporations.

Jason Flom: [00:14:02] Well, isn't that the case though too, right? I mean, no matter who you are, if you're married, you may be the boss at work, but at home, you're probably not.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:14] Your mom had a different idea of what you were definitely going to do.

Jason Flom: [00:14:18] I could actually hear the married men who listened to your podcast nodding right now. I can feel it. Even though which is odd because they haven't heard it yet because we're not just recording now, but I can, you know, I'm getting that like energetic.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:28] It’s rippling throughout the time space continuum.

Jason Flom: [00:14:30] Yeah. I feel a lot of empathy coming our way. But anyway, so or understanding whatever it is, I ended up getting a trainee field merchandiser position at Atlantic Records.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:40] What does that really mean?

Jason Flom: [00:14:41] So basically, I showed up on July 31^st, hottest day of the year -- one of them. They handed me a staple gun, some double sided tape and a roll of Led Zeppelin poster. And said, “Here kid, go to this list of record stores.” And those days there were record stores.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:55] Right, I do remember those? I'm 38, so we had those.

Jason Flom: [00:14:58] Well if anyone's in their 50s or late forties, you'll remember Disc-o-mat, and Korvettes and King Karol, they'd all these stores around New York, Sam Goody. And I would go around to these stores and hang up these posters. It wasn't just Led Zeppelin poster, but I was pretty happy that it was Led Zeppelin posters, and I just thought this was the greatest job in the world. $4 an hour plus free records. All I wanted.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:21] Free records?

Jason Flom: [00:15:22] Free records. They just layered around everywhere and just take them home, which is fantastic.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:25] Oh, okay. So it wasn't really a legit perk, it was just kind of like…

Jason Flom: [00:15:29] Oh no, it was legit. Literally, nobody cared. I mean, yeah, they're called promos and they were there for the taking. Like literally, you know, it wasn't like I had to sneak them out the back, it was fine. You take them home. And so, I just was like, this has happened. I forgot relatively quickly about playing the guitar.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:48] This episode is sponsored in part by Panacea. Skincare stuff, right? Not something you'd probably thought you'd hear about on the show ever, but we have a new sponsor. I wanted to tell you about Panacea because at first I thought, “I don't know, this is a weird fit. I'm not really sure what I'm doing. I don't know much about skincare.” Most of us, especially guys, we don't have a routine. I know plenty of women listening to this show too, of course. And plenty of guys probably do have skincare stuff going on. I didn't and Panacea created this three-step essentials kit and they sent it to me and it's for women and men by the way. They cleanse, replenish and protect your skin and the skincare stuff for me as a guy, I don't know about you, Jason. I'm always just kind of like, what do I do?

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Jason DeFillippo: [00:17:24] Yeah, I've got notoriously difficult skin. I'm sure you've seen it with me when we're hanging out. Sometimes my forehead's all broken out because I'm trying to find something that actually works for me and when we got this stuff, I tried it for a week and I don't know what they did, but man, it works perfectly. I am a lifelong fan of these guys now, so definitely check this out. If you've had difficult skin or you just want a really nice feel like by the end of the day it’s like I'm touching my face, I'm like, “Wow, man, this just feels really nice.” So I really recommend this stuff and especially if you have really difficult oily or stressed out skin or dried out skin, this stuff really works well. I can't recommend it enough.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:17] Oh by the way, if you go to jordanharbinger.com/course and you click on Six-Minute Networking, that's our networking mini-course. So what I put in there are drills, exercises, ways to reach out to other people, create and maintain relationships. The systems I use, the little drills I use in just a few minutes a week to keep in touch with hundreds slash thousands of people and I threw that together in a little course for you all. I want everybody to have it because if I'd had it 10, 15 years ago, who knows where things would be now. This is one of the life changing, game changing things that I'd really implemented over the past half decade or so that have made a huge difference. Jordanharbinger.com/course. It is free by the way, just in case that wasn't clear. Jordanharbinger.com/course and that'll be linked up in the show notes of course as well. Wait, so you didn't even, you eventually just stopped caring about the performance of music and you went, “Oh, I'm in the music business”, that your ambition just made a switch like that?

Jason Flom: [00:20:14] So my dad had told my brother and I something very impactful when we were kids. He said, because people ask me all the time, “Jason, why didn't you become a lawyer and follow your dad's footsteps?” So the answer can be found in this very simple lesson that he taught us, which I've passed onto my kids, which is he said, “Do whatever you want to do. Try to be the best at it, but just make the world a better place. If you do that, you'll be a success in my eyes.” So I was like, “Okay dad.” So I realized around this time, this was around the time the first Van Halen record came out and I heard that and I was like, “Fuck it.” There's just no point, right? I might as well try to dunk a basketball with my four inch Jewish vertical leap. It's just not happening.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:20:54] Although David Lee Roth – Jewish.

Jason Flom: [00:20:55] Yeah. Like, but you can't take a basketball either, I can virtually guarantee you that. But anyways.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:00] Not now, especially. Not in these leather jumpsuits.

Jason Flom: [00:21:04] I don't think he was, yeah, in his platform shoes. But anyway, I realized all at once that I was never going to be the best at that, but I might be able to be the best at this. So I decided I was going to put all my eggs in this basket and off I went. And then it was a question of trying to figure out how I was going to get a job in the A&R department because that's what I really want.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:25] A & R? Can you tell us what that is? For those of us that don't know.

Jason Flom: [00:21:28] So A&R technically stands for artists and repertoire. It's sort of an antiquated, a phrase that goes back to the early days in the music business when it was, you know, you'd have to go and find the song’s writers. Now most of them write their songs, but it's still a thing. But basically it means, sort of, it's another word for talent scout.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:45] So you're recruiting?

Jason Flom: [00:21:47] You're out there looking for talent. And that sounded to me like that part of the business that I wanted to be in. And I think most people when they think about the music business, that sounds like the glamour position, because everyone thinks they have good tastes in music, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:57] Maybe, but it also sounds like going to high school basketball games, looking for the next LeBron James.

Jason Flom: [00:22:02] It is. Yeah. I mean, it's tough. And nobody bats 400. I mean, it's like, you know, there's a million, billion stories in any of the whatever you want to call it, creative fields, right? Of people who have passed on the biggest books, the biggest movies, you know, the famous Fred Astaire story, right? When he went to the talent scout who said, “You can't sing, can't dance, can act a little”, right? I mean, so, and if anybody remembers Fred Astaire, but you know, the biggest properties have been passed on by everybody. Okay. There's Harry Potter. Star Wars was dropped by Warner Brothers pictures. Yeah. I mean, and then, you know, The Beatles were passed on by most people. So you need a sort of a strong backbone because you get whacked around a lot in this business because you make mistakes a lot. And if you let that get to you, you'll be in the corner of a bar at 11 in the morning drinking.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:22:54] So how do you know when to stick to your guns? And when do you go, “You know what? Everyone hates this”, or did you just always stick to your guns and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't?

Jason Flom: [00:22:57] Well, funny enough, some of the biggest successes I've had have been ones that everybody either hated or didn't understand.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:09] I don't understand a lot of your picks, but I don't go, “I know a lot about music.” I don't know anything about music. But then I listened to somebody like Lorde, who everyone loves and I'm like, “I guess I get it, but I don't really get it”, you know, I know that she's talented as hell, but I don't feel it. But you feel it.

Jason Flom: [00:23:25] It's funny. I mean, Lorde is an interesting one because, you know, David Geffen, who to me is iconic as it gets, right? And now in not only music and entertainment business, I mean, the guy, like everything he touches turns to gold. It’s crazy.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:37] Yeah. It's crazy.

Jason Flom: [00:23:39] And I've had the chance to spend time with him and it's exciting just being with him because it's like playing tennis with somebody much better than you, right? He just elevates your game. But he described it as instinct because there's no school to go to for A & R. I mean, you can go to the Clive Davis School in NYU and learn the music business, but you can't learn A & R. You can't learn taste, right? So anyway, Lorde, when I first got an email, and I have it framed and autographed by her, I got an email from a woman that I knew named Natalia Romiszewski who was in the business. She worked at a jingle house. So she was in the music business, but not in like…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:22] for commercials and stuff?

Jason Flom: [00:24:24] Yeah. But she was somebody I knew, you know, just as friends and she would send me music time to time like a lot of people do.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:32] Yeah, I bet they do.

Jason Flom: [00:24:33] Yeah, of course. And I got an email from her one day and the subject line was “hot shit” and then it just said unsigned New Zealand female, listen.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:46] I feel like that's a very common subject line in your inbox though.

Jason Flom: [00:24: 49] That was the only time I've heard that exact phrase. So it had a little zip to.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:24:54] You got to hear this one. It’s probably this. Yeah.

Jason Flom: [00:24:57] And then she put at the bottom a little disclaimer that said, “Not sure if this is your type of thing, but you know, thought you should check it out.” Something like that, right? And I listened and the first song on there was Royals and I was like, “What in the world is going on here?”

[00:25:12] Like I felt like, I think, you know, like a building fell on me. I was like, “What the…I mean, this is crazy. It’s amazing!”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:18] Did she have viral appeal though? Was it like you go to, I don't even know, what did she have like a SoundCloud page or something?

Jason Flom: [00:25:24] She had. Exactly. You're sounding like a music business guy, right? It's like osmosis[00:25:27].

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:28] Maybe I do know more about this than, yeah.

Jason Flom: [00:25:30] So anyway, so she had only about 200 plays on her SoundCloud at this point. The music had…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:36] The whole song? Or that whole page?

Jason Flom: [00:25:41] I think it was the song, I don't even remember it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:42] Well, you discovered her when she was like literally a child.

Jason Flom: [00:25:45] She was 15. I think she was barely 15. And her music, she had only released it I think two days earlier, but that's the nature of music these days, right? In New Zealand, it had gone from New Zealand to… somebody heard it there and sent it to a friend in London, who sent it to Natalia, who sent it to me. This happened within 48 hours of her actually releasing the music and putting it up online and I heard it and lost my mind and so tracked her down on Facebook. Sent her a message. Next thing, I know I'm on the phone with her, her parents, her manager, a guy named Scott McLaughlin, whatever. And then, you know, the rest is history and the song, you know, it's so interesting because I think it’s stuffed energetically, right? And this is something that nobody talks about. I've never seen anybody talking about it, but it dawned on me, I don't know why. There must be some loose wires in my head. But anyway, what I find fascinating is that Royals was one of the biggest songs of the decade, right? Gigantic hit. Magic beyond.

[00:26:48] And she wrote it because she saw a picture of George Brett in a Royals uniform, which is odd in itself.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:55] Wait, a baseball uniform?

Jason Flom: [00:26:56] Yeah, which is odd because they don't have baseball in New Zealand, right? But there goes the internet, right? Whatever. So she saw this picture, she wrote the song. She since met George eventually, right? Which has got to be, I would've liked to be a fly on the wall for that meeting. But anyway, so the song comes out, becomes a global phenomenon, the biggest in America actually. And the next thing you know, the Royals go from being arguably the worst team in baseball to winning the world series. Like, I mean I think that year, the year it came out, they went to the world series and I think they lost and the next year they won. So for two years you could argue they were the best team in baseball. Why? Because of the song? I don’t know, it's kooky, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:34] That is a weird coincidence. If nothing else.

Jason Flom: [00:27:38] People, I'm sure are Googling now. Wait a minute, is that true? Maybe somebody's going to send me a note and go, “No, that was a year before the year after.” But as I recall that was what happened. And it's still, it's just interesting to me.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:49] But 200 plays on a song. This is the element of, I don't want to just say luck because that sort of demeans everything that she did to get to -- by the time she was on SoundCloud, like you said, she already had a manager and she was extremely talented and probably were a really hard worker, especially for a 15-year-old.

Jason Flom: [00:28:07] Well, you know, it's interesting they say that there's only three things that children can become geniuses at, which are music, math and chess. And yeah, I read that in Bobby Fischer's obituary. I was fascinated by it, so I'm fascinated by him too. But anyway, she's a genius. I mean she was a child prodigy. It's so interesting because when you listen to that album, Pure Heroin, it's just brilliant from start to finish. And I'm not because I had anything to do with it, but just, I mean, I was very lucky to just bump into it at the right time. There's a lot of luck in my line of work.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:37] I was going to ask about that. We'll get to that.

Jason Flom: [00:28:39] But it is sheer brilliance. And she wrote those songs when she was, as you said, a child. So I find it interesting because she couldn't possibly have experienced much, right? In New Zealand? As a child? No. I mean –

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:54] Unless the songs are about sheep, not a lot going on.

Jason Flom: [00:28:57] They've got a lot of sheep in New Zealand.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:58] They got a lot of sheep.

Jason Flom: [00:28:59] 15 million I heard.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:00] They have more of that, more than people.

Jason Flom: [00:29:01] Well, four times as many, but whatever. A lot of sheep so baaaahh, but anyway, but she had read a thousand books, I think by the time she was 12. So I guess she picks, she just you know, literally just soaked it all up. It came out as these songs.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:15] I'm curious about her parents. What were they thinking? Were they like these provincial people that are like, “Yeah, I guess our daughter really likes music and I don't really believe that you're from New York”, like we're not sending her to you. Don't get any ideas. That's how I would behave if I were her parents.

Jason Flom: [00:29:28] It did come up in the conversation. One of the parents said you know, and I could understand them being, you know, it must've been a little weird. Like this is calling from New York. She's still a young teenager, not even like, barely a teenager. And one of them at some point, I can't remember if it was there over dinner in New Zealand. It was like, “Well, I still think she should probably go to law school.” And I remember saying, “I come from a family of lawyers”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:29:57] That are trying to be musicians.

Jason Flom: [00:29:59] There are enough lawyers, your daughter's going to win Grammy’s. And I turned out to be right.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:04] That's an exercise in persuasion because you're kind of saying, “You have to loan me your kid so I can make them a celebrity.” If I were her parent, I would go, “Try again, buddy.” Like show me why this isn't the worst idea I've ever heard in my life.

Jason Flom: [00:30:21] Yeah, I think there was some of that going on and it is an interesting sort of arbitrage or whatever you want to call it, but they must have known that this was her destiny.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:31] And so they had a feeling but…

Jason Flom: [00:30:33] You know, they're hearing those songs too. And it's obviously different being a parent, but her talent was just so undeniable. And, look, the road to success is usually paved with a lot of landmines. In her case, it happened so quickly. And of course that can be a danger too. But I think she's handled it very well.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:30:53] I would imagine part of managing, well, you don't necessarily manage talent, but at some level you have to go, “All right, make her famous, make money, do the good business, but make sure she doesn't implode and turn into somebody who could have been, could have had a 30-40 year career, and now had a four-year career.”

Jason Flom: [00:31:09] You know, you can only control so much. And the creative gene, you know, obviously it drives a lot of people crazy. I mean, some of the disproportionate number of the greatest artistic talents, not just in music, end up becoming drug addicts or worse, you know, losing their minds. And it's something, we're all very conscious of and, you develop a personal relationship with the artist and you want, you know, they're people, they're not products, right? So you never want to see that happen. But you know, I also recognize that there's only so much you can control. I mean, right now it's fine. I mean, I have a young artist called Greta Van Fleet, which is a rock band that, I don't know if you've heard them, but they sound so much like Led Zeppelin that Robert Plant said they are Led Zeppelin. So, you know.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:56] Wow! That’s a pretty cool thing to hear.

Jason Flom: [00:31:58] Yeah. There are four kids from Michigan. They're amazing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:01] Where in Michigan? I grew up in Michigan.

Jason Flom: [00:32:02] Frankenmuth.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:03] Yeah, of course. It's like this fake German town where they serve chicken and have people wearing… It's like a tourist trap in Michigan.

Jason Flom: [00:32:11] And they have the biggest Christmas store in the country currently.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:14] Yeah, the Christmas Village.

Jason Flom: [00:32:16] That's what it's called, right? So anyway. Yeah. So this is another really, it's exciting. It's hard to get tired of that feeling of being a part of something that is, you know, music discovery. It really is, Jordan, it's like when everyone's had that experience when you're a kid and you get the hot music before your friends do and you get the, you know, it's like the Oskord now is the, whatever the catch phrase, right? When the Oskord is [inaudible][00:32:40] and you know, you're in the car and everybody's like rocking out. It's a great feeling. It's social traction, right? It's social status, whatever.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:49] Social capital.

Jason Flom: [00:32:50] So, you know, when I was that kid, you know, I always wanted to have the music first and play it for my friends and get that great feeling that you get from turning people into something that becomes, you know, a part of their life and that improves their life. And now it's like that same feeling on steroids, right? Because I actually get to get paid for it. And also I get to do it on a mass scale. But it's so fun still. And actually I'm going to have that experience again tomorrow night because I'm going to see Greta Van Fleet in Nashville. No, won't be tomorrow night because we're on podcast. But the day after this recording, I'll be in Nashville watching these kids, you know, just take over with a huge crowd. And it's amazing because this little room we're in, which is pretty little, this little recording studio, they literally couldn't have sold this room out if they were playing on the table seven or eight months ago. Maybe nine months ago, I’m exaggerating. But it happened that quickly. And when it does, I get to like, drive the plane for a little while and ride on the rocket ship or whatever the hell power, you know, whatever analogy you want to use, it's fun.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:52] And you feel a little bit of their success, I would imagine every single time.

Jason Flom: [00:33:55] Of course. It's great. And I love it too, because this is the music that I grew up loving -- Led Zepplin and Aerosmith. I mean that was my stuff, right? And the fact that they're bringing that back, right? Because rock and roll had been dead for a while and now it's like they are bringing it back and so being, you know, and again it's luck, right? I mean I don't think I really know more than other people do. I mean I'm a lucky person. I'm open to becoming lucky and you know, I'm friendly. That was another thing my dad told me was -- be friendly.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:34:24] Yeah, I noticed that. And that seems unusual in an industry which is usually described as cutthroat, brutal, unforgiving. You're friendly and you're nice. So has that been an advantage or are you doing that because you believe strongly in that despite the odds?

Jason Flom: [00:34:42] I'm doing it by default. I'm just really bad at being an asshole. You know, like, I mean, and when I try, and it's weird because I used to run big companies and, you know, at various times I ran Atlantic, Virgin and Capital and you're supposed to be able to really get on people and raise your voice and this and this and that. And I'm just not that good at it. I mean I can when really pushed up against the wall, but, I mean, if it happens once a year, that's a lot. I mean, what is there to get so upset about it? And I try to keep that attitude in life too. You know, if a cab driver goes the wrong way and I'm late, you know, I tried to default to when maybe the guy is going through some stuff in his personal life. Or someone cuts me off in traffic or whatever,

[00:35:26] I mean, I am not Buddha or anything, but I try to default to that. But again, it’s like I'm not good at the other thing. And I've found that, you know, I've been able to succeed whether because of or in spite of, or both or whatever. But yeah, being friendly is a good thing. I'm very outgoing, you know, and I'm out there promoting and getting excited about my stuff and I think that's infectious. You know, a lot of A&R people in the music business are sort of studio rats or whatever you want to call it or dweebs and they like to just, you know, how the guy used to work for me, Mandy Carper found a lot of big bands, but he really just liked to stay in his own little world, right? He loved the recording studio.

[00:36:09] He let the beats be in his office. I'm out there, you know, I don't want to be in a recording studio. I want to be out there figuring out the jigsaw puzzle that is the music business and how am I going to break this act. And now I'm doing the same thing with my book, Lulu Is a Rhinoceros. I'm like, I'm out there. Like, I'll literally stop somebody on the street and say, “Hey, you want to hear a book?” I usually carry it with me. Strangely enough, I forgot it today, but I have it on my phone. So it's never far away. So I'm really looking forward to doing readings. I'm going to be doing readings all over the place and in this case, I'll be doing with my daughter who wrote it with me and with my bulldog.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:37] You’re bringing the dog?

Jason Flom: [00:36:39] And whenever I can, as long as it's not…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:41] I mean the rhinoceros.

Jason Flom: [00:36:42] As long as it's an environment that's safe for her that she will be, you know, I mean, I'm not going to put her…her wellbeing comes first. I'm an animal lover and you know, I don't eat meat and I just want to make sure she's safe and comfortable or wahtever.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:58] You’re like my wife, who before this, I go, “Oh, here's his Instagram page.” And she goes, “Oh, let me show you this page where this guy makes wheelchairs for handicapped pets, called the Eddie's Wheels or something like that.” Yep. And we're watching videos of these dogs who can't use their back legs to chase balls because they got like bike wheels now on the back. And I mean --

Jason Flom: [00:37:20] And look, everybody in the studio smiling, just thinking about it, right? It's good to be good. I mean, this is good. And it's like it, and again, I mean it's the converse or the opposite of the bullying thing we talked about earlier, right? I mean it's just, it makes me feel good. I mean, the work we do, like whether you're talking about The Innocence Project and things like that, that stuff makes me feel good and it gives me a purpose. And you know, it's great. The thing we were just talking about, it's an interesting segue, right? Because I love the idea of going to the show and I get to wear the backstage pass. I get to watch the people freak out about something that I knew about early and got to have a part in. And that's an amazing feeling.

[00:38:00] But I think, you know, when I'm gone, nobody's going to care who signed Katy Perry or whichever one of the acts you want to pick on from my career. Nobody cares. Like who signed the Beatles?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:14] Yeah. I don't know.

Jason Flom: [00:38:15] We all know who the manager was. I don't know who signed them to the record label. And that's because the manager really was the fifth Beatle, right? Brian Epstein. But the people whose lives I've been able to impact in terms of helping them get out of prison or helping them get back on their feet after they're out, that's a legacy that matters to me. And you know, it's more important.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:38] This episode is sponsored in part by The Great Courses Plus. I'm a huge fan of learning -- Duh. You all know that. That's what The Great Courses Plus is all about as well. You can do some deep dives. Where have I heard that term before? History, science, business skills, travel, the arts -- over 10,000 lectures up there now. So there's always something new to explore. I mean you can get carried away with The Great Courses Plus and I encourage you to do that. It's really solid materials to get deeper on all of the subjects. I recommend checking out one of their new courses. It's called, Why You Are Who You Are: Investigations into human personality. So obviously a fascinating insight into psychology, but there's neuroscience, genetics, epigenetics, that not only help us understand better our own thought processes, behaviors and beliefs, but those around us, you know, reading people, I'm into it. So start enjoying The Great Courses Plus as well. Get your first month free plus get the second month for only 99 cents. Unlimited access to their huge library, over 10,000 lectures, two full months for under a dollar. Go to thegreatcoursesplus.com/Jordan, that's thegreatcoursesplus.com/Jordan.

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[00:41:27] You've been great at spotting stars, but do you ever go, “All right, this person, I don't like their music that much, but they have every other piece in plays, so even though it doesn't match my taste, I still think they're going to be huge.” Does that ever happen?

Jason Flom: [00:41:42] It has happened on occasion.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:41:43] I won't ask you who or anything it seems like…

Jason Flom: [00:41:45] No, it doesn’t matter. I mean, you know, listen, I won't mention any names, but Collective Soul, you know, so I mean there was one that, you know, I mean in that case there was research that indicated that the record was really a hit, meaning they had put out the song themselves or the actual album themselves. And I heard about it because it was being played on a local station in Florida somewhere, I can't remember. And it was selling like people were buying it. And so I went down to see them and there was a packed club and I didn't understand it. I'm watching them going, “Why do people actually was going up to people and going, ‘Do you like this? Like do you actually like this?’ And one guy's like, ‘Dude, my girlfriend got me this record. I love it man. What's up?’ And I'm like, huh?” I mean, either this is the best setup I've ever seen and I'm being Punk’d or else this or else my opinion doesn't really matter because these kids are hearing something that I'm not hearing. And sure enough they had like three triple platinum albums, so I’m like, that song Shine was huge. I didn't know from listening to it was going to be huge, but you know, I was able to, there's very little science in the music industry. That's the little science that we have.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:42:48] Would that set up kind of thing work if you just said, “All right, I need like a thousand kids from my high school to come out and freak out because this record guy is going to be here”, would that kind of thing, does that have a prayer of working?

Jason Flom: [00:43:00] People have tried various permutations of that and we usually are able to see through it.

How do you see that? You just know that somebody, you just know?

Jason Flom: [00:43:09] Well, I was thinking about one instance where somebody put out a record and then just had people buying it all over the place, right? But then we were able to find out somehow, I can't remember that stores, there was some something transparent about it. And now there are different safeguards in place with the digital services to prevent robots and things like that from sort of impersonating people and just turn a song into a hit. Yeah. So it's relatively few other research I guess. You know, but people have tried all sorts of creative things. Creative things to fake their way into a record deal or even buy a hit record, so to speak.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:47] How do you buy a hit record?

Jason Flom: [00:43:48] Well, you just, like I said, you go out and buy enough copies of your own things and make it look like a hit, but eventually, you know, unless you have an endless amount of money, the next week it falls off, right? You could go buy 10,000 1 week and then the next week it's like, and then that's pretty obvious. Right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:02] Right. You hit the billboard chart.

Jason Flom: [00:44:04] How did it go from there? Yeah. So you really have to be crafty. I mean, it's not --

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:09] It's easier just to be a goof, it's probably easier just to actually create something really great than to try to fake it at this point.

Jason Flom: [00:44:16] Which is almost impossible to, you know, I was talking to one of my partners, Avery Lipman yesterday and he was saying, “You know, hit records are miracles like it's a miracle, when one of these things happens, it's a miracle.” Like there's so many records and what does it, I forgot. Is it 30,000 songs a week come out, Spotify? I think it's a huge number. And here's a little interesting. I'll give you a funny little plug here because from what I've been told, 16% of the songs on Spotify have never been listened to by anyone. Not even once, but funny enough, I want to meet the guy who did this. Hopefully he's listening or she is, he or she. There's a website called forgotify.com and you can go on there and hear songs that no one's ever listened to, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:57] That’s cool.

Jason Flom: [00:44:58] I know. And ironically, I think you could, after you listened, they must come off the site because it's no longer true. Or maybe it's just songs that have never been heard on Spotify. Were released, but never heard of it. So I don't know. I'm curious about that. If you listen to it, I'll have to go. It was an easy thing to find out, right? I can just listen to whatever song pops up and then go back the next day and see if it's still there. But it doesn't even matter. It's just such a funny concept.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:19] Never ever been played or maybe it's like sub 50 times or sub how many times.

Jason Flom: [00:45:24] Oh no, it's never, never.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:25] Never. Wow!

Jason Flom: [00:45:26] And you know, I mean with 30,000 songs coming out a week, you know, it's not that hard to understand how that could be.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:33] Especially a lot of indie bands and stuff like that.

Jason Flom: [00:45:35] Yes. Some of them are reissues or some old, like B-side from some classical, God knows what or you know, whatever. And some of them are dreadful and some of them are actually like, “Yes. This is not that bad.” Somebody should probably promote this. It would be funny to find a hit on there. That would be ironic.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:47] Yeah, I mean you could, that's what your interns can do this summer. [inaudible][00:45:51] records. Hey guys. Wow. Get out your headphones. Yeah, sorry interns. I just gave your boss a terrible idea.

Jason Flom: [00:45:58] Right? We'll create a little war room and just have people listening to forgotify.com all day looking for the next big thing. I don't think that's probably a great use of time. But you never know, if someone does, more power to them.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:46:07] All right, so I've heard you say something along the lines of -- Most great ideas are rejected on the first go round. So if you've got 30,000 new songs coming out on Spotify every week, you've got to rely on your own idea of what a good track or song is, what a good record might be, what a good artist might be. How do you know if you're not just rejecting a great idea on the first go round? How do we even parse that? How do you parse that?

Jason Flom: [00:46:34] Oh, I mean, you know, I just, I don't know how you do that. I mean, if we could, we would. Right? If we could find a way to have like a safety net where we don't mess up good ideas, that would be fantastic. But, you know, hopefully it is, you know, maybe, I mean…fuck, I don't know, like, how do you do that? I mean, I think there's a little bit of destiny in all of this, right? And when, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. But yeah, I mean, I'm comfortable with the idea that I'm going to miss some great opportunities in life. I think, you know, the dangers in not trying, you know what I mean? Like that's to me, I have this thing, this phrase I think I invented called the non-moving violation, which is

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:15] Non-moving violation?

Jason Flom: [00:47:16] Yeah. I issue myself a non-moving violation. If I see an opportunity and I don't go for it, whatever that opportunity might be. If it's someone, if I'm at a conference and there's someone I know I should talk to, but they're busy and I don't, you know, or whatever it is. It could be a romantic thing. It could be anything, right? You see, what’s that old song, if you see your chance take it, right? I mean, it doesn't hurt to ask as long as you're respectful and as long as you, you know, treat people well and kindly, then, you know, like there's no reason not to, I mean, some people just introspective and they don't have that, you know, where they have a very limited ability to do that. I'm an extrovert or whatever that word is, right, so –

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:55] Were you always like that?

Jason Flom: [00:48:01] Yeah, I think so. I've always been someone who tried to put myself out there and try to take advantage of whatever opportunities were or available to me, you know, and not really stay within the lines. I mean, even in my professional career, I didn't follow the rules. You know, when, when someone would say, “You're not allowed to call that radio station or you're not allowed, that's not your job. It’s somebody else's job.” I’m going to be like, “Okay, thanks, boss.” Then I’ll go call the radio station. Because I was like, “Well nobody else is doing it.” Like I'm excited about my stuff. I'm going to go get this plate or whatever it is or I'm going to call that TV booker. And I think that was one of the keys to my success. I don't think my taste is necessarily better than other people's tastes, but I'm too stubborn to accept no for an answer. And there's certain times when you just know it's right and you go for it. But yeah. So I think the exercises in, you know, being open and getting lucky

[00:48:48] and taking the initiative when there's something there that you see, and these are not original thoughts, but maybe it's my own way of putting it. And then not kicking yourself too hard when you don't, you know, because if you do, then you're just living in the past and you know what they say, right? -- The past is history. The future is a mystery. But the present is a gift. That's why they call it the present. Right? So the idea is if you, if you let yourself, you know, drift too much into that storytelling, right? That movie that we all have in our mind. Then you're going to, you know, you're not going to be able to experience the things that are right in front of you. And so it's a trap.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:29] So when you issue yourself the non-moving violation, you don't beat yourself up too much about it. You just sort of note it so that maybe next time it doesn't --

Jason Flom: [00:49:36] Yeah, that's basically it. It's almost, I guess it's sort of a way of compartmentalizing it or just going, “You know what, okay, that happened and you know, all right, Flom here's your non moving violation. Now get going onto the next one.” Right? And you know, it's interesting too, this synchronicity is the thing that fascinates me. It's fascinated me since I was a kid. And what I mean by that is extreme coincidence. And this is a little bit of a tangent, but when those things happen and they happen to me a lot, I get the feeling like, “Okay, everything's good.” Extreme coincidence is when, I mean out, for instance, I showed up at the studio to record my podcast with a woman named Kristen Lovato who had just gotten out of prison after 16 years in Nevada for a crime she obviously didn't commit and they knew she didn't commit it from the beginning.

[00:50:25] I mean, it's just, it's a horrible story and you can hear it on my podcast. And I actually posted this picture on my Instagram, which is @it'sjasonflom. But we showed up at the studio, there's no parking lot in front of the studio and there was a red Mercedes parked there and the license plate was ‘innocent’. Like why? Like we don't know whose it was. It had nothing to do with her or me or anybody else that was there. What was it doing there? Like it's just like…

Jordan Harbinge: [00:50:50] It’s parked illegally and for not innocent.

Jason Flom: [00:50:53] Right in front of the studio. I mean like she's innocent. We're innocent. We're talking to the innocent. It's like, I mean, so that's just one. They're literally like we could devote a whole season of podcasts and things like that that have happened and it goes back to when I was a teenager. And so even back then I decided I had to assign a meaning to what had happened. So I decided these are metaphysical signposts from the universe. Where the universe is just going, “Flom, you're in the right place at the right time. Don't worry about the shit that happened before because this wouldn't be possible.” Like this is statistically not even in the realm of, it's not 101, 1001 -- it's like zillions to one. And that may not be the best example, but it's pretty good example and we will throw you, you know, we'll just keep doing what you're doing. Keep moving forward, it'll throw you another bone pretty soon. Like just stay tuned, stay open. Right? I look at license plates, I look at, you know, that's the thing, like I'm very open to these numbers and names and things and they see different patterns and stuff and like, I mean, I don't want you to think I'm like, that guy was that movie.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:51] A Beautiful Mind.

Jason Flom: [00:51:50] Yeah. That one or what was the one with the other one where he was, A Beautiful Mind was one, but there was another one. Was it Mel Gibson or somebody where he was in the house?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:01] Conspiracy Theory, with Mel Gibson which got 17 copies of Catcher in the Rye.

Jason Flom: [00:52:05] Yeah. Like that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:06] That’s an old movie.

Jason Flom: [00:52:07] If I get there, hopefully you'll come and you know, call somebody and tell them, “Hey, you know, you go get this guy because he's a little deprogramming.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:15] But they will not be able to get you, remember, he had the escape tunnel in his apartment. If he pulled out the Catcher in the Rye because he knew they were coming for him.

Jason Flom: [00:52:24] But in general, and I had a very extreme one of these recently where I've had a couple recently that have had such a positive impact on my life that it allows me, when my mind goes to that story, right? Because we all have that story we tell ourselves, which is like fear, regret, and anticipation, right? I mean, we go through that movie in our mind where it's like, “Oh, I should have bought this particular stock or I should've, you know, proposed to this girl or I should have did”, there's this story that we tell ourselves, right? And if only I would've done that, then my life would be this. And it's crippling to some people, right? And it's no fun for anybody. And then there's anticipation, you always think, “Oh wait, if I do this the…” And you know, so for me, particularly with the regret or that movie, that part of the movie, right? The past part, so to speak. These things allow me to have a place to go in my mind where I go, “You know what?

[00:53:24] It's okay. Like that stuff I thought were mistakes. It's okay.” I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. I've passed on huge acts. I've missed opportunities with stocks or things or a painting I could have bought or whatever. This calm skyrocket, all of these things. And I sit down, of course, and you know, there are moments when you go, “Damn, if I'd done that, I would have 10 times more money than I do now and I'd be able to do all these.” And then I go, no, but you know what? I was supposed to be on the street corner at this particular time for this thing to happen. That's how it's so everything's okay. Like that stuff doesn't matter. I wasn't my destiny. And of course you can also default to the thing of saying, well, and this is a little more of a stretch because you could say, “Well, if I would have done this, that or the other thing is a butterfly effect.

[00:54:07] I might've gotten hit by a bus,” but I can't prove that. What I can prove is that these experiences when they happen to me, and like I said, there's one that's more recent that just really crystallized everything from me where I just say, “You know what, it's okay because this is my destiny. I'm supposed to be here in this place right now doing this particular thing. So that other shit doesn't matter.” You know, if I was a billionaire or whatever, or if I would've started some company and it doesn't matter. It's okay.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:40] Yeah. You have to give yourself that sort of leeway or that forgiveness. It seems tricky to do though in real time. Do you do it in real time or you do it later?

Jason Flom: [00:54:48] Well, I guess, I don't know, maybe both, and of course, you know, I mean I'm not a meditation master. I mean I have my moments, you know, down moments like anybody else, but you know, that particular thing maybe somebody else has experienced or maybe somebody else will experience it, in which case that's great. Because then if I can, you know, help somebody else feel the same thing and feel better about past experiences that maybe haunt them, then you know, then great. I mean that's my experience and it does really, it makes me realize I don't need to have the biggest house so I don't need to have all these things that I thought I might've needed to have and that then that prevents that whole if, then, therefore, but, maybe you know because that's just wasted time. One thing I figured out, and this is a good example because I’m really enjoying talking to you, is you know, the meaning of life can be found in being present, right?

[00:55:47] And when you're present, then you know you're living, right? I mean, no one can do it all the time. There are various ways that people get to it, right? Some people use extreme danger, right? That will get your present. Right? But you can only spend so much of your time swimming with sharks or jumping out of airplanes.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:04] That's not my style. Yeah, for sure.

Jason Flom: [00:56:05] Right. So, right. So you could only do so much of that. And I've done some of that and okay, that doesn't work. Some people, you know, they have negative ways of getting their drugs, gambling, you know, for some people it’s sex, for some people it’s meditation or, you know, even walking in the woods or whatever it is. But what I do know is that the more time you can spend in that state and doing what you love and being that, that's the best part of your life and what's not great is doing something when thinking about something else, I do that to? Like, I'll be on a boring conference call, I'm emailing, like, you know what I mean? Like, and then you're like, “Huh? What?” And you know, it's like, remember when everybody, when the internet went, all the internet stocks were all going crazy and you're talking to your doctor and like, “Doc, my leg’s falling off.” And he's like, “Ooh, yeah, I was up 47. Oh, sorry. Wait. What?” You're going to be like, you knew everybody was just watching the stock ticker every day and you're like, “Oh, Qualcomm. You're like, wait doc, wait, I told you my leg fell off.” He was like, “What? Oh, sorry, I've got to call you back. I called my broker.” You're like, “Jesus Christ. It was so weird.” So yeah, the thing is when you can spend time doing the things, and for me, that's, you know, when I do

[00:57:08] my podcast, I get in that zone when I get in the presence of these people, you know, and my podcast is of course, Wrongful Conviction. And when I'm sitting in the presence of people who have endured decades in prison for crimes they did not commit, some of them were even sentenced to death. And I think that's a lot of our worst fears, right? And of course a lot of people, the worst fear is being locked in prison, especially in the prisons in America, which are some of the worst in the world for a crime you didn't commit. And then I'm able to sit there and just soak up the spirit and the resilience and the grace that these people exude. I'm like, you know, I can't think about anything else.

[00:57:52] I'm like, I'm not worried about all that other stuff.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:57:55] What strikes me in Wrongful Conviction is the level of forgiveness that a lot of these people have for everything that's happened to them. It's shocking.

Jason Flom: [00:58:07] It's remarkable. It never ceases to amaze me. So many of them have become my friends. Some of them have become family to me and it is just breathtaking. They all have different ways of saying very similar thing, you know, which is how they got to that place. And it has very little to do with religion. You know what I mean? For most of them, it's some sort of like spiritual awakening that they had where they were able to let go of all this bitterness and anger, which was rightfully theirs to have, right? But they'll say these most amazing things, you know, like in the podcast. At the end, I typically just turn, I shut up and turn the mic over to them and just let whoever it is on the show, say whatever that is that they want to say.

[00:58:58] And you'll hear pearls of wisdom. I mean, some of the things that Amanda Knox, when she was on, her closing speech was like, “You know, you could just put that on repeat and leave and go on and live your life”, you know, like, or Everton Wagstaff, or so many of them. Keith Allen Harward, who was in prison for 33 years for a crime, he nothing to do with. And you know, he'll say it's amazing because I remember very vividly, I said to him, “Keith, you know how you do it man”, this was a conversation that happened not too long after he got out of prison. I was like, “how did you maintain hope and sanity?” He was actually in for 34 years because he was a year in jail waiting his trial, then 33 years in prison.

[00:59:49] He’s from North Carolina and I'm going to mangle his accent, so apologies to the North Carolinians out there. But he says to me, “Listen man, he goes, you know, when I went to prison, I was innocent. So, that helped.” I was like, “that helped?” That wouldn’t help me. That would have made me crazy. What are you talking about? He goes, “Well listen, Jason, man”, he says, “I've got to tell you something.” He says, “You know, when I first went in there, I said to myself, you know what they took my body and they took my freedom. I'm not going to let him take my mind. Because if I do that, I'm letting them win.” And I was like, “Jesus Christ. I feel like I'm talking to Nelson Mandela right now. Like, what? Who are you dude? Like, who are you?”

[01:00:29] He's just a guy in the Navy, right? Just a regular guy. You know, never been in trouble before. Just a regular guy who got wrongfully, you know, he was framed because it's a high profile crime in a small community. And that's something people need to be aware of. I mean, I hope that people who are listening, everyone who's listening to this show right now, someday may end up on a jury, right? We all get those annoying jury and that duty notices, right? And you're like, “Oh God, and I'm so busy”, but you got to go like go. Go serve on a jury. And when you're there, be woke, like, listen to this show Wrongful Conviction, and you will hear so many incredible stories, but there's the tragically common of people who are never supposed to lie, lying through their teeth -- police, prosecutors, there's even judges who've been caught up in this, like the people that we grow up thinking, “Well, they're there on the side of justice and I'm going to be okay.”

[01:01:25] And if you get picked up, by the way, if you get picked up for something you didn't do, here's a very important piece of advice, you and tell your loved ones. If you get picked up and you're innocent, they're not your friends. Don't talk to them, right? They're going to bring up, “Jordan, well you think he might've witnessed a crime. We just want to talk to you for a minute.” You know, you don't need to be ready. We're going to read you your rights. You don't need a lawyer. “No, no, I'm good. I'm going to just… I'll go home after a few questions, right?”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:47] Yeah, I’m a good citizen, I didn't do anything.

Jason Flom: [01:01:49] Next thing you'll be in that room for as long as they want to keep you there and they can lie to you. They can do whatever, they can do basically whatever they want and get away with it. And so, you know, your only thing you want to say is, “My name's Jordan Harbinger. Here's my address and I want a lawyer.” That's it. Now they're supposed to stop talking after you say, I want a lawyer that the law says I have to stop talking to you. And they have to wait until your lawyer gets there. That's what you want to say. And then stop talking because anything you say can be used against you, we all heard that phrase and it will. And so yeah, and by the way, I want to put in a quick word about, you know, I'm going to be taking the podcast of the stage June 27^th at the King's theater in Brooklyn. I'm going to be doing the first Wrongful Conviction live event and it's going to be called Wrongful Conviction presents Women in Prison -- An American Tragedy.

[01:02:40] Because I want to highlight the fact that in America, we have 4.4% of the world's population, but we have 25% of the world's prison population. A lot of people know those statistics.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:02:50] Yeah, that's crazy. I did the math, by the way. North Korea has a similar prison population, percentage-wise. That is not a good comparison.

Jason Flom: [01:02:59] And they'd probably be the only ones, but even when you get deeper into the statistics, what's even crazier is that we have 33% of the world's female prison population. What are we doing? Like that is insane. And that's something that really is below the radar and I want to bring that up. We have to stop treating women like second class citizens and persecuting them in the criminal justice system. The repercussions of this are extreme. So this event is going to be myself and Amanda Knox, who is like family to me.

[01:03:34] Nora Jackson, again, part of my family. Michelle Murphy. Nora Jackson was in prison for 11 years for murdering her mother, which she was abundantly innocent of. And they knew it from day one. I mean, she was on the cover of the New York Times magazine and [inaudible][01:03:47] the story were she was convicted of murdering her mother. Prosecutors withheld the evidence that would have freed her.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:52] They withheld exculpatory evidence?

Jason Flom: [01:03:54] Oh yeah. And more and more.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:56] Which is clearly not, I mean, unethical doesn't quite get to the level of…it's evil. Yeah.

Jason Flom: [01:04:02] Evil is what it is. What they did to this poor girl, and there's a lot more to this story, which people will hear if you tuned into the podcast with Nora, you'll hear it. There's even a story coming out in Cosmo in the September issue about her and me and our, you know, relationship, which is a paternal one. She's remarkable. She was in prison for 11 years. A Tennessee Supreme Court overturned her conviction, five to nothing. Then there's Michelle Murphy who again is like a, I call her my niece. Michelle was in prison for 20 years for a crime that she so obviously didn't commit that when her conviction was overturned, it was the murder of her baby. Her 15-week old baby who was, she woke up one morning with a splitting headache and her baby was gone. And she found him basically decapitated in the kitchen and the prosecutors, they knew all along. She didn't do it. They knew who did do it too and it's just, when you hear the story of how this happened, it will make you really wonder just how could this be? She's such a lovely woman. She was sentenced to life in prison, served 20 years to the day, ironically.

[01:05:06] And when she was freed, when she was fully exonerated, and that the higher court overturned her conviction with prejudice, which means like fuck you, like their basic saying in low court. Fuck you, don't come back to this, you're not allowed to come back.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:20] Right, you can never revisit this.

Jason Flom: [01:05:21] Nope. Because and when her conviction was overturned, the judge said, and you can look this up, through tears, he said that in his four decades on the bench, it was the worst miscarriage of justice he'd ever seen. So Michelle is going to be there. She's a native American woman. She's Susan, just a beautiful, strong, powerful woman who has been through an unimaginable series of events. And then Sabrina Butler will be there as well, who is an African American woman who was sentenced to death, again for the murder of her child, which turned out to be, she just didn't do it.

[01:05:56] I mean, you know, she was exonerated after five years in prison. So we are going to give this presentation that is going to really, I think, open a lot of people's eyes. It's going to be a powerful and amazing night that I'm very privileged to be a part of. And I don't think anybody will leave there not being moved when you are able to hear, not because of me, I'm more or less a narrator, right? I mean, I mean, I'm going to drop some knowledge. And obviously, you know, I'm an expert on criminal justice reform and I'll offer some practical steps and you know, solutions, I hope. But the stories that you'll hear from the people themselves will be an experience that I don't think anyone that's there will ever forget.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:44] What have you personally learned from these types of stories? Forgiveness or otherwise? Because it's just really hard to be upset that your iPad crashed when you hear an episode of Wrongful Conviction. You know, it's really hard to go, “I'm an hour late for this thing that can totally get rescheduled.”

Jason Flom: [01:07:03] You're absolutely right. And it's one of the things that drives me to want to continue doing this work because it puts gratitude in my attitude and it makes me better able to deal with life's little disappointments. You know, because we all have them every day. I don't care, rich, poor, you know what your ethnicity is, everybody has them. And we know that there's a higher percentage of, or at least the social scientists tell us, psychologists tell us that there's a higher percentage of wealthy and successful people who are depressed than people who are on the other end of the spectrum.

[01:07:44] So we all have those. I feel like my life is better because people like Michelle, Nora, Amanda, Sabrina, people like that are in it. You know, it's like you hit it exactly on the head. I mean, what difference does it make, whether or not, you know, you lost the game or your whatever the hell it is.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:08:07] Even big stuff though. Like you could be getting sued and you go, “I didn't go to prison for 20 years for something I didn't.” Because when you come out, people forget. When you come out, your parents, they might be dead. And your kids, if you had any, if you didn't have any, it's too late probably for you to have some. And if you did have some, they grew up without you or they grew up thinking you were a murderer and you can't repair that relationship, they are adults.

Jason Flom: [01:08:29] Yeah, that's something, I'm glad you brought that up. I've been very focused, even obsessed with what I call the second punishment for many years because it's exactly as you said, right? When people are released from prison, they face these unbelievable obstacles. And you know, forget like Keith who was in for 34 years, but I mean, if you're in for 10 or 15, like just getting re-socialize or even getting to caught up on technology or any of that, right? And our prisons, you know, at some point everything went haywire. And we went from a system it’s supposed to be called correctional institutions, but in fact they're just punishment institutions, right? And let's not forget, these are just Americans, right? They're just people who were just one day they were going along and maybe they did something wrong.

[01:09:24] I mean, I think with like Brian Stevenson, who was one of my heroes says, “I believe that everyone's better than the worst thing they’ve ever done.” Now there are some people that belong in prison. I'm not an anarchist, I'm not. And by the way, and there's a lot of good cops and there's a lot of good prosecutors and judges and I'm a person who believes that the system of laws, and I believe we need to have these things right, but we also need to have checks and balances so that those powers don't get abused. And we also need to have a system that gives people a chance to get back on their feet. It's good for everybody. Forget just the fact that, you know, the humanitarian side, right? And the ethical and you know, all the things that people are people and they deserve to be treated as people.

[01:10:01] If they did something wrong and we would send them to prison and society says you need to go to prison. Okay. But while there, there's no reason to subject them to inhumane, to rape, to abuse, to violence, to isolation. I mean, the use of solitary confinement, it's like, what are we doing? Why? Like stop. It's just not okay. And I'm involved in bail reform, all this other stuff too. So when they come out, we need to have a system in place. Ironically, I doubt if many people listening are aware of this because it doesn't get talked about as much. But if you're guilty of a crime and you're convicted and you go to prison and you come out, there's some support when you get out. You have a parole officer, you have different support services. There's certain things you can access. If you're innocent, you get nothing.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:10:50] Yeah, that's true. Yeah. You don't have anything.

Jason Flom: [01:10:52] It's not like you get a parole officer. It's like, “Huh, sorry about that, Jordan. So sorry about those last 20 years.” You know, I mean like, we need to have a safety net. We need to, you know, even in the cases where they're able to get compensation, it takes years. And so you come out to what, you know what I mean? Like a world that's moved on that you don't recognize, that you have your PTSD or whatever else you might have from being inside for all those years. And as you said, your family may have either moved on or died or forgotten about you or doesn't care or who knows, you know, may have problems with their own. So anyway, so I have been and I remain very focused on trying to help as much as I can.

[01:11:35] I think by telling the stories on my podcast, Wrongful Conviction, I think that's, you know, hopefully helping to change the narrative. Let people understand. Employers who I talked to, you know, I recently gave a presentation with Nora Jackson at Bloomberg to what they call the C list, which is all CEOs, CMOs and CFOs. And one of the things I said was like, “Let's open our minds and our hearts and also our HR departments to the idea that just because somebody was formally incarcerated, it doesn't mean they're unemployable”, right? Like they are employable and many of them will work harder than the people that you have working for you now because they're so grateful to have a chance. Lorenzo Johnson, who was on my podcast, served 22 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit in Pennsylvania. He's now working at a division of America Express Travel.

[01:12:21] And he's like, I spoke to him recently. He's killing it over there. You know what I mean? No, that' s a bad pun. It was wrong. We can make that a murder. Did I just say that? Do something, help us out. Anyway –

Jordan Harbinger: [01:12:33] Doing a great job.

Jason Flom: [01:12:34] Yeah, I leave that in. Anyway, the fact is there's a lot of human potential and it’s being wasted. They need to be given back the right to vote. They need to be given a second chance. And by the way, even if you're somebody who doesn't believe what I'm saying is necessarily true right now, even if you're just looking at it from a selfish perspective, you want to say, “Well, if we give these people the tools to get back on their feet, and this is proven, right? There's a significant decrease in the amount of crime that they're going to commit.”

Jordan Harbinger: [01: 13:05] Of course. I mean, of course people who can't survive have to figure out a way to do it. And if they can't get a legitimate job, they're going to get it not legitimate.

Jason Flom: [01:13:14] They have to survive. And that's the basic thing. And so, you know, and we know like keeping people out of the system in the first place is the best way to prevent future crimes from happening. Even when, you know, in bail reform is a whole another topic for another show. But you know, the idea that we keep people in jail in America for weeks, months, even years, because they can't post bail. So we have two separate systems, right? We have a system if you're rich and a system if you're poor.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:13:36] I wanted to go down that road for a second because I think a lot of people go, “Yeah, this is interesting. But look, man, I grew up middle-class. I'm not going to get wrongfully convicted because this happens to people from the hood who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I live in a nice area. It's not going to happen to me.”

Jason Flom: [01:13:51] Yeah. Well, listen to Wrongful Conviction. I mean, I can point you to certain episodes where you'll say, “Oops, I guess that perception was wrong.” Michael Morton, right? Who's been on 60 minutes three times, I think. Supermarket manager, as he says, he was the most normal guy, living the most normal life in Austin, Texas, framed for the murder of his wife. Doug Dolosa also framed for murder of his wife. Guy who was a few credits shy of his MBA was doing international work for a major corporation, flying all over the place, framed because they couldn't figure out who did it and they wanted to get it off their desk. Egregious. And in his case, when the cops were arresting him, it was just three months after the crime happened and he said to the arresting officers, “Why are you doing this to me?

[01:14:35] Why are you doing this to my family?” And the cops said, “Fuck you! Fuck your kids and fuck your dead wife.” He said, “I didn't tell that bitch to get murdered in my town.” Like literally like out of the movie.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:14:47] That’s evil.

Jason Flom: [01:14:48] And the guy says, “And by the way, I know you're probably innocent, but my kids got to eat too.”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:14:52] The cop said that?

Jason Flom: [01:14:53] Yeah, as they arrest him. I've never heard that one before. But yeah, and Doug was sentenced to life in prison in Angola. Angola, which is one of the worst prisons in the world, and he barely survived. I mean, he nearly lost his life there. And ultimately he was a higher court, the fifth circuit court, I think overturned his conviction after he served 14 years in prison. And interestingly right there, the most compensation he was able to get, the total amount of compensation he was able to get was $250,000, and he had spent 378,000 on lawyers. Right? So if you think it can't happen to you, it can happen to you. So what does that mean? It means you need to serve on juries, right? And you need to be aware, that everyone saw making a murder, right? Yeah. I mean, the shit is corrupt, right? Not everybody's bad in the system. Like I said, I have a lot of respect for people doing the hard work. It's not a glamorous job, you know, being in the criminal justice system, you know, there are a lot of good people threw out. There’s good corrections officers. There's good people in the court system. There's good prosecutors. There's good cops, lots of good cops.

[01:16:01] But the ones who are bad can do so much damage to so many people. And if you don't think you're one of them or one of your loved ones can be one of them, you're wrong and it can happen to you. There's so many military guys that are on my show and Kirk Bloodsworth, who was a US Marine, never been in trouble, sentenced to death. You know Keith Allen Harward, Navy, used to active duty in the Navy. And this is going on all over the place. And it's happening not just in the community that you don't think about or that may not touch your heart or may not feel personal to you. It's happening all over the place. And if we don't do something about it, it's going to continue to happen. So you need to vote, you need to vote a district attorney's races.

[01:16:37] You need to get out there. You need to make your voice heard. You need to serve on juries and you need to be aware that this can happen to you. It can happen to someone you love.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:16:45] Jason, thank you very much, man. Look, normally I'd love to end on a high note, but I don't know if that's necessary in this case. I think it's important for people to go, “Wait, this is kind of scary. This is an epidemic thing that's happening in the country”, because I don't want to cheapen it by going, “Tell us something that we can, you know, smile about at the end of this.” Because I think the idea here is that we can change this. We don't have to accept it as it is.

Jason Flom: [01:17:05] Yeah, I think that's right. And the fact is, the good news is that there's more awareness than ever. You, giving me a platform to talk about this stuff is just another step in the right direction. There's so much, the media now is playing a role, I think with some of these shows, like I said, Making a Murderer, and serial and other ones where, you know, people are becoming, you know, much more aware. The live event is going to be June 27th at the King's Theater in Brooklyn. I think doors are eight o'clock, but you'll find it online. King’s Theater, Wrongful Conviction presents Women in Prison – An American Tragedy. Please come. I promise you it will be an experience you will not forget anytime soon. Bring someone who needs to know that. If you want to learn more about this stuff, my Instagram is @itsjasonflom. That's @its J A S O N F L O M and the book Lulu Is a Rhinoceros. I'm very excited about the book as you can tell, so hopefully we'll get some pickup on that.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:18:02] And this will all be linked up in the show notes as usual. Thank you very much.

Jason Flom: [01:18:06] Thanks for having me.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:18:07] Great big thank you to Jason Flom. His podcast is called Wrongful Conviction. It is really an interesting insight into something I never really thought about and if you enjoyed this one, don't forget to thank Jason on Twitter. That'll be linked up in the show notes for this episode, which can be found at JordanHarbinger.com/podcast. Tweet at me your number one takeaway here from Jason. I'm @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. And don't forget, if you want to learn how to apply everything you learned here from Jason today, make sure you go grab the worksheets. Also in the show notes at JordanHarbinger.com/podcast. We do, by the way, have an Alexa skill. If you've got an Amazon Echo, it'll be a part of your daily briefing.

[01:18:47] You can go to JordanHarbinger.com/alexa and it will put little clips of the show -- refreshers and things you might not have heard or a preview of an episode you haven't heard yet. JordanHarbinger.com/alexa is how you get that. This episode was produced and edited by Jason DeFillippo. Show notes by Robert Fogarty. Booking, back office and last minute miracles by Jen Harbinger. And I'm your host Jordan Harbinger. Leave us a nice review in iTunes. We can always use those and I share those with the team. And that's primarily what's propping up Jason’s self-esteem these days, those iTunes reviews. You can find instructions for that at JordanHarbinger.com/subscribe. Don't forget to pay that fee and share the show with those you love, and even those you don't. We've got a lot more like this in the pipeline. Excited to bring it to you. And in the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time.