Owen Hanson: From Cocaine Kingpin to Prison Redemption | E190

18:18On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we got bananas. So I'd smuggle those back and I'd slice up the bananas and I'd throw them in my shake. And then I would take some of the peanut butter from the commissary. We get one jar of peanut butter a month and I'd take some and I'd heat it up with hot water and I'd get it nice and runny and I'd drip it in my protein shake. I'd shake it up. And then in prison, we don't have refrigeration. So there's no refrigerators, obviously. So we'd use mop buckets and we'd put a clean trash bag in there and we'd throw ice inside the mop bucket. And we'd put our protein shakes in there.

18:48Some guys would put their soda pops. I would put my mackerel in there so it was cold. And I remember my celly says, hey Owen, we got a problem. Every morning his job was to go get ice from the ice machine and fill up our mop bucket. You know, that was his duty. I said, what's the problem, celly? He says, the ice machine's broken. I'm like, Like, fuck, Sally, what are we going to do? We had like two inches of ice left in the mop bucket. I said, I got to have my protein shake. He said, Sally, don't worry. We're going to throw some salt on the ice. And by the time you come back from your workout, it will still be cold because salt and ice will make it colder.

19:21I was like, oh, okay, whatever. Never heard of it. I work out with my crew. I come back and I grab my protein shake and it's rock hard. I said, Sally, it's frozen, man. And he's like, fuck, who the fuck cares? Eat it. And he gives me a spoon. And I start eating it. I'm like, Sally, this is like protein ice cream. And the bell went off in my head, right? The light was like, ding, ding, ding. Okay, there's something good about this. And I was like, fuck, I don't have to have protein shakes every day. I have now a dessert, right? And I said, you know what? Let's try this again. So you're only allowed to buy like a two ounce salt shaker every time you go to commissary, which is not enough, right?

20:02you need enough salt. So I was like, you know, let's do this at scale. I said, let's ask the facility guys. There's an orderly. There's one orderly that handles the whole facility as far as anything from fertilizer to, I was at a prison in Colorado where they give you rock salt and rock salts used to put on the sidewalks to melt the ice so people don't slip. So I was like, okay, we need this rock salt at volume because I want to scale this business. So we went to the orderly. he was a Hispanic kid. And I went to him and I said, Hey, I got an offer. You can't refuse.

20:35Randall Kaplan:Again, man, you're a salesperson. He says, what do you got for me? I said, uh, I'm going to give you$80 a month. Remember his salary was probably$20 a month. Just working as an orderly. He said, I'm going to give you$80 a month. And I said, I'm going to give you ice cream every week. I said, but you need to give me all the rock salt. I said, I don't want you selling it to anybody. Everything has to come to me. I said, if anyone asks, you send them to me. I'm making a contract with you right now. In prison, you don't break your word for anything, right? It's like the scarf. It's where they say, we don't break, what does it say?

21:06So you got your word in your balls and you don't break them for nobody, right? It's the same thing in prison. That's like very, very common. And you shake his hand and that's it. Every month I would get bags of rock salt delivered to me and people would go to him and offer him money. And he says, no, go to Wedo, go to Owen. And these guys would come to me and I'd be like, listen, what do you need the rock salt for it. Oh, we want to make ice cream. I said, no problem. I said, I sell ice cream. It's$15 peanut butter jar. Right. And they're like, no, no, we want to make our own. No problem. So what do I do?

21:34I give them one peanut butter jar of rock salt. Why one peanut butter jar? Because that only makes one ice cream. So now they can make their own ice cream or they could buy my ice cream. So either way, I'm winning. And that's what I started to do. And I monopolized the salt game. So now I had enough salt to make plenty of batches of ice cream. So it started small. One mop bucket made seven ice creams at$15 a piece. And then I realized that everyone wanted them. I had all the workout people saying, Hey, can I get the protein ice cream? I said, yeah, I got you. And then I took my, my neighbors and I went to them and I gave them an offer.

22:07They couldn't refuse. I said, I'm going to make you a dollar for every ice cream you make me. I don't care how many moth buckets you have. You got to remember, Randy, I'm making an ice cream that cost me$1.50 and I'm selling for$15. It's the same kind of market, but I was making in cocaine in Australia, right? but legally. And I'm telling people that you're making a dollar on ice cream. Some guys are making 14 ice creams a day. That's$14. That's unheard of in prison. And so now I have the whole block making ice creams. And Super Bowl Sunday, I'll never forget this. I made 50 ice cream throughout my neighbors at$15 a piece, right?

22:39I think that comes out to$750. They said that day, Owen, you made more money than both the guards working in the unit, the prison guards. And I I was like, that's just the entrepreneur in me. That's the hustle. I started to enjoy it because I started like getting orders with units like, you know, across the way. And I'd have guys that would deliver the ice cream. It started to become a business. We called it back then Kingpin Creamery because I was a Kingpin and it was a creamery, right? So I had these guys that would, for a dollar, they would engrave Kingpin Creamery on our peanut butter jars.

23:09And it was so nicely done. So when you get your ice cream, it just says Kingpin Creamery. And I told them they return it. They get a credit of 50 cents. and 50 cents is, you know, one stamp. I get you a soda pop. So they would return their jars and I'd give them a stamp and they'd go buy a soda. And that's how I kept the business going.

23:25Randall Kaplan:Prison is difficult for a lot of people and it's hard to recover. Operation Varsity Blues, there were a lot of white collar people who did bad things, bribing schools so their kids could get into schools, making up shit. Like they're on the volleyball team, for example, fencing team, rowing team. There's someone I know who I won't name, who during COVID, I think, had to go to solitary confinement and sit in there 23 hours a day in darkness. I was with him. No, no window. And he came out and he wasn't right. And he still is not right. I think he was in Lompoc. Okay. Yes. I'm not going to say his name.

23:59Randall Kaplan:I'm not going to say his name either. Yeah, I was there during the time. And that's just hard to recover from. And I know he has PTSD. I see him, I won't even say where I see him. But I see him regularly, and he's with his family, and he takes time by himself usually on a daily, I'm not even going to say what it is, because again, I just don't want people to try to figure out who he is. But he's never going to be right, no matter how much therapy he has. You have PTSD as well when you hear kind of certain sounds, a key jingling or shoes. So how much does PTSD factor into your life today? And do you think you're ever going to get over that?

24:38I mean, I think there's going to be that piece of me that always has it. I still wake up to this day in hot sweats when I hear the keys, right? It's just like a nightmare because that's what you wake up to for a half an hour every day. For the whole time I was in prison from 9.30 when they put us down for count all the way until 6 in the morning. every half an hour you have your keys because they're opening the gates and they're taking flashlights and they're sticking it in your eyes to make sure you're breathing for for nine and a half years while i was incarcerated right yeah and so anytime i see a light anytime i hear keys or like i said squeaking the shoes i feel like there's there's a riot going on and um you know i hope it gets better but uh you know i've learned to cope with it um in the beginning it was it was a lot worse and i'd love to talk to your friend and tell him listen it's going to get better it just takes time and there's things we can do to make it better.

25:30But no, I agree with you. It's going to be there, like you said, probably forever.

25:35Randall Kaplan:When you were sentenced to 21 years, a little over 21 years, your lawyer, you mentioned that, hey, there's a crooked lawyer on the other side and you had a lottery ticket to get out of jail possibly at some point. Tell us about what the rule 35 stitch rule is and how that works. You can call it whatever you want, but guess what? I'm here, baby. Right. Like there's, there's certain people that look at it like this. It's a, a lawyer for me is someone that's supposed to defend you. Right. It's like a officer of the court. Right. And he's supposed to protect you and serve you. Right. And it's just kind of like a police officer.

26:14If you, if there's a police officer in the case and he's corrupt, guess what? I feel like the same thing should happen to him. And for me, when, when they gave me the option to cooperate against my corrupt attorney, someone that I feel that one of the factors that I got put into prison was because he made me go disclose something that wasn't true. And he gave me bad legal advice. So in betting, we call it, when you lose a bet, it's called a get back where you get to go make another bet to try to get your money back, right? And I tell people, anyone in the gambling knows this was my get back. And this guy thought I was going to rot in prison and do 21 years and just keep my mouth shut and he was just going to sail away in the sunset with all this money he took in line.

26:56So when that day came and, you know, I didn't know, right? I was, I got that knock on the door and the U.S. Marshals were there to pick me up and they didn't tell me what was going on. They said, hey, we're taking you right now. You're getting extradited. And I was like, for what? You're going to Australia. I said, I need to call my attorney. They're like, you can't call them. And I remember we got to the LAX airport and there's three guys in suits and those three guys or Aussies and they're like, mate, we can't tell you what's going on. He says, you're going on the plane. When we get to Australia, you can call your attorney.

27:28And the whole time I was stressing Randy. I was like, oh my God, what's going on? Am I, am I going to go do a life sentence in Australia? And I didn't know. Right. And my lawyer didn't give me any, any, any kind of heads up. And, uh, I got to Australia and I get on that, that phone. I go, I said, Mr. Adams, You know what the hell's going on? They got me in Australia right now. He goes, remember what I told you about six years ago? I said, yeah. He says, you just won the lottery in life. I said, really? He says, yeah, that corrupt attorney you had is taken to trial. And you're going to be their star witness.

28:03And I said, fucking let's run it, right? And I remember it was right when COVID happened. Randy, I was just like, oh man, COVID's happening. The world's shut down. And the judge is talking about the prosecution and the attorney for this corrupt attorney is trying to get it. Like, hey, we got to shut down the courts. It's COVID. Let's send them back. And I'm like, do not send me back. I'm here. We're going to go. Like, whatever. I'm not coming back. All right, guys? I can't just go back to a U.S. prison. They're going to ask what happened. And then I'm going to get sent back. It's going to look bad.

28:38And the prosecution says, we've been waiting for this guy for years. They said, we're not allowing him to leave until we go to trial. And the judge, thankfully, said, you know what, this is my last trial until this COVID's over and we're going to trial. And I was the only guy in the courts during this COVID. And they put me on the stand and I said, the lawyer gave me this legal advice. He knew it was dirty money. He wanted me to tell you guys this fake story so he could gain, you know, 50 % of the proceeds. The ZZ Top Fleetwood Mac story. Yeah, the ZZ Top Fleetwood Mac story. And I told him, I said, listen, it was orchestrated by him.

29:18We had the manager of ZZ Top, who you guys have already heard. He testified saying it was all made up. And I'm here to tell you, yes, it was made up. You know, I told him I didn't want to go speak to the police in Beverly Hills, but he insisted it wasn't a U.S. matter. and I took his legal advice. And two days later, he was found guilty.

29:36Randall Kaplan:And then that judge wrote a letter of recommendation to Judge Hayes. And then how long was it after that that you... It felt like eternity. Because you knew it was coming? No, you don't know it's coming because the government is the only one that's allowed to move on this motion of Rule 35. Us as the defendant, we can't go to the judge and say, hey, look at what he did. The government has to make the move. Yeah. And my lawyer speaking to the government and the guy that prosecuted me, Andrew Young, had already left. He left to become basically a defense attorney. And he said, you know what? I'm going to recommend the most time off for what Hanson did because that took some balls for him to go over there and basically do what he did.

30:20And finally, after COVID was finally over, like around 2023, the court started to reopen. And I got a legal call from my lawyer and he says, hey, Owen, we have our letter of recommendation from prosecution and the judge in Australia. Andrew Young recommended, your old prosecutor recommended the most time off. We're going to go see Judge Hayes. He says, wish me luck. And I remember the next day he came back and he called me. He said, Judge asked about the letter. We gave him the letter. Judge Hayes also asked about your prison conduct and what you're doing. And he then presented to them my master's degree and I had graduated in honors and the judge looked at it.

31:02And then he said, Mr. Hansen's also been teaching GED. And he's looking at it. He said, Mr. Hansen's also been sewing gloves for the U.S. military because I was a sewer in prison. And Judge Hayes says, man, I can't argue with this. I'm going to recommend the most time off. I'm going to take eight and a half years off of sentence. And I was like, wow, this is life changing, right? I won the lottery in life. And I was like, wow. I said, so what now? He says, President Trump just passed the First Step Act. He says, you're going to get two years halfway house. He says, you're going to get one and a half years good time.

31:31And he says, it looks like you earn another year off due to that master's degree. I'm like, OK, so when am I coming out? He says, you're coming out March of 2024. And he says, we'll put you in the halfway house for 18, 20 months. And here we are today.

31:43Randall Kaplan:How much time did you have to wait before you knew the news you were going to get out between March? About seven months. Oh, it's still a long time. Yeah, it was a long time. I mean, just counting down the days. And you're like, anything can go wrong. Right, right. A riot could happen. I get put in the shoe, and then I lose my good time, and they say, you're not getting your halfway house. So it's like you're walking on pins and needles the whole time. When you're on that plane, it's an 18-hour flight to Australia. Yeah. And I'm sure there's no nonstop from Lompoc. I think you were in your third prison at that point in time.

32:13Randall Kaplan:Yeah. And so are you on a cargo plane? I wanted to see government planes. And are you chained the whole time where you can't move around? No, on the flight there, I was with Qantas Airlines. Okay. So you're in the back of the plane? Back of the plane. Handcuffs. They take you handcuffs, but thankfully the captain of the plane came and said, Mr. Hanson, are you going to behave? I said, of course I'm going to behave. And he says, well, we don't allow handcuffs on our flight. I said, no problem. I said, but captain, I think you can send me something from first class. It's been a while. And he looked at me.

32:44He smirked, right? He says, I'll see what I can do. i've told this story before and uh literally like seven hours in the flight he brings me a cheese platter and i was like oh this this dude hooked me up right you gotta remember i've been eating mackerel yeah and uh he brings that cheese platter i said oh thanks captain i looked at the the two australian authorities i said guys is there any way i can get a glass of wine with the cheese i was like i was gonna try and they looked at me they're like absolutely not I was like, how about a cappuccino? And they're like, we'll let you have a cappuccino.

33:18I haven't had a cappuccino for seven years at this point. And so they brought me the cappuccino and it just wasn't the same. I was eating the cheese and the cappuccino, but I was watching Netflix and stuff I've never seen. This all became very popular. And I'm watching on the plane my own. I stayed up the whole flight. These guys are sleeping and I'm watching.

33:38Randall Kaplan:Going back to looking after yourself, the federal government typically doesn't give immunity for testifying against someone unless that person has done something wrong. Yeah, I mean, that's why he was in trial, right? Right. And so there's someone close to my soon-to-be ex-wife who was involved in something. He's an athlete where a teammate died, and he got immunity for testifying against that person. Do you think people like that should be loyal and not narc on somebody else? And should people like that go to prison? Yeah, the guy that got that 22-year sentence, I actually know the guy. You know, I was with him in federal prison.

34:14The situation was bad. The poor guy was, you know, suicidal about this. And he took it to trial. And his lawyer told him, you know, we got this beat. And one of these athletes came and testified against him. And I don't think that's right because it's not like this equipment manager or whatever he was to this organization was making these players, these athletes take this drug, right? And at the end of the day, we're all grown men and we can decide what we want to take. And these guys are all using it and, you know, a couple athletes, this equipment manager and one guy takes it and he lives. Another guy takes it and he lives and another guy takes it and he dies.

34:56And, you know, he gets charged for murder. I think there's a certain type of cooperation that is fair game, like a corrupt attorney, a crooked cop. But when you're dealing with someone that is partaking in this illegal activity, I don't think that's right.

35:15Randall Kaplan:Someone who reportedly, and this is investigated by every reporter, it was a big story. The person who narked to save himself contributed to the person that died. And this is not me saying this. This is in the public domain. Public record. Public record. And I don't believe that's right at all. I think that's a big no-no. And I think anybody in life would agree. Switching subject for a second, you go to the halfway house and you're on parole officially. Is that what it's called? Yeah. And are you wearing an ankle bracelet? People are kind of worried you're going to bail. No, I mean, where am I going to bail?

35:50I'm out, right? So why would I bail? Because I would just go back to prison. So they give you a curfew. My curfew was from 6 to 6. I could leave at 6 in the morning, and I had to be back at 6 p.m. In the first, like, five months, I was taking the bus. I was literally taking the bus to the gym, and then from the gym I'd go to the office. And then from the office I'd go to where we started manufacturing the protein ice cream. and it was difficult because, you know, a bus schedule is a lot different than driving a car. So you had to, you know, map out everything and everything took, you know, two hours longer.

36:21It was a different way of wiggling, as I call it.

36:24Randall Kaplan:The documentary, The Cocaine Quarterback, is absolutely fascinating. I recommend it to anybody who likes stories of redemption and, you know, your story today is just truly incredible, one of the best, craziest ones I've ever heard. How did you get Mark Wahlberg involved in this to produce the movie? And for those people who don't remember, Mark Wahlberg, who, by the way, is an incredibly nice guy, great businessman, great family person. I managed to spend a little bit of time with him up in Coeur d 'Alene, Idaho, and he's just all about family. Family, the Lord, right? He's great. You know, I had a producer, Van, my buddy, came.

37:01He visited me from Colorado.

37:02Randall Kaplan:This is a Canadian producer? Sorry, yeah. He visited me from Canada. And he was referred from this girl that used to be a VIP bottle service girl in Hollywood, right? I used to be. Captain Tucker there when you were hitting the club with Matt Liner. She reached out and says, hey, your story's awesome. She goes, have you ever thought about doing anything? I'm like, I'm in prison 21 years. Yeah. Sure, whatever. Let anybody come do whatever they want. So she goes, I got a producer from Canada. His name is Van. I said, we'll bring him. So I got him on my visiting list. And he came to visit me in my first prison at the United States Penitentiary of Lompoc.

37:34And he came and he says, man, I read your article on Rolling Stones. I read The Vice. He says, you got an incredible story. He says, can I pitch it? Will you let me pitch it? Can I manage your life rights while you're incarcerated? I said, do whatever you want, man. I got 21 years. He says, this is what I want to do. I want to get a movie deal for you. I want to get a book deal for you while you're in prison. I'm like, go for it. He says, who would you want to do a movie if you could have anyone in Hollywood? I said, Mark Wahlberg. He's an athlete. He loves golf. I'm left-handed just like him.

38:03He believes in God like me.

38:05Randall Kaplan:And people forget when he was 16 years old, he actually served time in prison. He served time, right? He's a felon. Former felon. Former felon. And I said, that's the guy. And he's like, all right, that's who I'm going to try first. And he went to Mark Wahlberg's documentary company called Unrealistic Ideas. Archie and Dave were the head of the show there. And he gave them this pitch deck. And they're like, wow, we want this story. And at the same time, I started writing the book, The California Kid. And that just became like the Bible of my story. Eventually, they came in 2020 and they said, hey, we're going to start producing this thing.

38:37We're going to need to start interviewing you from prison. And they started literally 15 minutes a day because that's all you get in prison, a 15-minute phone call. For nine months, I spoke to the director for nine months straight and just told them the story from the prison phone. And they just built this thing. And then they started going to get the collectors, the FBI informants, the coaches, the DEA, the FBI. And they started to put this thing together.

39:00Randall Kaplan:But they're not filming in prison. Well, they take the phone calls, and then at the end, they got me in my khakis. Right. But did they put you in your khakis when you're not in prison anymore to make it look like you're in prison? Yeah, because you're not allowed to just— You can't. You can't do that, yeah. Right. My job is to ask the tough questions. Yeah, yeah. So here comes a doozy hill of questions, all right? The story of redemption is a great story. Everyone loves it. And there are people out there who think, all right, criminals should not profit from their crime. In this case, you're a drug kingpin.

39:28Randall Kaplan:and you're bringing in thousands of kilos of cocaine that no doubt ruined lives, bankrupted people, and probably led to a lot of deaths. Should you be profiting from your story today? I'm not profiting. I haven't made a dollar. I've never made one dollar off the documentary. It's not allowed. That was part of the agreement. When you're incarcerated, no money's allowed. I get out of prison. Now, if they want to buy my life rights, now that I'm out of prison, and I've served my time, I feel that's fair game. But yeah, I haven't made a dollar from the documentary. I love the story of redemption. And you're on the speaking circuit right now.

40:00Randall Kaplan:And I want to tell everybody that you're willing to speak for free because you do want to prevent people from going down the path that you're going that you went down through greed, through excitement of winning. Betting is addictive. And you want to help people now. And who do you want to speak to and tell everyone that you are willing to speak for free because you now want to give back to the community? Yeah, I like to speak to the athletes because I was an athlete. And as an athlete, we have, I tell people, we are adrenaline junkies and we like to win, right? And I wanted to win so bad, I took it to the next level.

40:34Any college program out there, I don't care if it's D3 to USC or Michigan, right? Football, basketball, baseball, anybody that can gamble on their sport, I want to speak to because it all started with one bet.

40:47Randall Kaplan:Have you thought about expanding it to crime-ridden neighborhoods where greed does take over, where drug dealing is a thing, where a lot of kids in school are taking drugs? And for a lot of people in these really hard-hit communities, like Compton, for example, where there are a lot of gangs, where kids have a choice to say, okay, you know, can I join the gang to make money and to be safe? Because greed is behind it, right? Make money. Yeah. Cars, jewelry. The first interview I ever did was to the Boyle Heights inner city Pop Warner football team from the ages of six all the way to 16. And you see it in the documentary at the end when I'm talking to the program.

41:29And I'm just telling them, like, you know, a lot of these kids' fathers are in prison. And so they've grown up without a father. And I let them know, like, do you want to be like your dad that was, you know, gone your whole childhood? Do you want to, you know, do what I did? and I explained to him, I said, I was in a six by eight cell. I said, to make you guys understand what that is like, I said, go in your parents' bathroom, shut the door and just sleep in there for nine years. How would you like that? When your brother's taking a poop, you're laying right next to the toilet and you're smelling your brother's poop.

42:01And these kids, they're like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah, that's how it is. And I just want to bring that awareness to them so they don't go down that path.

42:08Randall Kaplan:We're at the end of our show and I always conclude my podcast with a game I call Fill in the Blink to excellence. Are you ready to play? Sure. The biggest lesson I learned from becoming a cocaine kingpin and partner of the Sinaloa cartel to where I am today and getting caught in my story of redemption is believe in yourself. The scariest moment in my life from being a cocaine kingpin to being a partner of the Sinaloa cartel is crossing the border thinking I was going to be killed. The craziest story I have from becoming a cocaine kingpin to becoming a partner of the Sinaloa cartel is? Watching someone's neck get chopped off with a saw.

42:51Randall Kaplan:Can you explain that a little bit? Someone shorted El Jefe 100 kilos of some bad work, and he told the guy that shorted him, he says, whoever gave this to you, you either go get them and bring him back here and take care of it, or you're going to have the issue. And they went and brought the guy from Guatemala, and they brought him back to Mexico, and he made him chop off his head with a chainsaw. You saw it? Saw it with my own eyes. And why did El Jefe make you see it? Was it a warning to you? Just to show him. Show me if you don't fuck with me. It was a flex. Insane. Yeah, insane. PTSD. My number one professional goal is?

43:27To have an exit with a B at the end.

43:29Randall Kaplan:Do you have a number in mind? We all have what I like to say when we're growing up is how much money do I need to be financially comfortable? And there's a term out there, which I'm sure you know, which is called fuck you money. So what's your fuck you money where he said, I've made it and I'm good from now. I think a billion. That's, that's good for me. A billion. Yeah. I think I, you know, I've, I've made millions and I want to make billions now, but I, my thing is if, if I could show the world, like, you know, people, you know, he's a kingpin, a drug dealer, fuck him. He did it illegally. Well, let's, let's do it legally.

44:01and then we'll say, fuck you, right? And that's my goal.

44:04Randall Kaplan:If you made a billion dollars, how much of that billion dollars would you give back to helping others and give it to charity? Because what am I going to do with Adol? Well, what are you going to do with the other half? You can't spend$500 million. We're going to give to hopefully some children that I make, some of my family members, my sister, friends and loved ones that were there for me when I was at my lowest point. You find out who your friends are when things are down, right? I was part of a company that went from a$35 billion valuation to$345 a share to$0.49 a share. Under$135 billion to under$100 million.

44:38Randall Kaplan:I think we had a$50 million market cap at some point. Everyone loves you when you're a winner. No one wants to talk to you when you're part of a shit company. And it's kind of the same thing. I've had friends that have gone to prison, and really they appreciate you staying in touch with them because that's what a true friend is. I tell people you can count your true friends on one hand, and that's how it was in prison. And a couple of those people are your family members, right? The biggest regret I have in my life is? Crossing the line into the drug world. The best advice I've ever received is?

45:09Trust nobody.

45:11Randall Kaplan:That's a hard one to live with going forward in life. Because at the end of the day, you have to be vulnerable. You're going to get married. You want kids. You're going to have to somehow let people in at some point. I think it may be business, right? Maybe business it would be. Because I think at the end of the day, you need to believe in yourself before you believe in anyone else. 10 years from now, I'm going to be... An ice cream kingpin. If you could pick one trait that would make somebody successful, it would be... Be resilient. The one thing I've dreamed about doing for a long time but haven't is...

45:42Flying to Fiji again.

45:43Randall Kaplan:If I could invent one thing in the world, it would be... That's a... I might want to pass on that one. I can't think of that one. If you could go back in time and give your 21-year-old self one piece of advice, it would be... Be yourself, because that's where it all started. It was me trying to fit in with these kids from USC, trying to be like them. Someday I wasn't. Be secure in your own body and don't keep up with the Joneses. Exactly. If you could meet one person in the world, who would it be? Donald Trump. Well, that leads into my next question. If you were president of the United States today, the first thing I would do is?

46:15Distribute ice cream, protein ice cream throughout the world.

46:18Randall Kaplan:The one part of my story that I've never told is? About my wife at the time. I specifically did not bring her up in this interview because we talked about it was something that you really don't want to talk about. She's out there. She's close to you. You still have a relationship with her and you don't want her involved in your story. Correct. Until she's ready to come forward. Okay. Is there anything generically that you want to say about having a partner in crime? Although I'll say that differently. She wasn't a partner in crime because in the documentary. But the government thought she was.

46:50Let's put it that way. Okay. Just due to her background.

46:52Randall Kaplan:The story there is you want to keep a loved one out of it. And she really didn't know what you were doing or at some point she did. I think everyone turns a blind eye, right? They love you and there's nothing. Yeah, accepting, you know, who you are. At the end of the day, she rode with me the entire time I was in prison. She was my best friend. For this one, I want you to look into the camera. And I think, you know, my question is the one thing I want to say to everybody today is. Never give up in life. Let's fucking go. The one question you wish I had asked you today is. I don't know. You know, you have some tough questions.

47:23But are you going to get married again?

47:24Randall Kaplan:For sure. 100%. I like the institution of marriage. And for those people who don't know who are listening, I'm recently single. I've been out there now for three months on the dating apps. So I don't know. You can find me on Instagram. I have a public Instagram at Randall Kaplan. I'm kind of advertising my single status. Last time I did this, I got in trouble. but there's no one in the picture right now, so it's out there. Oh, and it's really a pleasure to meet you. We have a lot of mutual friends. Everyone loves you. I'm so happy for you and your future and the story of redemption is just great.

48:03Randall Kaplan:So I'm wishing you the best of luck, lots of success, and looking forward to hanging with you. Thanks, Randy. Nice meeting you. Appreciate you. Holy shit, man. This preparation you've done about my story, you've done your homework, and it's some of the best I've seen. I've had a lot of interviews, obviously, with some very famous people, And I would say this is one of the, if not the top number one interview with what you knew about my background. Most people don't prepare like you have. I seem to wonder, like, who have you been talking to to get some of these questions that you got and the answers that you have and stories that some people don't even know about through my book or the documentary.

48:37It's very impressive.

48:38Randall Kaplan:Thank you. I appreciate that. It makes it very easy for me to speak with someone that already knows my story because it feels like you and I have been hanging out for 10 years. And when you prepare like that, it just, the conversation flows so much better. As part of my podcast, this is how I prepare for any meeting. I always want the first question to be an extreme preparation torpedo, which shows the research and shows that I've done the homework. So how important is showing people that you've done the homework in a podcast or a meeting to how it impacts the future, whatever we're going to talk about?

49:11I think it's the most important thing in any kind of business. I go into business meetings, whether it was my past when I had to go into this business meeting with the cartel and knowing the situation, or now I go into these business meetings with buyers that distribute the ice cream throughout the United States. You do your homework. You realize who do they distribute for? What products do they carry? Do they have a protein product? And when you go into those meetings, they're blown away that you know about them, and it kind of gives them a little ego boost. And I think that's what you do a great job at.

49:42Randall Kaplan:How important has my extreme preparation been to continuing the length of the interview? Because we always keep going, right? I'm always feeding you with more detailed questions. And people seem to get lost in the, okay, well, that's interesting. That's interesting. That's interesting. Yeah, I think with all the content that you have in different parts of the stories, I think it keeps your audience zoned in. And if they can't watch it in one day, they'll come back the next because the questions you ask are so educational and entertaining. How effective would my extreme preparation be if I coach you on extreme preparation?

50:18I think I'd become pretty damn successful. I'd love it.