00:00:00
Hey everybody, the besties are taking Thanksgiving off. But hey, we didn't
00:00:05
forget about you. We banked a couple of great content segments while we were in Vegas. First, here's an interview with
00:00:12
Molly Bloom. You know, she ran the legendary highstakes game in LA in New York. I was invited to the LA one. We'll
00:00:18
get into that. And her story was turned into the feature film and book Molly's Game. We have a great conversation, tons
00:00:26
of insider stories, who imploded in her LA game, the best celebrity poker players, getting shaken down by the mob,
00:00:33
how she got an Aaron Sorcin meeting, and much, much more. Big thank you to our
00:00:39
friends at Oracle for partnering with us on this amazing VIP lunch we did in Vegas at the Venetian. What a great
00:00:47
hotel. Also, make sure you head over to our YouTube channel. A YouTube exclusive
00:00:52
for the first ever bestie poker freeze out game. Who's going to win? Chbahhat Freebert, me, or some of the world's
00:01:00
greatest poker players, Alan Keading and Jason [Â __Â ] Also, Phil Helmouth. He he wound up there as well somehow. So,
00:01:06
happy Thanksgiving. We love you and uh be safe and we'll see you all next week
00:01:12
for a regular episode. Listen, we have a guest. We do have a guest. Um, she's an entrepreneur, bestselling author, one of
00:01:19
Fortune magazine's most powerful women. I didn't know that. Oh. Um, Molly Bloom ran the world's most
00:01:24
exclusive poker game. You probably know her from, uh, the movie Molly's Game,
00:01:30
which we'll hear a little bit about today. But Molly's also, I think, got an amazing sense of what made her
00:01:36
successful and the journey she's been through, I think, is a really interesting one to learn from. So, please join me in welcoming Molly.
00:01:44
Thank you. All right. Nice to see you, Molly. Molly, what was the origin of the game?
00:01:51
We know some of our friends played in it. Uh, well, hold on a second. Jason, you
00:01:57
claimed on our show, let me just read the notes. The notes? Um, yeah, there are notes here. What did I say? Apparently, where's the thing
00:02:03
that Jason said? We were on the show and Jason said he played in the game all the time and
00:02:09
No, no, no, no. I was invited to the game. No, you did not say that. Lisa, please pull the tape
00:02:15
and when you're ready, just raise your hand and let me know exactly what Jason said. And then Molly responded on Twitter that you did not play in my
00:02:22
game. Okay, let's be clear. Molly, did you invite me to the game?
00:02:29
I don't remember inviting you to the game, but here's the here's the deal. So, there were two versions of the game.
00:02:35
There was the version where I was working for someone who would send me a list. Got it. And I'm sure that you were
00:02:40
probably on that list when I Jeffrey Epstein's list, right? He was young. Absolutely.
00:02:46
Okay. But when it was my game, you know, I just remember the Four Seasons.
00:02:52
Was that your game or Okay. So, it was the Four Seasons. I remember you invited me and you said Toby's going to be
00:02:57
there, Leo's going to be there, whatever. And uh they'd love to see you. And I said they would love to see me lose $50,000.
00:03:03
There's no way I'm going to this game cuz I was playing in a 510 game. But you were working for somebody at the Viper
00:03:09
Room. The game started. You then took it over and it very quickly became a big game. Famously Toby Magguire, friend of
00:03:16
uh ours we play poker with sometimes was part of this. Um and then you decided uh
00:03:22
to move it to New York. Just let everybody know like how this all got started for you and when you took over
00:03:27
the game. Okay. So I was uh in college game for
00:03:32
the US ski team. had a accident and retired and kind of didn't know who I
00:03:39
was because sports were my identity. Went to LA simply because I wanted to be warm. I'd been cold since I was 2 years
00:03:46
old. And ended up working for this guy. Uh he had a real estate development company and he said, "Tomorrow night, I
00:03:53
need to serve drinks at my poker my poker game." Okay. And so I show up to this poker
00:03:59
game and it, you know, it's A-list celebrities like you've mentioned, but also the head of one of the biggest
00:04:05
investment banks, a politician who was a household name, uh, somebody from the tech world, and I get to be a fly on the
00:04:11
wall in this incredibly compelling room, and also, you know, I'm in my I'm 23
00:04:18
years old. This is access to information, to capital, to power. And then at the end of the night, uh, they
00:04:24
were tipping me in chips and someone counted out $4,000 in cash and I was like, "Okay, I don't know what's up with
00:04:30
this chip token economy, but I think I might want in." And over the next eight months, um, I
00:04:38
started to learn the to speak the language of poker, but really what I was
00:04:43
focused on is how do I forge alliances? because I knew that I would say about 3
00:04:50
months in, I knew I didn't want to just serve drinks. I knew I wanted to have my own games. This was an incredible opportunity. I mean, it really was a
00:04:56
Trojan horse. You could use it to infiltrate any subset of society. Um, and I was learning about the world from
00:05:02
some of the people who were active actively involved in in shaping culture. So, it was a fascinating uh interesting
00:05:11
time and and it was also very lucrative. And so, um, I decided to start my own
00:05:17
games and I had eight months of notes of what I would do differently. And I think
00:05:23
because I wasn't a poker player, there was an advantage because I was able to zoom out and see this isn't just about
00:05:29
poker. This is about community. It's about storytelling. It's about um belonging to something and it's about
00:05:35
escapism and fantasy. And so I really started to build on those topics and and
00:05:41
those, you know, I wanted everyone to come into this room and from the second they walked into this room feel like
00:05:47
they were in Monaco or in a James Bond movie. And and so when I started the
00:05:52
game 8 months later, you know, I was 24 years old. I didn't think these people who are rich and
00:05:58
famous and were going to come, let alone make it their their home game. And so I
00:06:03
would say that started the about 4 and a half five year tenure of the LA game.
00:06:10
And when we started out when I was serving drinks, it was a $10,000 buyin. I raised it to a 50,000 buyin.
00:06:19
And um yeah, that's the number I remember. And I was like, "Wow, those are high stakes." Cuz at the time, even in LA,
00:06:25
people were not playing in those states. And you really elevated the game. Somehow the mob got involved and the
00:06:32
game moved to New York. Fast forward to this because this got pretty dark pretty quick. It did. Um, so I lost the game in LA.
00:06:39
How do you lose the game in LA? Well, one of the players who was making 10x
00:06:48
what he was making in the poker game became very obsessed with this game and
00:06:53
wanted to talk about it all the time. wanted to and then sort of to want to kind of do things that felt wrong.
00:07:01
Okay. Okay. Like maybe uh target certain weak players, maybe uh get some of your tip
00:07:08
money, like actively cheat the game. Yeah. Um angle shoot the game. Angle shoot. And and also was
00:07:15
complaining that I made too much money. Got it. Um and basically gave me this offer.
00:07:20
I'll pay you a salary and you can work from you. You can be the figurehead. Uh-huh. Um, and I really wanted to keep the
00:07:26
game. I was making millions of dollars legally. I was paying my taxes. I was, you know, like I had mentioned, it was
00:07:32
incredibly exciting and and educational. Um, but I I didn't want to be under I
00:07:39
didn't want to work for him. Right. There's a power imbalance because this person theoretically might have been famous,
00:07:45
and the players might follow them if they boxed you out. Yeah. He he said uh turns out they want
00:07:50
to play at a movie star house. Uh, they wanted to what? Play at a movie star's house. Got it. And is it well known who that
00:07:57
person is? It's well speculated. She never says who they speculated. JKL Toby Magguire.
00:08:02
Uhhuh. And he the uh concept also was uh there was this device called a shuffle master
00:08:08
which was in the first iteration. It makes the game go much faster. And three people, myself, Toby, and another person
00:08:14
had a shuffle master in Los Angeles because you could buy them from somebody in Vegas theoretically,
00:08:20
but they weren't available. And Chimat remembers because he got an early one and I used to bring mine to Chimat's game. He'd say, "Hey, can you bring the
00:08:26
the shuffle master?" He also angles shot you and wanted you to rent a shufflem. I'll never forget going to his house.
00:08:32
No, he Toby. Not me. Not you. Not you. Um, yeah. I I'll never forget. So, he he
00:08:37
was right. Renting out a shuffle master. I mean, he had a tough couple years. You
00:08:42
said it was a pretty big downdraft. So, shuffle masters cost 17,000 at the time. Yeah. Um, and he was right that we
00:08:50
needed one. Uh, and so he said, "Well, how about we'll use mine? Just come up to my house and get it, right?" So, go
00:08:57
to his house and get it. And then I brought it back and he said, "Um, I'm going to need $200 for this." I'm like,
00:09:04
"You're you're kidding, right?" Like, I'm sitting there looking at his mansion, you know, 200 a shot. I mean,
00:09:09
and about 5 months in, I'm like, "We need to buy our own shuffle master, right?" Yeah. They they can be obtained.
00:09:16
So, you get the game taken away from you. The game moves to New York. Sorry. So, Toby Toby takes the game away
00:09:21
and you're like, "Somebody takes game away, right?" And so, you're like, "I'm moving to New York and restarting the game there."
00:09:27
Well, I was really pissed and I, you know, and
00:09:32
I it was 2008, so yeah, I was like, I'm going to build the biggest poker game in the world. Can
00:09:39
we can we talk like can you just talk a little bit about how you did that with respect to salesmanship and
00:09:44
building confidence to grow that game? Like you you moved to a new city, you don't know anyone. How do you
00:09:50
convince them and maybe talk a little bit about what you learned early on about sales and
00:09:56
earning people's trust and how you got that to happen? Yeah. So what I focused on
00:10:03
much much earlier than uh you know eventually I realized that if you're if
00:10:09
you're treating the business if you're treating the poker game like a business essentially what you want is you want
00:10:15
nine people seated around a table with equal playing styles equal skill skill levels and hopefully you get these
00:10:22
heartp pumping results but at the end of the year the money changes hands and the house wins. Okay. But before I realized
00:10:28
that, what I had was I I was raised by uh parents who were
00:10:36
were very um they they believed in teaching lessons all the time. And my
00:10:41
dad's was excellence and discipline and overcoming fear. And my mom's was integrity, integrity, integrity. And
00:10:46
what can you do for the world? And don't make people feel like they're transactions. And so, you know, that's that's the education that I had. And so
00:10:54
I was a really hard worker and I really held myself to a high standard. So for
00:10:59
instance, when I started running these games, there was a lot of pros that would offer me free rolls, straight cash
00:11:06
if they could play, but I knew that that would compromise the integrity of the game. So what I did is I didn't take
00:11:13
shortcuts. I just was trustworthy and I invested in people and I um you know I
00:11:19
developed relationships and I was very intentional about before I walk in this, you know, not
00:11:25
asking them for favors because everyone in the world was asking them for favors and just, you know, instead of what can
00:11:32
you do for me, what can I do for you? Um, and over time, you know, pe I think
00:11:37
people sense that you're a trustworthy person and that you are really deeply invested in in their outcome and and I
00:11:45
think that that was focusing on that relational capital and focusing on cultivating that trust and being a part
00:11:52
of someone's life. um doing events, you know, expanding the time that you spend
00:11:59
together outside of just poker and, you know, doing events with the whole with the whole crew and and so that's what I
00:12:05
focused on and that was so incredibly valuable. And a big part of this culture at the
00:12:11
time was unlike say some other games where we have a group of friends, it's
00:12:17
uh like a high trust environment, we settle up yearly, etc. The tradition in LA, at least in the ones I played in,
00:12:24
uh, was you settle up the next day, people would, and that would be your responsibility, I assume, or one of your
00:12:30
runners to go collect checks and settle with people. And then sometimes, you
00:12:35
know, people maybe couldn't settle, and it can get a little bit awkward. So maybe you could tell us about that part
00:12:41
of the job that people don't see, which is, hey, you got to go the next day. Somebody lost 50 grand, 250 grand.
00:12:46
What's the big loss that you had to go collect? What was that like? A couple things. First of all, what shocked me
00:12:54
was if you looked at the net worth at a lot of these people that were playing, it would indicate that a loss of a
00:13:02
couple hundred thousand or even a million wasn't a big deal, right? But that's that wasn't the case. I I saw
00:13:10
crazy behavior. Um, and when I realized
00:13:16
kind of like cuz I always would ask myself the question, what's underneath this? You know, what is what's causing
00:13:21
this flipping of the table, screaming at me that you're never going to pay, you know, whatever. And what I kind of got
00:13:28
to is it's fear. Even though it doesn't make logical sense compared to someone's net worth, losing money or losing in
00:13:34
general kind of triggers this fear response. You feel out of control. So my
00:13:40
job consistently was having enough top- down control to be able to be the one
00:13:45
that could then make that person feel safe because I saw in other games the game runner's on the hook for the money.
00:13:51
This person's saying, "I'm never going to pay you. Then they're both in fear, then they go get into the sparring
00:13:56
match, games end, things fall apart." So, it was really useful for me to just
00:14:01
be able to emotionally regulate myself and understand what was going on
00:14:07
and just talk them down from a ledge and get them to pay because if somebody stiffs the game, the game you could
00:14:12
break the game permanently. Well, I've been stiffed and I I wrote those checks. Really? What's the biggest you got stiffed for?
00:14:17
250. 250. And the person could afford to pay it for sure. And they stiffed you and then you've got
00:14:23
to come out of pocket for that and make good. Yeah. Yeah. That's That's hard. Yeah,
00:14:29
that's a But it teaches you to do a really good job on the on the vetting. Yes. Um I mean I had bank employees on
00:14:35
my payroll basically because in LA people drive a Lamborghini, they rent a house in the valley, right?
00:14:41
Yeah. So Molly, can you just talk about you talked earlier with us um when we were playing poker or during lunch about
00:14:50
someone said I think what sort of stuff are you into? Yeah. And you said, "I'm really into like adrenaline
00:14:56
stuff, like adrenaline sports, right? And you're like competitive skier and so on." Um, but this feels like that sort
00:15:03
of high stakes environment that you put yourself in. Where did that come from? And do you think you selected yourself into this environment because it feels
00:15:10
like hella skiing? I think first of all, um, I come from a
00:15:15
really competitive family. uh one brother uh went to the Olympics twice,
00:15:21
was a world champion in mogul skiing at world champ at 16. Then he went on to uh
00:15:27
after the terin Olympics get drafted fifth round of the Philadelphia Eagles. He was an Abberrombi model.
00:15:36
Then he started and sold a tech company at like literally the highest valuation
00:15:42
like down to the second I think. And now he's CEO of the X Games. And then my other brother is Harvard educated
00:15:48
cardiothoracic surgeon at Massgen. So which one do your parents love most?
00:15:53
Well, they loved them more, but then Kosner played my dad in the movie, so I became instantly the favorite kid. So they they eventually loved you.
00:16:00
Eventually, but it took a I mean it took a lot. It did. Yeah. So that was part of it. Um we grew up
00:16:06
skiing and my dad was really insistent on fear is not going to sideline you.
00:16:13
And so from an early age, like some kids get grounded for talking back or you
00:16:18
know, whatever. We got in trouble for letting fear get in the way or and and
00:16:23
so something started to happen, I think, in those early years where it was like this very like exciting experience to
00:16:32
look at something, be afraid of it, and then do it. Um like run a big game where people go south for 250k and then you decide, hey,
00:16:39
but that was the behavior you were trained on early on. I think it was a byproduct of social fear in the face and jump into it.
00:16:45
Yeah. And that's a pretty great feeling, right? It totally and a bit of pride. You wanted
00:16:51
to restart the game. And so you had that pride. Big time pride. So take us to the game moving to New
00:16:58
York and the mob getting involved, you getting beat up, the getting pinched and this whole thing going sideways.
00:17:04
Okay. So um moved to New York to to your uh question really started interviewing
00:17:11
poker players what's the problem in the current system because there is really well established games and whatever and
00:17:17
what I found was that there was a problem with trust um a lot of times gamers would play in their own games uh
00:17:24
if they did had a bad night the rake would be higher d wasn't taking a rake um and then I realized okay well if I
00:17:31
can become the bank for these games and I can settle um and then provide this experience um in which you could sit
00:17:38
down next to your hero or you know you could sit next to somebody who's going to change your life in business and then
00:17:44
there's no pros and it's all action. Um this is how I'm going to do it. So I became the bank for these games. The
00:17:50
game in New York was a $250,000 buyin. It was 2008 and I remember the first
00:17:57
game the president like was in the background on the on the television like giving the state of the union on the
00:18:03
economy and there was like $10 million on the table. Um these were insane games. Uh they were
00:18:11
playing insane uh variations of And you love the thrill. You feel the thrill. Yeah,
00:18:17
I did. Yeah. Um I mean this was the game that like ultimately someone lost 100 million. So
00:18:24
um so yeah so again um that definitely made noise even by [Â __Â ] standards
00:18:32
and yeah so and then I just decided you know I cuz I told my parents listen cuz
00:18:38
they're like please go back to school you know please finish your like go to I knew what you were doing. Yeah. And I was like okay but I just
00:18:45
have to do this thing real fast. So, I I decided I was going to go as big as I possibly can. And then I started smaller
00:18:50
games and it and it got out of control and some of these guys from Brighton Beach started playing and I had them
00:18:56
vetted, but their and their stories checked out. I knew something was off. It was really off. They were running the
00:19:01
biggest insurance fraud scheme in New York City history. They had alleged ties to the Russian mob. My only involvement
00:19:06
with them was they played on my poker game. The next thing that happened was um
00:19:13
the Italian mob or impersonators of the Italian mob uh came to me and said, you
00:19:19
know, we we want a piece of your game and I turned them down. And then they
00:19:26
didn't just go away. Um, and they sent someone to my apartment and uh
00:19:32
this guy broke broke in my apartment and he put a gun in my mouth and he Jesus and he told me that um I work for them
00:19:40
and that if I told anyone law enforcement or anybody that they had found out where my family lives in
00:19:46
Colorado and then he beat the hell out of me and forced me to like, you know,
00:19:51
you took everything out of my safe and there was money and there was a gold bar in
00:19:57
there for some reason, but also um things that my grandmother, who I was named after, left for me. And you know,
00:20:03
it was just terrifying. And I was completely terrified, ashamed um for what I was now
00:20:10
implicating my family in. And I couldn't call anyone. And wow.
00:20:15
I kept waiting for their call. Did you think at that moment to just stop and just say, you know what, okay, done.
00:20:21
Yeah. But I didn't know if it was an option anymore, right? because they were looking at me
00:20:26
as a big earner now and they they' said, "This is a warning. It's not it's not up to you anymore."
00:20:32
Wow. So, I didn't know what to do. Like, literally for the first time, you could confide in anyone. I didn't I didn't tell a single soul.
00:20:38
You didn't tell You kept that all in. Yeah. And I'm in my apartment. I can't go outside cuz it's very clear I've been
00:20:43
assaulted. And I'm confused as to why I'm not hearing them cuz about 3 or 4 days go by
00:20:50
and I I don't hear anything from them. And then I get the New York Times and on the cover it says 125 arrested in the
00:20:57
biggest mob related takedown in New York City history and I never heard from them again.
00:21:04
Wow. Dodging a bullet. My god. Oh my god. But yeah, but then Oh my gosh.
00:21:09
Then the bullet of me came into play and you know so then I I just started getting out of control and like I said like you know integrity was an important
00:21:16
thing to me but over time I was making these little decisions. there were just a little left or right of of where where
00:21:22
I stood and and you know greed money became everything and and so I started
00:21:29
doing things that um my attorneys told me not to do. Raking the game.
00:21:35
Yeah. Taking a rake. Taking a rake. Now, for people who don't know, if you have a home game and you collect
00:21:40
tips, it's kind of a gray zone, but generally speaking, people don't have a problem with it legally. But in the
00:21:47
casino business, the legal gaming business, they feel that's their business to take a rake. And they went through the proper channels to get a
00:21:53
license to do that rake. And you can't do that at a home game, right? And so now you're breaking the law,
00:22:00
right? To make extra money. Sorry, just to be clear, a rake just means when you put money in the pot, they take a little bit of it out, they
00:22:06
put it on the side, they keep it for themselves. In the casino, they do an hourly rake, right? Yeah, that's a rake, too. That's a rake, too.
00:22:12
Yeah. Yeah. Um different. You were you were you were taking money out of the pots, keeping them for yourself. So basically what I was doing was I had
00:22:19
become much more lenient about who I was letting in the game. Um and so my
00:22:25
exposure was getting bigger. And so in some of those games where I was betting on the players and they were bad bets, I
00:22:33
started to take a rake. This was the last six months. the feds had put a confidential
00:22:38
informant in the game because they were listening to the Russians phone.
00:22:44
Um who tracked that and in and then a couple months later I got a text message
00:22:49
from one of the dealers and they said don't come here. The FBI is here looking for you and finally I knew it was game
00:22:56
over and I just wanted to go home even though I'd pushed my family really far away. like I I just wanted to go home
00:23:03
and so I tried to book a plane ticket from um JFK to Denver and my credit card got declined and then my next card got
00:23:10
declined and I looked logged into my bank account and it read99,999,000.
00:23:16
Um the division of asset forfeiture had taken everything because your
00:23:23
property unlike your personhood doesn't have the presumption of innocence except for maybe in Florida. Not
00:23:29
I'm not up on the asset. Now you're pinched. You get shaken down by the mob. Then you get pinched by the feds.
00:23:34
So the feds are So my lawyers call and they say, you know, she can sue us cuz this is on the civil side, but anything
00:23:40
she says will also be counted as a confession. They said, do you want her? Are you pursuing any criminal charges?
00:23:45
They said, no, I couldn't try to get my money back. I
00:23:51
moved in with my mom. Felt really sorry for myself. Took me about two years to put my life back together. Finally got
00:23:57
this little job in LA. moved back into this little studio apartment and I thought, "Okay, it's a
00:24:03
fresh start." You know, five days later in the middle of the night, 17 FBI agents, machine guns, high beam
00:24:11
flashlights, put me in handcuffs and shackles, and put this piece of paper in front of me
00:24:16
that said, "The United States of America versus Molly Bloom." Wow. Wow. What a year.
00:24:23
I was really running hot. Yeah. Wow. Um, couple of bad beats. So, I had a day and
00:24:29
a half to get to New York City to find an attorney. And And you're broke. And I don't have a penny.
00:24:35
Yeah. Wow. So, how does it all resolve? How does the story resolve? So, I found someone honorable and great
00:24:42
to represent me. I didn't have money to fight it. So, I pled out. The prosecutors wanted a meeting with me.
00:24:50
Uh, this was the Southern District. And, um, they really wanted me to become a a
00:24:55
CI. They weren't interested in the Russians or the Italians. They were interested in the billionaires and the
00:25:00
politicians and the celebrities who were for poker specifically. Yeah. Let me be really clear. There was
00:25:06
no Epstein in my game. Right. Right. Um so they said if you know if you're
00:25:11
they wanted you to be a rat against rich people, politicians, and famous people. Yes. And what did you what did they think you
00:25:17
were going to overhear like murder plots or like like what like what were you going to be able to tell them? Business
00:25:24
deals. I could have given them leads you over here for all kinds of stuff.
00:25:30
Yeah. Crime for sure. Wow. Um was this Pit Barara who was running the
00:25:36
Southern District cuz he he's also famous for getting rid of online poker. He had a He's a pretty by the books
00:25:44
guy for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And the Southern District of all districts is known for being the most
00:25:49
hardcore and politically ambitious and Sure. Right. All right.
00:25:54
Um, and they said, "So, did you did you go to jail?" I didn't. So, they said, "If you're willing to give, you know, if you're
00:26:01
willing to work with us, we'll give you all your money back and we'll give you a deferred prosecution, which will keep you out of prison." And I had like 48
00:26:08
hours to make this call. And, you know, where I got to it was like, this was my
00:26:14
fault. Um, I uh I had near-perfect information on the laws. I had all these
00:26:20
opportunities. I had loyal clientele. I found this loophole and I was the one
00:26:25
that decided to make this choice. And so to turn around and drag these people who had families through this [Â __Â ]
00:26:33
um based on my own bad decisions like
00:26:38
just didn't feel like something that I wanted to live with. So, I turned down that offer and I waited to
00:26:44
get sentenced and we all thought I was going to prison and I got a judge who was very
00:26:50
disappointed in my life choices, but but basically said, you know, you had a
00:26:56
life before this and I had character letters from professors and ski coaches and I had um a lot of people show up for
00:27:03
me that had made better decisions that I had in life and so he fined me a lot and
00:27:10
but I didn't go to But, you know, then I was 35 years old, millions of dollars in debt, a convicted felon. The tabloids
00:27:17
are telling this really reductive tale. Like, where how do you come back from that, you know? And so I decided, well,
00:27:24
there's a story here and if I can monetize that, maybe that can address
00:27:31
the reputational harm, the financial I mean, I'm millions of dollars in debt and um and so I wrote a book and uh
00:27:41
waited for my life to change and then I think 10 people read it and probably like eight of them were related to me.
00:27:48
But it was still my it was still my only idea and I still kind of believed in it in my in my gut. So I just made a short
00:27:56
list of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood and I was like why not you know why not just go for it. Um but they
00:28:02
needed to be brave because there was also a ton of people as you can imagine. Yes. Even though I'd fallen on the sword with
00:28:08
legally even though I hadn't implicated people in the book they don't want exposure and I get that. Um, so Erin
00:28:15
Sorcin wrote A Few Good Men, Social Network, Moneyball, and he was my
00:28:21
favorite writer and also the highest paid screenwriter at the time, which if you're gambling, which we always are,
00:28:26
right? It's good bet. Anyway, getting to him wasn't easy. I finally got to him
00:28:31
and I just remember before I walked in, I was like, what am I doing? Millions of dollars in debt. My book
00:28:37
sold 10 copies. Like, I live with my mom. like and this is the highest paid
00:28:42
screenwriter in the world, you know. So, you got a meeting with him. I did. And he had you had sent him the book
00:28:47
obviously. So, a somebody that I bothered like relentlessly. Right. So, you're just to put the sales
00:28:53
hat on again like the the relentless like pursuit of the sale. Yeah.
00:28:59
You were like all over this guy even though Yeah. you weren't make and you just kept going. Yeah. And I and I you know I had met
00:29:05
with other screenwriters and they were kind of a big deal and I was like, "No, no, no." And my brother's like, "You can't keep passing. Like you live with
00:29:11
your mom." What did you say when you get in the room? Um, so I told him my story
00:29:17
and I think like my leg my legs were shaking, but like I had this game face on, you know? Yeah. And when I was done, he said, "Well,
00:29:23
I'll tell you one thing, kid. I've never met someone so down in their luck and so full of themselves.
00:29:29
Wow. It's good character study." Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then, you know,
00:29:34
they made an offer. Yep. And then the the paid and then you used that money to pay down this uh fine
00:29:41
you got. I did. And I just finally finished paying off the government last summer.
00:29:46
Wow. Wow. Congratulations. And I leave. And I guess you know the just to ask you
00:29:54
the hard question which you kind of answered. I was always wondering like how does one make the decision to write
00:30:00
this tell all book and the fallout from that book? I remember in LA people talking about the book coming out. The
00:30:06
book's coming out. The book's coming. Everybody was really scared about it. You didn't put people's names in it. You specifically chose to, you know, make it
00:30:13
I put their name in it if they've talked if they had talked about playing in the games, right? So if they themselves, you know,
00:30:19
so you took some steps there, but you did make a decision all these people who
00:30:25
put you in business, etc. to basically turn on them and to basically tell their story, but there was no non-disclosure.
00:30:31
You hadn't made any agreements to not talk about it. Well, I didn't turn on them. I actually supported them at every turn.
00:30:39
Well, I'm just saying like I could have gotten a lot of money back and a deferred prosecution. Okay. Yes. In that case. Yeah.
00:30:45
And then the publishers were willing to pay me six, seven figures for a celebrity hit piece. I was broke living
00:30:50
with my mom. Again, I turned that down. Got it. And I chose to work with a screenwriter that was absolutely clear and willing to
00:30:57
contract it that we aren't ruining any lives. Great. And the fact that just so you
00:31:03
know is everybody in the who had games, all the dealers, everybody involved had to sign non-disclosures
00:31:09
for the next probably smart. Probably smart. Yeah. Do you still need to face fear in its
00:31:14
face to feel like you're doing what you want to do? Yeah.
00:31:21
Um I don't have this I think addiction to that anymore.
00:31:26
Um, but I don't I don't ever I I will always
00:31:32
choose courage over comfort. I I pay a big interior price internally if I
00:31:38
don't. But it's not like this thing where I need that, you know, that that uh
00:31:46
adrenaline hit to make me feel alive. I like it. I pick my spots now. I have a
00:31:51
three and a half yearear-old daughter so I knew before I brought a kid into the world I want I needed to do a lot of
00:31:58
work on myself right um so that I could be the kind of you learned a lot about yourself
00:32:06
I wonder what you could tell us about the nature of the men who are obsessed
00:32:11
with playing this game and playing it at these stakes and the camaraderie the
00:32:17
competition and the chaos have you learned erned about the nature of these men.
00:32:23
Well, again, I think I don't like to
00:32:28
there's a couple different archetypes. Okay, tell us. So, there are there are the ones that
00:32:35
are there on a self-destructive bullet train.
00:32:41
So, it's not just high stakes poker, right? Yeah. It's putting their marriage in bad places in
00:32:48
very egregious and and and ways. There's drugs. There's, you know, it's it's it's
00:32:55
the hedonic treadmill gone crazy. Got it. Um, no more control over themselves,
00:33:01
living for that next fix. Um, then there are just the highly competitive people
00:33:07
who are very comfortable with volatility. In fact, prefer volatility and chaos. um but still have some
00:33:13
semblance of control over themsel um and
00:33:20
you know and then I think there are people that play because they love the game
00:33:26
because they like the aspects of it that make it an incredible game. They they
00:33:31
like the psychology. They like the um making you know seeing the results of
00:33:36
making highle decisions with very limited information. They like the the mental
00:33:41
and and and and social thrill of it, the camaraderie and the competitive. Who's the who's the best celebrity poker
00:33:50
player in all the years that you saw in these games? Who is the best? Toby. Toby. Yeah. And who is the second best?
00:33:56
He wants you to say Chimoth, but we we were going to carve him out cuz he's not Look, I played with Toby for 20 years. I
00:34:01
would have said Toby, too. I think he's he's exceptional. He's a grinder. He's tough. Yeah, he's tough. He I mean he um he was
00:34:08
the only one in the game that was tight. Yeah. Um I guess second would be Ben.
00:34:14
Yeah. Affleck's a good player. Yeah. He he he's definitely smart. Definitely knows what he's doing. It depends on where he is in his life.
00:34:20
Yes. Yes. Politician wise, can you say or no? I haven't named any of the politicians
00:34:26
because they haven't been named. Yeah. Okay. Business people. Once again,
00:34:31
they haven't named themselves, so we'll leave them unnamed. And Molly, you were telling us before that you do some kind
00:34:37
of speaking work around sales. This is where I'm so interested in this. Like
00:34:43
what are the things you tell people when you do those events? What is the big takeaway from your experience? So a lot of people So there's this small
00:34:49
body of science called effective presence effective with an A and it really focuses on more of the subcon
00:34:56
what's going on subconsciously. So, um, if you work backwards from core human
00:35:01
fears, which I think is always a really good thing to do after dying, being
00:35:06
alone in public speaking, you know, it's like what are people most afraid of? They're
00:35:11
afraid of um not belonging, not uh being worthy, people stealing money from them,
00:35:18
etc. And so when you start to think about what
00:35:23
what kind of emotional footprint am I leaving with these people like in you know like how can I disarm them and also
00:35:30
cultivate trust at the same time it takes a level of intentionality and so I think what a lot of us do is we walk
00:35:37
into a room and we're thinking what are my what's my resume what are my sound bites what's my pitch instead of
00:35:44
thinking um how can I make this person feel like I'm
00:35:50
with them, like this isn't a zero- sum game. And so, there are just a couple things that you could do. I mean, listening is
00:35:55
a huge one to listen with full presence, to not listen while you're constructing your
00:36:01
response, but just ask open-ended questions. Go down this road with someone um to, you know, have some
00:36:08
warmth about you and some a, you know, a like be affirming. Um, but also be
00:36:14
authentic. Um, and and to practice the
00:36:19
hard empathy. Like the easy empathy is people you relate to, people that have a
00:36:25
similar experience to you. The hard empathy is sitting down and having
00:36:30
conversations with people whose views you don't like, whose personality you don't particularly like, and trying to
00:36:36
figure out or get to a place where you can understand them, you know? Yeah.
00:36:42
Um, and so making that effort. Yeah. making that effort and and you know it's interesting
00:36:47
humans hate uncertainty um without the an edited brain and I mean edited by
00:36:53
doing that that work and meditation whatever whatever your your mind training tool is um the brain thinks
00:37:02
that uncertainty is a metabolically unsustainable state so it equates uncertainty with fear
00:37:08
so how can you start to give people that sense of certainty Um, and also how can
00:37:15
you become aware of it in yourself? Because if you know that you hate uncertainty and then what you do is
00:37:20
forge, forge, forage for some subjective truth and then cling to it, right? Um, that's a big handicap, you know, and
00:37:27
so to start to do work on relaxing with uncertainty and being more curious than
00:37:33
needing to, you know, try to have this illusion of control. Um, you know, there's there's a lot of things that
00:37:40
aren't so obvious or instinctual. Totally. in in impact in the the art of
00:37:46
impact and and connection. It can also force you to let go of priors, right? Which allows you to adapt and evolve.
00:37:53
And I mean, being able to adapt and being able to court change and even,
00:37:58
you know, reframe it as like this is exciting or this is interesting. What an incredible life you've had,
00:38:04
ladies and gentlemen. Let's thank Molly for joining us. Thank you, Molly. Thank you so much. And let's thank also Oracle. Thank you
00:38:10
for hosting. Um, and my lord, we're going to have a great weekend.
00:38:20
I'm going all in.
