Playing the Cards You’re Dealt with Molly Bloom

I have to take responsibility for my own life and I have to figure out how to be my own champion, my own coach and believe in myself because what I'm going to wait for the world to believe in me or give me permission will never be like that. it's going to happen prominent CEOs prominent economists iconic investors expert opinions Walker's webcast with Willie Walker look who's next it's a great pleasure to have Molly join me today um I owe my friendship with Molly to our mutual friend Rick sapkin uh and so I want to congratulate Rick because without his introduction of Molly, I knew about Molly's game, I knew about Molly's story but I didn't know Molly and having her on the Walker webcast is a real pleasure and an honor so that Molly left me.

I'll do a quick introduction and then we'll dive into my first question for you. Molly Bloom is an American entrepreneur, speaker, and author of the 2014 Memoir Molly's game. She graduated from the University of Colorado and trained to be an Olympic skier and was injured. During the Olympic qualifiers in April 2013, she was accused of running a high-stakes poker game that originated at The Viper Room in Los Angeles and attracted wealthy people, sports figures and Hollywood celebrities in May 2014 after plead guilty to reduce the charges to which she was sentenced. one year of probation a $200,000 fine and 200 hours of community service a film adaptation of her book Molly's game was released in 2017 starring Jessica Chastain and directed by Aaron Sorkin the film received an Academy Award nomination in 2018 for Best Adapted Screenplay Molly has a burning podcast that we'll be talking about today, as well as a prolific speaking career that takes her around the world to speak before corporations, industry associations, and YPO chapters, so, Molly, let's bounce around a little um uh in your story and They are lessons, but I have to start here.

The game. Molly's game was your life's passion and you worked so hard to build and curate it. However, when Toby Maguire asked you to bark like a seal for a thousand dollars or lose the game, you refused to do so. Because? Do you know that would have come from my dignity? But I think about that, Molly, and I think about how much I mean when in the book you talk at length about being this woman from Colorado invited into a situation that you knew wasn't normal and you saw the opportunity that presented itself and you took advantage of it and when you took advantage of it. you took advantage of it with all your focus and all your attention and every ounce of energy you possibly had and you talk about how much it meant to you. and what your path forward was like and then when I think about everything you had invested in and everything you had endured to move forward and then all of a sudden Toby says bark like a seal and you said no I'm not.

I'm going to do that, it seemed like a relatively small price to pay to stay well, it depends on, I guess, who you are and what's most important to you, and you know, I think, uh, I, I've made a lot of decisions like that. That seemed to cost me a lot, uh, in the Here and Now, but it paid off later, um, and you know that story is a little more complicated. What it was, the story you're talking about, was the culmination of basically a lawsuit. for compliance and in many different ways in how I was paid and how I ran my business he wanted to be the puppet master and I couldn't, I couldn't act like that, you know, I had to be my own woman.

I had to do things the way I felt, uh, was right and true, and you know, it seemed like a high cost at the time, but the cost of being his Lackey would have been much greater, so let's back up for a moment. second born in Colorado, uh, two younger brothers that you affectionately call Tiny Evil Superhuman Prodigy, so talk for a moment about those two little super evil prodigies and how they influenced so much of what you ended up doing with your career, okay, then the evil part is just uh It's a joke, because they turn out to be amazing humans, but let me break it down for you, okay, so little brother Jeremy, number one in the world in Mogul skiing, at age 18 won three World Championships and competed in two Olympic Games. in both Olympics as number one in the world um when he retired from his ski career in Turin after Turin went to the NFL combine Faith was drafted to the Philadelphia Eagles um he was an Abercrombie model somewhere in the middle From these athletic careers, he started a charity at age 21 granting wishes to seniors in our community and, more recently, the kid we thought was just the athlete founded a software company and sold it for a ton of money, so that's the little brother, uh, the middle brother of Harvard.

Massachusetts General educated cardiothoracic surgeon who has literally dedicated his life to saving children with congenital heart defects and just like them this was my table and his skills came so early in these two categories that they were very important and instrumental in my family . which were athletics and academics and you know, I spent my childhood really reeling thinking what's my thing, you know, how do I get a seat at this table, so one of the ways you could see the table was to dress up as a fairy duck. when you were five years old. Actually, Molly, as an aside, my um, our dog walker CFO, Greg Florkowski's daughter wants to be a duck, not a unicorn fairy, for Halloween this year and he told me that at dinner two. nights ago and I said Molly Bloom was a duck fairy when she was five it's amazing there are parallels here maybe I can steal a part of her costume oh my god you read biographies about women who changed the world and when I read that About you, yeah, you had these two brothers who were incredibly talented, like they came out of the womb and that was always kind of biting your heels, so to speak, and finding your place, but you also always had the intention of changing the world.

I mean reading biographies about women who had impacted the world that said you had some interest in making your mark, oh, certainly, and I and I wanted to do it in a way that was good and pure and kind, um, and it really gave you I give credit. my mom so um, one of the reasons I read those biographies is because I came home from school and I said man and like in my history classes, all we learn is men, so my mom went to the librarian at our school and arranged for me to see all these books, all these biographies about women who had an impact and you know, the other tenant that my mom was so passionate about is doing things with integrity and kindness and you know, keeping close to that moral code, so I really credit that intention for great parenting and then I put him out into the world and got a little distracted, but let's get to the distraction piece, so he's an extremely good student at the University of Colorado.

I think you had a GPA of 398. You took the lsats average. The LSAT acceptance score at Harvard Law School is like, I think, a 68 and you have a 72 or something like that. Okay, wait, I have to correct. registration here so I can inflate my LSAT score. I did well, I love it because they are very Let's talk about that a little bit, but there are very few things that you and I have talked about before, but there are very There are some things that are not reality in the movie. You mentioned to me that the accident and there is actually a perfect transition, so you said that they also exaggerate the accident that you had at the Olympic trials, but you had surgery.

When you were 12, you had two rods on your back and you landed on them, ending your skiing career. You headed to Los Angeles to, honestly, just warm up and get out of the cold. winter season and you do a bunch of odd jobs running around waiting tables this and that and then you start working for, in your words, a diabolical, tyrannical real estate developer and you call him Reardon in your book for anyone listening today , you can go find out what Reardon's real name is if you want, and he's done a really good job cleaning up his LinkedIn profile and thinking he was, he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet, but if you read Molly's book and you watch In the movie, you'll notice that Reardon is a little lacking when it comes to um, let's just say he would commit a lot of HR violations if he worked for Walker and Dunlop, let's just leave it at that, Molly said as I listened. for you, in the lessons you learned from him, you learned to endure, you pushed yourself to learn new things, you watched him sell people on deals they should never have invested in and I sort of began to appreciate how uneven he was. because he actually made you an entrepreneur, made you understand service, demanded a relentless work ethic and then introduced you to the game, actually his game, yeah, you know, this character we called Reardon when I started working for him when was 20 years old had been too smart for her own good had raised a lot of money, this was before 2008.

Um and to be honest, you know Reardon has grown up and, in a very interesting turn of events, she was one of the only people loyal to me when everything fell apart, so I guess in those days he was a psychopath, there's no way. around that um, but you're right and I think the most important thing I learned from him is that he would realize that there's a problem that he would solve there's an industry that he wasn't he didn't understand he became a student of There was no no kind of barrier to entry that he didn't meet and in a very short period of time and that was essential for me to learn to be that level of problem solver and look at things.

Like this looks like a closed door, but I'm going to figure out how to open it no matter what and, you know, that was huge, well, as I think about that, Molly, and I think about the way you handle the door. In the game here are these stars who apparently have agents and all kinds of people who can do things for them, but one of the things that interested me the most is when they would text you at the table and try to read who some guest was. You knew all about that guest when they wanted a table at a fancy restaurant, which presumably they would think they could call anyone so you could figure out how to get it, get it quickly, get it perfectly, etc., etc., and that was it? kind of a concierge service that you provided beyond attractive women to serving drinks and knowing what their favorite drink was and having a good cheese plate, but it was that one-on-one relationship that you built with some of these A-list stars that What really made the game's glue is that it's a fair evaluation.

I think that's absolutely a fair assessment. And you know, in the early days I just served drinks in this game and these people were very prolific and I assumed you assumed they weren't. You don't need me, what kind of value can I confer in this room and I think it's a really important lesson that human beings are human beings and if you find ways to make their lives easier to solve the problems that they don't ask you to solve. introducing myself to people and not walking into a room thinking well, what can I gain right now? and turn that into what I can give.

That is my challenge. How can I improve this experience? How can I cultivate this authentic relationship? How can I really invest in it? this person as a human being and in his life and even those people at the top echelon and I'm not just talking about the top players, I'm talking about the heads of some of the biggest investment banks in the world. of the most well-known politicians, people in the world of technology, you know, I only named the people who were named in the press or who named themselves, but there is a completely different universe that was represented in those games and that It will be being able to start to see that human beings are human beings and if you find a way to make people feel cared for, heard, remembered, that works across the board for everyone and what that entails a lot is abandoning your own ego and your own fear. from um, who am I compared to these people and thinking I'm just going to show up?

You know, I'm just going to show up for them and be of use and that was there was tremendous value there, they also put a lot of I trust you without having any reason to and I'm not saying that you know that critically, all I'm trying to say is that You were new to them, you were someone they were introduced to through Reardon, and yet immediately upon texting them, you had their cell phone numbers. I mean, you talk about the conversations you didn't have with your family and your friends about what you were doing and how hard it was because you wanted to sit there and say "I." I'm texting with Leonardo DiCaprio and telling everyone and yet you didn't do it.

That was a very mature thing to do at the time, but a lot of people would have failed that test. What was it that made you realize that if you had told him? The world we were doing was going to end pretty quickly. I think that from the beginning of my sports career I had the ability to control my emotions, impulses, not only to be disciplined in the world, but also to be disciplined. internally and thatIt helped a lot, yes, and also something I realized when I started

playing

these games is that I have the ability to be strategic to think about the game long term, move the tape forward, and make decisions that are aligned with the greater outcome. and I think that somehow also comes from sports and how much mental discipline you have to have.

Yes, there is a line in the book that just talks about this approach to customer service. because I think this is very applicable from what you did with the game to anyone in the business world when you say you can't place enough value on someone being seen or heard or remembered. You can't value someone being seen or remembered enough. You are working with people in this game. All of them are seen more than almost anyone else on the face of the planet. They are Hollywood. stars, they are on screens everywhere, but you already identified how to relate to them one on one, how to make them feel seen, heard and remembered, I mean any tricks and all that, besides texting and thinking about what . they like to do was there anything that was unique about the way you made them feel seen heard and remembered? um yeah, I listened a lot and that listening seems to be an art that's disappearing more and more in a conversation, so often people seem to listen but they're calculating what they're going to say next or how they're going to sound smart or um and no. it's this genuine interest in listening um another thing I did was take notes on my conversations with people so that the next week or the next day I could check it out.

You know we were talking about this yesterday in progress. You know if it's a deal they're working on a relationship problem they're having. um two two. things that come to mind, first of all, assuming that people you see frequently make you satiated, it's almost the opposite, it's like a drug they need, they want it more, so there really is no limit to how much they want feel the people. special and it's not something cryptic and malicious, I mean, if you look at how human beings are designed and their fundamental fears after the first three, which are death, suffocation and imprisonment, if the next two have to do with not feel worthy, not feel good. enough um and addressing that on this level and understanding that is so important and and then you know the other thing is um even though a lot of these people have all these people in you interested in their life or seeing them always there's not always many.

Sometimes this underlying thing, but I'm just doing this so I can earn something and learn how to send that, of course, that was my work too. I'm not telling you that I was the Mother Teresa of the gaming world, right, it doesn't work, but I'm starting to be a real human being and say okay, so I want to win, but I also want to. I'll take it personally whether these people or not. feel good in my presence, you know that I am going to take your experience personally, that will be part of my personal victory and therefore start working on yourself where you are not so transactional and your result of success is not just the amount of dollars, but I really like the effect you're having on the world and I think it's a skill that can be developed.

I think empathy, I think character. I think all of these things are a skill that can be developed and I think over time, if you don't build. It's real, you get caught, yeah, so the second game you and the dealer decided to split your tips and I think it totaled fifteen thousand dollars, so you went home with seven thousand five hundred dollars and in the book you wrote I realized that I had endless stamina when it came to making money um and there's a period there, Molly, while I was reading the book that reminded me a lot of Julia Roberts and the Pretty Woman of running around Hollywood and trying on dresses and all kinds of things, right when I listened to you.

She talks about walking into Barney's to buy a dress and paying cash and the woman selling you the dress thinks you're a prostitute and you say, I'm not a prostitute. I didn't make this money doing selling my body I made this money, you know, doing other things and just take my cash and not my credit card. It reminded me a lot of that scene and I and I listened to you and it was almost like it was almost. like you were a maniac at that moment in the sense that there was this opportunity in front of you that seemed so incredible and you accepted it so fully that something brought you back to Earth at that moment interesting question um, I think your Read on, It is absolutely correct.

I think there was this manic desire to solve it. uh, staying in these rooms and ultimately owning these rooms. um and it wasn't just the money, although the money was huge and what the money meant. was that I didn't have to be powerless anymore and that and that was the Genesis behind it and that was the impetus um and you know there are these no, I had novel moments of buying expensive dresses and you even know buy Bentley at 25 or whatever , but what it really was for me was that I don't have to feel helpless, I have my thing and now I know that I'm an entrepreneur um and it started to fill that void created in childhood of feeling like nothing or nobody or not knowing what I was going to do. do or what was it going to be and then I think that was, I think it was the Mania and I was brought to Earth many times um, I mean, you know, the first time was a Reardon said after six to eight months of hosting of games and start thinking about how I could know how I could improve the experience and how to cultivate these relationships and then, then Reardon took the game for me and that was the Reardon took the game away from you.

I already told you the story of Toby Maguire, as he relates to barking like a seal, so you decide to move to New York and it's important to keep in mind where the economy was because this all started early. 2000s, when the economy was going well and you moved to New York right before the GFC, so the world was changing quite a bit, but you go into great detail talking about the fact that it wasn't just the clientele that was this, the game It was different. um, where you were in your life was different um and I was just, you know, what you say in the book, this time I wasn't going to be replaceable.

I became the bank that explains to our listeners what changed between Los Angeles and the way you handled the game in Los Angeles and when we went to New York, what made you know that you had been displaced, you lost the game and, as As a result, you wonder how I end up owning the game instead of being a player. the game uh when I go to New York so I talk about that and where it ended up crossing the line yeah so the first time I lost the game was when Reardon took the game in Los Angeles and then I staged a coup .

I had my own game with the help of Toby, with the help of Toby, yes, because yes, at that point I had already made some pretty strong allies, so I took Reardon's game or started my own game however we want to look at it and I did it very good and then six. Years later, I was guaranteeing the game by all means, when other people there was one time when someone got stiff and we chopped it up with the dealer and I, um, and we paid for it, but it wasn't in a capacity official. Funding the game, it was like someone got stiff, then the game, you know, we'll cut it to pieces, um, but I had gotten really good at researching people and knowing who to extend credit to and collect that credit, and you know , I developed. the skill and then when Toby took my game in Los Angeles, you know, this would have been a good time to go back to school or turn this into something that was scalable, that was less gray and that was always the plan my plan wasn't was to be a Game Runner forever but my plan was to learn from these people um save a ton of money which I did I saved millions of dollars you know I was making millions of dollars a year um and then turn it into some career that is scalable and that I can tell my parents, you know, that's more, it was more legitimate, but when Toby took the game the way he did, I knew I had to do it, I knew I didn't want to go out like that and So I thought, "I'm going to create the biggest poker game in the world.

I'm going to do it in New York City. I'm going to do it on Wall Street and like you said, it was 2008. So you know, kind of The Harder Road is you're fast in the book. to say that the best way to stop feeling like a loser is to become a winner, right, you put it very clearly, I mean there was a little bit of revenge in the I'll move to New York and put this game back together oh yeah, I have something that to prove for sure the other the other piece is just before you became the bank Molly, you say in the book that it was crossing and banking the game, that's what violated federal law, but out of curiosity, the actual game in Los Angeles taking over a Swede at the Four Seasons and having a private poker game is 100 legal as long as you're not banking. the game on that so it wasn't actually banking the game that put me in violation of the federal statute what it put because I wasn't charging interest on the money that I would extend or anything that I was just hedging um what was the factor ?

I was taking a break by taking a percentage of the pots and up until this point yes, I was doing it legally in both Los Angeles and New York in the early days because I had an event planning company, I produced these events and then there was This rule It's an unwritten rule in these games that if you want credit, if you want your seat next week, you take care of Molly and you know that people are winning and losing ridiculous numbers, 20 million 100 million, like these kinds of numbers and the council winners and you know, that kept me out of The Fray or out of serious crime in New York.

I started taking a break and that's what broke me down, but you know, when I got to New York it was This is a discouraging environment. I didn't really know anyone. I knew this mythical game. These were mostly hedge fund guys

playing

for ridiculous numbers, but you know, they were trying to get into their little club and that game seemed impossible and there were all these. There were a couple of game brokers who had run games in New York City for 20 years and they had all these contacts, so I looked at this which seemed like a very oversaturated market, a very closed system, and a very terrible time in history. financial and I just thought I'm going to find out where the holes are and so I started, you know, I reached out to people who were playing that great game, but I also interviewed a bunch of poker players in New York City and said what?

What is the problem with the market? What is the problem with the industry? um and what I found out over and over again is that these people would risk a lot of money, they would sit down and play these games and a lot of time even on these Runners games. even though they are taking a big commission and earning a big percentage they would only pay if they got paid so it's kind of a Ponzi scheme so I clicked do I become the bank if I have this Ultra safe game on me. of everything else, it's kind of like if someone walks into the room and they can feel like James Bond at night and they can do business at the table and they know it's completely safe and secure monetarily, this is going to disrupt this industry this is the way I can innovate and I can take control and that's what I did um and that turned into a couple of months you know, I was running New York City Poker.

I'm fascinated by the fact that you know that when you started in this, Reardon was your boss and he was his game, so you created your own game having met the people around you and having some of the biggest names in Hollywood that knew you and , to a certain extent, I had Toby as a partner, okay, now too, suddenly you went to New York alone, you have no partner and not only is it a new city, but there is a new clientele, but you are a, you are a one horse band, I mean, you're out there on your own and I and while I was reading the book, I thought how did you think you'd be able to survive on your own. the amount of hutzpah, the amount of self-confidence that you had to have, and it actually reminds me of your parents' circuit when you went to introduce him in the movie, he said, "I've never seen someone so depressed in their life." "as luck would have it." There's a lot of overconfidence, but in that, Molly, I mean, honestly, you're moving across the country, a whole new market, a whole new clientele and you're doing it on your own, that was very important to me. because otherwise I would have believed that he would have done it.

I always thought this was handed to me and yeah, I took an opportunity and what do you have more than going to Café City in New York City, probably in the world, and just entering this underground scene when I was young. woman and doing this was crazy, this is so stupid in so many ways, but it really is so important, so for a moment, not just doing it alone, but being the only woman in the room, you know, you studied the history of women who they left a mark on the world um, you were successful in Los Angeles um, but you know you say no woman ever played in your game, just yeah, this was a testosterone driven man, not a male dominated monopoly in this world, um Talk for a moment about what you learned.

You say in the book Molly that there were some people who, when you regretted their drinks,They related to you and were very friendly and sociable, but the moment you started running the game. They couldn't talk to you anymore, I mean, how do you deal with that abject sexism? So I didn't let it stop, you know? I saw it happen, it was awkward, um, sometimes it hurt my feelings as I listen, I'm still like a You know, I'm still 20 and I just didn't let that stop me. I found ways around it. I found ways to do it.

I just found that if you're the best at what you do and you don't buy into it and you and you just go into solution mode at every turn, it just becomes another problem and starting a business, running a business, starting a family, it's everything there is problems, you know it's just one problem after another and how well you navigate those problems, those obstacles that I have encountered, ultimately determine whether your results are good or not, you know, I used it, I used the pain, anger or humiliation as fuel to improve. to improve myself to make me more formidable and you know I just got over it and that's how I handled it and I just want to make a point here if I would have let the pros into the game, yeah, I would.

There were women who played, but at the time my game was 250,000 buy-in and it's like women are probably too smart to like Risk 250,000 jobs in a Tuesday night poker game, You know, but I've heard you say that not allowing Pros in was one of the keys to its success because it turned it into an amateur game and you know that people like Bradley Rutterman could come in and lose five million dollars at the table, but then You found out what was behind Bradley's game. about why he was willing to lose 5 million, well it wasn't really like he was willing to lose five million dollars, he just sucked at poker and was making money on the other side, but we'll talk about that.

Bradley in two seconds, but in it you just had what I found interesting: you got new entrants by going to Vegas, talking to people in Vegas, and saying, send me your players, but was there a prerequisite that you weren't looking for any? Pros: You were looking only for amateurs. I was looking for amateurs only. What I discovered early on is that for this game to stick, you need people with very similar playstyles and skill levels because then you get these huge results at the end of the game. night, but I was keeping everyone's numbers and at the end of the year mainly that money is changing hands now, if I had let the pros in they would have sucked all the money out of the game and the game would be over. and in the beginning, throughout my entire career, I had professionals who offered me the sun, the moon and the stars, three runs for their money, which means I don't have to risk anything if they win, I win, you know , Straight Cash likes all kinds of things and you know that's just one of those important things you have to think about.

It's short term. This seems like a great deal. Long-term. This is the death of my game. Yeah, one thing about that I thought was interesting. Any Duke has a new book called quitting and in it he did a study regarding prose versus amateurs in Texas Hold'em and the typical pro just plays uh they will fold 25 of the time they will they will. they play 25 of the time and fold 75 percent of the time yeah where is the typical amateur who plays 50+ of the hands they are

dealt

which I thought was really interesting that the pros can see the debt What does the letter have?

The

cards

that are

dealt

to them and usually three out of four times they just fold at that point, whereas amateurs are always hoping to work out and keep playing, yeah, and I think. in my game it was probably more like 80 90 that were playing and are still playing because they have a lot of money. I guess, well, I guess for a moment, Molly, there's something called Optimal Game Theory now. Can you, uh, just for a moment? I talk about poker because there are a lot of people listening who play it or don't know much about it, but what is the optimal game theory?

Because it seems like that's the new thing happening in poker these days. Yeah, it's basically about using the data, what you know about the statistics, the probabilities, the odds and playing and playing, you know poker has this, the stigma of old school poker was you know these cowgirls like the Cowboys come in and it's like you know it by instinct. Instinct and your ability to read people, that's how you win the game and people lose when they overprivileging their gut instinct or, you know, something like their supposed ability to read and the people who are winning are playing, they're playing. playing the numbers. you know they're playing the odds, there's a perfect way to play the game and you know there's quantities and all these things and it's so much more, I mean, that's how people play.

Now I mentioned Bradley Rutterman who was a hedge fund guy who created a Ponzi scheme, the feds catch him and the process of the feds going after him basically tells them everything about the game and that was one of the reasons why that Several of the names at the beginning of the game were published because they were published in that lawsuit and you were very clear about putting only those names in your book and not putting the names of the unidentified ones outside of that lawsuit in there, but now the feds are coming . After, like I said in the intro, they throw the book at you, the movie starts with the feds coming in and basically 17 FBI agents posted up against the wall with bright lights in their eyes and semi-automatic machine guns, um and One of the things they introduced against you, Molly, were accusations of sports betting and I find it very interesting that part of the accusations in the lawsuit against you were about sports betting, which is now legal in I don't know if it's all 50 states, but sports betting is ubiquitous. everywhere and we're seeing it in the world and you have a great episode of your podcast that talks about sports betting, but I was interested in you being a pretty active athlete better while running the game, isn't that cool?

I never made bets. I was never a bookie. I knew that was clearly a serious crime. But I knew all these rough actions, which means I knew these handicappers and these people who studied the games and had access to great information. So I would bet on the games, yes, there are two numbers 19 that have a lot of meaning to you and your brother. One of them is 1955, which I see starting for you, and the other is 19.8, which has great meaning. to your brother Jeremy, you want to explain to our listeners why 1955 and 19.8 have significant meaning to you and your brother, okay, correct me if I'm wrong because you heard this before me. 19.8 is a stipulation in the NCAA bylaws, right? yeah, right, so Jeremy was Jeremy played for the University of Colorado and was having a really prolific college career, you know, the first semi-touchdown, I think he ran it 80 yards for a touchdown at Pac Stadium, um, and this It was like a freshman, but I was also skiing competitively, which is a very expensive sport, and I wanted to be able to accept their sponsorships.

The NCAA says no, so he takes it to court. It leads to this. The judge in his case was a big Jeremy Bloom fan, but. was an even bigger University of Colorado fan and wanted to rule in Jeremy's favor, but there is this stipulation in NCAA Bylaws 19.8 that says if they find the University of Colorado or Jeremy guilty, then they can void the entire season of victories for the University of Colorado was right, so the judge had to rule against Jeremy in 1955. The judge wanted to rule in Jeremy's favor. He thought that yes, the case against him was terrible, but they couldn't take the chance that if the University of Colorado went to a bowl and was right, they could take everything away from them and as a result of 19.8, they sided with the NCAA, yes, 1955. 1955 is a federal statute running an illegal gambling business.

Now the interesting thing about 1955 is that it's only supposed to be used to accuse people who lead. gambling gambling Blackjack roulette um, you know, there's a little bit of skill, but not really, I mean, it's a craps game, it's a turn of hands, poker, you could make a very strong argument, it's a game of skill, people play against each other. others, the poker people, the pros who win the World Series are usually at the final table every year, so for years and decades poker was never included in this charge just before I was indicted, the government challenged a case in the Eastern District of New York, uh, a new precedent was set and here we are, so you have the case against you from the feds and you go after Jim Walden, who at the time was a Gibson made for be your lawyer and me, although the name of the actor. and all that and the movie is Aaron Sorkinized and not exactly the way he was.

You went to find one of the best lawyers in the country to defend you and Jim accepted you basically out of the goodness of his heart, one of the things. I thought in doing a little bit of research on Jim, what was really interesting is that Jim also represented Gregory Rochenkov, who is the guy who called the Russian and if any of you watch the movie Icarus, Icarus is around Gregory and Jim. his lawyer, which I found fascinating, but you say Molly that your mom cries every time she hears Jim Walden's name mentioned because she just thinks the world of him talks for a moment about why Jim was so good as your lawyer, you know which was interesting. because after they accepted that new precedent, what happened was the government confiscated all my assets, so I'm talking about logging into my bank account and seeing a negative balance of nine million dollars and, um, I go back to my lip and I moved in with my Mom thinking it was over and trying to put my life back together in the mountains of Colorado and it was two years later that the government sent 17 FBI agents with machine guns and arrested me, they have been building a case against me and It was as big a shock to me as anything in my life because I hadn't read a game for two years and my lawyer told me if you want her, she's here, just tell us we're going in, so right now.

I'm living in a uh, you know, you have a day and a half to get to New York City, um, I understand that I got arrested, I mean, I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around reality, you know? I'm at this arraignment with a lot of really serious Russian organized crime guys who are sitting in the audience on this side and their wives and girlfriends are sitting on this side and I'm thinking about what's going on in my life and my mom is there. and we are both in shock and we have eight meetings with lawyers, seven out of eight of them said that if you don't have an advance, which I didn't have, I didn't have a cent, the government took all my money that my mother puts up. went up his house to bail me out of jail, we're not going to represent you and Jim Walden met with us and said you need a chance, you need a chance, you know, and I'm going to go to Gibson and I'm going to say, look, we'll settle the money and um, and I started working with Jim and you know, I remember walking into his office and saying, "okay, Walden, what's our strategy and what's our angle," you know, like trying to fight like a tough girl. , like with experience in gambling, and he says Molly Integrity will be our strategy and article and it was that simple for him, that's who he is and he is the human being that in my most vulnerable moment, probably my most moldable moment, I brought me back home and made me remember who I wanted to be no matter what, and to have someone like Jim fighting for you, instructing you and influencing you in that way was so incredible and instrumental and I knew this is what Jim Walden wanted to be. , You know? and I was like I made this deal with myself never again my soul will never again be for sale what will be these principles and these morals that I follow that I hold on to I will behave with integrity no matter what happens and that's why you Be a couple weeks later when the prosecutors wanted that meeting and what they wanted was that they didn't care about the mobsters and they didn't care about the mobsters, um, which you know, I had run-ins with that was terrifying and terrible and all they wanted me to do was use a microphone and try to get information from politicians, from billionaires, from celebrities about things like, are they gambling?

Sports, you know, things that I didn't really believe in my heart of hearts were creating harm. in society and then their deal was we'll give you all your money back, we'll give you deferred prosecution but you need to help us take these people down and it didn't, it didn't feel right, you know, and it did. I felt like the position I was in was 100 percent my fault. Nobody tried to fool me. It wasn't like I didn't understand how things worked and it wasn't like I didn't have many opportunities. a big family had tons of opportunities and so I knew in my heart that I had to bear the consequences of my own actions and I was terrified of the outcome I was terrified of jail, terrified of never having money again, but um, ya You know, I just knew I had to do it.

I had tomake that decision. Was that moment when you decided you too would give up and dry out? Where was it? Where was that about you focusing on your own personal health? in that moment of clarity when it comes to your ethics and what you wouldn't do when it comes to the department of justice or was it before that, yeah, there were a couple of times, uh, and it's something that I could You know that I constantly watch and evaluate when I was running the games in New York, when I started to become this person that I didn't know, that prioritizes money and greed over integrity and I started making these decisions. and um I started using a lot of substances um you know, at first it was like being able to stay up and everything for the game, so it was like Adderall and then I started drinking a lot and I started not liking it as much and you know what this is all about, um, and When the FED first confiscated my assets, I sobered up, I needed to be clear and also at that time I really had a problem, you know?

And then, you know, after I had fixed my life completely from the outside and I got sober again and you know, that's different, there was a different Genesis for it or a different reason for it, but you know, basically being sober what it meant to me was no longer having crutches. to face the full weight of your reality of the things you have done of who you have been of how you need to change of the consequences of living this way you have to face it completely with no way out and that and that was what Basically, the reasons to be sober , so you write the book and then, Aaron, you get Aaron Sorkin, who I mentioned earlier when you went to meet with them and you worked very hard to get the meeting with Aaron.

I have to say it and one of the things that is really evident, Molly, that you have an incredible ability to identify talents and when you identify what you want, you go for it, it was a kind of relentless effort and concentration, so you know that you went for it. Hollywood trying to find someone to make your movie, but you kept going. saying that Aaron Sorkin is a person that I need to meet with and you finally got your meeting with him and you finally convinced them to do it. He turned it into an incredible movie, but like you say, you know you were from, you know, um, uh, walking down. the red carpet to a jail cell to walking the red carpet at the Oscars.

I mean, what an incredible turn of events in a very short period of time, from facing an actual jail sentence to having a sympathetic judge who didn't sentence you to any time. in prison to then turn around and turn your story into a movie that was a huge hit, yeah, you know, after sentencing me, of course, when he said he wasn't going to sentence me to prison like I'd lost my feet, like if there was nothing. It's impossible to express how terrifying it is to anticipate the loss of your freedom and when I didn't have to go to prison, I was incredibly relieved, but then there was this moment, a couple of days, weeks later, like I was 35 years old, millions. of dollars in debt I'm a convicted felon I'm a social pariah the tabloids are telling this story no one wants to take my phone call my network is decimated and I can't stay here you know I can't stay this broke I don't want to miss out on life.

I don't want to miss my life. I don't want to miss my life. I don't want to miss my life. I don't want to miss my life. So I had to get very strategic and I thought, "Okay, there's a story here um, but there was a lot to navigate. The editors just wanted this amazing take on the celebrity elimination article that I wasn't willing to write, so I wrote , I wrote a book and I got a small book deal and it didn't move the needle. and then I got to Hollywood and people loved the story, but everyone was so terrified of the billionaires, the A-list celebrities, the politicians who were trying to with all their might to get this to bury this story, so I had to get really strategic and what I did was make this short list of people in Hollywood who don't have to play politics, it's the Spielbergs, it's the Shonda Rhimes, it's The Aaron Sorkin and Aaron has always been my favorite writer, so I just wanted, I just wanted... my chance with him, you know, I just wanted to have a chance and, luckily, he wrote the movie, uh, and it did well, and already You know, and I and I had that second chance, so now you do a lot of things.

Speaking like I said at the top, you run and um, like Aaron Sorkin says, having heard you, she gives the audience the goosebumps experience. She learns from your career and honestly, I was thinking about it. You built a multimillion-dollar business as a sole practitioner. No marketing, no CRM system. You barely even had a bank account. I mean, you want to talk about a unicorn business. you barely even had a bank account, you built a multi-million dollar business, but what's the Mali playbook when it comes to conclusions about how people should think about their careers, first and foremost on my mind.

What I'm talking about is that when I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with scoliosis and the doctors told me that my ski career was over. It was the first time in my life that I realized that I had to take responsibility for my own life and I have to figure out how to be my own champion, my own coach and believe in myself because what am I going to wait for the world to believe? in me or give me permission, it will never happen. So I was cultivating that kind of belief in myself, so it's a growth mindset, it's believing that with the right amount of effort, optimism, and the ability to remain uncomfortable in the learning process, you can change your intelligence, your abilities, the results of your life. um starting to understand how to build real relationships uh I'm not where I am now without relationships um and learning how to cultivate those authentic relationships learning how people work being able to um put what you need aside to focus on the humanity of it all is super important uh being able to manage your own mind this is like that for me this is the biggest um all those times when I felt like I was done I had to have this agency over my mind to get out of the narrative to get out of that negative mindset and move on. to something else and for that reason I think a meditation practice is the deepest productivity resilience, you know, a powerful practice that a person can have because it teaches you how to start noticing the noise. negativity observing fear of observing doubts and sitting above them and then being able to exercise that agency to choose a different way to pivot to get back to the game that you know and so this ability to manage your own mind and manage your emotions It's just huge, finding the right people, it's in everything you know, like you have to have this cervical fusion and I think I'm flying Hopkins to the guy, I mean, like the guy who does it.

The NFL likes it because I don't want to waste time so I just look for that level of partnership in everything you do, I think it makes a big difference and then you know, the last piece to that is that. It is really difficult to maintain a high character in this world. It is not something we should assume. It is a foregone conclusion. I think it requires work. And I think it's the ultimate long game. That's why I have a practice that I instituted after this whole process. thing where at the end of the day I look at how I presented myself, I look at who I want to be and how I presented myself in the world and that ranges from whether I procrastinated or you know, whether I achieved my goals. or but it was also honest today, I was completely selfish or I was trying to give of myself and I just do this very quick checklist and I and I figure out what I need to work on and I and I and I use that as a way to keep the integrity and, you know, keeping my character on point and that's been tremendously valuable and in the moments when I wasn't doing it tremendously damaging, so at the end of one of the speeches I saw, you were talking to people about how creating a vision and what her future looks like and then executing it, so as you look at the next chapter, what will Molly execute in the next one, so, yeah, I'm being a great mom to Fiona, thank you, um, yeah.

I had a child seven months ago and that wasn't easy either, but it wasn't easy when she got here, but it's the most rewarding thing ever. I truly believe in the power of gamification I saw some of the most powerful programs in the world. connected people who could do anything in the world sit and play

cards

with each other for thousands of hours and when you remove the gamification, you have people just doing simple math with each other, you know, to wrap something in the gamification and keep the The attention of these people is very powerful and that's why my long-term plan is to discover ways to use gamification to help children learn things that are traditionally difficult to learn to maybe help adults learn about cognitive biases, That has always been my dream. and I'm getting to a point where I think I'm closer to being able to develop that and that's long term short term.

I have another book to publish. I have a Netflix documentary and a new one. podcast and an application that connects people and helps them put many of these learnings into practice. Anyone want to know more about Molly about gamification. Her most recent episode on the burning webcast talks a lot about that. There is also a fascinating one. There's a poker player who broke the rules by somehow taking advantage of rdif technology, that's crazy, that's a fascinating story if anyone wants to hear it, and then another one where he brings his brother Jeremy in to talk about the NCAA and Nils and how the sponsorship world has changed so much and I'll tell you Molly, it's bittersweet to hear the price Jeremy paid because of the old NCAA rules and then now see the NCAA move and change just like we are. see that organizations like the PGA also have to change.

I agree that you have been incredibly generous with your time. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time away from Denver and I hope to see you back home. My thanks again. our mutual friend Rick for putting us both absolutely alone in each other and thank you so much for sharing today thanks for a great conversation, it's been great, see you soon, thank you all for joining us today, have a great day.