What if Drug Dealers Only Ran Legit Businesses?
Greg Lindberg on unexpected friendships and rehabilitated prisoners
Every human you encounter has something to teach you. ~ Greg Lindberg
Some stories are well worth repeating, and one of those is about how mega-successful entrepreneur Greg Lindberg met convicted drug dealers like Willie Colon in prison and changed them for the better. Lindberg wanted to hear the stories of everyone he encountered at the Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, Alabama when he entered it in October of 2020, and once settled inside, he began freely giving advice.
The inmates quickly learned that the quiet, red-haired man who was their new “cellie” was no ordinary criminal. As it turned out, Lindberg was no criminal at all, because the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously vacated his sentence in 2022. Waiting that out could have been a soul-crushing problem, but the man was determined to “get better, not bitter.” He shared that attitude with others and formed lasting friendships that would never have happened “outside.”
“Prison was the best experience on the face of the Earth to meet someone from every walk of life,” Lindberg says in a new YouTube video on Unexpected Friendships. “There are people in prison in a million years I would have never met. And, you know, our lives are… way too narrow. We have a very narrow set of people we interact with.”
Due to socioeconomic, political, ethnic, and work reasons, he says, we are very narrow in who we associate with, while in prison it was much different. Reminiscent of how people who visit foreign lands often come back with a fresh outlook about other people in the world, Lindberg was invigorated by his new friends.
“It was a wonderful exposure that I never got,” the Yale graduate remembers. “I mean… these guys didn't go to college. They just were home in the world. These guys were drug dealers in Miami. Very, very different.”
One prison friend who appears in the new series of videos is Willie Colon, who grew up in the rough Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, Florida. These days, Wynwood is greatly transformed and has its own website. Writing for Insider, Joey Hadden called Wynwood “Miami’s artsy neighborhood that’s becoming the ‘Silicon Valley of the South.’” Hadden even said the “emerging tech hub with vibrant street art” is where he would want to live if he was a Miami resident. To illustrate, Spotify and Microsoft were leasing facilities in this neighborhood filled with young professionals who loved trendy restaurants and boutique stores.
Only, nothing like that existed when Willie Colon grew up there. He never finished high school because his father abandoned the family when he was 15. Colon took care of his mother and little brother, a story all too typical of people who turn to selling drugs when it seems there’s little hope for financial survival.
“I grew up in a real tough, tough poverty neighborhood in Miami,” Colon recalls. “So coming from there, to meeting Greg, a person like him, I would never have imagined that. But prison does crazy things for you. They say it can either make you worse, or it can make you good. So, what I did was I took all the good out of it… like that was my college.”
Listen to Lindberg and Colon in their own words here:
Seeing Willie Colon as a man of enormous character strength, Greg Lindberg assessed him as a person with all the talent necessary to be a winner in legitimate business. Accepting Lindberg’s friendship and advice, Colon also took free courses that Lindberg taught to prisoners, sanctioned by the authorities at FPC Montgomery. Lindberg had never been charged with any crime before his conviction for bribery that was later overturned, but since his company Global Growth had thousands of employees all over the world, he knew the impact of tough neighborhoods.
He was determined to help Colon make it, once freed. He reasoned his feeling about Colon in legitimate commerce this way: “If you can run a drug business in Miami, you can run any business on this planet.”
Colon was impressed by Lindberg’s humility and dedication to giving his best doing what many considered the degrading work of cleaning toilets. Colon says: “I never met a person as dedicated as him… whatever he does, he does it 1,000%.”
The bipartisan First Step Act (FSA) of 2018 mandated the development and implementation of a risk and needs assessment system for people in federal custody. The Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs (PATTERN) comprises four tools: (1) general recidivism for males, (2) violent recidivism for males, (3) general recidivism for females, and (4) violent recidivism for females.
Published in 2020, a study by the United States Sentencing Commission that examined offenders released in 2005 found that federal offenders receiving sentences of more than 60 months were less likely to recidivate, compared to a similar group of offenders receiving shorter sentences.
Willie Colon spent 24 months in prison out of a 37-month sentence. According to him, the influence of Greg Lindberg shortened his sentence and changed his life. What if other prisoners found similar influence? Greg Lindberg is making that happen.
Real life, personally experienced stories like this are what set him on a mission to help the incarcerated fare better in life, and to keep others from running afoul of a justice system needing reform. His YouTube videos support his new book 633 Days Inside: Lessons on Life & Leadership. The ebook can be found on Amazon, GooglePlay, Apple Books and many other major outlets. The paperback is available at Barnes & Noble and, via IngramSpark, around the world.
Through his website www.greglindberg.com, Lindberg is making digital copies available to any currently incarcerated inmate or their family member. Even more to the point, his company, Global Growth, has a stated policy of not turning away potential employees because of a criminal conviction. In addition, In addition, he continues supporting people like Willie Colon that he met while in prison, and he learns from his new friends all the time.