Van Jones
Commentator, author, and lawyer. Host of the Van Jones Show.
“I love investing in the leaders coming up behind me and learning from them. I'm not working on my resume; I'm working on my obit at this point. And those, you know, those stories of investing in people and watching them flourish, that's bigger than me, frankly, sometimes, than passing bills.”
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan and his good friend Van Jones discuss what makes someone a successful leader, including investing in the future, faith, authenticity, and fairness.
They discuss how Van attended law school as the death of affirmative action closed doors and prisons opened. Van explained that he experiences survivor guilt for catching breaks that others around him did not, which has led to his mindset of never judging someone by the worst thing they have done.
Van emphasizes the importance of cooperation, making sure he works with both Republican and Democrats on his initiatives. This has taught him to do what he needs to do to get real changes made in society, and encouraged him to stop playing small, but instead, with urgency. Van is a CNN political contributor, the host of the Van Jones Show, and The Redemption Project.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Reform Alliance – Click here to learn more.
Meek Mill – Click here to learn more.
The Redemption Project – Click here to learn more.
Dream Corps – Click here to learn more.
Green for All – Click here to learn more.
Yes We Code – Click here to learn more.
Guest Bio
Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones is a news and political commentator, author, and lawyer. He is the co-founder of several non-profit organizations, a three-time New York Times bestselling author, a CNN host and contributor, and an Emmy Award winner.
Jones served as President Barack Obama's Special Advisor for Green Jobs in 2009 and is a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton University. He founded or co-founded several non-profit organizations, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and the Dream Corps.
Jones has hosted or co-hosted CNN shows including Crossfire, The Messy Truth, The Van Jones Show and The Redemption Project with Van Jones. He is the author of The Green Collar Economy, Rebuild the Dream, and Beyond the Messy Truth; all three books rank as New York Times bestsellers.
He is the co-founder of Magic Labs Media LLC, a producer of the WEBBY Award-winning Messy Truth digital series and Emmy Award-winning The Messy Truth VR Experience with Van Jones. He is a regular CNN political commentator.
Jones worked with the Trump administration and members of Congress from both parties to pass a criminal justice reform effort known as the First Step Act. Jones is currently CEO of the REFORM Alliance, an initiative founded by Jay-Z and Meek Mill to transform the criminal justice system.[6] He was also a longtime colleague of, and advisor to, musician Prince.
Follow Van on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @VanJones68.
Clips from This Episode
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
You are listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And I'm here with my good friend, Van Jones. Van is probably no stranger to any of our listeners, as he has hosted multiple shows on CNN, has written three best selling books, heads up a nonprofit focused on criminal justice reform, and he's been really one of the great voices for environmental protection. And the list goes on and on. The breadth of Van Jones' work is astounding. He hosts the Van Jones show, the Redemption Project on CNN, as well as Incarceration Inc., the podcast series. He previously hosted CNN Crossfire with Newt Gingrich, and a series called the Messy Truth. Van has spent more than 25 years and he looks good. It doesn't look like he's been doing anything for 25 years. He's spent more than 25 years fighting for criminal justice reform and environmental causes. In fact, I don't think people until recent times knew how much this has been a lifelong journey in the leadership for him. He's co founded a number of social enterprises, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, colorofchange.org, greenforall.org, Rebuild the Dream, The Dream Corps. He's a CEO of the Reform Alliance, an organization I've been very involved with that was started by Jay Z and a number of billionaires to reform the criminal justice system. He's also worked as the Green Jobs Advisor in the Obama White House. Not surprisingly, Van has won numerous awards, including the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader Designation, Rolling Stone's 2012 12 Leaders Who Get Things Done, Times' 2009 100 Most Influential People in the World, and the 2010 NAACP Image Award. And I think also the 2017 Webby Special Achievement Award. There's a lot to talk about today. This show's about leadership and talking about why leadership matters. And I can't think of a person I know who leads more than you, Van. And I guess what I really want to get out of this show today is how you can be a leader in so many different ways. Van, you are a public person. So your voice obviously is important. Your voice of reason is important. But I would say the most incredible thing about you, which I want people to hear today, is how much you do from behind the scenes. You know, people ruin that phrase, Lead from behind, that President Obama embraced and liked. And it was just made it into a terrible disparaging comment, but it's not. The best leaders are those who get things done. I love that one of the awards you got, were by getting things done. A lot of people don't realize how much you do and this whole idea of reform, this mission you've been on for decades now. This unlikely bedfellows of coalitions, we don't have to get a deep politics as a business channel, but I'd love you to talk a little bit about how you have always been about bringing together people at that uncommon table.
Van Jones
Well, I think that I figured out early enough in life, that there weren't going to be enough skinny, black left wing dudes from the south, for me to get stuff done just with people who look like me. And so figuring out how to fix the stuff I care about is tough. You know, I worry about people who were addicted and convicted, and afflicted, and you know, the people who are at the bottom. The least of these, as we say in the church, and those folks have real problems. There's been a style on the left, that's becoming more and more popular, which is to be woke, and to be woke is mainly to sort of like yell at everybody else who hasn't learned something you just learned ten minutes ago. And it means you wind up making more enemies and friends. One thing I know about poor folks, poor folks need more friends than enemies. In fact, a big part of being poor is being socially poor, not having a social network that can help you out. And so, you know, for the past 20 years, I really focused on working across the aisle politically. When I was in the environmental space, I was Obama's Green Jobs Czar. I was bringing together you know, people who were getting jobs for urban youth putting up solar panels and all kinds of weird stuff that didn't seem like it would go together. And I just learned that, you know, fundamentally, people are not focused on the stuff that's the top line. Oh, my ideology, my position. People want to know one thing. Do you like me? Not Are you like me? But do you like me? If you can't get past the Do you like me hurdle, nothing else matters. And so I've cultivated in myself, just capacity to like and love more and more people. And so when I'm in West Virginia, working with a coal miners. Or when I'm in South Central Los Angeles working with urban youth, I make sure that—not what I'm saying, but who I'm being is, I think you're awesome. And I want you to be more awesome, do more stuff with me. But let's be awesome together. That approach means you don't have to be in the front of the room. You don't. You can be in the back of the room, just beaming out a whole bunch of love and support. And a lot of stuff gets done, people feel good about it, and they want to stay with you.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, it means you're respecting other people, too. I mean, I guess you're right. Everybody has a voice, they want to be heard, you actually do two things, though. You are the guy behind the room who gets people to have that moment to lead? But you are the person who actually at end of the day who has to explain it to the people. I mean, you have this dual kind of path where you do lead from behind, and you have to be the guy who's held accountable in front of the television screen. Yeah.
Van Jones
I wouldn't advise don't try this at home. Yeah, in that, you know, I do have this television role. And so you know, any given day, I might say something that pisses off my left wing friends, my right wing friends, and I can't duxk and hide. But what I will say is that, because I'm not, I'm not wealthy, and I'm not in elective office. What I do have is my— in my media presence, and so—but unlike a lot of people on television, I am just famous enough to get the real work done. Right, some people, they are born to be on television. You know, Rachel Maddow, or, you know, Trevor Noah. They shouldn't be wandering around in the hallways of state legislatures in Pennsylvania and stuff like that, because they wouldn't be doing their highest calling. For me, I'm on television just enough that when I call a governor, she calls me back, okay. But most—literally 90% of what I do is, you know, the same grungy, grimy work of a community organizer. I just get my phone calls returning quicker. So working with the Reform Alliance, which you know, you helped us get started. You know, we're in Pennsylvania and Georgia and Iowa, talking to state legislators and trying to do the horse trading and stuff like that. And when I come in, you know, the interns want to selfie. That gets me to the front of the line, but I still got to cut the deal, I still got to do all that stuff. And it keeps me more honest on TV.
Alan Fleischmann
You kow, one of the things that I love about you, and we spent time talking about it. First of all, you had this amazing mother, you know, qho I know had a profound impact on your life. But you also have this sense of responsibility. where, you know, you talked about how there was this window in time. You know, you're born in 1968, right? You know, and that you came of age at a certain moment where doors and windows opened up. And then I remember you telling me this over dinner, and then you felt like the doors and windows shut down right after you got through them. And that you literally has spent your life thinking, How can I open them up? And that you have a responsibility for those who didn't have that window? Now part of it was your mother pushing you through the door, I think in many ways.
Van Jones
And my father.
Alan Fleischmann
And your Father, but there was a part of you that is taking that responsibility very seriously. I mean, I'd love you to tell us a little bit of that. What that meant to you. Because you were born right after the assassinations, I believe of Bobby and Martin Luther King. Yeah.
Van Jones
Yeah, I mean, and for some reason, it really, you know, I remember being in kindergarten, and this guy, Patrick Carmody, just one of my classmates, asked who was Bobby Kennedy. And Miss Brown, our teacher, who was pregnant at the time, started crying in front of the whole class. Now, at that point, I mean, we didn't even know, I didn't know as a child that grown people could cry. I don't think I'd ever seen am adult cry. So I was like you got to stop crying. So I thought maybe when you got grown, you couldn't cry. And it left a big impression on me. This guy must be really important. And then I realized he died the same year as me and then Dr. King. And so I wanted to do well by those guys. Then I graduated from law school in 1993. And by 96, affirmative action was pretty much dead. So I got, you know, a minority scholarship to go to University of Tennessee at Martin. I got accepted to Yale Law School. And being a black kid from a poor school in the south didn't hurt me getting into Yale. I had great grades but who didn't? And then suddenly, the doors closed. And then not only are they closing the doors in terms of scholarships, they're opening prisons all across California with this, you know, kind of big mass incarceration boom. And I have survivor's guilt. You know, I go into prisons all the time, you know, as a lawyer, as a journalist. All I see is all these guys. They're taller than me they're smarter than me. They're better looking than I am. They didn't catch the same breaks I caught and their genius is being wasted and I feel like I have a responsibility to them.
Alan Fleischmann
That's huge. Actually. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Van Jones. There are many titles to your life, Van. You know you obviously—people know you on television, but they don't always know all the coalition's and all the organizations that you built. The Dream Corps, I'd love you to talk about as well. But let's go back before we get there about all the things you built. This journey you're on, this survivor's guilt. You know, powerful thing, guilt. A lot of people ignore it. It's too painful to accept and they move on. In your case, actually, it's ripe. It's, you know, when you get to know you realize that you're on a journey on your mission for those geniuses. I've never anybody actually did this, describe the way you just described it. You know, they're the geniuses. And you know, what an incredible horror actually, that we're letting people, geniuses, original people—
Van Jones
Yeah, it's really nice. I mean, you know, at Yale, they were kids doing drugs on the campus. The police never arrested those kids. In fact, the cops would just drive past Yale with the lights on to the housing project three blocks away, and put those kids in jail. Those kids had less money and fewer drugs. And so now, you're 20 years later, 30 years later, all those kids are quote, unquote, drug felons, the poor kids and housing project. And yet the kids who were doing just as many drugs on the campus, if not more, may have more money. They're respected members of society, and they won't hire those others. They go, Well, you guys are drug felons. Well hold on a second. There might be more than one nonviolent drug offender in this room, and you might be one of them. So what are you doing here? So just the hypocrisy of it. And again, I have a couple books now. Toughest grilling I ever—I taught at Princeton, I was a fellow at MIT, I graduated from Yale, toughest grilling I ever got was in San Quentin, these lifers, who I mean, I walked in to do my little presentation, the book, you know, they had these paperback books, and they were almost painted with the highlighters and stuff like that. And the notes, they read every word, they had been debating it for weeks. I got my butt kicked in there. And because they were they're super smart. They saw the gaps in my reasoning, they saw the leaps in my logic, they saw what I was trying to kind of get away with politically, and they toughen me up. All I'm saying is that if you judge people, by the worst thing they ever did, you miss a lot.
Alan Fleischmann
If you live in your own bubble, then you can be—you can let prejudice lead your way. But if you actually get exposed to geniuses, respect does come forth. I mean, it's amazing. Actually. That's what the Reform Alliance is about, I guess in many ways is coupling policy with people. I love that you're talking about people.
Van Jones
Yeah. Look, I mean, the Reform Alliance is an extraordinary thing because Meek Mill, who's a rapper from Philadelphia, had been on probation for more than a decade for what turned out to be a bogus charge in the first place. And a judge that wanted to send him to prison for two to four years, because he popped a wheelie, you know, he's riding a motorcycle, most likely lifted the wheel up off the pavement. He got two to four years for that, because he's on probation. If you do anything on probation, you go to prison. A nun could not survive on probation or parole in the United States because it's just an endless spider's web of catch 22s. But he is a well known person. So suddenly, Jay Z and Michael Rubin from the 76ers and other people, Robert Kraft, jumped into the fight. And not only did he get free, he was also totally exonerated, the underlying charge wasn't even real charge. And so and then they stuck together. Robert Smith, Michael Novogratz, Dan Loeb, Clara Wu Tsai, Laura Arnold, like major billionaires, plus Meek Mill. And I'm now the CEO of that organization I'm the startup CEO. And it's anamazing opportunity to—it's a bipartisan board. This issue over the past 30 years has gone from bipartisan agreement that we should build more prisons and fill them up as quickly as possible. Democrats and Republicans. Now people realize we overshot the runway, and we're going to have to right size the system, then change some things that are unfair. And you got Democrats and Republicans on both sides, on our board and in society. And I love it.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing, actually, because it's not just you've attracted celebrities, you've attracted CEOs, you've tried to political partners, really everybody from public, private and civil society. And you said we both have a lot of guilt in their hands. Some of them don't have any guilt on their hands because they weren't playing in it. But they've somehow, like you, either realized this is horrific. Or maybe it's survivor's guilt a little bit for some.
Van Jones
Also, I think one thing that in politics, people get wrong is they think, in order to cooperate with you, I first have to convert you. I've got to turn you into a Republican, I've got to turn you into a Democrat. I'm going to argue with you about first principles. And if you don't agree with me on everything, we can't work together. And I think that that's not right. What I've seen, especially on criminal justice is, this system, when you're locking up this many people this long for stuff that a lot of it is pretty petty and stuff people have actually done who are not in prison. It offends the values of both parties, the deeply held value of Republicans at their best is limited government. Respect for the individual, individual dignity, liberty. At our best, Democrats, justice, you know, the little people shouldn't be run over by the big people. Well, there's no better example of an anti-liberty, anti-justice institution, than a big failed government bureaucracy called the prison system that gobbles up money and liberties and lives and does a terrible job and gets more money every year no matter what it does. And so suddenly, we have this Liberty and Justice For All coalition to do something about the present system, and nobody has to change their mind about anything.
Alan Fleischmann
And by the way, you don't have to be soft on crime.
Van Jones
No.
Alan Fleischmann
You don't have to be soft in public safety. You can make that be your biggest priority. It's just respecting the fact that—you described beautifully before, this idea that, you know, you're not doing anything wrong in New Haven, we're just a few miles down the road. It's it's a sense of respect to justice.
Van Jones
And also, look, I'm raising—my boys were born in Oakland, and we're raising them in Los Angeles. I'm not a part of the pro-crime lobby. Okay. That's not my thing. Yeah. Like if you want peaceful streets and safe communities, and you want to spend $80 billion to do it, I can tell you how to get the money. Yeah, listen, they spent $80 billion every year on prisons $80 billion a year. And the outcome is usually people who just go back to prison. The youth prisons in the United States are $100,000 prep schools for adult prison. So I like listen, give the money to me. Yeah, I can tell you.
Alan Fleischmann
Infrastructure, safety, community building.
Van Jones
Counseling, yeah. Mental health, yoga, diet, hugs, love, you know, fresh air, trips out of town. You know, mentorship? I mean, you could get—you could have much greater community safety at a fraction of the price, if that's what you were focused on. But what happens is, nobody says about their own kid, oh, my God, my kid's on drugs, give them 17 years. No. About your own kid, oh, my God, my kid needs help.
Alan Fleischmann
He needs counseling, he needs support.
Van Jones
Right. So as long as you think there's some, kid called someone else's kid, we come up with terrible ideas. That means, you know, these are all our kids, then you suddenly see it completely differently, right? These are all our kids. And some of our kids do terrible stuff. Some our kids do great stuff. Some kids are in the middle. But they're all our kids. The real harm to America is the division, you know, the breaking down of trust and falling into tribes, so that we let horrible things happen to our neighbors when we wouldn't let that happen to our own kids.
Alan Fleischmann
You're doing what—you're building these meetings, you're bringing together these coalitions that very few people know about, it is a little bit like a salmon swiming upstream or the kind of the magnet, I mean, you're pushing hard, you have a lot of energy and fortitude and passion. Because it's not natural. Unfortunately, trust does not happen naturally in Washington. It doesn't actually happen in any community, actually, anymore. Between those who have power, they don't trust each other.
Van Jones
You know, this is about leadership and a lot of your people are business people. You get tested. You know, I'm playing this kind of dual role of, on the one hand, I'm a TV guy, and I got a call the balls and strikes on politics, which can piss people off on either side. Then I got to walk off set, wipe off the makeup, and then go and try to put together a coalition of people who don't like each other. Don't trust each other. Don't trust me. That's tough. Both jobs are tough. You put them together, it's exponentially harder. What I've found is that faith matters. What's wrong with this country is not a political problem is a spiritual problem.
Alan Fleischmann
Now you, are you when you say faith is it a spiritual side of it.
Van Jones
Yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
And then in your case, it's also your church-going faith as well. You have a community around you.
Van Jones
Yeah, I am. Everybody's got to believe in something, whether a higher power or energy or wherever, whatever it is, you know, but you got dial that up. Big time.
Alan Fleischmann
If you're fighting for Something.
Van Jones
When you're doing something hard. Yeah. Because you're gonna get a lot of no's. And sometimes it's high decibel. And from people you respect and you rely on it,
Alan Fleischmann
You have to figure out a way to not get angry.
Van Jones
Yeah. And it also a lot of shame comes up a lot of stuff in your childhood. It's amazing. I've sometimes trended on Twitter for 48 hours with liberals attacking me. You sell out. You work with Donald Trump. You work with Jared Kushner. How can you do this? You're a whore. You're an Uncle Tom. I mean, you think you're a grown man. You know, you think your're your dad. You're this, you're that, you're grandparent, maybe even, you know. You start getting shamed publicly, you start having.
Alan Fleischmann
Then you don't worry about yourself anymore, then you worry about your family. And you're worried about your kids, you're worried about other people, because you can't defend yourself so easily in this. There's a lot of risks to what you do.
Van Jones
Yeah, there's a lot of risk.
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Van Jones. And we're talking about leadership. And actually, in his case, how he is a leader of many organizations and coallitions and he has that responsibility, and with that, the burden of responsibility. But a lot of the success that he's had is, is actually allowed a lot of people to have the limelight in, and a lot of the glory of the leadership. But he also is willing to talk about it, you know, right in front of the camera. And here on this on the show. It is a big deal. You know, when you talk about how do you build trust, your thing, which I find fascinating when I look at your journey and watch over the last several years, you represent something that we're starving for right now. And it is authenticity. It's not just a voice. A lot of people are talking. Actually, I would argue, we're living in an age where you know, where 24/7 television is streaming, you know, you pick up something, I mean, we get we're inundated by people talking. So there's no shortage of voices. In fact, there's a lot of noise. But what we are starving for, and I write about CEO statesmanship a lot. And I looked for people in my work every day. Clients I work with, who have an authentic voice, they have a purpose. You represent that every time you're on television, every time you're in a board meeting, every time you're doing a one on one. People actually don't believe your mission is Van Jones. That doesn't mean you're not going to do right by Van Jones and the Jones family. We all should do that. But people don't really believe that your left or right. Everyone knows your politics. That's where you came from. But you respect other people, and you don't talk disparaging against them. So that authentic voice, which is truly what you represent, when you're on CNN, it is what people look for, when everyone else is talking left and right and the noise is everywhere. You're the only one honestly, who then starts to say something that isn't all negative, you know, you'll say—you'll give people their fair moment. And because you do that, there's an opening, you can either kind of climb through that small opening, or you can ignore it, you don't seem to ignore it.
Van Jones
You know, it's such a blessing that I'm at CNN, and Jeff Zucker, my boss, and Amy Entelis and Rebecca Cutler, like that whole team. They just took a crazy bet on me in 2012. I don't have the right voice for television, I have a lisp, I stammer sometimes, I'm not trained for it. But they just threw me out there in 2012 and they've continued to let me find myself in public. I didn't show up at CNN fully cooked. And so the audience and I kind of had this relationship was like, you know, there's a little bit of, I think I have permission from the audience to not be the left wing guy or the right wing guy. I have that permission for the audience, have permission from my boss. So when I'm out there and I'm sitting on the set, I work hard to figure out like, what do I actually feel? Now, what do I think? I mean, I'm a brain guy. What do I feel? And how would I feel if I weren't able to reach it, you know, 10 million people tonight. Like if I were just at home. And I try to stay close to that. And I've got myself in trouble being close to that. But my boss has never punished me for—when I say something, even if it's—the CNN audience doesn't want to hear it. I praised Trump when he's beaten down some stuff that I thought was awesome. You're not supposed to say that. You're praising Hitler, according to the liberals. But it's not a shtick. I think, for me,
Alan Fleischmann
It can't be a shtick if people can'y see through.
Van Jones
Yeah, I think for me, people say, Well, you know, why do you work with Trump supporters? Why do you work with the coal miners? Why are you in West Virginia all the time? What are you doing? You're not going to change those people. You're not going to change those people. I say Oh, no. I'm not trying to change. I'm trying to make sure this moment didn't change me. I don't want to become what I'm fighting. I don't want to become divisive. I don't want to become dismissive.
Alan Fleischmann
You want to know that you're actually fighting for a purposeful policy change or programmatic change. So, you know, if you're focused on your mission, then that drives you. It's not the people part, it's like I get the people to get to the mission.
Van Jones
You know, I can be set up on TV saying all Republicans suck. I got bills, I gotta pass man. Like, hey, like,
Alan Fleischmann
You just killed your whole—
Van Jones
If I just sit up here and say all Republicans are terrible, then how am I going to get a bill down in Georgia or Pennsylvania or Iowa.
Alan Fleischmann
But the thing about what you said, which I love is that you just said a minute ago, the word feeling. You are emotional. When you think about why you have such a huge following. It's because you have actually shared, you've cried for the American people. You literally have on the show, you have literally yelled for the American people, you have been respectful for the American people. You've given reflection and pause to the American people. Those are feelings. And honestly, we're living in a time—I don't know how to explain it. I don't really understand it. But when I think about, you know, the three people we talked about before you were born, you know, John F. Kennedy, Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy, they still resonate 50 years later, you know, it's amazing. And Bobby especially. Yeah, Bobby, you know, Bobby had the respect to quote Aeschylus. Yeah, I mean, he would go into communities, where, frankly, there were no books. Okay, and he would actually, quote Aeschylus, and challenge people with respect. Now, he didn't talk down to you, he talked up and expected you to join him.
Van Jones
The thing about Bobby's voice and I give myself permission to talk the way that I talk because of, because the way that Bobby talked. You know, JFK was a great orator, you know, he knew—he would round it off, you knew how to do it. Bobby was supposed to be in the back of the room. He was never supposed to be in the front. So suddenly, his brother's dead, and he had an obligation. And he has to walk to the front of the room, how painful and try to do it. And there's a vulnerable quality to his voice. He had to trick himself. I'm only talking to one person. So there's an intimacy in his voice. It's 20 years early. He's got that—he doesn't sound like anybody in the 60s when he talks.
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to leadership management, Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. We'll be right back.
Van Jones
What does it take to be a great leader? How are the leaders of today changing the world? Leadership Matters with your host business advisor, Alan Fleischmann.
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischman. I'm here with Van Jones. And we were just talking about, especially Robert Kennedy, RFK, Bobby Kennedy and how 50 years later, he resonates. And you know, the way you were just describing him, it reminded me and you're not going to say this becuase I know you. But it reminded me a little bit of you. And let me explain to you why. One of the times we're together alone, you just—people think of you movie star looks, charming. You don't see yourself that way. And in fact, you will talk about yourself as the kid with glasses. Geeky, wanting to sit there and read, didn't do well in sports, despite your father being a great athlete. And you know, and how you just, you know, didn't quite always fit in. That's kind of the Bobby Kennedy story. When you look at where Bobby Kennedy was. It was nine Kennedy kids, you know, with a gorgeous Joseph Kennedy, the first one who was meant to, you know, be you know, his destiny was everybody's destiny. Then you have the great orator in John F. Kennedy, Teddy, you know as a son, who many was the funniest singer, the one who remembered every poet and every limerick. And then you have the sisters who were indomitable. If they'd been in any other era, they would have been the forces of nature. And there was little Bobby. Yeah, not as quite as big as his brothers. You know, kind of geeky, loved reading about poetry, loved reading about the Greeks. Reminds me of you, Van. Because anybody today would say he was a superstar, he was a movie star, you know, that he was, you know, this incredible rock star. But that didn't come naturally to him. And that's why maybe he was so authentic too.
Van Jones
It could be, I mean, I would never compare myself to anybody like him. But I do think there's—there is a value to having—to being a nerd, to being an outsider, to having been bullied. I was a bully magnet. I think they invented wedges for me. You know, it was—and I read comic books and you know, all the escape, you know, power fantasy, escape stuff that you read when you don't have any any power. And then suddenly, I'm six one plus, and I'm like, I can help people. But I know, listen, I'll tell you what, I know what it's like to not fit in. I know what it's like to be laughed. I know what it's like to have nobody give, you know, to rats, you know. I know. And so when it's time for me to take on something, I can almost like body slide into the person I'm fighting for. And I can feel what they feel. And it gives me strength.
Alan Fleischmann
Have you ever thought about running for office?
Van Jones
You know, not seriously, I'll tell you why. I don't think it's a political problem. I think it's a spiritual problem. I think it's a cultural problem. People say, Why won't you run? There are great people who run every day in both parties. I mean, great people. They can't get anything done, because the culture is so toxic. And so I want to try to do—can we create a situation where 1000 people can run 500 of one party, 500 of the other and get something done, that's a much bigger contribution. And to get that to happen, you've got to pull a lot of crap and stupid out of the system. And if you're trying to figure out how you're going to be in the system at the top of the system, you can't be as honest about the crap you got to pull out in your own party or in the other side's party.
Alan Fleischmann
It's a problem though, because you know, when you think about it, it's not sexy what you're talking about, but it's critically important. Like I was just thinking, as you're talking, I'm thinking, gosh, he should write a book about this. But will a book make a difference? Probably not. You know, he should do a show about this. You've tried that idea of bringing people together who normally weren't going to be coming together Redemption Rroject. You know, yeah. Do people really, you know, are they drawn to that? I mean, I didn't want to say that, but people don;tcare. I mean, but it's just sad, because it should be exacited. I refer to it as the uncommon table. Yeah. You know, I constantly try to bring people together who normally wouldn't breathe in the same room, and they can't even look at each other in the eye. And I love the magic that happens when you do that.
Van Jones
I've been at those tables that you've set.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, they're fun to watch. I remember being at a table in our home, where we had great environmentalists at the same table with people from the the original family behind Exxon Mobil. And they separately came in the kitchen, when I went back in the kitchen said, How could you do this? How could you do this knowing where we are in this that and the other. And ironically, friendships were born that night. And strategies were changed. So I know it's possible, but you can't—you don't get good ratings on it. You don't get a lot of kudos for it. It's not a best selling topic. But you're still fighting it and I love it, you're still gonna do it.
Van Jones
Listen, here's the thing. I'm so blessed. I know, all the people have to worry about ratings. And people have to worry about votes. Have to worry about investments and money, that kind of stuff. They need help. Those people need help, they can't do their job and then do all the interstitial stuff. So we have to have other forms of leadership, that are the Legos that help everything click together. And if everybody just wants to, like, well, how come I'm not the senator? or How come I don't have like the top show? Well, geez, man, like we're not going anywhere, you know there's 300 million people in this country, we're not all gonna be senators, like some of us have to do the work.
Alan Fleischmann
And then work with the senator to give them an answer and give them partners. Give them help, give them friendships.
Van Jones
Lisen, yeah, if you're an elected—listen, I think people in elected office, they're just professional piñatas. I mean, they just get the crap beat out of him every day and people expect him to do—I think that my relationship with a lot of elected officials, especially on the right, I usually come saying I want to help. I'm not asking for anything, I don't need anything. What can I do that would actually get some of the sand out of the Vaseline here? To sort of help you get someplace? And they're usually stunned to hear it because they assume I'm like, a liberal guy work for—
Alan Fleischmann
They think you're transactional, rather transformational. They think you're coming for someting.
Van Jones
Yeah, exactly. And so I've got great relationships with you know, I mean, Governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi, who just, you know, passed the torch to his successor. I mean, right wing on everything. But he was the guy who sat down with Trump at the end, and said, I'm a southern right wing, Republican, hard right governor, and I did criminal justice reform in my state, and it worked. And you can do it too. And everybody talks about Kim Kardashian and her role in moving Trump. But Phil Bryan also played a role in moving Trump. And we've been fast friends, we pray together. It's—if you show up for people, and I tell people all the time, look, if it's useful, we're best friends. If it's useful, we're enemies. If it's useful, you've never met me, if it's useful, you just talk to me, I don't care. Let's just get something done. And I think you have to be that way.
Alan Fleischmann
And be persistent and not blink. And as you said, you know, we get a lot of no's before you get a lot of yeses. You know, one of the things I don't want to forget to do on the show, and I never do this actually, I just realized, but in your case, I really want to. What can we as the listeners do for you? Because honestly, you're trying to help. I was about to say have made America great again.
Van Jones
Yeah, sure.
Alan Fleischmann
But there—you are my definition of making America great. And you know, what can we do? Because we have to respect inclusivity. We have to respect diversity, not only of race and gender, and all kinds of diversity, but also diversity of ideas.
Van Jones
Yeah, well, look, I founded something called the Dream Corps, which is a little shop in Oakland where we run a bunch of experiments on bringing people together. We have something called Green For All where we're working to get environmentalist and unemployed youth and labor together to get jobs in the hood that are ecologically responsible jobs. We've got something called Yes We Code where we're trying to get Oakland youth. Prince started that before he died. I ran a lot of Prince's philanthropy for him. I miss him every day. But trying to get Oakland youth connected with Silicon Valley. We've got Yes, we code. We've got a criminal justice operation that is bipartisan. I think the Dream Corps now has the biggest grassroots bipartisan Criminal Justice Network in the country, bottom up, and in 46 states. So the Dream Corps is something I'm very proud of. Is on the board there. Anybody who wants to support any of the work of the Dream Corps, please do. And of course, I work for the reformalliance.com. And we need support as well, though we aren't taking donations at the Reform Alliance. So it's a—look, this is, I tell people don't try this at home. I'm not recommending this as a career for anybody. It's probably not very smart. I had a close friend say, Van, at the end of the day, you're just an unpaid lobbyist. Like I don't understand why.
Alan Fleischmann
What's your business plan?
Van Jones
Exactly. So it'll hopefull come with a better business model. But it's what I feel called to do. I feel called to a certain kind of ministry.
Alan Fleischmann
A community ministry, a culture ministry. I think the cultural issues a really cool idea, actually, when you really think about it. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM, I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. And I'm talking with a great man, Van Jones, a good friend. About many ways you can get involved in building our community, building our country, and rebuilding our society through leadership, and he's certainly doing it every day. Culture, you know, it's a word that I think, it's not talked about enough. You know, the idea that, you know, what do we stand for? What are we building? You know, whether we're talking about the arts, we're talking about education, we're talking about opportunity, talking about dreams. I love that you use the word dream so often in what you do. You know, allowing—it is America, in many ways, you know, the idea that you can dream big nd you can then do anything. How do you give people that confidence, that it's okay to be confident that your dream matters?
Van Jones
You don't get chance to work with a lot of youth. And the thing is, it's actually just getting people to remember that. You never have to convince—like, little kids think they can do. I mean, like, you have to beat it out of kids, like, oh, you can't, you know, like.
Alan Fleischmann
They're wired that way.
Van Jones
Yeah, exactly. Little kids are wired, just you know, to plugged into possibility. That's all they know. And then we socialize them into seeing themselves as much more limited. And then we have to kind of— otherwise they kill each other in third grade. So you have to do some of that as parents, but at some point, you want to be able to remind people that you know, there's some calling on your life. You have your fate, and you have your destiny. And they're not the same thing. Your fate is all the stuff that's just fixed.
Alan Fleischmann
But you have no control. You're never gonna know.
Van Jones
You're born into a certain body, you're born into a certain time period, whatever.
Alan Fleischmann
Car comes around the corner, you have no idea—
Van Jones
All that stuff is just it's baked into the cake. Nothing you can do about it. But your destiny is different. Your destiny is, you know, every acorn has a destiny to be an oak tree. There's something calling inside of it to be great. Now, does every acorn become an oak tree? No. Some get eaten by squirrels, some get stepped on by third graders. But everything that's alive has thise deeper calling to greatness. And that's where you have to focus. And you have to listen inside yourself. What is that? And then you've got to nurture it, and you've got to deal you got to deal with a lot of no's, you got to avoid a lot of squirrels and weeds. But I try to remind people, I don't care who you are, you have a great destiny. There's something in you that's calling. And you look at your diary, your journal, your emails to your friends back over the years, there's always something that you're gonna do or want to do or thinking about doing, you run from and you do something else. And seven years later, here it is again, that's it. I don't need people. Van, what can I do? You know what to do. Yeah, don't you come telling me.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, my mother, who was a great force in my life, like your mother to you, my father as well, like your father, but my mother was—had a short life she died in her 50s. But she was—because she knew her life would be compact, she just was filled with wisdom. And she would sense what her little boy had fear. And when I would rationalize why I couldn't do this, or I wouldn't do this, I shouldn't do this. She would just come running out me and say what are you afraid of? Or she would call me on it. Knew exactly what I was afraid of. And then you looked the fear in the eye and she didn't get fear. She didn't get rid of the fear, she taught me that you know that you can you can't not face the fear. You have to face the fear, the fear of the unknown, the fear of defeat, the fear of what if I'm an idiot, the fear that the dream may be stupid, and we're just inundated by those fears as human beings.
Van Jones
Yeah, but that’s the enemy. Once you know that that's the enemy, your own fear. And you can project that out on somebody else. Project it on the billionaires, project it on the immigrants, project it on this, project it on that. It's just your own fear of inadequacy. Once you know that, then you're almost home.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, what you get to do every day, what I get to do every day is we help people find those voices, or at least, you know, be purposeful with their voices. Every one of them is frightened. And every one of them has fear. And that's what people don't get is that some of the people they admire the most, some of the most incredible forces of nature that are beloved in the society, that we just think are just incredible. Close the door, close the door, and then please don't let anybody look in. Let me tell you what I'm afraid of today. That is a secret to the you know, to my life, I feel like is that helping people overcome their fear, it is something that every human being feels. It's something that you know, that if you can embrace that in your own, then you may know that you actually have a voice still.
Van Jones
Look, for me, the—this year, dealing with fear and shame. Those are the two things for me, because I know where we're headed now. This election, no matter who wins, we're going to be probably more divided than even we are right now. And so you're gonna.
Alan Fleischmann
Is the fear of the divide? Is that would you're afraid of?
Van Jones
No. So then,
Alan Fleischmann
What's my role?
Van Jones
It's, I see how I limit myself sometimes. Like there's space that I could step into. There's changes I can make in my life where I could just be a better servant, knowing like. Listen, like, if you know your ailing parent, next year is probably the last year they're going to be able to live on their own, and there's going to be a whole different reality, you got to get ready for that. That's how I feel like, and so what I realize is, like, yeah, I can do certain things. But I come up against this limit inside myself, where I'm either afraid that I'm not good enough, or I'm afraid I'm going to be attacked, and discredited. And so I put my own brakes. That's not gonna work. Everybody's license for playing small is now revoked. Okay, we got it. We got real urgency now. And so I'm trying to revoke my own license to play small. And then you start realizing, well, Why are you playing small? And pulling those onion skins back, but I'm putting a lot of time and energy and work now into getting counseling, therapy, meditation and prayer, doing all that work this year, because I'm quite sure that next year, I'm going to be needed.
Alan Fleischmann
What's the shame, though?
Van Jones
You know, shame is an interesting thing. It's, you know, they say, you know, guilt is, I did something bad. And shame is I am bad. Right? And, like, I think my dad was awesome. Yeah, he's was a hard worker, hard drinker, hard smoker. Smoking, killed him in the end. But the drinking wasn't good. Like, he's beloved in our community, big community hero, big guy, military guy, that sort of stuff. But the drinking wasn't good for him.
Alan Fleischmann
Really wasn't good for you either.
Van Jones
Wasn't good for me, either. You grew up in an alcoholic home, even as a functional alcoholic or whatever, no violence, whatever, but just the emotional instability. And my dad was an amazing athlete. My dad was such a good athlete, that when he joined the military in the middle of a war, they wouldn't let him fight. He just did exhibition basketball.
Alan Fleischmann
They didn't want to do anything to hurt him.
Van Jones
Yeah, it's like, you know, and so, um, and I was a crappy athlete. And believe it or not, that was a big deal for my dad to have this like little nerdy, you know, crybaby, poetry-reading, child. Or, You're always tucked up under your mother, you know. And so,
Alan Fleischmann
Mama's little boy.
Van Jones
Exactly. And so even in my early 50s, the echoes of those kind of disqualifying looks. are still with me.
Alan Fleischmann
Isn't that amazing, though. At the end of the day, no matter where you are, and how incredible your life journey has been, and how much progress we've made, you can so easily just go right back to that 9-year-old kid.
Van Jones
Oh, easily.
Alan Fleischmann
Where you're living by your fear and your and that shame you just describes. Or you just feel like, you know, I'm a kid, a little kid who;s geeky. In some ways, that's your thermostat. You know, I always say that my girls, you know, if I get cocky, something's built in, where the temperature hits a certain thing, and the alarm goes off, and then it just drops and gets cold. Because I'll remind myself that you dare get so cocky, you know, and as a parent, you're a parent of two sons, I'm a parent of two daughters. And, you know, we are—I'm always trying to figure out a way how do you teach confidence? And how do you actually instill humility? And gratitude is everything. I don't want them to be that nine year old kid who feels you know, all the things that will—when they hit 40 or 50. But I don't think you can prevent. You can't prevent. It's part of life by. And it's funny how you deal with it is the answer, I guess.
Van Jones
Exactly. And as a parent, you're too worried about that, then they have to recover from that. Oh, my parents were so worried about.
Alan Fleischmann
No adversity. You know, it is amazing. You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Van Jones. And we're talking about life and leadership, I guess and all the ingredients that make you persevere. Will you just describe though, is you're spending a lot of time right now, you know, kind of gearing up for the big game? Yeah. I mean, you're going deep inside meditation, spending time with your church, you know, challenging your spirit, you know, yourself, doing the therapy you need to do. Not because you're retreating. Actually, it's the opposite. That I guess is you're getting game ready. You're getting game ready because you know, no matter what the outcome is, politically, there's—the fight's gonna be more important than ever. And frankly, it'll be more divisive. Community will need more voices. So it's, it really is getting ready isn't it.
Van Jones
Yeah. And you know, and I think, you know, especially for African American men, we don't talk about mental health, you know, we might talk about church, but, you know, I have got a counselor, I found an amazing body worker, because, you know, trauma stores in the body. Like, you can, you know, if you take a little kid, like their body's super flexible, like nothing, but over time you get tight. Part of it is just the aging process, but part of it is you get in a fight flight, you know, under the tension. And your body locks up. And then even if your mind—you do talk therapy forever, your mind might try to move back to some healthy direction, your body's gonna snap back. So I'm learning a lot about how—Listen man, for a long time, I thought of my body as like a machine to carry my mouth and brain around. You know what I mean, I was like, I didn't think about it. And you know, and I kind of just inflated my brain, like a balloon to float me out of Tennessee and over to Yale.
Alan Fleischmann
It was a vessel.
Van Jones
It was a vessel, and so I wound up with a big overdeveloped intellect, but other parts of myself underdeveloped, and it does hurt your leadership. You know, people can sense when you're in balance, when you're happy when you're relaxed, you know, joy. We have a lot of people—and we work so hard these days, then we think, well, it's the hard work that does it, sometimes. It's not what do I need to do? What I need to stop doing that will let me be a better leader.
Alan Fleischmann
It's amazing. If I think about observations of you—it's great because you're the guests, I can observe you. I would say you know, I remember a time when my first observations of you were that you were very restless, which is a great quality, you're probably still just as restless. I would say you don't see the restlessness from the outside anymore. I would say you see vulnerability now. And that honesty that you're sharing that vulnerability in a way that allows people to feel heard. I mean, you know, we talked about Oprah recently. Just now, actuallym before the show started, and what was your greatest strength? It wasn't when she was lecturing, its that she listened. And she shared her vulnerability. And when her story—her show went from being good, to being incredibly great, when all of a sudden Oprah became real, and started sharing her vulnerability if you want to go back to the 80s and when she did her show. I mean, I think there's—you said there's a transformation in view, I think, also, where the restlessness didn't go away, became your perseverance, maybe, and your purpose. But you don't see that energy, that restless energy as much at all. In fact, you see a very calm, energy. It's very calming, but you do see a vulnerability, which is so rare that somebody would actually say, okay, you know, if you know, that's where your urgency comes in, you know, if you don't do this, if you don't join me, if we don't do this, this is what's going to happen. And you've—and you're not afraid to show the emotional side. That to me, is the greatest gift a leader can provide. It's that Bobby Kennedy. Yeah. And it's what you do every day. It's what you do on the air. It's what you do in one on one meetings. Well, A. I don't—I appreciate it. And I am— I'm right about that a little bit, right? And do you see what I'm saying? About the vulnerability and the restlessness?
Van Jones
it's embarrassing, because I don't know how you remember all this stuff about me. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of a good therapy session right here. I say, it makes it hard on the dating side. You know, I got divorced recently. Jana was my best friend before we started dating. We're best friends to this day, talk multiple times a day. We love each other. Just the marriage part didn't work out. It's tough. I think people are confused. Like, what do people want? Do you—I think people see me on TV. They think Oh, this guy's the TV star, must be like confident about everything. I'm not, you know, and then I kind of like—it's weird. Like my son is starting to date. And he's like,
Alan Fleischmann
You can get advice from him.
Van Jones
Exactly, and I'm starting to date. My son's like this beautiful athlete. And, you know, and but it's like, it's tough. There's a reason I think guys dropped the curtain. Because I don't—I'm not sure that many women actually want to deal with this crap.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah.
Van Jones
I think women are like hey, look, I got enough crazy girlfriends.
Alan Fleischmann
What would I do with a crazy boyfriend?
Van Jones
I want my boyfriend to just like get it together. Yeah. And so I'm trying to figure it out.
Alan Fleischmann
The balance of, maybe it's a sequencing thing. Lure them in with a little bit and then, by the way, this is what you get. Which is kind of what I did with my wife. I was very good about luring her in. She was too young to know. And then once she was in there, I said, by the way, before we get married, you should know two things. I'm crazy. Gave her a long list of what they were. And she looked at me and she's like, Didn't you think I'd know all that by now? But I think if I'd given it to her on the first date, it probably wouldn't work.
Van Jones
Yeah, I think that's that's good advice.
Alan Fleischmann
But I don't see that part of you. I don't see the—I see. But I do see the vulnerable part. I do see the passionate part. I do see the generosity part which honestly, the greatest form of philanthropy is not number of dollars you give, it's a number of input and time you give, and you give the time you make the time you'll walk to Pennsylvania to do a meeting, if you have to if the car's not working.
Van Jones
I let you know, the proudest thing for me these past several years is Jessica Jackson. You know, this kid we found. Blonde, blue eyed kid who—her husband wound up going to prison. The least likely advocate for criminal justice you'd ever imagine. And she put herself through law school. And she said, Look, I want to fight, you know, the prison system. I said, you know, your dad's a Trump supporter, like, this is weird, but let's go for it. And she's become one of the most unbelievably effective advocates, and I can name a bunch of them. But you know, she's the most recent. I love investing in the leaders coming up behind me and learning from them. And at the end of the day, that's really, I'm not working on my resume, I'm working on my obit at this point. And those, you know, those stories of investing in people and watching them flourish, that's bigger than me, frankly, sometimes, than passing bills.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, it's amazing. So you're listening to Leadership Matters here on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I've been with a very, very important guide and a my good friend of mine, but a very important friend of all of ours. And that's Van Jones. You talked about so many things. I hope people listen to this show, not just once, but twice. Because so much that you gave, so much wisdom you gave, so much caring you gave, is so important. And I love what you said about fate versus destiny. We should join your movements, not just your movement because we have so many. Let's dream big. And let's solve some problems together. And I just want to thank you for all you do and I just want to be on this journey for you for many years to come.
Van Jones
Let's stay together. You've been an unbelievable help up until now. You're hopefully just getting started.
Alan Fleischmann
I hope so too. Thank you very much.
