Don Winslow The Fight Against Bigotry And Hatred

How do you advocate against hatred in a way that makes a real world difference?

And in the battle against bigotry and ignorance, how can you lead with integrity and act as

a voice for the voiceless while still maintaining your own sense of self and personal identity?

G'day, it's Luke Darson.

The idea of self-improvement and leadership both on and off the field has been a lifelong

passion of mine.

With one of my oldest friends, we created a leader collective and I've had the privilege

of working with thousands of leaders in education, sport, industry, and the arts that have helped

shift to what we see as the 21st century style of leadership where everyone has a voice.

In this podcast, we hear stories from these iconic leaders.

Don Winslow was born in New York City, Rhode Island in 1953.

He credits his parents for shaping his love of storytelling and ultimately inspiring his

incredible success as a writer.

Don's portfolio of work is full of award-winning and internationally

best-selling books, including his revered work on the trilogy of novels in the Cartel

series, The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border.

Don's work has been regularly transformed into film and television, including collaborations

with legendary producers Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott.

Don has taken a strong leadership position in American life on issues like the war on

drugs and produced a series of videos that have been viewed more than 250 million times

in response to the Donald Trump era.

His latest work, City on Fire, is original.

Don Winslow has already been described as a masterpiece, Don Winslow being described

as America's greatest ever crime writer, and it is a wonderful pleasure to meet Don today

in California, I believe.

Welcome to you, Don.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me, Luke.

You've got an incredible gift for storytelling.

Can I start by asking, where did that passion come from?

You know, my dad was a sailor, in fact, who was in Melbourne in World War II right after

the Battle of Guadalcanal.

When he left that war and he was 18 years old, he said that all he wanted to do was

ride around on the ocean, go to every zoo in Europe, and read books.

And my mom was a librarian, and so we always had books around the house.

And we were allowed to read anything we wanted at any age, didn't matter.

And so from a very young age, you know, I thought, man, if life works out the way I

want it to, that would be the best of all possible worlds, you know.

It would be to become a professional novelist.

And your academic path was an interesting one via the University of Nebraska, graduating

with a master's degree in African history.

What drew you to that space initially?

When I, again, going back to childhood, I guess we all do, right, for those influences.

There was a guy called Jack Parr who had a late night talk show, and he was always going

off to Kenya, and he'd take these home movies.

And I was just intrigued with them.

And then my dad.

He turned me on to a couple of books about Kenya.

And when I had a chance, I was asked to go into this special areas program at university.

I took it.

Segwaying there, you passed back from being a guide effectively through Africa and China

at various stages.

You worked as a private investigator on this path to being an internationally bestselling

author of many, many great books.

But I want to come back to that at some point, if that's okay, Don.

But probably you.

You are, as well as anyone on the planet, through your extensive work in the research

of the Mexican drug cartels, and we all now know names like El Chapo, and we know the

Sinaloa cartel.

I mean, you probably are as well placed as anyone to understand that.

Well, can you describe how those cartels work and how dangerous they are and what sort of

damage they do?

Well, they do immense damage, and most of the damage is in Mexico and in Central America.

You know, around 2000...

2001, 2002 was a major shift in the way the cartels operated, in that they became, in

effect, paramilitary organizations.

They started to hire mercenaries.

They hired Mexican special forces who'd been trained by the United States and by Israelis.

And so the level of violence escalated to a ferocious amount, something like 200,000

deaths have been attributed to, you know, conflict.

It's between the Mexican cartels.

Eventually, the Sinaloa cartel won that war, although it's now fighting with something

called the New Jalisco cartel for dominance in the market.

I think the important thing for us, though, really to realize is that the so-called Mexican

drug problem is not the Mexican drug problem.

It's the American drug problem.

It's the Western European drug problem.

I suppose it's the Australian drug problem.

We're the ones...

We're the ones that send billions of dollars a year, i.e. $60 billion a year, roughly, from

the United States alone, to these cartels.

So we are the people, through our drug usage, that fund this kind of violence.

It's a combination, isn't it, Don, between this insatiable appetite for drugs in the

West, and I believe Australia per capita is almost at the top of the tree in terms of

illicit drug use.

And then you've got the prohibition on drugs, which I'm...

I'm keen to talk to you about, because you've used your leadership platform a lot.

You've taken out full-page ads in the Washington Post.

You've written to every member of Congress without getting a response, I understand.

And can you maybe first explain, for those that don't know their history, Richard Nixon

nearly 50 years ago made drug abuse public.

Any number one, I think, was the language he used.

But can you explain why that policy has really been nothing short of a disaster?

Yeah.

Nixon declared the so-called war on drugs.

Now, it wasn't particularly new.

Drug prohibition started around the 1900s with various types of drugs, but it was really

Nixon who launched this campaign.

Once you define the anti-drug movement as a war, you've already lost that war.

You will never, ever solve this problem trying to interdict the supply, because the demand

is always so strong.

So all you're doing is driving drug prices up and creating massive...

to knock down the drug prices and eventually, chapter, the reduction of protective equipment

and you'recommitting, you're cons AAA small 걔yy stars investigations into

criminal organizations, such as, but not exclusively, the Mexican cartels.

If you make a substance illegal, only criminals, by definition, can deal with it.

the whole idea of a war on drugs was a disaster. And then later in our history, in the 1980s and

early 1990s, when crack cocaine became an issue, we responded with draconian laws, putting people

in jail for 30 years to life. The American prison system became the largest prison system in the

history of the world with 2 million people incarcerated. The social damage was incalculable.

You know, you don't just put an individual in prison, you put his whole or her whole family in

prison, in a way. We've spent something like a trillion dollars trying to interdict the shipment

of drugs, when that trillion dollars would have been much more effective put into education and

treatment.

So we'll never solve it as a law enforcement problem. We won't, for God's sake, solve it as

a military problem. It can only be addressed successfully as the social health problem that

it is.

And Don, are you seeing some movement? I think clear thinking people would understand that

that is a logical step, given, as you just beautifully articulated, the resources that

have gone into it. And if you make something, as you said, by prohibition, the criminals

can't do it.

It can only exist then if it's illegal. If you make it decriminalized effectively,

you take out, you know, I know it's a bit more complex than that. I mean, being in the US prior

to the world shutting down for COVID, we're seeing lots of, you know, medicinal marijuana

stores now becoming almost on every second corner. It felt like last time was in Los Angeles. Are we

seeing a slow trend towards decriminalization and making drugs a health issue?

Yes, with a major hiccup. Now,

you mentioned legalization of marijuana. When that happened, the profits for marijuana for

the Mexican cartels dropped by 46%, almost literally overnight. They're virtually out

of that business now. The unintended side effect was, though, that they put more of their efforts

into heroin and methamphetamine, which gifted us with the opioid epidemic. So the solution is not

to legalize one drug. It's to legalize one drug. It's to legalize one drug. It's to legalize one drug.

Or at least decriminalize all drugs. We have seen some movement toward that. We've seen

movement toward drug courts, for instance, that put people into treatment programs instead of

into cells. We've seen more legalization. Now, when the former president, whose name I almost

hate speaking, came into office, he started to reverse that progress, of course, as he reversed

all other kinds of progress, and told this incredible lie.

About building a wall and saying that that wall would stop the drugs. He knew it was a lie.

Everybody involved in the drug world knew it was a lie, because 97% of the drugs come through gates

that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They come in tractor-trailer trucks

through normal commerce between the United States and Mexico, and you are never going to shut that

commerce down. Now that we have a new administration, though, I think it's going to be

difficult. I think that that progress will continue. We'll start to see some sanity.

You know, look, look, it's not a right or left issue. It's an issue of common sense. It's an

issue of dollars and cents. Everybody should be able to agree with this. For every $1 you spend

on education, you save $5 in imprisonment. Both liberals and conservatives should be able to do

that math, like that math, and agree with that math.

Yeah, Don, your points are so well made. And the unfolding tragedy, as you said, to have the

history's biggest prison population in America. And the other crazy part to that, to me, is

you've now privatized a lot of those prisons. So you've effectively commercialized the idea of

building more prisons. And so that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy unfolding before our

times. And you see the tragedies of low-level misdemeanors for drugs resulting in these 30,

40-year life sentences. And I think that's a great point. And I think that's a great point.

Is there any movement on that towards common sense?

Yes, there's been quite a bit of movement on that. Again, it was stopped during the previous

administration. It started with the Obama administration, who were, I think, a bit late

to the dance on drug and prison reform, but they got there. So we are seeing movement again. We are

seeing people released. We are seeing prison sentences reduced. The phrase prison privatization

might be the filthiest conversation I've ever heard. But I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good

combination of words I know in the English language, maybe other than jazz fusion. But we

are moving in that direction. They're shutting down federally privatized facilities. Now it's

up to the states. But when you create a profit motive for building prisons and a profit motive

for keeping those cells full, which is the way that they make their profits, you're into a really

disgusting and soul-throbbing situation. And I think that's a good thing. I think it's a good

killing business, I think. Don, you've probably seen the worst of what humans can do to one

another. Your research is extensive and in some ways almost overlooked the brutality of what the

Mexican cartels have done. And we've seen other examples that seem to have gained more traction

in recent times with other forms of terrorism. Are you still surprised by our capacity to do

evil things to each other? No. Luke, I wish I were. I

profoundly wish that I were. You know, when I started this drug trilogy, it was over the massacre

of 19 innocent men, women, and children. At the time, that was shocking. Ten years later,

it wouldn't have made the papers. It was a low body count. And I spent 23 years, a third of my

life, I guess, on that drug beat. And so the capacity to be shocked by the

inhumanity of man toward man has, I'm afraid, left me.

And sort of segueing a little bit, Don, as you're talking, a part of your life was as a private

investigator. And I remember, you know, in preparation for catching up today, that there

was a point in your career as a PI where you literally, there was a horrific murder, I believe,

and a body had been burnt horrifically by a husband, a horrific crime. And you were literally

scrolling through the horrific images of this.

Burnt body. I blistered and, you know, in preparation for court, you were doing your job.

But the fact that you were surprised that you weren't surprised, I think, was that a moment

for you that went, I need to shift out of this? And that's sort of your trajectory towards

your career as a full-time author started there?

No, it started earlier, but that certainly was a moment when I realized that I needed to get out.

You know, I was, I want to say, six or seven published books into my career before I could

quit my job.

One of which was, was investigating. I remember that moment vividly, flipping through these

photographs with one hand, eating a ham sandwich with the other, because we were too busy to get

out to lunch. And boy, it just struck me so forcefully that I had become so jaded and so

inured to this stuff. And I was looking at photos of a human being, you know, a person with,

with dreams and hopes and children, you know, that had been taken away. And I was looking,

I was looking for very, very specific images on the body that would indicate a, a death prior to

asphyxiation by fire or smoke. And it was highly technical. But then I thought, boy, what, what have

you become? You know, who are you now? Fortunately, shortly after that, I got kind of a break with a

book and a film, and I was able to leave that work.

Don, it's an, it's an interesting transition in some ways, because

the podcast is about, it's about, it's about, it's about, it's about, it's about, it's about,

recording now is sort of born out of identifying what we've seen as a new era of leadership. You

know, people we've worked with firsthand in industry, sport, the creative arts, you know,

diverse backgrounds. So we're seeing a really self-reflective, a bit like what you just

described then. Hey, what have I become out of this? Who are collaborative, they're,

they're lifelong learners, really conscious of how they impact their environment. Are you

seeing that as well? I mean, you've obviously seen the worst of humankind, but are you hopeful

that there's enough community of people that we're trying to talk to and, and I suppose share

their stories? Is there hope for you in that space as well? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I see it more

and more and I see it more and more in the, what is hopefully the post COVID era. You know, I think

that these last few years starting really in 2016 for us here, and then, and then going through

COVID has forced a lot of self-reflection about what's important to us. You know, what, what

really means something to us? Why are we doing this work? What are we about? What do we value?

You know, and I think there were a lot of things taken away from us, you know, contact with friends

and with family, time spent together, time spent to reflect, time, time spent to appreciate

beauty. You know, it's funny, you know, here in the States, we, we've cut down

on programs in the arts, you know, painting, art, music, theater. And then we wonder why life has

become so crass. And so I think I am optimistic because I think, and I've said this before, that,

that pessimism, pessimism isn't a choice. It's a suicide pact. We can feel pessimistic. We can

feel down about things, but then how do you get up in the morning? What are you supposed to do?

You just give up, uh, and, and walk into this endless gloom or, or do you say to yourself,

no, I'm going to do what I can, even if that's just a little bit here and there.

Yeah. I'm filled with great hope as well, Don, on the back of this time where you're forced into,

if you were lucky, I suppose, and you could cope financially and were healthy to reflect,

uh, at the other end of the scale, there were people who've been left behind here in Australia

and around the world horrifically. And that, you know, is incredible.

It's incredibly disturbing, but I hope out of the positive aspect of being out of it, people

in America, you know, the term has been the great resignation. People have now looked at what they

do day to day and, uh, and, uh, you know, probably a bit like your life path, uh, Don, finding their

purpose and their, and their passion maybe, and doing that in a more immediate fashion. So it

feels to me as though out of, uh, this challenge, there's going to be some creativity that I, that

I hope sets us on the right trajectory is, is, as we said before.

Yeah, I share that.

I hope with you, you know, and listen, I mean, I see signs of it. I see it among my friends. I

see it among my colleagues, you know, who I think are thinking a little deeper about things,

thinking, you know, a little more creatively about things. So yeah, Luke, let's hope.

Now, uh, part of your, your, your great history is, you know, you used your influence and your

own funds to create the series of, uh, videos in response to the Trump era and the craziness

of it. I mean, I think the last count I could measure 250,

million people or more have downloaded those videos in itself is an incredible impact. I mean,

you've sold so many copies of your books, but to get that sort of, did you feel like it made an

impact? I hope so. I think so. You know, look, I mean, we're always concerned that you're just

preaching to the faithful, you know? Uh, but even there, I think that there's a, a positive aspect

of, of getting people fired up and reminding people what we have at stake and to get out there

and to vote and to, to contribute to people who feel the same.

Yeah. So I think that there are

a few things you've 우녔 to get out. And I, I, if you you're not waiting to, even if you're not

ready to give that stuff away, you know what I mean? Uh, you've lost all of your forces and

you are the ones who don't stand. And I, I, when I work with myself or with my boss, I since was

spent half a decade usually speaking at the comments to him. And we have some, some issues

where, and I think we've all experienced some of those at the beginning is when you see someone

get fired up or get fired.

Yeah.

Yeah.

been there before. Around the election time, though, we very much targeted our videos towards

swing voters in critical states. And I think that we did have an impact there. Mr. Springsteen helped

us out with that. Wonderful actor, Jeff Daniels, helped us out with that. And I think we did have

an impact. They're powerful collaborators, aren't they, to have Bruce Springsteen allow his

incredible work alongside your videos. And we'll send some links to check them out. They are

obviously impactful and have a great sense of who you are, Don, and the stances you take.

I mean, going back to what you said previously in the war on drugs, to me,

they don't have to be Democrat, Republican, left or right. The fact, in my mind, that we can't agree

even on basic facts these days is the challenge. And so turning back to Trump, I mean, sitting here

in Australia, you're generally pretty agnostic, you know, on US politics.

Because, you know, it's not my fight, given where we sit. But when you have a president,

you know, effectively lose an election and then claim that, you know, on every count that it was

stolen from him, and that's been thrown out of every court in America. When you stand

next to the Capitol and incite a riot on your own Capitol and have five people die,

and by sheer miracle, senators, you know, weren't killed in that insurrection,

and then by all intents and purposes, it appears to have, the American society's moved on and he's

gotten away with it. I mean, how do you explain that? How have we got to this point where that's

even possible? Well, first of all, it's infuriating. And you've laid out the reasons why.

And I do not understand it. And I've put out a number of tweets and videos about it, you know,

to the so-called January 6th committee that seems to be moving at glacial speed and with timidity.

And at the Attorney...

General, we all saw it. We heard it in the man's own words, you know, on the phone,

trying to change votes in Georgia, you know, leading a rally that became an insurrection.

We all saw it. It's hard to explain why it is. I think part of it's fatigue. You know, I think

that our country and maybe most countries are so fatigued from the COVID years. I think our country

is larger.

I think our country is largely fatigued from the Trump era. And maybe too many people want to think,

let it go and just move on. It's in the past, but it's not in the past. You know, Trump is holding

rallies. I think he's going to run again. And what's to stop him if and when he loses from

launching another insurrection? So, you know, myself and people like me keep urging, you know,

the committees and the attorneys.

General and other folks prosecute. Let's have public hearings. Let's swear people in and put

these hearings on television where the American people and the world can hear what went on and

what happened. And then you can't doubt those facts. So, Don, there's a relaxed life for you,

isn't there, as a bestselling author. And clearly you love, you know, your routine and your prolific

writer and an extraordinary storyteller and a city on fire.

I've got it in my hand at the moment. If you haven't experienced Don's work, have a read of

this. It's an absolute masterpiece. It's much of Don's work. But you decide that, you know what,

there are bigger issues in life and you're going to put some skin in the game financially,

emotionally. Does that come at a cost? And where does that leadership come

in you to take on these issues and these challenges?

Well, everything has a cost. You know, it's just life. And again, Shane and I, you know,

I'm not a big name, you know. I have a certain platform, I suppose, at times.

But we made a very clear decision to use that platform. You know, I wrote three books about

the drug cartels and those books were very good to me. But I would have felt like a voyeur,

like just another person profiting off drugs if I hadn't taken some of those resources

and tried.

To do something, you know, about it. I think that's just the ethical thing to do,

the moral thing to do, you know.

Again, it's the leadership we're trying to celebrate, Don, is that people who

have those clear values and are prepared to not only talk about them, but actively go about doing

what you have done. In another one of your great books, The Force, you wrote about

police lives being threatened by the proliferation of guns and not just sort of handguns, but you've

got military guns. You've got military guns. You've got military guns. You've got military guns.

You've got military-grade assault weapons on the streets of America now. I mean, I love America.

It's one of my favourite places, but there are parts of it that are almost impossible to understand.

I mean, can you explain to us, in Australia, what's the craziness with guns in America?

Why is that something that can't be moved? Why the needle can't be moved at all?

Well, it boggles my mind. I mean, I can give you practical reasons why the needle hasn't moved,

and that's because so many politicians,

are in the pocket of the gun manufacturers and the gun lobbies. So it comes down to money.

But I also think that there is this cultural, I don't know how to describe it, phenomenon in

American life that worships this image, and it's a very macho image of the man with the gun. And,

you know, you'll get my gun when you rip it out of my cold, dead hands, which is okay with me. But

something needs to be done. There was another shooting this morning in the New York subways.

I've been busy today, so I haven't really had a chance to follow up on it.

You know, what the cause of it was. You would have thought that after Sandy Hook, you know, when little kids

were massacred by one of these assault rifles, I think a lot of us thought, well, this is it.

You know, this is the end. And then again, you know, you have people like Alex Jones coming out and telling outrageous lies about it and denying it.

So,

Luke, I wish I had an answer for you. What I say to my gun right friends and neighbors,

and I live in the country, I live in cowboy country, really, you know, I ask them the following

question. Do you think that you should have the right to own a shoulder fired missile with nuclear

tips? And they say, of course not. And I say, well, we already agree on gun control.

But now we need to decide where we should draw.

You know, and from there, you can have a kind of a reasonable, at least, conversation about it.

I think one of the things that outcome, we get a lot of things right, wrong here as well, consistently.

And, you know, the last two years, I think history look back on and see full of extraordinary decisions and damaging decisions.

You know, personally saying our kids taken out of school for two years at a time.

I can't say our history is going to look back and think that was, that was the right approach.

You know, that will create controversy.

There'll be others that say that wasn't the case, but we had had one mass shooting effectively in a place called Port Arthur, which you would be aware of.

And, and a crazed lunatic caused, you know, immeasurable damage and we had horrific scenes.

But the reaction from our politicians was as good, I think, a bit of leadership as I've seen in recent times.

And it was an amnesty on guns and, and, and assault rifles.

I agree.

And, and assault rifles.

And, and, and assault rifles.

Were banned.

I mean, does that get any traction?

I mean, is that sort of story happens around the world that doesn't resonate at all?

It doesn't.

Hasn't so far, you know, look, I mean, there is no legitimate civilian use for an assault rifle and it's in the name and assault rifles for assault period.

Uh, one of our politicians, uh, Beto O'Rourke in Texas, you know, after a massacre in El Paso, uh, Texas came out and said, I will ban assault rifles.

And now he's running for governor and, and it's going to be a very, very tough job for him, largely because of that statement.

Uh, I don't get it.

I wish I had an answer for you.

Um, I wish I had an answer for myself and for the country.

Yeah, you've had, uh, as you said, you're, you're happy to get in the alleyways.

You don't mind, uh, getting in a, in a, in a scrap yourself.

And I mean, you've regularly been on the receiving end of, of death threats, but you seem unfazed by when you were stabbed in Times Square once working as a private investor.

So it's not as though that you haven't had, uh, your moments.

How do you compartmentalize that?

Oh, you know, look, uh, I think most of these people making the threats are physical as well as moral cowards, you know, uh, and you, you can't live your life afraid.

Um, I I'm coming on 68.

I've had a extraordinarily fortunate and blessed life, you know, I mean, you know, from my career to my family, to my, to my family.

My friends, I've been so, so lucky.

And so if it were to end, you know, I've had a really great run.

Not that I want it to not saying that.

Thank you.

You know, and I don't invite assaults.

Uh, I'm a little more careful about, you know, what I do.

I'm probably a little more aware of my surroundings and that kind of thing, but it's, yeah, it's, you know, it's nothing I go to sleep worrying about or wake up thinking about.

Don.

Um, I think.

When you listen to stories like yours of, uh, of success consistently, you know, and I'm, and it's never that, uh, linear, there's always bumps along the road.

I, I just pausing before there's a series of questions that I'm, that I'm keen to ask you that I've been asking a range of different leaders, but has there been a memorable failure?

Have you, have you looked back and think, God, I got that one horribly wrong along the journey.

Is there something you can share on that front?

Oh yeah.

Every day, you know, uh, look, I, uh, ours are the writing businesses of failure business.

And, and what I try to tell aspiring writers is that, that failure is the first step towards success.

You know, so, uh, I mean, just before I got on with you, uh, uh, on proofreading and rewriting a manuscript and, and what do I see is failure after failure after failure.

The nice thing is that you get to fix it.

You know, uh, I'm not a doctor with a kid on an emergency room table.

You know, I, I can make mistakes and nobody dies.

And look, I was, uh, I suppose the outer world would consider me a low grade failure for most of my life and most of my career.

You know, I didn't, didn't get my first novel published till I was 37.

Um, I, I wrote a book called the power of the dog, the first in that drug trilogy.

And after that, I had $37 in our bank account.

So yeah, it has not been a, uh, a success only journey, you know, and yet I don't regret it.

Any of it, you know, uh, because I, I think that, that every step of the way and, and, and every mistake, um, has informed me and I've learned from it and, and it's moved me toward, you know, whatever success I have now.

You're running pretty thin there.

$37, uh, Don, before that, that takes, did you have a sense that that work was the one that was going to catapult you?

Did you feel like you had a, a, a, you know, a book in your hands that was going to be that big a commercial success?

No, you know, and it was.

Um, at first, uh, it was when I wrote the sequel to it, which I never intended to write, by the way, a book called the cartel, it became a big success.

And then people went back and went, Oh, what was the first book power of the dog?

So power of the dog sold far more books in its sort of second life, you know, after the cartel, when people went back to look at the original, uh, that it did, that it did at first, at first, it didn't sell very many copies in English.

It sold a lot of copies in Spanish.

And I think maybe German, but not a lot in the United States, but, you know, I, I wrote that books.

I had to write that book, you know, uh, not because I thought it was going to do anything particularly great for my career.

Why did you have to write that book on the back of the massacre that was close to, to, to home?

And you, you felt like I need to go and find out about that story.

Was that the genesis of it?

Yeah.

Yeah, it was.

And, and I spent, I think.

It was six years on that book, which does not improve your profit margin, you know, your six years between books.

Uh, but I felt, and then especially later with the cartel, you know, I guess I'm getting off track here, but after I wrote doc at power of the dog, uh, I swore I would never go back to that world.

Swore to myself, promised my wife that I would not go back.

Um, and, and Shane kept saying, you know, you need to write a second.

Book, uh, about this because things had changed so much.

And, and I thought that I understood those changes and I understood why they were, and, and I had knowledge about what we were experiencing that I thought that American readers particularly did not understand.

Uh, and so I, I felt, man, here I am sitting on the bench, I'm sitting on the sidelines and I could be useful in some regards as much as enough.

Novelist can be useful, you know?

Uh, and so I decided to write the cartel.

Um, and again, after the cartel, I said, no, no, no, no, never going back, never reentering that world.

It was too sad.

It was too hard.

Uh, too many funerals, you know, uh, too much watching atrocity videos and photographs and all of that.

And then Trump was elected.

Uh, and the whole thing about the wall and insults of, of Mexicans, you know, people of Mexican origin.

And then the opioid, uh, crisis started.

And again, I thought, I, I understand it.

You know, I have the background, uh, to, to talk to people about this in a way that maybe journalism doesn't or, you know, or politicians certainly don't.

And so I wrote the third in that series.

Yeah.

And that's the, the, the great.

I love hearing about, and you struck me as someone that, uh, when you have, uh, a moral sense, can't sit on the sidelines and, and I love your language.

I'm happy to get in the alleyways.

I'm happy to take the fight up, uh, in your own way, as you said, as, as a novelist, it's, it's such a unique, uh, uh, perspective and achieve it.

Don, I've been asking a range of leaders and I, and I love the diversity of, of, of talking to someone like you today.

Um, you know, his path is so unique and so interesting to me, but we're identifying leaders.

Um, uh, with a range of, of different sort of similarities in the way they're approaching their life.

And, and your story resonates really strongly with me.

We, we, we think most leaders have a sense of self-leadership.

When I say that term back to you, Don, what, what does that mean to you?

Self-leadership?

Hmm.

I've not heard that phrase before.

Uh, but I, I guess what it would mean to me is that I just need to get up every morning and do my job, you know, uh, whether it's a good day or a bad day.

Uh, I'm the only one who's going to do it.

No, one's going to write it for me and it's what I love to do.

And so for me, it's, you know, it's, it's funny, Luke, you know, people always say, uh, oh, you must have so much self-discipline.

And I want to say back, doesn't don't most people, you know, big deal.

I'll show up at work.

Almost everyone I know does the same thing.

You know, very few people I know say, I don't feel like it today.

See ya, you know?

Uh, and so it always makes me laugh a little bit.

I love how you're trying to, you consistently try to debunk that sort of idea that the author is this tortured soul that, you know, has to find this creative, you know, and I thought reading, uh, some of your work before you said, I, I'm sure a plumber has a day where it doesn't feel like getting out of bed or, um, so you've, you've got a very methodical though.

And I get up, you know, I go for my morning walk.

I write from five 30 to 10 30.

Your process is your process.

And you just say it is, is turning up like everyone else does.

Yeah.

I don't see what's so special about it.

Listen, it's, it's a job.

It's a job.

I'm very grateful to have, you know, thank you readers.

Thank you.

Booksellers thank you fate or whatever, but I, I treat it like a job, which, which I think me means for me, what it means for most people.

I treat it with respect, you know, uh, I'm lucky to have it.

And, and so I.

I treat it with respect, but I don't think it's any big deal that I show up in the morning for work.

Uh, I love your, uh, humble perspective on that.

Uh, we see leaders in now really conscious of how they positively impact others in their environment, their direct environment.

As an author, you, you obviously spend a fair amount of time, you know, writing on your own, but you only have to look at your work.

We mentioned the impact of your videos and, you know, a quarter of a billion people downloading them.

That's that's serious, positive impact.

In the world that you're passionate about.

Have you, have you thought about that and, and how you impact others positively?

You know, when, when I first start working on a manuscript, I don't think about anybody.

I write very fast and I'm just enjoying myself as you know, I usually write, I don't know, 10 to 14 drafts, maybe probably by the end of the day, as I get later in that process, then I'm only thinking about the reader.

I'm only thinking of.

What the impact will be.

You know, and I, and I try to be very aware of it.

Um, as I get a little older, uh, I think I get more concerned about that.

You know, w what's the reader going to think?

Am, am I bringing the reader into these worlds, into the drug world or the cop world or the mob world?

Um, in a way that lets them see it from the inside.

You know, it's, it's one thing to.

Talk about immigration.

It's another thing to see it through the eyes of a 10 year old boy on a train coming up from central America.

It's one thing to talk about the opioid crisis.

It's another thing to spend months with a 26 year old heroin addicted woman.

Um, so I, I, I'm really aware of, of trying to let the reader see that world through the character's eyes, see it from the inside out as maybe a better way of putting it.

And in that regard, I hope they see some of these issues and.

Some of this world a little differently.

It sounds very pretentious as it's coming out of my mouth.

I mean, at the end of the day, you know, I'm, I'm a crime fiction writer, you know, I, I hope I write entertaining, you know, suspenseful books.

But you do write in a unique way.

And I think you articulated that, uh, beautifully.

And I, and I, you know, reading, there is a, you know, a consciousness.

I think you, you separate your politics a little bit from your crime writing, but occasionally it feels as though in, in some of, uh, the, the, the, the

monologues that come out of your characters, that does that tend to creep in occasionally where you get some messages through that, uh, that you've been wanting to pass on.

I think creep in would be an accurate description.

I have what I call the 80, 20 rule.

Maybe, you know, this rule that, uh, if you behave yourself 80% of the time, you can misbehave 20% of the time.

And so 80% of the time I'm behaving myself as a crime fiction novelist.

20% of the time.

I might be sneaking some of these opinions in through my character's mouth or, or in their thoughts.

Yeah.

I love it.

We see a dimension of leadership, uh, that is consistent with, with, uh, a range of leaders that they really consciously think about how they create and share their vision.

And I, and I say that in, in your writing, but also in your activism, how do you go, how have you gone about creating and sharing your vision, your vision actively?

Well, I, I think you've seen it, you know, it's, it's with.

We can get.

I think we should get out there.

And this is why I was so keen on asking Shane.

And I, on those videos and in those tweets, you know, we, we agree on certain issues that we think we should get out there and that we can get out there in plain and simple language and sometimes harsh language, you know, just, just talking

to people the way that you would, you would talk to them on the street, you know, let's, let's stop clowning around.

Let's not talk around the issues.

Let.

them and to them. I think that's useful. I think that's the way that people want to be talked to,

you know, and I wish that our politicians perhaps were doing a bit more of that.

You know, in terms of the books, again, it's important to me to get the reader close to the

characters and to take them into a world that they probably couldn't otherwise get into,

you know, and show them what that world is like. And I think that that, if we're going to talk

about issues, has changed some minds. Don, we're seeing leaders, the term curiosity is a common

word that we're hearing and, you know, I look at your life and as you said, I was compelled to write

the Cartel series, not out of commercial gain or an opportunity for my career. The curiosity of

wanting to find out about what happened led you to this part.

And I think that's a common trait and then, you know, through curiosity, you know, a lot of leaders

are then developing their own learning and their own development through that lens. Does that

resonate with you? Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, after that massacre, I couldn't get my head

wrapped around it. You know, how could something like that happen at that time, whether I had no

interest in or knowledge of the drug world? You know, it was just like, how did we get here?

You know, who would do this and why? I started by reading philosophy books. What is evil? The

problem of evil? There were no answers for me there. So I went back to history and to journalism

and to documents and pretty soon, you know, sort of a mosaic, I suppose, started to form and patterns

started to form. That's how really, you know, I approach most of my writing is to see, you know,

how does that work and how do these patterns come together? And then can we show these patterns

in a fictional way? It's amazing juncture in your life, isn't it? Because as you said, it wasn't as

though that was something you intended to follow, but a big portion of your life now has been

understanding this. And then I look at that and think of your impact in really challenging this

narrative around the war on drugs and the craziness of it and the damage that's been done by that term

and what's evolved from there. Is it?

It's a brilliant part of your story. A lot of leaders, and we speak to leaders in sport, Don,

and industry as well, but I'm fascinated in this. They really are conscious about how they

communicate with clarity. That's what you do. You communicate in a way that is brilliant,

sometimes in its simplicity. You know, I've got the city on fire in my hands. It's a gift to be

able to get the words out the way you do. I mean, was that something at a young age you knew you

had, or is that a skill that's got better and better with age?

I hope it's gotten better with age. It'd be sad if it went the other way.

No, listen, I would hope that for any of us in whatever field, you know, that maybe athletics

isn't so because the body is the body, you know. At some point it gives out. But I think that we

get better at our craft, you know. I think maybe with some of the things that we've done in the

some age comes that wisdom that very often less is more. That silence, in my case, it being white

space on a page as opposed to black space on a page, has its own kind of power, you know.

So, yeah, I'm very aware of that. Again, probably in later drafts, you know. I just went through it

just minutes ago, you know. I was looking at a sentence and I went, you know, I'm going to do

Do I really need those words? They're not really doing anything. You know, my saying to myself is

that no one freeloads in this house, you know. Every word has to either pay rent or at least

do the dishes or take the garbage out, you know. Or if not, it has to go.

And you can see that if you look up Don Winslow on Twitter and, you know, as I said, have a look

at the succinct language, direct. It's confronting. It's, you know, it's

brilliant. It's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's, you know,

at times when you take on your political, you know, power and go after, you know, the Trump

craziness, I'd call it. So that, as you said, that's a conscious, specific use of your skill

set in that way too, isn't it, in terms of how you communicate? Is it different clearly to the

way you write? Yeah, they're two different things. You know, look, these right-wingers are bullies,

man. You know, they're so tough. They talk so...

tough until someone punches them in the nose, you know, and then they go running to teach her.

I have no problem doing it, you know. They're not good people. I really am a gentle guy. I

almost never raise my voice. But, you know, I think when I started in researching the drug

thing, I got angrier and angrier.

I got angrier and angrier about what I learned. At a later point in my life, during the Trump

administration, it was impossible not to be angry on a daily basis. You know, this guy calling my

friends and neighbors rapists and thieves and murderers. This guy making fun, mocking a disabled

reporter, mocking a war hero. These are the least of his sins, you know.

It was impossible not to be angry. So, yeah, sometimes people call me an angry guy. They say

that your language is harsh or it's too tough. And I say, well, we have to be tough. This has

been an existential moment in democracy. And it's incumbent upon us to stand up and fight.

Yeah, interesting transition to the last dimension I wanted to talk to you about of leadership,

Don. And that is the idea that...

Leaders now really seek out collaboration. It's the opposite of what we're seeing in the Trump

era, which is extreme hierarchy and closing down collaboration, having these small, you know,

almost family office. No one could penetrate that to get maybe a common sense. And we have this

feel that when leaders do collaborate, you do end up with a broader sense of opinion and you can

debate what is real and what is not real in a much stronger way. I mean, how important is it,

as an author who's written so many books so successfully, how does collaboration fit into

your world? Well, in a number of ways, you know, I've collaborated on a couple of screenplays,

again, with my buddy Shane and the ideas that flow back and forth. Even the debates and the

arguments are extremely important. I'm a big believer in the battleground of ideas, you know,

check your ego at the door and let the best idea win. And that will be the best for everybody.

In the long run,

the other sort of collaboration, though, that's important in my life is almost a silent

collaboration. And that's with my predecessors and my colleagues. And that's in terms of reading,

you know, reading Shakespeare, reading the great Greek and Roman classics,

reading the great writers in my genre, both past and present. There is a, you know, I get those

ideas. I hear that great writing. I hear that poetry in that writing. And so, in a sense,

you know, all of my work has been a collaboration with those great people. I've received great

gifts from them, you know, and I hope likewise, maybe some, it'd be a great hope of mine, you know,

that maybe some young writers read my stuff and maybe, maybe get some ideas, you know,

and some techniques. And so there's a collaboration, I think, among writers that's not

so often spoken as it is.

it's mutually read. Does that make any sense? It does indeed. I haven't really thought of it

in that way, Don. It's a brilliant understanding and I suppose respect for, as you said, your

colleagues, predecessors and your peers. And I've got no doubt your work inspires many, many

currently and many, many more in the future. I'm going to ask you the question. I'm waiting for

the eye roll, which I'm sure is going to come, but I can't help but do it anyway. What are you

reading? Can you recommend a couple of books that we just have to read as someone who's clearly

read voraciously across your life? What are the couple of books we just have to read?

Well, you know, you should be reading one of your own guys, Daryl McTierney. We should be reading,

oh my God, Adrian McKinty. What am I reading right now? You're going to be very surprised

by it, I think. I just finished Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen.

Yeah. And you hadn't read it before?

I had not. Now, this is a sad confession.

It might make me some enemies. I tried to read Austen earlier in my life and couldn't do it. I

couldn't get through the first few pages, but oddly enough, I have no way of explaining this,

by the way. In the past couple of years, I have read Austen and thoroughly enjoyed it and gotten

a lot out of it. I've read a lot of it. I've read a lot of it. I've read a lot of it. I've read a lot of it.

I've read a lot of it. I've read a lot of it. I've read a lot of it. I've read a lot of it.

So, I don't know how to explain that.

And do you flip from fiction to nonfiction? Are you reading other crime writers regularly?

Yeah. There's a lot of people I read and I often hesitate to come out with names. I don't want to

inadvertently offend somebody because there are so many. I mean, our genre is so strong. It is so

strong and so many terrific writers. But yeah, listen, I go back to the people that you probably

expect me to read. I go back to the people that you probably expect me to read. I go back to the

people that you probably expect me to go back to, you know, Elmore Leonard, of course, Raymond

Chandler, Charles Willifer, the McDonald's, you know, maybe the people that you'd expect me to.

But I also go back to George Eliot, you know, and those folks. And I get a lot out of that. And,

you know, when it's a Sunday afternoon and it's raining and I just want to lay on the couch,

I'll often just pick up the collected works of Shakespeare.

Open it at random and read for a while.

Yeah. Fascinating insight into where your passion comes from. But asking these questions of

everyone that I've spoken to, as I said, through the lens of leadership,

who's been the greatest leader in your life?

I'm unclear whether you mean sort of political leaders that have been in everyone's life

and that I particularly admire or specific people in my life.

Well, I like that there was a pause there, Don.

And because it's really what that question means to you. I mean, it could be around home. It could

be from, we've had people talk about exactly that, great political influences, but also people talk

about within their own family. So a bit of think music, but yeah, where did your mind go instinctively?

Well, it went to Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy's murder was childhood's end for me.

I thought about Nelson,

Mandela, because I've spent a lot of time in Africa and in South Africa during the bad old

days. Personally in my life, man, I've had such great teachers. My junior year in high school

English teacher who threw me out of her English class, but made me come and have tutorials with

her at lunch every day. She really taught me how to read. And by the way,

she ate my lunch every day. A biology teacher, Bill McEnany, with whom I'm still dear, dear friends,

80 something, who also taught jazz and introduced me to jazz, which has been a major influence in my

life. In college, a guy named Pete Maslovsky, I eventually wrote a nonfiction book with him,

you know, who taught me so much. So,

again, you know, I've been very lucky, very blessed in my life to have those people.

I love the range. I love you celebrating teachers and educators. It's something that we've tried to

do a lot. We think it's underappreciated, the life-changing moments, isn't it? Just as you said,

you know, an English teacher at that young age has taught you how to read. As someone who's

gone on to do what you do, that is life-changing. I've got to go back. I'm going to ask you about

Bobby Kennedy. You described it as the end of your childhood, and my history won't be anywhere near

as good as yours.

How many years after JFK was Bobby murdered, and why was that so impactful?

Well, let me see. It would have been, what, five years?

Five years later, yeah.

You know, I was a small child when John Kennedy was assassinated. I certainly

remembered it as being traumatic. I grew up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood,

and I mean, people were out in the streets sobbing, you know, when John Kennedy was killed.

I was a bit too young to understand it.

But by the time Bobby came around, you know, we'd already, we were in Vietnam. I was in high

school. We were pretty much waiting to be drafted to go to Vietnam. Martin Luther King had been

assassinated. We had riots in the streets, and Bobby Kennedy was out there, you know,

leading in a very personal kind of a way, in a very risky, obviously, sadly, risky

kind of a way. And so it was sort of the first awareness I had of being political

and supporting someone like that and admiring someone like that. And I actually was with the

daughter of one of his campaign managers. I was working at a theater far from my home and

staying with this actor and actress. And her father was one of Bobby's campaign managers

in California, was present at all of that. And I remember waking up in the morning,

hearing Bobby's voice, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to die. I'm going to die.

And I remember hearing screaming. And it was about Bobby being shot. This woman was concerned

whether her father was safe or not. And it was, it was the end of innocence, you know. And I think

that I entered into a phase of my life that was very cynical, you know, and it took a long time

to shed that. It's interesting, isn't it? We always think our time is the most tumultuous and

clearly, you know, what's happening in the world, in your part of the world is unprecedented and

new types of challenges. But, you know, as you described that, again, you think of,

you know, President Kennedy assassinated and then what Bobby Kennedy was doing.

No doubt you can imagine what that would have been like in your world at that particular stage.

We're really big, Don, in this world of collaboration and collaborating with different

people and the coming together of ideas. If you could collaborate with one person in the world,

and you mentioned a love of jazz music, you mentioned clearly, you know, from a writer's

perspective, but is there any name that springs to mind?

Well, listen, I mean, Bruce Springsteen, you know, I think the greatest American poet since Walt

Whitman, who wrote and writes songs that are very evocative for me in my life. I came from a,

if you will, a Springsteen sort of beach town, you know, that's where I come from and where I

live now half the year and where City of Fire is set. Now, it would be a total fantasy, you know,

to collect. But I think it's a great idea. I think it's a great idea. I think it's a great idea.

With Springsteen, I don't see that happen, but that's certainly one name.

Well, you already have, Don. So many people are so humble, they even overlook that. I mean,

what was that process like? I mean, one of the videos, it was the streets of Philadelphia and

you have to get approval, don't you? I mean, for Springsteen's work. I mean,

how hard was that to get the boss on board with that?

Remarkably easy. I mean, I was amazed. I was shocked.

But, you know, we got to some of his people, as they say, and then they showed him the rough

footage of the video and the text of the video. And he said right away, yep, I'm on board and

here you can use Philadelphia. Hey, Don, it's been a great pleasure,

great insight. For those listening, I'm holding a copy of Don's book, City of Fire,

his latest work, A Master, it says, superb, Stephen King, beautifully written, propulsive,

authentic page turner. I hope you've got an insight into the person Don Winslow is by listening

to this and see the integrity, see the sense of purpose, but you'll be overjoyed, I think,

when you read his work because it is a masterpiece. His words are incredible. And Don, I've loved

catching up with you. Thanks for sharing some time with us today and look forward to following

you with great interest. Thank you, man. I really enjoyed it. And yeah, the next time you come to

the States.

Look us up. We'll hang out.

Love to do that. I reckon that'd be a lot of fun, Don. I'll be looking over my shoulder in an

alleyway, I think. But I'd love to experience that. Thanks again. It's been awesome.

Thank you very much.

Empowering Leaders was presented by me, Luke Darcy, produced by Matt Dwyer with audio

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