Larry Miller’s Jump Details Redemptive Journey From Prison To President Of Jordan Brand And Beyond

What was it like co-writing a book with your daughter?

Well she has a degree in English from Howard University, by the way. I know she’ll like the fact that I plugged Howard. But the way the process worked – once I agreed to start, she was pushing me from the get-go. We would get together for hours, maybe four or five hours or whatever at a time, over a long period of years. And we would spend time together, we’d talk, she’d ask questions, I’d answer, and she would record it and then she’d go back and transcribe that. By the end we had a document, but it wasn’t in book or story form. That’s when we decided that we need to connect with some people. We connected with CAA, we need to connect with some folks and figure out how to take this and turn it into a book.

But it was rewarding and challenging working with her. It was rewarding in that it helped me to relieve a lot of the pressure and stuff that I was feeling by keeping this in, and through the process, she and I got became closer. She got to know a lot about me that she didn’t know. It was really a great process. I think we are much closer now than when we started this process. She feels like she knows me a lot better now. For me, I think part of what made it more comfortable working with her and talking to her on this is that, you know, I know she’s gonna love me regardless of whatever I shared with her. It made me more comfortable and open. Once that process started it became easier for me to share in general, but it was really the connection and the relationship with her in this process that really allowed me to open up and be willing to share this story.

That’s particularly important today because in the past you were able to keep your incarceration as a secret, whereas today it’s unlikely a record like that can be hidden. A hiring manager of a company could read your story and think one of two ways; they’ll either see a need to really focus on this person’s talent right now and what they offer us, or they could even double down on background checks. How would you want an employer or a company to receive the message that your book is looking to relay.

I’m hoping that through this book, the perception of formerly incarcerated people could potentially change and that folks would be willing to give a chance and an opportunity to someone, even though they’ve made a mistake and maybe done something crazy in their life and been in prison. If we can impact the perception that people have of formerly incarcerated people, I think that would go a long way to making it so that we shouldn’t judge somebody by the worst thing that they’ve done in their life. I think people have the potential to change. And I think given the right opportunities, people can change and move forward in their life.

I feel like this story is a prime example of that. And if hopefully someone looks at the story and says, you know, wow, maybe I should give this person a chance. The people that know me now have a hard time seeing me as that person from before, because I’m not that person anymore, and the people that know me now know me as who I am today. I was talking to a couple people and they were like, ‘man, I thought you were punking us when you were telling us that…I couldn’t believe it’. But, like I said, to me the hope is that this story can change people’s perception and maybe motivate people to give folks an opportunity.

Do you, do you see yourself, perhaps in the next phase of your professional life, devoting your energy and focus to prison reform? How would like to see corporations and companies have more outreach programs for formerly incarcerated people?

Absolutely. I think this book is a platform to help address some of these situations and add my voice to the fact that there needs to be some change and some improvement in how people are treated in incarceration. Just warehousing people doesn’t do anybody any good, but providing opportunities for folks to learn, develop some type of skill or education that they can bring with them once they do get out – that’s a goal and I definitely want to lend my voice to that and be a part of moving it forward.

Whether it’s outreach programs or actually going into prisons and helping to educate and teach people skills inside of prisons so that they’re prepared when they do come out, I would love to see more companies get involved in that type of effort, because – and I tell people this all the time – some of the smartest, most creative, intelligent people I’ve ever met are in prison or were in prison. If you could harness some of that creativity and that intelligence and have those folks focus on a positive aspec and use those skills in a positive way, there’s a lot of potential there inside of those prison walls that could be really beneficial to society at large.

Obviously the book isn’t just about this one secret. What are some other points about this book that you were really proud of, or that you would want people to remember at the end of reading it?

The biggest thing that I would want people to remember is that I did this, but I’m not the only one who is able to do this. I think that if given the right opportunity, given the right resources and support and encouragement, I think there are a lot of folks who are in the situation that I was in. I’m hoping it will be able to change their lives and change their situation based on what this book brings not just to them, but to your point earlier to the people who are hiring or have the ability to hire, or have the ability to teach or train people, or have the ability to give people an opportunity to me, hopefully this book touches those folks as well as the people who are either incarcerated or going down that path. I’m just hopeful that, um, this can have a positive impact on as many people as possible.