"you put a gun in my mouth beat the hell out of me and maybe he said if you tell anyone about this I know where your family lives for the first time in my life I knew finally it was game over I'm Molly..."

"Molly Bloom dub the poker princess the former waitress who took a small poker game run out of a dingy nightclub so the biggest underground poker game in the world for Hollywood celebrities to milliona..."

"either DiCaprio Ben Affleck and Toby McGuire politicians she was making four to six million dollars a year it was unbelievable 250 000 buy-in so I couldn't sit down unless I brought 250 000 that's rig..."

"big tool and I would memorize people's lives the names of their kids what they cared about favorite food ordered drink order these things can absolutely be used for good but I just became obsessed wha..."

"started to partner with people that were not the right people to partner with in the middle of the night I get arrested by 17 FBI agents machine guns they put me in handcuffs and they put this piece o..."

"before this episode starts I have a small favor to ask from you two months ago 74 of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe we're now down to 69 my goal is 50 so if you've ever liked any of t..."

"what do I need to understand about your earliest context to understand you going right in um I think it almost always starts with the family and childhood and I am from a family of you know my two lit..."

"discipline and if you have a fear you walk through it and you learn how to suffer constructively for your dreams for your goals and then my mom you know she was this she insisted on kindness and integ..."

"wanted a seat at that table and probably during the times that we were raised there are these ideas of what success looked like and how you get there and it was genius and talent and specific skill se..."

"mean that it's hard to know what you mean at 18 years old but in my mind you need Clear Proof and evidence that you are extraordinary by these a compliment accomplishments and my brothers had already ..."

"read books about the law and fiction a lot I mean I was I loved stories um and and then started to think about getting paid to argue for a living and all the glory that could come from that if you're ..."

"extraordinary worldly in order to to then feel relief from that existential ache of that I that that followed me around my whole life you know so you you go off and try and pursue a career in law at l..."

"up like not applying to law schools and just saying I just need a year and the closest place that was warm on the ocean from Colorado in a straight line was California when you moved here um your fath..."

"hiring in this Beverly Hills area and it was a fine dining establishment and I lied and said that I had fine dining experience I got fired couple weeks later my boss said you're the worst waitress we'..."

"and their access were different from the rest of us that they believed that they are worthy you know that they didn't have Harbor that secret fear that they weren't good enough and what I found unequi..."

"curious and becoming a great listener which by the way you are an insanely great listener and I just have found probably like you have that there is such incredible value in that and that no matter ho..."

"running your own poker nights this is a funny story Okay so couple months go by right and I'm like I don't want to serve drinks in these rooms I wanna I wanna start my own games I want to own these ro..."

"moment now sitting here decades later so from that moment when you host that first game you upgrade everything you upgrade the experience for your customers um eventually you set your site to New York..."

"called me about a week later and with this almost jubilant laugh and tone was like don't you're done how could he ensure that you were done he had colluded with the biggest whale in the game a whale a..."

"when I say these things it's like it is what it is but so you eventually moved to New York yes um 30 years old at this point I'm 31 at that point okay yeah um so you know I I bet my parents said this ..."

"because it seemed like there are a lot of gamblers on Wall Street there were many problems with my plan first of all I didn't really know anyone in New York City it's that sort of like billionaire Wal..."

"to become the bank I would now MDB Inc would now become the bank guarantee the games pay if there is um if somebody stiffed I would pay what does this stiff mean meaning they'd lost money in the game ..."

"people were I mean there's rumors that a couple billionaires went broke playing in that game fully broke and this here comes to a part of this story that is I think really important I started to see s..."

"started to be exclusively about the money and the power and the status and I started other games in the city and I didn't care if somebody could afford it or not and I was drinking a lot and I was tak..."

"very good at strategy seeing a problem coming up with a solution setting a goal that has you know most the time pretty slight odds figuring out how to get there so I'd become very good at strategy I'd..."

"you were so ashamed of about the way that you were living outside of the games I had stopped really communicating showing up for my family at times didn't treat people that worked for me as well as I'..."

"yeah I mean I think in the beginning it made sense right but down the road I think it became very clear and we had conversations about it some point the the Mafia show up yeah so here's the kind of uh..."

"and they were really clear with me uh you know if you want to continue to run these games you're going to have to give us a piece and we all know we've all seen that movie right and I tried to pull I ..."

"but you know disaster is a coming it's just and the last thing that happened before the whole thing blows up was um you know for most of my poker running career I was I was running these games legally..."

"and then some so what happens then did you manage to get out of New York I did I managed to get out of New York I got home to Colorado I'm at my mom's house my attorneys are talking to the feds and th..."

"at some point the FBI gives you an ultimatum regarding becoming a snitch oh okay so it took two years for those two years I moved in with my mom I got sober I at 35 years old no I'm not 35 yet I'm 33 ..."

"seven days later this is two years later okay I don't think anything's coming I have rehabilitated myself you know and I've been living with my mom and my grandma in the mountains of Colorado so I mov..."

"represent you and then I met Jim Walden who uh was at a very prestigious Law Firm and kind of like listen to my story looked at my mom and said I'm gonna help you and Jim and I started working togethe..."

"the right thing and you know a couple weeks later the prosecutors wanted a meeting and they really wanted me to be a confidential informant a snitch yeah and you know Jim believes this is the whole re..."

"I had to own that you know and turning around and ruining the lives of people who had played in my game who'd made me very wealthy many of them I saw their kids grow up to get out of the trouble of my..."

"know and probably would have been even bigger from it the other way but I mean I felt like I I mean I lost my feet you know and oh man you know here here we are going to dinner after the sentencing an..."

"it you know it's like a daughter like yeah like it's a cat you didn't even know was there and you meet this other group of people and you find out that they're making money in this other yeah set of w..."

"dragged in that in those settings hmm it's what I've tend to tend to find yeah I met a lot of billionaires and I with the odd exception I'm like damn unhappy yeah but it can't stop yeah have you ever ..."

"precisely hmm that's also what I feel yeah that's cool I've I haven't thought about that and that's really cool I like that and this next the way that my story ends really kind of speaks to that um or..."

"and I said to myself I need to get I need to go speak to one of the most powerful filmmakers in Hollywood I had a bunch of meetings and I was like it can't be something small it has to be something bi..."

"doesn't come from thin air so most people laughed me out of their office they're like your book sold 10 copies you know like this it was in the press a couple years ago Aaron sorkin's never going to l..."

"that's what you were giving Thanksgiving and yeah I mean the tldr of that is he he takes it on he drops what he's doing he takes it on he decides to make it his directorial debut as well as writing it..."

"um you know I'll never forget getting the the bank wire again and it takes a really long time you know you don't just get paid up front you get like 50 Grand and then you get the rest of it three year..."

"is um a podcast in a community called the SMART Girls Guide to Everything it's basically using the strategy the access the network the resources that I've been able to accumulate in my life and applyi..."

"the same terrifying ladies and gentlemen I'm interrupting this broadcast with a very special announcement two years ago I started writing a book based on everything I've learned from doing this podcas..."

"she will not be happy unless she has purpose in life I believe that to be true I I don't know who said it but it was very succinctly said to love and to work you know I believe that people need a reas..."

"I think a healthy relationship with risk is super important I think um being able to stay composed when there's chaos inside chaos outside is incredibly important in those rooms I think being able to ..."

"only we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the less last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to leave the question for and the question left for you is..."

"it'll crop up so that's why I think it's so important to have a process for how you deal with these things and I think anybody that says I did this work on myself and now I'm fine isn't being fully tr..."