(reviewed by Ann Onymous )
“Should I come clean? I was well aware of the risk of unburdening myself to the executive in a public accounting firm, but all signs indicated I was on the path to landing my first big job…I rolled out the armed robberies, my time behind bars, the community-college courses in which i excelled, living in a halfway house…”
He replied “That’s quite a story, I am so proud of you for what you’ve been able to accomplish but…”
“I would never ever reveal my prison past to anyone again….The secret was born. It has lived within me for more than three decades, corroding me from the inside, haunting me day and night, bringing me to my knees with migraine headaches and awful dreams.”
This is Larry Miller, kid from West Philadelphia, becoming the Chairman of The Jordan Brand at Nike and working with Michael Jordan is quite inspiring. As President, he took them from being a $150 million to a $4 billion dollar sports apparel behemoth. Mr. Miller revived the Portland Trailblazers NBA team from being the ‘jail blazers’ to one of the top teams in the country.
Now he serves on the Board of Directors of Self Enhancement, Inc. and he is committed to helping people learn from his own life experiences. He believes in the prison system promoting and providing educational opportunities. He serves non-profits across the country, helping countless youth.
Mr. Miller has never forgotten where he came from. He was a ‘champ’ in school and turned that “drive” to a gang, rather than school because it was no longer ‘cool’ to be the teacher’s pet. In prison, he took advantage of the classes offered and graduated from Temple University. His hard work and success at numbers took him from an entry-level accountant to the President of the company. This book is yet another book that should be available in every prison library. We can all be uplifted by reading this true story.
I really enjoyed this book because this is a life well used. Mr. Miller has taken advantage of every opportunity made available to him and has jumped forward full speed. For fans of autobiographies, this will be a joy to read. I discovered Mr. Miller when I heard him speaking in support of a particular non-profit group in Baltimore, Maryland. I had never heard of him, but now I’m so glad to have ‘met’ him via this memoir.
