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The Jordan Harbinger Show

1231: Owen Hanson | From USC Golden Boy to International Drug Kingpin

The Jordan Harbinger Show

Jordan Harbinger

Social Sciences, Self-improvement, Entrepreneurship, Talk Radio, Business, Science, Education

4.8 β€’ 12.1K Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 30 October 2025

⏱️ 89 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From USC quarterback to drug kingpin to ice cream entrepreneur, Owen Hanson explains how criminal skills can translate to legitimate business success.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1231

What We Discuss with Owen Hanson:

  • Early childhood trauma shaped Owen Hanson's path. Owen's parents divorced when he was eight, and his mother left with his sister. He didn't see her for nine months, leading to deep abandonment issues and a desperate need for his father's approval that influenced his later choices.
  • Prison strips away fair-weather friends. When Owen went to federal prison, he lost nearly everyone. He could count his true friends on one hand (including his parents) β€” most people vanished out of fear or because they were only there for the party, not the person.
  • Drug smuggling vs. ice cream logistics. Owen admits shipping frozen ice cream pallets is actually harder than smuggling cocaine because ice cream must stay frozen 24/7. When his first shipment arrived in New York unmelted, he felt the same rush he once got from drug deals.
  • Business skills transfer directly. Owen discovered the same entrepreneurial principles that made him successful in illegal operations β€” logistics, networking, risk management β€” apply perfectly to legitimate business, just with different (and legal) products.
  • Redemption lives in applied skills. Owen channeled his hustler instincts into creating a high-protein ice cream business he developed in prison. By redirecting his entrepreneurial energy toward something positive, he proves that skillsets aren't inherently good or bad β€” it's how you deploy them that matters.
  • And much more...

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show has a little bit of explicit language, so if that offends or upsets you, I recommend you skip to the next one.

0:10.1

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

0:22.1

Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations

0:26.4

with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers,

0:32.0

even the occasional Fortune 500 CEO, Forstar General, investigative journalist,, music mogul, or tech luminary.

0:38.1

And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest

0:41.4

our episode starter packs.

0:43.1

These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation,

0:47.3

psychology, geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more.

0:52.1

That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, you ever read a book and think, oh, that is a party I missed, and also a prison sentence that I didn't. This episode is for anybody who's ever had FOMO and bad decision-making impulses in equal measure. Today's guest grew up chasing Dad's approval, joined a frat, turned a $4,200 bag of cocaine into instant celebrity status, then parlayed black market hustle into a white-collar, bookie empire, complete with call centers in Costa Rica, cartel phone calls, and the kind of high roller parties that make the Oscars look like PTA bake sales.

1:30.4

He smuggled cash and ugs, laundered money for drug cartels, lost a bunch of it, and somehow stayed alive to tell the tale.

1:36.5

This is the story of the cocaine quarterback, a story about status, networks, hustle, and the exact moment that being honest becomes a survival skill. It's wild, cinematic, absolutely true, and it ends with somebody making ice cream behind bars. So buckle up and dive in with me here with Owen Hansen. I'm going to tell you the book, man. It makes me feel like I really missed out on some amazing parties. We definitely had a good run. Man, I also maybe missed out on some prison time.

2:03.0

So there's that.

2:03.3

Yeah, you didn't miss out on that.

2:04.3

Yeah, maybe less FOMO.

2:06.1

Yeah, that's the FOMO you don't want to be.

2:08.6

We're not supposed to glorify criminal activity, but partying is not criminal activity.

2:13.1

It sounds just like you had a really good time in college year after that.

2:16.1

It's like the Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah. And it's just a lot of fun times with minimal consequences until then they weren't so minimal anymore. Yes. The book starts with your mom just basically packing up and leaving with your sister. So what happened there? Because that's kind of an early primal wound that you don't just get over. Yeah. I think you got to understand that two couples, you know, didn't get along. And my father and mother divorced. And as a child, you don't know what's going on because you're young and you're seeing them fight like cats and dogs and you're like, man, what's going on? But at that age, my sister's four, I'm eight. And I'm like, man, I don't know what's going on, but something bad's going to happen. You feel it. And I remember my mom packed up and put everything in the station wagon that day, and my sister's crying, and like, I'm starting to cry. And shit, man, what's happening? Then I remember she drove off. Saw me crying. My dad was like, no, no, we don't cry in this household. Come on. Go get your

3:07.6

volleyball, go get your surfboard. We're going to the beach. And I remember I didn't see my mom for like another nine months until Thanksgiving. Like, oh, we're going to get to see your mom. My dad told me. I was like, devastated. I'm talking around the phone. And back then, you don't have cell phones. There's no such thing as FaceTime or Skype. None of that's around and I'm just bombed out. What did I do? I tell my dad, did I not shower? Why is mom leaving? So you're like thinking, did I not clean my room enough or whatever. I did wrong. I mean, look, people handle things in different ways, but it sounds like they just handle this so poorly. How do you not explain to your kids what's going to happen? You separate siblings. You don't allow them to have emotions in one house. What were they thinking? They weren't, right? Yeah. At the end of the day, we obviously make some mistakes in life. And my dad talks about that in the documentary, cocaine quarterback. He says, you know what? I regret what I did and I fucked up.

3:58.8

And my dad admits it. At least he takes responsibility now, right? He wasn't in good shape, though,

4:03.3

like mentally, right? Yeah, drinking a lot of alcohol and just he's a partier. And now I see where

...

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