HOST: JENNIFER (00:00):

Welcome to episode number 30. This is a feel-good episode. This is about Andrew Gibbs-Dabney, who was a former opioid addict who robbed a liquor store and served serious prison time, he turned his life around and created an amazing company called Livsn Designs, which is a sustainable clothing company. Andrew's perseverance and bravery story will shock and inspire you. The Going For Greatness podcast is about amazing human beings doing amazing things against all odds. And that's where you come in. Andrew, you've had a hell of a journey, as the founder of a successful, sustainable clothing company. But going back to your story, it is unbelievably shocking. It's a story of a man who's very resilient, very driven, and maybe a little lucky too. I'd like to have you just share your history of being an opioid addict, your jail how you were looking at the heavy time, and how you turned your life around.

GUEST: ANDREW (01:02):

The story starts I think a lot earlier than when I started using drugs recreationally. I was actually born with severe pigeon-toed feet, so not exactly uh, inverted, but actually facing backward for the most part. At two weeks old, I had to have my first major surgery on both feet, and I had eight surgeries until I was 12 years old. Each surgery came with hospital time and opiates. I was on morphine through those surgeries and obviously after it. And as a kid, I didn't think about my past surgeries very much. When I think back on my childhood, I was camping, riding my bike, and hanging out at the park. I was that kid that my parents would go and just yell off the front porch saying dinner time. And I'd come home and eat and I'd run right back outside.

GUEST: ANDREW (01:39):

I remember a time at the hospital and some of those recovery times, but that's not what stood out to me in my memory. But what I think is interesting, is that emerging science shows early exposure to certain drugs, which helps your brain basically use those better. You have chemical pathways. It's similar to how if you're a master craftsman, you do one thing all day long, you get really good at doing that one thing. Your brain's also very good at utilizing the substances that it's been exposed to the most. And so when I came to college during my freshman year, I was not focused on being studious. I was focused on having a good time and I was very experimental. And during that time, I came back to opioids. To me, it was the first time, but I didn't realize that it was not the first time my body had really been exposed to this drug.

GUEST: ANDREW (02:18):

And it felt right, and it felt comfortable. I felt more energetic, more confident, and more at ease physically than I had in a long time. When you feel something like you want to do more.  That's the willpower side of it. I wanted to continue to feel this way.  Opioids are one of the hardest-hitting versions of this kind of drug.  It creates a physical dependency very fast and knowing that I also have an addictive nature that each time I need to perform. When you find this drug that gives you an edge or makes you feel so good, I think that was pretty easy to fall into that trap. And then full-on, physical addiction comes into play. So I went from a normal recreational user to a heavy habitual user pretty quickly.  It was at the point where if I didn't have opioids, I didn't eat sleep, I didn't work, I didn't study, I didn't do anything. So it became a necessity versus a recreational thing pretty fast. 

HOST: JENNIFER (03:07):

Andres, you were a freshman in college at this point?  You were 18. How many oxycodone pills were you taking a day at that point?

GUEST: ANDREW (03:15):

At first it was a little bit, but fast forward a year or two, I had a $200 to $500 a day habit just to kind of maintain. And that wasn't really even going overboard or anything. And you can see how the economics of that don't work out.

HOST: JENNIFER (03:27):

Which probably leads you to robbing a liquor store.

GUEST: ANDREW (03:30):

Yeah, I didn't lead straight there. I have a lot of privilege and as you said -  I had a lot of luck in my story. I lived in a house where I didn't have to pay rent. I had a credit card that could buy myself food. Now you can't buy drugs with their credit card and you can't buy drugs with your rent.   At this point, my habit was too high. But I never did go homeless. I never resorted to constant petty theft. It was more of everything I own was in a pawn shop at any given time.  Also, I was obviously selling certain drugs. There's almost no drug user in this class that doesn't end up being a drug seller at some point. Not like you're a kingpin or organized seller. It’s survival and I ended up heavily in debt in that mind space. I call it mind space. It's really not. You're really just in survival mode.  

HOST: JENNIFER (04:07):

At this point, did your family understand what was going on with you?

GUEST: ANDREW (04:10):

I wasn't living with my family. I was living with some roommates from college. I was severely underweight.  I had a bad attitude. I wasn't engaging with family in the way that you should. So I think my family had a lot of suspicions that something was wrong. I don't think they knew exactly what it was or how bad it had gotten.

HOST: JENNIFER (04:29):

You were heavily in debt and what happened after that point?  

GUEST: ANDREW (04:32):

Interesting looking back at like this memory and like I said, it's more survival than really conscious thought. I knew I needed money.  I knew that I needed drugs and that led me to robbing a liquor store in Fayetteville in my hometown. Now it was nonviolent. No one was hit, no one was threatened, amateur robbery.  Everything I did showed that I was not a true hardened criminal. And I think that has a lot to do with coupling that with letters of character, community service, getting sober and have a good place to land afterwards is why I ended up being able to have that charge dropped from a aggravated robbery in 40 to Life as an original sentence to a theft of property with a 20 year prison sentence of which 10 was suspended. So really a 10 year sentence.

HOST: JENNIFER (05:12):

Still Andrew, that’s a rock bottom, right? I mean, you're a young guy and you're looking at 10 years in jail.

GUEST: ANDREW (05:18):

Actually, no.  My rock bottom I'd say happened before that during rehab when I was getting sober.  Two weeks after a fully non-medicated detox, my brain started to seemingly work again.  I started to be able to be self-reflective, started to think about the consequences of my actions. And at that time I was looking at 40 to life in my head, 40 years sentence was the bottom possibility, you know, the best case. And in Arkansas prison system for in a lot of state prisons, that would've been eight to 10 years behind bars, assuming I was on good behavior before I was out again, that's a big chunk of time. I was looking at starting my life over around where I am now. I'm 34. I would've gotten out somewhere around 32 or 33 and I was the head head space of “how am I gonna make the most of my time while I'm inside prison?”

GUEST: ANDREW (05:59):

“How am I gonna not waste those 10 years?” Because life is short, you don't get another second shot. So if I'm gonna be behind bars, how do I maximize that? So that's the head space I was in when I made that choice is that it doesn't get worse than this. I was lucky to be alive at that point. I'm even luckier that I went through that experience then and not now. It's always been a role of the dice to use opioids.  Today in 2023, now you don't even know what the opioid you're using is, which is terrifying.

HOST: JENNIFER (06:20):

What's the danger with opioids today versus 11 years ago?

GUEST: ANDREW (06:24):

11 years ago, if you had a prescription of Oxycontin, a pill that looked like a prescription, you were certain that it was a prescription, that it came from Purdue, a pharmaceutical company.  You knew you  were taking something measurable and dosable. I didn't really do heroin or anything like that unless I absolutely had to. I was really focused on pills and it was as careful as I could be of not wanting to overdose. In 2023, you can get a pill that looks just like an Oxycontin, but it's actually fake.  It’s been pressed and it's really fentanyl.  This fentanyl is so hard to dose and so deadly that you could do what you thought was a very small amount, and you could be dead the next minute. And there's no way to careful about it. You just don't know what you're taking and that's terrifying.

HOST: JENNIFER (07:01):

Are you actively helping people who are struggling with drug addiction?

GUEST: ANDREW (07:06):

I wouldn't say active. I'd say the closest I've come in the last several years to doing that has been sharing my story like I have been over the last six months. There is part of me that doesn't want to really expose myself to that world again. I have a lot of confidence in myself now and where I am.  I am currently working through how is the best help people in that scenario. And for me it, it may take the form of the formerly incarcerated more than they helping the addictive. You can't help somebody and until they're ready to help themselves.  I don't know exactly how to do that yet.  I've been through this and know that you can come out on the other side and you can do things productive on the other side of that and you can have an impact on the world and you're not forever branded addict or a criminal.

GUEST: ANDREW (07:54):

It’s part of my past right now. I'm comfortable with sharing that story and seeing if that helps people.

HOST: JENNIFER (08:00):

Your resiliency is what is so fascinating to me because not only did you come out on the other side, but you are in a sort of elite class of Founders now. You started a sustainable clothing company, called Livsn Designs -- you were ranked, the best outdoor pants ever made or something like that?

GUEST: ANDREW (08:19):

Outside Magazine put us in their buyer's guide saying we're the best climbing pants in 2020. And then quickly after that, Gear Junkie said we were the best pants of 2020. And then from there on, we've continued to be blessed with lots of really great press, retailers and customers that have continued to say that we make the best pants in the world. That's not something that I'm actually comfortable saying, I think it's hyperbolic, but if someone wants to say that to me and say that about our company, then I'm absolutely gonna accept it and say thank you. 

HOST: JENNIFER (08:44):

How did you go from facing a long period of time behind bars and an addict to a successful founder of a sustainable outdoor clothing line?

GUEST: ANDREW (08:55):

When plead guilty to theft property charge, it opened up the possibility, not the guarantee of being able to enter into a military bootcamp program within the Arkansas Department of Corrections. I had to apply once I got there and it was not a guarantee, but my sentence was eligible. So when I got to prison, the first thing I did was I request the forms.  It took a few days to even get the forms. A few days later I was actually admitted into bootcamp. I was in jail for a little over three months. I was in regular prison for about two weeks. I was in bootcamp still at a prison like inside of a prison, for 105 days. And so I was able to get back out. It was about a year of my life from the crime until I was back out in the world under a very strict parole.

GUEST: ANDREW (09:35):

Part of that terms of that early release where you were having more than normal regular parole checkups, more drug tests, all these things, travel restrictions.   So to answer your question, once again, this gets back to some privilege and I want to make sure I acknowledge I had a warm bed to land in, at my dad's house at the time, food on the table. I had a safe, secure place to come out of prison and rebuild my life. And a lot of people don't have that. I do want to acknowledge it. It's not everything, you need to make a choice, you have to do things for yourself and you have to take responsibility. But it's definitely a factor that helped me. I wanted to earn my undergraduate degree. I had dropped out of school with about 90 credits. You need 120, but they weren't the right 90 credits.

GUEST: ANDREW (10:09):

So I knew that I was not too far from finishing my college degree. I went back to the community college, made straight A's for two semesters and got re-admitted back into Arkansas to finish my undergrad. While I was there finishing my undergrad, some friends had had a successful apparel company that they had started up outdoor focused that was growing really, really fast. And I was working for the university in the warehouse.   They asked me to come to our warehouse and help them ship things.  And they knew my background, they knew me through that time. They knew I wasn't a bad person. And they gave me a shot. And so I worked there for five years. I started in warehouse picking and packing orders and ended up as the CEO of the company.

GUEST: ANDREW (10:48):

I transitioned to a university that had a night school management program that you could complete your undergrad through. So I ended up graduating from university with an organizational management degree and then working through this company and getting my life back on track. I got married during that time, bought a house and you know, we're laying the groundwork to start a family, which we have. Fast forward a little bit.  I have two boys now. 

HOST: JENNIFER (11:15):

It's just an amazing story. The recidivism rate is got to be unbelievably high, but here you are. You took the values that you created for your post-prison life and baked them into this new company that you started. Has it been difficult raising money with your story? Have you lost any opportunities for big investors because you had a a criminal background?

GUEST: ANDREW (11:38):

Yes, I have. You touched on something really important: two things I realized.  But as I was going through that process, through the legal system, I realized A) nature and outdoors was really what drove my passion. I was keeping myself from that with an addiction to this drug. And I was filling a void that it could fill. So I realized that in time outside and time in nature and outdoor recreation was what I needed to do to stay healthy both mentally and physically and stay off of opioids. B) I also realized that when everything's taken away from you, when you're stripped of everything.  You’re put into prison, all you're left with is memories, relationships and experiences that you've had and your hopes and dreams.

GUEST: ANDREW (12:16):

It's all up here in our heads. None of the other stuff really matters because it's all gone. And that's a powerful thought. And so when I was starting living my life again, it was really based on these ideas.  We want to break down this barrier between daily life and getting outside. We wanna a helpful experience, nature and what outdoors can do for them. And then we wanna make these products that are additive to life that create experiences. And the way you do that is not by making products that are cheap. You make products that work well, that fit well, that people can own without a lot of maintenance and that last a long time fit into their daily lives and they don't really have to think about it, they just work to make something that kind of bleeds into the background and just works. It's actually a lot harder than to just make something look good or it'd be fashionable.

GUEST: ANDREW (12:53):

There's a lot of nuance to that. The idea of making these very sustainable, very high quality products that help people have experiences. That is the DNA, and the values of my company Livsn. That's what we do and why we do it. And the second part of your question is, I think for years it got in the way of investment. I just didn't know it. I think I was getting NOs for lots of reasons. There's lots of reasons to say no for investment, right? From the investor side, there's a million things. It's industry, it's the founding team, it's the margins, the consumer goods. They're all valid. I had heard rumors in the background that some of the reasons.  I always do and I always did, but it was never like in the very first conversation, I still believe there's some like kind of open hiring laws around the country, around the country where it's not required on an application and I’m very much in support of that.

GUEST: ANDREW (13:39):

I want to earn the relationship or the business on my own merit. And then before things get serious, I would say something. Now what happens is if you don't get to the chance to say something or that opportunity didn't present itself very well, then felt to me like I was holding something back. And I think it felt like I was not being sincere to some of these people I was trying to raise money from. Cause they had to do a background check inevitably and find something. And so that had happened I think in the background. But I did have one opportunity that was supposed to be with a famous TV personality, big startup star investor, entrepreneur, a taped recording, all these things that came along with an investment potential. And up on the day of the recording it was canceled and I said --  is it scheduling?

GUEST: ANDREW (14:17):

And they said no, they didn't gimme any more information. I can reschedule is something I said. And they said, no, it's your criminal history, it's your background and that basically that we can't get comfortable with it. And that's when I realized I need to get this out front. As much as I know that it's in my past, I need to make sure that this is gonna close a door for me in the future. But that door closes right at the beginning. I don't get too excited  I don't go down that path. My hope was that it would actually end up opening some doors, but that wasn't really why I did. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna get let down again.

HOST: JENNIFER (14:47):

It must be very scary to tell this kind of story, which typically has a pretty grim ending.

GUEST: ANDREW (14:53):

It was scary. I had written that post for weeks before I pushed go. I had had the article and the, and the post and everything just like ready and I was rereading it and rewriting it and just finding every reason to not publish it. It was terrifying.  I'm in a town of 50,000 people in Bentonville, Arkansas.  I have relationships with people and not everybody knew my past. I did not want Livsn success to be because of my story at the beginning. I wanted Livsn in to be out in the world on its own merits with great products and good branding and, and saying something that people really respond to and care about and not have it be because of my story .  Today is different.  The company has momentum that this story can only be additive to it, but it won't be the reason why most of our customers have already come to us in the first place. That was important to me.

HOST: JENNIFER (15:44):

You pushed go the story post. What would some of the feedback you've gotten from people?  

GUEST: ANDREW (15:49):

It was wild. I pushed go and you watch your social posts like crazy for a while. I think I actually got somewhat distracted after I pushed post and I came back to it about an hour later and it had already just taken wings. You know on Linkedin lot’s of comments etc.   But this was already way far and beyond anything I posted before and it was all positive. There was not one negative comment at first. It was people from my life that were like: I had no idea or I support you or this is amazing, thank you for saying it. And then pretty soon after it was people that I had never met that weren't even second or third degree connections, and I don't know how they found it.

GUEST: ANDREW (16:26):

It just popped up to them and they said, I'm inspired by this. Thank you for sharing. And then, you know, the words of encouragement to me were amazing. What has continued to surprise me is the relations that people have made to my story. How it has touched their lives. How an experience that they're not proud of, they're not putting out front, they still feel like they're hiding it. Or a loved one who is struggling with opioid addiction right now, or a loved one who's locked up. They want to share my story so that they give them some hope. That has completely stopped me in my tracks at that point and realized that there's value to this other than me just getting it off my chest other than not wanting to feel like I was hiding something.  There’s more value to what I went through for other people than I ever thought there was. And that's still happening and it, I don't know what to do with it yet.

HOST: JENNIFER (17:10):

Your company product line is pretty amazing. I've been reading about your products and if we were sitting here in 10 years, what does Livsn in look like to you?

GUEST: ANDREW (17:19):

We wanna be a household brand in the outdoor industry. So we want to be known there with the big guys. We want to be, you know, Patagonia, North Face, Columbia, Livsn. We want to be known for extreme dedication to sustainability, very high quality products and a brand that means something to people. I'm comfortable with it now.  If sharing my story helps people, if it helps my company and those two things are satisfied, then I'm happy with it. I don't know that I wanna be known always as the guy who robbed a liquor store and was addicted to drugs. 

HOST: JENNIFER (17:49):

I hope you're super proud of yourself. Andrew, you are the essence of this podcast Going for Greatness because you're an amazing human being doing something pretty tough, which is starting a company, you're beating the odds. It's very inspiring and you're very impressive. You're also very, very, very brave, Andrew. And I really thank you for sharing your story with us today. Think it's gonna help a lot of people going forward.  

GUEST: ANDREW (18:15):

Jennifer, Thank you so much for the opportunity and the ability to tell my story.