“On the Road”, an Excerpt from Tom Hardin’s New Book, “Wired on Wall Street”, Released Today
Tom Hardin a member of our White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. His new book, Wired on Wall Street, is available on Amazon: https://a.co/d/07Lnli2J
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Along the way, mentors appeared in unlikely places.
An NYU professor who’d invited me to speak introduced me to Larry Zicklin, the former chair of Neuberger Berman, with buildings named after him at Baruch College. When someone with that kind of stature takes an interest in you, especially when you’re known for breaking the rules he spent a lifetime upholding, it makes you pay attention. Larry saw past my failures and soon invited me to lunch at the Torch Club, NYU’s faculty dining room. Over multiple meals, our conversations stretched beyond upcoming talks. He wanted to know how I was really doing. How Sue was holding up. How our family was managing.
What struck me most was that Larry never treated my story as just a cautionary tale. Where others saw only bad decisions, he looked beneath them — at the pressure, the rationalizations, the human vulnerability. He didn’t just see a chance to teach ethics; he saw an opportunity to explore how and why people lose their way.
I ended up speaking in Larry’s classes four times, at NYU Law, NYU Stern, and Baruch. Each visit was a chance to unpack the real mechanics of ethical failure. “Students need to hear this,” he told me once over coffee. “Not just what happened, but how it happened. The small steps. The mental traps. That’s what they’ll face someday.”
I also found guidance from others who’d walked this path. Walt Pavlo had faced his own reckoning and then built something positive from it, running initiatives for federal prisoners and writing a book about his experience. Through Walt, I met Jeff Grant.
Jeff, a former lawyer who lost everything after his own white-collar conviction, had served his time and then built something extraordinary: a second chapter devoted to service. He ran a White Collar Support Group — a lifeline for people clawing their way back from public failure and private shame. On my first call with him, I remember how quickly he cut through the surface. He asked the questions no one else dared: How are you really holding up? What are you doing to care for your family? Do you have a plan, or are you just surviving?
Jeff spoke openly about his own descent and rebuilding. There was no pity, just hard-earned wisdom. He made me feel less like an outcast and more like a part of something — a community that believed your worst moments didn’t have to define you. Those early conversations with Jeff and Walt gave me something I hadn’t felt in years: a sense of belonging, even in failure.
And then there was Richard Bistrong. Like me, he’d turned a white-collar conviction into a platform for education. A former international sales executive who crossed the line on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, he served fourteen months in federal prison and now spoke openly about it.
What hooked me wasn’t just the parallels, it was his voice. On his blog, he cut through the usual redemption fluff: no excuses, no ego, no polished PR spin. He wrote about the wreckage, the shame, the mental gymnastics that led him there.
His words hit me where I lived — stuck in my own fog of disgrace, unsure if I even deserved a second chance. Richard didn’t just recount his story; he dissected it. He made vulnerability feel like strength. For the first time, I saw a way forward that didn’t involve hiding. Leaning into the ugliest truths became the path.
When I needed special clearance to speak in Canada, he was the first person I called. But his greatest gift wasn’t a referral. It was proof that you can turn your biggest failure into work that matters…
