Mike Lindell The American Dream: From Rock-Bottom Addict to Successful Businessman

Mike Lindell The American Dream: From Rock-Bottom Addict to Successful Businessman.
By Rick Vanderclock

Blue Magazine recently sat down with Mike Lindell, 62, the owner of his successful My Pillow Company. In this interview, you will see a success story of a man who rose from rock bottom to build a tremendously profitable business, overcome serious drug addiction, and stand up for issues and causes he believes in. The title of his book, “What Are the Odds, From Crack Addict to CEO,” speaks volumes.

Lindell’s success, however, is not without complications. As you read on, you will learn how Lindell and his business have become targets of political adversaries of Pres. Donald Trump. He’s been attacked on many levels and, yet, continues to stand firm in what he calls a “never back down” mindset. Lindell’s ability to overcome addiction and face the challenges ahead is testament to his strong Christian faith, which has sustained him throughout his years.

Lindell’s story of upward mobility in pursuit of the American Dream is worthy of focus and admiration. Lindell is living proof that everything is possible with a strong work ethic, commitment, determination, and most importantly, trust in Christ.

The Blue Magazine: How did you start My Pillow? Where did that idea come from?

Mike Lindell: It came from a dream. If you read my book, it's kind of strange because when I was 16, my first job at a grocery store, I remember, I took my first paycheck, the whole paycheck back then I think it was like $60. I'd worked this whole week, $60 and I went out and bought the most expensive pillow you could find. At that time this was a down pillow. And I think I paid about $60 back then. It'd be like paying $500 for a pillow now. But I always had problems with pillows. My whole life I was trying different ones. And, then I had one once that I liked where you could move it. I think it was just so worn out you could move it and set the height and it wouldn't go down. But then I had this dream and it just, it just kept coming. In 2004, 20 years ago this month, it's a 20-year anniversary. It took me almost a year to invent, about ten months. 

Mike Lindell, how is he when he gets home at night?

If you’d ask me before the last couple of years, it probably would have been a different answer. Now, I've got so many different silos. I've got my My Pillow company that I'm always doing, you know, things for being the CEO. I've got my Lindell Recovery network, my online platform to help addicts. I used to be a crack cocaine addict. I've got my biggest silo right now is to fix our elections in our country. I work with tens of thousands of people weekly in all 50 states. By the time I get home at night, it's kind of a, you know, I don't sit and watch TV. It's usually 8 or 9:00 and I'll get on my phone. I'll be about 200 text messages behind and maybe a thousand emails behind. But I do have people that go through them. But the texts I've got to get to. I'll spend 2 to 3 hours answering emails and it starts over the next day.

I'm sure it is very difficult to escape from what's going on a daily basis. So if you enjoy what you're doing, then it isn't work, correct?

That's right. A lot of it came with this election stuff and these machines . You throw in billions of dollars worth of lawsuits and all this battle that we're in; it's challenging. I enjoy the challenge, and I enjoy being on the right side. I get overwhelmed at times… When I do, my faith, my Christian faith, I turn to the Bible and we do that every day. That's usually the first thing I do when I get up.

Did you ever consider running for political office?

I did. When Donald Trump ran for president. I had never met him before and I had never voted before, I didn't think politics affected me. Once I met Donald Trump in the summer of 2016 and I thought, wow, this is such a common sense thing. If he does all these things he says he's going to do, he'd be the greatest president. I started learning what a conservative was, and a liberal was. And then I started to see where politics had affected, especially my home state of Minnesota.

When did you start using crack cocaine? And more importantly, what was it that made you just stop? Was it God? Was it your business?

Remember, drugs mask pain, they give you false courage. They give you those two things that are probably the biggest things. And when I go back I'm not to blame where my addiction came from. My parents divorced when I was seven years old.  I was put into a new school and I didn't know anyone. I became very withdrawn, or I would show off. It was one or the other because it was like I was out of my skin. When I went to college I dropped out. When I got to the five-year high school reunion, all of my classmates had either started families, finished college, or they had the whatever job they had, and they advanced their career. Then I prayed for—I wanted a family. I thought that was the answer.  I got a great girl, raised four kids, but we were functioning addicts. I want everyone out there to know addiction affects everyone, not just what you see on the street, homeless and down and out. Well, I've been there, too. 

I was a very functioning addict. And then with cocaine and alcohol and gambling and you name it, then it switched to crack cocaine in the early 2000s, and it's a different drug. But it was one that it's not a social drug. You're tweaking… 

Well, anyway, I got divorced in 2007. 

By January 16th, 2009, I knew I had lost everything. My Pillow was just a dot. 

We all have callings. I knew it'd be gone forever. So I sat there. Here's the prayer I made to God. I said, God.  I'll do this. You know I'm going to do this. You know this platform. I said, you'll be given a great platform. I know. I always hear that in prayer. We go, I'll do this calling. You know, I'm going to quit. But I said, here's the deal. I said, I want to wake up in the morning and never want the desire ever again for the alcohol, the crack, the cocaine, whatever it was. I want the desire to be gone. That's what I prayed for. I quit that night. I woke up in the morning and I'm going, wow, something's different. The desire was gone. But two months later, I went to our church and I went to an outpatient treatment just to find out why I was an addict in the first place. Then years went by and I went to write this book…

When I wrote the book about one of my biggest miracles, things started happening to me. I'll give you an example. All of a sudden I'm sitting with the president of the United States, Donald Trump. He had called for a manufacturer’s summit.  I get there and I'm going, wow, I can't even believe with my record I could even get in the White House. We go around the table and there's all these people sitting there for these other manufacturers.

How does it feel that the president of the United States trusts you?

I feel we have a trust between us. That is probably even stronger than most of my friends I have. It's really amazing. From the first time I met him, he's so transparent. It was like meeting someone I've known all my life. I think it goes both ways where we encourage each other. 

I think the one thing maybe that he relates a little bit he likes my marketing. He'll say to people, here's the best marketer. I say, no, you are, sir. He's the best marketer in history. I want to tell people this: You know he's never asked me since from the first time we met, he never asked me for any donations or any campaign money. He called a meeting with me. It was one-on-one on August 15th of 2016. By the way, you can all look it up. He was the lowest he was in the polls that day. It was August 15, 2016. They said to me, whatever you do don't tell him you were a crack addict. Well, if you read my book through a series of little mini miracles, I walked into his office just like I had seen in a dream in 2015, before he even ran that I'd get to be in this office. I walked in there and it was just him and I. He says, Mike, you always wear your cross on TV. He said, “Are you a Christian?” I said, “Yes, Mr. Trump,” and this is a divine appointment and then after that, it was just so natural talking back and forth. He asked me about how it was to make my product here in the United States, and he said, he wanted to bring the manufacturing back. 

So we do a press release, and this was my first taste of evil beyond anything I had seen at that time. There are these guys, this media, they were friends of mine. They called me everything under the sun. I was a racist. I was this, I was that. Then they're saying I was a drug dealer. My dealer stuck up and said he was never a drug dealer. He tried to save the state by doing all the drugs. But it was a taste that I felt and then we had PR control and trying to control this, but I went all in. When that happened, I went all in. You know what my reward was? A couple of months later, the Better Business Bureau, The Crooked Better Business Bureau, we had an A-plus rating, their highest rating. We were there. We were up for their highest award for their best company in the country. That was that summer. Now, just a few months after I went all in and went to the debates for Donald Trump, they took me from an A+ to an F and they did a national press release. By the way, everybody, is still in F, you know what I call it? That's fantastic.

Do you regret being part of this questioning of election integrity? If you had to do it again now that you've lost millions of dollars and obviously you have the public scrutiny, do you regret being where you are?

Absolutely not. I, I don't regret one thing. I would be the same way, because it's all going to unfold the way it should be.