Trey Gowdy - The Sound of Regret

09/04/26

Trey Gowdy returns! Trey is the Fox News host of Sunday Night in America. He has come back to Winning with Class to discuss his new book by the Fox News Books title of The Sound of Regret.

Trey Gowdy was born in Greenville, South Carolina and grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He is the son of Hal and Novalene Gowdy and has three sisters: Laura, Caroline, and Elizabeth.

From 1994-2000, as a federal prosecutor, Trey prosecuted the full range of federal crimes including narcotics trafficking, bank robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, child pornography cases, and the murder of a federal witness. He was awarded the Postal Inspector’s Award for the successful prosecution of J. Mark Allen, one of “America’s Most Wanted” suspects. He also received the highest performance rating a federal prosecutor can receive – two years in a row.

In 2000, he left the U.S. Attorney's office to run for 7th Circuit Solicitor (District Attorney) in Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties. As 7th Circuit Solicitor, Trey led an office of 25 attorneys and 65 total employees. He started a Violence Against Women Task Force, a Worthless Check Program, enhanced and expanded Drug Court, and implemented a Drug Mother Protocol designed to assist expectant mothers break the cycle of addiction.

He has been recognized statewide for his commitment to victim’s rights and drunken driving enforcement and nationally for excellence in death penalty prosecutions.

In 2010, he ran for congress to represent the 4th Congressional District (Greenville and Spartanburg Counties). While in congress he served on the Judiciary Committee, Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Intelligence Committee, Education and the Workforce Committee and Ethics Committee. He was also chosen to chair a Select Committee on the events occurring in Libya on September 11-12, 2012.

While in congress he actively participated in numerous congressional investigations, sponsored bills signed into law and had deep and meaningful relationships with scores of colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

After four terms in congress, he announced he would not seek re-election in 2018 and would leave public service for good; thus, ending his career with a flawless record in the courtroom and undefeated in political races. In January of 2019, he returned to his beloved South Carolina to practice law, teach classes with his close friend Senator Tim Scott, and speak on legal issues he considers important to our country. Trey is a best-selling author, host of a television show, and podcast.

Trey is married to Terri Dillard Gowdy, a former first grade school teacher in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They have two children, Watson and Abigail.

Takeaways:

1. Code of honor. I liked Trey’s response when asked about the phrase “uncommon anchor.” His immediate response was a “code of honor.” He also posed the question “what are your non-negotiables?” These are great challenges for all of us. Do we have a code of honor by which we live? Do we have non-negotiable standards, values, and principles we keep? In his books, Trey’s main prosecutor character, Colm Truesdale clearly lives by a code of honor. That’s not surprising to me, as it’s pretty clear that Trey lives this way as well.

2. Respect for the Human Element. Part of living by this code of honor, was the manner with which Trey maintained a very healthy respect for the human element in his role as a prosecutor. It’s brought out in his books and the way he tells his stories. It’s easy to think that all prosecutors are just robots looking to put people in jail. However, when you hear Trey tell the story of the young man to whom the book is dedicated and the feeling he had when he met with his mother after he passed – described by the title of the book - The Sound of Regret - it’s clear that Trey was very much in tune with the human element of his work. He also talked about getting holiday cards from inmates because he treated them with respect even as he was prosecuting them. There’s no doubt that Trey was extremely successful as a prosecutor, and he took great pride in advocating for victims who were unable to speak for themselves in a lot of cases. However, even when pursuing justice in a very dark world, he never lost sight of the human beings who were involved in all aspects of the process. He put his ego aside and pursued winning while maintaining respect for all parties along the way – pretty hard to top that approach in terms of what it means to win with class.

3. Truth – As we discussed, it seems like the truth is getting hit hard these days. It’s very hard to know who to trust. Trey pointed out how we all need to be intentional about maintaining it. We also need to hold ourselves and those around us accountable for being truthful – and we need to do the same for our leaders. As Trey mentioned, this will be challenging in the world of AI and everything moving at warp speed – all the more reason to be diligent and intentional about it.

4. Emotional Intelligence. I like Trey’s response to the question about how he handled the raw emotion he felt during some of his cases. As a prosecutor, he was facing some people who had done some despicable things to the victims for which he was fighting. To maintain his focus, do his job, and avoid having his emotions take over, Trey used winning – in his case, pursuing justice for his victims - as his main focus to drive him in such a way that his emotions could not derail his efforts. A lot of times, our pursuits take us on paths where it’s possible to lose control of our emotions a lot of time, due to other people involved in our pursuit. When that happens, we all need to double down on our focus of winning – being the best we can possibly be so that our emotions don’t drive our behavior.

Links:

Website: https://www.treygowdy.com

Instagram: @tgowdysc and @gowdyamerica

X: @tgowdysc

Facebook: Trey Gowdy

Other Books by Trey: The Color of Death, Unified, How Our Unlikely Friendship Gives Us Hope for a Divided Country (New York Times Best Seller with Tim Scott) Doesn’t Hurt to Ask, Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade (New York Times Best Seller)
Start, Stay, or Leave, The Art of Decision Making (New York Times Best Seller)