A man who spent a decade cycling through probation as a juvenile, then as an employee, then as a DUI offender, left the system to start a consulting firm on emotional intelligence. Ten years later he returns to train California probation administrators, arguing that setbacks are wings, not anchors.
Probation, probation, probation, probation. I say that because, you know, my journey with probation, this relationship is insane. You know, as a young person, I went from being on probation from the ages of 13 to the age 23. I was on probation consistently, juvenile probation, adult probation. Then I had opportunity to turn my life around, took advantage of it. Then I ended up working for probation from 2001 to 2017. While I was there, it was crazy. So even after being on probation personally, getting off of it, getting a job at probation, I ended up getting in trouble while I was at work and I caught a DUI on almost killed myself, and I ended up on probation while working at probation. I know, I don't, I don't even know how it, it panned out, but I ended up being on probation for 3 years while I was working at probation. I ended up getting suspended for like 3 days, but I kept my job, and I didn't let that stop me, and I didn't let people shame me and all the I told you so's and all that kind of stuff. I just kept pushing. Ended up getting promoted, um, and a special assignment after that, after that died down, and I just continued to do the work. And then I came to a point where I had outgrew my situation at probation, and so I decided to walk away from there. Politics and stuff was happening, and, uh, which was to me very interesting in terms of my decision to leave. I just knew that there was more for me out here, so I started my own company. you know, doing training, consulting, and speaking around emotional intelligence. I was very intentional about not seeking out clients in law enforcement because I wanted to prove to myself that I can do this without my prior career background. You know, an old wise man once said that a bird is never concerned about the branch that it lands on because the faith is not in the branch, it's in its wings. And that hit me hard because that, that tells me is that like your passion inside of you is your wings. Your skills and your knowledge you've acquired is your wings. Your life experience is your wings, which means that wherever you go and wherever you land, the bird doesn't care if the branch breaks because he know he's not gonna hit the ground. He might come down a little bit, but he gonna bounce up. And so when you have setbacks, setbacks are really an opportunity for a strong comeback. And so I just kept pushing. And now I've been away from probation for 5 years. I've been running my company for 7 years, and today I'm back to do a presentation or training for probation administrators across California, every county in California, down here at the beautiful Shell Beach or Pismo Beach, however you want to call it. And I used to come to conferences here when I worked for the department. So when I say probation, probation, probation, probation, it's like probation has been baked into— it's been the core of my life. And to be able to come back and present to these professionals and share my story, my journey, and give them some strategic insight on how they can use emotional intelligence to manage their work environment and also develop some skills for themselves to handle personally and professionally. So very thankful. You know, if you've been following me, you know I've been on a mission last 10 days. I've been in Michigan getting Getting some of my own self-training. I've been in Florida, and now I'm down here in the beautiful, uh, Pismo Beach. Be able to do a training in the morning. And I'm sharing this as some— a source of inspiration that people— if you have challenges, if you are trying to get through some things and you wonder, can, can it get better on the other side? I'll tell you, you know, I've had some challenging situations. I've had some dark moments at different phases of my life. And I'll tell you this. Just because you have a few nightmares in life doesn't mean you stop dreaming. And what does that mean? It means that if you have a nightmare, right, and it wakes you up out your sleep, it doesn't mean that you'll never go back to sleep. You got to go back to sleep and try it again. You have some setbacks in your life, you have some things to try to challenge you. Shake it off, get back on, and good things will be on the other side. I promise you, you can take that one to the bank.
I was literally kicked off a Southwest flight before for being disrespectful.
