Part 2 - The Gangster Turned CEO

Foreign welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. Seven years you had progressed up to where you joined the gig. Then you're in supermax and so you made the big leagues, really big. And so what level, what was your reputation? What was your title? What was your, you know, your title was shot collar. But how much power did you have and influence and what authority did you have when they shut you down and sent you off to supermax?

Well, I was in charge of all the hits, of all any kind of violence. One area for the Los Angeles area.

For the, for the entire Los Angeles.

Area, in particularly the Rampart district, which was known, let me paint a picture here, the Rampart district of Los Angeles. And if you were to Google and investigate the Rampart district, a lot of stories, a lot of stuff that happened in the 80s and 90s in that area to paint you a picture. If you grabbed Watts, Compton and South Central and you got all the homicides that took place in that era, they still wouldn't match up with the homicide rate of just the Rampart district. So that's just, it was incredible and bloody throughout that time.

It was just authorizing hits, people to be taken out. If I'm a full time job for you.

Well, you know, green light, talk about in the book. Green lights are essentially a note that would be carried and co signed by me to have somebody beat to the point of almost death. Those were other responsibilities that a shock father would have. You also had all the, the capability of all the prison shanks. First book I speak about sleeping with 13 prison shanks in my possession. So there's a lot of stuff that goes on that the public doesn't know. I look back as an adult, as a Christian and kind of just shake your head because you can't believe that that was at one time your reality. This is what your life looked like.

Well, just so people know what goes on on the other side. How much of a case would people have to make to you before you said, okay, take him out, you know, shoot him.

Well, it depends. It depends on a lot of things. Again, the shock collar doesn't just have, you're responding to other people as well and other people are involved. So it's not just a, you know, I couldn't just sit there and go that guy. And it's X amount. Again, that's like A movie thing. Right. There was a panel of others that needed to sit around with you and make a logical and sensible move on someone.

And so that had to be understood and interpreted by everyone else, that you weren't out of control, otherwise they'd take you out. That's I guess, why you were in that position. They felt like they could trust you with that responsibility.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

And so baddest of the bad. And you get. You get up to shot caller status in supermax. Like you said, you had all those shanks. Yeah. So they had that respect for you there as well. Isn't it interesting, Casey, where we feel like one of the things about tragedy, about people missing out in life is they don't know what they're missing out on, that they can change and what's possible. And then they don't know. The other thing is how great it would be if they did change. But a lot of people are just totally unaware the capacity for change in a human being.

I agree 100%. You know, today in the life that I live now, I fly first class and all over the country, Right. For someone that had never flown before. I was 46 when I took my first airplane flight to D.C. on a white House invitation. That first flight was not first class. It was, you know, Southwest, the middle seat. I thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I was thrilled. In the second book of. Okay, I will. There's a full story and it's quite hilarious. Funny on how my take was sitting in an airplane for the very first time at 46 years old. I thought they give you soda and peanuts for free. That's amazing, right? That was my. Because when you don't know, you don't know. And now as I go and I speak prisons and in conferences and you're sitting in first class and by the way, that alone had to. It took a little while to get used to, as crazy as that sounds. Because you know, that you feel out of place, you know, because you remember where. What those days were in solitary confinement. But you're right. You don't know how great your path could be if you just do minor changes in your life structure, in your discipline. Right. I still wake up at 4 in the morning ever since 18 years old from the SHU program, from solitary confinement. That's been my. It's an internal alarm. And as I study and I look at other successful business owners and. And whatnot, I see that there's something in common in every single successful person out here. And that's that they wake up early in the morning, they're not takers, they're not headline readers, they like to study their readers of many types of books and that's. And so those little tweaks, those little dial ins that could change somebody's life. And when you're there, as I am right now and I'm flying all these to these wonderful places to share my story, if you, if somebody would have told me this was going to be my life, you know, down the line, I wouldn't have believed it. But, but here I am. Your podcast, the Million Dollar Mindset. I mean, it's incredible of how your life can change just like that.

And a lot of people would not be aware of fact if they're new to this and haven't listened to the first podcast. They don't. They need to know. I need to tell them that you are an entrepreneur. You know, you got out of prison and you started a sign business. And you know, from the sign business, one of our mutual friends came along and got intrigued with your story and the book came and some speaking started. But you were, you built a successful sign business in LA from scratch, am I right?

So, yeah, I did started a sign company from scratch.

The government come in and said, let US loan you 50, 100 grand to start this thing. We're going to help you get on your feet coming out of supermax. We just blurred. We need so terribly much. Casey.

Yeah. You're a great guy. Let's, let's just roll in the, you.

Know, pay it back whenever you feel like it.

Yeah, yeah. When you feel like it. No, I wish life would have been like that, but no, it wasn't. It was. Again, waking up early in the morning, pursuing the goal that was in front of me with a vision. A lot of failures. That's another thing that, that's very common with successful, successful people. We fall a lot.

Why did you go into the science business? Business.

Well, that's interesting. So I was volunteering. I was volunteering at a, you know, thing.

One thing people hear, okay. And I want to say they hear, follow your passion. And then you'll also hear because you got, you know, you're going to put extra time and energy and effort into whatever you're doing to be successful. You got to do above and beyond, especially early to get. And if you don't like it, you know, you're going to resent putting that kind of time and energy in. On the other hand, I just heard something last week where a guy got on instagram and he's saying, you know, billionaires speak at colleges and say every single one said, follow your dream. He said, the worst stupid advice you can give, you know, because follow your passion. You know, seems like I'm going to become a, you know, something stupid you can't make money at. But the deal is there's a balance in it. And the billionaires thing is the guy who was saying that the billionaires were wrong was not a billionaire himself, either. So he didn't really have the right to say that's the worst advice you could ever get. You know, follow your passion. Well, you got to have some. You got to have an idea that you're excited about, at least.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And. But somehow you got excited about sign painting. I mean, sign making, which is not something I would have ever gotten excited about. So what did you see in it?

The money. I saw the money.

All right, there you go.

I remember selling my first sign gig and it was a tattoo shop and it was just 2 inch foam that I was to cut and I was to cut the word tattoo from a tattoo shop that I walked in. I, I just walked into this shop and the owner was there and he had a blank canvas. And the funny part is that he was also a former convict who had came out of Pelican Bay. So here's this guy and we talk and I pitch, you know, my sales thing. But it was, it was quite easy because we had a mutual background. It was. It required cutting 2 inch foam with a band saw and a jig. And I made 3,700 bucks and I finished the project in about an hour. And I thought, I like this. I think I could do this. You know, who makes 3,700 bucks in an hour? And so that was my first taste of real success. And then my third or fourth job was a job that brought in $63,000. It just, that took me a weekend to make In a weekend, three days, I made $63,000 decaling a fleet of vehicles for a big roofing company. And I looked at that and I went, you know, this is something I could, I'm excited about. I love making and creating. I like the look on my client's face when they see their dream, because that's what you're doing. You're fulfilling their dream and their vision board. When you have that sign light up in front of their, the sidewalk, wherever that that may be. So, yeah, that it was exciting to me. And then eventually I would end up becoming part of the motion picture union. And so we did signs for the major part of it for motion picture films, movies, TV shows, and seeing and watching Paramount trucks and Disney trucks, Warner Brothers and all these guys bringing these big giant trucks to my shop every morning at 7 in the morning, just, you know, in and out. It was exciting. I mean, it really was. And, and I did that for 23 years.

23 years.

23 years.

Man, I had no idea you ran that business that long.

Yeah, 23 years. I mean, it was great. You know, I was able to put my kids through a private education from kindergarten all the way through university years. My two oldest daughters, they just graduated, both became teachers. And then I have a 15 year old son, Jacob, who's still at home. It's exciting, man.

What did you do to have. You dropped that business now?

I sold it. Yes. I sold it because there's no way that I would have been juggling public speaking, writing books. There's a motion picture film coming out. It's in development right now. We're in the very late stages of it and we've been, it's, it takes a long time, a lot of patience, a lot of work, a lot of hands to making a motion picture film. And so, yeah, it's a Hollywood production that has taken my story.

And it's going to be the shot.

Collar and it's going to be the shot color. Yes.

Yeah. And okay, so once you're a big star and that's a big success, we got to get you, we, we're gonna go ahead and book you now. Yeah, you better do it now.

Hey, I don't know, you're gonna have to talk to my people after that.

Because we can do it on zoom and I don't have to fly your first class anywhere to hear you speak.

Here you go. That's a smart millionaire.

Thank you for listening to part two of this episode of the Millionaire Dollar Mastermind podcast. Timing is everything. You may feel that now is the time to get moving forward so you can do something even greater with your life. Now, if that sounds like you, I've got a free training video to show you how that transformation can take place. Getting introduced to how the cycle of success works has been a major transforming event for so many current million dollar earners. And that's exactly what this video is all about. And yes, it's completely free. Join us at the video@widelawnwinning.com and thanks for being part of our community.