#2353 - Shaka Senghor

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The Joe Rogan Experience.

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What's up?

Pleasure to meet you.

Such a pleasure to be here.

My. Yeah, it's. I heard your story.

Why don't you tell everybody your story?

Because the story's. It's pretty wild.

Yeah, so I. I grew up in Detroit. Working class neighborhood. Dad was in the air Force and worked for the state. Mom was a homemaker. So on the outside looking in, it really looked like a household where the kids should make it. But unfortunately, it was a very abusive household. And I ran away when I was about 13 years old. And at the time, prior to that, you know, honor roll, scholarship student, dreams of being a doctor, artist. I wanted to be a doctor because I felt like that was an occupation where I felt like you can help people. And unfortunately, you know, when I ran away, I thought that I would basically just kind of get welcomed into the home of someone who would see this kid and be like, oh, you know, this kid just deserves love or whatever. But I found myself on the east side of Detroit in an apartment with a gun to my head. And it was my introduction to the street culture. I was being robbed, and I was being robbed by this guy who later we would learn his name was Tiny, even though he was, like, big, fat, probably about 6ft tall. And him and his partner Lily robbed me at gunpoint, took my drugs, took the money. And I think that was like, one of those moments where the innocence of being a kid just was shattered. You know, it's like, you know, now I'm in this world where my life is in danger, but I stayed in that culture. My childhood friend was murdered. I was beaten nearly to death. And despite that, I just continued to sell drugs. You know, it's one of the things when I think back to, you know, even that part of my life, you know, there's the glorification of, like, the hustler, right? It's like, you know, we out here making money, we're doing things, but the reality is it's a kid navigating a very dangerous adult world. And at the time, that crack is just penetrating the community. And one of the things that always go back to this image of the first time I made a lot of money, and I just had this wad of cash. Like, it's like all singles, $5 bills, $10 bills. And I went to the store on the corner and I bought all the cereal that I can think of, like, all the cereal that I could not, you know, my parents, even though my dad made decent money, like, we couldn't always get all the cereal because it was like all these kids. And. And then I bought, like, chocolate milk and strawberry milk. And then I went back to the crack house.

And you were like, what, 13.

Literally, like 13 years old. And so, you know, I stayed in that culture. And then when I was, like, 17 years old, I was standing March 8th. I'll never forget that day. I was standing on the corner and I got into, like, a minor conflict. And then I got shot multiple times. And that was probably the most serious turning point in my life. After I got shot, they called ambulance, and ambulance never came. This. At this time, I'm on the west side of Detroit, and I'm just sitting on the porch bleeding. And my friend, he was like, look, I'm gonna have to take you to the hospital because ambulance is just not going to come. And I remember getting in the car and he's just like, you know, breathe. Like, you gotta take these deep breaths. You know, this is how you're gonna navigate the pain. And the reason he was able to do that, he had got shot the year prior, you know, so it's just like, he got shot, his friend got killed. So the gun violence was just, you know, it was so much a part of, like, the culture and. And that I grew up in that I didn't think about what was happening inside of me after I got shot. And so I get to the hospital and they take two of the bullets out of my leg and they leave one bullet in, and basically they patch me up. And I remember my dad coming to the hospital. And at this point, I was the third of my brothers to be shot. And I'll never forget this look on my dad's face of, like. It was almost a look of, like, defeat, you know, of like, how do I save my boys? You know? And so when I. When I left the hospital, like, nobody, like the doctor, the nurse, nobody, just was like, hey, you're gonna have all these feelings. And so I get back and I'm in the neighborhood, and, you know, I'm angry because I really want to get revenge on this guy who shot me. Like, that's the number one priority for me. It's like, you know, I gotta get. I gotta retaliate. And then I'm standing outside. This is probably like, day two. I had crutches. So I'm like, literally in the neighborhood. Crutches, patched up bullet wounds. I'm standing on the corner, and I remember A car coming down the street, and like, my body almost seized up and I was like, why do. Why am I. Why am I feeling this kind of like, anxiety? Now it's anxiety. Back then, there was no name for it. But I couldn't tell my friends that I really was afraid of standing outside and being exposed. Wow. Yeah. So that was 17 years old. And so what happened after that was I began to tell myself this story that if I found myself in conflict again, I would shoot first. And I began to literally carry a gun every day. It wasn't the first time I had carried a gun, but, like, I began to carry a gun, like every day. Like, it didn't matter what I was doing. Using the bathroom. Gun is on the sink. I'm going to sleep at night. Gun is up under the pillow. Probably wasn't the smartest place to sleep with a gun, but that was the nature of how I felt, you know, what I was dealing with. And so I started to tell myself this narrative. And about 16 months or so later, maybe 14 months, I was DJing a party. And, you know, I love music. You know, I come from Detroit, it's one of the greatest music cities, you know, in the world. And and so I'm DJing this party and shots rang out. People are running, scrambling, you know, getting away. And you know, the people whose party I was DJing, they come to the back, like somebody got shot in the front. So we gotta shut everything down. So we shut the party down. We were on like, super heightened alert. You know, we're getting. Making sure everybody. We got headcount for like our crew. And, you know, it's me and my girlfriend and we're going back to my home. And I remember us walking, we had walked around to the party, we were walking back and this truck pulls up and it's, you know, it's car full of guys. And so, you know, I'm on edge, I got a pistol on me. So I'm like, you know what's happening? And he was like, oh, no. We just, you know, did y' all know that Derek was the guy who shot the guy in front of the house? So now we got at least some idea of who what the shooting is was. We get back around and when they get on our block, car's coming up the street and there's a guy inside the car and he's like, yo, you know, calls me over and I'm like, you know, what's happening? He's like, yo, I want to make a deal, blah, blah. And he got two guys that I don't know, and I'm like. I'm like, no, I don't want to do the deal right now. Like, it's a lot going on. And, you know, so I'm a little amped up. You know, it's, you know, a lot going on. And so we get into this verbal altercation where he's like, adamant about me selling some drugs to him. I'm adamant about him, like, you know, getting off the block. And so that escalates into like a full blown argument. And one of the guys in the car with him, he joins into the argument. So we're like all back and forth, back and forth. And there's a moment where, you know, I turn to. There's a moment I turned to walk away, and I, like, literally took what probably like one or two steps and I thought I heard one of them trying to get out of the car, and I turned and fired four shots that tragically ended the man's life. You know, it's one of those moments that I always think about that moment. Like, what if I'd have just took like a second step? You know, what if I would have just like. I mean, it was a series of what ifs, you know, but when I tragically ended this man's life, and it wasn't the first time I had been in a gun battle. It wasn't the first time I'd been in any of that. That, that lifestyle, I felt it. I felt like I did something that was like, you can't undo. Like, I just, like, I felt it in my spirit. Like, at 19 years old, I'm like, one month into being 19, and I was just like, I fucked up. Like, I've done something that's not. You can't repair that. You can't come back and say, I'm sorry. You can't come back and be like, you know, I made a mistake or whatever. And so, you know, the car screeches off. You know, people are running inside the house. Everybody's just like, you know, what is happening? I made everybody leave. And then I was like, I gotta go on a run or something. Like, I don't, you know, I don't want to get arrested. I don't want to be accountable. But I was arrested probably a day or so later. I was charged with open murder. And I was eventually convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 17 to 40 years in prison at the age of 19. Wow.

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What it's like when you got convicted. You know, now you're going to jail. What is this feeling like?

So when I got arrested, got charged, the first thing I went to the county jail, Wayne County Jail. And going into the county jail, you are introduced to just this other world. You know, I had heard about it, you know, growing up on the streets, you hear about like, you don't want to go to the county jail. It's the worst you should ever write. And so going into the county jail was like, you know, it's going into a war zone. You know, it's fights every day. It's like, you know, people are testing you. Can they fucking take your breakfast and lunch? So going in, I knew that that was just the reality of like, you know, anticipating, like at some point I'm gonna have to prove myself. And I'm at the stand up for myself. And so I get into the county jail and I end up the guy who I'm in the cell with, he's serving life, but he's back on appeal. And so he's, you know, he's kind of telling me all the kind of what to expect in jail. And you know, this guy right here on the cell block, he likes to fight all the time or whatever. You know, I also grew up like in the city, right? So I'm, you know, I tell people this all the time. Like you can. I don't do scared straight when I talk to kids about like not going to jail. Cause to me it's not about, it's not about being afraid. If you're from the hood, you probably had a fight or two, you know what I'm saying? But I get in there and, you know, we get into our dust ups and you know, eventually it's kind of like a hierarchy of like, you know, who's going to stand up for themselves. And typically guys kind of back down. But early on I'm like, I don't want to be in jail, I want to be in prison. So I ended up trying to escape from the county jail. And what happened was there was a guy on the cell block with me, he was already sentenced. He's about to go upstate and do a lot of time. And, and one day he went to recreation and came back with like a long pole he had smuggled from the rooftop gym. And his idea was that he would bludgeon the officer, take the officer's uniform, and then let us out the cell and take us out. And I'm like, dude, this has got to be the dumbest fucking idea. We're not making it out of the cell block, right? But I was like, but what if we take this pole and we bust the window out and bend the beam? And so we plot over the next couple of weeks we like, would take people's sheets. Like, we would bully people out of their sheets. Like, you can only have one sheet, you're gonna take the other one. So we took all these sheets and we probably ended up with probably about 60 or 70 sheets and we can get out of ourselves. So we would basically, you tie the sheet up into a knot, slide the knot under the Door and pull it up into the door jamb. And if you shake it and keep rocking it while you're pulling it up, it'll pop open. And so we would just pop out and we'd be out on like literally in the day room, you know, this back. You could smoke cigarettes in the building. That's the only way we can get a light because the lighter was on the wall. So we would do that all the time anyway. So when it was time for us to do the escape plan, it was about five of us. We all had agreed we're gonna go for it, and basically popped the doors. We're like busting out the glass in the window and we're starting to bend the beam. What we didn't anticipate was that they actually do perimeter checks like around the jail. You know, we're dumb kids, we're not like thinking about this. And so as we're bending it, next thing you know, there's a light flashing up to the window and you can hear like the lady on the radio like, what the fuck are y' all doing? Right? We're like, we're trying to get out. So now we're like, we're busted. So we just throw everything on the tier. Everybody goes back, you know, in their cells. And so it took them probably about a half before they even discovered which unit we were on that was trying to escape. They came up there like gangbusters, like Lilius, you know, it's 20, 30 deaths. They just came in snatching us out the cell, slamming us on the wall, you know, and where they messed up is because they did that, now everybody has glass in their shoes. And so they couldn't even differentiate between who had been out, who wasn't. And so they, you know, they put us in solitary for that, charged us with attempting to escape. And during that time, I was actually getting sentenced and none of us would snitch and talk about, like, none of us would tell who it was. So they really was just kind of going on what they thought. So we served that little time in there, but I was getting sentenced. And, you know, when I went in front of that judge, I just remember standing there and listening to them walk through that night. You know, the prosecutors telling what happened that night. And it was a one dimensional telling of that story. It was the, you know, it was the very factual, like, hey, this guy, you know, shot, killed this man. There was no context to none of my life. And when the judge sentenced me, you know, he said 15 to 40 years for the homicide and two years for the felony firearm. At 19, I thought my life was over. Like, I thought that was it. Like, at 19, I couldn't even imagine, you know, 17 years down the line. You know, at that age, I couldn't even imagine, like two weeks down the line. It felt like a lifetime. So when he sentenced me, I was like, this is it, man. Like, my life is over. And so I started my prison sentence with the mindset that I was never getting out of prison.

How much time did you wind up doing?

I did a total of 19 years. And out of that 19 years, I did seven of those years in solitary confinement.

What is that like?

It is the. When I tell people it is the most barbaric thing that we do to people in this country. And it's a combination of reasons of why I believe that. One, a lot of people who are in solitary confinement have pre existing mental health challenges, meaning that they have diagnosed, you know, bipolar schizophrenia. And it's 23 hour lockdown, you know, 23 hour lockdown five days a week, 24 hour lockdown, the other two days a week. And it is the most chaotic environment you can imagine. The guys there, you know, to wage war with each other with just like the Steel Foot Locker, they would bang it for hours. Like, these guys would just have, I mean, the endurance to do that for hours. To antagonize a person next to you. They would have what, what is full on shit wars, like, where the. I call them weapons of ass destruction because these guys will like concoct ways to throw feces on each other. So if they get into a beef, like, the way that they would go to war is they would lily. I mean, and it's. There's a. There's an ingenuity that happens in prison that's unlike anything that most people can comprehend. We can make weapons out of anything. We can make tools out of anything. So these guys would literally figure out how to get feces into a toothpaste tube, which mean that they would have to literally go in the toilet, pull this stuff out, stuff it into a thing, and then they would smuggle it out to the cages, right? So five days we can go out to these cages. It's like just imagine a dog kennel. Like a dog run, right? It was like kennel after kennel after kennel. So that's how they would take us out. And you know, you're in a cell, they come and they handcuff you to these handcuffs attached to a leash, and they walk you down a tier Take you out to this dog kennel and they let you out. And so they have to give you at least an hour of that a day. And so these guys would come out and they would be, you know, beefing with their neighbor. And now it's a full on. They're just squirting shit on each other like it's fucking insane. And there this one guy, man, I remember this one guy, he had a coloscomy bag. I mean this was like the equivalent of having a AK47. He's like this guy.

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And he me and we were like cool. So he would tell me today is like, don't come out. He would like send me a note over like don't come out the yard today, I'm about to shoot this up. I'm like dude, what are you talking about? So he would like go out there and whip the coloscopy bag off and just literally take the yard hostage. Like don't nobody say you say something. I'm gonna the stow shit everywhere. Right? And so that's how they would wage war. And so that's what that was, the, the chaos of the environment. And then like, you know, we get into it with the officers, guys would like flood the cell block. So they would put sheets in the toilet and just flush, flush, flush. And now that the whole tier is just flooded and so it's definitely a biohazard issue at, at minimum, right? Your, your health and well being is always being threatened by, you know, I mean you get, I think we got three showers a week. And the showers are like, they're just back to back. So you're not like, they're not cleaning them out in between showers. So you're literally handcuffed. They take you down to the shower cage. You go in there and it's not on the wall and it's, you know, somebody shaving because they, they will give you like the little razor to shave. And then you got the guys who we call them cutters so these are guys who like self maim and they would take, I mean, anything you could think of, they would take and just kind of carve up their skin, you know, swallow. Like one guy swallowed batteries. So they stopped us from like, even getting, at one point, we can get like a little tape player. And a guy ended up swallowing the batteries. So they banned all batteries. So then we couldn't listen to music anymore. And so it was just like complete chaos. And, you know, it's one of the darkest places, you know, in the world. And I've been in different solitary, you know, in prison. Out of 19 years, I was transferred a total of 19 years to 11 different prisons. And so I've done solitary in like a super old prison, more the modern prison, but the one I did the most time in, which was from 1999 to 2004, was called Oaks Correctional Facilities, one of the more modern prisons. And so, you know, in the midst of that chaos, I decided, like, I gotta. There was a couple of things. So one, I had read this book about what's supposed to happen to your mind when you're in that environment. And it talks about, like, how it will cause you to hallucinate. It talks about how it will cause you to not feel like you have, like, any agency over your life. It affects how you communicate because in order to talk, you gotta lay on your floor and like scream under the door and try to hear a guy, or you got to kind of talk through, like, the electrical socket. So it's all these different things that I kind of knew going in. And so I set up for myself because I didn't want to. Like, the only thing I feared about being in prison was losing my mind. I was never worried about my physical safety. You know, I grew up fighting. I grew up with brothers. You know, I grew up on the east side of Detroit. So I knew how to, like, take care of myself. Losing my mind was the one thing that I was like, that was. I was afraid of that because I saw guys who were like, normal guys and five years in, they're not the same. You know, they're not the same. And you see this, like, glossed over look in their eyes, and it's the scariest shit ever to see somebody start to hallucinate, start to make up a life that. That, you know, is not true. And so I set my days up like I was at university. And I always say this, Joe, this is like super important. I was lucky, and I was lucky because I was literate and, like, the average Reading grade in prison is about third grade. And I wouldn't be here with you right now if I didn't know how to read. Like, I would not be the person that I am today. And so because I knew how to read, I was able to really structure my days. Like I was at a school. You know, I would study philosophy in the morning, I would study world history, I would study African history. And then I would just like read for pleasure. But I was always like, you know, every day I'm figuring out, okay, how do I keep my mind moving forward? And if you keep your mind moving forward, you can actually survive. And it's, you know, it's no different than any other hardship you got to go through. But it's really like, can you keep your mind taking one more step? And then there were some days where I was like, I don't, I don't like, yo, this shit is too much like I'm feel myself like physically, like I can't take one more day. And in those days I would just grab a book man of somebody who inspired me. You know, sometime it would be Nelson Mandela. He had been through like 27 years. And I would just like open it up and like, let me just start reading something. I would read the poem Invictus. Like that poem always just kind of brought me back. Like you the master of your own fate, you know what I'm saying? You're the captain into your soul. So I would go back and read that. There's a book called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. It's about 60 something pages. I would literally my, my, my version of that was so dog eared, but I would like literally just open it up and any page was about if you master your thinking, you can master your environment. And so it was like things like that would keep my, my brain just going forward, you know, Obviously I would work out, you know, do push ups and calisthenics and roll up. I used to roll my mattress up and you tie a seat, one sheet around it and you put the other seat through it and you make your handle. And now you could do your curls, you know, so I would do that, take that mattress, put on my back. I would do squats. So I would run my, my routine in there. And just running that routine is really what kept me like, you know, put one positive thought in front of the next, you know. And I mean at that time I still was like, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't like a model prisoner, you know, I don't I don't want the listeners to be confused by that because it's a little different, right? It's somebody who follows the rules and just stays out of the way and get out of trouble. Like, I was. I was. I was. I was into bad shit in there, you know, I was not. I didn't ever think I was getting out. So I was like, I just gotta run an environment, you know, I gotta be in control in this environment. I gotta, you know, make all the moves to have agency over my life in that environment. And so. So initially while I was in there, I was just. I was only focused on getting out so I can finish getting into shit.

So when. So what. What initially sent you to solitary?

So the first time I went to solitary was for an assault on. On a guy who was my neighbor. And basically I didn't have any money on my books at the time. And, you know, store day came around and I was like, I'm gonna go take his shit. And so I literally went to rob this guy and he happened to be coming in the cell at the time. We got into like a fisticuffs and. And so they took me to solitary for that. And I did about a year for that.

A year?

Yeah. And then it's. Because what happened was an officer got assaulted in the process. He jumped on my back and I thought it was like his cellmate coming to help him, and I kind of threw him off me. And. And so that cost me about a year. And then the second time, this was some crazy shit. So I was at the Michigan Reformatory. And at the time, I'm the lion foreman. So I'm like, I make sure as we're a servant child, that if this thing is running out of, like, cutlets, I put the cutlets in the thing for them to continue serving. And we were all about efficiency. Like, we want to move these guys through as fast as possible because the chow hall is where all the shit goes down, the stabbings go down. It's crazy. So we trying to move guys out and this guy, man, he's just holding up the line. And so what happened is that sometime they would send these guys over to the reformatory was like a higher security level. It's the old. You know, it's the oldest prison in Michigan at the time. It's called the gladiator school. And sometimes they would send these guys from, like, the lower levels who, you know, they're getting in trouble at the lower levels, and they would send them over there as punishment, you know, and Usually when they come over there, they don't realize that this is a different. This is a different game. You know what I mean? Like. Like, the reformatory is real prison. Those lower levels, it's like a fucking camp. You're not dealing with, you know, you're dealing with real prisoners. So this guy comes over, he's holding up the line, and we're like, yo, like, what's. What's the hold up? And. And so he starts to cuss our crew out, you know, like, basically, y'. All. Y' all bitches acting like this. Y' all. Fool, give me more potatoes. Like, so it's like he's upset. He's not. He don't feel like he's getting enough. And so I'm just. I'm talking to the guy, and I'm like, yo, I'm like. I'm like, chill out. Like, what. What's. What's the situation here? You know? And he like, they acting like this their food, blah, blah. And I'm like, what you want? He like, you know, y' all, give me some more. So now he's being disrespectful. So I was like, all right, I got it. So I load him up on mashed potatoes, gravy, call him to the window, and I slap him with it. And I was like, yo, don't come to the window disrespectful. And so I done slapped him with this whole tray of potatoes and gravy. And. And he takes off running, and he's like. Runs to the officers, you know? And so my supervisor, who was cool, and he was like, go to the back and, like, hide, you know, so he's trying to hide me out because I'm one of his better workers. He don't want to, like, lose me to. To this. And so, you know, that led to me being in solitary for a year. A year, another year for hitting the guy with masters, stopping the guy with mashed potatoes. Yeah. And so now I'm there for another year. But the last. The last incident, which was happening in 1999, me and this officer, we got into a conflict, and the conflict escalated when he pushed me. Like, literally, he wouldn't let me go to the bathroom. He pushed me, and then I beat him up. And this was another one of those moments of, like, you know, I think in life, man, that sometimes we don't talk enough about how lucky we are. Me and this guy, we get into a. We get into a confrontation. It escalates. At this time, like, I'm 27. All I do is lift weights, work out, whatever. And I don't even realize the difference between like a 27 year old grown man's strength and the boy that walked into prison. And so when I punched this guy, I don't. In my mind, I'm not even thinking about, like, how destructive it is for a grown man to punch another person, another human being. I'm just like, we get into the thing, it escalates. So I punch him and I, soon after I punch him, I like go for the scoop, pick him up, and his leg gets caught under my arm. So I slam him down. His radio flies over the railing, lands on the floor. Now, when this conflict happened, they're doing what's called emergency count. So every month in prisons all across the country, emergency count, they blow a siren. And everybody doesn't matter what you're doing, if you work in the kitchen, you got to drop what you're doing. Everybody has to go back to their cell block. And so what happens is, you know, they'll let people use the restroom, et cetera, but that siren is gone. And so when me and him are up there fighting, the siren is going. So the officer downstairs doesn't even know that this is happening upstairs. The thing that saved his life and saved me from a life sentence was his radio flew over the gallery and landed. And so a counselor coming in looks and sees the radio and is like, why is there the radio here? Looks up and sees the confrontation happening. And so he hits his button. All the officers come over, they dive on my back, separate us, take me to solitary. So when they take me to solitary, I'm in here, I'm raging. I'm, you know, I'm still in that energy. I'm, you know, and the guy next to me, he's banging on the wall, he's like, yo, look down, because I can see down to the cell block now. There's an ambulance out there. And basically what happened is when I punched him, I broke his tracheal. And so they had to perform emergency surgery on him and literally in front of the cell block. And so I was sentenced to an additional two years. And then what ended up being four and a half years in solitary confinement. And the only, only reason that man did not die that day is because his radio flew over. And, you know, it's one of those. It's one of those things where when I began to recalibrate my life and begin to really transform my life and think about my life differently, it was another one of those Things where I realized in that moment, I just let my anger dictate my actions. And no matter whether I thought he was right or wrong, I was so angry and so enraged that I just punched this guy indiscriminately. And I literally could have killed this man. And I would have literally been serving the rest of my life in prison. And so when that happened, I remember they transferred me that same day. They transferred me. So I was at. That happened at a prison called Muskegon Correctional Facility. They transferred me to Oaks Correctional Facility. And the first month, man, I was there, the officers would just come and they would, like, talk so much shit, you know, like, we're gonna fuck you up. And, you know, we're gonna. You know, you're gonna get yours. And, you know, it was. It was. It was the most vulnerable, you know, I felt, because I knew that it happened in there. You know, I knew that they can come in. They can just say, oh, they can come in with the goon squad and pepper spray you and beat the shit out of you, and you're cuffed up and there's nothing you can really do, you know, so it was. It was very. It was very tense for about a month or so, you know. And then there were officers who was at the facility where it actually happened at that transferred over, and they kind of knew me, and they kind of knew that, you know, the. The experience with the officer wasn't just like, I woke up and had a bad day. You know, they knew it was an escalation. And even though, you know, when I look at it, like, I'm all about personal responsibility and accountability and, like, I had to eat that, you know, that I was. I was wrong in terms of my reaction to the anger. There were things I probably could have did differently. But what they told me at that point was like, you're never gonna get out of here. You know, you're never going to get out of here. And I remember the first time one of them said that to me. I was like, I was too naive to really, you know, believe it. You know, I was like, whatever. You know, I'll do a year or two without hearing it all to let me go. And then I started seeing guys around me who had been in solitary for 10 years. A friend of mine, he's actually out now. His name is Peter. He works. I think he's like a clerk back in Michigan. But he was in. He was my neighbor. He was in solitary for 10 years. There was a guy across from me that was like, this Guy was one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. He was a con man. Like, he was masterful at manipulating the officers, but he was in for 20 years. You know, he had solitary. In solitary for 20 years. And so when I started seeing that, I was like, man, I might never get out of here. You know. And the first two years, you know, I. I was, like, kind of resigning myself. I remember writing my dad this letter. I wrote my dad this letter, and I just said, you should just go on with your life because they're never gonna let me out of here. And my dad wrote me back, and he said, you know, I can't even pretend to act like I understand the world that you're in, but I will never leave your side. And so that's how resigned I was to the idea that I was going to die in there. And it wasn't until I was in about two years or so, maybe about a little over a year. And basically, I started journaling. And it was inspired by a letter I got from my son. And my son told me that his mother had told him why I was in prison. And he wrote this letter, and he's like, my mother told me that you're in prison for murder. And he said, dad, don't kill. Jesus watches what you do. When I got that letter, like, you know, I wasn't religious. You know, I'm not religious now. I was spiritual. But there was something about that that just, like, struck me, like, in the most heartbreaking ways. It's like, I have a kid out here who I have let down and whose mother is telling him stories about me without context, and I don't have a way to reach out to him and say, hey, son, here's all the shit that happened. And so I was like, you know, I gotta turn my life around. And I can tell you, like, over the years, every time I got into some shit, I would just be like, all right, this it. You know, this is the last time. It was always these moments of, like, I'm going to do right this time. But it was never about me. It was always like, I'm going to do right so my dad doesn't have to come see me in jail or come bail me out or my friends don't have to come, you know, try to get me out of trouble. It was never a real thing. And so when I started journaling, I started with this essential question of, like, man, how did I end up here? Because up to that point, I didn't think of myself as a Bad person. Like, I didn't think of myself as like, angry. I didn't think of myself as like, I didn't even think of myself as violent. I thought that I had just got into some situations that people provoked me in. And so I asked this question of like, man, how did you, how did you get here? Like, you're the smart kid, you know, you're the kid that want to be a doctor and an artist and how the hell did you get here? And so I started going back and I started asking myself questions based on when was the first time you got arrested and what led to that, you know, and then what happened the second time and when was the first time this thing happened and that thing happened and who was responsible. And what I was able to do was the baby. I was able to go back and realized that I had all this trauma. I had all these traumatic things that happened to me as a kid, but also had caused a lot of hurt. And I did a lot of things that really was like, no, actually you probably are a bad person. And so as I began to write and sort those things out, I realized I had never accomplished, I never finished anything. I started a bunch of things. You know, I never finished high school. I was like, probably one of the smartest kids in the class, went to job corps, got kicked out before I finished that was going to go to the military, never followed up to take the test. So I was a consummate quitter. You know, I started some stuff and would never finish. And so I said in my journal, I said, listen, if you're going to turn your life around, you have to finish one thing. You have to challenge yourself to finish one thing. And so I'm looking around the cell and I'm like, okay, what can I do? I've done all the push up challenges, you know, you could do in solitary. And I was like, you should write a book, but you got to write the book in 30 days. If you write this book in 30 days, you can change your life. If you don't, you're going to die in prison. And that was my, that was my charge to myself. And now I'll tell you, like, in solitary, there's no, like, you don't have a word processor, typewriter. You can't even have like a regular ink pen because you know this kid's gonna like sink somebody or stick somebody. They give you this little flimsy plastic pen. And so I remember getting a pen, I got like a little pad of paper. I said to myself, like, it's no way possible you're going to write a book in 30 days with that pen. This is not possible. And I remember saying to myself, this is what you always do. You always make an excuse. You always make a way to get out of being accountable. What are you going to do? Are you going to turn your life around, or are you going to bullshit the rest of your life away? And so I sat there for a while, and I was like, what if I roll this pen up in some paper? And I literally took some paper and I started to roll the pen up so it was firm enough, and it was like the size of a regular pen. And I wrote that first book in 30 days. And I knew I would never go back to prison if I ever got out, because at that point, I still didn't know if I was getting out.

So what did you write?

So the first book I wrote was a novel. It was a fiction novel. I love reading. You know, I was really fortunate to really be able to escape through books, you know, So I was like, well, I want to try to write a book, you know, And I love these stories I was reading. I was reading, like, westerns. Lewis Lamour, one of my favorite authors, Donald Goins. So he had all these street books, like Dope Fiend and, you know, Black Gangster. And it was like all this kind of underbelly, Iceberg, Slim, Pimp. All these stories were stories I had read early on. And these guys, they were like, me, like, Donald Gorn, served time in prison. And so I'm like, well, if these guys can write a book, then what if I give it a try? And so my first novel was literally about this girl who played street basketball. Her dad was, like, a street basketball legend. And so I wrote that book. And I remember just, like, I had never felt a greater sense of pride in myself than the writing that book on a notepad. And I still have the original books that I wrote in solitary confinement on notepads and on the back of paper. I'll send you some pictures of it. It'll blow your mind. And I remember writing that book. And I got out, so I write the book. This is some wild shit. So after I write it, I'm like, well, a book really isn't a book until somebody reads it. And so I climbed down on my floor, and I'm like, yo, like, somebody want to read, read this book I just wrote. And I remember this guy at the other end of the tier was like, don't nobody want to read that bullshit. This ain't Oprah. So, Joe, here it is. I'm like, I'm trying to. Like, I'm trying to turn my life around. I'm like, nah, I gotta shank this cat for disrespecting me. You know what I'm saying? So. But it was like, it ended up. It ended up when he said it, you know, my ego, you know, it's like, I'm. I'm. You know, I am on the yard. Like, I'm a shot caller. I can have you done, right? And then I stepped back, and I was like, no. He actually just gave me a go. Like, if I'm going to. If I'm going to take writing serious, I need to set a goal for what do I want to happen with my work, you know? And then another guy, he agreed to read it. And now, so I'm in solitary. So it's not like I could just walk out the cell and get a guy to book, right? So we would make these fish lines out of our underwear. So we take all of the string out of your underwear. You. You attach that to a toothpaste tube that you scrolls in all the toothpaste out of and stuff with paper. So you stuff it with toilet paper, wet toilet paper. Then once that dries, it has enough weight that you can slide it up and down the tier. And so. And then sometimes we would use our socks. Most of the time, I use socks. But you just unravel that string, and then you can slide it up under the door, and then you can, you know, attach whatever to it. And so I attached the book to it, man. Slid it under the door, and I don't hear for this guy, like, all day. So now I'm, like, nervous as shit. Cause I'm like, it's my only copy. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I didn't get a guy my only copy, and he ain't responding. But then he came back to the door, man, and he was like, you know, that's one of the best books I've ever read. And I was like, wow. It blew my mind for, like, literally about five minutes. And then I thought about it. I was like, man, he in solitary confinement. He over there bored as shit. I could have sent him anything. I could have sent him a recipe. It's the best chicken soup recipe ever, right? But I was like, okay, maybe if I send it out, send it out to people. And so I started sending my writing out to, like, I have a brother. He's my stepbrother. And, like, out of all my siblings, he's the one of us that's, like, always played better books. You know, he went to school, he went to college. He was an engineer at, like, one of the big three. And he just always done it by the books. And. And I remember sending it to him, and he had never wrote me in prison. Like, never wrote me in prison. I sent him the book, and I remember I still have his letter to this day. And he wrote back, and he said to me, this writing is better than most of the people I went to school with, and I want to help you figure out, you know, a path forward. And so just getting that. That affirmation for somebody who he wasn't in the streets, he wasn't on a prison cell block, though he had did it the right way. Like, just that little boost, man, was like, okay, maybe I'm onto something, you know? And so I wrote my second book, like, right after that, and I gave myself the same thing. You got to finish it 30 to 60 days. And then I started a third book, man. And I. I went into the deepest bottle of depression that I had experienced in prison. And it was because by the time I got to writing book three, I realized I had this incredible talent and that it had always been there and that I had let all the trauma, all the violence, all the street life overtake my life. And I'm like, I'm in this environment. I can't give birth to this dream. Like, so it was. It was the most. Like, getting sentenced was like, my life is over. Not being able to actualize a dream based on a gift I was given, that was devastating, you know. And so I was going through this depression, and I did what I always would do, which was go back to those books. And, you know, I was. I was getting heavy into philosophy, which was, like, the wildest thing is, like, you know, growing up, you know, you hear philosophy, like, oh, super boring, you know, But I was getting into all this philosophy, man, and I. I remember going back to James Allen book, and it was really talking about this idea that you think into existence the life that you want, and if you focus your life on negative thoughts, you're going to only produce negative outcomes. And when I went back and I read my journals, I saw the pattern. The pattern was super clear of, like, I bought into this negative narrative. So me being in prison was not a shocker to me when I went back and read through my journal. And so I said to myself, if this is true, and if this is absolutely true, in the negative Then it has to be true in the positive. And I began to just refocus my energy on getting out of solitary. And I remember saying, if I'm going to get out of here, I need help. The way it looks on paper, they're not just going to let me out, you know. And so I wrote this letter to the warden, and it was a super philosophical letter about the truth. And what I said to the warden was like, when I walked into prison, my statement was that I was not going to follow the rules and that. But I was hell bent on destroying my life. And I'm like, if you look at my record, you would know that I've honored my word. Like, at that point, I had probably, maybe, I think about 34 misconducts. And they ranged from everything, a dangerous contraband to assault on staff, assault on inmate, you name it. And I was like, so the thing, you know, more than anything else is I'm a man of my word. And what I'm telling you is that if you believe that, that to be true in the negative, I just need you to believe it to be true in the positive. If you give me this opportunity to get out of solitary, I'm going to focus on two things. I'm going to mentor these other young guys and I'm going to focus on becoming a writer. And I sent that letter to the warden, and the warden literally wrote me back. And he said, you know, despite my hesitation here, I believe you and I'm going to advocate for you to get out. And so he began to advocate for me to get out, but he had to go through multiple series of, like, his supervisors because the assault was on the inmate. And so it took about another two years before I got out of solitary.

The assault was on an officer?

Yeah, when Officer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, on an officer. And so it took Lily another two years before I finally got out. But once I got out, I took those handwritten books and I typed them all up, you know, and I mentored those guys, and I began to tutor the guys who they said couldn't read or wouldn't read. And I found that if I gave them books that were similar to their life, they would put in more effort. And so that's what I focused on, you know, and then I typed those books up and I was like, I started to send them. I was sending stuff out. I still got, like, copies of my query letters. Man, I was just sending stuff out in the dark. Like, I sent, like, Jay Z was like the president of, like, Def Jam at one point. I was like, oh, you should publish this book. Cause you rap about this shit. I really live here. I sent it to him and I was just like, did he respond? No, he never got a response. But I did get a couple of response from like, some like, independent publishers. And they was like, no, we're not interested right now, but thank you. And I just kept going at it. And then I was like, you know what? I'm responsible for my own dream, you know. And so I took the money that my, my parents sent me and money I hustled on the yard. I still had hustles, they just weren't like illegal hustles. So I wasn't doing like drug smuggling. But I would sell, you know, the merchandise on, on the yard for twice what it's worth. And I just took that money, man. I saved it up. And I published my first book from prison in 2008.

How did you do that?

So I bought this book, I ordered this book called Self Help Guide to Self Publishing. And I taught myself everything I needed to learn about publishing. Like, I knew how to get a copyright, ISBN number. I had a partner outside who believed in what I was doing. And I basically would just be like, here's the steps I need you to take to execute this. And found a graphic artist and a printer and. Yeah, and published the first book. And then the prison sued me for the cost of my incarceration.

Wow.

Yeah, they tallied it up to like a million dollars. Yeah. Because basically what they did is they literally went and said, this is how much it costs for you to be in prison at every prison you've been in per day. And so higher security levels, it was about 150 something a day. Lower security levels, like 70 something a day. And they was like, by the time you get out of prison, it'll be about a million dollars. And so we want 90% of anything you earn off this book. They thought I had got a book deal. They didn't realize I had like self published. And I was like, you know, the thing that struck me about that when I went through the actual hearing with the judge was I was like, man, you know, I wrote this powerful letter to her and I was just like, look, I'm coming home with a conviction. I got three felonies, right? I got, I'm convicted of second degree murder, felony firearm, and this assault on an officer. And I'm like, if I put that on a resume, nobody's going to hire me when I get out. And I'm like, fair. I get it like if I'm in a hiring position, if I only saw that, probably not hiring that person either. So I'm giving myself a chance, you know, I'm trying to give myself a chance. Like I don't want to go back to the streets. I want to be able to contribute to society, but I know society is not going to give me an opportunity, so I'm creating an opportunity for myself, you know. And so I went through the court case and they, this is how, this is how they ended up not getting any money, right? So I backdated a contract to myself saying that I would only accept 15% of the proceeds. I mean 10% of the proceeds once the company recouped its production costs. So they went from suing me for, for 90% of $15 per book to only being able to sue me for 90% of A$50 per book because I backdated this contract. So I used to work in a law library. So I was like, you know, I know contractual law is binding, and the lawsuit was only binding as long as I was incarcerated. And so I just made sure that I didn't make any money, you know, until I got out. But the letter that I wrote to the judge, like it was important to say that is that, listen, at that time, you know, it's 15 years ago, I've been out 15 years now. @ that time, nobody was like really talking about second chances. If you have a violent crime, right? You know, if you had a non violent crime, there's a chance you can get a job and you get out. And so I was realistic and I'm like, yo, nobody's gonna hire me, so I gotta figure out how to make it happen myself. And so I went through that lawsuit and it was, it was tough, you know, it was tough because I'm like, this is the first time I'm trying to do something legit. Like I'm, you know, I've sold drugs, I've hustled on the yard. I'm trying to move into, like doing something with my life, you know, I don't want to be, I don't want to be thugging it out forever. I don't want to be, I don't want to be one of those people that go in and out of a prison system. You know, I don't want to die here. Like, I want to, and I want to actually add value. Like, I know some things that I think is helpful in the community. But if you take this away from me, then what do you, what do you Expect me to do right, you know?

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So they were under the impression that you had got some crazy big book deal.

Yeah.

And so they were just trying to stop it and try to up your dream.

Yeah, yeah.

God, I mean, I kind of almost can see it from their side. If they hate you, you, you know, you know, like this, dude, let's. What can we do to derail this? Or, you know, if you're a corrections officer, you're not making a lot of money at all. No. And you're in there and then you think, is this getting rich?

Right.

And then there's also jealousy of talent. That's a real thing.

Absolutely.

When you find out a person has talent.

Yeah.

And especially if you don't have any talent, talent is like. Like talent is a gift from God. It's like you either have it or you don't. You can develop some talent, but some people have talent. There's something that some people like there was a video we played the other day of Biggie rapping on the street, but he was 17.

Yeah. Have you seen that video? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you can't teach that.

Yeah.

You can't. You can't teach that kind of power at all. At 17. That's a gift?

Yeah, that's a gift.

You know, some people just have a gift, and sometimes that gift comes from pain.

Yeah.

You know, sometimes that gift comes from a life of struggle and hardship, and it just. The emotional turmoil builds something inside of you that comes out in your art. And people hate people with gifts. Yeah, they really do. They really do. Especially if they hate you already.

Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't their favorite, you know, but the crazy thing is, like, that's how I originally took it. And I think that was some of the impetus to them, like filing the lawsuit. But the policy itself is wild because if your parent dies and you inherit their insurance money, that same law applies where they can take 90% of that to cover the cost of your incarceration.

That's fucked up.

But it's discriminate in terms of how they apply it and when they apply it. And that's where the hate came in. Because how it got initiated was the person in the mail room was like, oh, how dare this guy write a book? Yeah, and then I'm gonna send this to the attorney general and they're gonna, like, sue you. So it was crazy, man.

Yeah. What is it like the day you get out of solitary? Wait, so you did it three times?

Yeah, two.

One year stretches and then one long one.

Yeah, yeah. So on that last one, man, and I. One, I just. I didn't. I didn't believe I was getting out. You know, after a while, you started to kind of, you know, it started to play with your mind. You know, you see these guys that got, you know, they've been in for 20 years, you know, But I remember, like, going. Because you go up to these hearings, you get. And it feels like you're about to go. And then they come back in 30 days and they're like, they won't let you out. Right. Because you got to go. So you got to. It goes like this. When you had an assault on an officer, you got to go to the war. And then the warden goes to, like a regional director, and the regional director goes to, like, the main director. And so each time I would make it like, oh, I got it to the warden, then the regional shuts it down. Got it to the regional, then the head shuts it down. So it's like you're getting your hopes up and you don't know when it's going to end. You know, it's kind of like, you know, when I remember when the pandemic hit, a lot of my friends, you know, I have a lot of friends in different walks of life. Now, a lot of my friends reached out to me and was like, you know, how do we help people navigate these tough times? Right. The isolating feeling of being in a pandemic. And what I told them, I was like, the hardest thing that we're all going to grapple with is uncertainty of not knowing when it's going to end. And that's exactly what happened. Right. It's like, all right, everybody's going to go into lockdown. And then on April 30th, we're all free and clear. There's like, nope, we're gonna stay until March. Nope. I think we should stay until June. Nope. So we just. You started to lose that orientation. Cause you can't put your feet on solid ground. That's what it's like in solitaire. You just don't know.

But way worse.

Yeah. Obviously the extreme of that, right?

Yeah.

And so when it. When it finally happened, I remember telling the guys on the tier, I was like, if they ever let me out of here, I'm gonna stroll out like George, Jeff. And so the wild thing was like, that last year in solitary, so they have these guys come over to the cell block, they, like, clean up, they pass out the food trays. So they usually come from the protection unit. The last year, they stopped letting them guys come in because it was just creating too much conflict because they was like, they got beef. Now you over here. And guys are trying to get to them. So it's crazy. So the guys who was coming over was from general population, and these was, like, guys I knew. So, like, the last year I was there, you know, they would come through, man, they would smuggle me candy bars. I hadn't had a candy bar in, like, three years, you know. And I remember, you know, one of my guys come over, he smuggles, he. I hear the broom hitting the door, and I look up, and it's like two flattened down, like, Snickers that he's like, probably put in his shoes. I don't know where he put them at. I didn't even ask questions. I didn't want to ask questions. And I remember, like, running them over cold water so they can solidify. So when I tell you it was like, them Snickers was, like, the best, like, ever. Like, I mean, the details of how I can taste that given I had been gone from it. So I told him, guys, I was like, man, they let me out, it's gonna be like George Jefferson strolling out of here, you know? And so that's literally how it was, man. They popped that door. I took my little bag of shit and my books and threw that thing. And I'm George Jefferson Stroll, and I'm like, I'm out. I'm like, y' all have never seen me. Cause I had really. You know, I looked at it like this. I was like, you know, up to that point in my life, I had let myself down so many times. You know, I had been beat down by life, the traumas, the fucking. All the things. And it was the first time I felt like I was fighting for myself. I felt like I was fighting for myself, like, I'm going to get out of here. All the things I said I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get out and I'm gonna do them. And it's gonna be the first time that I'm gonna stand on something that really aligns with that little boy that I always knew was there. And I'm gonna fight for this kid. And so I was. So. I was like, I'm moving on up, but I'm moving on up into, like, a higher purpose in my life. And that's what I got out, man. And I went to work. I'm like, literally went to work. I took those books and, you know, I typed them up. You know, I figured out, you know, how to publish a book. You know, I started preparing for parole the year that I published the book. I went up for parole that same year, 2008, and I was at a prison at this time. They had transferred me to lower security levels. So you started to work your way down, which is its own craziness, you know, because I'm, you know, I did. At that point, I only did a hard time. And going down a security level is, like, crazy, you know, because you're. Now you're dealing with these guys that's coming straight off the streets. They're like, you know, you're dealing with. There's kind of a hierarchy in the streets. You know, there's a hierarchy of mindset in the streets. Like, guys who are usually good at selling drugs, they're literally operating at a different, like, intellectual frequency than guys that are, like, doing petty theft, right? And so now you're. You're. You're in lower levels. You're dealing with a lot of guys who really should probably be in an addiction environment versus actually prison. You're dealing with your, you know, failure to pay child support, DUIs, low level drug offenses, you know, petty theft. So you're dealing with a different mindset. Of guys who are really still, they're trying to heal, you know, they're just coming fresh off the streets and it's an open setting. So I'm going from like being in a cell by myself to like now I'm in this like cubicle with, with you know, these random, you know, guys. But I was just preparing myself, man. I was like, you know, I, I want to get out and I want to add value to society. And so, you know, they had transferred me. So now at this point I'm way up. I'm in Northern Michigan, over the Upper peninsula. So about 12 hours from my hometown, my dad comes up, my dad, my stepmom, my oldest son. And man, we go into this parole hearing, it probably lasted maybe a minute. This lady, she was just like, why did you do what you do? It was a very hard line, just the facts. And I was just like, I'm not getting out. You know, like, I knew it. Like that hearing was so fast. She didn't even, you know, listen to my dad. It was just very curt. And I was like, man, I'm, I'm. No, I'm not going home yet, you know.

And so how many years in was this?

So at that point I had 17 years in.

And how much time do you have to wait before you could apply for parole again?

So technically it can be anywhere from 12 months to 24 months. They give what's called a, a flop or a Passover, etc, so they gave me a 12 monther. And usually you go back within about 10 months of that to go back to the same process again and sometimes less when they're trying to like deal with budget issues and kind of get guys out. So I went back probably about eight, 10 months later.

What did she say to you when she denied you parole?

She didn't say. She didn't tell me. She was denying me like in the, in the hearing. It was just the way that the hearing was handled where it was like, like she didn't ask, you know, what are your plans when you get out? Who were you before that incident? What led up to that incident? Like it was just very, you know, basically you killed someone and that's it. And I think when I was even trying to explain to her, I think she just kind of like shut it down. She put you in a category? Yeah, yeah, she shut it down. Like it was almost like me explaining to her was making an excuse, you know, that was the way that she responded. And I was like, man, it probably didn't even take a full 60 days before I had a decision back, you know, that I was being denied.

That's gotta be a horrible feeling, to just be in a category where they don't take into account any of the circumstances, don't take into account any potential growth or this direction that you're trying to move your life into. You're just in a category. You're a murderer.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's the. That's just the scariest part about, you know, our penal system overall.

There's no rehabilitation.

Right.

You have to do it. Your story is so similar to many stories that I've heard.

Yeah.

You know, I've done a lot of podcasts with my friend Josh Dubin.

Yeah.

You know Josh.

That's the lawyer guy, right? Yeah. Yes.

Guy who used to work for the Innocence Project, and I worked for the Ike Perlmutter center for Legal Justice. And it's mostly dealing with wrongfully incarcerated people.

Yeah.

And, you know, and some of them, the stories, you just. You hear it and it is. It just kills you. It breaks your heart, and just try to imagine what it's like to be that person.

Yeah.

Dealing with corrupt DA's, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt everything. Corrupt cops.

Yeah.

And people just get railroaded because they need to hang a conviction on somebody.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

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The scariest parts of the system. So what? Like, one of my best friends name is Calvin. Calvin did 24 years for a crime he didn't commit, and he's out now. And he has one of the man. He has one of the most incredibly positive spirits of anybody I've met, given what he's been through. And the hardest part about any of this, you know, is exactly what you say is, like, when you're labeled for the rest of your life, it hits you, you know, because it impacts your ability to contribute. And what people don't know is, like, 90% of people incarcerated will get out at some point. And we have to decide who we. Who do we want to be as a society? Like, do we want to give people a second chance to prove themselves? And, like, I'm not. I'm not a. I'm not a person who has a mindset of, like, you just throw the doors open and let everybody out. I know, again, that I was fortunate and I was lucky to be literate, and I was lucky to have read books that led to me really putting in a hard, arduous work of reimagining a life for myself that's tough work that. That none of us gets out of there without our scars. You know, there's. There's things about me right now that I can directly pinpoint. Oh, this is because of what I went through in solitary. There are some things that I was able to take out of that environment and turn into a positive. Like, you know, sometimes people will hear my story, and they'd be like, oh, well, solitary actually worked out for you. And I'm like. I'm like, no. I'm like, there's a difference between solitary and solitude. And, like, solitude is something that I think that all of us should explore more broadly in our lives. We all just need time to get away from even the most positive Aspects of our life. Sometimes you need to step back because it allows you to have even deeper gratitude. Yeah, but I really was just lucky, man. I was lucky to be willing to go on a journey, but also to have the skill set to read and to read books of like, hey, it doesn't have to end like this, you know, you don't have to be pinpointed to one horrible moment in your life, you know, and there's the cumulative nature of the things that led up to that moment. It doesn't excuse you. Like, I don't make excuses for the decision I made night. I just want to be clear about that. There's like, a. All these causal factors that lead to us becoming who we are in whatever capacity. But that's the tough stuff we don't. We don't like to grapple with because it's not efficient. You know, it's not easy to. To. To figure out. I mean, it's the facts of it. It's like. It's not easy, right? It's not easy to be like, okay, this person killed somebody, so we should give him a second chance. Like, but there are tons of us who have gotten out and who have done the work before we got out, and that we're contributing in a way that most people who've never went in probably contribute. And, like, we. Those stories should be lifted up. We should be.

We probably have an appreciation of freedom that's just different from everybody else's.

Oh, absolutely. Like, I think there's the appreciation. For me, it's the appreciation of freedom, but it was also falling in love with the beauty of my mind. Like, you can't. You can't. Like, you can't underestimate that value of really understanding, like, as a human being, that you can contribute to the world in positive or negative, and that you can. You can live your life in such a way that it honors what it really means to be human, to be complex, to be able to discover something new about yourself every day. Like, that's what. That's what. Like, for me, freedom is that. You know what I'm saying? Freedom is like. You know, the book that I've recently written is called how to Be Free. And you know, what really inspired me to write that book is I've met so many people out here in society who's never been in a prison cell, who are psychologically, emotionally, and mentally incarcerated, and they're incarcerated by heartbreak. They're incarcerated by shame, grief, anger. I mean, I've met people who have it all. They have the best job in the world. They have more money than they will ever be able to spend. And there's a thing from their life. Life that does not allow them to be fulfilled. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so it's. It's the. There is that appreciation post incarceration that, you know, you just. I mean, 15 years later, I still revel in moments like a kid, you know, Like, I'm like. I'm like a kid, man. I'm like, that's beautiful. Yeah. I'm curious about life.

You know, we should all keep that.

Kid, man, and protect it, too.

Yeah.

You know, don't get hard. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, life forces you to get hard in a certain way, and I'm sure your life forced you to get hard in a way that most people can't comprehend, but the fact that you can hang on to that, the childlike joy of things.

Yeah, yeah. That's the curiosity, you know? I'm like, the biggest nerd. I love it, man. It's like I always tell my son, I'm like, I'm the coolest nerds you'll ever meet. The thing, like, I. You know, I got out, like, two years after I was a. I was a fellow at MIT Media Lab. You got to imagine, like, how wild that was, Joe. Like, I'm going from, like, the barbarity of prison.

24 months.

Yeah. And now I'm at, like, the most technologically advanced school in the world. And I always say it was like Fred Flintstone going into an episode of the Jetsons. Because it was like, when I got there, it was like, robots were like. I mean, it was. It was crazy. Like, I mean, they had these cars that, like, parked themselves, and I was just. My mind was blown, you know? And I remember one time being there, and the director was like. He can tell. I felt, like, out of place. And he was like, don't worry about it. You can contribute. Like, you can contribute. It doesn't matter where you come from, you can contribute. And I remember how that stuck with me of, like, man, I can contribute. You know?

What were you doing there?

So I was working on a project called the Atonement Project, where we were using technology and art to facilitate restorative journey injustice conversations. It's super hard to talk about hard things, you know, when it comes to violence and it comes to people who have been victims of violence. And I felt like art and technology provided a vehicle to kind of bridge that gap, you know? And I remember this one story. This was like, super Funny. So I'm there, and one time I'm in one of the labs. So they would do these demo days. You can go around to all the labs and, like, watch all this crazy technology. And there was this one kid, man, he was working on something in the auto industry, and he was trying to get this. It was like one of those screens to kind of perform in a very particular way. And I was just watching him. I was like, man, he just keep bumping up against. It was so obvious to me, like, what the problem was. Like, if you just move this over like a quarter of an inch, it's probably going to work the way that you envision it, you know? And I remember saying that to him, and just seeing him, like, it was almost like a light bulb just fired off in his head. And I was just like, man, that was wild. Cause this is a smart kid, you know? This kid is brilliant. Right? And so I said, I want to do a prison hack here, and I want to challenge these students and faculty to solve some problems based on the problems we had to solve in prison. And so they said, yeah, you should do it. And so I literally told them all the things that I wanted to it. And I came up with five design challenges. And one of them was, you got to design a tattoo gun out of a tape player motor, a good tire string, and an ink pen. You have to make what we call a stinger, which is like, kind of like. So you have a hot pot. Right. So in prison, in order to, like, heat up our noodles, we had to, you know, especially if you're in the old prisons. Excuse me. If you're in the old prisons, there's no. There's no microwave, so you have to figure out how to heat them up. And so we will make what's called a stinger, which we would take an extension cord, cut that up, and then you attach, like, nail clippers to it, and you got to splice them, and then you put it in the water and plug it up, and then it heats your water up. And so now you can make your noodles, your coffee.

You're just putting a cord right into the water.

Yeah. But if you do it, you got to put it in first before you plug it up. Because if you. If you, like, plug it up first. Yeah, if you plug it up first, then it blows the power out in the cell block. Now you got a whole nother problem. And so we would. That's how we would heat up our noodles, our coffee, oatmeal, whatever. And then I had them if back in the day, we used to get these little radios. They're not boom boxes, but they're like little G radios or something. And they disable you from playing your tape player to them because there's no tape player attached. So you have to figure out how to connect that to the big radio, and then it plays from your tape player through the big speaker. And then I had them make a lighter out of batteries and wire, and then to make a fish line out of the same material I told you about earlier, the string out of your socks. And so I gave them, like, three hours to complete these challenges. And we're going for three hours. They blew the power out of MIT Media Lab. It's like the best. It felt like an intellectual victory. I was like, yes, these super smart kids, they didn't, like, blew the. And so we get to the three hours. I mean, one of the kids burnt himself. I got videos, like, he burnt himself, like, trying to get the lighter. And they almost got the tape player. I think if they'd had probably about three more hours, they'd have figured all this stuff out. But I had two goals with that. One. The nerd in me wanted to really understand the science of, like, okay, why does this scientifically work? You know? And then the second part was that if they would have accomplished this with these meager little tool sets, they would have been applauded, and people would have said, you know, that was brilliant, and that you're a genius and that you're incredibly intelligent because you were able to take these little scrappy things and make something out of them. And the reason I wanted them to validate that is because I believe inherently that there are people in prison who possess ingenuity, innovative abilities, intelligence, all these things, and we throw people away. You know, we literally throw people away. And I would have been one of those people that had been thrown away had I not had the ability to write. And so, you know, it's those. Those type of things where you. You think about these other prison systems. Like, I've visited prisons in. I've been to Germany's prisons, London. I've been to Ghana. And you. You. You see like, how different it could be, you know, what we're capable of when you give people an opportunity. I don't. I don't. I can tell you in my time, you know, of almost 20 years in prison, I've met. I've met some bad people. I met some people who are scary people. You know, I was in prison with a couple of different serial Killers, serial rapists. But they are the extreme minority. The extreme minority. Most of the guys that I met that I served time with were trying to hustle their way to a life. They come from high levels of, you know, parental abuse, sexual abuse, drug abuse. I met a lot of people that had real psychological issues. I don't know what the politically correct term is nowadays. I feel like we gotta always have a correct term. But people who were really like, screwed up. It wasn't. I didn't meet a lot of inherently evil people, but I have met some evil people. And you know, it. Like, it's not even a doubt in your mind of what you're dealing with when you meet these people. People. But we're. We're lazy, man. You know, we're lazy because if we can just slap a title on you and just categorically say, like, everybody's, you know, you convicted of a murder, you're a murderer. And that's everybody. It's not everybody's story. All of us don't arrive there, you know, and it's. And it's. You know, I. The time that I did was the consequence of the choice I made. And I accept that. You know, I accept that. I accepted that came with. I even accept now, you know, we're talking 34 years later. There's penalties and consequences for that one moment in my life that I live, that I'll live with forever. There's the. There's the personal reality, right? Like that doesn't. That never goes away, you know, like that understanding of what. What damage I've caused to this family is something that never goes away. And then there's the societal consequences that, you know, at this stage in my life, they're not the same as they was the first day I walked out, but they remind me of exactly what society thinks of me when I deal with them, you know, and. And I think that we should be able to earn the trust of society back. You know, I think you got to put the work in, you know, I don't think that anybody should just be handed a free card, but I think you should be given an opportunity to prove yourself, you know, that you can contribute and that you want to contribute. And I can tell you, like, the guys that I deal with, man, there's so many of these guys that can contribute if we just stop throwing people away way.

Yeah, the system is just set up to punish. They're set up to just lock people up so they're off the streets so other people don't have to Deal with them. But they are, like you said, they are going to get out, most of them, and they're not going to be rehabilitated. And oftentimes they're hardened, and it's oftentimes even worse.

Absolutely.

And there's so little effort put into how to fix things, how to. How. How do you make it better? What. What do you do that you can help these people contribute tribute, and you can have them come out of jail actually a better person.

Yeah.

Which is possible.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think. I think you have to look at the system holistically. Right. Because it's not even just the. The men and women serving time to suffer like the officers who. Who work there. It's a brutal job, man.

Yeah.

They suffer like they're not happy people.

Oh, no.

You know, and. And. And. And they're not. Not. They're not happy because their job forces them to have to have a Persona of toughness. You know, you have to. The way that it was originally designed is you have to have a wall up between your humanity and the people that you're tasked with policing. And that makes it tough because you have to come into this world for most of the time, 60 hours a week because most of those people have to make overtime in order to, you know, provide for their families. And you got to. You got to wear a mask for 60 days out of the week, and then you got to come in and you got to see people, you know, at their worst more than just the moment you arrest them. Right. Like a police officer on the street, they're arresting a lot of times people at their worst moment, then they passed them off. Correctional officer. You walk into this environment every day, you have to deal with somebody who is in a cycle of their worst moment. And the violence, the chaos, the smell, the lack of tools and resources, where you have to untangle the chaos, you have to untangle the violence. You have to jump into the fray when a guy is butchering another guy. And then you have to go home with that. You know, you have to carry that home. And it's in this. The higher security levels, that's happening all the time. Somebody's getting stabbed on the yard all the time. You know, somebody's getting maimed and getting, you know, bludgeoned, you know, on a regular basis, and then you have to deal with that. You know, it's the interesting thing about how, you know, at one point, I didn't have empathy for correctional officers. You know, they were the enemy. Like, you're holding me in prison. Not. Not realizing I'm really the one that's responsible for me being there. But over time, man, I remember I started to get empathy in the craziest of ways, man. You know, this officer came to do a strip search, and I refused the strip search. I was, you know, I was in that rebellious state. And I just remember, like, thinking to myself after that, like, man, this is his job. You gotta come and look at somebody's ass. You know, it's fat asses, skinny asses, hairy asses. This is your job. How can you be a happy person?

Right?

You can't be happy. Like, you gotta go in the visiting room and you see this guy out here with his kid and his family, and when he leaves there, you have to strip search this person. So you have to put this armor up between your own humanity and that's your. For 40 hours a week, you're looking at ass that gotta suck. You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, dude, like, of course you become an. Like, how? Yeah. How could you not? Right?

Yeah.

But, you know, I think that's where we got it wrong. We've. We've kind of created this kind of idea that it's us against them. And the reality is not because they're spending a lot of time in that environment.

Yeah. They're in prison too. They just can leave at night, all day.

Yeah.

It's a different kind of prison because they're in control and they can quit. But a lot of them, they're probably imprisoned by their bills too, so they can't quit.

Absolutely.

And in a lot of the environments where these prisons are located, there's no other jobs.

No. That's the only industry. Yeah, that's the only industry.

The fact that prison is an industry is also insane. The fact that privatized prisons are an industry. When I found out that prison guard unions lobby to keep drug laws on the books.

Yeah.

I remember that moment. The. The moment I found that I was like, that is evil.

Yeah.

You're using people as, like, batteries to generate money.

Absolutely.

Private prisons are. They want more people in there because that's how they make money.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like if you're a chicken farmer, you want more chickens.

You want chickens.

Right, right. If you're a people farmer, you're essentially a people farmer, which is evil.

Absolutely. And you think about, like, the. The cost of phone calls. Like before. Before I got out of prison, we had finally fought to get the phone calls down. I mean, they were charging $15.

And how much do you make in prison?

Like, my, The, The. The best paying job I had in prison was, I think, when I worked in the law library. I made about $54 a month, and.

Every phone call is $15.

$15.

Holy shit.

And so most people in there make, you know, I worked in the kitchen. I started off at 17 cent an hour.

You got to work a week to make a phone call?

Yeah, yeah.

That's insane.

But that's if you got a. What's considered a good job. Right. But the average job, you making 17 cents an hour in the kitchen. Oh, my God.

And so phone calls. 15.

15. Right. So you make, you know, so you can't talk to your family, you know, and then we finally got it down to, like, about $3, 15 minutes.

Still, if you make it 17 cents an hour.

Yeah. Take you forever to make a phone call.

That's insane.

And, like, even now, like, I keep money on my phone for my friends who are incarcerated to call me, you know, and I just, like, I'll put, you know, a few hundred on there. And then it's like, you know, every time you call, you can tell how much money is gone, because they're like, yo, you got $150 left. And it's just like, geez, like, man. You know, And I'm a lot of instances. I'm their only connection to their family and their kids.

Do you know the Freeway Ricky Ross Story?

Story? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Do you know Ricky?

Yes, we. We've met. I wouldn't say that we're, like, good friends, but we're cordial anytime we've seen each other. But we've met up, I want to say, at least four or five times, but, yeah. Wild story, man. I love that dude.

Yeah, I've had him on a few times.

Yeah.

But he learned how to read in prison and then became a lawyer and realized that they wrongfully convicted him under the three strikes rule.

Yeah.

And that's how he got out.

Yeah. No, that happens so much to people, though. Yeah. Like, they can imagine. They overcharge you. That's one of the things that I would love to see change is, like, there's no accountability for prosecutors when they overcharge people or wrongfully charged. Right. It's up to you who's being charged to figure it out into, which is crazy. Right? Like, the onus shouldn't be on a.

Person, but it's a crime. Yeah, it should be a crime.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Because that's like, crazy to think that you can wrongfully Charge a person or overcharge.

That's the thing is, like, they don't think of you as a person anymore.

Yeah.

Once you're a convict, you're not a person anymore. And they can do things to you that should be illegal, it should be a crime, but they could get away with doing it.

Yeah. And it impacts, like, everybody. Like, right now in this country, there's probably about 150 million people who have someone incarcerated or who have had someone incarcerated. Like, it's no longer. You know, when I was coming up, you know, I came up and during the height of the war on crime or war on drugs. Right. So I come up through that era. I came up selling drugs when crack first exploded in our communities. And, you know, the prison population went from, I think, you know, a couple of hundred thousand to 2 million and pain, which is wild. Right.

Wild.

In a short amount of time.

How old are you?

I am 50. I'm 53. Okay.

I'm a little older than you. But I remember when all that happened.

Yeah.

I remember, like, all sudden, crack was.

On the street and it was like, yeah. What.

How did this happen?

How did this happen? Literally overnight.

Yeah. We find out through freeway. Ricky. How it happened.

Yeah.

It was our own government.

Yeah, absolutely.

Which is insane.

Crazy.

Not our own government. For real. For real. But people in our government that are cowboys and renegades and people who are criminals.

Absolutely.

Who realize they get away with this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And in Ricky's case, they were using it to fund a war.

Yeah. The crazy.

Right?

Crazy.

I remember hearing about that shit in the news.

Yeah.

When I was a kid going, what?

Yeah.

What happened?

But I didn't. At the time, I didn't know that.

It was being funded by selling drugs in Los Angeles. I had no idea that was. But I remember, remember that it was in the news and Oliver north was in the news and. And they were. This is when Reagan was old. I can't recall. He just said he didn't remember.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

Convenient. Yeah.

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Yeah, it's, it's horrible to think because you, you know, as a boy I remember thinking, well, the government's good and they're looking out for you and they're the good people and the cops are the good people and all the prisoners are there. It's because they're bad.

They're bad. Yeah. That's the narrative, right? And like, I grew up the same way. You know, my dad was in the Air Force. You know, I used to go to the Air Force base and, and you know, all of his friends were in the air Force. And you know, you grow up and on my neighborhood block there was, you know, this woman used to be a police officer and the firefighters and the doctors. And so you grow up seeing this ideal of what you think is good and bad. And then you see this, this explosion of These drugs, like that same neighborhood. You know, I wrote this story a while ago called the Trees no Longer Give Fruit. It was about my neighborhood. And what I was writing about is that I grew up on a block where every backyard there was some type of fruit tree, pear tree, peach tree, apple tree. And then crack came and it killed my neighborhood. And these manicured lawns and these houses where there were two families, I mean, two parent families and, you know, professionals and, you know, and you felt like a community. This drug came in and it was literally like a bomb had been detonated. And so that early narrative of, like, inner city kids as the. What did they call them? Super predators, that was the narrative back then. Now, Biden.

Yeah, Biden said that on tv.

Yeah, yeah. Clinton. Hillary Clinton, she was like super predators. Right. And I was in prison when that crime bill took college out. I was averaging a four point, and they said that it took rehabilitation out of prison. You know, that night, I think it was 94 crime bill, like, Biden and Clinton passed. And like, I remember, like, we went to school and the professor came in and was like, this is the last semester. They were taking it out because of this crime bill. And so when you. When you look at who was villainized back then, who filled prison back then, the face of that was black males. Like, that was the dominant face of. Of, you know, who you would think is in prison now, 30 years later, that's changed. It's changed with opioids. It's changed with fentanyl. It's changed with, like, poverty in these rural areas. And now the prison population looks vastly different. Like, there's more. I was just in the juvenile lockup last week. I was in Rhode island. And like, this room of these kids, like 10 kids in two different rooms. And I mean, it looked like the United nations of diversity. Literally, like three white kids over here, a couple of Latin over here, black over here. And I was like, shit. You know, and these are babies. Right.

And isn't it crazy that that's also drugs?

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's also corporations.

Yeah.

See, the thing about Detroit, most people don't know that Detroit, up until they started moving jobs overseas, Detroit was the.

Third wealthiest city in the.

In the world.

In the world.

Absolutely.

In the world.

World. Yeah.

Which is crazy.

Yeah.

To think that inside of a lifetime, Detroit goes from being one of the wealthiest cities in the world to one.

Of the poorest cities in America.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was crazy.

Yeah.

And just because they wanted to make some more money.

Yeah.

They didn't want to pay the union wages.

They didn't want these factory workers making a great living.

They wanted all the money.

Yeah. It completely, like, almost destroyed us here.

Like a bomb, just like crack.

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, it's a resilient city.

And it's bouncing back. Yeah, yeah, it's bouncing back.

Yeah.

It's nice to know.

Yeah.

But fuck the fact that that can happen.

Yeah, yeah. No, it was, it was unbelievable, like, to think that it would happen on our watch.

Right.

You know, I remember when I, when I came home, I was so optimistic coming, Coming out of prison. I mean, you got to imagine, like, you know, walking out everything. It's just like, oh, it's going to be exciting. You think that life really has advanced and people have moved on. And I remember just going through some of the neighborhoods and I was like, you know, these were. These were beautiful blocks in these beautiful homes. And I would go through some of the neighborhoods and there's one house left on the block. And it's like the other house that are still in different, you know, states of disrepair were falling apart. And it was like the most heartbreaking thing to think about. There's kids that this is the block that they go down to go to school. And then this was the other thing that was mind blowing because I went into the schools and I'm like, it's in worse conditions than the prison I just left. And like, that talks about where people are investing. To your point of, like, we start investing into, like, keeping people in prison or putting people in prison versus, like, education facilities to keep people out of prison. Prison.

Yeah.

So.

But also, how do we have these same communities, decade after decade after decade that are deeply impoverished and filled with crime?

Yeah.

And no, no, no course correction. Nothing being done on a. On a federal level to try to correct that. It's. It's just. And I think there's a problem in this country. I mean, it's. It's a good problem in some ways that you have to get reelected if you want to be president. You have four years. You have four year terms. But because of that, they just think about getting elected, and then once they're in, then they think about getting reelected. And the last thing you want to do is do anything controversial that might take 15, 20 years in order to reap the rewards of it. Generational. You know, like, if you're trying to say, like, hey, hey, we've got to do something. I know we're investing so much money overseas. We invest so much money into these nonprofits overseas and all these different things we're doing, regime change and untold billions of dollars we gotta invest in these cities and try to make less prisoners, less people incarcerated, less people that start off in a terrible position, but that's like an unpopular thing to try to run on, man, because. Yeah, the people that are just trying to protect their money. You know, there's so many people in this country that think of people about people in prison. They don't even think of them as prisoners. They want them in prison because then they're not out in the street inconveniencing their life. They don't want to deal with, like, what. Why.

Why does someone.

You think you're different? You're not different.

If you lived in that environment, you.

Would be in there, man.

We're all.

All the same exact thing.

Absolutely.

We vary genetically, we vary biologically, but not that much.

Not that much.

Not that much.

If you lived in a terrible environment.

And grew up in a terrible household.

And dealt with terrible pressures, you would.

Be in there too, man. Yeah, we would all be in there, too. And the callousness of people to, like, look the other way is, you know, it's a blight on our society, that callousness. That's. That this. We're supposed to be the most advanced society that's ever existed, but yet we still. Which is crazy, right?

We're.

We're. The United States of America is supposed to be the most prosperous advanced society on earth, and we have the highest level of prisoners. Yeah, we have more people in prison in the United States than any other country by a long shot.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's really interesting because, like, you know, I don't. I don't do a lot in the world of politics outside of criminal justice. And what I've learned about this particular space with politics, it is the one space where in the last. I would say the last 15, 20 years, where there has been some common ground and there's been a little bit more courage than I've ever seen in my life to time. For years, people would not touch incarceration other than saying, let's be tough on crying.

Right.

It took. It took a, you know, work of a lot of incredible people, a lot of storytelling to start to shift it to where it's the one issue where you can get some type of bipartisan buy in. And. And I think that the facts of it is just to your point where there are certain segments of society that. That we have not dealt with, like the gun violence where I come from is something that Most people can't even begin to imagine, like in my family, in my family, like, I mean, I mean, like my. Not my family of friends, but in my family, at a minimum, there's been eight or nine of us who have been shot. We don't talk about gun violence in an inner city in the cycle of. Because the lack of treatment for gun related trauma. I didn't know what PTSD was until I was already in prison. I didn't realize that the things that I felt at 17 years old when I got shot were actually real things and I wasn't making an excuse for being paranoid and that I wasn't being irrational for thinking that I had to carry a gun to protect myself when both my brothers had already been shot and many of my friends had been murdered through gun violence. So those choices as a kid, while they were illegal, they weren't necessarily irrational. And so we don't. We haven't done a good job at, like, being just honest. Right. When I started to see the shift with criminal justice was when opioids began to penetrate the suburbs. When you started to see kids who normally can come into a neighborhood, buy some cocaine, go and party and they're fine to go back to the suburbs, it was easy to just be like, oh, well, those black kids over there are selling cocaine and you know, they should be arrested. When you start dealing with this higher level of opioid addiction that doesn't just stay in the hood, that it really carries over to the suburbs, then people start to be able to see their own kids and their grandkids. And now that you're seeing that, I guess over 30% of the prison population are white, you're starting to see people say, well, wait a minute, this isn't just a criminal orientation. There's a deeper problem in society, which is one is drug addiction that we don't really deal with because there's so much shame attached to it. So I can tell you, like, sometimes I do these talks all over and I'm speaking at corporations, like, you name it, I've been at these spaces. I cannot tell you how many parents that work incredible jobs in government, in state, in corporate come up to me and pull me to the side and say, thank you for speaking your truth. I wish I can tell people what I'm going through in my family right now. I wish I could talk about why my husband has not been in the household because of his addiction. Addiction, the same attached to it? Yeah, you know, the same. If it doesn't fit the narrative that You've been handed the same attached to it.

Yeah.

You know, and, and even, you know, being, being a black male in America who comes from the hood, there is, there is, there's value to that narrative. Right? So leaning into that, like if I'm, if, you know, you think about the black comedians, right, we always talk about our trauma and our pain because that narrative has cultural value. You know, if we lean into as much as we can lean into, like the elements of us that's from the hood in a smart way, in a funny way, et cetera, we'll always get that laugh, we'll always get that, you know, that sense of like, oh yeah, y' all do have a different reality. Right. Because that's the narrative. And that narrative have endured from generation to generation. I think now we're just getting to a space where, I mean, there's tons of work to do. Like to undo all the damage that's happened in the system is going to take us another 50 years. You know, we'll be lucky if we catch up to Germany or Norway or one of these more forward thinking countries like in the next four or five decades.

How do they handle things over there?

I'll tell you, it's two things that I was struck by when I was there. At one point I was with this guy named Scott Budnick. I think you may know Scott, he produced a hangover. So Scott does incredible work in criminal justice. He's one of always told him he should get a Nobel Peace Prize. But Scott and I, we were over there with another group of people and they were doing like a bunch of panels and both of us basically got bored. We was like, we should go see if we can run around the prison, right. So we just kind of peeled off and you know, we're, we're talking to the guys who are serving time. They're showing us their cells. They don't even know I had been in prison. But they're, you know, they're excited to have visitors. So they're like, you know, and I went into this one cell and I remember just standing there and I was by myself. And the, the warden came this woman and she was like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, I was just like caught in the, caught in the thought. Like, I spent a lot of time in prison back in the States and I spent four and a half years in a cell that's pro, half this size. And I was like, you know, I'm in solitary confinement. I was locked down for all this time and this woman visibly started to weep. And she said to me, we would never do that to one of our citizens. And that struck me when she said, we would never do that to one of our citizens. It made me realize that in America, when you are convicted, your identity as a citizen is taken away.

Right.

If you even have had it, you can't vote. You can't vote. You know, you can't travel freely to other places. You know, there's still restrictions that I have, you know, and this is 15 years later, and, like, I can't. I can't, you know? And this is where it'll hit you. Right? So my wife and I and my son will travel. And my wife, she's incredible. She's a great leader in the world. She's doing, like, I mean, some of the most amazing work in the world. And we'll be traveling, and she has tsa, and there's always this moment when we're traveling together when we get there, and the TSA agent will be like, oh, ma', am, you can go in that line. You got TSA PreCheck. And it's always like. We always instantly look at each other, and she's like, no, I'm gonna go with my husband. And is it the biggest problem in the world for us to have. Absolutely not. You know, but is there a dig at my dignity, you know, as a husband, as a father? Every time we have to have that look and that exchange. Right. And I have to think about, as a taxpayer citizen, that I pretty much pay more taxes than probably 99% of the country, and that I don't have access to all the things that comes with being a taxpaying citizen and that I can actually use clear and move through effortlessly. But my.

You can use clear, I can use.

Clear, but you can't use DSA free.

What the fuck is that?

It's crazy, right? Things like insurance, like home insurance. I bought a house in LA in 2019, and I didn't realize that a felony can impede you from paying house insurance. And it was after I already bought, which we know that's usually people's biggest investment is their home. Right. What does me having a felony from 30 years ago have to do with my ability to pay insurance on a house already bought? You know, and so it's like, insurance.

Is such an evil scam.

Yeah. You know, especially in California. It's brutal.

Oh, it's so evil. It's so crazy. They. I mean, California, there's a new fire. I don't know if they put it out yet. Laguna beach, did they put that fire out? Jamie was raging yesterday.

Oh, geez. I didn't even.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can't get fire insurance.

Yeah.

You know, I have friends who have houses now that they can't get insured for fire. And they're like, what the do I do?

Yeah, what do I do? Yeah.

And they can't get out. They don't have enough money to get out. And then it's hard to sell your house now if you're in an area. Like, I have a friend who's trying to sell her house, but it's in an area that's too close to Laurel Canyon. And Laurel Canyon burns.

Yeah.

Nobody wants to buy a house there.

Yeah.

It's like, what the.

Yeah.

Thirteen year old boy arrested for brush fire that led to evacuations. Fireworks works. Did they put it out?

So what are they gonna do to him though?

Ah, he's a kid.

That's what I'm saying. Like, he's a kid.

I started a fire when I was a kid.

Yeah.

I started a big, big ass fire for doing fireworks. Oh, fireworks.

Yeah.

I think I was. So I was living in Jamaica Plain, which is at the time it was a bad neighborhood outside of Boston. I think it's supposed to be gentrified now.

Oh, wow.

So now that was. I was 13, right? Yeah, I was 13. So that was his age.

Yeah.

And we, we were lighting firecrackers in this field and it started off just like this little fire and we're stepping on the fire and then the wind blew and we're like, oh. And then it just raged. It raged through this feet field and we ran out into the street and just by sheer luck found a cop. And then we told the cop. The cops, like, get the out of here. Like, we told them what we did. We were live fires.

We're sorry.

Right.

And they wound up putting it out. This is said in a statement he was not accepted to Orange County Juvenile hall due to absence of injuries or immediate threat to building buildings. Okay.

Yeah.

He's a kid. They just said you're a kid. You up?

Yeah.

Well, that's good.

Yeah.

I mean, but we got out of there and then we came back like the next day and we saw all the. We burnt. It was like, oh, my God. It was like this huge area that was burnt. Luckily no one lost their life, but it was just sheer luck.

Yeah.

You know, it could have totally been next to someone's house. Totally.

Yeah. Propane tank, anything? Anything.

Yeah, anything. You never know.

Or y' all could have actually got, like. Seriously. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was just luck.

Yeah.

Dumb young kids. You leave them alone. The fact that any kid could go buy a lighter.

Yeah, yeah. Anywhere. Yeah.

You buy a lighter.

Yeah.

And you can just light things on fire when you're a kid.

That's what you want to do.

Yeah. You want to light things on fire.

Yeah, yeah.

It's. There's a million times in my life I could have done something stupid and gone the wrong way.

And, yeah.

Just by sheer luck, I didn't. And, you know, when I talk to people like yourself who obviously are very intelligent and have a lot to contribute, and you just imagine, like, that could have been me, man. It could have been any of us. That's the thing that people need to really get in their head. It could be any of us. Absolutely any of us. And leaving these communities the way they are and not doing anything to try to fix them is. Is, to me, it's the biggest failure of our government other than, you know, interventional war. You know, interventional foreign. Interventionist foreign policy and starting wars that are unnecessary and costing lives, which is the worst thing we've ever done, and that's the next worst.

Yeah.

Is that we don't do anything about it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, I think it goes back to what you was talking about earlier with talent. Like, how much talent are we leaving on the table? You know, like, when I was just there in Rollite, and so I went to this juvenile program over there, and. And, you know, the reason I went is these kids, they're working in a music program, and they've, like, gone from, like, getting into all types of trouble to, like, now they're using art to, like, you know, really shift how they think about life. And so I was like, well, I'm gonna come over there and spend time with them because I've. I've dabbled in. In working with. I ended up doing this spoken word piece with Nas on one of his albums, and the kids, they were just fired up about how you can use writing in these other mediums. And so they wanted to work with me on it. But the talent that is wasted in prison, the ingenuity.

Just think about the thing about being able to make a tattoo gun out of a piano wire or guitar string and an engine from something else. Some sort of a motor.

Tape player. Yeah, yeah.

And you see some of the tattoos these guys make in Jay. Like, Jesus Christ, these are incredible tattoos.

I'm inked up all these. I Got, like. I actually got in trouble for getting tattooed one time. I got caught, like, getting. Getting. Getting tattooed. The tattoo artist wasn't good enough for getting rid of the gun. So my life, I think it was the last thing I got in trouble for in prison was getting a tattoo, too, which was crazy. I was trying to get a cover up right here.

Was that when you were already out of solitary?

Yeah, so I was out of solitary. Yeah. I was actually working my way down to, like, going home, and I was just like, ah, we in lower level. Let me have this guy slam this ink in. Cover this up real quick. And we literally got busted because he couldn't get rid of the gun fast enough. And they actually took 90 days for me for that, though.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. So when you get a misconduct, they take days from you, you know, and. And, you know, you think about some of the stuff, like you're taking 90 days from a person for a tattoo. Their own body.

Yeah. For what?

Like, why are you. Why is the excess of punishment?

But it goes like, how many of those guys could get out of jail and be excellent tattooists?

Absolutely.

You know?

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's the. That's the. That's the. That was. The other part of the idea with. With MIT is like, how do we. How do we tattoo take people who don't have traditional kind of educational backgrounds and utilize their talent so that they can add value to society? You know, it's one of the things that I appreciate about Silicon Valley is that talent is literally more important than your educational pedigree. And, like, if you. If you're talented, they're trying to figure out how can you contribute in a way that is meaningful. It's the same thing with, like, art, you know?

Well, it's. Cause it's so competitive. Competitive. They just want to get ahead. And oftentimes people that aren't educated are some of the most incredibly talented people. They just have some weird things about them.

Yeah.

That allows them to think differently.

Yeah.

They don't care you didn't get a degree. Like, hire them quick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I worked in. I worked in silicon for three years, and I invested there, so I'm super happy about that. But, yeah, I worked. I worked in tech and. And, you know, when I was there, it was so fascinating to, like, you know, being especially, like, a startup, you know, just that startup energy of, like, let's just break a bunch of things, let's fail and let's fix it and let's figure it out and win. And I'M like, that's, that's the streets, right? Like I tell people this. Like I, I learned like my business acumen comes from two worlds, from the streets in prison. And what I learned from the streets is marketing and promotion. I was one of the best at like figuring out how to get our product into other areas. There were a lot of skill sets that I, I didn't, I didn't even recognize them until I was far removed from that world that, oh, this is just like entrepreneurial talent, you know, the ability to problem solve. Like I remember one, one, one of the houses we sold at, they called them trap houses. Not back then, we called them crack houses. We get this house, it's in the middle of a nice neighborhood neighborhood. And this house is, it's, it's cranking, it's making a lot of money. Cuz people over here still have money that's buying the drugs. But we pull up one time and I'm like, it is a line down the street. I'm like, we're definitely going to jail. Like this is like, we clear, we on a clear path. We're going to jail like very soon, right? And so I was like, I was sitting there looking at it and I was like, the reason it's a lying because we got this Armor raw garbage gate like as soon as you walk up, so you can't go past this gate. And I was like, well, what if we move the gate to between the kitchen and the basement and allow the traffic to snake down into the basement? Then we kind of keep our, you know, we conceal more low key. Yeah, keep more low key. So it would be stuff like that that I was figuring out at like 13. Then it's like smuggling drugs. Like I would, I would hop on a greyhound with like a family sized bag of chips that I've ripped open, put drugs in, super glued back up. I put like a slurpee in one hand and I just walk on like a little kid. Meanwhile I got like, you know, the half a brick of cocaine bag going down Ohio. Like I'm hustling, right? So I say to people like, I learned like the marketing and promotion distribution part there. And then in prison I learned operations like how does cash flow work? So I loan shark. That was part of my, like my livelihood in prison was long sharking and then running these underground stores. And basically I worked in the recreation center, which was like the hub. So I had access to both cell blocks, which means that I can circulate cash on the off days when this cell Block gets money this week. This one doesn't. So I can loan money here, pick up the next week, and I would just circulate this cash. So I was starting to generate this cash flow, and then I began to really understand interest rates. And the interest rates in prison are ridiculous. Like 100% markup on everything. But also was able to convert that cash, right? So, like, say you were on a gambling table, Joe, and you're like, you're down $100 and you don't got it right now. And then I got it. And then I can come to you and say, okay, I'll give you 100. But then I need your girlfriend or your mother to send me 75 to my account. Cause that's more value. Valuable is the money I have in my account. And so that was called a money transfer. We would just transfer cash. And so I learned these things. And then when I got out, you know, I started off hustling books out of the trunk. Like, a lot of people, they talk about the out the trunk experience. Cause it's kind of, like, fashionable and cool. I seriously was like, Lily. I had a little Honda Civic, and I would go all over Detroit. Parks, strip clubs, you name it. Bars. I would literally set up. Sometime I'll set up a little booth inside the clubs. A couple of my friends, they. They managed the strip clubs. They'd be like, yo, come to. Come up to the club. I'd be like, I come up there with books, and I'm talking to the girls, and they doing lap dance. I'm selling books and. Wow. Yeah. And I'm like, that's. So. That's how I really started the. The journey. And I mean, my first. First day out of prison, I sold my first book in a parole office parking lot. And so I. I took these skill sets from those two worlds, and I just applied them to legitimate enterprise. And then as I began to kind of pick up, you know, notoriety through. Through that and the storytelling, you know, I started speaking at companies, and then I actually ended up joining the company that I used to speak at and who became a client of mine. They was trying to figure out their company culture. And how did.

What did.

How'd that work out? Like, what. What was that about?

Yeah. So a really good friend of mine, Ben Horrors, you. You've had his partner, Mark Andreessen, on o. Yeah, so. So Mark's partner, Ben is a really good friend of mine. He's one of. One of my. My. He's. He's my. One of my best friends. But he's also, like, a great mentor and somebody who really, you know, we're always having these idea exchanges. But one time he invited me to his home for dinner with one of the founders of one of their portfolio companies. And the founder and I, we hit it off. He's this tough, tough Israelian guy who's been through some stuff. So we would have these conversations about, like, grit and determination. And he had this company called Trip Actions at the time, time, and they were going through. They were like a skyrocket. This was hot. It was going through a lot of things. And then when the pandemic hit, the thing, the first thing that suffered was, was travel, you know. And so I was. I had already been helping the company, like, figure out, like, some, like, kind of more like cultural values and. And the culture. And he asked me to join the company, you know, And I originally joined as the head of DEI because he really wanted to figure out, out what was happening in the company, how to set people up for success. And one day I spoke at an event, and the chief Revenue officer was like, I need everybody on the sales team to be able to communicate like that effectively, you know. And so I took on my second role, which was head of sales and success culture. I got a chance to train one of the best sales teams in the world. This company went from, like, zero revenue to, like, like, you know, it's not $9 billion valuation. How do you crush.

How do you sort out a program like this? Like, you had. You'd never done this before.

No, but I did it in prison with figuring out how to, like, run and operationalize the things I was doing in prison. Right. So, like.

So how did they recognize you that this would transfer over to their corporation?

I think just conversations, like, conversations. Things I was doing. I was doing some of this stuff in nonprofit world, too. So I led a organization in LA around nonprofits, raised a ton of money, was able to really kind of build out their culture. And then Ben actually wrote this book called what yout Do Is who youo Are. And in the book, he talked about some of our conversations around culture. And it kind of gave them a framework to really understand how these lessons I learned in prison could really be applied in corporate. And, you know, we hear it all the time, if you can run. If you can run a drug operation, you can run a corporate. And I don't think it's that simple. I think it sounds great when people say it like, Freeway, Ricky Ross probably can run a corporation. Not everybody who hustles in the street is freeway Ricky Ross. Right, right. There is some skill sets to run an actual startup that you need have a lot more experience. The people part of it. Like, how do you really build relationships? That's one of the things I was really good with in prison is like really knowing how to be diplomatic, knowing how to resolve conflict. You know, a lot of times in prison when violence escalates, it's because people are fighting for respect. And if you can make sure that both parties walk away with their respect in place, you can become a real problem solver. And that's like an inherent value in that environment. Now the caveat is that you also have to have a propensity for violence. Like, people have to respect. Like you're not just telling them something because you don't want people getting into dust ups on the yard, but you're telling them because you've actually lived that life. And all of that psychology from that world applies in any corporate setting, any company. You can imagine. All the things that people are going through, it's the same thing that's happening in prison. The only difference is your colleague might shank you with an email versus like, they might slide their email. That's the only difference. But the mindset, mindset of like what people are really after, you know, that is the same thing that you're dealing with in prison when you're talking about like the economy, right? And how do you, how do you build? So, you know, in there I would, I would find guys to invest in, you know, so if it's like you, you ride in, you from the neighborhood, your family's not taking care of you, I would say, okay, well, this little homie, he's on his cell block. I'm gonna give you, you know, 30, $40 and then you gotta flip. But you also gotta be able to defend it, you know what I'm saying? Like, I can't come and fight your battle for you. The same thing that happens in corporate, right? You are assigned a responsibility. The CEO can't bail you out of there. He can give you the opportunity and he can ensure that you have all the things you need to succeed. If he's a good CEO or she's a good CEO, but then you got to do the work, you know. And so all those lessons I learned from in there, how to build community. One of the things that I would do because I was hustling on the sale block is I made sure that me and my crew, that we broke bread every day, like we always would take Our little ramen noodle cook ups together and we would make sure that everybody that we said was like part of our family and crew, it didn't matter if they didn't have money, it didn't matter if they couldn't put a 10 cent noodle in. Just that ability for them to know that when we come to break bread, we're all on the same playing field. Like that was a game changer. You know, we, we trained together every day, you know, and when we would train, there was an accountability that we just commanded of each other. It's like if you say you're gonna be on the yard, be on the yard, you know, you're gonna go for 10 laps today. We're gonna, we're gonna push you and drag you and help you get around, you know, and it, and it built this closeness and, and you know, and there was some, there was some little chaotic nature to it, all right, because like our friendships didn't come easy. Millionaire, you know, the price of entry was probably like the craziest ever. Like my, my thing was like, when, when, when I welcome you into my world, it's based on these two things. Are you willing to do life or are you willing to give a. Give or lose your life? And if you're not willing to do life or take a life and you, we can't, we can't be hanging out on the yard because the stakes are that high. Right? It's the same thing in corporate where you're like, listen, we're fighting for something in the startup, we're fighting for, for this outcome, you know, acquisition, a merger, a ipo, whatever that thing is to change the world. Like we gotta be in the trenches together, you know, and if we break bread together, if we spend this time together, we realize we're fighting for that one thing. It's a game changer, you know. And so when I go into these companies, you know, I come in with that mindset of just like the honesty, the vulnerability, you know, the things that even in the book that I'm talking about now is like vulnerability. When you hear that. A lot of people don't think that applies to being a CEO, but it's the, it's one of the greatest unlocks in your company culture is when you can get super transparent. And like, I learned that from being around great, you know, Ariel, he was a great CEO and he always got super real with us. And when he got super real, it didn't always feel good. But what it did is it allowed you to look at, okay. This is what we're really down dealing with, you know, and you got to face that thing head on. And that's what applies in your real life, you know, that's the only thing that applies. Yeah.

Being super real is. It's everything.

Oh, my God.

It's the game changer as soon as you're bullshitting.

Yeah.

Like now, what is truth? What's reality?

How do you.

How do you succeed if you're not dealing in reality?

Yeah. And that's where real grit comes from, is the truth. You know, like, you can't. You can't have grit without having honesty.

Right.

You know what I mean? Like, it's you. You know, we hear it in sport. I'm a. I'm a crazy sports fan. I think the best stories about how you conquer life come from sports.

I agree.

And, you know, grit and resilience, the fundamental parts of that comes down to the truth. Like, you have to be. You have to, you know what's in you. Right. You know, if you got that thing to push forward or if you don't. And when guys quit, like, it's because their truth is that they're not strong enough to keep going. Right. You know, and so that all that stuff applies, you know, in, in corporate and business. And when I was writing about it, obviously I'm writing about it from a different perspective of like, you know, I. I had an experience, man, that was like, what. What even sparked me to write the recent book was I dealt with something that was so high level complex that it landed me on the deepest level of gratitude. And it was. My brother was murdered in July of 2021. And I was sitting in our family's living room, and I'm watching my family mourn. And I was struck by this profound sense of guilt because I know I made somebody else's family feel like that. And so while I should have been grieving my brother and trying to unpack that, it was navigating this complex world. And what it led to was the toughest year of my life, emotionally, of trying to reconcile my brother's murder with who I had become as a kid. And what I landed on was that gratitude is one of the greatest keys to freedom and is that if we can lean into being thankful for all of it, right? The. The challenges, the. The wins, the victories, all the things that you can. You can live a life that is so rich and abundant in. In fulfillment because you're always in that spirit of gratitude and you're thankful for the moments you're in.

Yeah.

And that to me, when you're in a, when you're in a, in a company setting. Setting and everything feels chaotic and you're like, you know, damn, I don't want to get up and go to work. If you can just pause for a minute and be like, man, I'm thankful that I get a chance to get up and go to work.

Yeah.

And I'm thankful for these times. I'm thankful for the abundance and that this brings into my life and that, you know, it's hard sometimes for people to see it because they haven't lost anything. But when you've lost everything, you know, you're thankful for. Like, like, you know, my gratitude practices are. I wake up in the morning and I try to identify three things that I'm thankful for. And they can't be the super obvious things. They can't be like, you know, my wife and my kid and the house and the things. It's these small things, you know, things that I get excited about. Like, I got cold orange juice today. Like, how amazing is that? You know what I mean? Like, that, that, that matters to me, you know? You know, I have, I have a device that I can actually communicate with the world. An idea, you know, that I have, like in a moment that I have it. Like, that's gratitude, you know, it's like I got toothpaste today. You know, soap. Soap is a big thing in my life. Like, you know, there was a time when I was in prison when, and I don't know what was happening in my family's life, you know, but I didn't have any money and I couldn't even buy a bar of soap. And all I had was this state issue soap. And it's a little small bar, about this big. It's probably about a quarter of an inch thick and it smells like pine saw. And I just remember like, like this moment of like, man, I can't afford a bar of soap right now, you know, and in that same stretch, I was in solitary and I didn't have these shower shoes. So in prison you get these little, you know, shower shoes that you buy for like $2 because you're going to take a shower in this, you know, this, this cesspool of all this random body fluids or whatever. And I tried to wear my regular shoes to the shower. And officer was like, you can't wear those to the shower. I'm like, what do you want me to stand barefoot in that shower? She was like, I don't care what you do, but you can't wear those. And, like, that feeling of, like, shame, you know, that, like, I was a drug dealer, you know, I hustled, I took care of people, I stood up for people, and I don't have $2 shower shoes. Like, that is what allows me to appreciate all the things, you know? And so what I say to people is, like, find the things in your life to be thankful for. You know, Find them, like, be intentional about it, though, you know? Cause that's. That's. To me, that's the ultimate freedom, man, is gratitude. And to be thankful about, you know, even our complex country, like, we gotta. We live in a very complex country. Country. It's actually kind of dope, though, you know? And I don't think we spend enough time, you know, talking about the things that we should be grateful for just being here, you know, I think all kids should be, like, part of education. They should have to travel. Especially if you're in this country, I think you should have to travel to places that don't have all the trappings of possibilities, you know, And. And I just think that gratitude is a game changer.

I think so, too, because I think it's too easy to focus on negative. And negative begets more negative. If you just find the things in your life that suck and dwell on those, your life's gonna suck more.

Absolutely.

It's just simple mathematics. It's. It's real. I know people that are very successful that aren't. Gratitude. They don't have gratitude.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's crazy.

Yeah. That's who I wrote the book for. For those people is like.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I know so many people that are, like, very successful but very unhappy. Happy.

Yeah.

I remember one time. It's a story when I was on television, I was on this TV show called News Radio. And we would get the ratings in. And when we get the ratings, you know, we weren't doing that well. It wasn't a very successful show. It was only successful once it got off the air, ironically, in syndication, it became. Because it was a good show.

Yeah.

But they were all sitting around, they were reading Variety and Variety magazine and the Hollywood Report. I would call them the Devil's Rag because, like, you guys are, like, concentrating on all this that is making you compare yourself to other people. And you're all getting upset that we're not after Friends. We're not after Seinfeld. Go. Last time I checked, I'm on television.

We're on television.

You know, few people get to Be on a sitcom. And we're. You're. We're here pissing and moaning because we're not on the biggest sitcom.

That is so crazy. The only people would trade lives with you.

I mean, I used.

I had a ton of terrible jobs doing construction, delivered newspapers.

I did everything.

Drove limos.

I did everything.

I'm on tv. I'm happy as fuck.

Right.

But for these people, like, there was never, you know, it's just. It's just a symptom of Hollywood itself, because Hollywood is all about. About who's number one.

Yeah.

It's not just about, like, you're making a great living doing something that's really fun. It's like, no, no, no. Someone is out there being Tom Cruise.

Right?

How come I'm not Tom Cruise? You know, this is Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise. I'm not Tom Cruise.

Right.

You know, and that's literally.

And then they. They live miserable. They're multi millionaire miserable people. Which is.

Yeah. Craziest thing.

A kid like me who grew up on food stuff, it's like, what is wrong with you people?

This is crazy. Like, you're living the dream.

You're.

You're in.

You're not.

Maybe you don't have the number one dream, but guess what? No one's paying attention to you.

So you don't get scrutinized. You can go to a restaurant. You don't have fucking cameras in your face. You actually live in a better dream.

Yeah.

My friend Brian said this to me once. My friend Brian Callan, he said, all you want is to be able to go to a restaurant and order or anything you want and not worry about what the bill costs. Everything after that is.

Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, that is like, some of the best wisdom ever. Because it doesn't matter how big your house is. It's just your house, man. You get used to all that.

Absolutely.

There's some nice things that come with money.

They're nice. But freedom is nicer than all those things.

And everybody has that.

No, it's the ultimate. Yeah. And ultimate wealth.

And just not worrying about your bills is. Though.

I remember I got a development deal, which for comedians is. This is back in the day when everybody. They were trying to turn everybody into Jerry Seinfeld. They tried to turn everybody into a sitcom. Roseanne. They would come to comedians and they'd give you a development deal and they would give you like, $100,000 or something like that. And then they would try to write a sitcom around you and develop a pilot. This Was like the game that was the hustle. And the first time I got a development deal, I think I was 26, I guess I was 26, something like that. And you know, my whole life I'd been paycheck to paycheck, always broke, you know, and for the last five years, just hustling as a comedian trying to get by.

I was just as happy that I.

Didn'T have to have a regular job.

Right.

I was just a comedy comedian, but I was always broke. And then all of a sudden I got. I think I got $150,000. And it was like this enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders. It was the craziest weight. It was like physical weight. I was like, now I don't have to worry about my bills. Like I was every month. It was like, can I pay rent? Can I keep the lights on? You know, can I afford gas to get to my gigs? It was just like that. I was like barely getting no health insurance, no nothing and nothing.

Just barely getting, getting by.

But that physical weight, I remember, I'll never forget that. I was like, that's the most important thing is to not worry about your bills.

Absolutely.

But then everybody's worried about what Bob's.

Got a 22 foot boat, I've got.

An 18 foot boat.

Right.

Like Jesus Christ.

All things don't really matter when it comes down to.

Yeah, it's like that, that there's an. I forget who said it. Comparison is a thief of joy. Is that Thoreau? No, Thoreau is. Most men live lives of quiet desperation. That's my other favorite one. Yeah, I think it might have have been. Might have been Jefferson who said comparison to Steve for joy. But it is, it's like you can.

Miss out on gratitude when it's right in front of your face.

You have so many things to be happy for.

Absolutely.

But this weird world.

This is why I also tell people, stay the off social media, man.

Yeah.

You know how you depress. For sure.

Oh, it's compared.

This is.

Jonathan Haight wrote a book about what it's doing to young girls. It's like they're comparing themselves constantly to everybody else else. And these girls are using filters and everybody's like, you, you. And then they're getting plastic surgery and changing this and changing that.

Yeah.

Look at all my. Look at my bag, look at my.

Jewelry, look at my car, look at my this, look at my that. And it's just everyone's constantly in this state of comparison and no one is happy just to be alive and Healthy in America in a wild time of change.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's, that's, that's the thing that I've really been struck by, you know, when I. When I got out and talking to some of, you know, the guys and women that I know who've been incarcerated, you know, I do think that we all operate out of that same injury of just, I mean, energy, of like, just deep gratitude, you know, because you. You do really begin to understand what is value when you take it away. Right. And, like, it's that saying of, like, you know, you can have a million problems until you get sick, and then you only have one. Yes. And that's the thing about, like, losing and freedom. Right. And what I've been struck by is, you know, you talk about the people who looks like they have it all and they're not happy and they're not fulfilled. That's like being struck with that illness where it's like you got all the trappings of life right here at your disposal, but you're trapped into this idea that, you know, and sometimes it's not that it's not real stuff. Right. Like, trauma is real.

Sure.

You know, shame is real. You know, grief is something none of us are getting through this life without grief. Like, that's just factual. Like, if you live, you know, any considerable amount of time to where you're conscious, you're going to grieve at some point, you know, somebody's going to die, you're going to lose a job, you're going to lose an opportunity, a loved one.

Yeah, nobody gets all highs.

Exactly. And I think what, what happens is that one, we just haven't created space to, like, talk about what that really is for us. You know, we just kind of deal with it on our own, and then it trips people up because it can get heavy time, you know, and if you get hit with a few things back to back, it can actually be overwhelming. But if you lean into some of these things, that really centers you, you know, being present. Like, I'm. I'm super present in the moments of some time, it can be annoying to the, to the people in my life because I'm just like, no, I actually changed my mind, like, literally this moment, and I'm like, what are you talking about? We planned this whole thing for, like. Yeah, but I changed my mind because in this moment, this is where I really want to be. But it's a beautiful space to be, you know? Yeah. That's what I learned in prison. So I tell people, like, I was incarcerated before I ever stepped foot in a prison cell. I was free before I ever got out of solitary. And that. That freedom of mindfulness, that freedom of really understanding that the rest of my life is on me, you know, I didn't know if I was getting out of prison. Here's what I knew. Whatever happens, my son is going to be able to look at me and say, you know what? My dad went through all of these things, but here's who he came became as a person that you can't. It's not a box that can contain it, you know, and it's not a. It's not a gate that can keep you back from that. Like, that's all the inside work. That's the inside job. And, like, that's how I just try to live my life is like, you know, it's. It's. You know, I see it and it's sad because it's all the things you say. It's like the competition with. With people. Highlight reel, right? Like, you can't compete with somebody's highlight reel.

Exactly.

It'll drive you crazy.

It's not even a real highlight. A lot of these cars out there, come on.

The least cars is. Is I saw a car out here that I took a. I mean, I've had people be like, yo, can I take a picture in front of your car?

Yeah.

So. So, you know, when you get behind and you realize, like, man, what do people really care about? Where's the most joyous? Like, the friendships you develop, the people you spend time with? Like, those things are invaluable, you know? And that's not to say that people shouldn't aspire towards success. Like, I'm like, listen, leave it all on the floor. Whatever task you've been given in life, like, go out and execute it to the fullest capabilities possible. Like, don't. Don't undersell yourself. Don't half do it. Don't quit on yourself. Go for it. Push yourself to the limits. But understand, you got to be present in the moments that you live in, otherwise it's going to be squandered time. And so that's how I just try to live my life, man. I'm like, I'm enjoying it, you know, I want to enjoy it. I work hard, you know, sometimes, you know, it's probably annoying to people around me that how hard I work, but. But I find joy in that, you know, there's joy in the actual work, you know, otherwise I wouldn't do it.

So there's joy in most aspects of life that people miss out on because they just can't appreciate it because they.

Haven'T been in prison. What's the thing about that?

We should send everybody to the Bing, at least.

I don't advocate for that, but I think in your mind, I think what you were saying that you were in prison before you were ever in prison. Prison. There's a lot of people that just don't understand how to think, and that's something we don't teach people at a young age. And how. How to think.

Absolutely.

And I think it's.

It's a.

It's a gigantic factor in where you find yourself in life and whether you find yourself living a happy, fulfilled life or whether you find yourself, you know, in one of those people that lives in quiet desperation.

Yeah.

Which is most people out there.

Yeah. I mean, they've been talking about this epidemic recently with. With. With males in general and just, like, how men are not satisfied with, like, life, you know, And I'm like, part of it is, like, I think one, we have to be better. I think this is something. Women build community way better than men do because we're so competitive and like you, and we're not always willing to be vulnerable. But I can say, like, well, my friendships that I have with men, it starts at vulnerability. You know, it starts with, like, the depth of, like, what does it mean to be vulnerable? What are we struggling with today? Right. You know, how are you really. Like, how are you really feeling today? You know, how did that. How did you feel when that deal didn't go through or when you lost that money? And, like, you don't have to put the cape on and try to figure it all out in one day. But my responsibility to you as your friend, is to ensure that you have a space that we can come and go get brutally honest, you know, how are you navigating parenting? Like, it's tough, right? It's. It's. Relationships are tough, you know, marriage, all these things that require, you know, a different muscle. And, like, it's almost like we talk about them in these very kind of extreme ways. Right. Either it's like extreme, toxic masculinity, or it's the feminization of males.

Right.

And the truth is, like, it's neither of those. Those things, you know, those are narratives, but they're not the narratives. Doesn't necessarily mean that they're true. You know, what is true is that we have not created space for honesty and transparency and vulnerability, and we haven't identified that as actually a strength. And so what I've. What I found that's been amazing, man, is the men that I'm in relationships with as my brothers and my friends. That vulnerability piece is like, has been a super unlock for us actually having enjoyable friendships, you know, And I think, you know, it's all the things that, you know, these things translate into your work experience. They translate into your relationship with your children. Like, I get so inspired by like my friends, which I also think is important. It's like you should be inspired by the people you spend time with. Like that that's invaluable. You know, it doesn't mean that you're going to deal with, with their heart, you know, the hard parts of their life. But if, if you're inspired by them and you're vulnerable with them, the hard parts of their life become beautiful. You know, I mean, those are easier things to navigate because it becomes what the real meaning of honor is. Yeah.

You know, the thing about men being competitive with each other, that's a huge problem. It's a huge problem. Not enjoying your friends success.

Success.

Not. Not wanting them to succeed. Like secretly wanting them to fail. You, you will never live a happy life if you're secretly wanting people to fail. Yeah, you will never live a happy life if you, you want to seek. If you seek joy in other people's failure, you will never. You'll never live a happy life. That is not the way. The way is if someone is doing really well and you feel jealousy, what is that, what is that feeling that you're comparing yourself to them?

Well, you have two choices.

You can either be bitter and upset and negative, which does you no good.

Or you can be inspired.

So their success can be fuel that.

Makes you work harder.

Absolutely.

And actually, you should thank them for that. Yeah, you should even thank people you don't like if you find them, their success to make you feel uncomfortable. Yeah, like, oh, what it. Fuck that dude. No, no, that's not the way.

The way is.

What is he doing?

Oh, he's working harder.

He's doing this. He's figured out this. He's more objective. He's more analytical. He's figured out a way to work harder.

Absolutely.

He's figured out a way to work smarter. He's more. More honest with himself about stuff. He writes things down. He's got a chart on his wall where he figures out what he's doing wrong and how to correct it. And he's doing that work and he's correcting it. I'm not doing that. That's why he's getting ahead and I'm not.

Okay, okay.

But you got to be vulnerable, even with yourself.

Absolutely. That's the super unlock, right? Is that, that's what I got out of journaling. Like that. Journaling was like, you know, when I, when I, when I sat down and first started journaling, my one task to myself was, you have to be brutally honest. And you have to be. And this. And it's going to, it's not going to be pretty, but you got to be brutally honest. Only sit down and journal when you're ready to be brutally honest. And that, that was a game changer for me. Like, I remember there was a guy, he was in the cell next to me and we got, we got into this minor conflict. He owed me for some cigarettes that, you know, he got on credit. He didn't pay it. And when I wouldn't give him more on credit, he blew the power out of my cell. So he stuck some in the light socket, right? And I'm over here, I'm like, I'm already. Cuz I, I had went to the yard that day to the, the, to the, the cages, right? So we go out and normally I don't really go out in the, in the winter time, you know, this is solitary. So I might go like a month, like during February, it's brutally cold in Michigan, but I get up and I go out. I hadn't been out, you know, I think most of January I probably hadn't been out. And so I go out to the cages and this one guy, he gets into it with the officers. You know, they're having a little verbal, you know, altercation and the officers take it out on all of us. So we're only supposed to be out for an hour. So that hour in my mind already programmed for. I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna walk, I'm gonna do my walking for about 15 and I'm push ups, you know, whatever, keep myself warm, et cetera. They left us out there. It had to be for hour 45. Way beyond what we were supposed to. Supposed to be, right?

Just keep you cold.

Yeah, just keep us cold. I mean, like, we're initially like. I mean, by the time I come in, I'm so cold. I'm past the shivering point. And so I'm, I'm pissed. I'm, you know, I'm pissed. And then the neighbor's like, yo, can I borrow some more cigarettes? He ain't pay me back And I'm like. I cuss him out, man. No, you ain't getting no more cigarettes, Joe. I'm over here steaming, bro. I'm so. I'm like. Literally, I'm like. I'm enraged, but I'm like. I'm super cold. And, like, the power is out, so. Cause the power is. I had, like, a little radio. I can, like, block out some of the noise so I can read and write, you know, and sometime they'll come fix it in a couple hours, but sometime it can be days, you know? And so by the time I thaw out, I'm like. I had just started this journaling journey, you know, And I just started writing down. I catch this motherfucker in the yard, I'mma shank him. And, you know, I'm going. I'm. I'm furious, you know? And I come back a couple of days later, because that's what I would do. I would write, and then I would come back and read what I had written. And I was like, this is the mind of a madman. Like, this person. Like, I would not want this to be a person that I live next door to, right? So you got to get your shit together, you know? And so I rolled through this process, and, you know, even now, you know, I still have all my journals. They're actually on a pat. So similar to that, like, that notepad, I still have all my journals from prison, and I can go and flip through the pages, and it's like, you know, one thing I didn't do enough of. I wish now encourage people who journal is write the dates on everything. Because I didn't write all the time. I didn't write the dates, but I can go back, man, and I flip through, and sometimes it's beautiful, you know, Sometimes it's these moments where I can see myself awakening, you know, and I see this desire to be a different person. Person, and I see just the. The honesty there. You know, if, like, listen, I'm not. I'm not there yet. You know, I feel it, you know, I'm afraid that, you know, what if I. What if I become nice? Can I survive the yard? Now, what does that mean, you know, to, like, not be angry? Angry is a power in prison, you know, It's a. It's a. Nobody wants to mess with an angry person in prison or a crazy person. So these things are. Are. They have value, you know? Who am I without my anger?

You know?

And so I can see this enlightenment in real time, and I'm just like, man, you Were you were really a kid. You know, it's like you're trying to figure this, this stuff out with. No, you know, there's no therapist. There's no, you know, you know, you don't have anybody to interpret. You don't even have language for this. You just know you're hurting. And you know that that's the, the anger is really hurt. You know, it's really disappointment. It's all these things. And that, that writing it down, like, I highly encourage people to, like, really, it's. It's one of the things that I attribute to my success today. All the things that I want to manifest in my life, I have written down. I've literally written them down. I mean, now we got technology. I'm constantly writing things down on my phone when I don't have access to pen and pad. But there's something powerful about like handwriting, like just the, the meditative process of seeing one word after another. But it starts with that. You got to get real with yourself, you know, and it's. It. You know, for me, it was, it was so hard because early on I blamed everybody, you know, I blamed my dad, you know, I blamed my mom. Like, why would you hit me out of anger? You know, blame my dad? Why would you let her do that? You know, what has led to that? Journaling led to me having powerful relationships with my parents because it taught me how to be vulnerable and it taught me how to talk to them without judging them, you know, and to really spend time with them and say, you know, you know, I remember my mother, we had this, we had this, we had a dust up, you know, because she was upset by something I had written. And she said to me, you know, you don't know what my life was like back then. And she said it multiple times. And I just listened to her and I said to her, I was like, ma, how would I have had understood your life when I was 9 years old? And it just stopped her, you know, and it allowed us to actually talk about who she was and where she at once went through. And it allowed me to forgive her, you know, because that was a tough thing that I had to navigate was forgiveness. And that's another thing that I found in, in, in life, man, is that people hang on to stuff, you know, they. They let it torture them, you know, Meanwhile the other person is off living their life and they're not even thinking about that thing that you're harping over, you know, But I wouldn't have been able to get there without Journaling, you know, I wouldn't have been able to get there without saying, and I'm actually not angry today, I'm hurt. You know, I used to, like, had these moments where this is an extremely vulnerable thing to say, but it's important. Mail call in prison is one of the most emotionally charged times that you will ever serve because it's that moment of a day where everything gets quiet it. And everybody who's in the cell block is waiting to either get excited or get disappointed. And if you're lucky that someone thought about you and they've sent you a letter or they've sent you $20, you know, or $30 or whatever, and it is, it. It induces so much anxiety when you're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting to hear from someone. And I just remember, like writing in my journal, you know, I would go to these stretches, man, and I wouldn't hear from my family. You know, I would write, I would write these long letters and I wouldn't get a letter back. I was going through, you know, a time where I felt extremely vulnerable because of the assault on the officer and was worried about, like, my actual well being, you know, to the point where I started fasting like three days a month. I would, like, not eat anything. I would just drink water and I would just like eat cough drops that I could buy out of the commissary. That was the only thing that you can buy that was like digestible other than medicine when you're in solitary. So you can't, you can't get noodles and all the things. And so we would buy cough drops and eat those like Jolly Ranchers, you know, that was like our little thing. And, And I just would like. I just remember like writing and just being like, man, I just want to hear from somebody, you know, because these people, like, they can do anything to me. Like I've hurt one of their colleagues, you know, and they were telling me they would, you know, tell me, yo, we're going to come in and fuck you up, or we're going to, you know, and when you're going through that, you know, that there's things that they can do. Like they can deprive you of fucking food. They have this concoction in there. I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but it's called food loaf. And basically what happens is, say they pass out the meal and you decide, I'm not going to give the milk carton back, then they could put you on Food restriction. And so instead of getting a regular tray, they give you this loaf of everything that you would have had that day that's packed into this brick that they bake. And so just imagine them just grinding all your food up, you know, your mashed potatoes and chicken patty and string beans, and then baking it into a little brick and then being like, okay, that's your meal for the day. Now, that's what the meal is supposed to be. But what actually happens is they take all the leftover food from that week. We cook that with oatmeal and jello. It actually stays together, and they bake it into these bricks and they put it into the freezer. And then when somebody's on food loaf, they'll send over to the child hall, we got one on food loaf. And they'll. They'll take that brick out, warm it up in the, in the oven, and then send it over to the cell block and. And you can't eat it. It's not, it's. It. It smells so atrocious. It is the most gross thing. But it meets their minimum requirement of what they have to do in terms of nurses nurturing. So in terms of nourishment. So what I would do is like three days, I would just fast and I would just drink water and I would, you know, use my cough drops. And I was doing that because I was preparing myself for if they just decided to make up a lie and be like, oh, he didn't give us back the card, or he threw some food on us. And then I'm like, I'm physically conditioned to go without food and not suffer, right? And then I realized that, that when I started to do it, that it actually had these spiritual and these psychological effects that were like, benefits I didn't know I needed or was looking for. But one. It really was the roots of helping me understand what it means to be resilient and what it means to be capable of overcoming a thing. And then it also just helped me self regulate and know that I can be in control of how I feel about anything. Anything. And so the first time I did it, it felt. I felt like I was suffering. You know, I was like, oh, this is hard. This is, you know, this, this system is forcing me to have to, you know, figure out how to be tough and all the things. But by the time I started to do it, I started to feel like, you know, gratitude and I started to feel like dishonoring of myself, you know, that I'm willing to fight for myself, you Know, but all of that came out of, out of being, you know, raw in those journals and just being like, man, I didn't get any mail to today that hurts, you know, I mean, it's sad. I don't feel thought about, you know, I went 17 years without my mother coming to visit me and that, that psychologically had so much impact on how I saw myself. Of like, your own mother won't come see you, like you're that bad of a person, you know, and so that journaling really helped me undo a lot of that damage. You know, it helped me to start to see myself. It's like, no, you actually are lovable like you are. You are worthy of good things happening to you. You know, there's a lot of bad things that happen to you, but those all weren't a reflection of your self worth. And so when I got out, you know, it helped me have these deeper conversations with my parents and it really helped me understand like, what true forgiveness. You know, there was a time where I had forgave my mother, but it came with attachments, you know, I forgive you, but you got to be this now, you know, you got to be, you got to nurture me and you got to, you know, take me and you know, hug me in your bosom like any other parent would do their child. And it was all contrived in my head, you know, that wasn't forgiveness. That was like this condition. Right. You know, and I see that, and I see that in work, I see it in life, I see it in relationships and parenting is that we're always attaching a thing to the outcome as opposed to saying, yeah, you know, as opposed to just saying, you know what, I forgive you. And, and, and, and, and that's has to be nothing else. Like, you don't have to change, you don't even, we don't even have to like each other. But I'm not going to hold myself hostage to the pain of the past. Like, you know, that's when I think about, you know, grit and I think about sports and you know, I, I watch these, these athletes who compete, you know, they're putting their bodies on the line. And you know, sometimes you can see a person have an injury and you like that person's career over because, you know, they don't have a mental toughness to like overcome that adversity, you know, and you, you see them quitting in a moment and then you'll see the other ones that they'll have that injury and you know, know the moment they get out of the hospital, they're like. They're working. You know, they're working. They're going to work themselves back to, you know, to whatever they need to do to. To compete again, you know, and like, that. That's. All of that is that vulnerability and ability to, like, accept the thing and then decide what you want to do with it.

Well, I think those lessons that you get from athletes is one of the reasons why we love sports so much.

Absolutely.

We see ourselves. Ourselves in these athletes and see their struggles and their triumphs, and we say, oh, I. I think if I work hard, I can do that, too. Or I could do something similar in my own life.

Absolutely.

I think a lot of people are going to get that out of this conversation, too, from you. You know, what. What you've gone through and who you are now is. Is very admirable. You know, it really. The way you express yourself, the way you can talk about these ideas and the way you're so vulnerable to just talk about what you went through, it's. It's a insane journey, you know, And I really appreciate you coming on here, man.

I appreciate you having me, man. It's such a big fan and just so much respect for, you know, the way that you. You know, what I really respect out of you more than anything else is your curiosity. You know, I find that super fascinating that you can be doing anything you want to do in the world, but you remain, like, super curious about life. And that's, like, such an admirable trade and one that I truly appreciate.

But I think we all have that. I think it's just not nourished, you know, I think everyone's curious, and I'm very curious about people. Very curious about what makes a person who they are.

Yeah.

What did you go through? What's. How do you think? Yeah, how do you. How do you go through your day? Like, what is. What is your thought process? Process?

Yeah.

You can learn a lot from people, man. I learned a lot from you. Thank you very much, brother.

Thanks so much for having me, man. My pleasure, My pleasure.

All right, bye, everybody. And Doug, here we have the limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.

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