Leave the past behind: How to move forward | Damon West

You cannot live in the past. It's like when you're driving your car, the rear view mirror is smaller than the windshield for a reason. You need more room to look forward than you do to look backwards. You can't do it the other way around. The same thing happens in our lives when we live in our past. We have to get out of the rearview mirrors, the good and the bad, and focus on today and start picking up your pen to write your story.

I'm a huge believer in redemption, and I mean a big believer. You and I share the Christian faith. And one of the things that has been on my heart after going through homelessness and the things that I've been through is I believe that anything and everything that wants to be redeemed can be redeemed. And when you. We start looking at, you know, a quarterback has it all, and then all of a sudden, obviously make some choices and stuff like that. That kind of leads you down a darker path and ultimately into a 65 year sentence. It's kind of one of those situations. You're like, you want to know all the ins and the outs. And I know God's put so much in you, I'm kind of curious to see what he shakes out of you, but maybe back us up and tell us kind of like how you, how you transition from, you know, kind of being all American, so to speak, you know, into. Into a prison. Yeah.

I think the, the easiest answer to that, Stephen, is probably substance abuse, man. I got into substance abuse at a young age, and it started out very innocently, man. I started out with beer, man. Alcohol was my gateway drug.

Yeah.

After that it was smoking a little bit of pot, had some character. It's Texas, man. I could throw a football. And high school football is a very big deal. It's a religion down here, man.

Yeah.

So being a star quarterback helped me out getting away with a lot of stuff and sweeping some of my character issues on the rug. But, you know, eventually you have to deal with yourself at some point. And when I got injured playing college football at university, I was playing quarterback in North Texas. I got injured against A and M in 96. My career was over. And when my career was over, my identity was gone. Because my identity, my entire identity was wrapped up in being this quarterback, this football player.

Yeah.

Now, now keep in mind the mindset to be a quarterback, it's someone that is a very take charge, someone's very confident, borderline cocky at times, but someone that is a leader is who is a quarterback. So I was down. I didn't have my identity anymore. I didn't have anything really to be motivated for. And I got into more draws. Now it was more hardcore stuff. Cocaine, Ecstasy, pills. But I graduated college, move off to Washington, D.C. i got a job working in the United States Congress. After that, I worked for guy running for President of the United states. And in 2004, I was back in Dallas training to be a stockbroker for one of the biggest Wall street banks in the world, ubs. It was at that job as a broker in Dallas in 2004 that another stockbroker introduced me to methamphetamines.

Oh, gosh.

And this introduction to meth in my life. Stephen I tell people all the time meth is the most evil, most destructive, most addictive drug ever created. Man, this stuff is. It's. It's. It's like a live wire. It. I. I got instantly hooked. It's made in the lab. It's made to get you hooked. I smoked it one time, and I was instantly hooked. And I started giving everything away for that drug because that's what addicts do. We give things away. And addicts, you know, addicts aren't necessarily bad people. They're sick people that do bad things. And that's what I was. I was a sick person that did very bad things in my addiction. But first, before I got to the bad, bad stuff, I had to give things away. Addicts. Addicts give up their goals to meet their behaviors. Normal people, successful people, focus people. They give up their behaviors to meet their goals. But an addict gives things away. And I did that. I gave up my job, my home, my car, my savings account, my family, my tethering to God. Within 18 months of the first hit of that pipe, I went from working on Wall street to living on the streets of Dallas. And then eventually, when I was homeless, I became the quarterback again. This time, I was the quarterback of a bad team. I became the leader of a burglary ring of other meth addicts breaking into people's homes. And it started out in the uptown neighborhood of Dallas. And that's what these burglaries came to be known as, the uptown burglaries. And I became known as the uptown burglar. But on July 30, 2008, three years after the Uptown Burger crimes re began, a Dallas SWAT team put an end to the Uptown Burger, Crown Street. The day that they arrested me, or as I tell audience, where I go, Stephen. July 30, 2008, wasn't just the day I was arrested. That was the day I was rescued, man. I got pulled out of a situation I could not get myself out of. And I know from your story, you understand what it's like to be rescued, just not the way you thought a rescue would look like, right?

Yeah. What's crazy, you also don't realize a lot of times what God is going to be doing with your story. Right. One of the things that I love that you speak about, that I just. It resonates with my soul so much because I see so many people struggling. Doesn't necessarily have to be the entrepreneur. It doesn't have to be necessarily the business owner.

It's.

It's the everyday human being that's. That wants more out of life. Wants more, you know, but they end up trading out the thing that I think God called them for because they're so focused on the thing that they're doing or so focused on the story that they're living. Talk to me a little about rewriting your story because, you know, I know that's been a. It's been an important concept in your transformation. Right? I mean, people. You can't go from one extreme to the other extreme without rewriting your story to a degree. How have you been able to kind of transition that?

No, it's a good point you make, but I want to hit on something you said before I answer the Rewriting youg Story. You hit on something really important about focusing on what God wants you to be doing versus what you kind of want, your. Your goal that you have out there. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever been getting given was from my best friend and mentor and co author, John Gordon. John Gordon and I teamed up to write the Coffee Bean back in. We met in 2018 over the phone through a mutual friend. And we'll talk about this story later. But in 2019, when we wrote the book the Coffee Bean, I had already been out for a couple years on the speaking circuit trying to get some traction. And John told me this. He said, damon, you've been out for a couple years sharing the Coffee Bean message. He said, don't ever stop with your message of be a Coffee Bean. That is your message. That is your brand. That's what you are known as. He said, so many speakers, so many people in general, they give up on their message, on their calling, because they don't see the results fast enough.

Yeah.

And they say, well, maybe it's just. Maybe if I just change the message, maybe what more people flock to that, but they don't realize they're starting back from zero of getting that thing to get. Get stuck, right? Get that. That thing to get traction. He said, stick with it, Damon. It's going to take some time, but eventually your message of be a coffee bean will take off, and you'll be known as the coffee bean guy. And Stephen, seven years after I walked out of prison, five years after I started speaking, the message is finally starting to stick. People are starting to understand and hear the message. And. And people now know me as powerful. Yeah, the coffee bean guy. But John Gordon telling me, stick with that. I mean, if I wouldn't have had that advice from him, I mean, how many people would say after three years, four years, maybe it's time to pack it in. Maybe I should try something different. He gave me the example of Starbucks, and I can't remember how many years. It was like 11 years before Starbucks opened their second store. Stephen, dude, you can't throw a rock without hitting Starbucks now in the world, anywhere in the world, man. But it took them 11 years of pounding the pavement with the message of that one store to get the second store going. You just got to give it time, got to let it. Got to let it marinate. And rewriting your story. You know, I tell people all the time, the first thing you have to do to rewrite your story, and everybody's got a story they want to rewrite, right? Everybody's made mistakes. You want to, but you have to turn the page. That's the first thing you have to do, man. Turn the page. What's happened in the past is done. You cannot live in the past. It's like when you're driving your car, the rear view mirror is smaller than the windshield for a reason. You need more room to look forward than you do to look backwards. They don't. You can't do it the other way around. You can't drive your car looking out the rear view mirror, because if you do that, you get into wrecks. Because now your eyes on the road, you hit things on the road. Everything on the road in front of you in sight, becomes an obstacle. The same thing happens in our lives when we live in our past. You know, the past good things we've done in that rearview mirror. Life. The past bad things we've done that we're not so proud of in that rearview mirror life. We have to get out of the rearview mirrors. The good and the bad.

Yeah.

Turn the page and focus on today and start picking up your pen to write your Story, and that's going to require putting in the work. And that's goes back to another. That thing that John Gordon talked about, you know, about being. Being willing to get out there and. And hustle and go after it, man. When I got out of prison and 2000. We're fast forwarding a little bit.

I got.

I did seven years and three months of that life sentence in prison, and I got out on parole for the next 58 years. I was going to be on parole, still on parole. So I got out, and there weren't a lot of opportunities for a guy like me to go out and speak. In fact, man, when I first started. This is ironic, man. I go into a lot of schools now, but when I first got out, there wasn't a school that would take me in. I mean, I just got out of prison. You can't knock on the door of the school and say, I just got out of the joint. I want to talk to your kids. Yeah, they may lock you back up. Yeah, I had to find. But I had to find a way. So, you know, I asked a local judge, I asked a local law enforcement officer, would you escort me into the schools? I've got a message that I want to share. And they believed it. And that's the thing I tell people all the time, growth follows belief. But you have to believe in yourself before anybody else is going to believe in you. When I came into those. Those men's. Those. Those two men, and I asked them with belief in my eyes, hey, man, look, I've got a message that needs to be shared, I. And they believed it, and they started going around and taking me to schools. It was hard at first, you know, but in 2017, I had already done 700 presentations in front of that mirror. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So you got to be prepared.

You got to put it in the way. Yeah. No, I love that. You know, this other. One of the things that. That also inspires me about your story is how there's a couple different things. So, first of all, it's the way you. The way you perceive pain and the way you perceive obstacles. So I kind of wrote down, you know, originally when I was kind of doing some research. You know, you look at pain as ultimately leading to a promise. You also look at obstacles as ultimately leading to an opportunity, or you already view every obstacle as an opportunity. Do you find that that is something you see with pretty much. Anyway, anyone that comes out of difficult circumstances that goes on to do impactful things? Yeah.

Well, so so you. Yeah, the fact that you delineated it, saying that it goes on to do impactful things. Yes. I think people that can come out of adversity and go and do impactful things, they have found the mindset of finding opportunity in adversity, but not everyone has that mindset of finding opportunity. University.

Unfortunately. And so this is like kind of an indictment on society right now. Society. You know, in some parts of society, it's okay to just to sit back and be a victim and, and look, and I'm not saying that people aren't victimized. A lot of people are victimized victims. I created a lot of victims when I went out and committed crimes. Right. Yeah. I've been the victim of bad things, too, that have happened. I mean, sometimes, you know, bad things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people sometimes. But here's the deal. You can't get stuck in the pain. And when getting stuck in the pain keeps you from going forward in life, that's a problem that is on you. You've got to figure this out. You've got to get in there and figure out, how do I get through this? Some of it has to come from. From being vulnerable, from sharing your feelings with other people. And vulnerability is a strength. Vulnerability gets a bad rap as a word, but vulnerability is a strength. Letting your guard down, letting people get closer to you and. And being able to be transparent, that is a strength. It has to be authentic, though. But I think that right now you see a lot of people out there that get consumed in their pain. And look, all pain is relevant, Steven. If you say it is the worst pain in the world, it is the worst pain in the world. No one can tell your pain isn't real. All pain is relative, but all pain is not evil pain. This is where perspective comes in. And you have this amazing thing in life that God has given you called perspective. That means you know what a bad day looks like. Bad days. Let's talk about what a real bad day looks like. A bad day. A pet dies, a family member dies, a relationship fails, a divorce, a split family. A career is lost, a job is lost. You're fired from something, you lose a fortune, you lose whatever you have. Those are bad days. Most days aren't those kind of days. And if you can peel yourself back from. From the misery that you feel in the moment and say, hey, let me reflect on this and say, is this one of those days?

Yeah.

For example, in my life, when I get up every day, my feet don't hit the cold concrete floor of a prison cell. I'm having a good day and I'm winning. I've got this tremendous perspective from being in prison, but there's only, you know, physical prison is only one form of prison to be in. There's a lot of different ways to be in prison. And when we can back up and say, hey, man, this isn't one of those days, I'm going to have a good day despite what's going on today. It's like traffic, Stephen. You're sitting in traffic sometimes and the traffic bothers you, makes you irate, makes you angry, makes you mad. Then some days you sit in traffic and traffic doesn't bother you at all. You're bliss. You're thinking about other things. Is it the traffic or is it you? It's you. It's always going to be you and the way you perceive the situation you're in.

Yeah, no, that's so good. You know, it also makes me think a little bit about the, you know, obviously the circumstances that you were in in prison from, you know, not. Not falling into. Falling into the gang category or not basically just falling into the entire culture system of the prison system. I know that you've talked about your miracle mom several times. Right. And. And how they want you to come back a specific way. One of the things that admires me is it seems like you avoided the prison of your mind, which actually end up freeing your body long term. Yeah. People. People, I think a lot of times focus, and they get stuck here right there. There's so much unknown here. Rather than just going out, knocking something over, how are you able to get to the point you could compartmentalize? Because ultimately, when you, you know, the part. Some of the parts that I know about your story is that, you know, it was the change of you inside the prison, from the inside out. So it changed in you to go outside the prison, Witnessed it and said, hey, look, maybe we can parole this guy. Like, talk to me a little bit. That mindset shift because I feel like that so many people don't achieve the things that God has called them to achieve specifically because they think it's supposed to be a specific way, or they're wrapped up in here judging themselves, shaming themselves, etc.

Yeah. Or comparing. Or comparing themselves to other people. And comparison is the thief of joy. That's what John Gordon says all the time. You know, I tell people the prison in your mind, is the hardest prison to ever walk out of. I meet more people out here in the free world that are locked up by their thoughts and by their things than by steel bars and barbed wire and concrete. More people are imprisoned by their thoughts and their things than I've ever met when doing time in a real prison. When I was in prison, I found a way to free myself spiritually and mentally every day. My physical body had to be in prison. That was the. The exchange. That was the price I had to pay for violating the social contract. That's what it says when we have laws. If we don't follow the laws, we have to go to prison. But when I sign that judgment sheet after my trial, and I'm signing because you have to sign a piece of paper that says a jury has just sentenced you to 65 years, and the Texas Department of Criminal justice is going to take custody and it says of your body from the sheriff of Dallas County. That paper didn't say the sheriff is going to release custody of your mind and your soul. Yeah. The sheriff is going to transfer your body to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. That stuck with me. I saw. What I saw in there is like, you just got my body. You didn't get my mind and you didn't get my soul. And if I can find a way to keep that free, then I'll be free for real. And whenever I'm finally made parole, seven years and three months later, I was at a point where the rubber meets the road. Now, all three parts of me were going to be free for the first time, but I had spent that seven years in prison free, spiritually and mentally, because I found a way through a recovery program that I got into, that I'm still part of this day. It's AA. I go to my 12 step meetings all the time. I have a sponsor. I work the steps. But in my program recovery, I have found that if I can surrender this idea of control. Because we all feel like we have control of things in life, and that's a fact.

Yeah.

No, you don't. You control four things in life. You control what you think, what you say, what you feel and what you do. And when I say you control what you feel, you control what you do with your feelings. You talk to somebody, do you. Do you explain how you're feeling to other people, but outside of those four things, you really have no control. And it was when I got into a program recovery, and the idea of surrendering the idea. The idea of surrendering the rest of the stuff to my higher power. I'm a Christian, so my higher power is Christ. Other People in aa, they got to choose whatever their higher power is going to be. That's not up to me. It's up to them. But the, the men that I was in recovery with in prison, we all had this thing about us that everybody else wanted. We had serenity and we had peace about us. And that's something that everybody wants. Whether you're in a physical prison, a mental prison, you're a spiritual prison, that serenity and that peace is something that you have to get when you have to. When you give up control of these other things in life. And, and once I did that, I started working on myself. I started working a personal inventory. And these personal inventories are basically keeping your side of the street clean. Finding out what my mess is in life and cleaning up my message, you know, do I owe someone an apology? Okay, then I go make my apology. I make my amends. And when you make an amends to somebody, it does two things. First of all, it frees them from the act that you did against them and it gives them closure on their end, which is the most important part of an apology. It's not about you, it's about them. It's about the person you've wronged. Second part is, though, it does free you too, because it gets that off your back. You don't have to carry that around, something you're going to beat yourself over and judge yourself over. The third thing about an apology, though, is you have to remember is that no one has to accept your apology. That's not part of it. It's not a transaction. You make the apology, they don't have to accept the apology and surrender. And so I started working this program, recovery, doing that. I started keeping my side of the street clean, finding out what my resentments were, what my fears were. And they had this axiom in aa, Whenever I am disturbed, there's something wrong with me. Repeat that for everybody listening. Whenever I'm disturbed, there's something wrong with me. That means every problem that I have, I play a role in that problem somewhere. Yeah, that's the thing that I have to find. That's the thing that if I can find my role in my problems, that's the thing I can fix. That's the thing I can change. That is the only thing I can control in my problems. So when I find out what my role was and my problems, then I can fix them. Give you an example of that, Steve. I had this terrible resentment against the judge in my case, Judge Mike Snipes. I used to hang Out. You read the change agent. You'll see. I used to hang out with this guy on a guy, a buddy Yard's yacht. I would buy him drinks in the bar sometime when he. When his dad died, I was there at the bar buying drinks. This is before he becomes a criminal district court judge and I become a criminal. So I get into his. I get into this case for my life and it's in his courtroom. And I'm expecting some kind of special treatment from him. Again, I've put expectations on another human being. Bad thing to do. You should never put the people. But I come out of this case and I get a life sentence. And he was very hard on me. He handled me rough. I mean, and he let a lot of things in that I thought shouldn't have been in. I thought I was treated very unfairly by Mike Snipes. So I had this big resentment against Mike Snipes. And I get into prison and I'm still carrying this resentment around. I can see, I think about it every day. It's holding me back. Well, I get into AA and I start learning about a personal inventory. I learned that there's three basic instincts that affect all of our human behavior. There's the instinct for social, the need to belong in society. Need to be a part of something bigger than us. There's a need for security, financial security, you know, belonging and, and having a place that you feel secure in life. There's also a need for sex. And I don't mean sex in a bad way. I mean sex in the way that we partner up in life. We procreate, we have families, Social Security and sex. The big book of AA says these three basic instincts are at the core of all, all of the. The problems we have in life affect at least one or all of these three instincts. That's it. These three. So in a personal inventory, you got to plug your resentment in and find out which of these instincts your resentment affects. So the first day I was doing it, I plug in Mike Snipes because I've got this burning desire to. To have a resentment against him. Does my resentment against Mike Snipes, does that affect my social instinct? You bet it does. I'm an ex con now I'm a convict, man. How am I going to fit into society again? Because now I've got this big X on my back. Does it affect my security instinct? You bet it does, man. How am I going to get a job and ever make money again? Because I've got this giant X on my back. Because now I'm a convicted felon. Does it affect my sex instinct? Yeah, you bet it does, man. I'm in prison. First of all, there is no form of sex going on for me in prison. And when I get out, who's going to want me? Yeah. Got this giant X in my back. Right. But the last column and these three columns that you plug in, you have three columns of the instincts. You have. A fourth column you plug in says, what role do I play? Well, I became a drug addict. I became a criminal. I broke into people's houses. I stole people's bonds, I stole people's sense of security. I. I created fear in the lives of other people because of my actions. I broke the social contract, Stephen. So therefore, I put myself into this courtroom that happened to sit Mike Snipes at the front of it, and he was able to do anything he wanted to do with me because of the choices that I made.

Yeah.

That day I got to drop my resentment against Judge Steinz because I figured out how to work a personal inventory and find the role that I play in my resentment. That's kind of a long, drawn out explanation of how I got to a place where I freed myself mentally and spiritually, but I had to figure out how to get rid of all my fears and my resentments.

Yeah. Well. And there's a recurring theme since we've been chatting, of lack of accountability or personal responsibility now to extreme personal responsibility and extreme accountability. I think I feel like a lot of times we. We end up living someone else's life because we believe someone else's lie from time to time, or we let one experience or two experiences in our life define or influence our major actions that we take at J. Just to a degree or perverts it in some way kind of scenario. And it also kind of led me to. I'm gonna go back to something you said that I thought was really powerful because I think it's one of the most underrated words on the planet, which is surrender. I've discovered that, at least for my life, my level of sacrifices tend to intensify when I refuse to surrender. Rather than when I surrender. The sacrifices that I'm now making seem to be in the service of my future and my family and. Or other people in general. So another thing that I've kind of. That I've kind of picked up on in chatting with you is the. The immense pressure of the story itself ended up producing inside of you a whole new way of. Basically, it's a lifestyle. It's A complete lifestyle switch and change. Now, I know early on your parents were very like, you know, they kind of saw that what you're almost like what you're doing now, like, you're, you're encouraging to the marketplace. You're, you're, you're on stage to speak into a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand, as often as you can, sharing the coffee bean, sharing, sharing your story, being incredibly vulnerable. I have to, I have to assume that they already saw that in you. And it probably broke their heart when they saw that taken away from you. But it probably also has reinvigorated their heart and seeing that in you now. Right. Talk to me about the transition.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, my, my parents, they've always told me the same thing with all the teachers I've ever had. They always said, damon, you're a natural born leader. You're either going to lead people the right way or lead people the wrong way. Yeah, well, in my life, I've done it both. But my parents, you know, parents are always going to see the best in us. And they always saw in me what, what everybody else is seeing now. But I did lose my way. I lost my way. And my parents knew that something was wrong. But outside of coming to Dallas and kidnapping me, I mean, what were they going to do? And they, every time they would call, I just lied to them. I made up stories about where I worked. I told them I worked for a limousine company, a software company. These companies didn't exist. But I would lie to my parents. They're six hours away. They couldn't come get me. And eventually, when the lies didn't work anymore, I just quit taking their calls. And then one day I call them Dallas County Jail. And they are, they already know about it, obviously, because it's been on the news. A very high profile case, and My bond is $1.4 million. And my mom tells me that night when we talk on the phone, she said, you're now a captive audience to God because only God can help you now. And you better start listening to God. And she said, there's nothing we can do do for you more Dama. She said, we've given you back to God. She said, God loaned you to us and now we gave him. Gave you back. And, you know, it didn't hit me the day that I was having that conversation with her in Dallas County Jail that the, the idea of my mom saying, we're giving you back to God, this is the ultimate surrender of control, right? You have a child. This is the most important thing in your life. But to say, hey, I'm just going to give it up to this thing that I have called faith. Know that's a big deal. Didn't hit me till I was late when I was in prison and I had learned to surrender. How much of that sacrifice made sense to me now, what my mom was talking about doing? And I had to come to a place where I gave up and surrendered to God. Said, all right, man, I'm letting you have the keys now. Just like my mom lets you have the keys. I'm letting you have the keys. And that's when the changes started to happen. I mean, like, you know, night and day. I became the Damon you see today. This happened while I was inside of prison. My parents came to see me over 150 times when I was locked up, Stephen. No one had 150 visits in prison, man. The guards, the wardens, the majors, everybody in the prison was like, man, I've never seen anybody get this many visits. My parents never let go of me. They saw the changes that were happening. They saw that the Damon west that everybody's seeing out there today began inside the Mark Stiles unit. And so the day I walked out of prison, they had already seen the transformation take place. But I tell you what, it feels very good now to hear my parents tell me how proud they are of what happened to me. And every time they tell me that, I tell them, thank you for all you did for me, because they never let go of me. I'm not that good to be here. I didn't do all this on my own. I had a lot of help along the way, and that's. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have that kind of help in the situation I was in. But, you know, also, Stephen, a lot of people that I ran into in this. In that situation didn't have the will and the desire to turn it around either. And that's something that. That's on every individual to make those choices. That's a daily way of. Like you said, it's a new way of living to make those choices. To say, hey, you know what? I could get away with this if I wanted to, but I got to not make those choices. Quick story about that. When I was in prison, two things that I used to do all the time, two things that I used to do that I. I could get away with. One of them was going to the chow hall and taking, like, a minstick or some stamps or something. I like food, right? So I want to get extra food, go through the servant line. If I take a peppermint or I take some, I take a stamp and I give it to the guy behind the line. He gives me an extra scoop or something, right? So I know I can cheat the system and get an extra scoop because I've got money on my books, I can bring a stamp and a peppermint every single day for the rest of time I'm in prison. The other thing I would do is I would cheat to get in the line of commissary. Commissary, man, it's a store they have inside the prison, and every time they open it up, once every two weeks, it's chaos. It's utter chaos to get into this line. But if you know how to bribe the right people and grease the right wheels, you can get to the front of that line. And I had a lot of connections, and I used to do it all the time. But when I started working in my program, recovery, I looked at these two things that I was doing, and I asked myself, damon, you want to get out of here one day? And whenever you get out, you're going to be on parole for the rest of your life if you don't start right now with creating the good habits of doing the right thing, especially when no one is looking, especially when you know you can get away with it. But doing the thing that's right anyway, if you don't start that now, there's no way you could survive a lifetime on parole, because you're going to see an opportunity to do something. You're going to take it, you're going to get caught.

Yeah.

So when I was in prison, man, this is like. And I didn't want to, man. Everything in me wanted to keep doing what I was doing because it was working, man. I was getting extra food. I was getting. I was getting to the front of the line. I would get my peanuts on the cop. There was never peanuts. If you got in the back of the line, you couldn't get peanuts on the commissary. Or sunflower seeds or tuna. These are the things I would eat, man. I was trying to eat healthy, but I had to pull myself back. About 2013, I still. I didn't know how much longer I had left. Ended up being another two years, but I. At 2013, I figured I'd be there another 10 years, you know. But I pulled myself back from those behaviors. I stopped cutting the line to the commissary. I stopped taking the peppermints and the. The stamps to the chow hall to get extra food. People thought I was crazy. They're like, wes, what are you doing, man? You've given up the spot line that you know you can get. But I'm like, man, I got to change my ways because I know that the person I want to be out there in the free world has to begin today. And so they saw that, and they saw that guy making those sacrifices in there to become the version of the me that I am today.

Dude, I love it. And I love it for a lot of different reasons. And one of the things that I. That I picked up on a long time ago, and I've. I've had several team members that have been former addicts that are in recovery, thank God, and have beginning to kind of live their life and all kinds of stuff. There's this element of taking slash, manipulation. Like they have a. They have a God given power to lead, a God given power to influence. And you mentioned it earlier, which way are you going to use it? But one of the things that, that I picked up on is they have this moment where there it is manipulation. Like, it's all about me. What can I get? How can I get there? How do I position it? What can I, what, what, you know, what cup can I move to get to the pebble kind of thing. And then there's this wake up call, the spiritual awakening that you've talked so much about, where all of a sudden you realize it's not about you to begin with, right? It's about what value you bring to the world. It's about what value you're bringing, which is one of the reasons I love your story so much. Because you've gone from that manipulative person to that now that person of influence. Now everything that you do is about serving everybody else in front of you as often as possible. I do have a kind of a. There's this one thing that you've said. It's been sitting in my spirit for as long as I can remember. And it's because I believe there's certain. I believe. So first of all, I believe principles govern promises. You you operate by this principle, you can expect to live this promise. Okay? I also believe that principles govern life truths. Like, so this thing, this one thing is a life truth kind of thing. And, and this thing, I think has been resonating in me so much because it is a life truth. And you said it. And I just want you to break it down for us. You made a comment that, that someone told you when you first entered prison that basically you didn't have to basically win every fight, but you had to fight every fight. Right. And I feel like so many people won't fight their fight so they can live their future.

Yeah, yeah. This guy, the same guy that told me the story of the coffee, Mr. Jackson, he told me, you don't have to. He was telling me about the violence I was about to go into and all the fighting I was about to do. He said, but, west, you don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. And what he meant by that was like, he said, no one cares about your wins and losses in there, but they do want to see if you're going to stand up and defend yourself. And if you're willing to go out there and take a beating and just to defend yourself, then eventually they're going to stop messing with you because they're going to see that this guy cannot be pushed around.

Yeah.

And guess what? Life is going to do that to you, too. Life is going to knock you down just to see if you're going to get back up. And life doesn't keep score about your wins and losses. You do in your head sometimes, and maybe you shouldn't do that, but you just got to face your fights and face your battles. Don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid to fall down. Stephen. I fail more than I succeed all the time in life, man. I reach out the same method I use to get on Ed's podcast, when I did it, I just messaged him and instant messenger over and over again, Right? I messaged people like that all the time. I was doing them this morning. 80% of the time, these people don't even message me back. And if they do, they tell me no. But 20% of the time, they do those. 20 of the time that they do. Now I've got a conversation started, and I fail more than I succeed in life. But, you know, we live in society that likes to highlight the successes in life. And no, man, I'll even post videos about things that I failed about. And because I want you to see the failure. I want you to see more authentic. Yeah, it's important. It's important to see, man, because life is not a highlight reel, brother. Yeah, life is. Life is dirty. It's messy. It's like working out, man. You know, people, you know, they want to see the picture of the guy that's bench pressing, you know, 500 pounds. But what they don't want to see is the pictures of all the training it took to get there when he's grunting and farting and sweating everywhere. You push that weight, you know, because weightlifting is. It's. Yeah, you hear those sounds, you know, all kinds of crazy stuff when someone's pushing that iron and working hard to get to their goals. But you don't see those videos of that. You just see £500 being. Being pushed.

Yeah, man. No, that's so true. And all the other things that happen to their digestive system when all that happens as well.

Yeah, you don't see any of that stuff. I mean, and I've seen dudes, you know, have accidents out there when they've pushed too hard. Yeah, but you don't see those videos. You just see the guy pushing the 500 pounds. What did it take to get there? There's no such thing as an overnight success, Steven.

Yeah, none.

It's a myth, man. That doesn't even happen. It's not even real.

Well, mess up as they. They're. And I know I did this, dude. I did this for a decade before my men, my first mentor, my Mr. Jackson, if you will, like, help me figure. Figure life out or at least start the process right, Is, you know, trying to shortcut everything. Like, there's a faster way. There has to be a faster way. There has to be a faster way. And it go. It comes down, back down to surrendering to the process. But it also. An epiphany that I've also had that you've talked a lot about is your shame. The thing that you're scared to let the world know exist or things that you're, you know, don't want the everybody to see is actually somebody else's solution. Right. Your shame is someone's solution. Right. You know, in fact, to that end, I actually want to. I want to.

I want to.

Just picture in your mind for a second, picture Damon the day before he was rescued.

Just picture in your mind just for a moment. He's. He's watching the show. He's listening to the show. What do you tell him right now?

The day before.

Let go. You know, Let go. There's no future. And in this. But. But, you know, I knew there was. The day before, I knew there was no future. I knew I was going down. I mean, I knew it was happening. My partner in crime had been arrested.

But it was the drugs, man. It was the fact that I wanted to keep holding on. I had my dealer. My dealer was at my house. The SWAT team came in.

And the thing about it is the drugs took over the thinking. And that's the thing about the disease of, of addiction. And addiction can be anything, man. That person that's out there listening, your addiction could be drugs, alcohol, money, food, sex, gambling, the Internet, Instagram, shopping, whatever. Pornography. Yeah, whatever. It could be anything. But these addictions, they. They changed the way we think because we could thinking about our goals and we just think about getting what we want in life. And the day before, I would tell, probably go back and tell that person, man, you had goals at one time. You had hopes and dreams and aspirations, and you could still get those things. But you have to let go of this thing that you're holding on to so much right now and get help. What I would for sure tell that person now that I walked through that and talked about it, is to say those three words are the hardest three words for a human being to say. I need help. Ask for help. I need help. Anybody out there that's listening this man, don't be afraid to ask for help. It's the hardest thing for people to say, but it's the most freeing thing to do too, because now you've given up control when you've admitted there's a problem. Ask for help.

Yeah, no. It's so powerful. It's. It's. One of the reasons I love, I wanted to have you on the show is because.

There is so much packed inside of you and God is going to be doing a lot, a lot with you the next couple years. Like a lot with you, dude. And I'm excited to watch the journey myself. I also know you got some exciting stuff coming up. You know, I think you. I think you mentioned briefly that you and John are working on a new project. Like, talk to me a little bit about that.

Oh, dude, I'm so excited. So John and I set out to do three books in the Coffee Bean trilogy. We did the Coffee Bean book originally. That came out in 2019. The coffee bean for kids came out in 2020. And how to be a coffee bean comes out February 1, 2023. Can't wait. It's a hunt. Talk about principles guiding your pre order yet?

Can I get it yet?

Yeah, you pre order Amazon right now.

Done.

How to Be a coffee bean, 111 principles. It's basically turn your life around. It goes deeper than the book the Coffee Bean. It tells the story of the Coffee Bean from the original book. Even tells how John and I got together deeper than we've ever talked about it before because it goes back to a Guy named Chad Morris who was the offensive coordinator for Dabo Sweeney back in 2010. Great story beginning the book about that, but 111 principles to live your life by. And I think that people are going to love this book. It's coming out February 1st. We're super excited about it. Can't wait. And yeah, that's our big project coming up.

I'll love it, man. You know, it's funny. I love John and Catherine to death. They're such amazing people. And to have them in your corner, dude, it's. Yeah, you're on. You're in for a while. A wild ride forward.

And they're incredible, man. I. And I owe everything I have in life to John Gordon, man. John Gordon put me on this rocket ship of his. And I mean, dude, when I first attached to John, I mean, I'm like in a Red Rider wagon, you know, but, you know, wagon hooked to a rocket ship doesn't always survive that orbit for us. But I made it, I survived it. And it was just like, I'm out here now in a place where I don't. It would have. How long would it have taken me get here, Steve? I mean, I tell John all the time, 15, 20 years to get where I am right now. Yeah, seven years, man. So.

Yeah, yeah, but you've been living the Coffee Bean. In fact, in case people have been under a rock, let's break down the Coffee Bean and at its core, because I want people to fully understand it.

In a pot of boiling water, what's called a pot of born water. Life. You have three choices how you respond to this potable, what I call life. You can be like a carrot that becomes soft in the water of life. Carrots get soft and mushy. Those are people that get be down by life. They become sad. In my life, you're going to be the carrot. Sometimes everybody's going to be sad. It's okay to be the carrot. You just can't get stuck being the carrot. There's going to be those days that beat you down and make you hard and mad and mean and angry. And those are the egg days. Eggs in a pot of warm water. The soft liquid inside of the of the egg becomes hardened like your heart becomes hardened my life. Sometimes when you become the egg, you become incapable of giving or receiving love. And you can't be incapable of getting receive love. The two things we want at the core of being human beings. We want to belong and be loved. But eggs don't care about being loved. The eggs have lost the love.

Yeah.

And guess what? You're going to be the love. You're going to be the eggs. The egg sometimes, because that's being mad and mean and angry, and everybody gets in those places again. You can't get stuck there. The Coffee Bean in the same pot of warm water will change the pot of warm water into a pot of coffee, because the coffee bean is the only thing that can change the water. It is the change agent. It's the only thing that changes the water. And the coffee bean has the power to change the pot of warm water, because the power is inside the coffee bean. And when the water gets the hottest, it unlocks what's inside that coffee bean. That's life. When the pressure of life gets the highest, that's when you get your chance to perform the greatest. It's like they say, it's always dark is just before dawn. You know, when it's dark enough, you can see the stars. When we're at our lowest moment, when things look like they can't get any worse, that's when we get a chance to shine our brightest. Because that's when everything comes to a point when, if we can turn this around, we get to become that light. Or like I tell people all the time, God doesn't set bushes on fire. He sets people on fire. That's a very Old Testament thing, setting bushes on fire. Today, we get to burn in that light. Like we talked about this program, some things you have to do, you got to let go and let God. You gotta let go of what's holding you back, man.

Golden. Love it, dude. Love it. I got one final question for you actually, too. How is this, how is the Coffee bean? How have all these experiences changed you as a husband and a father?

Oh, man. Well, look, I, I would say that being a husband and a father, the things that's helped me the most. I mean, the Coffee Bean message is universal for everything I do in life. But my program, recovery, is what has really made me the best husband and father. Here's why. When I first got out of prison. Now, keep in mind, I've been locked up for seven years and three months. I'm talking to my sponsor, who's another man. Because everybody should be sponsored by someone the same sex. There's no manipulation going on. One of the things I want to do, I, I, I'd like to meet a woman at this point. I've been gone for seven years and three months. You know, I'm a man still.

Yeah.

But my sponsor tells me there'll be no women right now for you. And I'm like, we're calling Ray for to protect me. I'm like, what do you mean? He said, no, you can't. You can't be with a woman right now. And I've heard stories, I've heard rumors of people saying, well, you got to wait 12 months. You got to get a plant first and you get a pet, then you get a girlfriend, right? And this is like 24 months. And I'm like, dude, are you about to tell me I got to wait a year or more? He said, no. He said, I'm not telling. You got to wait 12 months. He said, I'm telling. You have to work these 12 steps before you can go out and find another partner in life. He said, because if you will work these 12 steps to the letter, at the end of that process, you will be a person worthy of someone else dating. And not only that, now that you're a worthy partner for someone else to have, you have a matrix to plug them into to see if they are a worthy partner. Because a relationship is a two way street. And when you live in a place like I live of addiction and drugs and crime, addiction is a very selfish thing. I had to learn to get outside of myself. Working that program. Recovery allowed me to get outside of self and be selfless. And now it could be useful to other people again. That's the biggest thing to me because I have a stepdaughter and I have a wife that I have to think of in every decision I make. And I'm tell you something else, Stephen. I think everything in life is connected. Everything in life is connected. I'm gonna tell you how this works out. Everything that God has given me in my life is connected to each other. If I went outside my marriage because I said, hey, I was tempted to do something else, if I ever did something like that, I lose everything else in life. It's the bottom card, that house of cards, because everything is connected. If I pull that bottom card out, it all comes tumbling down. Yeah, Everything is connected. If you live your life like that, you'll make the right choices. Because no one wants to lose everything they have in life.

Yeah, ain't that the truth? You know, it just dawned on me too. We've kind of made full circle back to redemption. You'd mentioned earlier during the show that there were, you know, there were three things that, you know you're gonna have.

An ex.

And all those three. All three of those things have been redeemed.

Absolutely.

Three of them have been redeemed. And I know coffee. The Coffee Bean message. The world needs to continue to hear it. I. I anticipate it'll become a global phenomenon at some point. I just see it, right? I can. I can see it. I can experience it as someone who's married and. And my. I have three children. None of them are biologically mine because I couldn't have kids, or at least I believe I couldn't have kids back in the day. It caused me to really appreciate being a dad, really appreciate being a husband. And I. And I think we share that in common, right? We think you can't have these things, and all of a sudden, they're redeemed and they put back in front of you. And I'm always like, dude, I'm living it. Man, this is awesome. This is awesome. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, I'm close with this. You know, this show was originally designed to be a resource of hope, a resource of stories where people have proven it's possible to conquer insurmountable odds. Like, there's the deck stamped against them for a variety of different reasons, Sometimes of their own choosing, sometimes of their actions, sometimes just the life. Right. The. The deck of cards that was dealt to them. And I'm. I'm a big believer in the mentality of stuck right to unstoppable. I believe that anybody on this planet can become unstoppable. I'm curious to. Curious to know your thoughts on what is. What it means to become unstoppable.

Man.

What it means to become unstoppable is when you stop worrying about what the world around you thinks. I read this great quote. I think it was Christopher Walken that had this quote. He said, when you. When you see how quickly we forget the dead, you'll quit trying to impress the living.

So. And that made me think, like, you know, when someone dies, you know, you may have this memorial service and stuff like that, it goes on, but people move on, man. People's lives are going on. There's a picture of them on the wall. Yeah. Spend less time trying to impress the people around you. Do what's the right thing to do, what's best, you know, how can I best serve other people today? How can I best be a servant leader? Then you become unstoppable. When you find a way to serve other people, when you find a way to put back in the stream of life and not care about what other people think, say or do, that's when you become unstoppable because other people's opinions of you are none of your business anyway.

Dude. Love it, love it, love it. Where can buddy find out more about you, bro?

Dude, my website, damon west.org social media at Damon West7 Twitter and Instagram, man. Follow me, man.

Love it. Dude. Thank you so much for spending so much time with me, man. I got a huge takeaways. I can't. I look forward to doing it again.

Appreciate you, man. Thanks, Stephen. Look forward to it.

All right. Take it easy. See you.

Thanks, man.

Bye.

Bye.

I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

Anytime is the best time. I think people need to start before they're ready. And if you feel that knowing, do not wait. Because you think, well, I better get through 2023 first. We don't know what's going to happen. That's the worst mistake. The best question to ask is how long am I willing to wait until I actually create the life I genuinely want? Right now is the best time because you want it right now.