Podcasts about straight a guide

Get our #Straight-A-Guide to help #justiceimpacted prepare for #prepareforsuccessafterprison. https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

Check out the #Straight-A-Guide to learn how to create a solid, self-directed #reentryplan. The harder a person works to #prepareforsuccessafterprison, the more opportunities open. https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

In the #Straight-A-Guide #reentryplan, we feature stories of people who used time in prison to #prepareforsuccessafterprison. Learn how @TheArthurDuncan became a lawyer. https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

One key to #prepareforsuccessafterprison will be a personal accountability tool. We offer these tools with our self-directed #reentryplan, like the #Straight-A-Guide. https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

Sometimes people make bad decisions that lead them to prison. To #prepareforsuccessafterprison, a person could create a self-directed #reentryplan, like the #Straight-A-Guide. https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

We feature stories on how to #prepareforsuccessafterprison with our self-directed #reentryplan that we call our #Straight-A-Guide. https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

The amazing #WeldonLong reveals how he used time in prison to prepare for a life of meaning, relevance, and dignity. Learn how to #PrepareForSuccessAfterPrison. https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

Get the overall concept of our values-based, goal-oriented adjustment strategy, The Straight-A Guide. Our program helps all justice-impacted people prepare for lives of meaning, relevance, and dignity. For more information, visit us: https://prisonprofessors.com/reentry-programs/

Section 11 of Prison: My 8,344th Day offers the origins of the Straight-A Guide, a strategy that people living in struggle can use to prepare for lives of meaning and relevance.   https://prisonprofessors.com/8344th-day-section-11/

We encourage listeners to learn more about our Straight-A Guide program by viewing all of the content in series. Start with Values: https://prisonprofessors.com/sag-1-values/

We're now into episode four of Prison Professors' five-part series on How to Master Prison. Those who aren't going into the prison system may find more interest in our interviews. Our team works with people from all types of backgrounds. Some face charges or served time for white-collar crimes. Others served time for drug offenses, or even violent crimes. Our interviews with those people show that regardless of what bad decisions a person has made in the past, it's never too early and it's never too late to begin sowing seeds for a better life.   In this series, we're offering content that will help people before they go into the criminal justice system. We know there's a lot of fear and anxiety about prison. Our team knows how to overcome it. And it's a bit thing to overcome the fear of prison, especially for those who don't know anything about it.   Howard Phillips Lovecraft, an American fiction writer, wrote a line that brought is often quoted:   “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,” he wrote. “And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”   If you've never been to prison before, then you may have some fear. That's normal. People who haven't been to prison don't really know what to expect. We've seen prisons depicted in movies. But are those representations real?   Prison population levels have soared over the past several decades. As a result, artists portray prisons in film, television, music, and literature. When artists portray scenes from prison, they feature the sensational. They produce the scenes to elicit an emotion. Frequently, film producers want to elicit the emotion of fear.   Our team at Prison Professors provides you with a different perspective. If you're going into the prison system, open your eyes to the best possible outcome. What does the best possible outcome look like in your case? If we can see the best possible outcome, we begin to realize that pathways to success exist.   Look at the success of our partners at Prison Professors.   Neither Shon nor Justin had been to prison before. One was going to prison for armed bank robbery. The other would serve time for a white-collar crime. Both men were afraid of what was to come. Prison would separate them from the people they love. It would separate them from the people who loved them. Neither knew anyone who had served time before. Yet both of them had seen the movies. They watched the television shows and they heard the stories.   Their outcomes on the other side of the journey, however, differed from what anyone would expect. Shon became the most successful jailhouse lawyer in history. He wrote briefs that won cases in District Courts, in Circuit Courts, and in the U.S. Supreme Court. Then, after completing his term, Shon went on to law school. He clerked for the D.C. Circuit Court. Georgetown Law School hired Shon. He's now a law professor and advocate for reforms.   Justin chronicled his story in Lessons From Prison. When he went to prison, he feared the type of life he would lead upon release. Justin's conviction for fraud resulted in the loss of his livelihood. He worried about how he would be able to earn a living. Like Shon, Justin, finished serving his sentence during the worst economic recession of our lifetime. Yet during the first few years since his release from prison, he began building businesses. Those businesses would generate millions in revenues. Clients for those businesses include law enforcement, the corporate sector, academia, law firms, the judiciary, and individuals who face time in prison.   Why did Shon and Justin experience a different outcome from what we see portrayed in media? They prepared for success!   I'm Michael Santos. My partners and I want to share everything we learned about mastering the prison experience. Like Shon and Justin, I went to prison as a young man. I started my prison journey in , when I was 23. I didn't get out of federal prison until 2013. Despite the 26 years that I served, every day felt productive. It felt productive because I wasn't only preparing for prison. I was preparing for the success I would want to achieve in prison and beyond.     How Do We Prepare for Prison: We prepare for prison in the same way that we prepare for anything else in life. Success begins with a definition: How do we define success? The person must ask the following question:   What is going to be the best possible outcome?   Answering that question is essential. None of us can change the past. But if we want to influence the future, we must begin by defining success. If we can define success, then we can engineer the path. That path should take us from where we are to where we want to go. Future chapters will define our methodical approach for defining success. We call it our Straight-A Guide. But for now, let's focus our preparation on defining success.   Defining a successful outcome from prison requires us to complete a self-assessment. What does our life look like now?   If we're a highly-educated person, that we may prepare in ways that differ from someone who doesn't have a high school diploma. If we have financial resources, we may prepare differently from someone who doesn't have enough money to live in prison. If we value close relationships with family, we may prepare differently from someone who wants to serve time alone. If we have a sentence in excess of 10 years, we may prepare differently from someone who is serving one year.   Preparing for a successful journey through prison requires us to define success. And as shown above, success for one person may differ from another person's success.   My partners and I all had different life experiences. Justin was a graduate from the University of Southern California and he was a licensed professional before he went to prison. Shon had a history of substance abuse and he was serving a sentence for armed bank robberies. I started selling cocaine when I was 20 and didn't have much of an education when I started.   But one fact united each of us. Justin, Shon, and I hated being in prison. We wanted a different outcome from what others would expect of us. We wanted to return to society as law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. We didn't want to live on the margins. We wanted success, and we prepared in ways that would be consistent with that outcome. Our preparations, however, began when we were already confined.     Prepare For Prison Early: The sooner a person can prepare, the better. Consider the oft-quoted adage on the best time to plant an oak tree. Do you know the best time to plant an oak tree? Some people say winter, some people say summer. Some people say fall, some people say spring.   A wise person knows the best time to plant an oak tree. It's 20 years ago. The second best time to plant an oak tree is today.   The same thing goes with preparing for prison. The sooner a person can start thinking about the outcome that he wants to achieve, the better a person can prepare for a successful journey inside.   Good preparations serve a person well. Preparations will serve a person going to prison in the in the same way that a blueprint can serve a builder. It provides a guide of what steps we must take.   Not all people get to prison the same way. Some judges allow people to surrender at some point after the sentencing hearing. Through counsel, the defendant can ask the judge for time to prepare and get affairs in order. When judges allow people to surrender, they typically allow at least 30 days to pass. Some of our clients have been able to postpone their surrender to prison for a year or longer. There may be a variety of reasons that make sense for someone to delay their surrender date. They may want to complete a class. They may have family obligations. They may need to complete a business transaction.   If there isn't a compelling reason to do the opposite, we encourage people to get started. Don't delay the surrender if there isn't a reason. While waiting to serve time, life can feel like it's on hold. It's hard to gain any traction in life when a prison term is looming ahead. For many people who must surrender to prison, the waiting can be interminable. It can feel like a person is serving time, but the time does not count. In Lessons From Prison, Justin describes how the period before surrendering to prison led to a depression. Others talk about drinking too much, or eating too much, or feeling traumatized with fear.   Each case is different, and we do not provide boilerplate guidance. But as a general rule, we find that it's best to start serving the time as soon as possible. The sooner a person starts, the sooner a person can get on a path toward building a successful future.   We provide tips through our website, through our YouTube channel, and through our podcast. Some of those tips will be specific for people who have an option to surrender to prison. Other tips apply to all people, whether they're surrendering to prison or whether they're going to be taken into custody without notice. It's important to remember that a judge has the discretion. The judge can leave a person out on bond for a lengthy period of time after the conviction. Or the judge can issue an order that results in an unexpected confinement. Consider the widely reported case of Martin Shkreli.   Martin Shkreli was widely castigated in the media. Headlines labeled him as the “Pharma Bro.” In 2017, a jury convicted him on charges related to fraud. While out on bond, he repeatedly appeared on social media. One post, supposedly, offered payment to anyone who could provide a piece of hair from Hillary Clinton. That post led prosecutors to say that Martin posed a thread. The judge agreed. He ordered the U.S. Marshals to take Martin into custody in September, long before his sentencing hearing. As a result, the Bureau of Prisons locked him inside a New York detention center.   Had Martin prepared better, the judge likely would have allowed him to surrender to a minimum-security camp. Life in a minimum-security camp offers considerably more liberty, and considerably less volatility than life inside of a detention center.   It's always best to prepare. Knowledge translates into better decisions, and better decisions translate into better experiences.     Designation Details: Many defense attorneys will stop their representation at the sentencing hearing. Others will be willing to assist their clients a bit further. For those who have a good legal team in place, we offer some advice. Ask the defense attorney to get some confirmations from the Marshals and the BOP regarding the designation. A process unfolds after sentencing. The U.S. Marshals will forward the Judgment Order and the Presentence Investigation Report to the Bureau of Prisons designation center in Grand Prairie, Texas. Administrators in Texas will consider many different factors. Then they will identify an appropriate prison for the person to serve the sentence.   The staff in Grand Prairie will be responsible for submitting the appropriate paperwork to the designated prison. Sometimes human errors occur. Those errors can mean that the paperwork is not in order. If the paperwork is not in order when the defendant arrives at the institution, staff members may lock the individual in the Special Housing Unit. That means the person will be held on lockdown, without access to the telephone or recreation. Time will be much more difficult.   If possible, prepare in advance. Ask the defense attorney to confirm with the Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshal service that all paperwork is in order. Our team has known many defendants who suffered because they were locked unnecessarily in Special Housing Units because they did not prepare in advance.     Point of Contact (POC): Identify a point of contact prior to confinement. Defendants may have a family member or friend who will serve as this point of contact. Let the POC know that they should expect to hear from you within two days. Defendants should understand that the Bureau of Prisons might not activate the phone or email system immediately. Still, if a defendant is on a prison compound, he will be in a community. Depending on the prison, a population level of between 100 and more than 1,000 people will serve time in the community. Someone will agree to help. They can have a family member reach out to your POC and let them know that you arrived safely and that you're okay.   Create a plan for your POC to follow. If your POC does not hear from you after three days, ask your POC to take action. Your POC should contact your attorney. If you don't have an attorney, you need an advocate who will help you. Your advocate should contact the Bureau of Prisons. Effective advocacy will lead the BOP to investigate why you're not able to communicate. If you're being held in the SHU because of misplaced paperwork, your advocate can take steps to correct the problem.   Alan was a client who could have used an advocate. Alan was convicted of healthcare fraud. He surrendered to a minimum-security camp to serve a 36-month sentence. Besides the instant offense, Alan did not have a criminal history. He expected to serve his time in the camp. Unfortunately, the BOP in Grand Prairie did not forward his presentence investigation report to the camp. As a result, when he surrendered to the camp, staff member locked him the Special Housing Unit. He remained in the Special Housing Unit for six weeks because the staff did not have a sense of urgency to fix the problem. Alan didn't know any better, and he didn't have a plan to fix the problem.     Finances: Create a finance plan as soon as possible. The plan should take into consideration the financial responsibilities outside of prison, and the financial needs while in prison.   Every individual has a unique situation. Some people have family members to support. Others do not have any financial responsibilities outside of prison. Think this through. Craft a plan that works for the support group. Coordinate a budget, or plan to assist through the journey.   It's possible to live in prison without any financial resources. Yet financial resources can ease the burden significantly. Remember that prison is a microcosm of our broader society. An underground economy will exist in every prison. By understanding how that economy works, a person can avoid problems that can complicate life inside.   In our book Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term, I wrote about my experiences with the prison economy. I describe why I would spend about $600 each month to live in prison. Those expenditures allowed me to pay for the email system, the telephone system, postage, and to purchase commissary.   Other people live without resources. Some people have “hustles” in prison that allow them to function in that economy. They wash clothes, they clean, they cook for other people. Other people earn an income while working on prison jobs. Those jobs may pay anywhere from $5 a month to $200 per month. Jobs that pay $200 or more a month are relatively scarce, and staff members award those jobs in accordance with seniority. It may take ten years in prison before a person can get into one of the higher paying jobs.   A good plan will keep a person on track. Take steps to understand the financial opportunities and limitations in prison. I've written extensively about my experience in prison. When I left prison, after 26 years inside, I had more than $100,000 in after-tax savings. Those resources allowed me to start my life. The financial resources reflected my preparation. The preparations began with a visualization of how I wanted to emerge. Then I put my plan in place. Then I set priorities. Then I executed the plan. Make sure that you do the same.     Reading: A good planner will see advantages everywhere. We encourage you to plan your reading list. That plan worked well for our partner Shon Hopwood. He chose to read selectively in prison. That selected reading plan led to his developing knowledge of the law. By reading, he became an expert in writing appellate motions. While in prison, Shon wrote briefs that led to liberty for many people. His briefs won in U.S. District Courts, in Circuit Courts, and in the United States Supreme Court.   Likewise, Justin followed a disciplined reading schedule while in prison. He read books that would lead to his success upon release. What books will you read while you're in prison? How will reading contribute to your success while in prison, and beyond?   In several of our programs, I describe the strategy that empowered me through prison. Each time I read a book, I would document the experience with a book report. The book report would follow a simple plan. I would answer three questions:   Why did I read the book?   What did I learn from reading the book?   How will reading the book contribute to my success upon release?   By responding to those questions, we show a disciplined, deliberate path to make time in prison work for you. It's part of an excellent preparation strategy.     Journaling and Reputation Management: At the soonest possible time, anticipate the challenges that you'll face upon release. Use your time inside to begin crafting your personal image. Anticipate the how prospective employers, creditors, business associates, and anyone else will perceive you. What will they find when they search your name on Google?   If you anticipate challenges in the future, you can begin sowing seeds today to overcome those challenges. That strategy worked well for Shon. It worked well for Justin. It worked well for me.   Each of us documented our journey in prison. Each of us chronicled our journey to show our disciplined, deliberate preparations inside. Those initiatives allowed us to overcome enormous obstacles. Shon persuaded a law school to admit him, he persuaded Bar to admit him, and he persuaded a federal judge to hire him. Justin's journaling and strategies for reputation management while in prison opened enormous opportunities. Within three weeks of concluding 26 years in prison, I was teaching as an adjunct professor at San Francisco State University.   What led to those opportunities? Our journaling and our efforts to redefine our image made all the difference. Rather than judging us for the bad decisions that led to our prison term. People judged us for our how we responded. We prepared while in prison.    

11. Spreading Awareness: Although our growing portfolio of rental properties had become an integral part of our wealth-accumulation strategy, I remained determined to build a digital-products business. With hopes of finding more institutional buyers for the program, I accepted 12 speaking assignments in the fall of 2015, keeping me in different airports every week. I traveled to various cities between Tacoma and Washington DC, striving to create market awareness for Earning Freedom products. Some of those speaking events provided memorable experiences, and opportunities that I hope to leverage in months to come. Earlier I mentioned that the Washington State Department of Corrections was a client of the Straight-A Guide product that I created. When I made my initial sales call in Washington State, I had an opportunity to build a friendship with Michael Colwell, assistant director of Correctional Industries. He introduced me to his colleagues, including Bernie Warner, Dan Pacholke, and Scott Frakes. At the time, Bernie served as Secretary of the state’s prison system. Since then, he retired and went on to lead a private prison system. Dan took over as Secretary in Washington’s prison system, and Scott Frakes advanced to become Secretary of Nebraska’s prison system. Those were powerful allies for me, and I hoped to persuade them to use the Earning Freedom programs in their prisons. Through those relationships I’d built in Washington State, I received an invitation to give a keynote presentation at a regional training conference in Spokane. Representatives from correctional industries in 11 Western states would be in attendance. Business entities that served the corrections industry sponsored the event with vendor booths. Keefe Group and Union Supply were two of the vendors in attendance. I approached the sales representatives and introduced myself. They didn’t know that I’d been incarcerated previously, so I played a hoax. “I was a loyal customer of yours for more than 25 years,” I said. When the sales representatives smiled, I told them that I’d never buy another one of their products again. Keefe Group and Union Supply were two of the most influential vendors to prison industries. They not only supplied commissaries and food services, they also were creating devices to deliver digital content. The devices were designed in such a way that they would not compromise security, and inmates could use them to download music or entertainment. After getting to know representatives from Keefe Group and Union Supply, I suggested that they connect me with decision makers. I wanted to make a case that those companies should make Earning Freedom products available to people in prison. As a consequence of those meetings, I received invitations to visit leaders of Keefe Group at the corporation’s headquarters in St. Louis, and I visited with leaders of Union Supply in Los Angeles. I also received an invitation to visit with leaders from New Mexico Department of Corrections, including Secretary Gregg Mercantel. Through these relationships that I’m developing, I anticipate that I’ll succeed in building interest for digital products I’m creating with Earning Freedom.   Sales Funnels and Webinars: The more I worked to generate purchase orders from giant corporations or government agencies, the more I realized the time commitment necessary. Complaining about the challenges of selling into this market wouldn’t advance my cause. The market existed, but as Andi advised, I would need to invest significant amounts of time to build the business model. By continuing to create content, make sales calls, and bring awareness to the value of Earning Freedom products, I’d sow seeds that would lead to the multi-million dollar business we aspired to create. Meanwhile, by learning more about the digital marketplace, I learned techniques that would allow me to offer products and services directly to consumers. Again, masterminds taught that we could create value when we trained ourselves to think about issues that were beyond our personal experiences. Every individual in society faced challenges. Those people could overcome challenges if they learned strategies that masterminds taught. In an effort to bring products and services to their attention, I invited Tulio to work with me. Earlier I wrote about Tulio Cardozo, one of the first graduates of Chris Redlitz’s The Last Mile program. I admire formerly incarcerated individuals who successfully transitioned into society. Tulio was especially impressive because he trained himself how to code computers and use technology while he was locked inside of solitary cells. Using the same strategies that empowered me through my journey, Tulio wrote letters to people and requested books. Since he had an interest in computers, he asked for books that would teach him how to code. When he concluded his prison term, he interned with technology companies and honed his skills further. Tulio’s expertise would prove invaluable as I worked to build products and services for consumers. Tulio kept his home base in the San Francisco Bay area and I worked from my office in Irvine. Using screen-sharing services, we devoted dozens of hours mastering the process of creating automated services. Using technology, we could deliver products and services that would bring value to the lives of others. All of those products and services either taught strategies to overcome challenges, or they offered opportunities clients could seize create wealth. All of our work began with the premise that anyone could take advantage of the same strategies and opportunities that allowed me to work toward my first $1 million. If I could do it after 26 years in prison, anyone could follow the pattern and create their success. We also began marketing our services to other entrepreneurs or business owners, creating solutions for them to use technology in ways that would increase revenues.   Alternative Investments: As we close out 2015, I’m particularly enthusiastic about using the expertise I’m developing with webinars and other digital projects to create more value in real estate. With Tulio, I’m creating digital courses to teach strategies Carole and I use to build our real estate portfolio; others can use those strategies to prepare for their financial stability. We’re teaching techniques we use to raise capital to purchase properties, to manage properties, to find tenants for our properties, and to keep our investments operating smoothly. Besides the courses, we’re also creating opportunities. I’m particularly enthusiastic about an agreement I’ve created with a developer who builds master-planned, oceanfront communities in Central America. In exchange for hosting webinars that bring attention to his properties, we’re creating favorable financing terms for those who visit the webinar—and also for Carole and me. We’re seizing the initiative to own appreciating assets in appreciating markets. I’ll write an update to this book later to show how the opportunities mentioned above contribute to my goal of earning my first million by August 12, 2018—five years after completing 26 years as federal prisoner 16377-004.

Spreading Awareness: Although our growing portfolio of rental properties had become an integral part of our wealth-accumulation strategy, I remained determined to build a digital-products business. With hopes of finding more institutional buyers for the program, I accepted 12 speaking assignments in the fall of 2015, keeping me in different airports every week. I traveled to various cities between Tacoma and Washington DC, striving to create market awareness for Earning Freedom products.   Some of those speaking events provided memorable experiences, and opportunities that I hope to leverage in months to come. Earlier I mentioned that the Washington State Department of Corrections was a client of the Straight-A Guide product that I created. When I made my initial sales call in Washington State, I had an opportunity to build a friendship with Michael Colwell, assistant director of Correctional Industries. He introduced me to his colleagues, including Bernie Warner, Dan Pacholke, and Scott Frakes. At the time, Bernie served as Secretary of the state’s prison system. Since then, he retired and went on to lead a private prison system. Dan took over as Secretary in Washington’s prison system, and Scott Frakes advanced to become Secretary of Nebraska’s prison system.   Those were powerful allies for me, and I hoped to persuade them to use the Earning Freedom programs in their prisons. Through those relationships I’d built in Washington State, I received an invitation to give a keynote presentation at a regional training conference in Spokane. Representatives from correctional industries in 11 Western states would be in attendance. Business entities that served the corrections industry sponsored the event with vendor booths.   Keefe Group and Union Supply were two of the vendors in attendance. I approached the sales representatives and introduced myself. They didn’t know that I’d been incarcerated previously, so I played a hoax.   “I was a loyal customer of yours for more than 25 years,” I said. When the sales representatives smiled, I told them that I’d never buy another one of their products again.   Keefe Group and Union Supply were two of the most influential vendors to prison industries. They not only supplied commissaries and food services, they also were creating devices to deliver digital content. The devices were designed in such a way that they would not compromise security, and inmates could use them to download music or entertainment. After getting to know representatives from Keefe Group and Union Supply, I suggested that they connect me with decision makers. I wanted to make a case that those companies should make Earning Freedom products available to people in prison.   As a consequence of those meetings, I received invitations to visit leaders of Keefe Group at the corporation’s headquarters in St. Louis, and I visited with leaders of Union Supply in Los Angeles. I also received an invitation to visit with leaders from New Mexico Department of Corrections, including Secretary Gregg Mercantel. Through these relationships that I’m developing, I anticipate that I’ll succeed in building interest for digital products I’m creating with Earning Freedom.     Sales Funnels and Webinars: The more I worked to generate purchase orders from giant corporations or government agencies, the more I realized the time commitment necessary. Complaining about the challenges of selling into this market wouldn’t advance my cause. The market existed, but as Tim advised, I would need to invest significant amounts of time to build the business model. By continuing to create content, make sales calls, and bring awareness to the value of Earning Freedom products, I’d sow seeds that would lead to the multi-million dollar business we aspired to create.   Meanwhile, by learning more about the digital marketplace, I learned techniques that would allow me to offer products and services directly to consumers. Again, masterminds taught that we could create value when we trained ourselves to think about issues that were beyond our personal experiences. Every individual in society faced challenges. Those people could overcome challenges if they learned strategies that masterminds taught. In an effort to bring products and services to their attention, I invited Tulio to work with me.   Earlier I wrote about Tulio Cardozo, one of the first graduates of Chris Redlitz’s The Last Mile program. I admire formerly incarcerated individuals who successfully transitioned into society. Tulio was especially impressive because he trained himself how to code computers and use technology while he was locked inside of solitary cells. Using the same strategies that empowered me through my journey, Tulio wrote letters to people and requested books. Since he had an interest in computers, he asked for books that would teach him how to code. When he concluded his prison term, he interned with technology companies and honed his skills further. Tulio’s expertise would prove invaluable as I worked to build products and services for consumers.   Tulio kept his home base in the San Francisco Bay area and I worked from my office in Irvine. Using screen-sharing services, we devoted dozens of hours mastering the process of creating automated services. Using technology, we could deliver products and services that would bring value to the lives of others. All of those products and services either taught strategies to overcome challenges, or they offered opportunities clients could seize create wealth. All of our work began with the premise that anyone could take advantage of the same strategies and opportunities that allowed me to work toward my first $1 million. If I could do it after 26 years in prison, anyone could follow the pattern and create their success. We also began marketing our services to other entrepreneurs or business owners, creating solutions for them to use technology in ways that would increase revenues.     Alternative Investments: As we close out 2015, I’m particularly enthusiastic about using the expertise I’m developing with webinars and other digital projects to create more value in real estate. With Tulio, I’m creating digital courses to teach strategies Carole and I use to build our real estate portfolio; others can use those strategies to prepare for their financial stability. We’re teaching techniques we use to raise capital to purchase properties, to manage properties, to find tenants for our properties, and to keep our investments operating smoothly.   Besides the courses, we’re also creating opportunities. I’m particularly enthusiastic about an agreement I’ve created with a developer who builds master-planned, oceanfront communities in Central America. In exchange for hosting webinars that bring attention to his properties, we’re creating favorable financing terms for those who visit the webinar—and also for Carole and me. We’re seizing the initiative to own appreciating assets in appreciating markets.   I’ll write an update to this book later to show how the opportunities mentioned above contribute to my goal of earning my first million by August 12, 2018—five years after completing 26 years as federal prisoner 16377-004.

Earning Freedom Mastermind Course: Mike Tausek came across the Straight-A Guide course that I created for Justin’s nonprofit foundation. We had distributed the course to several jails, schools, and prisons. Mike contacted me to learn more about what it would take to bring the Straight-A Guide to Maine’s prison system. The Straight-A Guide was a comprehensive course, with ten modules of five lessons each. The course included workbooks, videodisks, and softcover books. Further, facilitators needed to proceed through a full day of training to learn the concepts. I created the course with intentions to sell the Straight-A Guide to institutions across the United States, yet as I described earlier, we lacked capital to fully implement our plan. Since I had accepted the fulltime position with Andi’s organization, I didn’t have liberty to travel to Maine so easily, I told Mike. I explained to him that I was working to create new, digital products, and suggested that he allow me to create something new that we could test inside of the Maine State Prison. If the idea worked in Maine, I would strive to expand into other markets. Deputy Warden Tausek asked what I had in mind. I suggested that I create the Earning Freedom Mastermind Course. Since he was in Maine, I used a Hockey metaphor. To paraphrase Wayne Gretzky, I said that rather than skating to the puck, we needed to skate to where the puck was going. From my perspective, the educational market would expand its use of digital products. They were less expensive than physical products to both create and distribute. With digital products, I told Mike, I could create new content for prisoners in Maine that would be both timely and relevant. Further, the mastermind course could be interactive, giving the men inside opportunities to ask questions and receive answers from people who emerged from prison successfully. I anticipated that I could create Earning Freedom courses from my desktop computer. I’d need to research how, but since I had Andi’s support, I’d learn how to create webinars and audiobooks. I told him that I would create a 10-part lesson plan and a series of videos that featured interactions with formerly incarcerated individuals. Since I could use technology to film the recordings, I could produce the course in an efficient manner and distribute it through Internet links. Most importantly, participants could ask questions and I’d film responses to their questions. I believed an Earning Freedom course would help build intrinsic motivation for people who lived without hope. Mike Tausek saw the value that digital courses could offer. He agreed to purchase a one-year license to use the Earning Freedom course in his prison. We settled on a $1,000 price point for the annual license. Single orders for a $1,000 were not going to build an empire. But as Andi said, businesses took time to build. I budgeted three years to build products and services that would serve institutions like the state of Maine’s prison system. The same course that I created for Maine would be of value to people across the country, not only for people in prison—for anyone. Rather than limiting the course content for people in prison, I intended to create content that would apply to every citizen who aspired to overcome struggle and reach a higher potential I’d need to build in stages. Those stages would require the following: I’d need to create an abundance of content that was freely available. 2) I’d need to create proprietary content that I could sell. 3) I’d need to ensure that anyone who had access to the content would find a powerful and actionable message of personal empowerment. With a plan in place, I started scouring the Internet to learn more about how to create digital products.   Consulting: Before I describe what I learned from researching digital products, I need to give a bit more background. Since emerging from prison, I worked to build multiple income streams. The work I did while I was incarcerated helped set the stage for such opportunities. Those who read this book from inside of a jail or prison should recognize how decisions they make today will influence prospects or opportunities for success in the weeks, months, and years to come. Earlier, I wrote about my friend Lee opening a job opportunity for me to work in one of his companies immediately after my release. While on that job, I simultaneously earned revenues from public speaking events. A steadier stream of resources came through personal consulting and writing services I offered for others. Rather than taking time off for relaxation, I took advantage of every opportunity available to build financial resources that Carole and I could use to achieve our goals. Although I had to work seven days each week, the progress we made brought a sense of fulfillment. We both were working toward a better future than anyone would’ve expected after multiple decades in prison. As a consequence of my writing and publishing from inside, I had a level of authenticity when I returned to society. Remember, I began with a plan, thinking about the avatars I wanted to influence. By executing that plan through every day of my journey, when I returned to society I had a strong support network. Some of the people in my network were defense attorneys. When they had clients facing prison, and those defendants had questions about prison, the attorneys would recommend their clients contact me. I charged those defendants a fee to help them prepare for the journey ahead. Those people became my clients. They looked for guidance on how they could: Influence the lowest possible sentence. Influence the Bureau of Prisons to send them to the best possible prison. Make productive use of their time inside. Prepare for a successful return to society. Write books that would describe their life story and position their careers for a rebound upon release. Clients would pay a premium to learn lessons that empowered me through the decades that I served. Others retained me to ghostwrite books for them. And fees I earned from providing one-on-one consultation or writing services helped to build financial resources that I could leverage. While researching information on how to create digital products, I stumbled upon information that would contribute to the business I was striving to build with Andi. The bonus was that it would also contribute to consulting work I did on the side. My research led me to podcasts—a concept that I had been familiar with before. The podcast I found was called LawPreneurRadio with Miranda McCroskey. It profiled attorneys. By listening to LawPreneurRadio, I had a new idea. On the episode I heard, Miranda was interviewing Diane Bass, one of the premier defense attorneys in Orange County. I listened to the entire interview and felt inspired. A podcast could be a great “digital product” to create. After all, podcasts were accessible to anyone who had access to the Internet. If I were to create an Earning Freedom podcast, more people would learn of value that I could provide. A podcast could potentially lead to more consulting business, while it would simultaneously lead to a library of digital content that I could use to inspire others. After listening to Miranda’s interview of Diane, I reached out to both women. I liked the idea of using podcasts to profile experts, just as Miranda had profiled Diane. As I found throughout my journey, we strengthen ourselves when we bring more mentors into our life. When we can show that we’re 100% authentic, always committed to leading lives of relevance, meaning, and contribution, people are more willing to help. Despite my background of serving decades in prison, both Diane Bass and Miranda McCroskey agreed to meet with me. They each played a role in influencing my pursuit of a successful career. Diane introduced me to scores of influential criminal defense attorneys. When the attorneys had clients facing time in federal prison, they would refer those people to me. Like Diane, Miranda took the time to meet with me. She mentored me on what it would take to build a successful podcast and she introduced me to Podcaster’s Paradise, the online teaching service that would help me become a podcaster.

9. Orange County After teaching my final class at SFSU in May of 2014, Carole and I loaded our Chevy Aveo to make the seven-hour drive south to Newport Beach. Earnings from books I wrote while in prison provided resources Carole needed to live while she advanced through nursing school. Those earnings also allowed her to purchase the small, four-cylinder Aveo. The car brought a lot of memories for both Carole and me through our journey. From prison yards, I used to wait for her to drive in on visiting days. When I got out of prison Lee asked what type of car I was going to buy, because Carole would need to drive hers. The tone of Lee’s question told me a great deal. Although I wanted to buy a nice car, and I had savings in the bank, I knew that wasting money on an impressive car wouldn’t be prudent. For one thing, blowing resources on a high-end car would not have endeared me to Lee. In fact, I’m sure that if I would’ve purchased an expensive car, he would’ve lost all respect for my judgment. Successful people like Lee or Andi were always calculating. Our daily decisions determined whether people like them would want to invest their time, energy, or resources in helping us grow. We learn many lessons from the ways that successful people think. Carole and I kept her Chevy Aveo. As soon I got my driver’s license, I purchased a used Ford for $4,000 in cash so we wouldn’t incur any wasted debt like a car payment. That decision, I think, met Lee’s approval. And I suspect that it had a lot to do with Chris and Seth agreeing to finance the first house we purchased. We left the Ford with a friend to sell on consignment and we drove our little Chevy Aveo south on Interstate 5. The car wasn’t made for long trips, and it wouldn’t blend in too well in the upscale communities of Orange County. Fortunately, Carole shared a vision with me. We both were after long-term stability and we both worked toward those goals each day. In the pages to follow, I’ll describe some of the ways that I supplemented my income and contributed to our stability. When we left the San Francisco Bay area, we had about $100,000 equity in our house and another $100,000 in savings. It wasn’t a bad position to be in, considering that my prison term had ended only 10 months previously. Rather than splurging on luxuries, we chose to focus together on the million-dollar net worth we intended to build by August of 2018. Digital Businesses: Andi tasked me to work in the communications division of his well-staffed organization. He owned a number of businesses that cumulatively generated annual revenues in excess of $50 million. Overall, he employed more than 100 people. Initially, I would strive to add value by assisting with marketing and communications. True to his word, Andi gave me considerable liberty to develop new business ideas that we could grow together. When not working with his team, I thought of different markets or businesses we could launch. His corporate headquarters occupied a full floor of a 10-story office building in the high-rent district of Irvine, California. While visiting one day, Andi asked what I felt passionate about creating. “I’d like to inspire people, to help them grow and overcome obstacles.” “You’re certainly the guy who can do it.” As we spent more time together, I convinced Andi that a market existed. Potentially, the market could even be big enough to attract an investor like him. In truth, if a business didn’t offer the potential to generate revenues in excess of $10 million a year, Andi wouldn’t waste time discussing it. Yet I believed a massive market existed for products I could create. “If we taught strategies to break limiting beliefs, we’d have a product that would serve every human being on the planet.” Although prison provided the context of my story, I told Andi, my message wasn’t only about prison. It was about overcoming struggles and that message had much broader implications. At some point during the journey of life, every individual experienced struggle. Too frequently, those struggles derailed an individual’s confidence. People who experienced challenges that included financial reversals, divorce, obesity, business or career complications, lived with misery. If we could create products and services to reach that market, we could bring enormous value that millions of people would appreciate. By creating the products in a digital format, we could build something that truly scaled. Andi asked what I had in mind. More than my employer, I considered Andi a friend and mentor. As we spoke, I wanted him to partner with me in building a new business—one that didn’t relate to the reasons he brought me down from San Francisco to work with him. My idea was to expand upon the entire “Earning Freedom” concept. Since few could imagine serving decades in prison, and few would expect anyone to emerge from a lengthy stint in prison successfully, I wanted to use my story to inspire others. I could create products and services that would teach others the strategies I learned from masterminds. As I did with the Straight-A Guide, I’d create curriculums under the Earning Freedom brand. Instead of focusing only on the prison system, however, we’d create digital products for both end users and institutions. “As I told you before, I’ve always invested in people,” Andi said. “Focus on the business you want to build. Just know that ideas take time to develop. Nothing happens overnight.” With Andi’s support, I started. Before I could create a revenue stream, I needed to create a resource that would encourage more people to believe in me. Although the written word was great, I learned many lessons about society since my release from prison. For one thing, attention spans were shorter. Rather than reading lengthy books, many people preferred to gather information through audiobooks and videos. I was exploring digital platforms like audiobooks and videos when I received a call from Mike Tausek, a deputy warden from the state of Maine’s prison system.

Earning Freedom Mastermind Course: Mike Tausek came across the Straight-A Guide course that I created for Justin’s nonprofit foundation. We had distributed the course to several jails, schools, and prisons. Mike contacted me to learn more about what it would take to bring the Straight-A Guide to Maine’s prison system.   The Straight-A Guide was a comprehensive course, with ten modules of five lessons each. The course included workbooks, videodisks, and softcover books. Further, facilitators needed to proceed through a full day of training to learn the concepts. I created the course with intentions to sell the Straight-A Guide to institutions across the United States, yet as I described earlier, we lacked capital to fully implement our plan.   Since I had accepted the fulltime position with Tim’s organization, I didn’t have liberty to travel to Maine so easily, I told Mike. I explained to him that I was working to create new, digital products, and suggested that he allow me to create something new that we could test inside of the Maine State Prison. If the idea worked in Maine, I would strive to expand into other markets.   Mike asked what I had in mind.   I suggested that I create the Earning Freedom Mastermind Course. Since he was in Maine, I used a Hockey metaphor. To paraphrase Wayne Gretzky, I said that rather than skating to the puck, we needed to skate to where the puck was going. From my perspective, the educational market would expand its use of digital products. They were less expensive than physical products to both create and distribute. With digital products, I told Mike, I could create new content for prisoners in Maine that would be both timely and relevant. Further, the mastermind course could be interactive, giving the men inside opportunities to ask questions and receive answers from people who emerged from prison successfully.   I anticipated that I could create Earning Freedom courses from my desktop computer. I’d need to research how, but since I had Tim’s support, I’d learn how to create webinars and audiobooks. I told him that I would create a 10-part lesson plan and a series of videos that featured interactions with formerly incarcerated individuals. Since I could use technology to film the recordings, I could produce the course in an efficient manner and distribute it through Internet links. Most importantly, participants could ask questions and I’d film responses to their questions. I believed an Earning Freedom course would help build intrinsic motivation for people who lived without hope.   Mike Tausek saw the value that digital courses could offer. He agreed to purchase a one-year license to use the Earning Freedom course in his prison. We settled on a $1,000 price point for the annual license.   Single orders for a $1,000 were not going to build an empire. But as Tim said, businesses took time to build. I budgeted three years to build products and services that would serve institutions like the state of Maine’s prison system. The same course that I created for Maine would be of value to people across the country, not only for people in prison—for anyone. Rather than limiting the course content for people in prison, I intended to create content that would apply to every citizen who aspired to overcome struggle and reach a higher potential   I’d need to build in stages. Those stages would require the following:   I’d need to create an abundance of content that was freely available. I’d need to create proprietary content that I could sell. I’d need to ensure that anyone who had access to the content would find a powerful and actionable message of personal empowerment.   With a plan in place, I started scouring the Internet to learn more about how to create digital products.     Consulting: Before I describe what I learned from researching digital products, I need to give a bit more background. Since emerging from prison, I worked to build multiple income streams. The work I did while I was incarcerated helped set the stage for such opportunities. Those who read this book from inside of a jail or prison should recognize how decisions they make today will influence prospects or opportunities for success in the weeks, months, and years to come.   Earlier, I wrote about my friend Lee opening a job opportunity for me to work in one of his companies immediately after my release. While on that job, I simultaneously earned revenues from public speaking events. A steadier stream of resources came through personal consulting and writing services I offered for others. Rather than taking time off for relaxation, I took advantage of every opportunity available to build financial resources that Carole and I could use to achieve our goals. Although I had to work seven days each week, the progress we made brought a sense of fulfillment. We both were working toward a better future than anyone would’ve expected after multiple decades in prison.   As a consequence of my writing and publishing from inside, I had a level of authenticity when I returned to society. Remember, I began with a plan, thinking about the avatars I wanted to influence. By executing that plan through every day of my journey, when I returned to society I had a strong support network. Some of the people in my network were defense attorneys. When they had clients facing prison, and those defendants had questions about prison, the attorneys would recommend their clients contact me. I charged those defendants a fee to help them prepare for the journey ahead. Those people became my clients. They looked for guidance on how they could:   Influence the lowest possible sentence. Influence the Bureau of Prisons to send them to the best possible prison. Make productive use of their time inside. Prepare for a successful return to society. Write books that would describe their life story and position their careers for a rebound upon release.   Clients would pay a premium to learn lessons that empowered me through the decades that I served. Others retained me to ghostwrite books for them. And fees I earned from providing one-on-one consultation or writing services helped to build financial resources that I could leverage.   While researching information on how to create digital products, I stumbled upon information that would contribute to the business I was striving to build with Tim. The bonus was that it would also contribute to consulting work I did on the side. My research led me to podcasts—a concept that I had been familiar with before.   The podcast I found was called LawPreneurRadio with Miranda McCroskey. It profiled attorneys. By listening to LawPreneurRadio, I had a new idea. On the episode I heard, Miranda was interviewing Diane Bass, one of the premier defense attorneys in Orange County. I listened to the entire interview and felt inspired. A podcast could be a great “digital product” to create. After all, podcasts were accessible to anyone who had access to the Internet. If I were to create an Earning Freedom podcast, more people would learn of value that I could provide. A podcast could potentially lead to more consulting business, while it would simultaneously lead to a library of digital content that I could use to inspire others.   After listening to Miranda’s interview of Diane, I reached out to both women.   I liked the idea of using podcasts to profile experts, just as Miranda had profiled Diane.   As I found throughout my journey, we strengthen ourselves when we bring more mentors into our life. When we can show that we’re 100% authentic, always committed to leading lives of relevance, meaning, and contribution, people are more willing to help.   Despite my background of serving decades in prison, both Diane Bass and Miranda McCroskey agreed to meet with me. They each played a role in influencing my pursuit of a successful career. Diane introduced me to scores of influential criminal defense attorneys. When the attorneys had clients facing time in federal prison, they would refer those people to me. Like Diane, Miranda took the time to meet with me. She mentored me on what it would take to build a successful podcast and she introduced me to Podcaster’s Paradise, the online teaching service that would help me become a podcaster.

Corporate Sponsorship: To succeed in building the Straight-A Guide program, I would need to find a different source of support. My Socratic questioning convinced me that I didn’t have sufficient experience to accept responsibility for $3 million worth of investor money. But that didn’t mean I would have to abandon the idea altogether. Instead of raising money necessary to hire a staff, lease office space, fund travel, marketing, and advertising expenses, I decided to venture into the market and get more experience. To validate the concept and build the business, I knew that I’d need to continue efforts I’d been making since I concluded my prison term eight months previously. Yet those efforts required me to spend money on airfare, on rental cars, on hotels. I had to travel frequently. Further, I needed more resources to pay for services like web development and marketing. I wanted to attend trade shows, purchase display booths, and interact with administrators who would consider purchasing my products. I didn’t have enough funding to launch those plans. Since I felt passionately about inspiring people who lived in struggle to work toward reaching their highest potential, and I believed that a market existed, I made a decision. Instead of asking for investors, I’d go out into the corporate sector and ask for sponsorship. During my time in prison I became acquainted with many men who ran successful business ventures. For one reason or another, authorities charged them with crimes, juries or judges convicted them, and those business leaders went to prison. When I was confined in Lompoc, I built a friendship with leaders like Lee, founder of a company that employed several hundred people. When I was confined in Taft, I built a friendship with Greg, leader of a publicly traded technology company worth billions. When I was in Atwater, I built a friendship with Andi, founder of several companies that generated hundreds of millions in revenue. When we were together, those men had an opportunity to assess my work ethic and character. I didn’t only consider them as some of my closest friends, but they were also business mentors for me. Whereas I lacked experience in running businesses, they had built track records of extraordinary success. I decided to reach out and ask them for guidance. I hoped to find 10 different corporate sponsors that would pledge $10,000 per year for three years. Those resources would provide me with $100,000 per year that I could use to fund expenses. If I succeeded in raising the capital, I would be able to work fulltime toward building a business while not being stressed out about paying travel costs and marketing expenses. By working on this venture fulltime for three years, I anticipated that I would gain traction in the marketplace. More purchase orders would come through, leading more people to use the program. The program would then grow organically, through word of mouth and referrals. In time, I’d have a self-sustaining business.   Newport Beach: In the spring of 2013, I began my search for corporate sponsorship. My first call was to Andi, an entrepreneur with a successful track record of building business that exceeded $10 million in annual revenues. I have incredible admiration for him as a person and as a business visionary. During his senior year in college, he launched a venture that saved money for customers and generated substantial profits for his firm. Andi leveraged those profits to launch numerous other ventures that proved equally successful while he simultaneously helped his family and friends. His combination of vision, ability to plan, and capability of building teams that could execute brought results of a modern-day Midas. He didn’t begin a venture that didn’t have the potential of generating massive revenues. And if the venture didn’t stick, he abandoned the idea and moved on to the next one. His approach to business and life inspired others to want to work harder, smarter. Andi met with me in his boardroom and he introduced me to several leaders on his team. As I told him about ambitions I had about creating products and services that I could sell to the billion-dollar industry of “corrections,” he questioned me. “Why would people who operated prisons care whether the people inside came out successfully?” “What makes you think they would buy products that you created?” “How long do you think it would take before you started generating purchase orders?” “Can you really build a business around these ideas?” His questions prompted a lengthy discussion that we carried over as wewent to lunch at Houston’s, a trendy restaurant in nearby Irvine. The parking lot was filled with Mercedes Benzes, Porsches, Bentleys, and Teslas, like Andi’s. Toward the end of our meal, Andi made his point by suggesting that I look at the others in the restaurant. “What do you see here?” Houston’s catered to a crowd that dressed well, drove high-end cars, and didn’t flinch at lunch tabs that easily topped $100 for a table of two. “The thing is,” he said, “you and I know the prison system is messed up. It’s great that you want to improve it. But the reality is, no one in places like this really cares about either the prison system or the people serving time inside.” “It’s my job to change those perceptions.” I wanted more people to realize that our nation’s commitment to mass incarceration influenced every American citizen. He shrugged. “I guess you need to ask yourself a question. Do you want to change the world or do you want to make money?” My response was that I thought I could succeed on both fronts, earning a good living while simultaneously working to empower and inspire others. “Maybe you can, maybe you can’t” he said. “But you’ve got a lot of passion for this stuff that no one really cares about. If you could translate some of that energy into business, you could come work with me, start making some money right now, and build products to change the prison system on the side.” I asked what he had in mind. Andi suggested that I join his team as a fulltime employee and contribute as needed. He was offering an opportunity of a lifetime. “The thing is, I invest in people. I know you work hard. Keep at this thing, you might build something. If you do, we’ll carve it up in a fair way. If not, we’ll build something else together.” Showing that he wasn’t a guy who made empty promises, Andi offered to cover my housing expense for the first year and pay a $100,000 salary while we figured out what I’d do. What’s the lesson here? Was I lucky? Without a doubt! But if I hadn’t sown seeds early on during my prison term, Andi would not have believed in me. As he said, he invested in people. He wouldn’t invest in a person unless that person made a massive investment in “self” first. What investment are you making in yourself today? What types of investment can you make in yourself right now that will influence other people to want to invest in your future?

Total Available Market: First and foremost, I anticipated that investors would want to know the total available market for products that I could create. As I wrote above, I envisioned a multi-billion-dollar annual market. I arrived at that number after reviewing published reports showing that state and federal governments spent in excess of $80 billion per year on corrections. Although I didn’t have any data, I estimated that at minimum, 5% of those budgets funded programs designed to reduce recidivism and to prepare offenders for successful lives upon release. Using those metrics, the total available market exceeded $4 billion each year. Obviously, if I could put an organization together, we’d only receive a fraction of those resources. But if we implemented the program successfully, and we became an evidence-based program after three years, it would seem that the The Straight-A Guide could secure an average of at least 20 clients in each state, for a projected, estimated total of 1,000 clients. If each client placed an average order of $10,000 per year, we’d have a business that generated $10 million in annual revenues. Again, I could only “project” into the future, or visualize prospects for success. I’d need to convince others that a market existed and that the potential for upside validated the risk associated with the investment. After all, anyone who put money into such a venture would have to wait three years before they would see a return on investment.   ROI Would a return on investment warrant the risk? I continued to run the numbers. Since we’d be creating digital products, gross profit margins would likely exceed 70%. After all, once I produced a product, the costs of production would drop significantly. Based on estimates of $10 million in revenues, the company should generate north of $7 million in annual profits after year three. With those numbers, it would seem that investors might be willing to provide $3 million in funding in exchange for 50% of a company we’d create. Such an equity split would return all investment capital within five years; the investors would still own 50% of a growing company. Despite the promise that I saw, I suspected that investors would view the opportunity from a different perspective. An infinite number of opportunities competed for their attention and their capital. Although the Straight-A Guide offered a “social good” in that it would influence people in prison to begin preparing for success, and the business venture had the potential for generating lasting profits in a growing market that was poised to grow, investors would perceive risks. I anticipated their objections: If you’re asking us to invest $3 million for a 50% stake in your company, you’re implying that your idea is worth $6 million. What experience do you have in overseeing ventures with this level of complexity? If prison administrators resist buying from a convicted felon now, what makes you think that they’ll be more inclined to purchase products you create three years from now? What track record do you have for returning capital to investors?   Questions The more questions I asked, the more I realized that I wasn’t yet ready to seek venture capital from investors to fund my idea. I’d never run a business before, I’d never managed a group of professionals, and I didn’t have a track record for returning capital. Although I believed a growing market existed, and we’d validated the concept to some extent by receiving more than $100,000 worth of purchase orders from several government agencies, the realities were that I needed to learn more about the market before I could raise capital necessary to build a team. Until then, I needed to approach the challenge differently—creatively.

Orange County After teaching my final class at SFSU in May of 2014, Carole and I loaded our Chevy Aveo to make the seven-hour drive south to Newport Beach. Earnings from books I wrote while in prison provided resources Carole needed to live while she advanced through nursing school. Those earnings also allowed her to purchase the small, four-cylinder Aveo. The car brought a lot of memories for both Carole and me through our journey. From prison yards, I used to wait for her to drive in on visiting days.   When I got out of prison Lee asked what type of car I was going to buy, because Carole would need to drive hers.   The tone of Lee’s question told me a great deal. Although I wanted to buy a nice car, and I had savings in the bank, I knew that wasting money on an impressive car wouldn’t be prudent. For one thing, blowing resources on a high-end car would not have endeared me to Lee. In fact, I’m sure that if I would’ve purchased an expensive car, he would’ve lost all respect for my judgment. Successful people like Lee or Tim were always calculating. Our daily decisions determined whether people like them would want to invest their time, energy, or resources in helping us grow.   We learn many lessons from the ways that successful people think.   Carole and I kept her Chevy Aveo. As soon I got my driver’s license, I purchased a used Ford for $4,000 in cash so we wouldn’t incur any wasted debt like a car payment. That decision, I think, met Lee’s approval. And I suspect that it had a lot to do with Chris and Seth agreeing to finance the first house we purchased.   We left the Ford with a friend to sell on consignment and we drove our little Chevy Aveo south on Interstate 5. The car wasn’t made for long trips, and it wouldn’t blend in too well in the upscale communities of Orange County. Fortunately, Carole shared a vision with me. We both were after long-term stability and we both worked toward those goals each day. In the pages to follow, I’ll describe some of the ways that I supplemented my income and contributed to our stability. When we left the San Francisco Bay area, we had about $100,000 equity in our house and another $100,000 in savings. It wasn’t a bad position to be in, considering that my prison term had ended only 10 months previously. Rather than splurging on luxuries, we chose to focus together on the million-dollar net worth we intended to build by August of 2018.     Digital Businesses: Tim tasked me to work in the communications division of his well-staffed organization. He owned a number of businesses that cumulatively generated annual revenues in excess of $50 million. Overall, he employed more than 100 people. Initially, I would strive to add value by assisting with marketing and communications. True to his word, Tim gave me considerable liberty to develop new business ideas that we could grow together. When not working with his team, I thought of different markets or businesses we could launch.   His corporate headquarters occupied a full floor of a 10-story office building in the high-rent district of Irvine, California. While visiting one day, Tim asked what I felt passionate about creating.   “I’d like to inspire people, to help them grow and overcome obstacles.”   “You’re certainly the guy who can do it.”   As we spent more time together, I convinced Tim that a market existed. Potentially, the market could even be big enough to attract an investor like him. In truth, if a business didn’t offer the potential to generate revenues in excess of $10 million a year, Tim wouldn’t waste time discussing it. Yet I believed a massive market existed for products I could create.   “If we taught strategies to break limiting beliefs, we’d have a product that would serve every human being on the planet.”   Although prison provided the context of my story, I told Tim, my message wasn’t only about prison. It was about overcoming struggles and that message had much broader implications. At some point during the journey of life, every individual experienced struggle. Too frequently, those struggles derailed an individual’s confidence. People who experienced challenges that included financial reversals, divorce, obesity, business or career complications, lived with misery. If we could create products and services to reach that market, we could bring enormous value that millions of people would appreciate. By creating the products in a digital format, we could build something that truly scaled.   Tim asked what I had in mind.   More than my employer, I considered Tim a friend and mentor. As we spoke, I wanted him to partner with me in building a new business—one that didn’t relate to the reasons he brought me down from San Francisco to work with him.   My idea was to expand upon the entire “Earning Freedom” concept. Since few could imagine serving decades in prison, and few would expect anyone to emerge from a lengthy stint in prison successfully, I wanted to use my story to inspire others. I could create products and services that would teach others the strategies I learned from masterminds. As I did with the Straight-A Guide, I’d create curriculums under the Earning Freedom brand. Instead of focusing only on the prison system, however, we’d create digital products for both end users and institutions.   “As I told you before, I’ve always invested in people,” Tim said. “Focus on the business you want to build. Just know that ideas take time to develop. Nothing happens overnight.”   With Tim’s support, I started. Before I could create a revenue stream, I needed to create a resource that would encourage more people to believe in me. Although the written word was great, I learned many lessons about society since my release from prison. For one thing, attention spans were shorter. Rather than reading lengthy books, many people preferred to gather information through audiobooks and videos. I was exploring digital platforms like audiobooks and videos when I received a call from Mike Tausek, a deputy warden from the state of Maine’s prison system.

Corporate Sponsorship: To succeed in building the Straight-A Guide program, I would need to find a different source of support. My Socratic questioning convinced me that I didn’t have sufficient experience to accept responsibility for $3 million worth of investor money. But that didn’t mean I would have to abandon the idea altogether. Instead of raising money necessary to hire a staff, lease office space, fund travel, marketing, and advertising expenses, I decided to venture into the market and get more experience.   To validate the concept and build the business, I knew that I’d need to continue efforts I’d been making since I concluded my prison term eight months previously. Yet those efforts required me to spend money on airfare, on rental cars, on hotels. I had to travel frequently. Further, I needed more resources to pay for services like web development and marketing. I wanted to attend trade shows, purchase display booths, and interact with administrators who would consider purchasing my products. I didn’t have enough funding to launch those plans.   Since I felt passionately about inspiring people who lived in struggle to work toward reaching their highest potential, and I believed that a market existed, I made a decision. Instead of asking for investors, I’d go out into the corporate sector and ask for sponsorship.   During my time in prison I became acquainted with many men who ran successful business ventures. For one reason or another, authorities charged them with crimes, juries or judges convicted them, and those business leaders went to prison. When I was confined in Lompoc, I built a friendship with leaders like Lee, founder of a company that employed several hundred people. When I was confined in Taft, I built a friendship with Greg, leader of a publicly traded technology company worth billions. When I was in Atwater, I built a friendship with Tim, founder of several companies that generated hundreds of millions in revenue.   When we were together, those men had an opportunity to assess my work ethic and character. I didn’t only consider them as some of my closest friends, but they were also business mentors for me. Whereas I lacked experience in running businesses, they had built track records of extraordinary success. I decided to reach out and ask them for guidance.   I hoped to find 10 different corporate sponsors that would pledge $10,000 per year for three years. Those resources would provide me with $100,000 per year that I could use to fund expenses. If I succeeded in raising the capital, I would be able to work fulltime toward building a business while not being stressed out about paying travel costs and marketing expenses. By working on this venture fulltime for three years, I anticipated that I would gain traction in the marketplace. More purchase orders would come through, leading more people to use the program. The program would then grow organically, through word of mouth and referrals. In time, I’d have a self-sustaining business.     Newport Beach: In the spring of 2013, I began my search for corporate sponsorship. My first call was to Tim, an entrepreneur with a successful track record of building business that exceeded $10 million in annual revenues. I have incredible admiration for him as a person and as a business visionary. During his senior year in college, he launched a venture that saved money for customers and generated substantial profits for his firm. Tim leveraged those profits to launch numerous other ventures that proved equally successful while he simultaneously helped his family and friends. His combination of vision, ability to plan, and capability of building teams that could execute brought results of a modern-day Midas. He didn’t begin a venture that didn’t have the potential of generating massive revenues. And if the venture didn’t stick, he abandoned the idea and moved on to the next one. His approach to business and life inspired others to want to work harder, smarter.   Tim met with me in his boardroom and he introduced me to several leaders on his team. As I told him about ambitions I had about creating products and services that I could sell to the billion-dollar industry of “corrections,” he questioned me.   “Why would people who operated prisons care whether the people inside came out successfully?”   “What makes you think they would buy products that you created?”   “How long do you think it would take before you started generating purchase orders?”   “Can you really build a business around these ideas?”   His questions prompted a lengthy discussion that we carried over as we went to lunch at Houston’s, a trendy restaurant in nearby Irvine. The parking lot was filled with Mercedes Benzes, Porsches, Bentleys, and Teslas, like Tim’s. Toward the end of our meal, Tim made his point by suggesting that I look at the others in the restaurant.   “What do you see here?”   Houston’s catered to a crowd that dressed well, drove high-end cars, and didn’t flinch at lunch tabs that easily topped $100 for a table of two.   “The thing is,” he said, “you and I know the prison system is messed up. It’s great that you want to improve it. But the reality is, no one in places like this really cares about either the prison system or the people serving time inside.”   “It’s my job to change those perceptions.” I wanted more people to realize that our nation’s commitment to mass incarceration influenced every American citizen.   He shrugged. “I guess you need to ask yourself a question. Do you want to change the world or do you want to make money?”   My response was that I thought I could succeed on both fronts, earning a good living while simultaneously working to empower and inspire others.   “Maybe you can, maybe you can’t” he said. “But you’ve got a lot of passion for this stuff that no one really cares about. If you could translate some of that energy into business, you could come work with me, start making some money right now, and build products to change the prison system on the side.”   I asked what he had in mind. Tim suggested that I join his team as a fulltime employee and contribute as needed. He was offering an opportunity of a lifetime.   “The thing is, I invest in people. I know you work hard. Keep at this thing, you might build something. If you do, we’ll carve it up in a fair way. If not, we’ll build something else together.” Showing that he wasn’t a guy who made empty promises, Tim offered to cover my housing expense for the first year and pay a $100,000 salary while we figured out what I’d do.   What’s the lesson here? Was I lucky? Without a doubt! But if I hadn’t sown seeds early on during my prison term, Tim would not have believed in me. As he said, he invested in people. He wouldn’t invest in a person unless that person made a massive investment in “self” first. What investment are you making in yourself today? What types of investment can you make in yourself right now that will influence other people to want to invest in your future?

Total Available Market: First and foremost, I anticipated that investors would want to know the total available market for products that I could create. As I wrote above, I envisioned a multi-billion-dollar annual market. I arrived at that number after reviewing published reports showing that state and federal governments spent in excess of $80 billion per year on corrections. Although I didn’t have any data, I estimated that at minimum, 5% of those budgets funded programs designed to reduce recidivism and to prepare offenders for successful lives upon release. Using those metrics, the total available market exceeded $4 billion each year.   Obviously, if I could put an organization together, we’d only receive a fraction of those resources. But if we implemented the program successfully, and we became an evidence-based program after three years, it would seem that the The Straight-A Guide could secure an average of at least 20 clients in each state, for a projected, estimated total of 1,000 clients. If each client placed an average order of $10,000 per year, we’d have a business that generated $10 million in annual revenues.   Again, I could only “project” into the future, or visualize prospects for success. I’d need to convince others that a market existed and that the potential for upside validated the risk associated with the investment. After all, anyone who put money into such a venture would have to wait three years before they would see a return on investment.   Would a return on investment warrant the risk? I continued to run the numbers.   Since we’d be creating digital products, gross profit margins would likely exceed 70%. After all, once I produced a product, the costs of production would drop significantly. Based on estimates of $10 million in revenues, the company should generate north of $7 million in annual profits after year three. With those numbers, it would seem that investors might be willing to provide $3 million in funding in exchange for 50% of a company we’d create. Such an equity split would return all investment capital within five years; the investors would still own 50% of a growing company.   Despite the promise that I saw, I suspected that investors would view the opportunity from a different perspective. An infinite number of opportunities competed for their attention and their capital. Although the Straight-A Guide offered a “social good” in that it would influence people in prison to begin preparing for success, and the business venture had the potential for generating lasting profits in a growing market that was poised to grow, investors would perceive risks. I anticipated their objections:   If you’re asking us to invest $3 million for a 50% stake in your company, you’re implying that your idea is worth $6 million. What experience do you have in overseeing ventures with this level of complexity?   If prison administrators resist buying from a convicted felon now, what makes you think that they’ll be more inclined to purchase products you create three years from now?   What track record do you have for returning capital to investors?   The more questions I asked, the more I realized that I wasn’t yet ready to seek venture capital from investors to fund my idea. I’d never run a business before, I’d never managed a group of professionals, and I didn’t have a track record for returning capital. Although I believed a growing market existed, and we’d validated the concept to some extent by receiving more than $100,000 worth of purchase orders from several government agencies, the realities were that I needed to learn more about the market before I could raise capital necessary to build a team.   Until then, I needed to approach the challenge differently—creatively.

First Mortgage: Carole and I met with a mortgage banker and provided all of the documentation requested. We took the next step of ordering an appraisal of the property. By considering comparable prices in the neighborhood, the appraiser provided documentation valuing our property at $454,000. To avoid additional charges for mortgage insurance, we agreed to accept a mortgage of 80% of our home’s appraised value, or roughly $363,000. We wrote a check for $17,000 to cover the remaining amount we would owe to pay off the note to ABS Development. With the $12,000 we had put as a down payment when we initially signed the purchase agreement, and the $17,000 in additional funding we had to pay at the time of the close, our total out-of-pocket investment in the property was $29,000. But in less than 18 months of ownership, our total equity in the property surpassed $90,000—or more than three times what we put into the property. In applying for the mortgage, Carole and I considered the term of the loan. Traditionally, most people finance their properties over a 30-year term. The longer amortization brings the advantage of lower monthly payments. With the longer term, however, payments during the first half of the loan went primarily to satisfy interest. Since we wanted to build equity in the property at an accelerated rate, we chose to finance our property over a 15-year term. The monthly payments on such a loan would be around $2,500, but each payment would reduce our principle balance by more than $1,500.   15-Year Mortgage The advantage of owning real estate that we financed over a 15-year term became readily apparent to us. As long as the housing market continued to heat up, our property’s higher valuation would increase our equity. If we looked at a five-year plan, and property values increased by 20% over that term, our $454,000 property would be worth $544,000. In addition, by making our mortgage payments on time over a five-year term, we would reduce the amount of mortgage debt we owed on the property by at least $100,000. If those plans worked out, we could project an equity in the property of more than $280,000 after five years—a 10x return on the money we invested to purchase the property. As I made these projections, it became clear that real estate ownership could and should play a significant role in my plan to build credibility. If I could replicate the strategy a few more times, it would seem that I could reach the goal I had set of building a $1,000,000 net worth by August of 2018, five years after I concluded my obligation to the Bureau of Prisons. I would only need to make my mortgage payments on time, and build my career.   Continuing to Plan: To build my career, however, I would still need to persuade more institutions to purchase The Straight-A Guide. Without independent research to validate the program as being evidence-based, however, I would continue to meet resistance in the marketplace. Administrators would object, saying that although I used the course to become successful, there was no guarantee that others could do the same. To overcome administrative objections that I anticipated, I would need to build more credibility. One strategy to build that credibility would be to write more, to speak more, and to create opportunities that would put me in front of more prospective buyers. Each one of those strategies required financial resources. Accordingly, I needed to figure out ways to obtain more working capital that would allow me to reach a broader market. As the old saying goes, it takes money to make money.

8. Raising Capital The wisdom of Socrates has lived for longer than 2,000 years. His teachings influenced my thinking and approach to problems. To figure out next steps in the development of my career, I turned to his question-based approach to learning. The more questions I asked, the more truth I found in his saying, “The one thing I know is that I know nothing.” By the spring of 2014, I’d been free from the Bureau of Prisons for eight months. The experience of creating the Straight-A Guide and striving to bring the product to market taught many lessons. More than anything, I learned that I needed help. In order to build a truly sustainable business, I’d need to inspire a team of qualified professionals who could accelerate sustainable growth.   Venture Funding: I did some simple back-of-the-envelope math. Attracting candidates who could execute a plan would require sufficient capital. To start, the organization I envisioned would have to pay livable wages. We’d need at least $300,000 per year to build a team of five people with appropriate skills. In addition to those resources, we’d need resources to pay for office space and equipment, travel, marketing, advertising, and web development. Then, we’d need resources to fund an independent research project to evaluate the effectiveness of the Straight-A Guide. All in, I anticipated that we would need between $600,000 and $1 million per year to fund a sustainable operation. Further, we likely would need three years worth of funding before we would become a fully validated, evidenced-based program. Simply put, to bring this dream to life, I anticipated that we would need between $2.5 and $3 million of venture funding. As a convicted felon who had only recently been released from 26 years in prison, I anticipated significant challenges in raising $3 million. Yet raising funding of some sort would be necessary if I were going to succeed in building a business. I couldn’t work for free and I couldn’t expect anyone to join the team I envisioned if I couldn’t offer livable wages. Working to change the world would be great, but people needed to eat, too. Before picking up the phone and trying to raise money, I used the same strategy that I taught through the Straight-A Guide. That strategy of identifying values, setting goals, and articulating a message helped me conquer 26 years in prison and I was convinced it would help me chart the next course of my journey in society. To start, I thought of my avatars—the prospective investors. What questions would they want me to answer? If I could understand their motivations for investing, I would advance my prospects for success.(Discuss crabs in bucket, importance of building credit…)

Raising Capital The wisdom of Socrates has lived for longer than 2,000 years. His teachings influenced my thinking and approach to problems. To figure out next steps in the development of my career, I turned to his question-based approach to learning. The more questions I asked, the more truth I found in his saying, “The one thing I know is that I know nothing.”   By the spring of 2014, I’d been free from the Bureau of Prisons for eight months. The experience of creating the Straight-A Guide and striving to bring the product to market taught many lessons. More than anything, I learned that I needed help. In order to build a truly sustainable business, I’d need to inspire a team of qualified professionals who could accelerate sustainable growth.   I did some simple back-of-the-envelope math. Attracting candidates who could execute a plan would require sufficient capital. To start, the organization I envisioned would have to pay livable wages. We’d need at least $300,000 per year to build a team of five people with appropriate skills. In addition to those resources, we’d need resources to pay for office space and equipment, travel, marketing, advertising, and web development. Then, we’d need resources to fund an independent research project to evaluate the effectiveness of the Straight-A Guide. All in, I anticipated that we would need between $600,000 and $1 million per year to fund a sustainable operation. Further, we likely would need three years worth of funding before we would become a fully validated, evidenced-based program. Simply put, to bring this dream to life, I anticipated that we would need between $2.5 and $3 million of venture funding.   As a convicted felon who had only recently been released from 26 years in prison, I anticipated significant challenges in raising $3 million. Yet raising funding of some sort would be necessary if I were going to succeed in building a business. I couldn’t work for free and I couldn’t expect anyone to join the team I envisioned if I couldn’t offer livable wages. Working to change the world would be great, but people needed to eat, too.   Before picking up the phone and trying to raise money, I used the same strategy that I taught through the Straight-A Guide. That strategy of identifying values, setting goals, and articulating a message helped me conquer 26 years in prison and I was convinced it would help me chart the next course of my journey in society.   To start, I thought of my avatars—the prospective investors. What questions would they want me to answer? If I could understand their motivations for investing, I would advance my prospects for success.

Straight-A Guide Program: During my imprisonment, we developed the literature for this program. It all began under the theory that people in prison would be more receptive to learning from individuals who had transformed their lives while they experienced the prison system. Prisoners sometimes rejected a message when that message came from people who didn’t know the pain of being separated from the people they loved, or from the people who loved them. We wanted to reach prisoners. We wanted to convince those people that it was never too early, and it was never too late to begin preparing for a better life. I wrote three books to share lessons that empowered me through the multiple decades that I served. They weren’t my lessons, but lessons I learned from people I called masterminds. In truth, we all faced struggle during the course of our life. Many people overcame struggles that were far more significant than a lengthy prison sentence. I learned from those people and I convinced that other people can learn from those lessons as well. With continued funding from The California Wellness Foundation, The Sierra Health Foundation, The Cornerstone Project, and other philanthropic groups, we were able to create a comprehensive series of lesson plans and accompanying videos. Our 10 separate learning modules included five lessons in each module, for a total of 50 lessons. Funding allowed us to retain the team at Landini Media, SRV Studios, and Open Advance. Together we created more than 12 hours of high-quality video footage to complete our Straight-A Guide training program. Tulio Cardozo assisted me in designing the lesson-plan layouts. Through the Straight-A Guide, we aspired to teach actionable strategies for self-empowerment. People in prison or in at-risk populations could use those strategies to transform their lives in the same way that others have done. The program worked as follows:   Values: Transformation begins when we identify and articulate values by which we profess to live. In the Straight-A Guide, I taught that message through the context of my own journey. First, I needed to accept responsibility and let the world know that I wanted to become something more than what I was at present. Rather than allowing my past bad decisions to define me, I thought about my avatars. By asking Socratic questions about what they would expect of me, I could define the values by which I professed to live. My avatars would expect me to educate myself, to contribute to society, and to build a support network. Those three principles became the values by which I professed to live. Through the lessons plans I created in Module 1, I encouraged participants to identify values by which they professed to live.   Goals: Once I identified my values, I needed to create a definition of success for each value category. My own definition of success didn’t matter. Instead, I needed to resume my question-approach to learning. How would my avatars define whether I succeeded in my pursuit of education? I anticipated that they would measure an education by a college degree. How would my avatars define whether I succeeded with regard to my contributions to society? I anticipated that if I were to publish, they would consider that I had worked to make a quantifiable contribution. How would my avatars define whether I had built a support network? I anticipated that if I persuaded 10 people to believe in me, and vouch for me, my avatars would find it easier to accept me. Accordingly, I set goals of earning a university degree, of publishing, and of finding 10 people to believe in me within my first decade of confinement. In Module 2, the lessons encouraged participants to articulate their goals, and to make them consistent with their values.   Attitude: Identifying values and goals was the prerequisite to embarking upon the Straight-A Guide. The next Module encouraged participants to move forward with the “right” attitude. What was the right attitude? In the Straight-A Guide we identified the right attitude as a 100% commitment to success—as the individual’s values and goals defined success.   Aspiration: Individuals who moved forward with the right attitude could articulate their aspiration. In Module 4, we taught participants how to see themselves as something more than their past bad decisions or their current circumstances. Instead, we wanted them to project into the future, to see themselves as the success they wanted to build. In essence, we taught them to become the CEOs of their own lives. If they knew what they wanted to become, then they could craft more effective plans that would help them reach the end result.   Action: To become something more, or to reach their highest potential, participants learned that they needed to take incremental action steps. In Module 5, we showed that every person who achieved a high level of success followed this path. People had to execute their plans in order to reach a higher potential. Regardless of where an individual was at a given time, that person could begin taking action steps that would lead to a new and better reality.   Accountability: In Module 6, we showed participants the importance of creating their own accountability metrics. They would need to figure out ways to measure their incremental progress. Even if they anticipated having to pass through decades before their release, or if they didn’t have a release date, this module taught participants ways to hold themselves accountable, making adjustments as necessary.   Awareness: With Module 7, participants learned the cumulative influences of living a deliberated, values-based, goal-oriented adjustment. By living in accordance with the Straight-A Guide, participants would become aware of opportunities. Those opportunities were available to everyone else, but only those who committed to the deliberate path would find them and seize such opportunities. Simultaneously, others would become aware of their commitment to success. Accordingly, they would find people who would have a vested interest in their success—people who would invest in them to advance their success with new opportunities.   Achievement: Module 8 taught about the importance of celebrating incremental achievements. By celebrating each achievement, no matter how small, participants could sustain their growth patterns as months turned into years. They would know and understand how success in one area of life would lead to further successes.   Appreciation: The penultimate module taught participants that they could increase their successes by expressing appreciation for the blessings that came their way. It’s a version of a theory known as “The Law of Attraction,” showing that we could will more success and abundance into our life so long as we reciprocated, bringing more success and abundance to others.   Actualization: Finally, the Straight-A Guide taught participants that by living in accordance with this values-based, goal-oriented strategy, they could empower themselves. They would rely on authorities or others to tell them they were free. Instead, they could create higher levels of liberty in their life by embarking upon their own path, living their own visions. Once we filmed all of the lessons and finalized all of the lesson plans, Justin and I reached into the marketplace so we could start spreading our work.

First Mortgage: Carole and I met with a mortgage banker and provided all of the documentation requested. We took the next step of ordering an appraisal of the property. By considering comparable prices in the neighborhood, the appraiser provided documentation valuing our property at $454,000.                                                                                                                  To avoid additional charges for mortgage insurance, we agreed to accept a mortgage of 80% of our home’s appraised value, or roughly $363,000. We wrote a check for $17,000 to cover the remaining amount we would owe to pay off the note to ABS Development. With the $12,000 we had put as a down payment when we initially signed the purchase agreement, and the $17,000 in additional funding we had to pay at the time of the close, our total out-of-pocket investment in the property was $29,000. But in less than 18 months of ownership, our total equity in the property surpassed $90,000—or more than three times what we put into the property.   In applying for the mortgage, Carole and I considered the term of the loan. Traditionally, most people finance their properties over a 30-year term. The longer amortization brings the advantage of lower monthly payments. With the longer term, however, payments during the first half of the loan went primarily to satisfy interest. Since we wanted to build equity in the property at an accelerated rate, we chose to finance our property over a 15-year term. The monthly payments on such a loan would be around $2,500, but each payment would reduce our principle balance by more than $1,500.   The advantage of owning real estate that we financed over a 15-year term became readily apparent to us. As long as the housing market continued to heat up, our property’s higher valuation would increase our equity. If we looked at a five-year plan, and property values increased by 20% over that term, our $454,000 property would be worth $544,000. In addition, by making our mortgage payments on time over a five-year term, we would reduce the amount of mortgage debt we owed on the property by at least $100,000. If those plans worked out, we could project an equity in the property of more than $280,000 after five years—a 10x return on the money we invested to purchase the property.   As I made these projections, it became clear that real estate ownership could and should play a significant role in my plan to build credibility. If I could replicate the strategy a few more times, it would seem that I could reach the goal I had set of building a $1,000,000 net worth by August of 2018, five years after I concluded my obligation to the Bureau of Prisons. I would only need to make my mortgage payments on time, and build my career.   To build my career, however, I would still need to persuade more institutions to purchase The Straight-A Guide. Without independent research to validate the program as being evidence-based, however, I would continue to meet resistance in the marketplace. Administrators would object, saying that although I used the course to become successful, there was no guarantee that others could do the same.   To overcome administrative objections that I anticipated, I would need to build more credibility. One strategy to build that credibility would be to write more, to speak more, and to create opportunities that would put me in front of more prospective buyers. Each one of those strategies required financial resources. Accordingly, I needed to figure out ways to obtain more working capital that would allow me to reach a broader market. As the old saying goes, it takes money to make money.

7. Finding Markets: Like anyone starting a new venture, Justin and I had to overcome many hurdles as we tried to introduce our products into the marketplace. Philanthropic organizations provided us with funding to get started, but we still needed to create a sustainable business model. That meant we needed to find markets. The markets we identified included jails, prisons, and schools that served people who were at risk of going into jails or prisons. As formerly incarcerated individuals with felony convictions, Justin and I faced challenges in breaking through to decision makers at the institutions where we wanted to sell the Straight-A Guide. I concluded my prison term on August 12, 2013, but I was scheduled to serve an additional four years on Supervised Release. At times, selling to “the system” proved difficult because of our criminal records. Still, we were committed to the work, sensing that our product would inspire more people inside to pursue self-directed paths of preparing for success. On occasions when we broke through to decision makers, we faced another challenge. The corrections industry was becoming more professionalized. As such, administrators were reluctant to purchase programs that had not been evaluated as being “evidence based.” In other words, before considering a rehabilitative program for purchase, the administrators expected to see scholarly research showing a program’s propensity to achieve its intended outcome. With the Straight-A Guide, we aspired to show participants that they could empower themselves and prepare for success in meaningful, measurable ways. Their key to success would begin with a commitment to leading a values-based, goal-oriented life. To the extent that they articulated their values, set clear goals, and moved forward in the principled way of the program, they would make progress. The course would inspire participants to reject the criminal lifestyle and develop stronger critical-thinking skills. Through the Straight-A Guide, participants would contemplate their avatars and employ Socratic questioning techniques. We anticipated that such disciplined, deliberate adjustment patterns would assist the participants in becoming more resourceful. Rather than waiting for calendar pages to turn, or engaging in the types of thoughtless behavior that derails so many people in prison, participants would focus. They’d find mentors, they’d create opportunities, they’d seize or create opportunities to educate themselves. To the extent that participants committed to the Straight-A Guide adjustment plan, they would walk out of prison with a strong support network and confidence in their ability to thrive as law-abiding, contributing citizens. Yet when making this presentation to the corrections industry, we’d frequently encounter resistance. Many would object that other people in prison wouldn’t be able to do what I had done, or grasp the Straight-A Guide. They wanted to see independent scholarly research showing evidence that the Straight-A Guide lowered recidivism rates. We would face an enormous obstacle in providing such evidence. In order to gather the research, we’d need the following: We would need to contract with either a research institution or a university research department. We would need funding to pay for that research. We would need a test group that would allow us to administrate the Straight-A Guide program to a statistically significant group of people in prison. We would need each participant to take a “pretest,” showing their knowledge of the coursework we were about to teach through the program. We would need access to the answers they provided. We would need access to the coursework they completed as they advanced through the program. We would need the participants to complete their prison terms. We would need to measure progress the participants made after they returned to society. We would need to measure the success rate of participants who completed the Straight-A Guide and contrast those rates against others who were not exposed to the program.   Evidence Based Program: To succeed as an evidence-based program, we would need to coordinate an evaluation with an accredited researcher. If the independent researchers had access to data, and their research revealed that participants in the Straight-A Guide program were more likely to succeed upon release, as compared against similarly situated offenders who did not go through the program, we would have the ammunition we needed to sell this program to jails, prisons, and schools across the nation. Our problem was not only one of funding, but also of time. To gather the necessary data showing that Straight-A Guide programs lowered recidivism, participants wouldn’t only need to complete the program. They also would need to complete their prison terms, return to society, and refrain from violating the law for three years. Crossing the hurdle of becoming an evidence-based program would require significant amounts of capital. We would need to pay the necessary personnel who could conduct the study. We would need to fund the costs associated with opening meetings with decision makers. And we would need to collect data from participants who enrolled in the Straight-A Guide program. Until we were able to obtain evidence-based research, we’d continue to meet objections from administrators that would prevent us from scaling the program. If we had resources to acquire the research, we anticipated a massive market. Although we didn’t have clear data on the total available market, we knew that the corrections industry consumed more than $80 billion each year. If reentry and recidivism-reduction programs consumed only 5 percent of that budget, the market would be a $4 billion per year industry. In such a market, we anticipated that if we could become evidence-based, The Straight-A Guide program could anticipate sales north of $10 million per year.   Overcoming Challenges: Despite the challenges, Justin and I succeeded in persuading several administrators to purchase our program. Since we lacked the research to validate the Straight-A Guide, we could not command a high price point. Instead, we offered the program on a licensing basis at $5,000 per year, plus another $2,500 for training. If an institution purchased a license to use the Straight-A Guide program, I would visit the institution to train facilitators on how to teach participants. They could use the program as a tool to build intrinsic motivation and prepare offenders for success. After the training, we would leave the institution with the video content, the literature, and the lesson plans. Institutions could then use the program as a tool to improve outcomes. Our initial clients included the Washington State Prison System, Santa Clara County, The City of San Jose, Orange County School District, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Orange County Department of Education, and The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Those orders generated financial resources, but the costs associated with delivering our program proved to be too high. Our model of offering the Straight-A Guide at a low price point would only work if we were successful in finding hundreds of clients. Despite funding from philanthropic organizations, and funding from purchase orders, we lacked sufficient capital to cross the tipping point. In order to grow, we would need more resources. We needed resources to purchase advertising campaigns that would bring us to the attention of more institutional buyers. We needed resources to purchase booths at conventions that served the corrections market. We needed resources to fund our travel costs and to hire staff members who could help us execute our plan. Inexperience convinced me that purchase orders would flow into our organization as soon as I created the product. As time passed, however, I learned how much I didn’t know about the challenges of launching a start-up venture.

Building Financial Stability: When I concluded my obligation to the Bureau of Prisons in August of 2013, I set new goals with Carole. We were 49 years old and making progress, but we would have to cover a lot of ground to prepare for a stable future. Although I felt passionately about working to improve outcomes of our nation’s prison system, I also had a responsibility of preparing for our family’s future. Carole had sacrificed a great deal to marry me while I still had 10 years remaining to serve in prison. I wanted to provide her with the comfort of knowing that we were stable. I promised to work toward a goal of providing stability for our family. While Carole advanced toward her Master’s degree in nursing, I had to figure out a way to build my own career. With limited resources, it would seem that I would need to think creatively in order to generate more orders for the Straight-A Guide. I needed to build more credibility, showing that the program didn’t only lead to success through prison, but also success in society. If I could achieve “success” in society, I anticipated that administrators might be more willing to purchase our program, even before researchers validated its effectiveness. One principal of the Straight-A Guide is that we never ask anyone to do or say anything that we’re not willing to do or say ourselves. Accordingly, I began asking a series of questions. What approach could I take to define success? That type of question led to other questions. My definition of success wouldn’t matter nearly as much as what my avatars would expect. I considered avatars as being all law-abiding, tax-paying Americans. How would they define success after prison? Better yet, how would they define success in society? In addition to those avatars, I also considered the people in prison that I aspired to teach. If I were asking for their time and attention, what would they expect of me? How could I earn their trust as being someone who could teach them? Answering those questions led me to a conclusion. If I could build a financial statement showing a net worth of $1,000,000, others would deem me successful. I set a goal with Carole, claiming that I would work to build a $1,000,000 net worth within my first five years of liberty. To achieve that goal, I had until August of 2018. By succeeding, I would find it easier to inspire more people to see the value of The Straight-A Guide—with or without a validated research instrument.   Credit: When I set that goal with Carole, I still had a 0-0-0 credit score. Yet since I had completed my obligation to the Bureau of Prisons, rules no longer blocked me from applying for credit. I submitted an application for a credit card to Bank of America. The banker who had opened my account when I first transferred to the halfway house no longer worked there, so I was starting from ground zero. Soon after I submitted my application, I received a phone call from Bank of America. The lady who spoke with me told me she was reviewing my application for credit and said that she had some questions. By living frugally, and saving resources that our work generated, the combined balances in our bank account exceeded $100,000. We didn’t waste money on alcohol or splurges after my release. Other than purchasing the Apple computers that I would need to launch my career, we didn’t buy much of anything. I purchased a used vehicle for $4,000 and we saved as much money as possible. The banker who assessed my application reviewed the assets I listed, but asked why her records showed that I didn’t exist in the credit system. After I told her my story, she agreed to issue my first credit card. Once I received the credit card, I felt a bit more like a citizen. Soon my credit score rose to the high 600s. The next step would be for us to apply for permanent financing on the house we purchased. I had promised Chris and Seth of ABS Development that I would pay off the balance that we owed on the property just as soon as I could qualify for a mortgage. We signed an agreement with them to purchase the property for $390,000 in the fall of 2012, while I was still in the halfway house. In an effort to help us get established, they accepted a down payment of $12,000 and agreed to accept interest-only payments on the outstanding balance until we could pay off the note. We were ready.

Building Financial Stability: When I concluded my obligation to the Bureau of Prisons in August of 2013, I set new goals with Carole. We were 49 years old and making progress, but we would have to cover a lot of ground to prepare for a stable future. Although I felt passionately about working to improve outcomes of our nation’s prison system, I also had a responsibility of preparing for our family’s future. Carole had sacrificed a great deal to marry me while I still had 10 years remaining to serve in prison. I wanted to provide her with the comfort of knowing that we were stable. I promised to work toward a goal of providing stability for our family.   While Carole advanced toward her Master’s degree in nursing, I had to figure out a way to build my own career. With limited resources, it would seem that I would need to think creatively in order to generate more orders for the Straight-A Guide. I needed to build more credibility, showing that the program didn’t only lead to success through prison, but also success in society. If I could achieve “success” in society, I anticipated that administrators might be more willing to purchase our program, even before researchers validated its effectiveness.                                        One principal of the Straight-A Guide is that we never ask anyone to do or say anything that we’re not willing to do or say ourselves. Accordingly, I began asking a series of questions. What approach could I take to define success? That type of question led to other questions. My definition of success wouldn’t matter nearly as much as what my avatars would expect. I considered avatars as being all law-abiding, tax-paying Americans. How would they define success after prison? Better yet, how would they define success in society?   In addition to those avatars, I also considered the people in prison that I aspired to teach. If I were asking for their time and attention, what would they expect of me? How could I earn their trust as being someone who could teach them?   Answering those questions led me to a conclusion. If I could build a financial statement showing a net worth of $1,000,000, others would deem me successful. I set a goal with Carole, claiming that I would work to build a $1,000,000 net worth within my first five years of liberty. To achieve that goal, I had until August of 2018. By succeeding, I would find it easier to inspire more people to see the value of The Straight-A Guide—with or without a validated research instrument.   When I set that goal with Carole, I still had a 0-0-0 credit score. Yet since I had completed my obligation to the Bureau of Prisons, rules no longer blocked me from applying for credit. I submitted an application for a credit card to Bank of America. The banker who had opened my account when I first transferred to the halfway house no longer worked there, so I was starting from ground zero. Soon after I submitted my application, I received a phone call from Bank of America.   The lady who spoke with me told me she was reviewing my application for credit and said that she had some questions. By living frugally, and saving resources that our work generated, the combined balances in our bank account exceeded $100,000. We didn’t waste money on alcohol or splurges after my release. Other than purchasing the Apple computers that I would need to launch my career, we didn’t buy much of anything. I purchased a used vehicle for $4,000 and we saved as much money as possible. The banker who assessed my application reviewed the assets I listed, but asked why her records showed that I didn’t exist in the credit system.   After I told her my story, she agreed to issue my first credit card. Once I received the credit card, I felt a bit more like a citizen. Soon my credit score rose to the high 600s. The next step would be for us to apply for permanent financing on the house we purchased.   I had promised Chris and Seth of ABS Development that I would pay off the balance that we owed on the property just as soon as I could qualify for a mortgage. We signed an agreement with them to purchase the property for $390,000 in the fall of 2012, while I was still in the halfway house. In an effort to help us get established, they accepted a down payment of $12,000 and agreed to accept interest-only payments on the outstanding balance until we could pay off the note. We were ready.

Finding Markets: Like anyone starting a new venture, Justin and I had to overcome many hurdles as we tried to introduce our products into the marketplace. Philanthropic organizations provided us with funding to get started, but we still needed to create a sustainable business model. That meant we needed to find markets. The markets we identified included jails, prisons, and schools that served people who were at risk of going into jails or prisons.   As formerly incarcerated individuals with felony convictions, Justin and I faced challenges in breaking through to decision makers at the institutions where we wanted to sell the Straight-A Guide. I concluded my prison term on August 12, 2013, but I was scheduled to serve an additional four years on Supervised Release. At times, selling to “the system” proved difficult because of our criminal records. Still, we were committed to the work, sensing that our product would inspire more people inside to pursue self-directed paths of preparing for success.   On occasions when we broke through to decision makers, we faced another challenge. The corrections industry was becoming more professionalized. As such, administrators were reluctant to purchase programs that had not been evaluated as being “evidence based.” In other words, before considering a rehabilitative program for purchase, the administrators expected to see scholarly research showing a program’s propensity to achieve its intended outcome.   With the Straight-A Guide, we aspired to show participants that they could empower themselves and prepare for success in meaningful, measurable ways. Their key to success would begin with a commitment to leading a values-based, goal-oriented life. To the extent that they articulated their values, set clear goals, and moved forward in the principled way of the program, they would make progress. The course would inspire participants to reject the criminal lifestyle and develop stronger critical-thinking skills.   Through the Straight-A Guide, participants would contemplate their avatars and employ Socratic questioning techniques. We anticipated that such disciplined, deliberate adjustment patterns would assist the participants in becoming more resourceful. Rather than waiting for calendar pages to turn, or engaging in the types of thoughtless behavior that derails so many people in prison, participants would focus. They’d find mentors, they’d create opportunities, they’d seize or create opportunities to educate themselves. To the extent that participants committed to the Straight-A Guide adjustment plan, they would walk out of prison with a strong support network and confidence in their ability to thrive as law-abiding, contributing citizens.   Yet when making this presentation to the corrections industry, we’d frequently encounter resistance. Many would object that other people in prison wouldn’t be able to do what I had done, or grasp the Straight-A Guide. They wanted to see independent scholarly research showing evidence that the Straight-A Guide lowered recidivism rates.   We would face an enormous obstacle in providing such evidence. In order to gather the research, we’d need the following:   We would need to contract with either a research institution or a university research department. We would need funding to pay for that research. We would need a test group that would allow us to administrate the Straight-A Guide program to a statistically significant group of people in prison. We would need each participant to take a “pretest,” showing their knowledge of the coursework we were about to teach through the program. We would need access to the answers they provided. We would need access to the coursework they completed as they advanced through the program. We would need the participants to complete their prison terms. We would need to measure progress the participants made after they returned to society. We would need to measure the success rate of participants who completed the Straight-A Guide and contrast those rates against others who were not exposed to the program.   To succeed as an evidence-based program, we would need to coordinate an evaluation with an accredited researcher. If the independent researchers had access to data, and their research revealed that participants in the Straight-A Guide program were more likely to succeed upon release, as compared against similarly situated offenders who did not go through the program, we would have the ammunition we needed to sell this program to jails, prisons, and schools across the nation.   Our problem was not only one of funding, but also of time. To gather the necessary data showing that Straight-A Guide programs lowered recidivism, participants wouldn’t only need to complete the program. They also would need to complete their prison terms, return to society, and refrain from violating the law for three years. Crossing the hurdle of becoming an evidence-based program would require significant amounts of capital. We would need to pay the necessary personnel who could conduct the study. We would need to fund the costs associated with opening meetings with decision makers. And we would need to collect data from participants who enrolled in the Straight-A Guide program.   Until we were able to obtain evidence-based research, we’d continue to meet objections from administrators that would prevent us from scaling the program. If we had resources to acquire the research, we anticipated a massive market. Although we didn’t have clear data on the total available market, we knew that the corrections industry consumed more than $80 billion each year. If reentry and recidivism-reduction programs consumed only 5 percent of that budget, the market would be a $4 billion per year industry. In such a market, we anticipated that if we could become evidence-based, The Straight-A Guide program could anticipate sales north of $10 million per year.   Despite the challenges, Justin and I succeeded in persuading several administrators to purchase our program. Since we lacked the research to validate the Straight-A Guide, we could not command a high price point. Instead, we offered the program on a licensing basis at $5,000 per year, plus another $2,500 for training. If an institution purchased a license to use the Straight-A Guide program, I would visit the institution to train facilitators on how to teach participants. They could use the program as a tool to build intrinsic motivation and prepare offenders for success. After the training, we would leave the institution with the video content, the literature, and the lesson plans. Institutions could then use the program as a tool to improve outcomes.   Our initial clients included the Washington State Prison System, Santa Clara County, The City of San Jose, Orange County School District, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Orange County Department of Education, and The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Those orders generated financial resources, but the costs associated with delivering our program proved to be too high. Our model of offering the Straight-A Guide at a low price point would only work if we were successful in finding hundreds of clients. Despite funding from philanthropic organizations, and funding from purchase orders, we lacked sufficient capital to cross the tipping point.   In order to grow, we would need more resources. We needed resources to purchase advertising campaigns that would bring us to the attention of more institutional buyers. We needed resources to purchase booths at conventions that served the corrections market. We needed resources to fund our travel costs and to hire staff members who could help us execute our plan. Inexperience convinced me that purchase orders would flow into our organization as soon as I created the product. As time passed, however, I learned how much I didn’t know about the challenges of launching a start-up venture.

Teaching at SFSU: I designed the third class to teach students about evolutions that occurred in criminal justice during the 18th century. Scholars referred to that era as The Enlightenment, a time when people had more hope. Two philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, presented different theories on human behavior. According to Thomas Hobbes’ view, people were basically beasts by nature. Hobbes’ theory held that people would only refrain from breaking laws if the state maintained a severe penal system that would punish wrongdoing. John Locke, on the other hand, believed that all people came into the world with a blank slate—meaning they were neither good nor bad. Instead, they learned behavior through their observations and experiences. People may have learned behaviors that led to criminal actions, but they could also “unlearn” those behaviors and become good.   Philosophy: Those types of philosophical questions, I explained to the students, led other philosophers to question the way we responded to criminal behavior. Instead of responding to every offense with corporal punishment, many began to propose different ideas. During the Enlightenment Era, the prison movement began. Instead of relying on jails or prisons to hold people until after the conviction, when authorities could carry out the corporal punishment, we began to use sentence people to confinement. Rather than punishing the body, we would extract time from offenders by forcing them into confinement. In the following class, I invited the students to assess the level of progress we had made as a society. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being hardly any change and 10 being massive change, I asked them to rate the difference. How much of an improvement was it, I asked, for laws to allow governments to punish offenders by confinement rather than by cutting their heads off, putting them on a stake, and then lighting the heads on fire. Each student agreed that confinement was a significant improvement—a 10 on the scale. Then I opened discussions about how our system of confinement has evolved since the birth of the prison. We spent the remainder of our course discussing the ways that prison systems changed since the 1800s to the modern day.   Guest Speakers: To help students understand more, I brought many guest speakers into the classroom. A deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department visited, The San Francisco Sheriff visited, and a federal magistrate judge visited. I had formerly incarcerated individuals visit, probation officers visit, and representatives from community activist groups visit. Since I couldn’t bring my students into prisons or into the criminal justice system, I did my best to bring the system to them. I didn’t limit my teaching to San Francisco State University. During my first year of liberty I spoke at universities from New York to Washington state, and I spoke regularly at universities in the Bay area, including at UC Berkeley and at Stanford Law School. I felt passionately about working to help more people understand our nation’s criminal justice system and about working to bring improvements. California Wellness Foundation:As much as I enjoyed teaching, I knew that I wouldn’t be spending my career in the classroom. I couldn’t afford it. As an adjunct professor who taught only a single class on campus, my pay capped out at less than $12,000 per year. I could’ve taught a few more courses to increase my pay, but without a Ph.D., I wouldn’t be able to become a full professor or earn a livable wage. Returning to school to complete my Ph.D. wasn’t really an option. After all, I’d been out of the workforce for longer than 25 years and I couldn’t afford to take another hiatus to study for three to five years. Besides the time commitment that would be necessary, I didn’t want to undertake further tuition expense. Since I’d made a commitment to Carole, I needed to devote time that would allow me to achieve dual objectives. On one hand, I wanted to pursue projects that would improve outcomes of our nation’s prison system and resolve one of the greatest social injustices of our time. On the other hand, I wanted to create income opportunities that would allow Carole and me to enjoy financial stability. I taught for a full academic year at San Francisco State, but while at the university I pursued other ventures. Fortunately, The California Wellness Foundation continued to sponsor the work that Justin and I were doing. As a consequence of grants we received, we were able to fully develop our Straight-A Guide program.

During my imprisonment, we developed the literature for this program. It all began under the theory that people in prison would be more receptive to learning from individuals who had transformed their lives while they experienced the prison system. Prisoners sometimes rejected a message when that message came from people who didn’t know the pain of being separated from the people they loved, or from the people who loved them. We wanted to reach prisoners. We wanted to convince those people that it was never too early, and it was never too late to begin preparing for a better life.   I wrote three books to share lessons that empowered me through the multiple decades that I served. They weren’t my lessons, but lessons I learned from people I called masterminds. In truth, we all faced struggle during the course of our life. Many people overcame struggles that were far more significant than a lengthy prison sentence. I learned from those people and I convinced that other people can learn from those lessons as well.   With continued funding from The California Wellness Foundation, The Sierra Health Foundation, The Cornerstone Project, and other philanthropic groups, we were able to create a comprehensive series of lesson plans and accompanying videos. Our 10 separate learning modules included five lessons in each module, for a total of 50 lessons. Funding allowed us to retain the team at Landini Media, SRV Studios, and Open Advance. Together we created more than 12 hours of high-quality video footage to complete our Straight-A Guide training program. Tulio Cardozo assisted me in designing the lesson-plan layouts.   Through the Straight-A Guide, we aspired to teach actionable strategies for self-empowerment. People in prison or in at-risk populations could use those strategies to transform their lives in the same way that others have done. The program worked as follows:   Vaues: Transformation begins when we identify and articulate values by which we profess to live. In the Straight-A Guide, I taught that message through the context of my own journey. First, I needed to accept responsibility and let the world know that I wanted to become something more than what I was at present. Rather than allowing my past bad decisions to define me, I thought about my avatars. By asking Socratic questions about what they would expect of me, I could define the values by which I professed to live. My avatars would expect me to educate myself, to contribute to society, and to build a support network. Those three principles became the values by which I professed to live. Through the lessons plans I created in Module 1, I encouraged participants to identify values by which they professed to live.   Goals: Once I identified my values, I needed to create a definition of success for each value category. My own definition of success didn’t matter. Instead, I needed to resume my question-approach to learning. How would my avatars define whether I succeeded in my pursuit of education? I anticipated that they would measure an education by a college degree. How would my avatars define whether I succeeded with regard to my contributions to society? I anticipated that if I were to publish, they would consider that I had worked to make a quantifiable contribution. How would my avatars define whether I had built a support network? I anticipated that if I persuaded 10 people to believe in me, and vouch for me, my avatars would find it easier to accept me. Accordingly, I set goals of earning a university degree, of publishing, and of finding 10 people to believe in me within my first decade of confinement. In Module 2, the lessons encouraged participants to articulate their goals, and to make them consistent with their values.   Attitude: Identifying values and goals was the prerequisite to embarking upon the Straight-A Guide. The next Module encouraged participants to move forward with the “right” attitude. What was the right attitude? In the Straight-A Guide we identified the right attitude as a 100% commitment to success—as the individual’s values and goals defined success.   Aspiration: Individuals who moved forward with the right attitude could articulate their aspiration. In Module 4, we taught participants how to see themselves as something more than their past bad decisions or their current circumstances. Instead, we wanted them to project into the future, to see themselves as the success they wanted to build. In essence, we taught them to become the CEOs of their own lives. If they knew what they wanted to become, then they could craft more effective plans that would help them reach the end result.   Action: To become something more, or to reach their highest potential, participants learned that they needed to take incremental action steps. In Module 5, we showed that every person who achieved a high level of success followed this path. People had to execute their plans in order to reach a higher potential. Regardless of where an individual was at a given time, that person could begin taking action steps that would lead to a new and better reality.   Accountability: In Module 6, we showed participants the importance of creating their own accountability metrics. They would need to figure out ways to measure their incremental progress. Even if they anticipated having to pass through decades before their release, or if they didn’t have a release date, this module taught participants ways to hold themselves accountable, making adjustments as necessary.   Awareness: With Module 7, participants learned the cumulative influences of living a deliberated, values-based, goal-oriented adjustment. By living in accordance with the Straight-A Guide, participants would become aware of opportunities. Those opportunities were available to everyone else, but only those who committed to the deliberate path would find them and seize such opportunities. Simultaneously, others would become aware of their commitment to success. Accordingly, they would find people who would have a vested interest in their success—people who would invest in them to advance their success with new opportunities.   Achievement: Module 8 taught about the importance of celebrating incremental achievements. By celebrating each achievement, no matter how small, participants could sustain their growth patterns as months turned into years. They would know and understand how success in one area of life would lead to further successes.   Appreciation: The penultimate module taught participants that they could increase their successes by expressing appreciation for the blessings that came their way. It’s a version of a theory known as “The Law of Attraction,” showing that we could will more success and abundance into our life so long as we reciprocated, bringing more success and abundance to others.   Actualization: Finally, the Straight-A Guide taught participants that by living in accordance with this values-based, goal-oriented strategy, they could empower themselves. They would rely on authorities or others to tell them they were free. Instead, they could create higher levels of liberty in their life by embarking upon their own path, living their own visions.   Once we filmed all of the lessons and finalized all of the lesson plans, Justin and I reached into the marketplace so we could start spreading our work.

I designed the third class to teach students about evolutions that occurred in criminal justice during the 18th century. Scholars referred to that era as The Enlightenment, a time when people had more hope. Two philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, presented different theories on human behavior. According to Thomas Hobbes’ view, people were basically beasts by nature. Hobbes’ theory held that people would only refrain from breaking laws if the state maintained a severe penal system that would punish wrongdoing. John Locke, on the other hand, believed that all people came into the world with a blank slate—meaning they were neither good nor bad. Instead, they learned behavior through their observations and experiences. People may have learned behaviors that led to criminal actions, but they could also “unlearn” those behaviors and become good.   Those types of philosophical questions, I explained to the students, led other philosophers to question the way we responded to criminal behavior. Instead of responding to every offense with corporal punishment, many began to propose different ideas. During the Enlightenment Era, the prison movement began. Instead of relying on jails or prisons to hold people until after the conviction, when authorities could carry out the corporal punishment, we began to use sentence people to confinement. Rather than punishing the body, we would extract time from offenders by forcing them into confinement.   In the following class, I invited the students to assess the level of progress we had made as a society. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being hardly any change and 10 being massive change, I asked them to rate the difference. How much of an improvement was it, I asked, for laws to allow governments to punish offenders by confinement rather than by cutting their heads off, putting them on a stake, and then lighting the heads on fire. Each student agreed that confinement was a significant improvement—a 10 on the scale. Then I opened discussions about how our system of confinement has evolved since the birth of the prison. We spent the remainder of our course discussing the ways that prison systems changed since the 1800s to the modern day.   To help students understand more, I brought many guest speakers into the classroom. A deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department visited, The San Francisco Sheriff visited, and a federal magistrate judge visited. I had formerly incarcerated individuals visit, probation officers visit, and representatives from community activist groups visit. Since I couldn’t bring my students into prisons or into the criminal justice system, I did my best to bring the system to them.   I didn’t limit my teaching to San Francisco State University. During my first year of liberty I spoke at universities from New York to Washington state, and I spoke regularly at universities in the Bay area, including at UC Berkeley and at Stanford Law School. I felt passionately about working to help more people understand our nation’s criminal justice system and about working to bring improvements.     California Wellness Foundation: As much as I enjoyed teaching, I knew that I wouldn’t be spending my career in the classroom. I couldn’t afford it. As an adjunct professor who taught only a single class on campus, my pay capped out at less than $12,000 per year. I could’ve taught a few more courses to increase my pay, but without a Ph.D., I wouldn’t be able to become a full professor or earn a livable wage. Returning to school to complete my Ph.D. wasn’t really an option. After all, I’d been out of the workforce for longer than 25 years and I couldn’t afford to take another hiatus to study for three to five years.   Besides the time commitment that would be necessary, I didn’t want to undertake further tuition expense. Since I’d made a commitment to Carole, I needed to devote time that would allow me to achieve dual objectives. On one hand, I wanted to pursue projects that would improve outcomes of our nation’s prison system and resolve one of the greatest social injustices of our time. On the other hand, I wanted to create income opportunities that would allow Carole and me to enjoy financial stability.   I taught for a full academic year at San Francisco State, but while at the university I pursued other ventures. Fortunately, The California Wellness Foundation continued to sponsor the work that Justin and I were doing. As a consequence of grants we received, we were able to fully develop our Straight-A Guide program.

Who are your avatars? What would they expect of you? In what ways are the decisions you’re making today leading you closer to earning support tomorrow?   Chapter 3: Transition from Federal Prison to a Halfway House By 3:00 am, on August 12, 2012, I was up and ready to start my exercise inside the federal prison in Atwater, California. It would be my last day locked inside of a prison. I had 9,135 days of imprisonment behind me, just over 25 years. Carole was scheduled to pick me up at 9:00 am. Together we’d drive to a halfway house in the Tenderloin District of downtown San Francisco, where I’d serve the next 365 days—completing my 9,500-day journey as a federal prisoner. I walked through gates that separated the minimum-security camp from the penitentiary so officers could process me out. A staff member handed me a few hundred dollars in cash from my account and indicated that I’d receive a check for the remainder. That was it. I walked outside and met Carole. She wore a yellow dress with a yellow ribbon tied around her waist. With tears of joy in her eyes she hugged me and we drove off the penitentiary grounds, eager to start our journey together. Although we were together for the first time, we weren’t really free. Within three hours I had to be in the San Francisco halfway house. Since it would take three hours to make the drive, we wouldn’t have time for diversions. We wanted to be together, of course. The time crunch, however, dictated that we needed to get on the road. I didn’t want to jeopardize possibilities for home visits or weekend passes that I knew the halfway house could issue. So we resisted the urge to stop for alone time and drove straight to the halfway house.   iPhone: Once we got in the car, Carole passed me an iPhone. When I went to prison, this advanced technology didn’t exist. I’d never sent an email, never watched a YouTube video, never accessed the Internet. Everything about technology fascinated me. While in prison, I frequently dreamed about the Internet, wondering what it was all about. I read many books and articles so that I could understand the power of this communication tool. I even took the initiative to participate indirectly. Since the late 1990s I had a web presence. I persuaded people in my expanding support network to build websites for me. They published my articles and they’d send me screen shots. But there wasn’t any real way to experience the web without computer access. Reading about the Internet was like reading about playing tennis. Until an individual could access the Internet, he really didn’t know how to appreciate technology. When Carole gave me my iPhone, I got my first chance. As Carole drove, I played around with the phone and made some calls to family and friends. Carole and I spoke about our plans. Goals had carried me through the 25 years inside and I pledged to continue living a values-based, goal-oriented life. During the final year in the halfway house, I pledged to sow seeds that would allow us to start my career. I intended to: Create products and services that would help more people who experienced the criminal justice system emerge successfully. Create a business model that would help more formerly incarcerated people transition into the job market. Create campaigns that would spread more awareness on why it made sense to reform our criminal justice system. I wanted to think innovatively, in ways that would inspire more people to pursue paths that would lead to success upon release. But first things first. During my year in the halfway house, I needed to establish myself. Fortunately, I had begun making plans long before I left prison. I had a job waiting. I had money in the bank. I had an extensive support network. Further, with the different books that I wrote while I served my sentence, I had a product line to launch. My books included: Inside: Life Behind Bars in AmericaEarning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year TermPrison! My 8,344th DayTriumph! The Straight-A Guide For Conquering Imprisonment and Preparing for ReentrySuccess! The Straight-A Guide for At-Risk Youth I didn’t write books that were masterpieces of English literature. Rather, they served the purpose. They would help people understand prisons, the people they hold, and strategies for growing through prison successfully. I hoped they would build credibility for me as I ventured into the world to start my career. My intentions were to use the books as tools. I could build a business, or income streams showing all that masterminds taught me. Anyone could use those same strategies to reject negativity or overcome challenges. The message was universal, valuable to anyone and everyone. If those strategies could empower me through decades in prison, others could use them to achieve more as well. If you’re in prison, I urge you to think about steps you can take now. Think about options that exist to influence the people you’re going to meet in the future.   The Halfway House: The halfway house in San Francisco was easy to navigate. After decades in federal prison, everything seemed easy. I was assigned to a two-man room and I could use the iPhone to connect with the world. I arrived on a Monday and met with Charles, my case manager on a Thursday. While doing his intake paperwork, Charles commented on the length of time that I’d served. He suggested that I participate in counseling sessions to help me acclimate. I was prepared. I brought all of the books that I’d written in prison, showed him support letters that I’d received, a resume I wrote, and presented him with a letter showing that I had a job waiting. The letter confirmed I could start working as soon as the halfway house authorized me to begin. “How did you get all of this done while you were in prison?” As Charles flipped through the books, I could sense that the tangible work I presented influenced his perception. Instead of seeing me as the ex-convict who served a quarter century and needed counseling, he treated me as a man. He said that he would give me as much liberty as I needed. I was excused from having to waste time in the counseling classes. Instead, I could continue executing a plan for success that I was able to articulate to my case manager.

How to Earn Freedom Individuals who aspire to succeed always follow that pattern. Those who reach their highest potential follow the pattern in sports, in business, in politics, in marriage, and in any area of life where they want to excel. They always know where they are and they know where they’re going. They create plans, strategies, and make decisions in accordance with those plans and strategies. In order to build a career around my journey, I needed to craft my own products and services that would communicate that message. With that end in mind, I began writing specific books. I wrote Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term to show people who were going through the criminal justice system the exact path that empowered me through the decades I served in every security level. That book provides the many details that I left out in this synopsis of my journey. Earning Freedom would show readers the day of my arrest, on August 11, 1987, until the day that I transitioned to a halfway house, on August 13, 2012. (The remainder of this book you’re holding will discuss my final year in the halfway house, and my first two years of liberty). I wrote Prison! My 8,344th Day because I wanted readers to see what it meant to make disciplined decisions. The book provides a glimpse of a typical day during my 23rd year of confinement. I begin the book by writing about my eyes opening in the morning. The book concludes when I lie down on my rack to sleep. It covers a single day, showing readers what it means to make disciplined, deliberate decisions while living in the midst of challenge. Then I wrote two separate books to describe the deliberate strategy I teach. I wrote Triumph! The Straight-A Guide to Conquering Imprisonment and Preparing for Reentry for adults in the criminal justice system, and I wrote Success! The Straight-A Guide for At-Risk Youth for juveniles. Each book told the same message, but I wrote them for specific audiences. In writing those books, I intended to build products I could use to advance my career upon release.   Approaching Release: Carole married me on June 24, 2003. Over the course of my final decade, authorities transferred me several times. After Fort Dix, authorities transferred me to: Florence Colorado Lompoc California Taft California, and Atwater California Each time authorities transferred me, Carole packed up and moved so we could spend as much time visiting as possible. Together, we made plans for my release. She earned her credential as a registered nurse in 2010. With a nursing credential, Carole could work anywhere. We chose nursing for her career because we believed that nursing would allow her to earn a livable wage regardless of where authorities sent me. Further, by earning a license to practice as a registered nurse, we anticipated that Carole would earn a sufficient income to support our family after my release. Her earnings would allow me to work toward building my career—a career that I anticipated would take several years to develop. While I worked to create a regular income stream, or multiple income streams, Carole’s earnings as a nurse would bring stability to our family. Readers who have time to serve in prison should anticipate income streams upon release. Where will your income originate? How much will you earn? How will those earnings advance your stability? By using the Socratic questioning approach, Carole and I were able to make plans that would advance prospects for our success upon release.

Who are your avatars? What would they expect of you? In what ways are the decisions you’re making today leading you closer to earning support tomorrow?       Chapter 3: Transition from Federal Prison to a Halfway House   By 3:00 am, on August 12, 2012, I was up and ready to start my exercise inside the federal prison in Atwater, California. It would be my last day locked inside of a prison. I had 9,135 days of imprisonment behind me, just over 25 years. Carole was scheduled to pick me up at 9:00 am. Together we’d drive to a halfway house in the Tenderloin District of downtown San Francisco, where I’d serve the next 365 days—completing my 9,500-day journey as a federal prisoner.   I walked through gates that separated the minimum-security camp from the penitentiary so officers could process me out. A staff member handed me a few hundred dollars in cash from my account and indicated that I’d receive a check for the remainder. That was it. I walked outside and met Carole. She wore a yellow dress with a yellow ribbon tied around her waist. With tears of joy in her eyes she hugged me and we drove off the penitentiary grounds, eager to start our journey together.   Although we were together for the first time, we weren’t really free. Within three hours I had to be in the San Francisco halfway house. Since it would take three hours to make the drive, we wouldn’t have time for diversions. We wanted to be together, of course. The time crunch, however, dictated that we needed to get on the road. I didn’t want to jeopardize possibilities for home visits or weekend passes that I knew the halfway house could issue. So we resisted the urge to stop for alone time and drove straight to the halfway house.     iPhone: Once we got in the car, Carole passed me an iPhone. When I went to prison, this advanced technology didn’t exist. I’d never sent an email, never watched a YouTube video, never accessed the Internet. Everything about technology fascinated me.   While in prison, I frequently dreamed about the Internet, wondering what it was all about. I read many books and articles so that I could understand the power of this communication tool. I even took the initiative to participate indirectly.   Since the late 1990s I had a web presence. I persuaded people in my expanding support network to build websites for me. They published my articles and they’d send me screen shots. But there wasn’t any real way to experience the web without computer access. Reading about the Internet was like reading about playing tennis. Until an individual could access the Internet, he really didn’t know how to appreciate technology. When Carole gave me my iPhone, I got my first chance. As Carole drove, I played around with the phone and made some calls to family and friends.   Carole and I spoke about our plans. Goals had carried me through the 25 years inside and I pledged to continue living a values-based, goal-oriented life. During the final year in the halfway house, I pledged to sow seeds that would allow us to start my career. I intended to:   Create products and services that would help more people who experienced the criminal justice system emerge successfully. Create a business model that would help more formerly incarcerated people transition into the job market. Create campaigns that would spread more awareness on why it made sense to reform our criminal justice system. I wanted to think innovatively, in ways that would inspire more people to pursue paths that would lead to success upon release.   But first things first. During my year in the halfway house, I needed to establish myself. Fortunately, I had begun making plans long before I left prison. I had a job waiting. I had money in the bank. I had an extensive support network. Further, with the different books that I wrote while I served my sentence, I had a product line to launch. My books included:   Inside: Life Behind Bars in America Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Term Prison! My 8,344th Day Triumph! The Straight-A Guide For Conquering Imprisonment and Preparing for Reentry Success! The Straight-A Guide for At-Risk Youth   I didn’t write books that were masterpieces of English literature. Rather, they served the purpose. They would help people understand prisons, the people they hold, and strategies for growing through prison successfully. I hoped they would build credibility for me as I ventured into the world to start my career. My intentions were to use the books as tools. I could build a business, or income streams showing all that masterminds taught me. Anyone could use those same strategies to reject negativity or overcome challenges. The message was universal, valuable to anyone and everyone. If those strategies could empower me through decades in prison, others could use them to achieve more as well.   If you’re in prison, I urge you to think about steps you can take now. Think about options that exist to influence the people you’re going to meet in the future.     The Halfway House: The halfway house in San Francisco was easy to navigate. After decades in federal prison, everything seemed easy. I was assigned to a two-man room and I could use the iPhone to connect with the world. I arrived on a Monday and met with Charles, my case manager on a Thursday. While doing his intake paperwork, Charles commented on the length of time that I’d served. He suggested that I participate in counseling sessions to help me acclimate.   I was prepared.   I brought all of the books that I’d written in prison, showed him support letters that I’d received, a resume I wrote, and presented him with a letter showing that I had a job waiting. The letter confirmed I could start working as soon as the halfway house authorized me to begin.   “How did you get all of this done while you were in prison?”   As Charles flipped through the books, I could sense that the tangible work I presented influenced his perception. Instead of seeing me as the ex-convict who served a quarter century and needed counseling, he treated me as a man. He said that he would give me as much liberty as I needed. I was excused from having to waste time in the counseling classes. Instead, I could continue executing a plan for success that I was able to articulate to my case manager.

Leaders begin by clearly defining success. They contemplate the pain or challenge they’re experiencing at a given time. They contemplate steps they can take to build a better outcome. They create a plan that will lead them to success. Then they execute the plan.   Individuals who aspire to succeed always follow that pattern. Those who reach their highest potential follow the pattern in sports, in business, in politics, in marriage, and in any area of life where they want to excel. They always know where they are and they know where they’re going. They create plans, strategies, and make decisions in accordance with those plans and strategies.   In order to build a career around my journey, I needed to craft my own products and services that would communicate that message. With that end in mind, I began writing specific books. I wrote Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term to show people who were going through the criminal justice system the exact path that empowered me through the decades I served in every security level. That book provides the many details that I left out in this synopsis of my journey. Earning Freedom would show readers the day of my arrest, on August 11, 1987, until the day that I transitioned to a halfway house, on August 13, 2012. (The remainder of this book you’re holding will discuss my final year in the halfway house, and my first two years of liberty).   I wrote Prison! My 8,344th Day because I wanted readers to see what it meant to make disciplined decisions. The book provides a glimpse of a typical day during my 23rd year of confinement. I begin the book by writing about my eyes opening in the morning. The book concludes when I lie down on my rack to sleep. It covers a single day, showing readers what it means to make disciplined, deliberate decisions while living in the midst of challenge.   Then I wrote two separate books to describe the deliberate strategy I teach. I wrote Triumph! The Straight-A Guide to Conquering Imprisonment and Preparing for Reentry for adults in the criminal justice system, and I wrote Success! The Straight-A Guide for At-Risk Youth for juveniles. Each book told the same message, but I wrote them for specific audiences. In writing those books, I intended to build products I could use to advance my career upon release.     Approaching Release: Carole married me on June 24, 2003. Over the course of my final decade, authorities transferred me several times. After Fort Dix, authorities transferred me to:   Florence Colorado Lompoc California Taft California, and Atwater California   Each time authorities transferred me, Carole packed up and moved so we could spend as much time visiting as possible. Together, we made plans for my release. She earned her credential as a registered nurse in 2010. With a nursing credential, Carole could work anywhere. We chose nursing for her career because we believed that nursing would allow her to earn a livable wage regardless of where authorities sent me. Further, by earning a license to practice as a registered nurse, we anticipated that Carole would earn a sufficient income to support our family after my release. Her earnings would allow me to work toward building my career—a career that I anticipated would take several years to develop. While I worked to create a regular income stream, or multiple income streams, Carole’s earnings as a nurse would bring stability to our family.   Readers who have time to serve in prison should anticipate income streams upon release. Where will your income originate? How much will you earn? How will those earnings advance your stability? By using the Socratic questioning approach, Carole and I were able to make plans that would advance prospects for our success upon release.