The criminal justice system can feel like a labyrinth, and it’s tough to navigate our way through. On the other side of the journey, a person will face challenges. Some people will struggle to find housing, employment, or capital to get started in life. Others will feel burdened by a bad reputation.
From personal experience, I know that anyone can recalibrate and find their way through. They simply need to follow a process:
- Step 1: Determine what success looks like in the future.
- Step 2: Come up with a personal plan.
- Step 3: Determine the priorities that a person needs to do first.
- Step 4: Create accountability metrics that will get a person from one project to the next.
- Step 5: Make adjustments as necessary.
- Step 6: Develop tools, tactics, and resources to advance the plan.,
- Step 7: Execute the plan daily.
I didn’t understand those steps when authorities targeted me for a government investigation and prosecution. Thankfully, I learned them once I got to prison.
My Personal Journey: Lost, Confused, and Transformed:
When I went to prison, I was lost and confused. I had no plan, or roadmap for what lay ahead. The uncertainty was agonizing.
Then I met Michael Santos. He had served longer than 20 years by the time we met, which seemed unfathomable to me. Since I was serving 18-months for a conviction related to violating securities laws, some might think that he wouldn’t be relatable. Yet as we became friends, I realized that by listening to hin, I could learn a great deal that would help me through prison and also help me through life once I got out.
Michael mentored, guided, encouraged, and helped me create a release plan. That plan opened opportunities. Before we began working to create a plan, I was drawing in anxiety. I worried about everything. For example, I remember wasting hours dwelling on:
- Who were the people around me?
- What did the other people do?
- Why did a judge sentence me to prison,
- Where would I go for a halfway house?
- When would my case manager see me?
- How would I earn a living when I got out?
The questions that kept me up at night didn’t have anything to do with preparing for success. They could not empower me to grow stronger through the crisis of confinement because they didn’t have anything to do with building an effective release plan. Michael taught me how to think differently about the time that I would serve and how to create a plan that would allow me to help me restore confidence. He said that he learned the plan from leaders that were much more experienced than him and that he had used to grow stronger through the 20+ years that he served.
The key to a good release plan, he said, is to think about what we can control to influence the future we want to live. In other words, he advised me to live in the world as it existed, not as I wanted it to be. If I could figure out how to define success, I would be in a better position to navigate my way to something better.
As soon as we began working a release plan, my attitude nad perception changed. When I shared my evolving plan with my support network, I felt as if I were taking affirmative steps that would advance my prospects for success. Those who were closest to me could see a change, as I was growing stronger through the crisis of confinement.
I would conclude my sentence during the worst recession in our lifetime. Yet with the release plan we developed, I knew precisely what i would do. Without that plan, I likely would have gone through the same complications that make life so difficult for others. They would face challenges with case managers in a halfway house and with a probation officer.
By showing my plan, I had a great guide to work toward.
Because of the plan, I thrived as soon as I got out of prison. I mean from Day 1! With my plan, I succeeded in persuading my probation officer, Isiah Muro, to grant me a higher level of liberty. He authorized me to work independently and to work with other justice-impacted people; most people getting out of prison have restrictions that prohibit them from working independently or from interacting with other people who have felony convictions. Despite owing more than $500K in restitution, my probatio officer authorized me to launch businesses that have led our team to make a difference in the world.
Success does not come by accident. A person should craft a plan, adjust as necessary, as work toward higher levels and next stages of the plan.
The plan I created didn’t only lead to higher levels of liberty, it also led helped to improve my reputation. For example, when I began dating Sandra, she felt somewhat apprehensive about dating a man who had served time in prison. She Googled my name. The Department of Justice press releases popped up. When we discussed them, I encouraged her to dig deeper and review my work.
She did.
When she saw the plan I created, and how I used that plan to rebuild and recalibrate, she saw a story of redemption, resilience, and personal growth. As a father, I look forward to showing my plans to my children, Alyssa and Jason, so they can see how their father responded to struggle.
I would not be here today-a successful business owner, husband, and father if I did not create a plan and the execute the plan. As my children would say, the plan I created in prison became “My Willy Wonka Chocolate Ticket!”
Everyone Should Have Plan:
Every justice-impacted person should begin building a release plan. I didn’t know how to begin until I surrendered to prison. Now we offer books and courses to teach others how. Since one of our company’s motto is that I would never ask anyone to do anything I’m not doing, I’m following the principles of our plan here on my bio page.
