Starting Over After a Life Sentence in Prison
In a special episode of the Art of Making Things Happen podcast, Steve Sims spoke to four former maximum-security prisoners, John, Ian, Enrique, and Bosco, all of whom now work with Defy Ventures, a national organization helping prisoners with job readiness and using entrepreneurship as a vehicle for hope.
In an environment like prison, explains Ian, hope is hard to come by. “It’s something that you kind of have to create on your own. And when you do find it, I think it’s the most amazing thing that can happen to a human being. It gives you a new reason to live.”
And that’s necessary to get by in the “very structured, very rigid environment” in which “you’re in there alone, all by yourself. You just become a number… and it’s like that day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and in some cases, decades after decades,” explains Ian.
In Kern Valley, a level four maximum-security prison, “the typical average inmate will actually spend sometimes 23 hours a day in a cell.” Though prisoners spend a lot of time on activities such as exercise and reading, it’s not all productive. Says Ian, “You try to socialize as much as you can, which opens up the door also for you to affiliate yourself with certain factions on the inside. And obviously that leads to trouble, too.”
Some choose to change. Explains Enrique, “In 2007…I started doing that introspection. I started really looking at the impact that I cost my family, the community, and I wanted to be better. I wanted to make peace. And it wasn’t until I was able to forgive myself that I was able to find that peace…. And so from that moment on, I dedicated myself to educate myself. I pulled away from gangs to better my life.”
Doing so was not easy. “It took a lot of courage for me to come to that point and say, ‘you know what? I no longer want to be part of this.’… Because that was my whole identity. I mean, these are people that I idolized, people that I looked up to, people that I wanted to be like, you know, my belief system.”
Now, using the skills he was taught by Defy, Enrique has been employed and even promoted. “It’s not even about the work ethics, says Enrique. “It’s just attitude. Learning how to get along with people is the key.”
Unfortunately, the oppressive feeling of the prison environment doesn’t always make it easy even for those who want to change. “You know that you are better… but that environment is so difficult that it’s very challenging to actually do something different. And when you do, it’s very liberating because you realize just how much you’ve been able to overcome just by making that decision,” says Ian. “The challenge is to stop allowing the environment to dictate what you do and actually start making choices for yourself.”
Bosco is an example of transforming his hustler spirit into entrepreneurism, working on his own clothing brand only months after being released. “I’m transforming my hustle into doing something legit rather than something illegal,” says Bosco. “That’s one thing that Defy has taught me: how to fail forward. Pick myself up and try it again. Failure is just an opportunity for a second chance. That’s all it is.”
Explains Bosco, “I just had to hold myself accountable and just stop blaming everything and everybody… Every decision I ever made is what led me up into that final point where I just got sick of it and I just said I was going to change.”
Speaking of the mindset needed to overcome a challenging past, John says, “when I didn’t accept myself yet… I wasn’t able to start that forgiveness process… We had to do that introspection to get to that point where we could begin to forgive ourselves and accept ourselves for our past. And once that happened, nothing else mattered no more. I don’t care what you said about me, whether you like me or not, because I’m at a point in my life where I love myself, I accept myself for who I am and I ready to take that step to forgive myself.”
Now, John works toward social justice reform in order to “be a voice for those that can’t speak for themselves.” He explains, “Now I’m able to utilize my past as power, become a voice and campaign for change.” Admirable, indeed.
To learn more about Defy Ventures:
Website: Defy Ventures
Podcast: The Art of Making Things Happen with Steve Sims
Subscribe to: That Art of Making Things Happen with Steve Sims
