← Digital Social Hour
Digital Social Hour
Damon West: From Prison to 8-Figure Entrepreneur: Damon West’s Story | DSH #1468
00:47:26
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A
In prison, I'm out there working on myself. I started developing the rules about being a coffee mate. Like, every day, I'm going to work out spiritually, mentally, physically. I'm going to take care of myself. Positive body language. It's a very powerful thing. Muhammad told me you either infect the room you walk into with your negative energy or you affect a room with positive energy. You know, you infect or affect. You're the disease of the cure.
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Okay, guys, one of the most inspiring.
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Stories you'll ever hear.
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We got Damon west here today.
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From max security prison, life sentence. Yeah. To now, eight figure entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. It's one of those things. No such thing as an overhang success. Right. Sometimes in life you have to go through something serious to find out what you're really capable of, what you're made of. And I believe that inside of every adverse, difficult situation in life, there's always going to be an opportunity for you to grow, Sean. Always going to be an opportunity for you to become a better version of you. But the trick is you have to go through the university to meet the best, best version of you. Right? Then, even though you got the life sentence, you were still working on yourself in prison. You were reading a book a day. Yeah. Still developing. Yeah, prison. So we'll get back. I. Let me tell you people how I got to prison, and I'll tell them what I did when I got there. So, you know, growing up, I grew up in Texas. I was a high school football quarterback or star quarterback in high school. Scholarship to play football at the University of North Texas, Division 1 college football. I'm the starting quarterback at 20. I get hurt in college and I get into drugs. 20 years old, cocaine, ecstasy, stuff like that. But I graduate college, I work in Washington, I work in Congress, then I get a job on Wall street in Dallas for one of the biggest banks in the world. I was introduced to meth one day at work in 2004, and the introduction to method in my system was like touching a live wire. And 18 months later, I'm living in the streets of Dallas. Homeless man. Yeah, I've smoked through everything. And then I became a criminal at that point. And then I became the ringleader of a bunch of other meth addicts breaking into houses all over Dallas. They called these burglaries, the uptown bur. Burglaries. I was known as the uptown burglar. So these burglaries go on for about three years. And, Sean, when I broke into people's Houses. I didn't just sell property for my victims. I stole something way more valuable for my victims. I stole my victim's sense of security. And that's something I can't get back to them. I can't change to them, and I can't. I can't even apologize to him, to be honest with you, because an apology in Texas sends you back to prison. You can't apologize to victims. So my victims will live with that for the rest of their lives. But after three years of committing property crimes against the people of Dallas, the Dallas SWAT team, on July 30, 2008, busted into this apartment where I'm at, and I get taken down this dramatic SWAT team raid. There's guns everywhere, flashbangs going off. And when I get arrested that day on July 30, 2008, it's also the day I become sober. But I'm not really in recovery at that point. I get taken in sobriety at gunpoint. They throw me in Dallas County Jail. My bond is set at $1.4 million stack. So it's a no bond. Right. I can't get out. Ten months later, I go to this trial. And this isn't like a just a record burglary case anymore. This is an organized crime case. This is rico. And I'm the boss of the whole thing. Wow. Yeah. The trial lasts for about a week, Sean. And after a week of trial, the jury comes back with their sentence. They gave me life, 65 years, or as they say in prison terms, six dimes in a nickel, which is what the book is about. Six dimes and a nickel is prison slang for 65 years, which is what the sentence is that Texas gave me. Now I'm at this giant fork in the road in life. I've gone for this incredible life that I had to smoking it all away and becoming a drug addict. And now I'm sentenced to life in prison. And on top of that, my mom makes me promise her that I won't get into a gang while I'm in there. She's telling me, you know, you can't get one of these white hate groups. You weren't raised like that. And she's telling me, no gangs, no tattoos. She said, come back as the man we raised or don't come back at all. Don't know how I'm gonna do this. I'm running around Dallas County Jail. This is the summer of 2009. So May 18, 2009, is when I get sentenced to life in prison. I've got this little two month window in Dallas County Jail. I'm waiting for the prison bus comes to get to come to come get me. And I run into this old black Muslim guy in Dallas County Jail. And I'm giving you the demographics for this guy. I'm telling you what he's about because there's a big message here for everybody. The messengers in life can come to you from anywhere in life. And the messengers won't always look like you. They won't come the same background as you. They won't have the same lived experience as you. But that's why they're the messenger, right? But the trick is in life to be receptive to all the messages. Messengers so you can get all the messages. So messenger number one, old black guy named Muhammad. Dallas County Jail. Muhammad's lacing me up. He's telling me what prison's going to be like. He's telling me that you're going to fight for your life in there. And he's telling me prison's about race. You're going to fight the white gangs first because you're white. After that you'll fight black gangs. If you do that, you'll earn the right to walk along. But he tells me this very important lesson. He said, damon, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water. He said, anything we put to a pot of boiling water will be changed by the heat and the pressure inside that pot. He said, I'm putting three things in this pot of boiling water and let's watch how they change a carrot, an egg and a coffee bean. So he walks me through it. A carrot goes into a pot of water really hard, but in the pot of boiling water, their carrot becomes softened. You said you don't want to be a carrot in that water.
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All right, guys, Sean Kelly here, host of the digital social hour podcast, just filmed 33amazing episodes at student action Summit. Shout out to Code Health, you know, sponsor these episodes. But also I took them before filming each day. Felt amazing. Just filmed 20 episodes straight and I'm not even tired, honestly. So cold health amazing products. I also take these at home, especially when I traveled. I used to get sick every time I, I flew and I started taking that first time. I haven't had a runny nose, knock on wood. One standout element. I mean it's so easy. You know, you got the travel pack here, but you could just take this, fit it in your pocket if you need to. Also all natural like only stays saline solution in there so you don't got to worry about any crazy side effects or anything. Yeah, Code's unique. With supplements, there's a lot of who knows what's in these, those ingredients. Code Health, I haven't seen much like this, where it's just based off, you know, the coat. The codes that are in the saline solution. So I would say they're very unique. It's going to be the future of health and medicine. Code Health has been awesome.
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A
Feel the drop and go code yourself. Water. The egg, he said, goes in with a soft liquid inside and a shell that protects on the outside. But inside that water, the. Inside the yolk, the heart becomes hardened. He said, you don't want to become hardened by the water in there either. But he said a coffee being the smallest of the three things, he said, small, like you had the power to change the entire pot of born water into a pot of coffee because the power was inside the coffee bean to change the water around the coffee bean. And so that's what he tells me. If you're going to turn this thing around, you're going to go into this pot of boiling water. You have to be a coffee bean. You can't be the carrot, you can't be the egg. And the last words he ever said to me, when the prison bus came to get. Came to get me in 2009, be a coffee bean. Now. I felt empowered by this, Sean, because, I mean, this put the power back inside me, right? And if the power's inside of me, it can't be in the world around me, right? Criminal justice system, the guards, the other inmates. And that's what I do when I go around speaking to corporations, groups, teens, masterminds all over America is I'm trying to let people know that the power's inside them. But how do I get to the other side of prison to become that coffee bean, right? And prison was a baptism by fire shot. It was the hardest environment ever been in. I get sent to the maximum security prison in Beaumont, Texas, called the Mark Styles Unit. It's a maximum security level five prisoners. Level five is the highest security level there is. I live with the lifers. In Texas, if you get a life sentence, you have to live with other lifers. You can't live with the general population. This building I live on seven building has 432 men. Every man's got life. 98% are ever going home. It's the most hopeless place in the world. I walk in the first day, I fight the Aryan Brotherhood. For the next two weeks, I fight the White gangs. After that, I fight the black gangs, just like Muhammad said. Eventually, I end up on the wreck yard playing basketball, earning my right to exist inside that place. And it was grueling basketball. It's nine on one basketball kind of thing. But I got to keep showing up every day. Here's something I learned from my friend Ed Mylett. And this is years after I got out of prison when I met Ed for the first time. But he summed up perfectly what was going on that rec yard. He said, confidence comes from the promises that we keep to ourselves. That's how we build confidence in life. And every day on that wreck yard in prison, I was making a promise to myself that I would come out the next day and face this challenge every day. And because I did that, I've created more confidence in me to go out there and do it. The. The more you do hard things, the more hard things you can do in life. And so that's what's happening out there. And eventually, after a couple weeks of playing basketball with these guys and a couple months in prison, I've earned my right to exist, and I don't have to fight anymore. And that's when I have to start working on myself to become that Coffee Bean. And this is what I want to talk to your audience about today, because we're talking to a lot of people that may be wanting to build brands, right? Building the business. On your journey, you have to build your brand. And your brand is what people see when. When they see you or see whatever it is you're selling, you're promoting. Building your brand takes time. There's no such thing as an overnight success, John. It doesn't exist. And really, we're talking off camera about this. Everybody thinks that you just popped into the podcast when you have all these incredible guests, right? But how long were you doing this before you started? 10 years. 10 years before anybody ever saw you, Right? Before anybody ever saw. I was going to events, conferences for 10 years, spending my own money to go there, build relationships and provide value. That's behind the scenes. No one ever saw that. They didn't see the hard work. And. And that's what's going on in prison. And I'm. I'm building this brand. Damon West. I'm building the Coffee Bean guy up. But I have to become that person before I can step out of prison to be that person one day. And so in prison, I'm out there working on myself. I started developing the rules about being a Coffee Bean. Like, every day I'm going to work out spiritually, mentally, physically. I'm going to take care of myself. Positive body language. It's a very powerful thing. Muhammad told me. You either infect the room you walk into with your negative or you affect a room with positive energy. You know you infect or affect. You're the disease of the cure. Practicing things like Servant Leadership shots. Servant leadership is helping other people reach their goals in life. Hoping to raise everybody to a different station of life. Because I believe that when we help other people grow, we grow too. And you've done this with your podcast, right? You've helped other people grow to it.
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Place in life. And you talk to me about how important it is for you to get through to these millennials and get through the people. Because there is a lot of confusion out there, right? No, but that's serving a general purpose. And whenever you want to, you want to take whatever it is you're doing to the next level, you have to find a way to solve a problem for other people. That's the biggest thing. What problem can I solve for other people? And so when you go out there and serve other people, you find out what you're really good at and what made of. Another thing I had to do in there was understanding the rule about controlling the controllables. Sean Prison taught me that there's only four things you can control in life, and that's it. There's no outside of these four things you have no control. And that the four things you control. What you think, what you say, what you feel and what you do, what you think, what you say, what you feel and what you do. So really, the things you control go on inside your head. You don't control the world around you. Right? You can have an effect on it, but you don't control it. But you do control what's going on inside you. And that's the real estate you have to really guard carefully. And I say that because out there right now, you go into social media, you open up and you have. It's not a real world. You have a bunch of con men out there, a bunch of people trying to sell you all these things or telling you they can coach you. People say, I could turn your business to a billion dollar business, but they've never become a billion dollar business themselves, you know, so you have to really be careful about who you allow inside there, up there. And prison was a very good training ground for that. Like, you understand a lot of stuff when you live in a maximum security prison, it becomes this training ground that when you get out to the free world again, life's not as hard as it is or as it was before, but you have a lot of perspective on what a bad day looks like. I tell people all the time, position determines perspective. Where you've been. And the things you've done determine the world that you see today. And so everything in life, even the bad things, can be leading up to who you are going to be one day and what you're going to create. Life. And I believe that you've been through that, too. 100%.
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You and I have a lot of.
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Successful friends, and I think we can.
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Agree that a lot of them have.
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Had a traumatic past. Yes, yes. But the thing is, your biggest liability can. Can become your greatest asset. Right. And that's where you want to get life, where you could start taking liabilities and making them an assets. Right. And another thing Ed told me, he said you're most qualified to help the person you once were. Think about that with what you do. Right. You've been where the people you tr. The people you're trying to reach with your podcast, your show, and now you're speaking that you're doing. You're trying to reach the person that you once were. You're using your platform to do that. Yeah. You're most qualified to do it, Sean. I mean, who's more qualified than you to get to the people in your demographic, relate to them? Yeah. Yeah. So you're living proof of the same thing I was doing in prison. You're doing it out here. These ideals that. These ways of being a coffee bean that I created in prison, I didn't invent them. Other people had done. And that's another rule of being a successful person. You know, you don't always have to go invent the wheel. You know, the wheels are even invented. Just.
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I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.
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A
Improve upon some of the things you've seen other people do, because success leaves clues, Sean. That's the truth. Success leaves clues. Find out where other people have succeeded and emulate what they're doing in life, too. Whenever I was in prison, people ask me all the time, how did you change the prison? Because that's the real story, Right. Why did the parole board eventually let me go? And we'll talk about that in a second. I was able to change the prison because I taught the men in prison about the different principles. I was talking about servant leadership, right. When I was in prison, I first learned about servant leadership. I asked myself, how do I serve these men around me? How do I help raise these other guys up? And the answer came to me, man, because I had a college degree. When I went to prison. Most of the guys I'm locked up with, their education stopped in the seventh grade or eighth grade. So I opened a free tutoring service in prison. I taught guys how to read and write. I get them ready for the GED test so if they ever get out of prison one day, they'll be a better husband or a better father. And whenever I was in prison doing this stuff, I was teaching other guys to serve other people. And that's one of the big things that happened. I believe that a healthy community, Sean, is a community, and you've created a community. I want to, because I want to tap into this, because I'm a member of your community and I benefited from it directly. A healthy community is a community where everybody comes out there and throws their talents on the table and say, hey, this is what I'm good at. And if anybody needs this talent, that's what I'm good at. That's what I'm here for. The community you set up in the WhatsApp chat, that's what I see continuously, man. You've surrounded your people, you've surrounded yourself with all the people around you that have that mindset of service. And that's what I'm seeing every day. Everybody's saying, hey, I've got this to offer the community. And a new person comes in that you add in. But they're saying, I have this to add the community. And you see these people. It's really cool to see everybody come in and say, hey, man, I can use that or I can help you with that. So that's what I was able to do in prison. That's what you've been able to do out here. And in 2015, the Texas parole Board comes to visit me, and I'm seven years into a life sentence in prison, a 65 year sentence. And the lady from parole that interviews me that day in 2015, she's like, Mr. West, we don't see a lot of people like you in our system. In fact, it's very rare that a person that's had such a privileged life, and she used the term privilege because I had a privileged life, Sean. I had it all, man. I didn't want for anything growing up. Life was easy for me before I got into drugs and prison. She said, we don't see a lot of people like you. She said, so really? Look, I just got one question for you. For this parole here. She said, if you could be remembered for being anything in life, anything at all, she said, tell me what that one thing would be. But give it to me in just one word, Shawn. I didn't have to think about the word though, because remember, I've been building this brand. I've been working on myself. I've been creating this guy, the Coffee Bean guy, long before the world would ever know about it. And I fired her. Answer back her immediately. And I said, useful. I said, I just want to be useful. Wow. And I can be. Well, I think everybody wants to be useful, Sean, don't we? I mean, every human being wants to have value. We all want to have worth. I think human beings. And I've lived in a. In a maximum security level five prison, Sean. And I've lived in the nicest kind of house and neighborhood you can live in. We want two things out of life. We want to belong and we want to be loved. And when those two things are met, the human spirit is capable of so much. Right? And that's what I told that lady that day. I said, ma', am, I just want to be. I just want to be useful. And I can be useful inside this prison, as you've already seen, or I could be useful in the free world. And November 16, 2015, I walked up a Texas prison. Wow. But I'm not a free man. That's not where the story ends. Right. Because they sentenced me to 65 years, which in Texas that means something. They're not going to let. Just let you go and you're done. I'm on parole for the bulk, for the rest of that. I mean, and parole means supervised release. Like every month I see my parole officer, I pee in a cup. If I fail a drug test, I go back to prison. Wow. If I want to leave Texas, I get permission from Texas, called a travel permit. It's like a hall pass, right? If I want to leave the country, I get permission from the state of Texas. And the other country has to be willing to take a felon in. But I have to do this until the year 2073. So from the moment of this recording, I've got 48 more years on supervisor lease. But, man, I wake up every day, Sean, with a smile on my face because I'm not in prison anymore. People ask me all the time, and what's it like living on parole for the rest of your life? And my answer is always like, man, I don't know. I don't think. I don't think in terms of the rest of my life, I'm. I'm an addict and a long term program recovery. I think about 24 hours at a time. So I can tell you what it's like living a parole today. But what I can really tell you about what it's like is living inside of a maximum secure level five prison. And I don't live there anymore, you know. Yeah, I live out here. Position determines reflective. So that was the journey I went on where I had to go to prison to discover who I was. I became a voracious reader in prison and that's one of the ways I became a great writer. The first book I ever read, my cellmate gave me a copy of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And I'm sure your audience, people in that audience have read this book and it's a very good book about Viktor Frankl who survives altruism and he talks about how he survived it and all that was up here for Viktor Frankl because everything else that the Nazis could take away from him, they couldn't take away his mindset every day, the way he saw the world. And so that's so much of what the power is. You know, my story, there's so many more layers to it that we're going to talk about. But I want people to know early on, man, this is a prison story and a true crime story. This is a redemption story. This is all the elements that people love about stories and movies in America. This is it, brother. They got to turn your story into a movie. It's, it's wearing the, we're in the works at right now six times in a nickel whenever it came out. It comes out right now in July. But the book is going through the Hollywood people's hands, right? Yeah, well, the whole, what the book is, so six dimes in a nickel is, it's my whole life story. But what I've learned from writing books, I've become a multi time best selling author with the Wall Street Journal and stuff like that because my books become business books. And what I've learned is that people want, they want a prescription. How do I do it right? But what other, what people really love is they love good storytellers. Human beings have always learned from stories, Sean. We've learned lessons, morals, principles, we're entertained by storytellers. But I've become a very good storyteller and that's why I've become one of the most in demand speakers in America because I've been really good about telling the story but dropping these principles into this story. And so this book I wrote six times in a nickel, it's all these Principles I live my life by. The chapter is the principle. The body of the chapter is a story behind the principle. And at the end of each chapter is a reflection point of how you apply this principle in your life. Principle, story behind it, reflection on how you apply in your own life. And that's what. Yeah. And that's what people want. People want a prescriptive formula. Like, if you did this, Damon, tell me how I do in my life. Cool. I'll simplify it. If it's actionable, it's actionable. It's very actionable. But it's got these great stories. And the thing that I learned. This is my sixth book, probably my final book. But never say never. But the thing that I've learned about writing books is this, man. If you're going to write a story about your life, you don't necessarily want to write it about, hey, look at me, look at what I've done. Make it a story about all the people that helped you get there. And that's really what this book is about. You're going to learn about Muhammad. You're going to learn about all these other people, because building a business, building anything in life. Relationships are everything. Relationship, Sean, absolutely everything in life. Hold on to those relationships. And you talked about what you've done with the relationships you build all these years, man. You cultivate these relationships. And you did this for 10 years before you started doing this. And. All right. Yeah. There's a reason when I asked to.
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Come on the show, people say yes.
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Yeah. It's relationships. Yeah. You. You text me, hey, man, I'll be in Houston when I come to show. Sure. Yeah, I'll make time that day. Yeah. Relationships, man. So these relationships I built in life are. A lot of the characters are in this book. Some of them are in prison, some are out of prison. I do want to tell you. I do want to tell your audience about this one. These two guys I had relationships with. So I talk about servant leadership. Servant leadership's about helping other people reach their goals in life. And, you know, I wouldn't be where I am today without a lot of people helping me get where I am. When I got out of prison, Sean, I knew I was sitting on an incredible story, and they mentioned the Coffee Bean. I mean, it's like. But the problem was there just weren't a lot of place for me to share that story because I found out really quickly. And you can't go knock on the door of a high school and say, I just got out of prison. I Want to talk to your kids? Let's take you down the street, man. And I'm an ex con. I mean, how many ex cons that have come before me have burned the bridge to the ground? A lot, right? And then in trust, trust is so important. When you build trust up in life with other people, you got to hold on to that. Because my dad told me this, he said, damon, you can earn trust by the spoonful and lose it by the bucket full. And when I got out of prison in 2015, I had lost buckets full of trust and I've got to rebuild that. But I've got a great story and I've been. I know I get out there and I can impact lives and I can change people's lives, but there's nowhere for me to share my story. But what There was Sean, in my parents spare bedroom. There was a mirror in there. Now whenever I got out of prison, for the first two years I was out, I lived in my parents spare bedroom. I'm a 40 year old guy on parole for the rest of my life, making minimum wage, living with my parents. Not the best tenure profile, but good. I'm out of prison, right? Yeah. So every night for two years, I practice my presentation in front of that mirror. I'm getting my reps right. Anything you wouldn't be good at in life, you have to practice with life. Practice that. Like there's no such thing as an overnight success. There's no crowds in the very beginning, the first two years, there's no audience, there's no clapping. But it's me in that mirror, me against me, every day getting a little bit better, a little stronger, a little more confident. I believe the right audience for me was going to be the world of college football because I played Division 1 college football. But that was 20 years ago, man. I didn't know any coaches anymore. The coaches don't know me. January 11, 2017, I've been out of prison 14 months at this point. I get a phone call from a buddy in Houston. Houston is 90 miles from where I live. And this buddy of mine in Houston, he works for the media in Houston. He said, hey, Damon, get to Houston right now. Tonight is the Bear Bryant coach. The reward? They're going to name the best college football coach in America. He said, the eight best coaches in the country are in this room right now. I've got extra press pass. I'll sneak you in. So Sean, I go, man. I drive the 90 miles from Beaumont to Houston. He sneaks me in the back Door, Toyota center, right down the roof from a recording right now. Sneaks me in the back door, Toyota center, and handed me a press pass. He said, you're on your own, man. I gotta go work. So I'm in this room with all these coaches and everybody. Usc, Wisconsin, Penn State, PJ Fleck, they're all in this room. And Sean, I'm running around that room that night. I'm shaking these coaches hands and I'm giving my pitch of why they should bring me in to talk to their team. And every single coach I meet that night, Sean slams the door in my face. Wow. They all said no, Sean. It was a bloodbath. In one hour. I've been told no seven times by the eight coach in the room. That's a no every eight minutes. Dude, I'm standing in the corner, Toyota Center. I'm licking my wounds. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm 10ft from the exit door, getting ready to walk out and leave, because the voice in my head is screaming at me, go home. The voice in my head is telling me, you don't belong in this room, Damon. The voice in my head is calling me an imposter that night. And I know everybody listening to this podcast right now. You know the imposter voice, don't you? But you know what I could have done a long time ago? Listening to myself. I quit listening myself because sometimes the voice in my head talking to me was fear. Talk to me. And Sean, you don't want to listen to fear because fear is a liar. So instead of listening myself, I talk to myself. I've been doing this since prison, Shawn. And that night, man, in the corner, I tell myself, damn, you're not going anywhere, man. That last coach is going to tell you no to your face before you go home. And Sean, the last coach, he's the hardest guy to get to in the room. His team just beat Alabama two nights, four for the national championship. Everybody wants a piece of this guy. Time. But I remind myself, I'm like, damon, you survived prison, man. This isn't going to hurt you. Like prison shine, when you're in a tough situation in life, remember the wins. Remind yourself of the times that you want in life. Tap into that memory, man. That's the positive memory. So that night, I pumped myself up and I stalked Dabo Sweeney around that room. Dabo Sweeney, the head coach at Clemson. And man, I'm like a crazy person, man. I'm really like. I'm hiding behind fake plants. I'm pushing people out of the way dabo sees me. Security has seen me, too. They're gonna throw me out of the Toyota center. But I get in front of Dabo before security gets me, and I give him this pitch, and it's awful, man. It's. It's too fast. I can feel it. I mean, I. I'm mumbling words out, and I came up for air, and dabo looks frightened. He's like, man, you got a card on you, man. I've seen that look before, you know, I give him a card, he takes it from me, and he said, I'll check you out. He's gone. Nice enough guy, but, man, that's a no. Sean, I've seen that no before that night. But I'm gonna tell you what, I felt good about that final no. That no meant that I left it all on the field. And that's one of the biggest takeaways I got from my lifetime of playing sports. You know, you give it your all, you know, sometimes you're gonna come up short. Or Muhammad, the old guy in Dallas county jail, he told me some. Some very big words of wisdom. One of the best things he told me, he said, you don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. And so that night, January 11, 2017, I drove home an hour and a half, went home, slept like a baby, Forgot about that night, because I gave it my all. Four months later, I get an email out of the blue. It's the director of football operations at Clemson University, a guy named Mike Dooley. Here's what his email said. Hey, Damon, Coach Sweeney met you at award show in Houston. He'd love to have you come talk to his team. Do you have August 1st open? I'm like, brother, I got every first open, man, I'm talking to a mirror right now, man. So August 1, 2017, I go speak to the Clemson Tigers, defending national champions. Yeah. And when I get done my presentation tonight, dabo's in my face now. And dabo's a high energy guy. He's like, damon, that's the most amazing story I've ever heard. I've never seen my players respond like that to a speaker. He said, have you been to Alabama to talk to their football team? And I'm like, no, dabo, I've been to Clemson, man. I hadn't been anywhere. What do you mean, Alabama? He said, we'll see about that. He said, damon, I just text Nick Saban from the back of the room, told him I was watching Sean the next day, when my flight landing in Houston for my trip to Clemson, I turned my cell phone on. There's a voicemail and a text message from the director of football operations at the University of Alabama. Wow. The whale. The biggest program in America with the best coach to ever do it. And here's what the voicemail said. Hey, Damon, Dabo called Coach Saban last night. Coach Saban can't wait to hear your story. He said, how does August 21, 7:30pm work for your calendar? Shawna had to laugh out loud. I didn't have a calendar at the time. I didn't need a calendar. Think about where you were the first couple years you started. You need a calendar. I mean, I'll see in Tuscaloosa. Just like that. Sean Dabo Swinney kicked open the biggest door to college football. And he doesn't stop there. Kirby Smart calls Lincoln Riley, Chip Kelly, Lane Kiffin, Ryan Day. Every coach in America starts calling my phone. When are you coming to talk to my team? The dream is real, man. It's happening. I'm in front of college football now. But the biggest event had to happen yet I hadn't met that second servant leader. So it's August of 2018, one year after that first process. Clemson. I get a phone call that day in August of 18. And on the other end of my phone is this guy named John Gordon, the guy that connected us to each other. Sean, I was going to wait to tell you this story, too. Yes, man, John Gordon, one of the biggest motivational speakers and authors in America. You had him on your show about a year ago. That's how we met. John Gordon calls me up that day. Damon, I just got done speaking to Clemson. Dabo broke in the office for 30 minutes to tell me your whole story. And John said this before the pandemic. This is 2018. John said, Damon, the world needs a Coffee Bean message. Damon, let's deliver this message to the world. He said, will you write a book with me? We'll call it the Coffee bean. Sean, in 2019, the summer of 2019, 10 years after our first heard that story from Muhammad in a jail cell in Dallas county, the book the Coffee Bean comes out, took the world bust on the whole planet shot. So it starts off in America. First four to six weeks at the top of every bestseller list, gets a global publishing attached to it. Damn, global publishers are rare. Sean, that's when your book goes.
- [31:05]
B
I hadn't heard of that.
- [31:05]
A
Every language in the world, man, it starts popping up in Chinese and Spanish and Arabic, French, Italian, German, Vietnamese, Korean. Just in time for the year 2020, when a global pandemic hits. The entire world becomes this pot of boiling water, and the entire world is searching for the right message. And that's when so many people discovered the Coffee Bean guy. And I say in 2020, when people started discovering the coffee and guy. But you and I know the coffee Bean guy was being made in prison back in 2010. Right. That brand that I was building all these years, the person I was becoming all these years, gets introduced to the world through the coffee bean when the world becomes a pot of boiling water. And, Sean, my life took off like a rocket ship after that. The whole world was searching for the right message, and I was sitting on it because I'd been building that brand all these years. The moment, the preparation, the opportunity all met each other. Since the year 2021, I've been on the road 20 to 25 days every month, sharing this story somewhere on the planet. Wow. But it all goes back to that one night in Houston, Texas, January 11, 2017. Remember that night? I had seven no's, the first hour.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And I'm 10ft from the door, Sean. If I listen the voice of fear and doubt that night and I walk out that door, we're not having this conversation day. And the world doesn't have the Coffee Bean message. So what I'm telling everybody to listen to this is this. And you don't give up when life gets tough. You don't quit when life gets hard. You don't not ask your questions in life, Sean. The only question you know the answer to in life is the one you do not ask. That answer is no every time, because you never ask your question. Wayne Gretzky really said it best. Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100 of the shots you do not take. You got to take your shots. It's life, Sean. I love that. Wow. You got read to got Andy Reid to endorse the book. Yeah. Crazy story. Oh, yeah. No. And he's a good friend. Yeah. Andy, Andy, the whole family. I've been really good friends with them for the past year because Britt Reed, his son, got out of prison back in March of 2024. And ever since Brit went to prison, you can look his story up. He was a coach for the Chiefs at the time. He got in a drunk driving accident, hurt some people, but he got out of prison for a three year sentence. And, you know, Andy's family was like, hey, you're the guy most similar to Brit, you know, with the background you had, where you came from, going to prison, you turn it around, maybe you can help Britt turn around. I work a 12 step program, recovery today, Sean. And what that means is that in the 12 steps, we have a formula for life. You know, one of the biggest things we try to do in the 12 steps is we keep our side of the street clean. And this means we always work a personal inventory. We try to get rid of all of all the resentments that we have against other people, other places, other things. We get rid of our fears too, because we know that most of our fears aren't real. Most things I fear in life never even come true. And most things you fear never even come true. But we have to work through those fears because as an alcoholic and addict, drug addict, if I let a fear manifest itself in my head too long, that can become something that I go put in and use for. So, you know, I go to my 12 step meeting still. I got an app on my phone. I go to meetings all over the country because I'm obviously on the road a lot. But another thing we do in the 12 steps is we, to keep our side of the street clean, we make a list of all the people we've harmed. We make a list of all the apologies we have to make. And the ninth step that we do, we make the list in the eighth step of the people we've harmed and apologies we owe. And in the ninth step, we go out and make the apologies, except when to do so would cause the other person or ourselves harm. And that's a little caveat in there. And that's a good place for my caveat. I can't apologize to victim of my crime, right? If I. If I apologize to the victim of a crime, I go back to prison. So I can't make apologies. I'm not going to make apologies. But this little caveat I built into the 12 steps is like, when you get an apology, you can't make. You do what's called a living amends. A living amends is when you go out and do good deeds and you expect nothing in return. And that's what my life has just become, a bunch of living amends. Because, Sean, I figured that if I can spend the rest of my life doing, living in men's, I'll get back to, you know, at least equal in the ledger sheet. I might have a little bit of credit built in whenever I. When I finally pass away one day, nice. But when the NFL got in touch with me, About Brett Reed. I knew that was a living in men's. I've got a prayer that I picked up in recovery, and I say it every morning. I'm a Christian, but I believe anybody can believe whatever they want. That's one of the things about a recovery. We believe in you choosing your own higher power. So you pick your higher power, you believe in it, turn your life, your will, over that. And I've got this prayer that I pray every day, and you can plug it in. Whatever faith you are, whatever it is you believe in. This is my prayer, and you can have my prayer. Every morning I get up and I say, hey, God, put in front of me what you need me to do today for you, and let me recognize that when I see it, because I don't want to miss whatever that thing is. Amen. I love that. That's it, Sean. I don't have a list of things I think I want or need. And I believe that if I take care of those things that are put in front of me, the rest of life takes care of itself. What a story, man. I did want to ask one more thing about prison. Yeah, man, ask me. Ask away. I got. I got tons of prisons here, and I knew that we couldn't get them all in today. So. Yeah, we'll do a part two in Vegas. Yeah, we'll do a part two in Vegas. But you mentioned earlier you promised your.
- [36:12]
B
Mom you wouldn't join a gang when.
- [36:13]
A
You went to prison. Yeah. Were you able to pull that off? Yeah, I was independent the whole time. Wow. And listen, this was the hardest part of it. And I found out that there were a lot of guys that go to prison. They get to a gang, they don't necessarily want to be in a gang. Some. Some of these guys that are in there in brotherhood, I got to know I'm an independent. But they didn't go the independent route because that's the toughest route possible. I chose the toughest path, and Muhammad told me. He said, you're going to choose the toughest path but by listening to your mom. But you'll be happier on the outside whenever you get out one day, you'll be free on the inside, too, by the way, is what he said. I meet more people out here in the free world, Sean, that are locked up than I ever did when I served time in a real prison. Because more people are in prison by their thoughts, by their things, and by their prejudices than by steel bars and barbed wire and concrete combined. Wow. Yes. And so this applies to like, me in prison, seeing all these guys and gangs, all the gangs, they're locked up inside of being inside of a prison, because now they're mentally locked up. They're. They're. Their minds and their. Their. Their life and their will are committed to this gang, which is not committed to them. And it's like there's many different ways to be in prison. And what I saw with the gangs in prison is these guys were doing harder time than what was necessary. The hardest part of prison for me was the first two months. And in those first two months of prison, when I fight the white gangs and I fight the black gangs, you know, I get in probably three dozen fights. Damn, I lose 75% of these fights. I'm getting my butt kicked over a prison. But I'm winning the fights because Muhammad told me, you don't have to win those fights. You got to fight those fights. The same is true in your life, Sean. No one counts your wins and losses in life. No one cares about your wins and losses. They all want to see if you're going to get back up. So if you want to win, just get up. Get knocked down seven times, get up eight, you know? And I believe that the gang thing, for me, would have happened had my mom not told me, hey, you come back as the man we raise her, don't come back at all. And had I not met Muhammad, who shared with me the message of the coffee bean. My first cellmate in prison, this guy named Carlos. Carlos is the guy that really breaks it open for me when I tell him one night that I'm struggling, man, I don't. I don't know if I could become a coffee bean in here. And he told me, he said, you can't be a coffee bean because the way you think, you're thinking controls everything you're doing right? And he told me, he said, your problem is you think prison is a punishment when you should be thinking prison is an opportunity. Wow. It's a mindset shift, right? That's the first time in two months in that I start. I start waking up every day. And I don't see this place as a dungeon that I'm doing time in. I think this is a lab that I'm growing in 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Damon west is going to become the best version of himself possible, spiritually, mentally, and physically. Think about what you could do with yourself if you had 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And that's what prison was for me. You could look at it as a. As a life sentence or life lessons, right? And that's what I did. It's like, okay. And I knew I wanted to be a speaker because I got a letter from one of my favorite teachers growing up. Again, the messengers. I'm telling you about all these different messengers I ran into. One of them was my favorite teacher growing up, writes me when I'm in prison. He says, hey, Damon, you've been to the highest, the highest, the lowest of lows, but you've always bounced back. You've always been a leader, and I think you'll bounce back from this. He said, I think you should consider sharing your story with other people when you get out one day, you should speak about what you're going through now. That was one of the earliest days in prison when I got that letter. That letter had the blueprint for me. It had it now. It gave me focus on a mission. And that's what we often find in life. What our mission is, what our focus is our lane. And when you find your lane, you got to stay in your lane, man. And so my lane was going to be, hey, Damon, you're going to turn this thing around. And what does your story look like? It looks like shit right now because we're inside of a prison. But you could become a better version of you. And one day, when you get out, if you can turn this thing around, who could bring more hope to people than someone that has been where you've been and turned it around? And you could tell people exactly how you did it? Because if I can do it, you can do it, John. And that's the thing. My. My testing ground was a physical prison, But I would argue that that's not the hardest prison, man. The prison in your mind, when you get locked up up here, it's hard to free yourself. It's the same thing you're doing. You're trying to free these millennials. You're trying to free people in your demographic to say, hey, man, look, you're better than what you think your choices are out there, and you don't have to believe everything someone else tells you. You don't have to believe everything you think, but you have to believe in something, and you have to make that your purpose in life and go after it. And I'm gonna share one more story, because I'm a storyteller. So, Yep. Integrity, I think, is a big part of everything you do. You have to have. Integrity, I believe, is who you are when no one else is watching you. Whenever I got out of prison, one of the biggest things in my life, one of the biggest goals I had in life was to find Muhammad. I had to go find this guy that shared the mesh, the coffee game with me, right? Because I wanted to share with him that I turned it around. And I wouldn't have done it without his help. But when I finally found him, I found out he was dead. He had died of an opiate overdose in Dallas in 2017. He died of an opiate overdose. So by the time I get to him, he's passed away. And now his real name is James Wayne Baker ii. Muhammad was his Muslim mate. So now that I found Muhammad and I understood he was dead, I knew I had to go find his family. I had to honor my friends somehow. And so I found his family. He's got three living sisters, Visha von Sil and Vanessa. They live in Dallas. And I started a scholarship in his name, the James Lynn Baker II be a Coffee Bean Scholarship. And. And every year his family picks the winner. And I put $10,000 every year into this trust for the scholarship. So that every year one little boy or one little girl that grows up in his little neighborhood, they can get out and get a better chance at life. Because these two guys met up in county jail back in 09. And so what I want everybody to know is this, that it took seven years to find Muhammad. It took seven no's that night in Houston to get to the one yes I need with Dabo Sweeney. It took seven years to walk out of a maximum security prison. Some of your goals in life take longer than others. But don't quit, Sean. Don't give up before the miracle happens. That is beautiful, man. Damon, it's been awesome. Yeah, it's been great. We gotta do it again. Yeah. I got two questions for you. Where can people find you and when are you and I playing basketball? Oh, man, I got a basketball court in my house. You're only here along. We can play basketball at my house. People find me. My website is damonwest.org d a m o n w s t dot org. That's where people find me for speaking events, masterminds, businesses. I speak to every kind of group, man. Associations, sports teams, companies, whatever. Instagram is at Damon west seven. Obviously X is at Damon with seven as well. The book Six times a Nickel is available on Amazon right now for pre order. If you buy the audible version, it's me reading it. And man, let me tell you something, it reads like a serial podcast. You like serial podcasts? Or True crime. Can't wait. I know all the emotion for every character. One of the characters I put in this book was an old mob guy I was locked up with from Dallas. This guy was in the mob in the early 60s in Dallas. So what do you think I asked him about while we were locked up together? Would you ask jfk? Hit. Oh, yes. So his name is JT Goad. JT was the most fascinating person I ever met in prison. The last chapter of this book is called the Bonus chapter. It's JT Story. And it's everything JT revealed to me about what goes on at the ground level with the mob. Because he's in the Dallas mob at the time. It's who the extra shooters are in Dallas, why Jack Ruby kills Lee Henry Oswald, who told Jack Ruby to do it. This is JT's version. I don't know if he's telling the truth or not, but he told me all these things. I actually had him. I said, man, put it into a letter for me, jt, he said, I'll give you a letter about everything, but you can't release the letter until I'm dead. The gangster code, right? JT died in 2023. So JT's letter to me is the last chapter of this book. It's the. That's so cool, man. Well, we'll link it below. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, man, thanks. Thanks for watching, guys. Check them out.
- [43:47]
B
Check out the book.
- [43:48]
A
Peace.