Justin Paperni (79:32)
I'm not an expert. I'm serving one year. You know who the expert is? That guy over there, Michael Santos, who's teaching me every lesson I conveyed then and now comes from the 26 years Michael served, which is what we'll talk about in a little bit more. We cover prison consultants. So I'm getting these letters at mail call. And then one day I'm in Michael's cubicle, and I say, God, all these people, they, like, write me. They're sending me money for my books. I'm not asking for money. And he said, you are helping a doctor, a lawyer, a businessman might better identify with you. A USC stockbroker who served 18 months, maybe more so than me. A guy that's serving 45 years for a drug offense, who has more knowledge. I mean, there's no part of the experience Michael has an individual endured. Trial, he served a year in segregation, transit, eight years in the penitentiary. The high medium, the low, transfers, books, marriage in prison, mentoring, teaching, everything. There's nothing. There's no one that has that level of depth and breadth of experience, yet people are writing me and not him. And he said, well, there could be an opportunity here for you to actually help people by continuing to write and provide value. And then we're walking the Track on Thanksgiving, November 2008. And my ego's growing a little bit because I'm getting these letters. And I wasn't concerned that other prisoners were off put by the blog because some of the wives and girlfriends would send in my blog and say, why aren't you as productive as this guy? And they'd call me in and say, look, dog, you've been in here for eight months. I've been down for nine years. And I said, I'm not writing anything negative. I didn't even want to defend it or justify it, But I knew my release was close enough, and I wasn't writing anything that bad that would compel someone to really want to have a problem with me. But I know the wives and girlfriends would send in letters, like, do what he does. Some dudes didn't like it. So on Thanksgiving 2008, I'm walking the track with Michael, and I said, I'd like you to help me write a book. And he said, you want to do that? I said, I think I do. I want to go all in. It's been very fulfilling for me to know that I'm helping people here, and I sense an opportunity to help others and to help myself. And I said, you have four years left, so why don't we partner, I know what you want to do. Because he would love to say, I'm not coming home. And I'm not going to tell someone how to shop in the commissary or how to get a better job in prison. I didn't serve 26 years in prison to do that. Let me be very, very clear. He would tell you the same thing right now. He said, I want to my. The outcome that I want to engineer is to change America's prison system. It makes a failure of too many. I was as ready to go home after eight years in prison as I ever was. I've been inside for 22 years. I want to reform and change this system. I want to do exactly as you saw me do with that book you just saw me handwrite called Earning Freedom, Incentivizing Excellence. I believe rather than calendar pages turning, people should be able to earn their way home. I have no doubt he said that. And of course, that's the work he's doing right now with the Bureau of Prisons, the deputy director. He's in all of these prisons across the country. But I tell people Michael did that work every day through 26 years in prison. There was no prison reform that advanced his release date. No First Step act, no Second Chance Act. He did it to build a record, to find meaning in the journey, and to teach and help people. So when people are like, how does Michael end up touring all of these prisons with the deputy director and wardens? How is he in all of these prisons and in D.C. meeting with these people? I'll say, well, he engineered it. Starting when he went to prison in 87, he built a record or assets like, we're encouraging you to create. You've got to create just as Michael did. That's the only reason he's in the room with these people. And Michael encouraged me to do that. The book helped. Lessons from Prison. And over the next three or four months, all I did well, really, the. I would say probably eight or nine months. I just learned every day from Michael. He'd get up at 1 o' clock in the morning. Crazy, crazy. I'd meet him in there about five o'. Clock. Yeah. And there was only one time he asked me to leave the room. Joan Peter Celia, a professor at Stanford, sent him a letter that said, I'd like to write a book with you. And he said, I need you to leave the room so I could write this book. He had it done, like, in three days. I'm not joking, but I would just work with Michael for 10 or 12 hours a day, learning about prison, the system. And we began to engineer this outcome where when I left prison in 09 I would begin to develop what is now white collar advice with the understanding that he had four years left to serve. But resources that I would generate would help support what now is prison professor's charity. So till this day a percentage of every sale that comes in goes to the nonprofit which influences millions of people. But that all started walking around that track in prison knowing that he was going to engineer outcomes to influence millions. And I would do the day to day boutique consulting supported.
