Good Life Project - Judge Victoria Pratt | On Restorative Justice [Best Of]

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

Growing up outside Newark, NJ, Judge Victoria Pratt found herself in the role of translator, advocate, and champion at a very young age. That deep desire to serve at the sweet-spot between justice and humanity never left her. Rising up through government and educational institutions, she eventually became Chief Judge in Newark Municipal Court in Newark, NJ. But she was not your ordinary judge. For her, it was all about serving the broader humanity and needs of both those who appeared in her courtroom, as well as those who were affected in the community. Judge Pratt gained acclaim as a champion for criminal justice reform and restorative justice in her Newark courtroom, worked with jurisdictions across the US, and as far as Dubai, Ukraine, Mexico, and England. Her TED Talk, How Judges Can Show Respect, went viral. Now a leading voice in criminal justice reform and restorative justice through her consulting firm Pratt Lucien Consultants, Judge Pratt speaks to corporate and organizational leaders about restoring respect to their processes. At the heart of it all is a call-to-action to elevate the humanity and dignity of all people and focus more on restoration and rehabilitation than punishment. We're so excited to share this Best Of conversation with you today.You can find Judge Victoria Pratt at: Website : https://judgevictoriapratt.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/judgevpratt1/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today, Judge Victoria Pratt, grew up just outside of Newark, New Jersey, and repeatedly found herself in the role of translator and advocate and champion, not infrequently for her own family at a very young age. And this profound sense of empathy and empowerment, along with the deep desire to really serve at the sweet spot of justice, it never left her. She eventually ended up going to law school, then rising up through the worlds of government and education. She would eventually become the chief judge in Newark's municipal court, but she was not your ordinary judge. For her, it was all about

serving the broader humanity and needs, both of those who appeared before her in her courtroom, as well as those who were affected in the community. And Judge Pratt gained acclaim as a champion for an approach that's become known as restorative justice, which is focused not on retribution and even goes beyond the sort of traditional notions of rehabilitation. It's about a larger restoration that involves both the individual and the community and recognizes the larger, more systemic issues that so often lead people into her courtroom. So now as a professor at Rutgers Law School, she teaches problem-solving justice and restorative justice.

She also champions criminal justice reform through her consulting firm, Pratt Lucian Consultants. And she speaks to leaders of institutions and organizations about how to really heighten and restore respect into their day-to-day operations so that their mission can be better achieved as well. Judge Pratt brings such a powerful, deeply human lens to equality and justice that is

needed now more than ever. So excited to share this best of conversation with you today. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. My curiosity is when you grow up just outside of New York City with parents who literally have to sort of learn how to navigate different worlds, you know, the southern part of the country and then New York City, profoundly different experiences, almost becoming multil justice and in the way that people sort of live and see this need for change and decide that you want to play a role in that change. Is that a process

that unfolds just kind of slowly over time for you? Or was there something more like a moment or something that happened that really awakened this in you? I think it grew out of necessity. You know, being the firstborn child of an immigrant, immigrant children have to be multilingual and also have to learn systems quickly. And then also being the daughter of an African-American male who grew and lived in this country and never felt like a full citizen. And as you asked me this question, I really kind of think about what was like the real time that I saw something happen that I said, oh, no, this cannot be. And it was after my parents had purchased a home.

They purchased a home and they needed to do some repairs to the home. And I don't even know how this contractor got in contact. It could have been what typically happens. People get these phone calls and, you know, they're kind of the predatory phone calls and the person showed up. And I learned about what happens when people don't have a language, don't have words to protect, express, defend, or get clarity for themselves in watching this unfold for my parents. And this older white gentleman had come to our house and he was talking to my parents about refinancing the mortgage. Now, what my mother knew was that the mortgage was going to be incredibly high now once they refinance and

they'd get these new windows or whatever it was they were putting in the house, but that it was going to create a bigger hardship on them. And my father, who had dealt with white males only as bosses, bill collectors, people who had punished him in his life, sat through this meeting. And I remember sitting there and hearing him kind of, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. They ended up signing this contract to refinance the house and have these people do this construction work. But the next day, my mother, she didn't sleep. And she said to me, we can't do this. We can't do this. I need you to call. I need you to call. So now I'm a kid and I'm calling in New Jersey, three days to end this contract, to reject and say, I'm not going to be a part of this contract

anymore. And I call and I'm telling them, my mother's, my father aren't doing this anymore. She's here. She is. She couldn't speak very good English, but here her daughter is explaining this. And we've canceled this contract. Somehow they cornered my father. And the. So after they've spoken to you already.

After my mother. Yes. After we've canceled this contract, they've cornered my father. And they proceed. And I sit they cornered my father. And they proceed. And I sit there and watch my parents struggle, literally for the rest of my childhood, to make the mortgage, to pay the bills. So your dad was basically like, they kind of cornered him and said, stay in this. And stay in this. And they stayed in it. And to watch my mother work like seven days a week, seven days a week.

And there was no rest. It was like keeping the house. And I understand it now as an adult. And I thought, and it was one of these predatory mortgage lenders. You know, it's funny. I still don't forgive the mortgage company. But as a kid, I thought, my goodness, this is what happened because they didn't know how to express themselves and to prevent this thing from happening. So they were preyed upon. And I tell you, maybe it was 10, maybe I was 11, like I was really, but I understood this thing. And I understood that as a result of

this thing, my parents worked all the time and that my parents struggled. My parents struggled with the taxes. They struggled with the mortgage. And I was always angry about it. You know, it was that thing that really lit my fire, I think as a young person. And so I as a Spanish-speaking child of an immigrant as well I was always taught to help people if they're struggling with translations so growing up I was always butting into you know people's business so I'd see someone struggling and they're giving them instructions and they couldn't understand so I'd say hold on let me tell them and I'd inject myself into places where you, maybe a kid wouldn't because they'd be playing. And I think it started from there. And just like something as simple as you

may teach your child that if an elderly person drops something that they should bend up and pick it up and give it to them and hand it to them. That is what I was. And always going somewhere with someone and always trying to help them or explaining things to them. You know, I laugh because even after I became a judge, there would be people at my house like with just paperwork, just paperwork. And as I speak to other first generation immigrants as well, we laugh about how, oh, no, no, someone's son is very smart. Have them fill these papers out for you and having an obligation to do it and to do it well. And I learned about the importance of education, that education changes everything.

Education knows no race. It knows no color. And that getting one was something that no one could take from you. They couldn't take it from you. And that you could think and engage and fight, you know, and fight at a different level. So I guess that's why when challenges are presented to me, I'm like, ah, this is just something else I'm supposed to do, right? Because this is, it's this moral obligation and then there's this professional obligation I feel as well. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting

as you find yourself, not only the translator for so many people, but the advocate at a very young age, which is for most people at any age, not a comfortable place to be, but especially at a young age, especially when you're doing it at an age where very often the rule is to show deference to anyone who would be older than you. But you see people being taken advantage of or needing a skill set that you had. And sometimes compounded, like needing that skill set and also sounds like you kind of had this ability

to see what was really happening. You had a deeper awareness of the dynamics that were really happening. But it's interesting that you talk about this deference to adults because sometimes as women, we are taught to be incredibly deferential. My mother came from a very, she was Latina. And so I was taught to be deferential in certain instances. And when I went to practice law, one of the most difficult things I had to deal with as a young attorney, still kind of a young 20-something year old, was how I dealt with older attorneys in the practice.

And I wanted to be a litigator. And I remember being at a job, at my first job, and I'm like, do I call her Miss Peggy? Oh no, that's my adversary. And it's something that was so simple, but just really transitioning into a space that I was really uncomfortable with, because I was like, oh wow, I am now this person's advocate, and this person's age and their experience doesn't mean anything and can't if I'm really going to help them. And I guess I kind of went back into that pocket when I thought about my life as a kid, just, you know, injecting myself, you know, in people's business, as people would say, you know. My cousins would say, you're always in the adults' conversation. I'm like, are they interested in talking about interesting things?

I know how this kid's talking about real things. But I mean, it also sounds like you have a really strong sense of fairness in you. Sense of like really, really strong sense of right and wrong and clarity around that. Was that also something that touched down fairly early? Yes, I think so i think i think when you see people being treated unfairly simply because they look like you or because they live in a place they don't have access to money or they don't have something that's really not

that important they're human beings so if we treat people fairly because of their humanity then they deserve this they deserve deserve fairness. They deserve justice and not to be punished because they're poor. Right. And that has always been in the forefront of my mind. Like, why does this thing happen to a person? Why is this a rule? Why is this a policy? Who does it benefit? And does it benefit anyone at all? And is this just the policy that exists because somebody felt like it on that particular day? And I think as a judge, what I have that has really been able to help me is that I've worked for every branch of government. So I worked for Governor McGreevy and Governor Cody and for the executive branch in New Jersey. I've worked for a council person in the legislative branch looking at lawmaking and working for the lawmakers.

And then I went to work for the judiciary. And in the midst of that, I worked for the school district as a compliance officer. And then I did community work, working with the people who were supposed to be benefiting from what all these branches of government are doing and really having a strong sense of being a servant, right? Because that's what we are. No matter what your title is, if you work in government, you are a public servant and getting clear on who it is you're supposed to be serving. And I think that that's why we have so much chaos, because we don't understand who we are serving. We're serving public interests, certain interests. We're serving this and serving that.

And we're supposed to be serving our human capital. We're supposed to be churning and pouring into them so that the next generation has, but so that we have a full society of people who can do things. And so the sense of justice, you know, when listening to people craft laws, I'm like, okay, but this hurts this person. When you're drafting this, this piece hurts. If you vote this way on that, then it hurts them. And so always being that voice and not being afraid to be it, because I think that when we show up we show up with everything we have to make our contribution so if i keep my womanness

to myself when you're making decisions about things that impact women then i haven't then what's the point of me being there um if i don't show up as a woman of color then what's the point of me speaking there if i don't show up as an immigrant as the child of color, then what's the point of me speaking there? If I don't show up as an immigrant, as the child of an immigrant, then what's the point of having me there? And you can't make good decisions. I always sit in places and I'm like, you have an organization and there are no women at the top. So you're only serving less than 50% of your purpose because people have to hear these different point of views. We know that when you have differing and colliding points of view, we always arrive at the best decision. Always.

Always. But it's so interesting, right? Because that is so often it's the opposite that we end up seeking. You know, like we seek harmony. We seek, you know, like rule abidance or we seek, we want to put together a team or a group or a company or set of rules that creates the least amount of disruption or unease along the way. And very often the way that you do that is to be very monolithic and homogenous and look for sort of like, you know, the least representation that gets you to some, you know, outcome that you've been designated to get to as quickly as possible with the least amount of disrupt. And you may, in fact, get there faster, but that doesn't mean that the outcome that you land at

is in any way the best one. It is not. It is not. When you don't have all of the voices there, when you, I couldn't possibly think for everybody who's going to be impacted by a particular law of my community. We don't all look the same. We don't experience life the same. We don't all do the same things. So that when you exclude people, because that's what it is, it's excluding people from the process. Yes, it's uncomfortable and it's in that lack of comfort. It's when you are in that hot seat, it's when you're in that space that makes you feel uneasy that everyone grows, right? And so what we do is we just silence that. Oh, no, no, no.

That makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm not going to deal with it. No, no, no. It's almost like when I yell at leaders about leadership is not about the nice, warm, fuzzy stuff. That's not why they hired you to lead this place. They hired you to do the stuff that makes you uncomfortable because that's what the employees and the people, the stock, that's

what everybody is relying on you to do. And when you don't do it, then it doesn't happen. And these spaces don't grow and they're not a better place to work and they don't provide and they don't contribute, but it's in that space of being uncomfortable. And even with your own self. So, so much of my work on the bench sometimes is about the uncomfortable stuff. It's about sitting across from a defendant who is struggling, is struggling. Drugs make you feel better for a short period of time and then they screw up your life, right? So it's happiness or numbness to this issue for a short period of time. And then I'm back here and now I've got to deal with the consequences of this drug.

And there are so many points in time in my time on the bench when I saw that and that people's stories, how they arrived there, how they got to this violation that brings them before me. Yes, there's a violation that brings them before me, but I'm so interested in the stuff that happened before, because if I have an understanding of what happened before, I've got a better chance of keeping you out of here.

And I had these people, they brought the prisoners out. And again, I was a judge. I was a judge in a low-level court, municipal court. But this is the court of first impression, which most people will see. And it's where most of the work happens. Because it's the low, it's the drug possession. It's the prostitution. It's the truancy.

It's the day-to-day stuff. Yes, the day-to-day stuff. It's the low-level drug dealing. It's where you're mentally ill or herded into like cattle because we haven't realized that it's better to give them services than to create laws that punish them and then send them to court and tell a judge to do something without giving the judges any skills or any tools to do something. And there were these two people, they brought men and they brought the women out at the same time. And I happened to ask an older gentleman, I said, how long have you been addicted

to drugs? And, you know, he wasn't really interested in talking too much. He was like, I'm at 30 years. And I said, how did you get addicted? He was like, I was just out there and stuff and stuff. So the men left and he left. And there was a woman and I didn't ask the question to everyone, but I just, there was something woman and I didn't ask the question to everyone but I just there was something about this particular woman's face and I had seen her she had been picked up on prostitution charges before she owed money and I'd been trying to get her into the program and I asked her I said how did you get it how long have you been addicted to drugs and she shook her head and she said judge you saw the guy that you just asked the question about how long he was addicted?

I said, yeah. She said, that was my stepfather. He got me addicted. And it was as if all of the air in the room was sucked out. They hadn't come to court. They hadn't been together. They weren't together and got arrested. They just happened to be arrested on the same day, ended up in the same place, living in the same level of trauma and crisis.

And I thought, my goodness. Yeah, I mean, what goes on in your mind when you hear that? I just like exasperation. It is exasperation because she got addicted to drugs when she was 15 because of her stepfather and all of the horrible things. And now she was in her maybe 40s. And she was still trying to numb the feeling of what was going on with the stepfather when she was a kid. Like she was still reliving that space.

And what we know is that people get stuck at where the trauma happens. Emotionally. Yeah. With their level of maturity. And I just thought, my God. And she's just been coming in and out of this court in this process. And really what she's dealing with,

issues of sexual abuse, issues of, and here we were, and what we do is just, all we've been doing is turning cases as opposed to providing them with assistance. So we were really fortunate in Newark that we partnered with the Center for Court Innovation and the New Jersey Judiciary. And Newark, under then-Mayor Cory Booker, now Senator Cory Booker, and now President George H.W. Kennedy, Cory Booker, and just said, enough. We have to do something better.

Newark was the most voluminous court in the state of new jersey it still is but at that time over 500 000 cases coming through the court about 24 police agencies writing summonses and complaints so it's like i mean the the burden on that system the burden on the system crushing and how when anyone picks up an initiative, how it impacts the court. So if you pick up this, oh, we're going to go after quality of life cases,

what that does to this court, which is now processing people and paper. Right. I can't imagine that was received all that openly. At least in the beginning. It's like,

you want me to do what? You want me to do what? You want me to do what? And because we are separate forms of government, it's the executive branch with their police forces that decides what they're doing. And so for me, you know, the Center for Court Innovation, I now chair their advisory board, has just been such a godsend

because they're a partner who understands and has been working for years. They worked actually, the Midtown Community Court was the first community court in the country, but it worked to clean up 42nd Street where the community and the business partners got together. Now, I'm of an age to know when someone said that your mother worked on 42nd Street, you had to fight. You know, that was an insult.

And now someone says, and you're like, oh, she's got a pretty good job. But I remember going down there as we were heading towards Port Authority, and my mother would be like, look forward, look forward, don't go on the sides, don't talk to anyone. But that's how you experience 42nd Street. And wanting to do that for Newark and wanting to do that for people, they called our courthouse the Green Monster. And that's what the people who were supposed to be receiving justice and equity and just fairness and restoration from this place called the courthouse.

It sits on 31 Green Street. But to think that the place that is your hall of justice, your beacon of light, is a monster, truly. And so what do you do to turn this around and to increase public trust? And so this program was started, and what they did and what the center does is that they go into the communities and they have community hearings about what do you want justice to look like, the people who you are serving. That's so interesting, right? So instead of saying, this is what we think justice should look like, step number one is they go and they ask a question rather than say, this is what I'm pronouncing. Which is, again, so rare from the beginning. Usually it's from

up on high, this is what we deem is the best option. Now implement it rather than, can we have a conversation and figure this out together. And then you wonder why no one complies. And then you wonder why there's no buy-in. And then you wonder why they think you don't respect them. You don't if you don't speak to the people who are going to be subject to this. And we were shocked when people came back and said, oh, we want those young boys who are selling drugs on that corner to get jobs, not more punishment. Get jobs. We want you to give them jobs so they can get off

this corner. We want the drug addict who's nodding out in front of my house every day, I want him to get some treatment, right? And so what that talks about is this whole idea of restorative justice that Miss Betty knows that guy who's nodding out in front of her house because he was a kid growing up on the block. And she saw what the 80s did to her community with the influx of drugs that nobody in the community knew that were coming. They couldn't understand what is happening here. And while people were afraid and this war on drugs was supposed to cure the problem and they saw communities become weaponized, they didn't understand that this war on drugs was just going to devour and destroy entire communities of people. And so this idea of community courts and community justice and engaging the community. So community courts do those things. They provide alternative sentencing to jails,

so they give judges tools so they can tailor justice so that it makes sense, right? Because this woman, let's talk about the woman again, the drug-addicted prostitute who's on this line. The law says because she owes this money, she continues to prostitute, she used to get jail time every time I see her. That's not justice.

Tailoring justice for her is getting her into a program that gets her talking about the trauma that she experienced. And also gets her assistance so that she can live somewhere and so that she can be in a place and so that she can get off of drugs, you know. And that's tailoring justice in a way that's fair and that's meaningful. The judge feels like they've done something, that they've touched the community and that they're relevant in the community because now they're impacting crime and they're impacting lives in their community. But the person now feels like they're getting assistance as well. And the community engagement, speaking to the community about what justice should look like, what part should they play. And unfortunately, in most of our communities, there's an overuse of the police. We're calling the police because, no, go outside and talk to that young person. I need you off this. Move, move from here, move from here, as opposed to calling the police who now

then have to process them. But then also seeing the police as a part of this community who can do station house adjustment. What are those? When you arrest a young person, you have an opportunity to either send them to jail or send them to a nonprofit in the community that can help them. in these communities, that they can show up and keep and maintain peace in these communities and holding legislators accountable as well and the leaders in these communities and using the nonprofits that already exist, that have already been doing this work and giving them, helping them build capacity as well. And so we were able to do that through the court. And it was amazing. You know, we created a community advisory board.

So now we're going to have the community coming into the court talking about what's happening in the community and what's happening in the judiciary. Now, the first meeting we had, boy, was it rough. Because. I can't imagine you before that very first meeting, like, what did I get myself into? That's always the question. I'm always, I show up and I'm like, what did I say? What did I agree to? Right.

And the community's pissed because no one from the judiciary has ever asked them or heard their complaints. So much bottled up for so many years. Oh my God. And they're screaming and, you know, there's a suggestion box that nobody cares about. And this judge did this to me and my license got suspended and this and I didn't know how to. And nobody answers the phone. And you have to sit there, take it and understand and give people information. OK, here's the court director.

When something like that happens, that's this. When this happens, that's not us. You have to go down to DMV to resolve this issue. But they don't tell you that. And so you begin to create this dialogue and creating almost leaders who can now kind of go out and disseminate this information. But it's always, like you said, that first and that second meeting. And you're like, okay, but come in and talk to us because we can improve or serve you better unless you actually show up. Yeah. So we were able to do that, bringing in the chaplains from there.

Like, oh, wow, this thing exists in here. So people would get arrested, and I'd see them, and they'd be put into this program immediately. So imagine a person who gets picked up because they're decompensated and having mental issues at Newark Penn Station. They're screaming and yelling. Well, that's being a disorderly person in the city at Newark Penn Station, they're screaming and yelling. Well, that's being a disorderly person in the city of Newark.

And so they get arrested, they get written up, and they get brought down to the courthouse. Or they don't get brought down to the courthouse when they really need to get sent to the hospital, and they get a complaint with a court date. They're not coming. So then they get a bench warrant issued. So then if they get the bench warrant issued, they eventually get arrested, and then they eventually come to the courthouse.

Well, they've been downstairs in the cell block for at least a day or two and still haven't gotten their medication. And they come before a judge, and instead of being sent to jail, they get an opportunity to go to this program. Now, this program has social workers, case managers, all on staff, clinical folks. We have interns who are passionate, people who are just really passionate. And these folks are awesome at this because they really want to work with this entire population of folks who just need some help and need some help getting assistance, who need help getting ID so they can get their assistance. And then you're in the center of three universities. And what happens with college kids who go away from their parents for

the first time and you have aggressive police forces at these schools? Well, you have a marijuana joint, you get sent down to the municipal courthouse and some of them run down there and they don't want their dads and moms to know that they got picked up or got into trouble. Oh, no, I just want to plead guilty very quickly. Well, if you plead guilty right in this moment, it impacts your federal financial aid, which means you don't get it. I mean, you might be able to go through an appeals process and then get it. Understanding all of the complexities that happens. And also what the prosecutor needs to be looking at, what the public defender and defense counsel need to be looking at when we are engaging people in this process.

Because it's not just, I mean, it's an entirely different environment. I mean, and especially when you think about the role of prosecutor in that environment, you can kind of see, okay, so you as the judge who has this bigger sort of social lens on really doing what's right for the human being and seeing the humanity in somebody, and then how do we actually solve the deeper problem in a long term? The defender who's representing this person and they're like zealously trying to do the best for them.

But then traditionally you think about the prosecutor and their role and it is to enforce the law. And if this person broke the law, like this is the outcome that has to happen. And then as we both know happens, unfortunately in a lot of real high volume, municipal bureaucratic organizations, there are expectations about,

you know, you've got numbers that they may not be on paper somewhere, but you're being measured by the outcomes that you're creating. And so there's a lot of unspoken assumption about, you know, what your role is and what, you know, like you've got kind of the surface level job, but then you're going to be judged on some different metrics. And so to exist within the context of your courtroom with a very different mission, very different culture, it's got to take an unusual person to play the role of prosecuting attorney as well. Yes. You know, I, we talk about my courtroom, but I say that we can do this across America and we should be. Like this is the one thing we should definitely be agreeing on, that our low level courts should be thinking about justice differently in this way. And even our superior courts should be thinking about justice differently.

But how the prosecutor has to change what their role is as well. And it takes some framing for them as well, because yes, I need a conviction. I need a conviction. But I also need to stop seeing this person come through the courthouse. I also need to make an offer that the judge is going to accept. I also need to understand that in this person, in a fine, me offering someone a $50 fine with $33 court costs on sleeping in public when I know the person is homeless is pointless. It's actually pointless. And no one shows up to work to do work that's not meaningful, that's laughable, that doesn't make any sense. That at your core, you know that I didn't do anything.

I'm exhausted because I saw 150 people today. But nothing that I did is going to have any impact. And so I was surprised that the prosecutors who wanted to work in this court work came on board. And some of the harder prosecutors who also didn't want to work in the court when they would be assigned, you know, it was work for me. But for me, I'm like, before you send up any offer, I need to know these things that you know, whether the person has, if it's a young person, if they have a high school diploma, whether they have a job, but these are the things that you need to be thinking about when you make your offer, because I need to hear about them and how that sort of helped frame pleas for the prosecutor and also what this

expectation was. And I had one prosecutor who lived in the community and he said, these are my neighbors. If they live better, then my life is better. And I remember one day I'd sit in court and this gentleman came in and I said, so you don't have court today. So I'm not here to see you judge. And it was, he was here to see the prosecutor, give him update about how good he was doing. And I thought, that's what this should look like. This should look like court should be about correction, right? Because that's what we're correcting your behavior. I want you to stop coming here because punishment we know doesn't correct. People seem to think, oh, if we punish you severely enough, then we correct you. No,

we don't. Because if we punish you greater than the actual offense, we have now created another victim, which is the person that the system has punished, right? So you send somebody away for a life sentence that should have received a couple of years, or you give them 10 years as opposed to what really should have been two years. For those 10 years, they sit in the jail thinking about how they've been victimized by the system. They really do. And that is the balance, I think, that we need to be in in society. That, yes, we want people, we want less victims.

But people often say to me, oh, you're all focused on the defendant. What about the victim? And I say, I do this work for the victim. This is exactly why I do this work. And I do this work for the victim, one, because when this person gets out, once this person comes to court

and has been severely punished by the court for what they do, they have to go back into the same community and live with the victim. And what have we done? And so often our victims appear in court as defendants don't they i mean my first example she was a victim of the sexual abuse of her stepfather that drove her to do drugs and now we're dealing with this

victim who is a heroin addict who now engages in prostitution to feed the heroin addiction. Yeah. And so in talking about young women, you know, we have the school to prison pipeline, but we also have the sexual assault to prison pipeline for young women. So they're getting arrested and sent to these facilities for the crimes that are typically caused because of sexual assault. So they're running away from home, right? They're fighting in school. They're doing all kinds of things. So fighting. I've worked with the D.C. Division of Youth Services is doing amazing work there. Well, they have just brought back all of their girls because they didn't house them in D.C. So a young girl who had to go to a youth facility went outside of the state. They went out of D.C. So a young girl who had to go to a youth facility went outside of the state.

They went out of D.C. So they're in Arizona. They're in Utah. And they would be deemed violent if they fought. And so how are we rehabbing this child if she can't or even be close to their family? And once they come back into the community, they've been miles and miles and states away. So how do we correct that behavior? How do we correct what we further aggravated by sending this person so far away from their families?

When in reality, we need to figure out what one was going on at home that might be causing some of this behavior. How can we create a space for this child to feel safe, right? Because we have an obligation as adults to make children feel safe in their communities and be safe in their communities and not blame them when they respond to violence and the trauma that they're experiencing. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

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The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. I mean, it's interesting too because so much of this, there's a fundamental societal judgment, which is, you know, what is the ultimate goal of the criminal justice system? Is it punishment? Is it rehabilitation and restoration? And depending on who you talk to

and where we are in the history of our country, I think that pendulum really tends to swing to one side or the other. And I feel like the last really two decades has really swung pretty violently out towards the punishment side of it. And it's hard to argue, as you said, and like you'll have people who are victims of crimes or actions committed by people who appear before you and coming to you and saying, like, where's my justice? If you're being so good to them, offering them social services, offering, you know, all sorts of things that will help them get better and become, you know, like, and reenter society and be my next door neighbor. But where's my justice for the harm that's being done?

And on the one hand, you get that. You get that. There's pain. There's real harm that's been done. And yet at the same time, the cycle never ends if the primary drive of the entire system is punishment and never restoration and rehabilitation. I'm screaming that it has to be restoration and rehabilitation.

It has to be. There has to be a space. I mean, fortunately for us, our center helps victims as well. Come. Tell me more about that. So New York Community Solutions, you don't even have to have a violation. You don't have to be charged or arrested or complained.

You can just walk in off the street and get assistance from the social workers who will get you connected to services. I mean, we want to eradicate the need for our justice system. Let's eradicate poverty. Let's eradicate the system, dismantle the systems, the racist systems that feeds the prison system and that feeds these unfair sentences and laws that we are dealing with. Let's do those things. I mean, I just have this list of things that we could do and let's get to work on them. But if we look at a system, we keep throwing money at a system that is not working for us. We keep throwing money at punishment and it's not helping. We're throwing

money and people are getting rich. And that's another issue. That's another thing that we have to do if we want to really reform the criminal justice system. People have to stop making money off the backs of poor, oppressed people. You know, we have to get rid of the incentive of sending people to jail. What's the incentive? Oh, well, I currently have been named by Governor Murphy to the women's prison in New Jersey, the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility. I'm so excited to be able to work with this group of women on this board to really just do some work reforming the prison system for women in New Jersey. They've been under investigation for sexual assaults against women and things like that. And so you look at this and you're like, we take people into custody.

We make them our responsibility when we take them into custody. And then we throw them into prison and then say, oh, figure it out. Well, I wouldn't be here if you didn't send me here. But I have an obligation, you the state, to make sure that I can survive this process and that since you've removed me from my family in this space, that when I get out, I can go back and do something in this community, become a part of my family again, and raise up a good, strong family that doesn't perpetuate the same cycle here. And there are so many issues that women face in the prison system, even women who

are not in the system. Women pay bails. Women pay fines and costs to help their families. And that's moms, that's wives, that's sisters. They drive to the jails and prisons to see family members. They pay the surcharges on the commissaries. I just saw they have this machine that, oh, inmates can now send emails, 40 cents a pop. I'm like, email is free. What do you do? Why are we proud of this? And so that the system just really,

we've just been like doing these things and layering more bad policy on top of more bad policy. And then these folks come out and I'm always surprised that these folks who come out of prisons and they're brilliant and they got their education in the system. And I'm like, what would we have gained by not having had this person incarcerated? Right? Because yes, I get people have violated the law. I get that. I understand the law and I want it to be upheld. But what did we gain by putting this person in for three to five on a drug possession charge for marijuana? Like, what did we get out of this person? We sent them away for three to five years. And then what are we gaining by having a number of collateral consequences so all of the things they are now barred from doing because of things so now we want you to go get a job but you can't get your barber's license

because you have a record and we don't license people with a record to become barbers but we need you to pay your child support because it was accruing while you were in prison um but i don't know if you're going to be able to pay all the surcharges on your driver's license that you got while you were away. Actually, you got surcharges before you even had a driver's license. And so we create these impossible systems that just are illogical. That's, you know, I'll do almost anything, but it has to make sense. And my experience was that a lot of the stuff we were being asked to do just didn't make sense. You made a point earlier about these unspoken requirements for judges. You know, what makes it hard for a judge to do the work that they want to do?

And some of it for me is the distance and detachment that judges experience, that we want to protect judges from undue influence from the other branches of government. We don't want legislators telling you how to rule. We don't want that. We don't want that. We want to protect the judiciary from it. So we preclude judges from speaking about what they do. We preclude them from attending events. We preclude them from being around the people that they serve. And I don't think that it creates a more neutral judge. I just think it creates a less informed judge, right? A less informed judge. An example of this was I had a man who was addicted to heroin.

He kept picking up these silly quality of life cases. And, you know, quality of life is throwing trash on the floor, smoking in public. It could be smoking or being homeless. People get a lot of them because they're sleeping in public. They're just doing or failing to obey the officer's command. Command to do what is always my question. What do you ask them to do? Spitting in public is one. And I had him in the program and he was about to get kicked out of the program.

Now the program is not just, oh, we feel nice and we like you. It's you come to the judge and you report to me every two weeks. And at that time you have a suspended sentence hanging over your head. And if you don't do what you're supposed to do, you will get your jail sentence. But we're working to get you to learn how to show up on time. And he wouldn't show up on time. And when he doesn't show up on time, he can't be seen. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is killing me because I know this guy is not trying to force me to send him to jail on this charge because he just won't do what I like show up on time. And one day I was outside in the community at a food truck, right? So the judge is trying to eat outside.

Imagine that. You see the judge online at the food truck. But I'm outside and I see him walking down the street and he stops at the light. I don't, typically I say, hey, I saw you. But I just watch him. And on the corner, there's the light. There's a garbage can. And he goes halfway across the street, turns around, comes back, picks up a piece of paper and throws it in the garbage. Thought that was a little interesting.

Throws it in the garbage. Goes back, crosses, goes off the crosswalk, off the sidewalk, into the middle of the street, turns back around, comes back to the garbage and picks up another piece of white and throws it in the garbage. He does this for about six minutes. Like he's, he has OCD. Every time he sees a garbage, he has to pick up all the garbage that's around it. Now he's this very tall, long, strong, I mean, he's walking as if he's got some place to go. But he is the middle of the street, and he turned, and I sat there, and I watched him do this literally for six minutes. And I thought, oh, my God,

this is why he can't get to court on time. There's a garbage in front of the building. He's, like, caught in a cycle somewhere, right? Yeah. Yes, and I was about to send him to jail because I couldn't get him to do what I needed him to do. And I go in and I'm like, my goodness, things are always bigger than we think. Bigger than we think. He just, he's trying to get to the courthouse on time.

He probably leaves an hour ahead of time. But he gets, and I've seen, and I actually have seen him do it in front of the courthouse because we have a garbage can. He comes off the ramp. He can't get away until he gets what he figures, I guess, or until the mind clicks and says enough, off to the next spot. And I just thought that I learned that because I was outside in my community amongst the people and like just seeing this thing with this person. And so we were able to like make sure that, okay, so I'm like, well, now when he comes to court, I'm not going to be upset that he's not on time. And he's never that late, but it depends, I guess. Because now you have an awareness that it's not intentional.

If anything, it's the exact opposite. It's not disrespectful. It's literally him battling his own mental illness and still coming despite the fact that it's tripping him up so much. It's like for you as a judge, it's just a completely different frame. It's a totally different frame. And now that I have tools, which are social workers, and I'm like, oh my gosh, guess what I saw? So now they can delve into this because this doesn't reveal itself in the office when he's sitting. It doesn't reveal itself.

And so now we can really get you help and we can now get you connected to services in a way. But it helped me make, it made me not punish him for his illness again. And that's unfortunately so much of what we do. You know, I see young people, young drug dealers sometimes come to court. And I'm like, you know, sign your paperwork. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, you can't sign because you can't read or write. And so what did we expect this person to do when they got out of high school? Like, what did we expect was going to happen?

We knew that they were going to be coming through the court system. If we don't, if you don't teach them, if they don't learn basic skills, they will live in our justice system. And so what do we do with that? And sometimes it's revealed when someone has an essay to write and they'll go out in the hallway with the prosecutor, tell the judge I can't. And that's good, you know, but it's good that they feel comfortable enough to tell the prosecutor. But that's why the prosecutor and the public defender have to be a part of this. And the police officers in court have to be a part of this process. I'll have officers, judge, can I approach?

Yeah, the young man pulled me aside and this is why he can't do this or this is happening at home today. And when the court becomes a place where you can go to for assistance yeah it's collaborative versus just pure adversarial yes and people scream about this oh what about this adversary i'm like i don't think we don't live in an adversarial legal system anymore public defenders have to go hat in hand beg the prosecutor to give their clients good deals. What's adversarial about that? Yeah, things have changed so much. You brought up the idea of essays. Tell me more about this because I think this is fascinating.

So I believe that all of the answers that people want live and reside inside of them. They're inside of you. And when I ask, why can't you get clean? The answer is here. Oh, I don't know. No, you do know because it's the reason you got addicted. It's that space. And so I started having people think about those things and orders complies with the law and also increases satisfaction with judge's decision, but increases the public trust. It was a way to give people voice and to make them answer those deep questions that I'm asking from the bench. And they're like, why does the judge care? Because she cares.

And so I started asking people to write these essays. And then I thought, read them. If you know you have to read this thing out loud, you'll put more effort into them. So this literally becomes a requirement for somebody in your courtroom. For somebody in the courtroom. And what people poured into those essays was unbelievable. It was almost like having the first community meeting at the courthouse and people were screaming and yelling for nobody had asked. Right.

Because, like, I mean, so many people probably show up and this has got to be the first time maybe in years or decades where somebody has actually said to them, like, I want to see you. Help me see you. Help me see you. Yeah. And they would write and I'd give them these articles, New York Times articles, you know, and they'd read them. And I'm like, and the school said you couldn't learn. Like, that's what would drive me crazy. I'm dealing with kids who, or young people or people who just dropped out of high school and brilliance would just pour out of them. And we'd sit there and the answer, and they would literally have the answer as they would

write. They would come to it. And the I don't know would turn into, well, I know this now. Or like, wow, I just learned this about myself. Or so you'd have an essay, I don't know why Judge Pratt angry with me. I don't know why Judge Pratt asked me to write this stupid essay. And by the end of it, oh my God. And so, letter to my son. What happens when you have someone who's been addicted to 20 years writing a letter to his son? And it starts off, my dear son who's sitting in heaven, you were taken away far too soon at 16 years old. And I haven't been able to get right since. And the person and the dad just kind of goes through this space and is talking about these things and what happened to them. And you're sitting there like, wow, yes, I'm looking

at more than a junkie. I'm looking at a father who met his threshold because we all have them. You know, sometimes mentally ill people would come to court and people would giggle. And one day I said, you know, if you are able to laugh, you just haven't met your threshold. And we never know what it is for somebody. For somebody, it might be the death of a child, the loss of a job. We never know what it is. And now I'm in this space and you're asking me to knock them out with this criminal justice approach. And that's not at all what's going on here. And so these essays, the essay of the lady who comes to court and says, she starts, I've been struggling with a fatal disease for 24 years. And because of it, I've grown addicted to drugs. And I just didn't, I lost my will to live.

So I started doing heroin and blah, blah, blah. And as soon as she said it, I made a note of it. I thought, blah. And as soon as she said it, I made a note of it. I thought, wow. And when she got off, when she finished her essay, we clapped. And it was just beautiful. And she's bawling because she hadn't heard what she wrote, right? Because then that's the process. You've written it. It's cathartic.

But then you hear yourself. And the courtroom is quiet. And people are leaning in, listening to this experience because so much of it is reflective of what their lives were. And I say to her, you know, do you know that you beat that disease 23 years ago? Because you can't have a fatal disease for 24 years. You've been telling yourself the wrong story about who you are. You've been playing the victim in that story, but you're actually the victor. Like you told that disease, I wish you would come for me. And every year that you're here is another year that you've won. Like, think about that. There are people who die from diseases who aren't told that they have fatal diseases. And she was just living, waiting for this thing to kill her, literally. And people live in that space.

They live in the space of, I failed. I failed. And they just, they sit there and they stay there. And every terrible thing that comes their way, they submit to it as opposed to fighting for it, you know? And you look at people living in poverty and you're like, my goodness, how do you make it? There's so much more fight in you. I wish you didn't have to fight as much. I wish that we could understand that we have it within our power within this generation to eradicate poverty and to give people better living conditions. People who go to work every day and

still can't afford three meals a day, right? And then we punish them for stealing food when in fact we should be making food available or improving living conditions. You know, if people can't eat or live or have a roof over their heads, they can't function and they don't function well. So, so much of it is that. The essays, I have one young woman who wrote an essay about, she was about 90 pounds, and she came to court.

And she was reading this essay. She got charged initially with unlawful possession of weapon, and they sent it to the Superior Court. They couldn't make their case, so they sent it down. I don't know why they didn't dismiss that, but we ended up sending her to youth court because she's a high school student. So in New Jersey, when you're 18, and she comes back to court and she reads this essay, Judge, I'm so sorry I was carrying a knife. She was carrying like either a butter knife or like a steak knife. I'm so sorry I was carrying this knife.

I didn't intend to hurt anyone, but it's just that I'm scared. I'm scared all the time. I'm scared when I'm in my old neighborhood. I'm scared when I'm in my old neighborhood. I'm scared when I walk to school. I'm scared when I come home after school and I'm walking home. I'm scared at night. I sleep with my knife under my pillow and I barricade myself in my room. We failed her.

She's a child in a community who's afraid all the time and then we arrest her and send her the superior court when she carries a knife and days a day went by i went home that evening and i just kept thinking about like my gosh the worst the best that was going to happen someone was going to take this knife from this little child and use it against her like she wasn't even going to be able to defend herself with it and i thought my gosh she is why is she barricading herself in a room and i called her social worker like oh my god i missed it why is she barricading herself in her room at night come to we find out that her mother's boyfriend had been sexually molesting her at night now she goes into a school where there are police officers.

It's after she gets arrested that she almost tells, right? Because she didn't fully tell. Probably because she doesn't trust the traditional system, right? No. So there's like, she doesn't even want to reveal that deeper. But she drops it enough in an essay so that someone can pick it up. Yeah. Right?

If you're paying attention. If you're paying attention. And so, so much has to happen. And so, yeah, so that's why for me the essays were wonderful because they would just see themselves. Charles Blow wrote an op-ed called Black Men Disappearing from Society, and I assigned that. And these guys would come in and like, oh, my God, he's talking about me.

And they'd analyze this about their experience. And it was such a powerful exercise that I've been screaming, I need these young men to be able to have a group where they can speak because as a part of the program, you do individual counseling session, group counseling sessions, as well as community gift back, which is community service. Because the one thing you want to see me hit the roof is that I don't like doing community services. I'm working for free. You're working off what you owe this community. Right.

And so it spawned a group called The Fire Next Time. So we have a professor, Professor Connor, from one of the community schools. So he comes to Newark and he has these young men sit and talk about their experiences. And they're from different sects and different gangs. And they're just young men. And they talk about how they see themselves. And here's this young African-American professor who's taking time to come just be with them. And one of my favorite things is that the group is like an hour and maybe 15 minutes or so. And they're still sitting outside talking to each other after they get kicked out of the room because we've got to close down these spaces. And they're still talking to each other about their experiences. So the court now creates the space for them to talk about things and helping them in the decision-making process, right? Because that's what we want. We want you to call somebody before you do something that's silly. We want you to call somebody before you

do something out of desperation. Yeah. And to have maybe a different group of peers or people or people that you can turn to that will have a different reflection. Yes. And a different ear to what you're saying, a different set of words. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just

15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. You, um, you've had an experience at Pelican Bay. Yes. So, so I, um, I do the things that scare me all the time, right? And I don't even, well, I know why. Because I know I have a mission that I've been called to and that I can't get it accomplished if I sit in my fear. Like I have the fear, but if I sit in it, I can't get this thing done. And then that means someone doesn't

get served. And there might be something that I have to offer and they can't get it because I'm just the vessel to come bring it to you. And I had a friend who does, she does entrepreneur program and training at Pelican Bay. And so she kind of tricked me and she's like, oh, come to my birthday in California. And I was like, cool. I'm up for a good party. Judge doesn't get invited to a lot of parties.

So I don't know why people just don't. And then she's like, yeah, it's at Pelican Bay. And I was like, hold up. The judge is not going to the prison because I represent this system. No, who does that? And then you talked about peer group and how important that is. And my husband says to me, I'm like, she's nuts. I'm not doing that. He's like, no, no, you should go. And I'm like, do you hear yourself? You're sending your wife to a maximum security prison. Like, that's what you're suggesting. He's like, no, you need to go because you really need to be able to speak full circle about reform. And if it's scared that something's going to happen to me. It's probably one of the more safer places you're going to be.

But that how I'm going to be received. Because I know how my peers have treated people before. Like some of the last things you've heard are some of the worst things that a judge could say to you. And just how the entire system has treated people and literally shepherded them into where they are now. And so there is a story that I tell, that I tell to older men in my community in Newark. And so I said, I'm here because I want to be able to talk to you, to hear from you, because I really, it was really also an information gathering process for me. But I want to share this with you. And it's a story about,

in Africa, there were these, there are these reservations. So there was this reservation that had bullhorn elephants. So we know that the bullhorn elephant is the strong male, alpha male elephant. So they're huge, they weigh tons. And we know that elephants are almost, they're kind of passive by nature, right? Because they're vegetarians, so they don't attack to eat. And so that's kind of how the bullhorn elephant is. And the other elephants aren't. They only kind of, you have to kind of provoke them to have them attack. So they had too many elephants on this reservation. And they decided that they were going to create this contraption and airlift the elephants from one place reservation to the next. So they started and they airlifted the baby elephants.

And then they airlifted the female elephants. When it came to the male bullhorn elephant, it was too heavy. So they decided, someone came up with this bright idea, we'll leave all the male elephants at this reservation and just keep the kids with their moms at the other reservation. At the new reservation, they found that the rhinos were being killed. And they couldn't understand how these poachers were getting this done. And they were leaving the most valuable part, which was their horns. So they decided to cameras in and watch what was happening. And what they saw was that the baby male elephants were going out in packs at night.

And unprovoked, they were killing the rhinos. The elephants were actually, the baby male elephants were actually acting against their nature. So they took all the baby male elephants and took them back to the bullhorn elephants. Now, when they got with the bullhorn elephants, those elephants smacked them around, showed them how to walk, how to eat, how to behave. But the baby bullhorn elephants now had behavior that they could model. And so what's been happening in our community is that all the bullhorn elephants are now sitting in prison. If what happens when you take the bullhorn elephants out of the community, the baby male elephants behave against their very nature because they don't have any role models to correct them, to show them how to behave.

And so I told that story and what was so powerful about it. And so I started yelling at the inmates because that's what Judge Brett does. And I'm like, you're in here feeling sorry for yourself and you have so much work to be doing in your community from here. These young boys are lining up to come in here to get their wrapped up and I'm not afraid to go to prison. And you need to be telling them how horrible it is to live like this and to not come in here. And, you know, I'm laughing and I'm like, well, you know, I guess that's what I came here to do was to yell about. But truly, this work is not just my work. It's your work, too.

If you're in here suffering, stop your nieces, your nephews, keep them from coming in here. So I had a young man come up to me, and he shows me this tattoo. He was like, the elephant, what you spoke to, really touched me, because the elephant is my spirit animal. And he said, I realized that I didn't have any bullhorn elephants because he felt that the men would go out and get educated and not return. And he was like, wow, I just didn't, I realized like I really didn't have any model, any behavior to model. Then I have, I go to the SHU. And for those who don't know, what is the SHU? The SHU, I'm sorry, is the solitary confinement.

Which is not a fun place to be. Not a fun place at all. Then a young African-American guy is standing there waiting to talk to me. Judge, I need to tell you, I was so impacted by what you, that story you told about the bullhorn elephant that I went out to the yard and I told folks, and then I called home. And I got really angry with some guys because they were talking about what they need me to do when I'm out and he must be pretty high ranking in the potential in the potential gang because he was

able to give the order of we need to start being role models and he said I told them the story you told me and that was a Thursday and he was like and I convinced them the story you told me. And that was a Thursday. And he was like, and I convinced them they're now having a barbecue on Saturday for the young kids in the neighborhood trying to buy them some equipment and basketball so they can kind of shift what they've been doing with them. And I thought about how powerful that was. It's like a story, but why it's important for us to show up for what we're called to do. Because sometimes it's just that, a story that you share that impacts someone, that's really a story for them. And if you don't show up, they don't get it. And so for me, it's been about that calling out the bullhorn elephants, that you still have work

to do. Even if you're going through recovery, you're trying to get clean, you need to be pulling people up with you as you do that. You need to be doing this. You need to be, it's okay to change your mind about how you used to live, but to really change people's lives and be afraid and do it anyway. And so I've been doing that work now and going any place that people ask me to speak if I really think I can potentially have something to add to the conversation about reform. But reform is criminal justice reform in jail, it's in the court, but it's in our community as well. And so I'm super excited to see all of these megastars having this conversation as well. Yeah, it's interesting to see.

It really just feels like it's the last few years. Yeah. That there's this shift somehow. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting, you know, if you look at sort of like the narrative arc of where you've been and where you're headed. Yeah. And this seed of, you know, I have a job to play. You being aware of that at the youngest age, you know, like at that age, it was sort of, I have a job to play. You being aware of that at the youngest age, like at that age, the translator slash activist slash voice of, and how that has just continued to weave and build and

grow and expand as you've moved through your career. So if we start to come full circle now, and I offer the phrase to you, to live a good life, what comes up? Wow. So I've been thinking about that. And when I think about what it means to live a good life, I think it means, and especially for me, it's what you do when the challenges appear. And it's when the challenges appear, knowing that you are stronger, that you are smarter, that you have enough wisdom to get through this thing the way you always have. Because it's in the tough times, it's in the hiccups that we forget who we are. It's not when we feel good, when everything's going well, we are always living a good life, but it's in that space.

And I'm always envious of the people who are already experiencing that nirvana, you know, but that during that time, during those challenges that you are capable of continuing to love, continuing to nurture, continuing to serve, continuing to be creative, that you keep doing those things during that. And for me, that's living a good life. When the challenges come up, how you show up for yourself in that space. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do.

You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into

a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. You're going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot.

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