In Search Of Excellence - Damon West: From A Loving Home To Lifetime In Prison | E51

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Damon West is an ex-meth addict and the ex-head of an organized crime ring who was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes.  Today, he is a college professor at the University of Houston, an exceptional motivational speaker, and a best-selling author.  His story is one of the most incredible and fascinating stories I have ever heard – do not miss this episode!(01:56) Introduction to Damon WestGrew up in Port Arthur, Texas with supporting parentsA black athlete on the front page of a magazine (hate mail he had to read)Taking a stand and doing the right thing may mean standing aloneBeing molested by a babysitter at 9 years old introduced him to adult behaviors (started smoking, drinking, and doing drugs at 10 years old)High-school football in TexasFrom star athlete to a career-ending injury – identity shatteredGoing back to drugs being a functional addictFinished college and got a job in the US Congress and UBS(16:20) Drug addiction and descending into criminalAddicts give up their goals to meet their behaviorsSuccessful people give up their behaviors to meet their goalsEverything can be an addiction12-step recovery programFalling in love with crystal methKnown as "The Uptown Burglar"(24:52) Life sentence in prisonArrested for his crimes (6 days of a public trial and sentenced to 65 years in prison)Great advice from his motherMr. Jackson – a ray of sunshine in prisonPrison is all about race and gangsThe strongest men in prison walk aloneThe coffee bean story (the most important story of his life)His first day in prison (you don't have to win, just fight)Sponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

He said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water. He said, anything we put into this pot of boiling water is going to be changed by the heat and the pressure inside this pot. He said, I'm going to put three things in that pot of boiling water that we call prison and watch how they change. A carrot, an egg and a coffee bean. He said, if I put a carrot in that pot of boiling water we call prison, he said, what happened to the carrot? And I went, Mr. Jackson, the carrot is going to turn soft. You don't want to be the carrot inside the prison. He said, what about the egg, West? I was like, well, the egg is going to turn hard, Mr. Jackson, like a hard-boiled egg. Then he asked me the question. He said, what about the coffee

bean, West? What happened to the coffee bean in the pot of boiling water that we call prison? He said, if I put a coffee bean in the same pot of warm water we call prison, he said, now you've got to change the name of the water to coffee. Because he said the coffee bean, Wes, the smallest of the three things, he said, small like you, has the power to change the entire atmosphere inside that pot because the power is inside the coffee bean. He said, just like the power is inside the coffee bean. He said, just like the power is inside you. He said, everything else in life is going to be changed by the water.

West, the eggs are changed by the water. The carrots are changed by the water. He said, not the coffee beans. The coffee beans are the only thing that can change the water because they are the change agent. He said, West, be a Coffee Bean. hard work, dedication, and perseverance. It's about believing in ourselves and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face on our way there. Achieving excellence is our goal, and it's never easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities, and surroundings, and we all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is Damon West. Damon has one of the most incredible and inspirational stories I have ever heard. Damon is a former meth addict and head of an organized crime ring who was sentenced to life in prison, who is now a college

professor at the University of Houston, and one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in the world. He is the author of four best-selling books that have collectively sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages. His books are The Change Agent, How a Former College Quarterback's Sentence to Life in Prison Transformed His World, The Coffee Bean, A Simple Lesson to Create Positive Change, How to Be a Coffee Bean, 111 Life-Changing Ways to Create Positive Change, and The Locker Room, How Great Teams Heal, Hurt, Overcome Adversity, and Build Unity. Damon is also a dedicated philanthropist he started the coffee bean foundation to help and provide for children of incarcerated parents

one of the reasons of which is because a child of an incarcerated parent is almost 50 percent more likely to go to prison themselves one day damon it's incredible pleasure to have you on my show welcome to in search of excellence randall, thanks a lot, man. I appreciate the opportunity. And man, look, your technical crew, we went through it, man. We tried to find the opportunity in adversity, but here we are. That's the message for today. We're going to talk about a lot of amazing things. Let's start with your family. I always start with our family because from the moment we're born, our family helped shape our personalities, our values, and the preparation for our future.

You were born in Port Arthur, Texas, and grew up in a family with incredibly supportive parents who have been married for 54 years and have said you hit the parents' lottery. Your mother was a nurse and your dad was a sports writer. And in 1971, he became the first sports writer in that part of Texas to put black athletes on the front page of a sports page. Can you tell us about Joe Washington Jr.? What happened when he did this? The box of hate mail he made you read and the influence it had on your future. Yeah. So Port Arthur, Texas is down where Louisiana and Texas touch on the Gulf Coast, a little blue collar town, a little refinery town. Predominantly black town. And I tell people all the time, I grew up being one of the only

white kids at slumber parties, birthday parties, sports, you name it. In other words, this was a giant melting pot of a city. But in 1971 in Port Arthur, Texas, Southeast Texas, the region of Texas where I live in, sports writers were not allowed to put black athletes on the front page of a sports page. There was a new publisher of the paper in town in 1971, a guy named Bill Maddox,

who, when I went on to be born in 1975, would become my godfather. But Bill Maddox came from the Lyndon Johnson administration in Washington, where he worked previously. And Bill walked into my dad's office in 1971 and said, hey, Bob. Now, my dad was about a 26-year-old guy at this point from Missouri. He had moved down to Texas to get a little more university. But he went into my dad's office and said, hey, Bob, listen, we've got the best sports writer, I mean, the best running back in America in our own backyard, AP All-American, Joe Washington Jr. goes to the all-black school across town called Port Arthur Lincoln High School. This guy is going to earn the right to be on our front page, and we're going to put him on there.

And I don't care what the policy said about, you know, black athletes can't be on the front page. He said, the policy has just been changed. And he said, are you in? And my dad said, yeah, I'm in. And so Bill told my father, he said, I do want you to understand that when we do this, that so much of what you know is going to turn on you. He said, but just know that we're going to be in this boat together, paddling together, both of our families. And man, it was like Bill had a crystal ball because the minute my dad, the first week of the football season, Joe Washington is on the front page of thePage, and immediately the hate mail starts coming in from other areas around Southeast Texas, some from within Port Arthur as well. They broke my dad's windows out sometimes. He would slit his tires.

I didn't remember. My dad told me a brick came through the window where my older brother was actually in his baby crib at one point in 1972. So my dad, in the middle of all this stuff, stood his ground. And he had Bill, the publisher, standing behind him. He stood his ground. And later on in life, whenever I was a little boy, this is probably in the early 80s, my dad goes up in the attic one day. He comes down with this box. It's got all these envelopes and letters in it. This is the hate mail, Randall. And he sat me down on the couch that day, and he had me read every one of those letters of hate mail, every nasty, negative word that people said about my father and my mother

because my dad put a black guy on the cover of the sports page. But my dad told me back then, he said, Damon, I want you to see what it looks like to take a stand and do the right thing. He said, sometimes taking a stand and doing the right thing, well, it means you're going to have to stand alone. But he said, it's always OK to stand alone as long as you are standing on the right side of history. So I had a tremendous influence from my father. You know, 25 years later, Randall, when I go to prison, this is one of the bedrock principles I've built this new life on, that it's okay to stand alone as long as you're standing on the right side of history. And I think that's a lesson that so many of us need to be

reminded about, especially with how everything's going on right now in this country and in this world, that you've got to take a stand for what's right. And if you're right, then it's okay to be alone. I want to talk about something difficult for most people to talk about. This problem is a lot more common than most people think. People don't talk about it, but I think people should talk about it. And it's very important to get it out in the open. Can you tell us what happened to you when you were nine years old and how that influenced your future?

Yeah. So, you know, I was molested by a female babysitter when I was nine years old and came out and told my parents about it. My parents did everything they could. They sent me to talk to family counselor, family priest. We prayed about it. We prayed a lot.

My mom was one of those moms that has prayer plaques and crosses over the house. You can't escape God in my mom's house. But something inside that little nine-year-old boy went to a place where nine-year-olds shouldn't go. And I tell people all the time, Randall, the molestation thing when I was nine by a female babysitter, it wasn't one of those molestation things that so many people experience when they're molested at a young age where it's just devastating and breaks them. What happened to me when I was nine years old is that it's like this. There's a big giant door that kids aren't

allowed to go on the other side of. That's the adult door. And on the other side of the adult door are all these other doors. But the adult door, the big door is locked. It's got bolts on it. It's chains on it. You can't get into it as a kid. It's made to keep you out. But if you get on the other side of that door as an adult, there's all these other doors to different kinds of behaviors, drinking, doing drugs, sex, all the different things adults can choose to do because they have free will. But those doors aren't locked on the other side of the big bolted up door. And as a nine-year-old, I got into that big door where only adults are supposed to go.

And I started walking into all the other rooms because I was introduced to adult behaviors at a very young age. Does that make sense, Randall? Sure it does. Does that make sense as a description? So in my life with the molestation thing, I tell people that it wasn't one of those things that just put me on this alternate course in life because it broke me. It put me on a different course in life in the sense that I was introduced to adult behaviors and I started indulging in some of those adult behaviors at 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. Things that kids are not supposed to be doing. Now I'm drinking my dad's beer out of the fridge because I see my dad drink beer out of the fridge.

And once I do it, the chemicals, I like the way it feels inside me, the chemicals. And so I start drinking more beer at 10 years old. My mom smoked cigarettes at the time. So I would steal my mom's cigarettes and smoke her cigarettes. 10, 11, 12 years old, 12 years old. I smoked my first joint. You know, I'm hanging out with some kids in the sixth grade. We smoke our first joint. And I started doing that habitually. I've got a lot of adult behaviors and I've got a lot of bad behaviors. And here's what I tell people all the time about this is I've got bad belief systems. Your belief systems are so important, Randall, because your belief systems tell you how to behave, how to respond, how to react in any given situation. And when you have bad belief systems, you act in a bad way. You act

accordingly to those belief systems. And I tell people all the time that bad belief systems, you act in a bad way. You act accordingly to those belief systems, and I tell people all the time that my belief systems at 9, 10, 11, 12 years old said, you know, Damon, all you're doing is drinking a little beer, smoking a little pot. You're not hurting anybody. You're not even really hurting yourself, but I could have been more wrong, Randall, because as I got older in life and when I, you know, got into more difficult situations and I couldn't deal with life on life's terms, I'd already been accustomed to putting in chemicals to change the way I felt. And these chemicals would gradually change to something stronger and stronger as I went through life.

So that's what happened when I was nine years old. I got introduced to a world of adult behaviors and it changed my way that I saw other things in life, like relationships. I mean, when you're 10, 11, 12 years old, you're experimenting with sexual activity, you start basing all relationships on that. So yeah, that was how it affected me. You could throw the football very, very well. Star athlete at Thomas Jefferson High School. You became a starting Division I quarterback at the University of North Texas. Football in Texas.

High school football is a religion. I had Cliff Kingsbury on my show. I don't know if you know Cliff or who he is, but he was a star athlete. Yeah, I spoke to his team one time at Texas Tech. Yeah. Good guy. Yeah, Cliff is amazing. He told me, he walked me through what it was like. You are the star of stars down there.

You played three years on a D1 scholarship in college. You had a big head at the time, as do a lot of athletes who get a lot of things handed to them. What goes up sometimes, sometimes comes down. Can you talk about how difficult it was to get injured and not play football. No, you're not going to make it again. And can you tell everybody what was going on in your life at that point and what you were thinking before you graduated? Yeah, you know, so Cliff is exactly right. High school football in Texas is a religion.

I mean, people go on Friday nights to worship at the cathedrals that we call these high school football stadiums. And by the way, in Texas, some high school stadiums are bigger than some college stadiums in America. It would blow your mind how serious we take football, the game of football in the state of Texas, but that's what it is. And as a little boy, that was intoxicating for me. And to play, to be the quarterback, no less of a high school football team, a 5A school, the highest classification at the time in the 90s, to be a three-year starting quarterback, man, I was the man. I was the guy that everybody knew. It also kept me out of a lot of trouble because it was

very difficult for the quarterback of the team to get into any serious trouble because we need this guy on the field. We need him to win. And I don't blame any of my behaviors on the treatment that I got, but obviously, it did not teach me any good lessons about life that if you could throw a football really well, that certain other things can be bent towards your will. And look, addicts are known for being manipulative. And when I got a hold of this, I mean, I could manipulate that as well. Not just in high school, but in college. I mean, look, I went on to sign a Division I college football scholarship to the University of North Texas. And when I got to college, the behavior is still there. Because wherever you go, there you are. None of the

behaviors have changed. Just because I left Port Arthur and went to Denton, Texas, doesn't mean I've got this sudden case of act right in my life. Got to college and I was still the same person and got into some trouble, but I also got out of trouble. But my world changed September 21st, 1996. This is the day that I call a fork in the road in life. And Randall, we have fork in the roads in life. These are big days, days that life is going to change. You're going to get knocked down really hard. And when you get back up and dust yourself off at the fork in the road, things are going to look a little different.

You got hit really hard. Things are in different places. But you've got a choice to make at every fork in the road. You can make the right choice to go the right way or the wrong choice to go the wrong direction. September 21st, 96, we took the field against Texas A&M. Beautiful Saturday in College Station, Texas. I'm 20. I'm the starting quarterback for a Division I team in America, driving my team down the field against the Aggies, man, the Aggies.

I mean, what little boy doesn't want to grow up playing against these guys or playing for those guys in the state of Texas? There I am in front of thousands on Kyle Field. Third play of this game, I go down, career-ending injury. Never played college football again. And when I get up to this fork in the road in life and football is gone, my identity went with it because I've made the mistake, Randall, of wrapping my identity up into something external. We can't do that in life. I didn't understand that at 20, but your identity

can't come from something you attach yourself to. I tell people it can't come from social media, the car you drive, the house you live in, the job you have, your bank account. That's not you. Those are things attached to you. Your identity has to come from within. But inside me, I had never developed an identity because my identity was being a quarterback, being a star quarterback. September 21st, 1996, at 20 years old, that was gone. And I didn't know who I was. And like so many other addicts that have come before me, when I get up to this fork and road in life and the football was gone, I made a lot of wrong turns because I could not deal with life on life's terms. This is a reoccurring theme for addicts. And certainly in my life,

the inability to deal with life on life's terms. So what do I do? I fall back on my belief systems. My belief system, remember, said, hey, Damon, you just drink a little beer, smoke a little pot. You're not hurting anybody. You're not even hurting yourself. Now it's cocaine. It's ecstasy. It's pills. It's whatever I can put in to change the way I feel, whatever chemicals I can put in.

But, you know, Randall, I graduated college in 1999. I was a very functional addict. Moved off to Washington, D.C. Got a job working in the United States Congress. Worked for a guy running for president of the United States. In 2004, I moved back to Dallas, Texas to train to be a stockbroker for one of the biggest Wall Street banks in the world, UBS, United Bank of Switzerland. And that was another fork in the road, Randall. You went down at some point, I think one of your colleagues at UPS gave you something to, and you went down to the parking garage with him. And then from there, it really spiraled even more downward. Can you talk just for a second? I grew up after college, I worked in a white collar environment. I went to law school, I graduated, I did some investment banking for a large company. It was very white collar. And it really doesn't matter between white collar or blue collar.

But I think a lot of these people, I think most of the people listening to this podcast are going on a professional careers, white collar careers. It's unbelievable to me how many people I know who are still doing drugs in their adult life. They've got kids. They're snorting cocaine. They're doing it at work. They're doing it at home. They're doing it recreationally. What's your message to all of them? I've seen marriages explode. I've seen people lose all their money. In one case, this is really sad. I had a friend who was the CFO of several public

companies. He was 60 years old. He was a marathoner. He did triathlons and he started doing drugs. He got depressed. He was homeless and he died about six months ago, leaving two teenage kids and a wife in a very precarious, incredibly sad situation. Did he die? Let me ask you this. I'll answer your question, but I'm curious about this because today I'm in a program recovery, Randall. I'm in AA and I'd love to talk about that, the program recovery and how it works. But I hear stories about this all the time. Somebody that went their entire life and once they retired, they had a lot of time on their hands. And one day they fill it up with some chemicals and they get hooked on that. And it doesn't take long before they're dead because

they've succumbed to the addiction. But yeah. So I mean, how long after he started using did he die? Well, like a lot of people who use, they hide it and they hide it from their wives. The wives don't know, the kids don't know. And at some point, it was too late. I guess at some point deep beneath he had bipolar and that affected somehow his drug use. But he ended up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. People tried to interview him and help him. He didn't want it. And it was really sad. He was living in a tent. He hadn't showered in months. And finally, they got the call. He died. He did not want to be helped and he could not be helped. I think you know this. I've been to AA meetings. I've been to 30. I dated someone, probably 30, 35. I dated a girlfriend for two and a half years. I've been to many meetings. And I think the message there from what I learned, I love your perspective on this. You can't be helped unless

you want to be helped. A lot of people have masters of the universe syndrome. We're successful. We can fix anything. And what was amazing to me is a lot of people don't know who are in those meetings. It's extremely confidential. I had colleagues in that meetings, investment bankers making $10 million a year. And shockingly, my next door neighbor, you just never know. Yeah, you never know. I tell people all the time, you know, Randall, this is addiction 101. For anybody that's listening and wondering what the mindset of an addict is, addicts give up their goals to meet their behaviors.

Addicts give up goals to meet behaviors. Normal people, focused people, driven, successful people, they give up their behaviors. Addicts give up goals to meet behaviors. Normal people, focused people, driven, successful people, they give up their behaviors to meet their goals, but not an addict. Addicts give things away. And when I talk about addiction there, I'm not just talking about drugs and alcohol, Randall. I'm talking about anything you can be addicted to. Drugs, alcohol, food, money, clothing, shopping, sex, pornography, the internet, Instagram, social media. Anything that can take you away from the most important things in life can be an addiction and you'll give up your goals to meet your behaviors. And your friend, your friend was no different than me.

I got into a program recovery. I got into that 12-step program recovery where I started getting tools and answers to deal with my addiction. But before I was in a program recovery, 2004, when I tried meth for the first time, this other broker comes up, he sees me sleeping. He wakes me up. He's visibly shaking. And he's telling me, you know, right there by the trading floor, hey, Damon, you can't sleep on this job. The markets are open. You're messing with people's money. He said, they'll fire you if they catch you sleeping here. He said, come on down to the parking garage. I got something that'll pick you up. So we go down to the parking garage that day. We get into his nice little sports car. He hands me a glass pipe with crystal rocks in it. I've never seen a glass pipe before, Randall. I'm like, man, what is that? He said, Damon,

just relax. He said, it's crystal meth. He said, you're going to love this stuff. And I mean, truer words have never been spoken, Randall. I fell in love with crystal meth that day because meth is the most evil, most destructive, most addictive drug ever created by man. It's made in a lab. It's made to get you hooked. I smoked it one time and I was instantly hooked just like that because meth, man, meth is powerful, man. And I started giving everything away for that drug, Randall. I thought it was a wonder drug at first. I mean, I was up for days. I could study for my series seven licensing exam. I thought this was great. I'm getting more work done than ever, but man, what goes up must come down. And man, I started coming down hard. I would miss work. I ended up failing my licensing exam. And once that happened, a family

friend at UBS that hired me after that presidential campaign that I worked on. Charles Olimar calls me in his office, asked me what's wrong, anything you want to talk about. No, I'm good, Charles. Everything's great. You know, that delusional thinking of addicts where they hide everything like your friend did. And he said, man, I just don't, I don't understand what's going on with you. I wish it was something I could do to help, but you're fired. You're fired. You failed your license exam. And I remember telling Charles, man, all right, well, that's okay. It's all right. I appreciate you trying. Got in my car that day. I drove straight to the dope man's house, called him up on the phone and said, hey, I just got off work

early today. I'm going to come by and pick up the score. That is exactly where my mind took me that day, 2004, whenever I got fired from my job because math. This episode of In Search of Excellence is brought to you by Sandy.com. S-A-N-D-E-E.com. We're a Yelp for beaches and have created the world's most comprehensive beach resource by cataloging more than 100 categories of information for every beach in the world. More than 100,000 beaches in 212 countries. Sandy.com provides beach goers around the world with detailed, comprehensive, and easy-to-use information to help them plan their perfect beach getaway at home and abroad and to make sure you're

never disappointed by a beach visit again. Plan the perfect beach trip today by visiting sandy.com. That's www.sandee.com. The link is in our show notes. Stay sandy, my friends. Are you looking for your next great gift to surprise a friend, colleague, or loved one? Bliss Beaches makes the perfect gift. This best-selling bright and beautiful coffee table book by Randall Kaplan features stunning drone photography from exotic beach locations around the world. It's the perfect housewarming gift, a great addition to any home or office, and a fun and creative alternative to bringing a bottle of wine to somebody's house for dinner. Bliss Beaches is available for purchase on Amazon, where it has glowing reviews and a five-star rating. Get your next amazing gift and order a copy of Bliss Beaches by clicking the link on our show notes. I want to hear about the story.

I read it. I want you to share it with people. Walk us through the whole thing. Walk us through where you were when the flashbang came through the window. Walk us through what it was like from that point on, including the very moment that you heard the steel of the prison door sliding in and locking the first second you got in there. Yeah. So let's take that day. We'll go from the day I got fired from work in 2004. It took me about 18 months to lose everything, to give everything away.

Because remember, addicts give things away. My job, my home, my car, my savings account, my family, my tethering to God. Much like your friend, I went from working up here to, I went from living up here to living down here. I went from working on Wall Street to living on the streets of Dallas, Texas. And I started living in dope houses, sleeping in people's cars. I became a criminal to fund my addiction. Like most addicts, we'll do anything we have to, to get what we want. I broke into cars, broke into storage units, did a lot of shoplifting. Then eventually, my crimes escalated to the crime of burglary.

And burglary is a very serious crime, Randall. When I broke into people's houses, even though I never physically hurt anybody because none of my victims were ever home, I stole something way more valuable from my victims than their property. I stole their way more valuable from my victims than their property. I stole their sense of security. And I don't know if they'll ever get that back. They'll live with that for the rest of their lives. But after three years of committing property crimes against the people of Dallas, Texas, the Dallas SWAT team on July 30th, 2008, put an end to the Uptown Burglaries the day that they arrested me. I'll never forget that day, July 30, 2008, Randall.

I'm in this little rundown apartment where I live. I've got my dope dealer sitting next to me on this ratty old couch, and I'm passing the pipe back and forth to him. His name is Tex. And I'm telling Tex, man, Tex, you don't want to be here right now. The cops are closing in on me. The end is near. 10 days before this, this guy that I was doing all these burglaries with in Dallas, this guy named Dustin. Dustin had been picked up by the Dallas Police Department in a stolen car. So they got my partner in crime and custody. I know it's just a matter of time before they get to me. And just as I pass the pipe back to Tex, the window on my right blows out and shatters.

And then tumbling across the living room floor is this little canister going end over end. And it's smoking to one side. Randall, I've seen this movie before, man. I know what that canister is going to do in that living room floor is this little canister going end over end, and it's smoking to one side. Randall, I've seen this movie before, man. I know what that canister's going to do in that living room, and I try to get out of there as fast as I could. Too late. Boom! The flashbang grenade goes off right in my face. Bright white light, loud noise, blows me back on the couch.

And when I came to, when I could see and hear again, there's a cop standing over me, full SWAT riot gear, boot on my chest, barrel of an assault rifle is digging in my eye socket, his fingers on the trigger, and he is screaming at the top of his lungs, don't move, don't move. And man, I scream back at this guy, don't worry, don't worry. And these cops, they start flooding my apartment, and one of these cops screams out loud, we got it. We got the Uptown Burglar. The Uptown Burglar, Randall. That's a name I'll live with for the rest of my life. About a dozen other meth addicts and myself, young and old, male and female, black and white, and everything in between. Because drugs and addiction do not discriminate, just as you know with your friend. but we, we indiscriminately and without reservation, broke into the homes of dozens and dozens of people in the uptown neighborhood of Dallas

to feed our insatiable meth habits. But on July 30th, 2008, the uptown burglaries came to an end because they had their man. They had the mastermind of the entire thing zip tied to the floor of that dirty old apartment. They took me down to Dallas County Jail that day. They processed me and had fingerprints, mugshot. They throw me down to Dallas County Jail that day. They processed me and had fingerprints,

mugshot. They throw me in a holding cell. They set my bond at $1.4 million, Randall. $1.4 million for a bond on crimes where no one was hurt. These are property crimes where I'm met. There's 9,000 people in Dallas County Jail, Randall. Not one other person, murderers, child molesters, rapists, a bond of 1.4 million. Dallas County sent me the clearest signal they could send me. You're not getting out of this one, Damon West. You're going to a very public trial. And it was. Went to my trial 10 months later, May 18th, 2009. I'm standing in front of a jury in Dallas and this jury, these 12 minute women in this jury box, they've just listened to a six day criminal trial. Six days, Randall, six days is a long trial for crimes, again, that were not aggravated. No one was ever home. I never saw my victims. They never saw me.

No one got physically hurt. No weapons were even used. These are property crimes around meth. But at the end of that six day trial, the evidence of my guilt was so overwhelming that the jury went to deliberate for 10 minutes on my punishment. 10 minutes, man. I don't know how much law and order you watch, but if a jury's gone for 10 minutes, it means they smoked you. I came back into the courtroom. The judge reads my sentence out loud. Damon Joseph West, who are hereby sentenced to 65 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 65 years, Randall, that's a life sentence in prison. The jury gave me life that day. Now, right after the trial was over, they handcuffed me, they dragged me out of the courtroom.

I lock eyes with my mom and my dad on the way out. I'm like, Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. They whisked me out of there. They put me in this little side room. It's got a bulletproof glass. They told me to wait. A few minutes later, my mom and my dad were escorted in the other side of the glass. They've decided to give my parents one last visit with me before I go to prison. They feel sorry for my parents because I just got life. My dad can't talk. He is in stunned disbelief that his son, with all this promise in life, just got a life sentence in prison. So my mom, that strong-willed Christian woman, that nurse, she does all the talking that day, Randall. She said, baby, she said, she said, debts in life demand to be paid.

And you just got hit with one hell of a bill from the state of Texas. She said, but you did the things they said you did at that trial, Damon, so you're going to have to go and pay that debt to society. She said, you owe Texas that debt. But you owe your father and I debt too, Damon. She said, we gave you all the opportunities, love and support, to be anything you wanted to be in life, and that's how you just repaid us. What we saw in that courtroom, she said, it's not going to work.

We raised you in Port Arthur, Texas, a giant multipot of a city. We gave you a great moral compass, which you chose to not use. She said, so here's the debt you're going to pay to us. When you go to prison, you will not get in one of these white hate groups, one of these Aryan Brotherhood type of gangs, because you're scared because you're the minority in there. She said, it's not going to work, Damon. You were never raised to be a racist. You're not going to start now. She said, you will not get to work, Damon. You were never raised to be a racist. You're not going to start now. She said, you will not get any tattoos while you're inside that prison. She said, no gangs, no tattoos. She said, you come back as the man we raised or don't come back at all.

Man, I was floored. She said, do you understand this debt you're going to pay to us? It's like, yeah, mom, I got it. But I mean, what do I know about prison, Randall? I'm a white middle-class guy in America. I don't know anybody that's been to prison before. I get back to my pod in Dallas County Jail. I'm asking all the guys that have been to prison before, how am I going to survive? What am I going to do? And I mean, every guy I talk to too, Randall, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, they all tell me the same exact thing. You got to get into a gang. They said, you can't survive when you're going without a gang. They said you're going to the worst part of prison where everybody's got life. The life's in this building. Get into a gang. But there was this one guy in there that was so different. This older black man named Mr. Jackson. And Mr. Jackson,

he's what you call a career criminal. This dude has been in and out of prison all of his life. But he's the most positive guy I've ever met in my life. This guy had a smile on his face everywhere he went. You couldn't knock the smile off of Jackson's face. And every morning, every single morning, he'd come up to my cell, to my bunk. He'd pick me up like a ray of sunshine in that dark place with his positive energy. So one morning, Jackson comes up to my bunk. He's got a cup of coffee in his hands and a smile on his face. He says, West, I've been watching you. I've been watching how you're dealing with these knuckleheads and these zombies. Talk about you got to get into a gang. He said, man, the list is fools. You want to keep that promise you made to your mom and your dad?

Then let me tell you what prison is really going to be like. So he said, the first thing you need to understand about prison, he said, prison is all about race. He said race runs the entire institution because the inmates in there want it to be about race. He said when you walk in the door of the life sentence building, the white gangs get the first dibs on you because you are white. They are in Brotherhood. They are in Circle, the White Knights, the Woods. He's naming all the white prison gangs. He said you have to fight them all if you want to be independent from them. He said if you don't give in to their ideology of hate out of fear, and he's telling me fear is not real. He said, danger is real. Fear is an emotion. It's a feeling you get in the situation

you're in. He said, don't give in to this thing called fear because he said, fear can make you see things that aren't there. Fear can make you believe things that aren't real. And he's telling me, get ready. Because if you get done with the white gangs, there's more danger around the corner because now the black gangs are coming after you. And the white gangs are going to send the black gangs after you. And the Crips and the Bloods, the Gangster Disciples, the Mandingo Warriors, they're going to be happy to tee off on this independent white guy that won't get with his own race and his own kind. He said, but if you survive all that, you can survive all that. You'll earn the right to walk alone.

He said the strongest man in prison always walks alone, does not join a gang. He told me the truth about fighting, Randall. It's the truth I've shared with everybody I've ever spoken to. He said, you don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. You don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. You don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. It means that some days you're going to win and some days you are going to lose. Losing is a part of life. And he said, it's okay to lose. Just get back up and keep fighting. But when he's telling me this back in 2009, man, I'm looking back at this guy like a deer in headlights, all this violence and terror I'm about to walk into. That's when he's like, Wes, let me break it down for you a different

way. He said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water. He said, anything we put to this pot of boiling water, it's going to be changed by the heat and the pressure inside this pot. He said, I'm going to put three things in that pot of boiling water that we call prison and watch how they change. A carrot, an egg and a coffee bean. So this is where I first hear the story of the coffee bean, Randall, the summer of 2009 in Dallas County Jail. He's telling me, he said, so first things first. He said, if I put a carrot in that pot of boiling water we call prison, he said, what happened to the carrot? And I'm like, Mr. Jackson, the carrot's going to turn soft.

He said, that's right, Wes. He said, the carrot goes in the water hard, though, but the water in the prison turned the hard carrot soft, mushy, weak. The carrot gets beat. He gets robbed. He may get killed. You don't want to be the carrot inside the prison. He said, what about the egg, Wes? What happened to the egg in the pot of warm water we call prison?

I was like, well, the egg is going to turn hard, Mr. Jackson, like a hard-boiled egg. He's like, that's right, West. He said, the egg has a shell that protects it physically, but he said inside that shell, that soft liquid core, the egg's heart became hardened. He said, now if your heart becomes hardened, you're incapable of giving or receiving love. He said, if you're incapable of giving or receiving love, you've become institutionalized and you will not come back as someone your parents recognize because your eggshell will have swastikas tattooed all over it. Then he asked me the question. He said, what about the coffee bean, West? What happened to the coffee bean in the pot of warm water that we call prison? Randall, I didn't have an answer for Jackson. I didn't know what happened to a coffee bean in a pot of warm water. And that is when Mr. Jackson, a man who looked nothing like me, a man who didn't come from the same America I came from,

a man who did not believe the same things I believed in life. Randall, this is a black Muslim man from the streets of Dallas, Texas. I'm this white middle class Catholic guy from a little bitty town called Port Arthur, Texas. But this man who was so different to me, he shared with me one of the most important and transformational messages I've ever received in my entire life. And the moral to that is really this, Randall. If you ever shut yourself off to people because of their differences, different race, different gender, ethnicity, different religion, different political beliefs than your own,

if you close yourself off to people because of their differences, you're going to miss some of the most important lessons and some of the best friendships in this life. Because Mr. Jackson told me that day, he said, if I put a coffee bean in the same pot of warm water we call prison, he said, now you got to change the name of the water to coffee. Because he said the coffee bean, Wes, the smallest of the three things, he said, small like you, has the power to change the entire atmosphere inside that pot because the power is inside the coffee bean. He said, small like you has the power to change the entire atmosphere inside that pot because the power is inside the coffee bean. He said, just like the power is

inside you. He said, everything else in life is going to be changed by the water. West, the eggs are changed by the water. The carrots are changed by the water. He said, not the coffee beans. The coffee beans are the only thing that can change the water because they are the change agent. He told me what the first day in prison was going to look like. He said, West, when you walk into the lights in this building, they're going to give you your cell assignment. Do not run to your bunk like the guys that are scared. He said, you put your bags down in that day room, put your back against the wall and just let it happen. And I'm like, what happened, Mr. Jackson? What are you talking about? He said, your heart check, West? He said, your heart check,

Wes. He said, your heart check is the most important fight you're ever going to get into. He said, you are a new face on the block. Those guys don't know who you are. You're going to be challenged immediately when you walk in the door and it's going to be a white guy that approach you first because you are white. He said, the first guy that's going to approach you is not a threat to you. He's an information gatherer. He's a scout. This guy's going to ask you one relevant question. What gang do you want to be a part of? He said, man, get the scout in your face as fast as you can, Wes, and get ready.

Because the second guy that comes up to you, he is not coming to talk to you. He's coming to hurt you. He's an enforcer. He said, when the second guy gets within range, put your fist in his mouth. He said, hit him as hard as you can. And the last thing Mr. Jackson told me, the last words he ever spoke to me in Dallas County Jail in the summer of 2009, he said, West, be a coffee bean. Be a coffee bean, Randall.

Four words that changed my entire life. Because if this old man was shooting me straight, that changed the entire game. That put the power back inside me. And if the power was inside me, Randall, it's not in the hands of criminal justice system, the guards, the other inmates. It's in me. And I go around telling people the story of the coffee bean message because I want them to know that the power's inside them too. It's not what's going on around you in the state you live in, in this country right now, in the crazy political scene that's going on, the social wars that are going on, the stuff that goes on in social media, that's not where the power is. The power is inside you. And if you can keep the power inside you, you won't just survive

your pot of warm water, you'll thrive in it too. I know that. I know that because I took the coffee me message to the biggest pot of warm water there is, a maximum security level five prison in Texas. Randall, I talk to people all the time, all over the world now. And almost universally, people tell me their biggest fear in life is to go to prison because prison is a very scary and very dangerous place. Let me tell you what the first day of prison was like. They give me my cell assignment on the Mark Stiles. I go to the Mark Stiles unit. It's a maximum security penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas. It's a maximum security level five prison. Level five is the highest security level there is in Texas where people like me, the life sentence people go. They take me to 7 Building, which is the life sentence building. 432 people in 7 Building, all lifers. That's it. It's an island. And you can't leave seven building till you've done five years of real time because they want people to get the fence and escape off their

mind. They want people to get institutionalized, acclimated to prison. So if you have a life sentence, it's like an island they send you to. In this island, you can't get a job. You can't go to school. You can't do any of the other stuff that other people get to do because you're stuck on this island. And there's nothing but craz people get to do because you're stuck on this island. And there's nothing but craziness and violence that goes on every day on this island you're on. It is like the end of the world every day. First day, I walk in. They give me my cell assignment. Seven building, G-Pod, two section.

And I'm going to be in 45 cell. I got the bottom bunk. I walk into seven building, G-Pod, two section. I'm in this giant room. Three tiers of cells. There's inmates hanging over all the railings. It's loud, man., G pod, 2nd section. I'm in this giant room, three tiers of cells. There's inmates hanging over all the railings. It's loud, man. Prison was a loud, loud place, Randall. But as soon as that big door closed behind me, they locked me into that pod. The volume in that pod dropped to zero. I mean, every single person in the day room was quiet

and they're all staring at the new guy that just walked in. I'm standing there, man. I'm holding my mattress. I'm holding my bags and I look up and I'm guy that just walked in. I'm standing there, man. I'm holding my mattress. I'm holding my bags. And I look up and I'm looking around for my cell because I'm really thinking about making a run for it. You know, forget what Jackson said, man. I'm running for it, man. I'm going for my cell. I'm going to hide.

But, man, 45 cells up on the third tier by the showers, man. It's the furthest cell from the door. I'd never make it. So I put my bags down. I put my mattress down. I put my back against the wall, and I waited. Didn't take five minutes, Randall. Here he comes. Little bitty white dude, just like Jackson said it would be. This little dude, he's tatted up. Ball-headed dude, tatted up from head

to toe. Even his eyelids are tatted up, Randall. And he gets up in my face. He says, hey, white boy. He says, what family you riding with, white boy? They call gangs families, Randall. A gang and a family aren't the same thing. But I'm like, hey, man, get out of my face, little dude. I'm riding with God. Please just leave me alone. I'm riding with God. He laughed at me, Randall.

He said, man, God isn't here, white boy. He said, we kicked him out a long time ago. He said, but we're here and we're coming to get you. You need to get ready. He shoots up the stairwell on the right side. A few minutes later, coming in the third tier, biggest white dude I've ever seen in my life. Huge muscle up guy. He's jacked up. Muscles coming out of his arms. He's coming down the stairwell on the right side,

coming down the stairs. I see him. Huge ogre type guy, bald head with a swastika all around the top of his skull. Man, all I see is a swastika, two beady eyeballs and muscles coming at me. Randall, I remembered everything Jackson said in a moment. Jackson said, hit the guy in the mouth as hard as you can. He gets within range. And man, I reached up and I popped this guy. I gave him everything I had. I mean, I hit him as hard as I could. And in 20 seconds, Randall, my first fight in prison was over because that big dude had me on the ground. He beat me from one side of the day room to the other. And Randall, that is what prison looked like for me for the next two months. I probably got in three dozen fights those first two months and I lost 75% of those fights.

Physically lost 75% of those fights. But I won 100% of my fights in those first two months because I showed up. Jackson said, you don't have to win those fights. You just have to fight those fights. You just have to fight those fights. And that's what I did, Randall. I got up in one of the most extreme environments every day. And I faced my fears. Every single day, I went into that day room and I fought and I fought and I fought and I lost and I lost and I lost. But eventually, after two months of prison, the violence was finally over and the threat to my physical safety was gone. And I got a chance

to start working on myself because inside, I was becoming an egg.