Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was a Teenage Prison Guard — Then I Survived Addiction | Ken Rideout

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

Ken Rideout joins Ian Bick to share his unique path from working as a corrections officer to struggling with addiction and eventually rebuilding his life through discipline and endurance sports. Ken opens up about his background, his experiences inside the prison system, his battle with opioids, and how running became a foundation for stability, structure, and long-term recovery. Today, Ken is known for his work in fitness, long-distance running, and co-hosting The Fight with Teddy Atlas podcast. #PrisonStory #AddictionRecovery #PrisonGuard #TrueCrimePodcast #LockedInWithIanBick #PrisonLife #AddictionAwareness #redemptionstory Thanks to AURA FRAMES & BLUECHEW for sponsoring this episode: Aura Frames: Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/LOCKEDIN. Promo Code LOCKEDIN BlueChew: Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code LOCKEDIN. Visit https://bluechew.com/ for more details and important safety information Connect with Ken Rideout: IG: https://www.instagram.com/ken_rideout/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ken_rideout Website: ttps://www.theothersideofhard.com/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 Former Prison Guard: Shocking Stories & Life Before Corrections 05:41 Growing Up: Family, Neighborhood Influence & Early Sports Life 13:30 First Days as a CO: What Really Happens Behind the Walls 23:36 Addiction Inside Prisons & Struggles at Home 31:44 Childhood Trauma, Life Choices & Hitting Crossroads 43:43 Why He Left Corrections for Wall Street (The Unexpected Pivot) 53:34 Battling Addiction: Secrets, Lies & Personal Collapse 01:02:31 Sobriety Journey: Regrets, Family Impact & Hard Truths 01:06:23 Rebuilding Life: Fitness, Career Growth & Becoming a Mentor 01:13:21 Discipline, Success & The Mindset That Changed Everything 01:19:45 Future Goals, Self-Acceptance & What He Learned 01:25:15 Overcoming Setbacks & Staying Consistent Through Life’s Chaos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at Redfin.com. Own the dream. This big Irish guy Barry Hiltz comes running over, picks me up on his shoulder like a fireman's carry and starts running with me in the ball field and I'm like, Barry, put me down. The other guards are watching? When you're working in that prison at such a young age, are you thinking at all, wow, I could have made one mistake in my childhood that could have led me to this moment as well on the other side of it.

And as soon as he gets the handcuffs on, he starts like going crazy. I'm going to fucking kill you guys. And we're like right on top of him. I'm like, buddy, will you calm down? How hard is it to meet someone who has no idea that you're battling addiction and hide it from that person? Ken Rideout joins me to talk about his time as a corrections officer, his struggle with opioid addiction, and how he rebuilt his life through fitness and routine. Ken, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thanks for having me, brother.

Yeah, we've been talking about for this a while. I didn't even realize until just now that Bob Balfour had brought you up originally and then another one of our guests had connected us or Bean Shooter connected us. You reminded me. I thought it was Bob the whole time. Shifty Mike Lee. I love the Bean Shooter. And then I saw Bean Shooter's comment on the interview you just with Damon West. Yeah. He made some stupid comment or funny comment about the coffee beans.

He's like, I was wondering why you always called everything that the whole time. Bean Shooter is funny. I interviewed Bean Shooter for the new show too for my own new podcast. It's although there's two ex-cons or former inmates as early guests, the show is, called the other side of heart. So it's just basically about people that have come back from crazy adversity or overcome adversity. Basically just gone to the other side of heart.

As you know, when you're walking into the joint, you're like, how the fuck am I going to get through this? But when you get through the other side, if you do the work, you're sitting in your own studio. When's the Bean Shooter episode come out? Probably four or five weeks. Okay. I'm excited for that.

He's a great interview. Very good. The one we just released today, which I don't know how much of a stagger you're on here, but what's today's date like November 19th? Yeah, so this will be out like in two weeks. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I've released an interview today with Damon West who, I mean, mind-blowing story,

regular guy tried crystal meth. A couple years later, he's doing a 65-year jail sentence for robbing houses, which even that, I mean, 65 years for robbing houses, it's a crazy story, so I can't recommend it strongly enough, but the point is no one tells a story like Damon West. I mean, I've interviewed a lot of people just between the, I used to host a podcast called The Fight with Teddy Atlas, and we interviewed a lot of people, fighters. When you interview someone, as you know,

when you interview someone who knows how to tell their story, it's like night and day. Versus when you get someone who you think has a great story and then you're talking to them and it's like pulling teeth. Shooter can tell a story and Damon West can tell a story. Yeah, and your first question right out the gate was crazy. But it was good. I mean, he was caught off guard.

Yeah, oh, for sure. I thought it was just the interesting. I was waiting for it to cut. Yeah. That it was just, it was a banger from the guy. Yeah, yeah. I've been trying to do that a little bit of inside baseball here.

But I've been trying to do that with the stories I've been telling because most of the people, if they have a crazy comeback story, I'm like, tell me when you were down bad. Because like, you know, I mean, even like when I think about your story, like either the guy's confronting you and like slapping you or the guy in the freezer, the prison, the guard, crazy stories. I hear those. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. What? People don't believe it, but it happened. Oh, I spent four years in a county jail.

Like, I know what happens. It's changed my life. Now, tell everyone about your book coming out. Yep. I have a brand new book coming out. It releases March 10th, but available now for pre-order. Everything you want is on the other side of hard. It's basically what, I mean, I guess we'll talk about it today, but my own kind of journey from, you know, drug addiction, inner city, like rough upbringing to 25 years on Wall Street.

Now I have four children. I won the marathon age group world championships for men over 50. I ran a 229 marathon a couple years ago in Chicago won the world championships. And it just tells my story about overcoming some of the adversity I've dealt with in my life. And unfortunately, some of it was self-induced. But it doesn't change the fact that I still had to fix the shit. And you had time to be a prison guard all in between. Oh, I had to pay for college.

I started that job as a garden at Billerica one week after I graduated high school. So tell us where you grew up and where you're from. Yeah. I grew up in Somerville, which is right next to Charlestown in Boston, very much a blue collar, kind of inner city neighborhood setting with people like Bean Shooter and Mickey Wood. They were in Lowell, which is like Somerville with a few more trees. I played football and hockey in high school and then in college. at Framingham State.

And in high school playing football, I met one of the other coaches who happened to know my dad, a coach at Malden High School named Paul Norton, happened to also be the superintendent or warden at Billerica. And this guy was a freaking lunatic. I mean, just like one of those guys where you're like, hey, Paul Norton wants to see in his office, you're like, oh, my God, what did I do? Inmates and guards. Like, you did not want to have a meeting with him.

He was crazy. And he came to me after the game. And he's like, hey, what are you doing for the summer before you go to Framingham State? And I said, I've worked for the city doing like park leader stuff. He's like, come and see me at Billerica in the summer. Now I knew Billerica because my stepfather had been an inmate in Billerica when I was in about eighth or ninth grade, which is a crazy story in itself. I'll come back to that.

And, you know, this is in 1989 before emails and cell phones. So I just get a letter and it says, go to this uniform. store get these particular uniforms, bring the letter, and show up at this date in Billerica, at the House of Correction. Go in there, they give me the uniforms. I'm like, what the fuck? These are like full cop uniforms. I thought I was going to be like cutting the grass and like doing maintenance.

And I'm like, what the hell? This is like a, it literally looks like a cop. Then I get up there and they give us like, no bullshit, four hours of classroom training. And they're like, all right, go on. We're going to go over to the main building, which is. It's a county jail, but you know, they had like a, I guess you would call it like a maximum security section. It was like tears with cells, like a long hallway with the big steel doors on each side with the window. Like it was prison.

And this big Irish guy, Barry Hills comes running over, picks me up on his shoulder like a fireman's carry and starts running with me in the ballfield. And I'm like, even not knowing anything about being in prison, I knew Barry, put me down. The other guards are watching, right? And I'm like, oh, my God. But I think it was his way of telling the other inmates. I mean, I looked young. It was his way, I think, telling the other inmates, like, hey, this guy is with us, almost like which car I'm with. I'm with the white Irish guys, basically. So that's how it all started. And then I'm standing there literally like 10 minutes later in a guy, another guy from Somerville, who I didn't know, he just happened to be from some ofle. He's standing there and a young kid just walks up maybe like 18 years old

and punches them square in the mouth like fucking glasses go flying blood everywhere. I'm standing there by myself. Like I haven't been given instructions I want to do so. Like I just scoop him up and I'm like, brother, are you all right? He starts screaming, I want to press charges. And I'm like, I haven't been here that long, but I know that you shouldn't say that. And I'm like, buddy, come I'll talk to you when we get to the infirmary. And he's just like, I want to press charges. I want to press charges. And then someone was like, that's why you got punched in your face.

But it was like that kind of vibe was just right from the jump. And it was summertime. It was fucking aggressive. And it was not a nice place. And, you know, when coming from Somerville and getting a job like that, my first reaction was like, oh, cool. I've got a civil service job. Maybe I'll be a police officer.

Maybe I'll just work here forever. like this could be the first day of my new career and thank god i did that because it really changed my like whole mindset about everything with with my life i was like kind of on autopilot just playing sports going through the motions and now i'm like holy shit this could be the rest of my life doing this and it's just like working there was just like the same way being an inmate there where maybe like 60 or 70% of the people might be okay. Oh, these people are cool. But the 10 to 30% that weren't good were horrible.

Like the other guards that I worked with, like 10 to 30% of them were fucking horrible people. Horrible. And I used to always say everyone here is like the only difference between some of these guards and inmates is the guards haven't been caught yet. But there are some shady dudes here. It was, oh, it was. Bonjour, compadre. It's the. How do I negotiate so many great travel deals?

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Terms apply. Seeverbo.com slash trust for details. It's a nightmare. What do you think was the shadiest thing you witnessed? Because I wasn't shady, they wouldn't do, like, fucking blatant, like, lugging shit in for people right in front of me. But you knew that was happening, right? There was just too much shit in there for this to be coming in through the visiting room. But I would say more than the shadiness, it was just, like, the petty, bully behavior.

Like, some of the guards were resentful of the fact that there were young kids working there in the summer because it was a union job, right? So everyone wants to take vacation in the summer. So they would hire like college kids, typically like athletes and like guys that were friends of friends. Like you knew the sheriff or you knew the superintendent. And by the way, the sheriff at the time eventually went to prison himself, John McGonogam. And so he was, he had a bunch of people on like no show jobs where they'd have a job working, you know, yeah, you make a hundred grand. This is your job. Yeah, you don't really have to do anything except give me half your check every month.

And he got caught. So that's the kind of vibe that was. like kind of underlying vibe of the whole joint and um there were just people that were like for whatever reason they they were just nasty to others they were they would just weren't good people and there were a couple in particular that were like bullies they made my life hell I'd come out someone would spit on my car window I mean I've laid quarterback in college I'm playing two sports in high school in college I'm playing two sports like I'm not a fucking nerd or like a victim and I'm like I can't believe these are grown men

by the way. Like these, they all have families, like, and I'm like, man, I'm in a tough position because I'm far from,

I would never describe myself as a tough guy, but I also wasn't a pussy either. I wasn't like, going to get pushed around necessarily. So I'm like, what the hell am I going to do? Number one,

I don't know who's doing this most of the time. And number two, even if I did, like, I don't want to have a fucking fight with these guys. Some of them are fucking crazy. So one night,

I'm working in the, uh, in the, tower, you know, like they were, some of the guys were cool. So, like, the people in charge sometimes they put me in the tower, like, from four to midnight, and I'd go up there and study or sleep, whatever you, whatever you wanted to do. You know, you were just up in a fucking no one was coming over two rows of barbed wire. And, uh, I mean, it's, it's embarrassing to even say how petty these people were. They're calling me on the phone and hanging up on me and they're like,

and then I don't answer the phone and they're calling on the radio like, the radio check. I'm like, oh, so finally the guy calls. I'm like, dude, grow the fuck up. And I start screaming and yelling. He's like, I'm going to kill you in the parking lot after work. And now at this point, I'm like, yeah, I'll fucking see you there. Dude, I don't really have any allies there. I'm just like, you know, I just started.

And so I go down to the parking lot at like midnight and I'm nervous, but I'm not leaving. I'm going down there to deal with this. Like I can only take so much, right? So I go down there, I take off the shirt, the prison shirt. So I have a T-shirt and pants and I'm like leaning against my car. And I can see these, again, grown men, I'm 18. I can see people starting to gather around. And I'm like, oh, fuck.

I'm like, I'm nervous. And a guy comes racing down in a pickup truck, slams the brakes in front of me. I get off the car and I start, like, getting ready to go. Like, I had box at the New York Athletic Club. I mean, at the Summerville Boxing Club at the time where, like, Johnny Ruiz, the heavyweight champ, worked out there. It was a real gym.

So, I mean, I knew enough to, like, defend myself. And guy jumps out of it. the car and then basically comes over and just like a typical bully starts screaming and yelling and I'm like you're going to fucking do something or you want to keep talking and eventually he probably realized like he's going to get fired and he just basically had no choice but to back down because I wasn't backing down so he eventually got in his car and left and I was like I cannot fucking I can't do this the rest of my life I don't want to do this for another day but I would never ever quit because of bullies but it was horrible how much were they paying you for that

gig was it even a hour That's it? Yeah, it's horrible. And you said it started as a summer job? Yeah. So you'd leave during the school year? Yeah. So I'd leave during the school year.

And if they needed like fill-ins or if I called and said I wanted to work a few shifts a week, I would typically do that, like usually four to midnight. Fellas, let me paint the picture for one second. You ever look at yourself in the mirror and think I could be doing more? Well, Blue Chew heard that same thought and said bet because Blue Chewold gold isn't just an upgrade. It's the deluxe platinum VIP Express Pass version of confidence. This is the 4-1 formula from the number one chewable ED brand built for guys who don't just show up, they clock in. Blue-chew gold blends two ingredients for blood flow with apomorphine and oxytocin to elevate the energy, the excitement, the connection, all of it. And because it dissolves under your tongue, it could start working in as little as 15 minutes.

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And was it hard to switch from working, say, for a period of time and then going to school and then working again? Aren't there any new policies or any changes? Not at all. There were new policies. There was like zero really rules there. It was, I always tell people it's like a high school full of shitheads. Like being a substitute teacher at like inner city high school and all the kids are like incredibly rude and aggressive.

But once you get into a flow, you know how it is. Like some of the guards you're cool with everyone. I was like, if I wrote probably two tickets for people the whole time, that was a lot. Because I just, I didn't want to have the trouble. You know, I just, I wasn't like shying away from trouble. I was just like, I don't want to get someone in trouble. unless they did something super egregious. Matter of fact, one time I was driving inmates to,

you know, when people are on like work release or lower security, they start to get certain privileges, like being able to go to AA meetings off campus, offsite, and I would drive them to these meetings in a big passenger van. So they're in street clothes, and most of them are getting ready to get released. So they're not typically not a problem. So they're going to the AA meeting, and they had undercover, not undercover, plane closed security officers at the prison that would like, if you escaped,

they'd go look for them. You know what I mean? So they were at the AA meeting. One of them was at the AA meeting and caught this inmate drinking in between on a break at the AA meeting, which is funny. He's at an AA meeting drunk. So he comes up to me and he says, hey, when you get back to the main building, because these guys lived in like a dorm, when you get back to the main building, stop at the main building.

We're going to lug like, I think the guy's name was Jackson or something. We're going to lug Jackson back to the main building. And I'm like, oh, okay, I couldn't care less. Get in the car and there's a white kid from Somerville sitting in the front seat, and then all the inmates are in the back. So as I'm driving, I'm looking in the rearview mirror, and I see, you know, it's like super segregates, so all the black guys are in the back.

And I see them kind of huddling up, and I'm like, oh, man, what the F is going on here? And we get to a traffic light in Cambridge. And I'm sitting at the red light, we're first in line. And all of a sudden I see the guy going, for the side door and just instinctively, I lunge to grab him. The van starts rolling into the traffic.

And then the white kid next to me instinctively starts trying to help me because we're like friends. And then I look at him, he looks at me and he's like, what the fuck am I doing? And he gets back in his seat. So I wrestle with the black guy. I have to jump back, get in the van, stop the van, because we're in the middle of an intersection now.

And the guy's standing outside the door and I'm like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? He's like, I'm jetting. I'm leaving. And I'm like, okay. I'm going to give you like a child. I go, I'm going to give you one chance to get back in here or I'm leaving without you. And eventually he got back in the van and was like, just sat there like an embarrassed little kid.

And then, of course, we goofed on him the whole way back to the prison. Worst prison escape in like history. And we pulled up to the front building. And I was like, all right, brother. And the other guy, the other inmates were looking at me like, you're going to tell them that he tried to escape? And I'm like, no. I'm trying to get out of here. Like, I don't want to spend the next half an hour writing up at that.

ticket and telling them that the guy tried to escape. But shit like that, the inmates like me because I was like, listen, you don't cause problems for me. I don't have problems with you. And that was kind of the theme of my whole experience of working there. But also, all of those experience I had were like really motivation for me to like get the hell out of there. Were there a lot of addicts there?

Oh, yeah. I always tell people like, you ever, no one would rob a bank and be sober. anyone who's doing like some of the stupid shit that you hear about with criminals do is as a result of addiction right sober people don't rob banks or hold up a gas station typically those are like the decisions of someone who's like heavily under the influence well it's interesting you chose still a path of addiction later on in life i don't choose it i fucked up but you know what i mean like it's still i guess going down that path even witnessing that firsthand at a young age Oh yeah, I mean, we lived in a, I lived with my mother and my two brothers and my grandmother, whose son, my mom's brother was a lifelong heroin addict. So it was like total and utter chaos the whole time I was a child because he was like, you know, people were coming by to collect money from him or they were doing robberies themselves, shooting heroin in the house. It was crazy. And back to what I was saying earlier about my stepfather. So he gets sentenced to Bill O'Ricca when I was in the eighth or ninth grade for credit card theft,

just like the worst criminals under the sun. And he wasn't a drug addict, but he was a criminal. And gets sentenced, gets out of jail. And him and my mother are like, listen. Funny enough, his name was Ken too. So they called him Kenneth. He was from Alabama. And she's like, oh, Kenneth got a job.

And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Like, we weren't necessarily close. I wasn't really close with my mother or all, my stepfather. And she's like, yeah, he got a job at the Somerville School Department where I went to school. I'm like, yeah, doing what? She's like, oh, he's going to be a janitor. I'm like, at what school? The high school.

Like, almost like, how great is this? I'm like, my stepfather is going to be the janitor at my high school? You think that this is something that I'm happy about? I'm like, are you crazy? I'd rather he'd go back to jail. It was hard. And it was just like, you know, you can imagine for a kid in the ninth grade, I'm a freshman in high school and my stepfather's now the janitor, who just got out of prison.

I'm surprised I gave him a job. None of it. All of it's hard to believe. What did he think of your temporary career choice at the jail? Not really much. Like it's not something that I would have even talked to him about necessarily. You know, they knew from a super young age that, like, I would. wasn't destined to be with them for very long. I always had, I would, they would probably say that I was

very arrogant and condescending to them because I never felt like I belonged there, as crazy as it sound. And then I had a brother who was 11 months younger who ended up being a, being an inmate in Billerica, who was a lifelong heroin addict and criminal. And we were just completely different people, but growing up under the same exact conditions, but from a very young age, I was like, yeah, I'm not supposed to be here. Never felt comfortable there. It was never. I mean, that's basically what I write about in the book is like, I don't know why, but I never, never like was ever felt peaceful there. I was always mad anxiety. I was like, I got to get out of here. Couldn't get out of there fast enough. Where did you think you were going to be? Like, what was going through your mind at the time?

To be honest, I thought that I would do something like be a cop, be a probation officer, a parole officer, kind of like civil service job. So when I got the job at the prison, I'm like, oh, this is the first step from here. I'll segue into like probation. And more than financial success, I just envisioned a more stable life. Like I envisioned having my own family,

treating my kids the way I wasn't being treated, you know, raising kids the way that you, in your mind, you would think kids should be raised, which is ultimately what I did. But it wasn't like I had mentors or role models that were like, no, no, Ken, this is what you should do. You should go really focus on school and then try to get a job.

It just kind of like evolved and slowly. I just, I was never comfortable where I was, whatever it was. Even when I eventually moved to New York and started working in finance, whatever job I had, I would always be thinking, what's the next step up? Like, what's the next? What job is better than this one? Even when I got my dream job, I was like, oh, I wonder if I get a job in private equity or, you know, venture capital or whatever it was.

So from childhood, that was kind of my mindset is like, how can I get better at sports, at business? But I didn't have any business mentors that I was like, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I mean, when I always tell people, even when I went to New York and started working in finance, if you had told me even in my early college years that I would go to New York and work in finance, like real finance on a trading desk, at different. from banks, I would have said, well, I stopped there. Why don't I be an astronaut?

That's how foreign it was to me. You know what I mean? I just wasn't, I didn't know anyone that did that. I didn't know what the career path was. I was studying sociology in college. They weren't exactly waiting for me with open arms in New York on Wall Street when I got there. Were your parents always separated?

Yeah, right from the beginning. It was me and my brother, who's 11 months younger with my mother, and then she got remarried to the guy from Alabama, and they had another child. who's eight years younger than me. And how did you end up staying with your mom? Oh, my dad, you know, they had me when they were 19, and my mom was 19. My dad was 20, so it was like, you know,

going with my dad versus my mom was never an option. Did you have any relationship with him in childhood? With my dad? Oh, yeah, yeah. We had a close relationship because he would come and take me to sports. My mother didn't really care about sports, but my dad, I played hockey, like, super competitively growing up and played with some, like, N-H-Hs.

Legends like Sean McGackrin, um, Keith Kachuk, whose son Matt Kachuk is now a superstar for Florida. Like these were my peers. Like we played together with tons of NHL players. They just got better and I didn't. Did your dad have any addiction issues? Nope. I mean, he would drink and stuff, but not to the point where I would say, oh, my dad's a drunk by any means. And my mother, growing up, my mother and stepfather were constantly smoking weed, but not like, which was hugely embarrassing. As you're a kid, weed isn't, it wasn't legal and, you know, people would come to my house and be like, what the hell?

Who's smoking weed in your house? You know, oh, my mom. You know, it was mortifying to me because that wasn't for whatever reason the way I was programmed. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save

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Up front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. I knew it wasn't right. Was your stepfather just as young as your mom or was he older? Younger. He was younger than him?

Oh, yeah. Because, I mean, when I'm 10, she's, you know, 29. He's probably 25. So did you even really look at him as a stepdad? Oh, yeah, because he beat the shit out of me. So yeah, it was like. And he was that young? Oh, dude.

You know, when you're 10 and someone's 25, they might as well be 50. It's, it's, yeah, it was, oh, it was horrible. Why was he so aggressive towards you? I think that that, like, he grew up in Alabama, and I think that that was just like the mentality back then is like the parents were super aggressive and wouldn't hesitate to smack the shit out of the kids. So it sounds crazy now, having my own kids.

Like, my kids have definitely gotten a spank or a slap on the ass occasionally, but, like, not for, not in a long time. You know, like, that, it never made sense to me, like, someone makes mistakes, so you hit them, you know? But, you know, sometimes the kids do things where you're like, I don't know what else to do here, but no, yeah, they would beat the shit out of us with a belt.

Oh, it was crazy thinking back on it now. I went to a trauma healing center called On-site workshops outside of Nashville, Tennessee, like a five-day kind of like inpatient therapy treatment place. And I'm telling the woman, oh, this is what I'm like, this is my story. I was like, I don't think I have trauma, but I know I could be happier than I am. This was just a couple years ago. So she's writing down all these things on the board. I'm telling her, she's like, what about your childhood? What about did your parents ever hit you?

And she's writing all this stuff down. And she was like, well, if I told you that any of your children experienced any of the things that you've done, how would you think they'd be traumatized? I'm like, oh my God, no one would survive that. And she was like, why do you think you're special? And I was like, yeah, I don't know. I just have a hard time painting myself or thinking of myself as a victim. And I think when I start to get into that mindset, that's how I feel like, no, no, no, I'm not a victim. They did this, but I can't change that.

All I can do is change the way I look at things now. It's the same way with like getting past the addiction and getting out of the situations I was in. It's like, you can't control anything that happens to you. You can only control your own mindset in the way you react to these things. And it's like even if on the surface someone would say, oh, you have a successful life by many measures. I don't care who you are, how much money you have. You're going to deal with more adversity, like as an example, like, I got the book coming out. I've got a new podcast on the service. It would be easy for someone to look and make a judgment that, like, I've got four

healthy kids, everything is great, and, you know, a month ago, my wife gets diagnosed with breast cancer. It's horrible. And sorry, I get it. I have a hard time. thinking about watching things that I can't control that happened to other people, that happened to my family, you know, like, I wish that I could trade places with her. You know what I mean? It's like, I know I can deal with this. I can deal with anything.

Watching helplessly while someone else deals with something so difficult is crazy. So she's getting, she's having surgery tomorrow. And it's like, this is what I mean about it. You can't control what happens. So if you think that life is just going to be a smooth glide path once you get, as you know, I do this myself. As soon as I have this or as soon as I win this race, then everything's going to be great.

And then you make money or you win whatever it is you win or you graduate from school. And then you realize, like, I'm still the same person. Like I have some accomplishment, more accomplishments that I did. But that doesn't make me immune from the, challenges of life and prior to her getting sick we would always say like man we're so lucky everyone's healthy the kids like each other we all get along and then this happens and it's like listen it's it's it's sucks but i keep telling her like it's just a bump in the road it's just another challenge it's just

you know the comeback story is going to be worth the challenge and um but yeah of all the things of all the challenging things I've had to deal with in my life. And like I said, a lot of them was the challenges was self-induced. It's like watching my wife go through this has been very difficult. And that's why they say there's no such thing as overnight success because the public doesn't see all the pain, trauma, suffering that happened before then. And even to what's to come to,

you have future success on the horizon, and now you have this presented in front of you to deal with as well. Yeah, and that's the other thing I would say to people listen is like, You know, from listening to your interviews, there has been some just wild stories and people that have dealt with real, real challenges and have been the victim of some horrible, horrible things, right? But at the end of the day, we're all human. The most traumatic thing that's ever happened to you is the most traumatic thing that's

ever happened to you. Your brain doesn't know the difference whether you were, like, you know, tortured or bullied by, you know, someone who said mean things to you. the brain still processing it like that was really painful emotionally more than physical right so yeah some things sound a lot worse than others but i can tell you that from my own experience like the things that it isn't always like physically painful the things that hurt the most aren't necessarily physical it's it's like emotionally difficult things and not that like i said i don't i never feel like a victim but watching my wife suffer through this is like sucks when you're

working in that prison at such a young age, are you thinking at all, wow, I could have made one mistake in my childhood that could have led me to this moment as well on the other side of it? I never thought, oh, I could easily be an inmate because, like, I had, I mean, I lived a full life. We did, I hung out with, like, really, like, crazy city kids, and we did a lot of crazy things, but I never, I was never crossing the line of doing things wrong. Like if we get caught, we could go to jail. You know, I mean, outside of, like, drinking and stuff like that, I was like, I don't know, almost like a nerd.

I got along super well with the principal in the school. I was the quarterback of the football team. Like, I was like, we would drink. And then eventually when I got to college, we started doing drugs and doing coke and all that stuff. So I wouldn't say that I was a square, but I wasn't like, I was too much of a pussy to do, like, real crimes. Like when I hear you tell your story, I'm like, I wouldn't be able to sleep. If knowing that there's a possibility that could get caught for this, like, I can't sleep. I'm just because after being in the prison, I'm, I used to always think like, I don't know how I could survive if I got sentenced to this place, knowing that I have a jail sentence hanging over my head.

I mean, that's the one thing that I find most compelling about your story is like, you're not a street kid. You're not like a, I always tell people when you go to prison, if you're not a street guy, like Bean Shooter, he's a street guy. He knows people. If he goes to prison, he's going to know other white prisoners. If Ian goes to prison, I'm like, who the fuck is he going to call? And be like, hey, guys, I'm coming.

Yeah, I got sins. I'm coming upstate. I'll see you there. And I knew people in the prison, but still I was like, to me, that's the most terrifying thing to think about in the world is going to prison. How many summers did you end up working there? How many years? I want to say I did three summers.

And why do you decide to leave and not make it a further career? Oh my God, I hated it. I hated, hated working there. I hated the other, most of the other guys. Some of them were great. I worked with a kid called Brendan Daly, who was like the coolest guy in the world. He was like my same age as me. He was from Billericka.

One time we were in the working in one of the lesser security buildings, but locked in, like, it was called the mods, modular buildings. and there was a white inmate came in, and some of the Spanish inmates were bullying them, and they were telling them, oh, we're gonna rape you, and they were squirt and cocoa butter on them. You know, just teasing them. You know how, like, fucking no one's nice there.

It's like, so they send him down to the superintendent of that building's office, and the kid's in there, and now he's trying to save face, because everyone knows he's in there, and is he going to tell? And he, there was like, he was being kind of a, like, acting strange, and they said to me and Brendan, who by the way,

we're both like little kids compared to everyone else. They send me and Brendan down like, hey, go down to so-and-so's office. The kid in there is acting crazy. We're going to bring him back to the main building. So we walk in, we're like, hey, what's up?

Super nonchalant, and he picks up this, like, metal thing on the desk, I don't know what it was. And he says to the superintendent, like, how about I bash your fucking head in with this? And he looks at me and Brendan. Like, you could see, it's almost like in slow motion. Like, he isn't going to do anything,

but he's scared. So we like kind of like bundle him down to the ground and handcuff him and shackle him and then like hog tie him like the things tied together. But just like, you know, almost like going through the motions. And as soon as he gets the handcuffs on, he starts like going crazy. I'm going to fucking kill you guys. And we're like right on top of him. I'm like, buddy, will you calm down? Like I know what you're doing.

Calm down. Like there's no one else. No one can see you. So they get the van. We put him in the van and we're going to drive him down to the other building. And the whole time he's like freaking out. So we're like holding him down. because he's acting crazy.

We get him out of the van. Now we're carrying him up, like face down through his arms and legs, and he's kind of hogtight and carrying him in. As we're carrying him in, the superintendent, Paul Norton's coming out. And he kind of looks at me and Brendan because he liked us, you know? So he was like, and he was walking giving like a media tour to like some reporters. And he's like, kind of shakes his head. So we bring the kid down to isolation, down to like the hole.

And Flash comes down. and he goes that we take the shackles off and he's like, all right, we're going to take your handcuffs off. Can we take your handcuffs off? You're going to strip it down or we're going to make this difficult? And there's like a bunch of senior guys there, the freaking superintendent, me and Brendan. And the kid, I felt so bad for him,

but he's like, fucking take him off and find out. So the guy goes, Ken, get in there, closes the door behind us and goes, take his handcuffs off. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm about to get into a cage fight in prison. Like, I just wasn't, it just didn't suit my,

my constitution at that point. But Brendan daily, to show you like, what a solid duty is, he just goes, Ken, I'll do this. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I got to do this. He told me to do it, I got to do it.

But, you know, it happened real quick. Like, he was like, I was like, out of the way I'm doing this. And then I took the handcuffs off and the kid just took his clothes off. He didn't want any problem. But it was, it was definitely,

like, I guess what you're the equivalent of a guard of a heart check. So you were like after that I'm done with this? It wasn't just that. It was like the whole thing. I was like, there's no way I can work like this the rest of my life. This is, it's everything about it was horrible. The best way to spread holiday cheer, honestly, it's gifting an aura frame and keeping the people you love a little closer even when life gets busy.

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but I was going to a gym in Manhattan living on the Upper East Side and I'm seeing all these young kids like working in finance that are like killing it. They all have like Rolex watches and they're all, they all seem to have houses in the Hamptons. And I'm like, the fuck am I doing? These guys are dorks. Like if these guys are making money, I can go do that. And I got an entry level sales job on a trading desk, like an interdealer broker.

So we were brokering commodity trades between big institutions. Like, never did. I've never had a job where I dealt with retail clients like Wolf of Wall Street stuff. Like we never talked to like mom and pop. We were only doing institutional stuff. And it was like a great job. It wasn't necessarily like what I would call a good career, but you could definitely make millions of dollars. And people around me were. And again, just like the prison, the first few weeks, I'm like, dude, this is just like all areas of society. It's like bullies. There was shitheads. There were cool people. a couple of people I worked with were just fucking assholes. So I'm like writing, I'm like the junior guy.

So I'm writing the prices up on the board. The way I got that job, I was playing hockey in the Chelsea Perez Men's League. And, I mean, I was in pretty good shape coming out of college. I played hockey in college. So, I mean, I was a decent hockey player. Like, especially in a men's league. I was good.

And another kid was a Division I college player. I think he went to St. Lawrence. Mike Peltier, who unfortunately died in 9-11. He was like, hey, you want a job? looking for an assistant trader, I was like, thank you God. When I got that job, I was like, I did it. I'm like, I'm going to be rich. And very quickly got a reality check when I was being like bullied and hazed by these dickheads I was working with.

And one day the guy, this is like an abbreviated version, but one of the guys threw a dry eraser at me while I was writing on the board. And again, I'm boxing for the New York Athletic Club. I have a huge black eye at the time. Like, no one was going to be like, oh, Ken's a pussy. like pick on him. Again, I wasn't a tough guy and wasn't trying to posture as a tough guy, but I certainly wasn't someone that you'd be like, oh, pick on him. And I just slapped him across the face as hard as I could and almost like knocked him out.

It was like the slap to her around the world. And long sort of shot, they were like, you're fired. And I was so naive and so inexperienced. I was so happy that they were paying me two weeks severance. I was like, oh, shit, I still got a paycheck for the next, for the next, paycheck still comes in, okay, I can figure out something between now and then. And I called a couple of the young kids from Enron, who are our clients, and they worked with the guy who was like the equivalent of like Gordon Gecko of commodities, this kid, Darren

loved Dell, who unfortunately also passed away. He was, had the ability to do millions of dollars in trades with you. But he didn't know me. He was like levels removed from where I was in my career. But the young kids heard about what happened. And Darren was from Martha's Vineyard and was like, you know, fancied himself a Boston guy. And they tell Darren, again, no cell phones. I had to go home to my apartment and the phone rings. And it's like, hey, this is Darren Laudell at Enron. What happened? I tell him the story. He's like, okay, stay by your phone. I didn't even know we had competitors. And another trading desk called me and was like, hey, can you start Monday? Darren told us to hire you. And, you know, those kind of jobs are like, if the client tells you to hire someone and they're going to

do trades with you, everyone else gets to, you know, do the other side of the trade. So I was making like 40 grand when I got fired and very quickly this guy's like, yeah, you start Monday. I'm like, yeah, what about pay compensation? He's like, I will pay 80 grand. I was like, yeah, okay. I literally, this would be like a theme throughout my life. Every time you think something is like really good, something shit happens or anytime you think,

okay, everything is great. Like what I was just telling you with my wife, I'm like, everything's great. We're all healthy until you're not. everything's terrible i got fired i'm fucked oh my god i have a job making twice as much money like within 48 hours and not only that but when i started that job within two three months they raised my salary again to 125 000 this is in like 96 like this is a shitload of money it would be the equivalent of millions in my in my mind at that point i was so it was so much more than i would have ever conceived of making at that point and then within like a year or two i was made

making real money. I was working in London for Kenneth Fitzgerald running European Asian, European and Asian commodities sales and trading. And I was flying back and forth from London to New York on the Concord, had a brand new Porsche in London, living in a huge house that they rented for me in the city of London. It was just, it was crazy. So again, you say, like, wow, you made it. Everything's great. Well, then I very quickly became a raging drug addict. I had like a minor ankle surgery, got some percassette. And the whole time I was making the money, I was thinking I have insane fraud complex or imposter syndrome. I'm like, they're going to realize how stupid I am and fire me from this job.

I never felt qualified to have the job. I always felt like I got lucky. And then, you know, after like years of being lucky, eventually you convince yourself like, all right, maybe I know what I'm doing. but at the time i was struggling badly and uh with these with this inferiority complex and i tried some percocet never really was looking for that to get high necessarily but as soon as i took those pills i was like dude i'm so confident i'm on top of the world and that started like a 10 year odyssey of being high essentially 24-7 and again i was making so much money like i had all i was super resourceful in terms of like i was like the best drug addict ever i could get drug

anywhere from doctors, street people, just unfortunately it was so it was very easy. And this was also during the times of the pill mills in Florida. And, you know, all the, all the scrutiny on doctors for writing bad scripts wasn't what it is today. You could just literally walk in and be like, hey, my back's killing me. And a guy who doesn't know you would write, you know, 50 percassette. So I was doing that. And, um, but the whole time I'm doing it.

Like, I know what I'm doing. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm a piece of shit. And I just very quickly started ideating on suicide thinking, like, if I don't stop doing these drugs, I'm going to kill myself because I am not a loser, but I'm behaving like a loser. And it was, um, it was an emotional roller coaster. I was always exercising and working and making money. But I mean, I wasn't, certainly wasn't the best version of myself. You know, I was like very aggressive.

but it was like it was like my own like defense mechanism it's the only way i knew to survive in that like chaotic super fast-paced lifestyle working on a working on a trading desk you know every day i would go to work and be sitting like elbows touching people on either side of me so you're like in the trenches all day every day which not to compare it to anything that's violent or aggressive but it's like emotionally trying like you're on edge the whole entire you're like nervous system is like on high alert the whole time. And it just wasn't good for me. It wasn't, didn't suit necessarily my personality,

but I was good at it. And when I was in London, I got sober the first time, just went to NA meetings, narcotics anonymous, white knuckled it, got sober, stayed sober for a few months, then came back to New York, fell back into the addiction, and then was on like, you know,

one-way ticket to like addiction. and met my wife, got married, she had no idea the extent of my addiction. She just thought I was kind of crazy and like unpredictable. And then when we adopted my daughter from Ethiopia, and when we got matched with her and they were like, okay, you have a daughter, like you got her, like a newborn baby in Ethiopia.

And I was just like, if I don't get sober, like I can't live like this. I'm not going to do it anymore. And I literally was like, I went to an outpigrant. detox they would give me drugs every morning like riddle in to stay awake Xanax to go to sleep and um on about the third or fourth night in the withdrawals I got up to take a leak and passed out in the bathroom my wife found me which again she kind of knew something was up but not nowhere near the extent of what it was and I just like told her everything and as I'm telling her I'm looking at the balcony we lived on like I mean we lived in a gorgeous like high-rise building like

I said, we were making money all the time. So like, not, not fabulously wealthy, but we had money. And we're living on like the, I don't know, 30th, 40th floor and a high-rise glass building on the Upper West Side. And I'm looking at the balcony and I'm looking at her. And I'm like, do I tell her or do I just make a run for it and fucking jump off the balcony? And like, that decision, like, even when I think about it now, it was so close to a reality

that I was like, I'm embarrassed that I even thought about that because I was just, that's how sick. I was emotionally. And eventually I just told her and came clean and then got sober and adopted my daughter. Then we had three sons and, you know, I'd love to say like, okay, this was the day the last time I did drugs, but unfortunately, like everything in my life, nothing is perfect. So I've had like bumps along the way and, you know, got fucked up here and there. Not in a long time, but like I definitely have had like missteps along the way.

so I'm not really the best spokesperson like Bob Balfour would be very embarrassed by my behavior. But I mean, it has been years since I've done anything like crazy. But all that to say, like everyone is doing the best they can. You're on your own journey. And while some people are like strong enough to be like, that's the last time I ever got high. And it sounds awesome. It's like if you don't follow that exact script and you have missteps, that doesn't mean that you're like kicked out of the club.

I always say like a vegan. If you accidentally ate a slice of cheese pizza or voluntarily, like you don't get kicked out of the vegan club. And it's like with sobriety, it's like if you have a relapse or you, you know, get fucked up. Yeah, okay, not a great idea knowing your background and your history. But you got to like write the ship. And it's like so all that to say like I wish that I was the poster child for

sobriety and recovery, but it hasn't always been easy. I think what makes it harder to talk about it is the pressure of, especially now with social media, you have people posting how many days sober they are. And when you start seeing three years, four years, you know, 20 years, and then you have someone that's trying to get sober six months clean and has that sip of alcohol or that taste of drug, they're probably feeling at their lowest point right now compared to some of these other people. That's right. And that's what I mean about being kicked out of the club. No, you can still be sober. You just have to start the recovery. You have to start your sober date over, but I'd rather start my sober day over

than be dead. Would you have a drink now? Drinking was never the problem. So like occasionally I'll have a drink with my wife, but I never had to drink problem. My problem was drugs. And that's not to say like, again, not to minimize drinking for anyone else to say like, yeah, don't worry about it. Oh, your problem is coke. Try heroin. As long as you're not doing, you know, I don't, I don't advocate for drinking, but I don't want to say, like, I've never had a drink. And then someone comes on social media, like, I saw that kid having a drink. I'm like, I would never say that I'm a drinker, but I definitely don't do drugs. Yeah, I know that is a like a contentious issue where people in the sober community will say, well, if, you know, if you're sober from one thing, you need to be

sober from everything. That's right. But then there are some people that will say, hey, I never had a problem with weed, so I'm going to smoke weed. Yeah. And listen, like I said, everyone's on their own journey and I would never advocate for anyone using any substance if they have a substance problem. I can only speak to my own truth in reality. And that's that like I'm not the best poster child for sobriety per se, but I would consider myself a sober person and like try to live my life in that fashion. And it's been a long time since I've done anything crazy. How hard is it to meet someone who has no idea that you're battling addiction and hide it from that person?

Well, that's a good question. My wife, when I met my wife, she grew up in western New Jersey, went to Pingree in New Jersey, then private high school, then went to Vanderbill. It was like very normal upbringing, but like very square in terms of drugs. Like had never seen drugs. Like never had never seen weed in her life. I'm like, how did you go to college and never see drugs? She's just like, I didn't hang out with those people. I just never seen it.

so she had never done any drugs at all. She drinks and she smoked cigarettes at one point, but stopped a long, long time ago. But she had no background or understanding of addiction, so she only knew me fucked up, like in just unpredictable, and my personality was a little bit up and down, but I would say that, you know, on the whole,

I was always like a good person. I was never, like, I never, I never, I always had plenty of money and never had a problem getting drugs, so I wasn't doing crazy shit to get drugs. I wasn't acting necessarily irrational about finding drugs. I would just say that my personality was like my moods were like obviously up and down depending on if I was high or in withdrawals.

And she probably knew something was up. Like, you know, she'll look back and, you know, talk about it and be like, yeah, something just definitely wasn't right. But I was also like, was in love with her. So I treat her with kindness. and was a good partner and everything that went with that. Does it feel like you're cheating in the relationship? Oh, definitely.

I feel like a lying scumbag. But I, yeah, dude, drug addicts are fucking liars and sneaks. It's horrible. When you have that kind of addiction, the drugs take precedence over everyone. Whether you want to admit that or not, like you'll run the risk of disappointing all your people, you know, being high during an important, you know, life events, yeah, horrible, horrible feeling.

I was never like a depressed or sad person until I found drugs. And then it became like a real mental health struggle because I didn't like the person that I didn't like the way I was behaving. I didn't like the person that I was as a result of the addiction. But I still had the same kind of empathy and compassion in my heart. I still was like a kind person in general. you know like it's funny i was listening to your interview with matt cox and he was like yeah you know i don't know i don't know if i'm a good person or not like i wouldn't if you ask me if i'm a good

person i'd be like i try to be a good person i think i'm a good person i hope i'm a good person but if i thought i'm not a good person i would at the very least be like listen i haven't been nice all the time but i really want to be nice which maybe that's part of matt's appeal is that he is who he is and unapologetic about it, but it's an interesting, interesting take. Yeah, even when I was going through my situation, I always still considered myself a good person. I just made bad decisions. And a lot of it had to do with my age. And I really had no idea what I was doing. And I was trying to make things right, but everything I tried to make right just made matters worse. It was like literally pouring gasoline onto the fire. It's like taking a bottle of water,

thinking it's water to put out a fire, but it just ends up being gas. gasoline. That's what I was doing. And that's exactly what the impression that I got listened to story. By the way, I thought that the interview where you had the, I don't know who interviewed you a journalist or someone came to interview. It was so good because I'm like, okay, this paints a better picture of who he is. Because you know, you see the podcast and I start to pick up little tidbits here and there. But I thought that that interview that he did with you was incredibly helpful, not just for me, but for the whole show to be like, oh, if you want to know who he has listened to this and that's exactly what i thought is like oh this poor bastard he just made

one mistake and then thought he was going to like wheel and deals where it reminds me of like uh gambling degenerate like i'm going my whole house on this next game and when i get even i'm not going to do this anymore but there are people that you meet in life that have audacious goals and they just talk shit and there are other people like you who have audacious goals and they're like yeah i'm doing it i'm going to book these rappers at this concert and you're like do you even know them like What do you mean you're going to book? Yeah, I'm doing it. Are you sure?

And, like, I admire that about people that are like, not just trying to make 100 passes in front of the net, but just fire in pucks on net. Yeah, I'm like, when I have something in my mind, I just go and get it. I can tell. When I'm fixated on something, that's just it. Like, it's a rap.

When you realize that that was going all, everything was going sideways, like, did you, in your mind, were you ever thinking, like, I could definitely go to prison for this? No, I mean, it wasn't really a possibility of me going to prison in my mind until I was actually physically being held to prison. That's what I mean. Like, so when you came to the realization of like, I'm going to prison? How did, like, how did you sleep knowing that where are you headed?

Honestly, that first night was in a way peaceful because my life was in flames. Yeah. Owing money, the stress of the club. Like, I was doing something I loved, but it was so stressful. so I don't know if I necessarily actually loved it at the end of the day. Whereas I think it was harder for me to be away from this job I do now when I was doing the Mr. Beast video. Yeah.

That was more painful than me going away to prison the first time and, you know, being away from the club in that business. But I think any time you build something and you kind of like lose your baby and you get knocked down, it's painful. So to me that was like the hardest aspect of both situations. Did you have any idea what to expect when you were going to? going to federal prison? No.

The only thing I watched was Orange is the New Black. That's literally the only thing I watched. I never watched Prison Break. I didn't watch, I still have to watch Oz. I was going to say, better that you watched Orange is the New Black versus Oz. Because if you watched Oz, I don't know, like I always tell people.

Like, if I got a big enough jail sentence, I don't think I can make it. I might have to check out. I don't think I can do it. I started trying to watch Oz the other week, but the quality is like really low because it came out so many years ago. But that was a very realistic depiction.

I mean, it's slightly exaggerated, but much more realistic than like Shawshank. Yeah, I got to watch that too. Shawshank when they're like, when people watch Shawshank, I'm like, no, no, no, no guards a bully in any inmates, not in where I was. Matter of fact, one time the Spanish inmates said to me, if you didn't have that badge on, I'd punch you right in your face. And I was like, oh, yeah, you think so? And I went to take the badge off my shirt and he punched me right in the face.

like no hesitation at all they never had any problem whatsoever like attacking in a guard or anyone else that bothers them you know they're like you know how it is like people are living in there trying to get on with their routine and some of the guards were like really vindictive crazy sons of bitches and they would mess with these inmates to the point where I'm like this guy has to these inmates like this is their life this is where they live like you keep messing with those guys like they're not in here for being like stable and it was always. always amazing to me the shit that, um, that some of the guards would do. But again, nothing like overt bullying like you'd see in Shawshank. But there was so many funny things when I was there just

because I was so young, I'd be working outside at the, um, at the, like, checkpoint. So when they would transport inmates in, you know, they'd put the van into the trap, you know, you open one door, put them in, close the gate, then open the other gate. And right when I started, I hadn't qualified on a gun didn't you know the only guns are outside of the prison there's no guns or anything in the prison it's not like a real cop job and the guy pulls up and those guys have guns that are transporting inmates so the guy's like oh okay here you go and they both hand me like these huge three fifty seven revolts like i don't have a holster or anything like they're both in my pockets like pulling my pants down and every time something crazy like that would happen

paul norton would pull up and be like what's going on he knew i wasn't qualified gun he goes what's going on and go and oh the reason that i had the guns is there was a lockbox for the guns but there was a fucking giant hornets nest in there now i mean like hornets buzzing and they were like i'm like i can't open that hornet's nest so when he came by i'm like oh there's the honest thing he's like puts his hands over his eyes and just drives away and another time me and brendan me and brandon daily were working alone in the um dormitory building which was just an old school like looked like an old college dormitory and there was no fence on some of these lower security facilities. So you could theoretically walk away. And sometimes

people did, but not very rarely. But they'd fight and shit. And it would be, it wouldn't, it certainly wouldn't be what I would call a safe place. And me and Brendan are working in there, no air conditioning in the summer. And it's like maybe about 1030 at night, working for in midnight. We both have our like blue uniform shirt off and just white t-shirts. And we both was sitting in the office with our head on a roll of toilet paper, like kind of like basically sleeping, like, you know, just dozing off, Paul comes through with reporters again and opens the door and he's like, you know, the reporters are there so he can't go too crazy, but he's basically like, what the F are you guys doing? And we jump up and like, oh, we're just stretching, you know,

like some crazy nonsense. But literally, they were like two 18-year-old kids in charge of this whole, you know, building full of inmates and both of us were sleeping. What's something you did during your addiction that you still think about to this day, something you're not proud of and maybe even regret? I mean, aside from the lying to my wife, like, I regret putting some of the doctors in bad positions where I just go in and make up completely crazy stories and they just write the prescriptions. I'm, I'm like ashamed of all of it. You know, it's just, but I never did. I never did anything like, aside from hurting myself, I never did anything to, like, cause anyone else harm.

I never stole from anyone. I never like hustled or, I mean, aside from lying to doctors. And then when I was in London, I had a doctor that would come and do house calls because, again, I had money. So I'd call like a house call doctor, which was common in London in England. If you paid for a private doctor, they would like, they would, you know, they were much more accommodating. And the doctor would show up to my office. And he was definitely like a raging alcoholic because he was always drunk when he came. and I would always like kind of feed his addiction by giving him cash in exchange for writing me

OxyContin scripts. And again, this is in like 2000. I don't even know, like, OxyContin wasn't even being talked about yet. And I didn't know anyone else in London or England that had even knew what it was. But I'd go in and get it. And every time the pharmacy would have to order it because they're like, oh, we don't have this. Like, what is this? And literally the pharmacist was like, you know, and it would, it was just a whole different

system, but the guy would write like 120 oxycontin pills every time I saw him. And I think if I have regrets, it's like putting other people in that awkward position of doing shit like that. It's just, the whole thing is shameful. It's, I'm ashamed to myself, but. Do you think the difference between the attic that goes to prison and the attic that doesn't is all comes down to money? I mean, if you, if you didn't have money yourself, you probably would have committed crimes to get the drugs. I think if I didn't have the money, I would have made a much bigger effort to get sober because, like I said, I never wanted to go to prison. I would, like, I could never see myself like robbing, like robbing a store or something.

So maybe, but I also know tons of rich people that, like, start get rolling on in their addiction and start making really bad decisions. And the next thing, you know, they're robbing and stealing and blowing through all their bread. So I don't know, man. I think it's a mindset of even at my worst, I knew what I was doing was hurting myself. And I knew I had to fix it, but I kept putting it off. And it was just because I had money, it was easy to put off for another like six months, became two years, you know, and I would be like, oh, it's fucking Christmas again. I can't believe I'm still here.

And that the damage that I did to myself and my own mental health as a result of the addiction was just incredibly detrimental. I was never, like, struggling with my mental health before I started using drugs. Even though I had insecurities and all the normal stuff, it was just, like, a moment of weakness that, like, snowballed into, like, a very big problem for me. So now not only did I have the insecurities

and the, like, imposter syndrome issues that I was dealing with, but now I was also in this, like, dark hole of addiction. And you know that expression when you're in a dark, when you're in a hole, stop digging. At some point, I eventually stopped digging. And, you know, even when I think back now, like winning marathons and having some of the accomplishments that I've had, I still think of getting sober as like my greatest achievement.

Even though I put myself in that position and I'm pissed off and I'm like all the things that go with that, getting sober off of the drugs and knowing what I was going through emotionally for me is definitely like my proudest achievement because that was something I wouldn't wish on anyone and I can see where a lot of people that don't have at first I didn't think it was real I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place Pluto TV then I heard a voice come with me if you want to live there were thousands of movies and shows and they were all free the truth is our it's just so beautiful on Pluto TV free Streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 NX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep, and sudden belief in extraterrestrials.

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up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. The same mental fortitude wouldn't be able to get off that ride. Once you got sober, did you come to understand more what your brother was going through during your childhood? Oh, big time.

Yeah. I actually am like, in hindsight, like quite disappointed with my parents because he clearly had like mental health issues growing up that just went unaddressed. Like he never went to school past the ninth grade. He was like, you know, like a real problem kid. Just always getting into fights with students, teachers. And it was just like, I don't think that my parents were necessarily neglectful as much as they were just unequipped to deal with it.

And when the shitstorm started, they had no game plan. They had no like life skills to fix it. They were kids themselves. But it still doesn't change the fact that you did this. like you own this. Like, these are your children. They're your responsibility up to a certain extent. Once you got sober, tell us about your third act in life.

Yeah, so once I got sober and started, so I got sober. I'm working in finance. And after we had our fourth kid, we were living right down the street here in Catona. You lived in Catona? Yeah. Wow. I used to ride my bike. I was like doing triathlons.

I raced my bike a few times with Lance Armstrong. Like he's my buddy. Like I was really riding a bike like training and I'd ride all through here Ridgefield, Greenwich, everywhere. Wow, small world. Yeah. And so I'm living there. I'm commuting into the city and I was just like, I can't do this anymore.

I can't commute into the city, but I was working on a trading desk. And I wanted to live in in Southern California just for lifestyle change. But I knew moving there, like I'd only ever worked on a trading desk and there really weren't trading desks in L.A. So I joined a financial technology startup with a really, good friend of mine called a Mark Kuchinard from Goldman Sachs. And it was in all like a trading platform for corporate bonds. I knew it was a long shot that it would work. But I was like, F it, we're going for it. I sold my house, moved my wife and four kids out to L.A. to like a huge rental house

in Pacific Palaces that I couldn't really afford. And literally was like, I'm going to figure this out. I don't know how or what I'm going to do because I don't have any other job experience other than working on a trading desk, you know, bond sales and commodity trading. So I went out there and I was riding my bike and I met a guy in the neighborhood, in the neighborhood where I was living where, I mean, Chris Bosch was my neighborhood, Cheech from Cheech and Chong. It was crazy. Stephen Spielberg was a few streets over.

It was crazy. It was an awesome experience. And we were living up in the mountains. I was training like a professional athlete. So while I move out there, I'm training hard. I did the Iron Man in Hawaii three times. like, and I'm running and I'm getting better. And I'm just really like, all the effort I put into my addiction was now poured into

training. But I'm still working. So I met this guy riding, Jack McDowell, who would become my best friend and greatest mentor, greatest person I've ever met probably. He had an asset management firm and he ran like $2 billion for a bunch of institutional clients. So I met him and I was like, hey, let me run business development for you. And in that kind of job, business development means you go. and raise institutional capital for him to manage.

So endowments, pensions, insurance companies, you would convince them to give you like $10 to $100 million and you manage the money for them in charge of management fee and a percentage of the profits. And he wasn't doing that. He just had like a few separately managed accounts. So he managed the accounts for like Soros and a couple of the big asset managers.

And he was like a sub-advisor. This is probably a little deep for a lot of people. So I'll try to like make it as. vanilla as possible. He was like, do you have no experience doing that? And I said, no, I understand, but no one has experience until they have experience. I said, he's like, oh, we're friends. I don't want to like it not work out.

And I said, I'll do it for free for three months. Let me see if it works, which, like, I can't take three months off from work. Like, I have four children and like a crazy expensive house. And he was like, okay, let's do it. And after a few months, after a few weeks, it was obvious that it was going to work. And long story short for the non-finance people, I had then raised three discretionary funds, so essentially three internal, like, private equity or hedge fund vehicles that where you could make a lot of money if you're successful. And we were. We raised like $35 million,

doubled the money in 26 months. We made like $10 million for the firm. And all of a sudden, I was like, holy shit. Like I've got a new like kind of lease on life here as a capital raiser. And I had all these institutional relationships. And Jack was like kind of mentoring me in this world that I was now in and I'm running. And in 2018, he came to me again, greatest guy ever came to me. Oh, and I met a guy called David Sinclair who wrote a book called Lifespan in Boston. He's a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, like a world-renowned longevity scientist when longevity stuff was just kicking off. And I helped him on the side raise a bunch of money for his startup in Boston called Life Biosciences. So when Jack saw that, he came to me and said, listen,

You're wasting your time here. You should be doing the things that you really love, like endurance sports and raising money as like a freelance placement agent. And I was like, dude, I've never had a, I've never worked for myself. Like I was, I was scared. I was like, what if it doesn't work out? He's like, I'm going to give you, I forget if it was 30 or 50 grand a month. I'm going to pay you every month as a consultant, 30 to 50 grand.

If you raise money for a new fund, I'll pay you like a placement agent fees where you get a percentage of the capital raised. And if it doesn't work out after a year, you come back, you have your job. And I was like, let's go. And I did it. And it just, the first year, it was, like, wildly successful. I raised money for a bunch of, like, startups in the CPG world, like, consumer packaged goods.

So, like, I worked with brands, like, super coffee, pathwater, momentous, like, all these, like, health and wellness brands. And it was, honestly, it was like a dream come true. It wasn't necessarily the easiest because I was, like, like have sleepless nights thinking like what if it doesn't work like you know fucking doomsday scenarios but it just kept working and i again i was like oh i just got lucky on that one but i got lucky so many times that eventually i was like maybe this is really going to work and i was the whole time while i was doing that i was working for myself so i had like i would train as a priority and i

stopped doing triathlons because we just had too many kids and it wasn't enough time and i started running and very quickly, I won like the Malibu Half Marathon. Then I won the Pasadena half marathon when I was 48 was like 9,000 people finished in the Rose Bowl on KTLA in Los Angeles, like live TV. It's funny, they interviewed me on live TV after the thing and they're like, oh, here's the winner over here. What's you mean? And I come walking over and I'm like Ken Ryder and they're like, how was it out there? You were the first place finisher in the half marathon. I'm like, oh, doesn't say much about the competition when an old man is winning by this much. I had like a beard at the time and they of course they were like my my wife and all my friends of course thought it was

hilarious and i was like no no sorry i don't mean to insult the other competitors everyone was really good but it was like you know a bit of self-deprecation and then the day before i turned 50 i won the myrtle beach marathon the whole thing around like a 2 30 marathon which is like 540 per mile at 49 years old 50 the next day and uh as a result of that i started doing like brand kind of brand endorsement deals just for my own social media, which I mean I had next to zero followers. But I was also hosting the fight with Teddy Alice podcast, which kind of gave me a bit of a platform. And with my really good friend Rob Moore,

who produces the Andrew Huberman, the Huberman Lab podcast, and Rob now produces my new podcast. And all of that stuff, though, all of the success that I've had recently was all based on betting on myself. believing in myself like even when i didn't necessarily believe in myself you know it sounds cliche but it's like the difference between like um motivation and discipline right discipline is i just show up every day and do it i don't feel motivated a lot of the time as a matter of fact a lot of times i get up and i've run like 10 miles a day for like five years every day like i've already right you know i ran

10 miles this morning in, in, um, purchase. Through that discipline, as crazy as it sounds, it's almost like the discipline gave me the freedom to do everything else because when I get up and handle the most difficult thing of the day, like something hard physically, everything else is like a walk in the park. Even the stuff that makes you nervous, I've done a lot of public speaking in the last couple years and just like anyone you know i get up there the first few times i'm like scared shitless almost to the point of being breathless what you have to eventually realize is that no one is no one is special or unique in a sense like we all feel the same emotions the only

thing that changes is how you process the emotions right everyone's nervous and scared if like i'm sure when you did the mr b's thing even with all the media experience you have you're still nervous like 125 million people are going to see this like i do not want to look silly. Everyone has those normal concerns. The difference between the people that just go anyway and the people that are paralyzed by fear is like the people that go anyway just get used to doing things while they're scared. And the fear kind of transforms from fear into anxiety into preparation. And it's like all these things come from discipline. Like I'm disciplined. I know I can do this. Maybe it doesn't work. Maybe it does. But as soon as you lose,

the fare of failure, you're free to try anything. And as soon as you stop worrying about what other people think about you, I promise you that if you have success in any area of your life, there's going to be a percentage. And it's typically the same percentage. And I don't know how I would define it, but I don't care what you do. If you're the rock, there are people that hate him and talk shit about him. And I'm like, I have like a kind of friendship with rock on social media. He's like the nicest guy in the world. He just like randomly reached out to him. me one day on Instagram. But I say that to say, the minute you stop worrying about what other people think about you, the level of freedom that you'll experience is like profound, right? There's people

that are going to hate Ian Beck no matter what you do. You could fucking kill cancer. They'll be like, I hate that guy. Why do you hate him? Because he's doing everything I want to do and I don't have the balls to do it or pick a reason. There is, everyone has like, if you don't have any haters, you're not trying hard enough. You're doing something wrong. That doesn't make it any easier to tolerate it. Like, I hate when people talk shit about me on the internet, but I'm like, what am I going to do?

You need it. It's important. Yeah. I have people that come and want to make content and they'll be like, well, I'm worried about what they're going to say, what people are going to say. Then don't come here. Fuck out of here. Then you get the wrong guy.

Yeah, you have to get over that hump. I mean, it was hard for me in the beginning. I would respond back to every person and I would take it personally. And now it's just funny when you respond to like a troll or anything like that. And I'll always see some of my guests argue with people that are trolling them in the comments, too. And I realized I was that person when I first started to. It's hard, you know, putting yourself out there. I think it's a natural process, though, when you're new to, like, social media or new to any kind of media that you want to respond to everything.

And you can literally see it. Someone who has a lot of experience, tunes it all out, doesn't respond. Like, you'll never see Joe Rogan respond to anyone about anything. But in the early days, like, it's totally normal to want to respond. The things that pissed me off was when someone's like, this guy's ugly. This guy's voice sucks.

I'm like, my voice sucks? Oh, people complain about everything. Oh, my God. But I always think, right, this is actually a good message for all the people out there. If you're a fucking grown man taking the time to talk shit to me

or to Ian or to anyone else online, I always think, dude, your parents and your family must be so proud of you. Guys, look at this fucking troll comments. I left for Ian Beck. I got him good. Like, that's,

your accomplishment for the day? You talk shit about another guy who's out there in the field, doing the work, hustling, grinding. Even if you disagree with him, when I see someone leave a real shitty comment about someone they don't know, I know much more about the commenter than the target of the trolling. It's crazy to me that someone would have enough time. I always think, dude, get a fucking hobby. How bored are you? I barely have time to like look and see if anyone left a comment, never mind leave comments for other people. But I've tried to like, block out a lot of the comments. I try not to look at them.

What do you think your childhood self would say to you today? That's a good question. In the book, I actually have a, in the last line, I have a comment that I would make to my like eight year old self, which is this is going to be hard.

But if you keep showing up, something to this fact, hey, this is going to be hard, but if you can get through to the other side, it's all going to be worth it. And I think my childhood self would say like it would be in disbelief. I don't even know if you'd be able to say anything. If you told me when I was a kid that I would live the way I live now.

And listen, I'm far from like what I would call wealthy. But I put it this way, I don't have to do anything. I don't have to do jobs I don't want to do. You know, I do things that I want to do. I have to work for sure. But I don't have to do shit that I don't have to make decisions for based on money but I have to keep working so even that forget about anything material if you just have the peace of mind to know I'm good I'm going to be good for the foreseeable future no matter what

happens to me that's that that to me is like what success looks like financial success is just do you have enough and that's what I would say to I have a lot of friends that are very rich and literally like billionaires and I would say I have a like what so many of them don't have and that's enough. I'd love to have more. I'd love to have a Ferrari. I'd love to have a giant yacht and a private jet.

But those are just wants. I have everything I need. Do you feel you're finally at where you belong? No. No. I like anyone, I aspire to do bigger things and I'm at peace with a lot of things,

but I definitely like desire to be certainly a better dad and better husband and all the things that go with it like that's a constantly evolving process but um you know there's a lot of things i'd like to do i would love nothing more than for my book to be a best seller i'd love for we're talking to a couple production companies now about optioning it for a film with some like huge name actors and uh production companies like beyond my wildest dreams i'd love to see those things become a reality but uh i mean the only thing i can control is like what's happening right now and that's just keep showing up keep showing up but actually along those the production company lines two

about two years ago my friend brent montgomery who runs wheelhouse productions he um i was connected to him by a guy from uh rowing the apparel line and uh he introduced me to this big producer they produce alone duck dynasty pawn stars like real huge production company. And first they were like, dude, we want you on alone. And I was like, dude, I thought you and I were friends. He's like, what do you mean? I go, do you know what's going to happen if I go on alone?

I'm going to be like the most embarrassing contestant ever. I've never gone fishing. I don't have any man skills outside of like defending myself. Like I've never gone hunting. I don't know how to fish. I certainly don't know how to build my own shelter. So they got a kick out of that. But they had a concept for a TV show.

And I actually recorded a pilot in a sizzle reel for a show for a show. for a show they were the working title was like prison ride home but i was driving inmates home from prison as they were being released so like we went down to jacksonville i mean i'm probably like violate in the n da but it was a few years ago and a and e paid for like it was in development with a and e i met with the execs at a and e so i'm driving the inmates home in a car rigged up with uh cameras production crew trailing us it was huge i was like oh this is it this tv show is going to be sick and it was such a great idea Matter of fact, they talked to jelly roll about doing it too and possibly doing it, the two of us doing it together.

And what happened to the show? It just, I mean, I hate to say it, but they must have hated my pilot or the sizzle, but it just didn't get picked up. But I was driving inmates, like black inmates, white inmates, so I'm driving one of the white inmates and he's got like gang tattoos all over his face and neck. So, you know, I'm driving him,

and I know enough to ask the right questions. And I'm like, yo, so when you first get in, like, who were you affiliated with when you were in there? He's like, I don't want to talk about my affiliation. And, you know, we're on camera, right? I go, motherfucker, you got gang tattoos on your face. Like, no one's going to think you weren't affiliated with a gang. And he's like, all right, you got me.

And then he started, like, opening up and rambling. And it was just, it was just funny to see them transition from, even that kid was like, man, when I saw you with the production crew, I'm like, oh, look at this Hollywood douchebag. Like, this guy thinks he's a big shot. And I'm like, you thought that about me just by looking at me? I'm like, what the hell about me said that I was a douchebag? And we just, we had a good laugh about it. But, I mean, I drove the kid to his house.

We went in, met his family, hung out. It was crazy. He still sends me messages on, on Instagram. Yeah, I got pitched on a show where it was reverse, where you're, like, driving and spending time with people that are getting ready to self-surrender to prison. I don't think that ever came about. There's so many stuff. People don't realize how hard the entertainment business is.

I mean, I was chasing, trying to develop my story for years. And that's why I focused on my podcast. and that's brought me down a different journey. Everything comes to you at the right time it's supposed to. Yeah, because I remember you talking about you did something on HBO or did something. I could, I can't find it. It's not up there. I have the link, though.

Oh, okay. Yeah, you got to send that to me. Yeah, when people ask me, I send it to them. Like, I'll get DMs still to this day if they've heard on other podcasts and I always send them the link. Yeah, I mean, it's such a compelling story because just, oh my God. But I'm actually glad it's not there anymore because it ends with me literally just getting out of prison. and working at Whole Foods. There's no, it doesn't have this whole aspect.

So when the story finally gets done in a whole, it'll be really cool to see everything. I mean, I guess if it had gotten done, though, it would be a great part too. It's like, hey, look at what I've done. And that's what I admire about your story is like, the story's not over. And again, some of this stuff sounds so cliche

and, like, corny, but it's the truth. The game's not over. The story's not over until you quit or win. no one can tell you when you're like done writing your own book every day can be a new chapter it can be like just another day you know a day or day one day or day one and the only person that can determine that is you and again i know it sounds corny to people that are in a fucking rut and they don't want to they're not getting it done but like the minute you decide i'm not doing this anymore and for me that's what the running was it was like this is the way that i'm going to like

express myself, not necessarily to the world like I'm sending a message, but if nothing else, I'm going to show everyone how disciplined I am when it comes to taking care of my number one responsibility in the world, which is my own mental and physical health. You're responsible for you. No one can tell you what to eat. No one can tell you whether you should train today or not. But when you do those things and you walk into place and you're fit and put together, if nothing else, they can make one assumption about you is that this guy has discipline, grit, determination, because everyone knows there's no shortcuts, even with like these weight loss drugs. Yeah, you can lose weight. But that isn't going to give you muscles or any performance

has, and none of it's going to give you muscles without incredibly hard training. So to me, that's like your resume is like your physique, the way you show up and the way you take care of yourself and present yourself to the world. It's like, yo, I'm a serious person. Like, this is my number one responsibility. Look at how I take care of it. And, then you move on to the other things. And for me to be the best version of myself from my wife and children, like I have to take care of myself. I have to feel good about myself physically. You know, I can't like neglect my greatest gift, which is my life. Absolutely. Well, Ken, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me, brother. Yeah, I appreciate it, man.