The Tim Ferriss Show - #323: Tim Ferriss Goes to Maximum Security Prison

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

In this podcast, I had the rare opportunity to interview three men in Level 4 maximum security at Kern Valley State Prison. There was no time to do homework on any of them, so I crossed my fingers and jumped in. It was incredibly nerve-wracking and, ultimately, incredibly rewarding and fun. Any expectations I might have had going in were exceeded.I owe special thanks to Cat Hoke, all the men who participate in Defy (the program Cat started), and all the staff and officers at Kern, including Chief Deputy Warden Goss who made it possible for me to bring recording equipment. Thank you for the help, sir!If you're interested in a similar prison visit after listening to this episode, Cat now has five more trips lined up. Simply email [e-mail] for more details. If this episode moves you in any way, make sure to check out Defy and other groups doing this work and making an impact, like the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC).Enjoy!This podcast is brought to you by Helix Sleep. I recently moved into a new home and needed new beds, and I purchased mattresses from Helix Sleep.It offers mattresses personalized to your preferences and sleeping style without costing thousands of dollars. Visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and take the simple 2-3 minute sleep quiz to get started, and the team there will build a mattress you'll love.Its customer service makes all the difference. The mattress arrives within a week, and the shipping is completely free. You can try the mattress for 100 nights, and if you're not happy, it'll pick it up and offer a full refund. To personalize your sleep experience, visit Helixsleep.com/TIM and you'll receive up to $125 off your custom mattress. Enjoy!This podcast is also brought to you by the Wondery network's Business Wars. Hosted by David D. Brown, former anchor of the Peabody award-winning public radio business program Marketplace, Business Wars shares the untold and very real stories of what goes on behind the scenes with the leaders, investors, and executives that take businesses either to new heights or utter ruin.I recommend starting with the first one, Sudden Death, which is the first of an eight-part series that chronicles the brutal business battle between Netflix and Blockbuster, and later HBO. Other episodes dig into epic face-offs that have shaped the landscape of what we buy and how we live, such as Marvel vs. DC, Nike vs. Adidas, Nintendo vs. Sony, and Hearst vs. Pulitzer. You can search for Business Wars on iTunes or your favorite podcast provider, or you can just go directly to wondery.fm/tim to start listening right now.***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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This episode is very different, and my hope is that it still provides learning lessons and takeaways and helps you also to develop skills like empathy. This came about because I interviewed a woman named Kat Hoke on this podcast. She is the founder of something called Defy Ventures, which uses entrepreneurship and job training to reduce recidivism among prison populations. And she creates what she would call entrepreneurs in training, EITs. And inmates, if you want to call them that, are encouraged to use this as a new label for self-identification. And it's been very, very successful. When I spoke to her on this podcast, I promised that I would visit a prison

with her. And that's exactly what I ended up doing several weeks ago. I visited a maximum security prison to experience the program that she started. I struggled with trying to do this introduction several times. So I'm just going to run with it. And it's going to perhaps bounce around a bit. It was a very, very emotional trip. And I thought I would actually borrow from my friend, Dr. Peter Atiyah, who also attended and recruited a number of people to go alongside him. And he sent this out to his newsletter. And I'm going to abridge it a little bit. This week, Tim Ferriss and I recruited a few friends to visit Kern State Prison, K-E-R-N, Level 4, i.e. Max Security Prison in California.

And the background then goes into how Defy Ventures has done work inside prisons like Kern and Pelican Bay. He goes on to say, Kat is one of the most remarkable souls on this planet, and nothing could prepare me for what we experienced at kern this week rather than try to explain in an email eventually discuss this in depth on a podcast and these are peter's words again many of the men came up to us as we were leaving with tears in their eyes to thank us for coming to express their gratitude for the little bit we did what i don't think they will ever understand is that they gave us infinitely more than we can give them. I cannot explain with words what it feels like to embrace a 32-year-old man who's been incarcerated since he was 13 in solitary confinement for 12 of those years

and admit our most shameful moments in life to each other. So some of you might be listening to this back to Tim now and wondering what the hell is Tim talking about? And I'm going to use a statistic that I've heard several times. Someone out there can fact check this, but I believe it's accurate, which is roughly 70% of people released from maximum security prisons are back in prison within five years. And this underscores a number of weaknesses and issues with a number of societal systems that we've put in place. But suffice to say, many of the people who are even convicted of murder are going to be released. They're going to be your neighbors. And there is a choice then, rather than just brushing it aside with they should just lock them up and throw away the key, since that's not going to be the case for many folks. There's a question of whether you want people to be rehabilitated or not, which type of neighbor having just come out of prison do you want to have. And there's much more nuance to it. But

that's one helpful way to lead into it. And I began looking at programs with good results and unique approaches to helping to fundamentally change how people view themselves and the world. And that is part of what I try to do. And I learned so much at Kern that I wanted to dig into it with this podcast, but also to share with you the footage, the audio footage that I wanted to dig into it with this podcast, but also to share with you the footage, the audio footage that I recorded from the rare opportunity to actually sit down with three men on the inside and to talk to them about the mistakes they'd made,

when they turned things around, what they've done when they slip up, and so on. And it applies to much more than people in prison or people who have committed homicide or armed robbery. I think it applies to everybody. So I wanted to really paint a picture of the humanity in people who have done terrible things, no doubt about it. They have suffered the consequences per the rules that we have in the societies that we've built and are now attempting and changing their trajectories. And we all have these different points in life when it's important to change direction. So I owe a special thanks first and foremost to all the staff and officers at Kern,

including Chief Deputy Warren Goss, who helped set up the interview. Keeping in mind, I couldn't even bring in an alligator clip to hold pieces of paper together because those can be fashioned into tools for cutting through doors. I'm not making this up. So to have the ability to walk in with cables and recorders and all this was really, really incredible and unique. Again, I knew I was going to struggle with this intro, but I'm never going to get it quite right. And I wanted to at least explain one exercise we did, which will come back to Peter's words, that was so incredibly powerful, speaking to a number of the volunteers like me who were there to help as mentors, listening to different pitches for new businesses and so on that these

men hope to launch when they get out of prison to sustain them. The vast majority of volunteers I spoke with said it was one of the most emotionally powerful experiences of their entire lives. And I'm going to quote from a Fast Company piece that covered Defy and describes an exercise called Step to the Line, which if you have the opportunity to experience, I highly, highly recommend. I cannot recommend it highly enough, in fact. So here we go. I'm quoting from the piece. Quote, the idea is this. Remember, exercise step to the line. Hoke, that's a cat, reads from a list of statements, and if they ring true to any of the EITs, i.e. the inmates or volunteers, they step forward to the line. And so there are two lines of tape on the

ground about, say, 18 inches apart, and they run for 20 to 30 feet, maybe more, because you could have, say, 50 to 100 EITs and similar number of volunteers. All right, back to the piece. She'll eventually read several dozen of the statements, and the group that steps to the line each time is different. All right, this piece took place or was reported at Pelican Bay. I'm going to cut some of it out. So she begins with statements designed to loosen folks up. I was a class clown. People step forward or not. I'm madly in love. I'm madly in love with burritos. Ha ha ha. So people loosen up. And this is important in any type of exercise or interview. Then she moves on to the harder stuff. I've had my heart broken.

Again, this is from a Fast Company piece. Everyone in the room steps to the line except one EIT. I dropped out of high school. Almost every EIT steps forward with just one of the volunteers. I've been in a fight to prove myself. All but three of the EITs move forward. And then it's time for the really deep stuff. I grew up in poverty.

My mom or dad has been to prison. At least one of my parents abused drugs or alcohol. I was born to a teenage mother. I became a teenage parent myself. These are all separate questions and people step to the line or step back from the line. And pulling back just for a second to my experience, there were other questions that really were a kind of a donkey kick to the psyche because they were considerations I'd never made before, such as, and I'm paraphrasing here, but I grew up in a home with fewer than 25 books. Out of the volunteers, everyone stepped forward to the line. Of the EITs, two or three. Back to the piece. Watching Hoke and the EITs, you begin to understand the life stories of the

people in the room just by how many stepped to the line or how many did so again and again. My parents tucked me into bed and told me I was loved. Few of the EITs step forward. Violence took place in my home growing up. Violence took place against me growing up. When I was 18, I thought I wouldn't make it to 21. And it goes on and on. Not forgiving others is hurting me. And almost everybody is going to step forward at least during my experience that was the case and there are others such as have you ever sat behind the wheel of a car while feeling the effects of alcohol almost everybody's going to step forward and then i have been convicted of driving while drunk and so on and so forth. And then you see how circumstances, certainly free will and bad decision, but also circumstances have led us all to where we are.

And that doesn't absolve anybody in prison of the things that they did. But it does give you an appreciation for how things could have turned out differently, had a handful of circumstances been different for even the volunteers. And I know this intro is running long. Please bear with me. So this interview, talking with these three men, was really a profound experience for me. And you can see the hope in these men that is created when they have an opportunity to rebuild and redefine themselves. I was very, very impressed and surprised by a lot of what I saw,

some incredible artwork and some incredibly well-spoken people. And when they take ownership of their pasts and are going to be getting out of prison, the question comes back to yet again, who do you want back in society, a rehabilitated person or not? I'm going to mention two more things and we're going to jump into the interview. If people want to go to prison and have this type of experience, Cat is still bringing people and now has five more prison trips lined up. You can email admin at cathoke.com, C-A-T-H-O-K-E.com. If interested, there are also other groups doing this type of work and making an impact like the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, ARC, and you can find that at antirecidivism.org.

And I wanted to just mention one more thing. And this was sent to me, which is quite difficult, through, I'm imagining, two or three different intermediaries, by one of the men who I interviewed for this podcast. And it was a follow-up on one of the questions that I had sent. So this is a message from Jason, who was interviewed. And this is what he sent through the proper channels to get to me. Quote, during the interview, Tim asked us a very important question that we feel was perhaps the most important one of all. He asked how we handle setbacks or slip-ups and what we tell people who make mistakes along the way. I felt like this was something that merited at least reaching out for. If there's a way to include this, that would be cool. If not, I tried. It is unrealistic to think that a person could make drastic changes in their life and chart

a new trajectory and then execute without failure. Two steps forward, one step back is not uncommon. To that, I've told others and still say that the key lies in not allowing oneself to become discouraged to the point of a total regression. Note the failure simply as a result that didn't get you to your objective and then tweak your strategy accordingly. Try, try again. It is often stated that those who are most successful in life are also really good at dealing with failure. We should use them as role models and view it as they do. It's simply feedback that we can use to discern how our plan is working. This is easier said than done, but it's been done many times over. Good luck and take heart because the best is yet to come. So this is

what Jason would say to someone who has backslid. And that could be, say, you're trying to lose weight, and then you end up eating a box of cookies. It could be that you quit smoking, and you have a few drinks, and much to your later regret and shame, you pick up a cigarette. It could be any number of things. But you'll find a lot of shared humanity

in this conversation. And there are a few quick notes. The shoe is solitary confinement. We initially only had 20 minutes allowed for this. And then there was a bus malfunction for another group arriving. So I was able to stretch it out quite a bit. I also realized after the fact that I shouldn't have asked about specific gang names because there can be violent consequences. So I bleeped out one mention of that. And with that very, very long introduction out of the way, thank you guys for the patience. Please enjoy this conversation, a very rare opportunity behind the wall in a maximum security prison to chat with three men about their life stories. All right, guys. So we're sitting here in the,

is this the visitation center? Sitting at what looks like a, I guess a half circle table. And it's my first time in a prison. We are in a maximum security prison. And I was hoping maybe we could start, I know time is short, just on a quick round of introductions, just one at a time saying name, it could be first name, full name, and where you're from and how you ended up in prison. My name is Jason Holland. I'm 41 years old. When I was a teenager, I was living a reckless life, misguided youth, or actually I should say wayward youth, because I have to take responsibility for my actions. But I was making some decisions that clearly weren't good in my life, and eventually it resulted in me taking someone's life. And at 19, I was sentenced to life without parole for

felony murder, and I've been in prison ever since. Thank you. Yes, sir. Tim, welcome to prison. Thank you. My name is Ian Villatoro. I'm 37 years old. I've been incarcerated for the past 10 years. I am serving a sentence for two counts of armed robbery, firearm, deadly weapon. Unfortunately, I went through a really bad divorce in 2006. I think that was perhaps the significant event that kind of led me here. I didn't cope well. In fact, I made all the wrong decisions, and I made some very poor choices, obviously.

I gravitated back to the crowd that I used to run with when I was much, much younger, and I'm here now, trying to make the best of who I am now, basically. My name is Brandon. When I was 21, I was incarcerated for murder. I'm serving life without parole. When I was younger, I had some real issues socially reacting, interacting with people. It caused me to sort of compartmentalize my life among groups of people. And it took an enormous amount of emotional energy to uphold that.

And as it started to fall apart and I became desperate to latch onto these people, it led me to make some really, really bad choices. And as a result, I've been incarcerated for the last 13 years in May. Thank you, guys. So, I mean, the question really in my mind as I'm getting educated here, it's my first time, like I mentioned, kind of on the other side of the walls, is what were the moments or the conversations that led you guys to want to start building in a different direction right because there are a lot of people here who don't choose to change the path right and there's just recently some violence here and i understand the politics and sort of gang orders and so on here uh can be really complex i don't even pretend to understand it but like in in your cases you've chosen to try to build in a different direction. So maybe we could just go, uh, whoever wants to go first, um, could just let me know what catalyzed that. Okay. That's a very good question. Um,

I had been incarcerated for about 19 years. I was validated in the shoe as a shoe is the, that's the lockdown units, a security housing unit. Right. And I was validated in the SHU as a... SHU is the... That's the lockdown unit. It's a security housing unit. Right. And I was validated as a prison gang associate. At that point, I was housed in a deep seg section. What gang were you part of? I was associated with... And in prison, in this world, I had a lot of prestige.

I had a lot of power. And after 19 years, I was sitting in their shoe. And I realized even though I had this much prestige and this much power, I was living an empty life. It was meaningless. And that was isolation? Were you by yourself? Yes, I was by myself at that point. And one day, a friend came to me, and he was telling me about changes that were happening in the law. And he said, look, if you ever want to get out of the shoe, you need to start making some decisions. And I didn't want to take ownership of my life at the time.

And so I was arguing with him. I was blaming everyone else. And then he said something that I couldn't argue with. He said, look, whether you realize it or not, through your own decisions or decisions that you've allowed people to make for you, you put yourself in a box. And at that point, I couldn't argue with that. And so I had to come to terms with that and I had to start making some real decisions. And that was a big moment for me. And that was a friend on the inside here? No, that was actually a friend from the outside. Yes. And he kind of hit me with the hard truth. And then I started realizing what do I want for my life where I started asking myself the strong questions and I had to start making some strong decisions. And from there, it's been a path of growth. What were some of the first or the first kind of decision that the one that was creating my circumstances. It was no one else.

And then if I wanted to change things in my life, what were the decisions I had to make? And so the first thing I needed to do was just get away from what I had been accepting for myself, and that's being involved with gangs and criminal activities. And so once I disassociated and left, then it was from there, what do I do now? And it was just a matter of reconstructing my identity and finding new values. And at that point, when you left the gang, you then moved from one section of, was it at this prison? No, it was a different prison. Got it. And were you then, you were moved to a different location within the prison or was it?

To a different unit for people that were going through that process. Got it. Thank you. Yes. So for me, God, I guess what I can – I can start in 2013. Back then I was a member of a prison gang here. And for the most part, I've – throughout my prison career, as we call it, assimilated completely my environment. Which gang was that? I'd rather not say. Yeah, okay, that's fine.

And I can take it out later if you want. Yeah, it's... I was part of the problem here, clearly. And I remember, I think the moment that kind of changed, everything changed for me was I was assigned to education. What does that mean? Education, just regular AB1, AB2, AB3, just regular adult basic education. I was assigned there so that I can eventually earn my GED.

Yeah. And I was sitting in the back doing all the things that I shouldn't be doing with the homies, and I just felt tired. I got tired of it. And I just didn't want to be there anymore. I had two ways of going about it to get out of education. At least that's what I thought at the time. There was actually a third way.

I decided to just take the GED test and that way I would be able to get out of there. That's exactly what I did. I took the GED test and I passed it. I showed up about two months later. I got called up to receive my certificate. And while I was standing in line waiting to get my certificate, somebody who was ahead of me made a comment about, you know, now going to college because, you know, now he had a GED, he was a high school graduate, and he was going to go to college. But the way that he said it, he was was being sarcastic but he said it in a way where someone

in the room turned around and looked at him with like this look of disgust disbelief and it just so happened that at that precise moment he turned and looked at me and I caught the full force of that look at that disgust and it angered me because back then my mentality was completely different. And I kind of set out to prove from that point forward that, you know what, look at me how you want to look at me, but I'm going to prove to you that even a gang member, even someone like me, can get a college education. Back then, the college programs were very, very scarce. It took a moment for me to, it took a little while for me to even find, you know, the college coordinator on the facility.

And I wrote a couple community colleges. Eventually, they wrote back. I got into Lassen Community College up north, and I started taking correspondence courses. And so here I am, I'm sitting in a housing unit filled with all my homies, because here in this facility, they house all the gang members together, just to kind of control the violence on the yard. And, you know, after the first year, here I am, you know, knee deep in college work, studying sociology, psychology, philosophy, and just, you know, really taking it on. And one day, I just kind of looked up and I realized I don't belong here. I was completely out of place.

Meaning in the gang environment. In the gang environment. And for the first time I was able to kind of see the world through a clear lens. So for me it was definitely education. And that was five years, five years now. And I've earned several college degrees. And, you know, it's, I can honestly say that education truly transformed me. I was still stuck there. And it took someone in the administration to give me an opportunity

to change, to really make that transition into who I wanted to be. Associate Warden Goss, who at the time was a captain on our facility, he gave me that opportunity. So it wasn't just me wanting to. I needed that help. And fortunately, I was able to find that here. And it's been a sprint since and I haven't stopped. Thank you. Uh, well, so I'm kind of the odd man out in a lot of ways. All right. So I was never in a gang. I came in and I was the guy who was going to be used up on the main line. I was the guy they were going to give the knife and say, Hey, go get that guy.

What is used up on the main line? Pretty much means that I was expected to do the dirty work as it needed to be done. And then when I was caught up and washed up and done and done in or whatever, nobody was going to really worry about it too much because I wasn't in the mix. You know, I wasn't in that whole politics side. So I did that exactly once. What is it? Can you just elaborate on what that means? So a guy came up to me on the yard and he basically said, Hey, this guy, we need to jump on him because he owes money. And I tried to get out of it, but I really didn't have a lot of

options because they said, we're doing this in about two minutes. I got it. And you're like a free agent. I was a, I was not a free agent. I was associated no matter what. Yeah. I was, I was a free agent who was told you're going to do this. So I did it. It was, it was cowardly. I hate it. Right. But I did it. And I ended up in doing a shoe term like Jason, but much shorter, right? And Ian here. I got out. I came to another mainline yard and they asked me to do it again. And I said, no, you're not associating with the mainline politics. So I just kind of figured I would fly under the radar. I was just going to do my own thing on my own by myself. And slowly but surely just started to get into a couple things, talk to certain people, work. I wrote an article for our newsletter, things like that.

And it eventually led to me getting offered a job in the chapel, which if you'd have told me when I was, say, 21 that I'd be working in a chapel, the answer would have been zero because I was 21 and knew everything and was this militant atheist and blah, blah, blah. So the idea was absolutely unheard of. But I was really desperate for something. I needed to have something to do. So I took the job. And I remember having a conversation with my boss, Chaplain Krantz. So shout out to the chaplain. And he sits me down and he basically says, so tell me about how you look at things. So I gave him this really profound like 30-minute conversation about how I knew everything and everything was relative and this and that. And I might be paraphrasing this, but he basically sits back and he goes, wow,

that's really stupid. And I reflected on that for a while. And he started to systematically over the next few months, just like break down every stupid little belief I had. And slowly but surely started to turn me around. So I give him a lot of credit for me kind of going positive, as it were. Can I pause for one second? Sure. What were some of the new beliefs that ended up being most helpful to you? The biggest thing, the biggest teaching that he gave me was the theory of teleology, teleos. So all people have an inherent human

dignity. Everybody has a potential. And if everybody has this dignity and this potential, then everybody is valuable. Every human life is valuable. We should treat them so. So this was the basis of a morality that I never had. Everything I thought was relative. If it's good for me, it's good for me. If it's good for you, it's good for you. And that's a bunch of crap. That doesn't work. That leads to a very bad place. So this whole concept now and really driving it home, and it's been 16 months in the making so far, but that for me has been the pivotal thing is just understanding concepts of morality, going from an atheist to a guy who's somewhat of an odd agnostic who acknowledges there's a higher power but doesn't know what it is yet. So for me, that's a huge shift. And so I credit that to me getting into the things that I recognize as enforcing morality

or enforcing human dignity and the idea that everybody is valuable. Thank you. I'd love to hear from you, Jason, basically the same question. I mean, like how has the way you looked at the world changed or what beliefs or habits have really helped to keep you on a better path or to help you to feel like you're building towards something? Okay, very good question. So when I first left the SHU and I was going through this process of basically reconstructing my identity because I had this persona before and now it's gone. Right. And you had status too. Yeah, I did. And so I come over here and I didn't really know what to do. I started reinvesting in my education because I didn't know really what to do. I started getting into these groups.

And then what happened was I was really lucky. I came to this yard and I met these guys and I started working around them. And then I started getting introduced to some of the same ideas. How did you get dignity? Well, it was just kind of on the yard, but they knew I was coming. They knew that my brother and I were coming here. And so we kind of make a splash where we go and we got introduced one way or another. And eventually I started working with them and I saw what they were doing, what they were doing here with the program and the pioneer and all these different things, these interesting things. And at this point I started changing my, my whole perspective around. And mostly the biggest

thing for me was I knew that if I wanted, I knew what I didn't want and I knew I had to get rid of criminality out of my mindset. I knew I had to get, stop cutting corners. And then, like I said, when I started working with them and started getting introduced to the idea that of human dignity, so human dignity, doing things in the right way, not doing them in a criminal way. And from there, my whole perception started changing on how I approach people, how I approach situations, how I identify options to solving challenges and problems, finding tools, seeking out mentors, things like that. So that's basically, and it's still an ongoing process. So it sounds like the three of you spending time together has, I mean, maybe I'm taking it just kind of one degree further than what I'm hearing, but it seems like that's been important.

Absolutely. Crucial. Absolutely. We're a team here. We've kind of, you know, through all the things that we've been able to accomplish here on this facility, we've been able to kind of form a community of sorts. And it's really a team effort up front. I know that for me, you know, even the, even the whole change process, it was a process. I had to first come to that realization that I can do better, that I could be better.

I had to accept it, and I had to believe it. And that's what we try to get guys to do on the facility, on the yard, is believe it. Believe in yourself. Believe that you can be better, you can do better. How do you convince them of that? When you approach somebody for the first time, A, how do you choose the person you approach? And then what do you say? Anybody can hop in.

One of the things is being in the right place at the right time. We have self-taught and picked up and questioned other people about everything from effective communication techniques to ways of getting people over twisted values. Why do you guys do it? Because, speaking for myself, just because I news, you watch TV, any of it. It just sometimes feels like people are skin and bones. You know, there's they need some they need to be fleshed out a little. Yeah. And me, too. You know, I'm I'm just as bad. But I think that it's it's a communal thing.

Everybody needs to be pitching in because no man is an island. So we just need to be there. We need to be available. We need to be intentional. We need to really try to help everybody elevate themselves because if we humanize everyone, we humanize ourselves. And if we cut people down, we're just cutting ourselves down too. Definitely. And it applies here on on steroids well it seems

like everything's magnified here it things are a lot more intensified it's a lot more potent here at least in my opinion because everybody here's a little extreme in some ways yeah you never know that's the thing you never know who it's going to be where the light bulb's going to click or it's going to go on you just one day we could be working on a guy for a year, just trying to have the right exchanges and interactions with him, and one day he just gets it. Whereas another guy, we could think he's making progress and then something happens, and then we have to come in and try to help him and see what happened.

What are some of the approaches or expressions or concepts that you've seen help redirect people? Like when you see people click. Any of you could jump in on this. I think the biggest thing, and for me, it's I've been there. So I know what it feels like to not have hope and not have purpose. There are a lot of guys in here who are lacking those two things. And I know what it feels like, hope and purpose. And it's lot of guys in here who are lacking those two things. And I know what it feels like. Hope and purpose. And it's very very powerful.

And that's what we try to give them. We try to give them a dose of purpose. Whether it's through some sort of program or whether it's just a one-on-one interaction. What might the program look like? Just for example, Defy. Defy Ventures has been amazing on this facility because it's more holistic.

It takes a holistic approach. It's not just entrepreneurship training. It teaches character development. It brings you closer to your family. And it really gets you thinking about who you are and who you can be most importantly. And it's been hugely successful here because of it. I would add into empowerment because I think a lot of the guys that we interact with and myself included for a long time,

I just didn't recognize my potential or think that I really had any worth investing in and I think that a lot of these guys feel that way and a big part of what we do is we engage that and we challenge them to look at their potential and actually rise to it and I think that we do that the best that we can that we're currently able to do and we're trying to get better at it. Thank you. I think one of your, I mean, the standard approach like on the like institutionalized

kind of formal level of any of these things is your program that you would have, Defy, AA, any of these groups, you have content, some sort of accredited content, right? So there's a curriculum, there's a book, there's a time-honored, there's 12 steps, Oxford principles. You have a dosage rate. These guys will go to this group for X number of hours every week. Over a course of a year, that's X number of hours. And then you have motivation and you get a result. And the result could be something like 22% reduction in recidivism for substance abuse. Something, right? Yeah. The trick is the hard one to quantify is the motivation.

Right. Right? So that's where the hope and the purpose come in. Because a guy can sit in a chair all day long. A guy can answer questions on a worksheet all day long. But unless he has the, but unless he has the hope, unless he has the need for a purpose, unless he has the family begging him to get better, unless he has his buddy that he's watched move on and is now like waiting for him to catch up,

right? You need to create this sense of people that you can rely on and that are relying on you in some sense. And the realization that you're part of a bigger community, that sort of step in maturity, that growing up process, because otherwise, the entire formula is just going to fall apart. Yeah. No, it's so true. I mean, you can take the content and shove it down someone's throat. You can make them sit in the chair, but if they're mentally sort of teleporting to a different place and, like you said, the motivation is there just because it's harder to quantify doesn't make it any less important. Exactly. And that's why here, especially on this facility, we say that time and again.

What we're trying to do here on this facility is we're trying to create change but from the inside out rather than outside in because you can throw so many programs at people, just like you said, so much curriculum that, you know, half of it probably won't stick, if that. So it's a process. It's an internal process. It's an individual process because, you know, just like out there in society, everyone in here, even though there are some commonalities, everyone's different. They've been through different experiences that have led them to be who they are. So it's hard work, but it works. Giving a person hope, giving a person purpose. Especially here, we've been able to kind of track the progress of individuals who

actually participate in our rehabilitative programs, educational programs. Just like right now, I can let you know, I can tell you that if you participate in a program, the inmates that participate in the program, that person is three times less likely to receive a rules violation report than someone who doesn't. So it definitely does change something. And if you look at the people who have, as I think Jason maybe you were mentioning, some people you kind of deliver the sermon to, right? I mean, you communicate with, and then they fall off the rails. And then other people, you work on them for a year,

you maybe suspect they won't actually take to it, and then they do. Are there any patterns that you guys have seen in terms of, say, what people fail to understand or pay attention to that leads them to fall off the rails. Is there any, anything that really sticks out as a pattern where you're like, man,

like, damn it. I, I like, I should have seen it because we've seen this 17 times before or 200 times before. I mean, I don't know how many people you guys are communicating with because this is,

what do you have? 1500 people or something like that? We have in this facility, we can get up to 1000,000. About 1,000, but it averages at about 900, you know, give or take. As far as, I mean, for my money, and I can't speak for you guys, right? I mean, everybody is really different. And that's kind of the reason, at least for me, even if a guy lets me down 17 times out of 18, that 18 time, it might just click because, I mean, there are commonalities. Usually the impetus to change is something like an event where his family shows up. I've seen that a lot. But some people, there's like another

group of people that I think just eventually they hit this point where they're just tired and they just have this realization one late night and they're just sitting there and they say, I can't do this anymore. And if you happen to show up at that moment, I think you can lead them back into the light. But if you're not there then in there, then you probably missed your window so i'm not sure that it's like commonalities in circumstances so much as it's these different circumstances lead to change and if you're lucky to get there you get there you know uh because it really is a time and place thing at least in my experience i i haven't personally i any hard patterns. I can say that the times when I felt like it was starting to sink in is if I was dealing with a guy who was constantly entertaining the wrong conversations in the wrong company on the yard.

And you can tell. And then suddenly I had this conversation with him. And out of nowhere, it's really like a mature conversation. And he's talking about wanting something different and he's just talking to me about it and then the next time i see him he's actually acting on it that's a good indication that he's heading in the right direction and then from there i think one of the things we've tried to implement is repeated exposure you know going back to that guy going back to him and just working on him encouraging him and hoping that he

stays along on the right path you know so i have a question for you jason because you're you're mentioning you and your brother coming and people knew you guys were coming and that you had uh some stature within this gang that you were once part of no no this is i i'm i mean i'm really curious about this because i've known people who have spent time in prison, some very, very close friends of mine, and people who've had all sorts of different types of unhealthy coping behaviors. But at a given point in time in their life, some of those behaviors served a purpose for them or they thought it did, right, to escape from something or to survive something. And what I'm curious to know, and sometimes within that, it's like you could throw it all out, but maybe there's like a kernel of something that you develop that can be applied in a good way, right? So what I'm really curious about is like you were, sounds like had some type of leadership position or you were somewhat

high in the pyramid in this gang. Is there anything that you were good at then that has translated to you being better at having these types of conversations or recruiting people to, not recruiting is the wrong word, but converting people to look at things differently? Do you, do you think there's any common ground there? Networking. Networking. Yeah. I was good at networking and I'm generally good at people and interacting with them generally, not always because no one, no one communicates perfectly all the time. Right. Right. But that's just one of the you know one of my strong suits yeah what do you think and maybe these i mean these guys could comment on it also but like and maybe

it's easier from the outside looking in but like what makes you good at what are some of the skills that make you or approaches that make you better than most? I can tell you what makes Jason really good at stuff. All right. Here we go. I'll BS aside. Take me off the spot. I can see you're like bright red. It's okay. I got you,

bud. So one of the things about Jason, right. And I knew of Jason, right. I never knew Jason until here. And now I, I know Jason,

but I knew of Jason before. One of the things about Jason was that he was true to his word. He had integrity, right? I'll give him that. Now, what his word was at the time, you know, what that meant, you know, was, I'm gonna do something. He's gonna do it, right? That That he's brought that with him, though. He has a very strong sense of integrity and the values have changed with it. Right. So the thing about Jason is if he says he's going to show up to chat with you, if he's going to show up to help you out, if he's going to show up to give you a pep talk. Right. He'll not only show up, he'll probably give you a day and a time and then be up all night long if he missed it and beating himself up about it

and then drag one of us along with him to make sure he gets into the building to talk to that guy the next day, first opportunity. And that's something that I think he was kind of known for before, and now he's being known for it again in a very good way because the new Jason is, in my opinion, a market improvement. Very, very disciplined, very dependent. Yeah, so the ability to keep promises, but the content of those promises has changed. The values underline.

I think so. I'm doing my best. Work in progress. So where would you guys like to be, say, three years from now? So I actually have the opportunity to actually gain employment, work, and save towards that day when I'm actually paroled. But in the meantime, we actually started a podcast here on our facility, Kern Valley 180. I thought that's what we were doing right now.

That's what I thought, too. You mean this isn't our podcast? It was supposed to be. What the hell? So, you know, with this first year coming up, we plan at least to kind of use that platform to not only show the guys in here what it's like transitioning back out to society step by step, but also kind of show society what it's like being in here and transitioning out into the community. For me, at least, I want to show the guys in here, I want to show the guys, look, this is what I did while I was incarcerated, while I was still behind the fence, behind the wall. And this is where I am now. These are the struggles. These are difficulties, the challenges that I'm facing.

So even though you can prepare yourself as much as you can, there are still going to be some challenges. So you should prepare. Absolutely. So hopefully we're able to do that through the podcast. And in the next three years, I see myself heavily involved in some sort of organization that gives back to this particular community community for sure. Thank you. Well, currently I'm serving life without parole. So I just hope that wherever I am at, let's say a law changes and I'm somehow miraculously released to society, then I hope to be doing something good with rehabilitation. And either way, if I'm still incarcerated, I'm hoping to be doing something that's meaningful towards rehabilitation and the rehabilitation effort.

What do you personally find most meaningful? I mean, this is a really important concept, right? I mean, it's really, really important because I think, as you guys have noted, it's like without a purpose, without the meaning, it's very difficult to survive as a human in any environment, but I think particularly in an environment like this. So what keeps you going and what would you, say three years from now, let's say you're still inside, what would make you look back with some pride on the three years? Well, again, anytime that you see the light go off for the guy who has been struggling, the guy who is where I was, and he starts taking control or more responsibility

for his life and starts learning tools to flourish and lead a stable and healthy life, I think that's a win. And if we can continue to get better and better at our process of approaching it and helping more and more people, that's purpose for me. That's a good purpose in here. Sir, I think so. Are there any particular tools, certainly Defy, I mean, we're familiar with Defy and have a high opinion of Defy. Are there any other tools that you found helpful to sort of as a, this isn't the best term, but like a gateway drug. If you're trying to get somebody who's maybe not open and then they have that dark night of the soul or their family visits and there's a window and you want to offer them one thing to kind of nudge them towards a brighter path. Is there any, do you have any favorites or anything that's particularly effective that you found? Well, the most, the thing that's, I think has been most, most effective for me has been

asking the right questions so that they can get to the right answers. And so if you're asking the right inquiry, and Brad mentioned Pastor Krantz earlier. He has a method of when we take a position on something, he asks us questions to where our position is either exposed for being vulnerable or being solid. And I think that if you can do that in the right way to people, then they are forced to come to their own conclusions about whether or not they're coming from the right starting place or not. And so whether that's a tool or a technique,

to me, that's been a really effective thing. Any questions you could share? I don't want to keep you on the spot. Anybody can answer this, but are there any particular questions that you guys use? I obsess over questions. So I really think that whether it's interacting

with someone else or interacting with yourself, right? Asking yourself the right questions, which you guys are helping them to do. So the pastor, Chaplain Currancy is a military man, right? So he looks at things from that viewpoint a lot when it comes to developing an idea. So we go to him, the idea fairy lands on the shoulder and gives us some crackpot idea. And we go in there and we say, hey, we got this really great idea. Let's do X, Y, Z.

And he'll start running it through sort of a, there'll be the practical questions. There'll be the purpose-driven questions. There'll be who's going to run it? Where are you going to get the resources? Who's going to staff this? What's the idea? And then it'll kind of segue into what are you trying to do? What's the point?

Is what you're doing tackling a symptom? Is what you're doing tackling the problem? He'll really get into, I mean, it's a multi-level, like, systematic teardown. Stress test. A few times we've surprised him, but he also, I think what you're also get, what Jason was also getting at is the sort of self-leadership model too, right? So anytime something pops up, you should be asking yourself the questions too, so that you know where you stand. Otherwise it's too easy to knock you down. So it's twofold. You have to have

asked yourself the questions. Then once you have the idea in mind, then you need to ask the questions about the idea. And if it stands up to both those stress tests, I think you're in pretty good shape, at least considering a lot of the other stuff that goes on sometimes. And for me, it's a lot simpler, really, when it comes down to it. I ask myself and I ask others, is it the right thing to do? Absent the environment, the situation, is it the right thing to do? And that's basically what it boils down to with me.

Is what I'm about to do the right thing? Is it right for me? Is it right for everyone else involved? And that's kind of the question that I always come up and ask somebody when I see they're getting ready to stray or they're getting ready to make the wrong decisions. It's, is it the right thing to do? And if they think that it is, then I question them on it. Like, why do you think that's the right thing? And I just kind of try to lead them through that, you know, those logical steps. Explain to me why you think putting that medal in that guy is the right thing to do because he

called you a name. It doesn't make sense at the end of the day. And it's very, very basic. But people forget to ask that question sometimes. Well, let me jump in on that because this is, you were talking about it's all relative, right? So if we get into like moral relativism, one can almost argue that whatever they want to do is right. Right. Given whatever story or narrative they've built up for themselves, right?

So you had, it was two counts of armed robbery? What I was convicted for, yes. Yeah. Okay. All right, guys. So the list may be longer, but that's the official. Yeah. At the time, how would you have explained why you were doing those things?

I could never justify what I did. Not now, but at the time. It was just a haze, a cloud. I was drinking heavily. I was using drugs heavily. Like I said before, I gravitated back to individuals that I used to hang out with, that I used to run with. Run with being in a gang capacity? Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, I just kind of, I just reverted back to old ways that I had left behind. And, you know, my judgment was very clouded. And I just kind of went with the flow, which is what a lot of guys do in here. They just go with the flow. They assimilate this environment. They suck it up. And because it's prison, everything, every excuse you'll hear here, you'll almost always hear, it's prison because it's prison because it's prison. Well, just because it's prison, it doesn't make it right.

And back then, that's what it was. I was just, you know, i wasn't in my right mind no clear judgment and so your judgment is seems clear now what i'd love to hear from from any of you guys is how you recover how you have recovered from slipping or relapsing or when you've had the temptation, what you've said to yourselves, right? Because whether like, I know people who are drug addicts or former drug addicts,

alcoholics, uh, my, my best friend growing up, unfortunately died of an overdose. It's like, I, I,

I have not a lot of firsthand experience, but I've, I've watched even with, let's just say on a very, maybe mundane level, people who are listening to this, they have behaviors and they try to change their behavior and maybe they succeed for a while and then they slip. And maybe they slip and they stay slipped for a long time or not. But like you guys seem pretty far on the other side at this point. But could you talk

about any times when you've either slipped and then had to fix you know had to come back or had the temptation to slip how long do we have i leave i think we got a bunch of time i got a i got a i got a sticky note here that says the bus broke down and we have a delay so that their misfortune is our good fortune i'm afraid uh for them. So I lead by example. So when I feel, when the anger seems to get the best of me, I always think, if I lead by example, what's that going to say to all the other guys? And like I said, it's teamwork here with the team. I always try to keep that in mind, really. Right.

So you're setting an example whether it's good or bad. Exactly. And just not too long ago, I lost my cool. And it was kind of embarrassing. All right. So we have one of your men laughing here. So tell us, if we could talk about it. Let's talk about the details.

So I'm now known as very level-headed. I keep my cool because I've kind of learned to do that. But here in prison, we have all sorts of personalities, all sorts of people with issues and whatnot. And one of the worst happened to move in next door to me. And look, I'm a programmer man i like getting out to my programs on time because you know half the time i'm standing in front of that room making sure the guys are you know heading in the direction they need to head in and you know this particular individual decided to hold his tray because he he felt he didn't get enough food um and obviously that turns into a problem because no he has holds his tray because he felt he didn't get enough food. And obviously that turns into a problem because now he has...

So he holds his tray so he doesn't release his food tray. He doesn't give up his tray through the port, which means that now he has something solid that could be used as a weapon. And obviously that's a safety concern. So for the time being, they kind of closed that section down pending that issue being resolved. And that made me very upset. But what made me even more upset was that when they tried to reason with him, you know, and told him, look, if you continue doing this, you're going to mess up the

program for everybody else. And the guy started yelling expletives out the door and basically cussed everybody out. And here I am standing next door in full blues waiting to come out to run this program and this guy's over here crying about not having enough food and I kind of lost it and he ended up giving up the tray and you know we had some very unpleasant exchanges and I was pumped up and and I was really really upset and I And I showed up to the group. And these guys are looking at me like, what the hell happened to you? And it was bad. I was getting, you know, I felt emotionally I was ready to go there.

Yeah, right. And, you know. Like to cross the line. Yeah. And then I, you know, like to cross the line. Yeah. And then I, you know, took, you know, took some deep breaths and I told myself, you know what? You have to practice what you preach, man. And I've done it before. I've never allowed myself to go that far.

And I had to humble myself. You know, when I came back in, I went up to the guy's door, fully expecting that door to open, by the way. And I apologized to him. And I said, look, man, I don't know what the issue was. If you didn't get enough food, do you need some soup? Turns out the guy didn't have anything in his cell. So maybe he was hungry. He was kind of a big guy. So, you know, I had to humble myself, apologize and kind of, you know, practice that effective communication that we always try to teach others here. And it worked.

The situation was de-escalated. And the next morning, he's like, hey, good morning, buddy. So obviously, I still kept an eye on him for the next week because you never know. But it turned out well. And really, it's just about practicing what I preach at the end of the day. And again, leading through example. How would that look if the guy who's preaching effective communication and resolving your conflict in other ways other than the physical way,

how would it look if I got into a fight in the day room because the guy called me this and called me that and I went there? It just wouldn't work. Yeah, you have the accountability. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. How about you guys? I would repeat a lot of what Ian said.

I think that at this point, we've made a lot of public statements about where we stand on these types of issues. So if we slip up on it, it's a pretty big hit for one thing. Secondly, for me personally, I have to always ask myself, what's the outcome here? Like, how does this end once it starts? And so it's just trying to avoid the situation from the get-go. Now, regarding a scrape of like a violent nature or something, you can't possibly take in all the variables that could come with that. Like anything could happen at any given time. But I think that one thing I've tried to keep in mind is that every act that I take, I'm trying to reduce the possibility of that. So every interaction, I'm trying to keep it to where it doesn't even go in that direction.

Regarding substance abuse, I've had a problem with that in the past. And so, again, I've had people that are close to me that have a severe drug problem and it's created a lot of anguish for me. And at this point, I think, I don't know, I've created enough mental leverage to stay away from it. But if I ever am tempted again, it comes back to what's my outcome here and what are the public statements I've made and how much of a hypocrite will that make me, you know, so I just stay away from it. Period. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, man, let's see. I, whereas there's the soft skill, like there's the effective communication way of doing things. And then there's sort of like my way, which is, uh, not that all the time, although I think I'm getting a little better. Uh, so

I, I snap at people fairly regularly and have to go up afterwards and be like, hey, my bad. I suck, right? As far as I've never particularly had a substance abuse problem myself. Yeah, and that's just an example, right? There are many different ways people can slip. I have an arguing problem, and there are times when I get into that sort of concrete thinking thing, and even if I know I'm wrong, I'm still going to argue my point. I mean, that's led to some beefs before, although I'm trying to not do that anymore, and that's where I'm kind of picking up from these two guys over here. How does your process or day change when you're trying not to do it? So what do you do to

try to decrease the likelihood? You know, I find that when I think before I say things, it tends to work a lot better. And I know it sounds like kind of silly, but I haven't often done that in the past, although I have now. So as long as I have sort of a mental checklist to run through and ask myself questions as we go, am I thinking about this clearly? Do I understand what he's saying? Are we clear on the terms? Have we clarified what the heck we're actually talking about? Just injecting a pause between the response.

Yeah, exactly. So as long as I take a breath before opening my mouth, which is when I usually get in trouble. Incidents on the yard kind of thing. I mean, there's been times where there was the guy who clocked me in the face one day on the yard, and I had to walk away from it. And it was because of something he wrote in our newsletter. So wait. Well, let's dig into this.

So what do you write in the newsletter, and why do you punch you in the face? And I don't know how much of this will have to be cut out or whatever. That's all right. We can always edit it later. There was an incident that took place you in the face? And I don't know how much of this will have to be cut out or whatever. That's all right. We can always edit it later. There was an incident that took place back in the vocational class where a gentleman had gotten heated and somebody had to step in between it and stop him. And this incident led to a conversation later on, right? With him. Because, well, the guy who had gotten heated had hit the guy who stepped in

between him and the guy who had gotten hit which was another one of our pioneer newsletter guys another reporter another editor or man uh yeah editor um so he had taken the hit and walked away and we applauded that we said hey look you de-escalated it you you humbled yourself you took the hit. Great job. And you have to remember, in prison, if you get hit and you don't hit back, that's a bad thing according to prison standards. So that's what sets a precedent. Somebody had said, well, first you get hit in the face. Next thing you know, people are just coming up and stealing your store, right? Your store is just whatever you have.

Your canteen, your hygiene, your food. And I had written this piece about, yes, because that's what we're going to have. We're going to have roving gangs of marauders hijacking people and stagecoach robberies for their store. And I'd kind of made light of it. Well, the gentleman who had gotten heated way back in the beginning somehow interpreted this as, hey, I was telling people to beat him up on yard and steal his store. So he saw me at yard when I was out there reporting on a football tournament or a soccer tournament and took a swing and he got me. And I had just published, oh, I wanted to get him. I was seeing red, my hackles were up, but I was telling myself, I was like, dude, you just wrote this thing about it's okay to walk away from taking a hit.

Don't worry about it. You're not a bitch. Right? And I had done this whole thing. And this guy cracked me and was standing there. And I had to take a breath and be like, hey, we're not doing this right here. We're adults. And I had to turn around and walk away.

Right? And everybody saw it. And I was under, I was getting the blues for a while, but then slowly people were like, yeah, man, don't worry about that guy. It's cool. What's the blues? Meaning you were feeling...

Oh, man, I was just getting... There were some people that were coming up and ribbing me and saying some pretty hurtful things, man. But that's okay. I'm used to that. So how did you feel after that? Were you proud that you did that? Were you like, man,

I should have ripped that fucking guy's face off? No, I was... I felt bad that I had actually wrote something that he had interpreted. I should have gone and talked to him beforehand. I should have been like, hey, dude, we're going to write an article about something that happened involving you. And I should have been like, is this cool? And I didn't. And that was my screw up. And that made me feel bad.

And I actually went back and i had talked to the guy a few times and asked him if he wanted to subscribe to the paper and uh that probably wasn't smart i thought i was giving him a peace offering and he just started kicking the door and yelling at me so i had to walk away but i yeah i i felt bad that i had i felt i had handled it badly yeah i'd walked away but i had allowed a situation to happen where this guy was mad enough to hit me. And that was where I screwed up. So I managed to not turn it into a big deal, but I still effed up in there somehow. Where would you like to be in, say, three years' time?

I mean, like three years from now, looking back, you're like, yeah, I did a really good job or I'm happy with my progress. What would need to happen? I can look at the yard I'm on three years from now and 51% of the people on that yard, I could be like, yes, these are grown up, mature adults. And I had some small part in that. If some program I helped run or come up with or bring to the yard or some sort of stats that we had done to figure, then I'd be like, yeah, I did a good job. Because everything is to that end for me, is making people kind of realize their maturity. So 51%, just meaning the majority. Yeah. I want a saturation rate that's 51%. Then I know our product is a success.

So many different directions I could go with all this. The first thing I probably should at least check off, because I know some people listening are going to be like, wait, they have a podcast? Yes, welcome to the Kern Valley 180 podcast. We're here with Tim Ferriss. That's right. Thank you for having me, gentlemen. How did that come to be, and how do you guys record it,

and what do you talk about? Do you have gear? Do you have a room? How does a podcast come? Does it only get distributed among the people at the prison? Is it more widely distributed? So the leadership here is very progressive. When CDCR said we're going to head more towards rehabilitation, the administration administration the leadership really took that direction at heart and are following it um absolutely you know the idea

came about uh i think there there's one there's another podcast on san quentin a lower level much lower level facility uh and but you know the things that they talk about there and not you know talking smack about them it's more you know average day uh daily occurrences on the prison yard type deal uh here we're we're i think we're we're creating we're establishing more than just you know uh talking about canteen talking about the sports on the yard we're we're really trying to highlight that rehabilitation. And, you know, we were approached by the administration if we would be interested in doing something like that, and we jumped at it.

It turns out that this institution has a media room, which looks very much like a TV studio. They have all the equipment, and it just kind of sits there because they have no other use for it. So they've allowed us to use that room for our podcasts. We've been able to interview our warden, which here is the first time that has happened. Inmates actually interview their warden on a podcast. And we were able to interview the CEO, founder of Defy Ventures, for example. And we have a long list of people, and now we've interviewed you. Because that's what we're doing here.

That's what we're doing here. Oh, yeah. You guys are welcome to ask me. Actually, you guys can ask me anything you want. It takes some responsibility off of my hands, which I like. But first let me ask, following up on something that i kind of passed by is it is this widely available or is it only for people in the facility so this will be it yeah it will be uh once we record our finish our third one i believe it will be downloadable on uh itunes i think it's itunes great there's actually two versions of it here because like i said there's

video cameras it's like a tv studio there will be a like a video two versions of it here because, like I said, there's video cameras. It's like a TV studio. There will be a video podcast version of it available throughout the institution so that all the facilities here can watch it and hear it. And then out there for the public, it will be what I believe just strictly audio podcast through iTunes. Yeah, and you guys are welcome to use this audio. I'm happy to give you guys the audio too. But you sounded like you had a question. I wanted to ask you what

compelled you to come into a level four maximum security prison and sit down with us to ask all these questions? I think that it's very common whether it's inside or outside

for people to separate between us and them or me and others. And when I look at, for instance, some of the people I grew up with were my best friends. Like I mentioned, one died of a fentanyl overdose. Others have been imprisoned. And just like you were saying, there's this, sometimes this almost magical positive window when someone sees their family or has this dark night of the soul and there's an opportunity for growth there are also these windows that open which are opportunities to make really terrible decisions and circumstances i'm not saying you don't have personal responsibility. We're all responsible. But at the same time, I think it's, I think it is wildly unreasonable for people to think that they could never find themselves in a position

if their life had been different, if their surroundings and friends had been different, where they would have made terrible decisions that could have landed them in a place like this. so i think that my hope in coming here was a to just learn about a new environment and to get to meet people here honestly i mean i just i'm very interested in learning as much as i can about like how what what does human nature look like inside the walls and not because these humans are necessarily intrinsically different from the humans outside.

They have very different stories. Like, what does it look like, like you guys had mentioned, when everything is intensified and magnified? Does that tell us perhaps something about ourselves, more broadly speaking right and uh also to um not to say that everyone here should be completely forgiven of all the uh you know in some cases terrible things that that they've done to other people but that i do think it's possible to have empathy for the humanity in each and every person while still holding them accountable.

And I think that's one of our main goals on our podcast is, look, we're not trying to justify anyone's actions, anyone who's here. Mistakes were clearly made. But at the end of the day, we want people out there to realize that people in here are just people. Yeah, we're humans. You know, we have that label, prisoner, convict, you know, and people sometimes tend to associate who we are strictly on the crime that we committed. That maybe that bad day, maybe that bad decision, maybe a series of bad decisions. But at the end of the day, we're human.

Like I've moved, I'm here because I committed a crime. And, but I've moved past that. It's, I'm obviously reminded every day when I wake up and I'm still in prison, but I've been able to forgive myself and really worked on myself in order to someday gain that forgiveness from my victims. Because there are victims. And, you know, for me at least, that's what we want to communicate out there. Look, we're just people. Anyone can make mistakes.

Sure, there's degrees of mistakes. But, you know, it's tough. It's tough sometimes when you watch the shows on TVs and you hear the narrative about prisoners. And it's just always all, you know, just the negative. Yeah. And another reason that I'm here is, you know, with Defy and really want to chat with you guys is that I'm fascinated by why people change, whether it's for the better or for the worse. Like, what is that moment? What is that conversation? What does the chaplain say to you or ask you, right? Or what happens in the shoe?

I'm really interested in these tipping points for people and like to study them. Because if you study them and you can then figure out like, all right, this particular tool works really well. And it seems to work and you spot some type of pattern. I don't think that if we assume that human nature is human nature, which I suppose it's a bit of like a tautology. But in the sense that the people inside are not that different from people outside, I think it's a bit of like a tautology. But in the sense that the people inside are not that different from people outside, I think there's a lot to be learned in here that could also be applied outside of here. And not that I like the fact that everything is intensified here,

but it's in a way very similar. I've spoken with Sebastian Junger, who was a war – well, he's considered by many to be a war journalist, but he's been deployed overseas and his best friend was killed overseas with – I guess it was a mortar round, horrible tragedy, and he's seen many people killed. You also see certain aspects of human nature that are just amplified. And I think that gives you an opportunity to see things that you might not otherwise see and learn things you might not otherwise learn. But the fact that you guys have made a series of bad decisions and have made a series of good decisions is very interesting to me. So that's part of the reason, some of the reasons I'm here. Yeah. Um, could I ask you a question? Absolutely. So one of the things that you do, as you were saying, you're trying to basically break it down. You're trying to figure out what it is that makes a person tick. Right. So do you have go-to questions? Are you trying to get to the thought process?

Are you trying to get to, what is it that you're looking for when you're asking questions? What process are you going through? Yeah, usually I am following my own curiosity. So if something, if someone has experienced any type of sudden change, I'm very interested in why that change took place.

So I'll explore that. I might ask someone, if you look back, say, at your business over the last five, ten years, were there any specific decisions you made that you view in retrospect as really critical? Or was there anything you said no to, that you were tempted to say yes to, that made all the difference? Was there something you were told you had to do, that everyone told you you should do, that you decided not to do? Was there anything like that?

I like to explore the good decisions, but I also really like to explore how people deal with hardship and failure and darkness. So I really try to, when I'm talking to anyone, no matter how successful they may be, if I'm interviewing Richard Branson or interviewing, it really doesn't matter. Any type of icon who might be thought of as this perfect superstar, I know they're not. No one's perfect. And so I will ask them, rather than just going through the highlight reel, we'll talk about the

highlights. But I'll say, could you take us back? People may listen to this and think that you've got it all figured out and that you haven't had your tough times. Could you take us to a tough time or a period that you suffered from depression or where you thought it was all over and walk us through what you said to yourself, walk us through who helped you and how they helped you. Like, how did you get out of that funk? I'm very interested in that because I think those are the, that is when some of the most critical decisions are made. And so it's like if everything's lining up, it's really easy to be supportive of someone else or supportive of yourself.

But when things start going sideways, when maybe you slip, maybe you relapse, maybe who knows, you're paying too much attention to your business and you're not paying enough attention to your kids and your kids make some really terrible decisions. It's like, all right, how do you, we're all going to fuck up.

It's like, all right, how do you then respond to that going to fuck up. It's like, all right, how do you, how do you then respond to that? Fuck up is more interesting than the question. Have you fucked up? Because the answer is obviously yes. The more interesting question to me is like, all right, you fucked up. Now what happens? And so certainly in a different context, but you know, I've, I've beaten myself up horribly in my whole life.

I've had a very sort of mixed relationship with myself and have been very, very brutal with myself just in terms of self-talk for the majority of my life. And I've only in the last few years realized how unproductive, counterproductive that can be. And so the way now externally, if you're watching me respond to a mistake, it might look the same as it did five years ago, but what's going on in my head is very different. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so what I try to do then, if I'm interviewing someone is to ask them to help me step into their head to see what's going on behind the scenes. Or if they're afraid, when they're most nervous, right? If they're a championship fighter and they're getting ready for the biggest fight of their life, like what are they saying in their head as they're walking out to the octagon? After months of training and like their entire career is on the line

and they could have their head caved in, like what are they actually saying in their own head when they're listening to their music walking out? These are the types of questions that I've been exploring more and more in the last few years because I think that you can learn from a real fighter like, say, Tim Kennedy, also a Green Beret sniper. I mean, just an incredible guy. You can take lessons from him and apply it to business. You can take lessons from business and apply it to military in some cases. You can take lessons from chess and apply it to working with people in the yard, I'm sure, in some cases. And vice versa, perhaps. So usually I'm digging for the internal process and trying to find phrases or

questions or concepts that can be applied to a lot of different things. Okay. That's very often what I'm, what I'm looking for. Yeah. Yeah. That that's, that'd be my first stab at it.

Okay. Something like that. All my first stab at it. Okay. Something like that. All right. And also to dig out the humanity in someone. So it's to encourage people to be vulnerable when they can be or to push to a point where they're at least a little uncomfortable. I think that's when interesting things happen. Not in the sense of pushing yourself closer to, say, a red line situation. Not pushing in that direction.

But I remember interviewing this woman named Brene Brown, who's a researcher. And she studied a lot related to shame and vulnerability and related topics. And she said something to me that had a really big impact. She said, we often, and I'm paraphrasing, but she said, very often we think that we need to develop trust with someone and then we can be vulnerable. And she said, but very often it's the opposite way around. You have to be vulnerable first before someone will trust you. And that really stuck with me. And in any case, but I'm trying to find some of the connective tissue and these commonalities that can apply anywhere.

It's like if humans are humans, which by and large, I think it's certainly the case. And like whether you go to the middle of nowhere in the jungles of like Borneo or you're in New York City or you're in here or you're anywhere else, like the same type of pain, the same need for purpose and meaning, like it's all there.

It's universal. So I try to tease out hopefully things that people can apply in any of those contexts. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Uh, well, let's see. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm struggling with, uh, I think this is a pretty natural place to start to maybe wrap up a bit, but, uh, do you guys have anything that you would like to ask or say to people who are listening? Maybe not ask, but as I said before earlier, my change came through really education.

It really opened my eyes. Credit-wise, I have enough college credits or I have the equal amount of credits that someone halfway through their masters would have but I can't achieve that because there is no funding for post-secondary four year

graduate degree levels so you know I'm hoping that some legislation will gain some traction that would give the opportunity for individuals in our circumstances to, you know, apply themselves and earn, you know, higher degrees. I would just say, I guess it's kind of an ask. It would be something like, you know, please don't write us off in prison. We've made some really, really bad choices.

Absolutely. And we are responsible and we are accountable for those and nothing can take them back. But that doesn't mean that we can't change and do better. And I think a lot of times from what you see on TV and what you hear about most often, hard time, lock up, shows like that, it's kind of painted in light that there's no hope for people in here. And that's really not the case. We see it. I hope that you come to see it. I hope people listening will hear it and just don't give up on people inside prison. If I could say anything to anyone out there, it would be that I find myself now in a place where I actually have meaning in my life and I feel like I'm bringing value to other people.

But that's mostly because of my community in here and because of my family and friends on the streets who never gave up. So for anybody who has someone in their life that's struggling, I would just say don't give up on them. Hold them accountable, but continue to give them hope and try to provide them tools and opportunities to where they can make a change and start making some good decisions. Because you just never know who that person can really become. So just don't give up. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, on the inside or the outside, right?

I think those are good rules, good recommendations. And it's – I mean, I consider it a real privilege to share time with you guys because, I mean, if I think about it, right? I mean, you have the opportunity potentially. It's like if you build up a, to get to that 51% potentially, right? And beyond. But if you have, if you develop this, your own program, right? Of sorts,

and you have your approach to helping people develop this meaning and this hope and also tilt just slightly in the positive direction, in a more positive direction. It doesn't have to mean they become Mother Teresa overnight,

which is pretty unlikely, but just like one degree better, right? That one degree, it's like you start off here, and if you change your position walking, say, one or five degrees in a different direction, like you walk 10 feet, it doesn't seem like that far away. You walk 100 feet, okay, now it's quite a bit of a distance away. And then you walk a few miles, now it's completely different destinations, right? So that initial change can make a huge difference ultimately. And it strikes me that well after you guys have

left this place, you could leave a legacy of people who continue to do that, right? Potentially, right? That's the goal. Right? So you have kind of like senior class teaches the junior class, teaches the sophomore class. And I mean, that's a really meaningful legacy. So long as there's no alumni coming back. So as long as there are no alumni reunions.

That's right. The graduation with no reunions. Right. Well, guys, I really appreciate you taking the time. And I certainly wish you all the best with everything that you're working to build inside yourselves and outside. Thank you. Keep it up with the podcast. Thank you for coming on the Kern Valley 180 podcast.

We're your hosts. Hey, good luck on your podcast, Tim. Yeah, I'm sure it'll take off one day. I hear you could be like us with tens of hours of experience. Yeah, I hear it's strangling a little bit out there. Now that you got the big interview out of the way. That's right. The elephant in the room is gone. So I think we should get back to the excitement across the yard.

So you guys want to give your names one more time? Jason Holland. Ian Viatoro. across the yard so uh you guys want to give your names one more time jason holland ian viatoro but you forget for a second i'm sorry i have to disclose right my my my name is gillian but it's so strange and odd that everyone just calls me ian so i got it's gillian viatoro but it's ian viatoro and i'm brand. All right. Gentlemen, thank you so much. And keep it up. Thank you. You too. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is

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