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14 years in Prison to Justice Reform Rock Star - Louis L Reed · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:01
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
0:04
Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy. Welcome to the Nightmare Success
0:07
In and Out podcast, where we explore how to overcome your
0:10
fears and nightmares that set yourself free.
0:13
We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
0:16
Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
0:20
These stories can be inspiring, sometimes.
0:22
Sad. There's some humor, but
0:25
hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something that'll
0:28
help you knock down some of the prisons you built up in your own
0:31
mind. All right, Welcome back,
0:36
nightmare, success, setting out, listeners.
0:39
We're back. And this is where you all come
0:42
for the stuff, where what happens when your worst fear
0:45
becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive.
0:48
Overcome, set yourself free? Well, I got to tell you guys,
0:53
you know, when I started this show, you know, there's certain
0:57
people that you think, OK, I'd really like to have that guy on
0:59
this show. And I'm on, I don't know, 100
1:03
and 102 interviews here and Lewis and I were finally able to
1:08
connect up. But Lewis L Reid is, I don't
1:15
know. I I kind of think that if you
1:17
were talking about the justice reform movement, you'd be
1:20
talking about a rock star in the movement.
1:24
And what I mean by that is that we in this arena, the society
1:29
that we're in, us that have gone to prison, there are people who
1:33
are making things happen. And Lewis is one of those guys.
1:37
He spent 14 years in federal prison, and when he got out, he
1:41
did nothing but just take action.
1:43
His leadership has led to the passage of more than 30 state
1:48
and federal bills, including creating the biggest grassroots
1:51
movement of the national of of of creating an advocacy group
1:58
for the First Step Back in 2018. Lewis has created a pathway to
2:04
freedom for 650,000 plus people affected by the criminal justice
2:08
system. He's consulted with the White
2:11
House, Department of Justice, Fortune 100 corporations, state
2:17
federal agencies. You might have just seen Louis
2:21
last month on the cover of LA Weekly, and it was talking about
2:24
who to follow, the top five entrepreneurs to follow.
2:29
Louis is also the producer of Hulu's unprison series.
2:32
If anybody's seen that, it's a great series.
2:35
Of course he's an author of the book 9 Steps to Fall Up When You
2:38
Trip Down. And I went on his website, and I
2:43
love this quote from Louis. I'm going to go ahead and give
2:49
it to you because it's so good. Human potential is absolutely
2:54
amazing. It can produce destiny out of
2:58
disaster, miracles out of mistakes, purpose out of pain
3:04
and strength out of struggles. That's deep.
3:09
That's good stuff. And it's stuff that Lewis is
3:12
doing right now. I can't wait to jump into this
3:16
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3:59
Success sent you Louis L Reed Welcome to Nightmare Success.
4:07
How you doing man? My brother, it's good to be on
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with you man. I am so looking forward to our
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conversation over the next few. Bleeding moments.
4:16
But I'm certain that it's going to be transformative.
4:21
It is. And and really, you know, Louis,
4:25
the things that you've done since you've gotten out has been
4:29
that way. I mean you I was on a a call the
4:35
other day and it was with people who had been just as impacted
4:39
and and they were talking about the whole impostor syndrome.
4:42
You know, if I take this action, do I do even deserve to be here,
4:47
you know, and and am I am I supposed to be sitting around
4:50
this table? And I think the reason why
4:52
people like me get inspired of people like you is that you're
5:00
like, yeah, yeah, I should be sitting around that table.
5:04
Yeah. If I'm not sitting around that
5:05
table, those are not going to be the decisions that need to be
5:08
made. The only right decisions to be
5:10
made are the people that have been affected by it and but it
5:13
takes a lot of courage, you know, to to stand up and push
5:20
your way through that and and get into that round table.
5:28
I think that it takes even more courage, Brent, to sit down at a
5:38
table, whether that's a literal and or figurative table.
5:41
You talk about the things that I've done since I've been
5:44
incarcerated and while that stuff very well may have been
5:46
impressive I want to point back to the things that in effect
5:54
weren't as weren't as illuminated.
5:58
We haven't been spent 14 years in federal prison with that
6:02
experience was like for me it's it's interesting just this
6:06
Sunday past I was at service, worship service.
6:10
And the preacher was preaching about how there are good things
6:15
that grow in the dark. And often times when you think
6:18
about darkness, you don't necessarily think about things
6:23
that can grow in darkness, because there is a degree of
6:30
light that needs to shine in that darkness.
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But my words, not necessarily the preacher's words.
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One of the things that I've realized is that darkness is a
6:39
precursor for light. Not to proselytize any of our
6:43
listeners, but when you think about Genesis, in the beginning
6:48
there was darkness. The darkness hovered over the
6:50
face of the deep and God spoke, and then there was light.
6:55
When you think about the greatest, even when you think of
6:58
literally birthright, we're in in a state of darkness in the in
7:02
the womb of our mother before we passed through the birth canal
7:06
and we experienced light on this side of life.
7:09
And so while I was in darkness, the darkness in the womb of a of
7:16
a prison cell or the Crucible of a federal prison sentence, I was
7:21
working on what that light was going to look like for me.
7:25
I was working on my education. I was working on my emotional
7:29
intelligence. I was working on my social iqi
7:33
was looking around corners and I was looking down the quarters of
7:37
life, so to speak. Even if it was a pinhole of
7:41
light, so long as it was something that was shining into
7:45
that darkness, that is what I was looking for.
7:48
And so. Yeah, yeah.
7:50
And so the closer that, you know, the longer that I begin to
7:54
walk and the closer that I, I begin to walk towards that
7:57
pinhole of light, it got larger and larger.
8:00
And So what people are seeing on this side of life, on this side
8:05
of society, is an effect. Maturation of what was already
8:10
cooking in the oven I like. That on the other side.
8:16
And so you know when we talk about imposter syndrome and when
8:20
we talk about you know pushing past in order to be in the be
8:26
able to get into rooms, people have been just as impacted.
8:29
We have no compunction about pushing past things, right.
8:32
We had to push back past adversity in order to be able to
8:35
get out now that we're home. Now that we're out of the system
8:40
now, it's a matter of with my mind playing tricks on me, like
8:44
the great philosopher the Ghetto Boy said in their 1992 songs.
8:50
Yes, I am old enough to remember it right, but but but the thing
8:54
about it is that in all actuality, what you're talking
8:58
about at its core is trauma. It's it's the fear of being
9:03
rejected, the fear of not being enough.
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You got more degrees than a thermometer.
9:08
You can probably arguably be the sharpest person in the room, but
9:11
because you have this notion, this, this proverbial boogeyman
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either in front of you, on the side of you, or in back of you,
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saying that because you have this conviction, this societal
9:22
scarlet letter, you will never be enough, you start to buy into
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that notion that I guess I am not enough.
9:28
I'm not enough to sit down at this table even though I have
9:32
been invited to the room, even though I pressed past all of the
9:35
adversities in order to get in this room.
9:37
I may not necessarily be enough to be a contributor into this
9:41
particular space. Such a good point.
9:43
And Glenn Martin, couple episodes ago, was talking about
9:47
being invited by Obama to the White House and he thought I
9:53
made it. This is my moment going into the
9:56
Oval Office. He gets pulled aside, told to
10:00
sit down, and then all of a sudden starts feeling like
10:03
prison. You know he's he's he's singled
10:07
out not told anything is what happens.
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In prison, they don't tell you anything in prison.
10:12
They just you you find out what the next step is.
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So he sits there and he doesn't. He's the guy that's invited.
10:19
He's the he he's the guy that's supposed to speak and he waits
10:24
and the Secret Service person sits there and finally this
10:29
young intern comes out. She says, oh, Mr. Jones.
10:31
She said, I I'm so sorry you had to wait and and come please come
10:34
with me and and so they and so they can't.
10:38
He said I'm not Mr. Jones. I'm Mr. Martin.
10:40
I'm supposed to be meeting with the president and this intern
10:44
was able to take him to where he was supposed to be.
10:48
But he was singled out because of his conviction.
10:54
And you know, he wrote a letter after that and it made it into
10:58
the Wall Street Journal. And and actually, I give a lot
11:01
of credit to President Obama making a phone call back to
11:04
Glenn and say, hey, listen, that was really bad.
11:07
You know, I, I advised you here the protocol was something.
11:10
I didn't know I've changed the protocol.
11:13
But it just, it was such a moment in time of what really
11:17
happens, you know, that this is a lifetime thing.
11:21
And talking about a lifetime thing, Louis, your story is so
11:26
interesting because what really caught me, you know, going and
11:30
doing the research on you is that one of the things you talk
11:35
about is I'm not sure about second chance.
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I'm not sure about that word because what if I didn't get a
11:41
first chance? What if I just want a fair
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chance? And can you kind of let us into
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your childhood and growing up? Because it wasn't easy.
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It was one of those things that you really had to work through.
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And I mean, you're where you're at now because of who you are
12:00
now. But give us some insight into
12:03
growing up as Louis L Reed, Yeah.
12:07
Well, before I do that, I do want to preamble what my life
12:12
experience has been with this notion.
12:15
You can't enumerate grace, right?
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When we're talking about a second chance, that's decoded to
12:22
say that this person needs grace, right?
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I mean, so you can't put, you can't quantify what Grace is.
12:30
I'm certain that there's people who are listening to this who
12:33
very well may be watching us. And if you look back over the
12:37
last 24 hours of your life, there was a degree of grace that
12:41
was probably immeasurable that you were in operation through.
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We all need Grace. And so I'm talking about moving
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away from this notion of Second chance.
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I'm actually talking about pivoting us.
12:55
To reimagine what a fair chance may look like, right.
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So when you say a second chance, to me that means that there was
13:02
a first opportunity that I had. You may say, well, you are the
13:06
one who committed the crime. You are the one who did this.
13:09
So you had, you had just as much of an opportunity as everyone
13:13
else did. I really right.
13:17
When you look at where I I grew up at Segwaying into my
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experience. Both of my parents were
13:23
incarcerated. When I'm five years old, they do
13:25
federal prison time. When my parents come home.
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When I'm approximately 10 years old, I'm raised by my maternal
13:30
grandmother. Here is the intersection of
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crack cocaine, hip hop, and my mother being released to a world
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that was that looks starkly different than what it did 5-5
13:45
years prior. And so, not only did my mother's
13:48
life. Become diminished by a federal
13:53
prison sentence, but here it is. It's also diminished by
13:56
substance abuse as well. I am 13 years old.
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My sister is shot in her face. She loses her eye by her then
14:05
boyfriend who sees she subsequently has a child by
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approximately 2. Two to three years later, when
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I'm 14 years old, I get shot in my chest, critically injured,
14:16
where I had to relearn how to walk again over a $3 crack
14:19
cocaine drug deal. By a guy who at the time was 25
14:23
years old. When I was 15 years old, my good
14:29
friend of mine who's relatively some years older than me, he was
14:32
shot six times in his face and head, approximately 7 feet away
14:37
from where I was. But the story doesn't stop here.
14:39
The soccer continues. When I'm 16 years old, my first
14:43
cousin, who happened to be 16 himself, is shot and killed 32
14:49
times. He was shot.
14:50
In front of his mother because he was dancing in a party with
14:55
some girl whose boyfriend was jealous that that happened.
14:59
But the saga continues. And so in between the age of
15:02
approximately 16 to 2122 years old, I'm in deeply involved in
15:08
criminal enterprising trafficking heroin, trafficking
15:11
crack cocaine, involved in various elements of the street.
15:18
And then when I am approximately 21 years old, I participate in a
15:22
drive by shooting over a robbery.
15:26
Someone stepped me up where in that shooting I inadvertently
15:30
shot a then five year old child in the attempt to harm the
15:36
person who who stepped me up. And so when you think about the
15:41
chance that I had before, there was this.
15:45
Palatable term called the school to prison pipeline.
15:48
What exposure? What what, what?
15:51
What? What?
15:51
What? What starting point for success
15:53
did someone like Lewis have when he was five years old?
15:58
What did it do to my psyche, to to to my my, my fragile naivete
16:06
at the age of five years old, where I begin to look at the
16:10
system with a degree of distrust?
16:12
When I begin to look at police officers and social workers as
16:17
the enemy. Because every time they showed
16:19
up in our neighborhood, it was the wrong thing.
16:22
Louisa, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna break up that a little bit
16:27
because I think there's such a powerful thing that happens when
16:30
you're shot and I think you're, I don't can't remember what age
16:33
you are. And your dad throws you in the
16:35
car and you're rushing to the hospital and they pull your dad
16:41
over because he's speeding. And this is something I don't
16:45
think people understand about probation and and how people are
16:49
thrown back into the system because normal life happens.
16:55
He's literally trying to get his kid to the hospital.
16:58
His son who's been shot, he's worried that you're going to not
17:01
make it. He gets pulled over.
17:03
And because he's on probation and because he's speeding, he's
17:08
taken into custody and thrown back into the system.
17:11
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
17:13
And thereby further reinforcing that degree of distance right,
17:21
that I have with the system. It further reinforces this
17:27
notion about US against them. Survival of the fittest it is.
17:33
I'm dealing with the trauma of having been critically injured,
17:39
life literally hanging in the balance.
17:42
And my dad is remanded into custody because he's under
17:47
supervision at that time. And so back to this notion about
17:50
grace, and back to this notion about second chance, and back to
17:53
this notion about fair chance. Fair chance, in all actuality,
17:57
is grace, disguise, and the opportunity for people who have
18:04
been locked out of a system, locked out of systems, locked
18:09
out of opportunities. To be able to unlock that door
18:13
and allow them to go, look, we're not saying that they need
18:16
an easy pass, right? We're not saying that, you know,
18:19
we we want them to stop at the toll.
18:21
We want them to be able to pay the appropriate fare.
18:24
But that fear should not be excessive.
18:28
That fear should not be a a tax beyond anybody else who's in
18:33
society simply because they have a registration.
18:38
That very well may come in the likeness.
18:41
Of a Department of Correction and or Federal Bureau of Prisons
18:45
registration number. So Louis, when when you went
18:49
through all those years of trauma and and seeing things
18:55
happen as they happen because you were born into that
18:58
experience, when you're sentenced and your nightmare
19:05
happens that you're going into the federal system, what's
19:10
what's, what are you thinking? What is your world thinking in
19:16
your mind at that age? Yeah.
19:18
And so quite frankly, you know, I was facing maximum of 80 years
19:26
total in the state and federal and at that time my future was
19:31
very bleak. I didn't know how I was going to
19:34
do the amount of time that was levied.
19:39
In theory against me, I knew that I did not want to lose my
19:43
grandmother while I was incarcerated.
19:45
I knew that if something happened to her, I was more than
19:49
likely going to commit suicide because I just could not imagine
19:53
in a world where I had experienced my grandmother for
19:58
20 plus, you know, yeah, she took care of me, right?
20:03
And so when I think about it, when I thought when I at that
20:06
time, I just couldn't. I couldn't see my way clear.
20:09
It's almost like having those beer glasses on.
20:12
You know that the beer glasses, you try to walk, right?
20:16
There's nothing clear. There's no clarity, there's no
20:19
crystallization. But you try to play the game
20:22
anyway. And so my equilibrium was off.
20:26
I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I didn't know one of
20:31
two things. Number one, I knew that my faith
20:36
in God was growing. And last I checked, my Bible
20:41
told me that all things happen for the good of those who love
20:47
God and are called according to his purpose.
20:51
I had developed a relationship. I was growing in a relationship
20:54
with God while I was incarcerated, and I knew I had
20:57
purpose. I had a sneaking suspicion that
20:59
I had purpose. I didn't know what it was, but I
21:01
knew that I had purpose. That's the first thing.
21:03
The second thing is that I had the unwavering support of family
21:06
and friends. That's big.
21:08
I mean that's big Lewis at that time to to be because you were
21:11
looking at what, 16 years, 60, yeah, I got sentenced ultimately
21:16
to 16 years federal prison. But I was.
21:19
I had. AI was facing a maximum of
21:20
approximately 80 years, I should say.
21:23
Yeah. And and it's when you get into
21:26
the federal system that can be really scary on how they stack
21:31
charges because you know, you and I are on.
21:34
Different sides of the you, you, you were in your world and I was
21:37
in my world. My was a business world.
21:39
So in my business world they could just stack.
21:42
OK, you've been in business for 30 years.
21:44
So we can go every time you put something in the mail, every
21:47
time you wired something and then anything you ever did
21:50
because this is deemed to be wrong, is money laundering.
21:55
So when I was looking at going to trial, I was looking at 940
21:59
years, so in in. The federal system, they can do
22:04
and stack and create anything that they to push you to the
22:10
point and that's why you have the 97% in the federal system
22:13
that those indicted are playing and going that way.
22:20
I just want to just under score point that you're making 97%,
22:24
you said 97% right. Do you realize that Michael
22:27
Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time, and Kobe
22:31
Bryant, who arguably probably is the second greatest greatest
22:34
basketball player of all time, did not have a combined shooting
22:38
percentage of 97? Oh God no.
22:41
They didn't have a combined win percentage of 97.
22:44
Percent. So you talk about 97%.
22:47
A 97% win rate is in effect, in effect, unheard of unless there
22:53
is something that is being stabbed.
22:56
Right. Great point.
22:59
Great point. You don't want to.
23:01
I I I I've said this more times than I should have.
23:04
But I had one of my guests on here said that going against the
23:09
federal government is like your beer softball league getting to
23:13
play the LA Dodgers. It's just not going to end up
23:18
good. I might have to use that, I hope
23:19
it's not. Copyrighted.
23:21
Well, I and and I I also, you know you, Lewis, you and I were
23:25
talking before we got on, but. One of the one of the greatest
23:29
speeches that I 'cause I follow this stuff and and and and get
23:33
inspired by different pieces. You gave one of the greatest, I
23:37
think analogies in your Ted talk of and I think it's called is it
23:44
called trapdoors, Big trapdoor. Yeah, the big trapdoor.
23:49
Yeah, shattering the big trapdoor.
23:53
And what a great analogy. Because you you.
23:56
I don't want to give away what you've taken.
23:58
Everybody can go to that. But it was all about the fact
24:01
that somebody falls down when they're starting their their
24:05
race and the whole stadium. When that person falls down and
24:09
that person gets back up and they start the race back again.
24:14
Not giving up. Everybody's behind them.
24:17
Everybody's like, wow, that. That person's they got grit,
24:20
they've got potential, they don't give up.
24:22
They're everything. And then you give that analogy
24:27
back to let's talk about the race of life of that person that
24:30
starts at the the starting line and they fall down.
24:34
But the difference is that they have to go back to the starting
24:37
line to start the race over. And then when they start in
24:41
their lane, all of a sudden these trap doors start opening
24:44
and they can't see when they're gonna trap and fall in and what
24:49
does the audience think of that? And, and I think it's one of the
24:53
greatest analogies of. The system of how do you get
24:58
past all that? But I want to go back to where
25:01
you are as a 2122 year old. You're going into a federal
25:06
system, You've got a lot of time.
25:11
What? What is the young Lewis thinking
25:13
going into the federal system? I am.
25:19
I think I have youthful arrogance.
25:24
I had never been in a controlled environment as such, never been
25:30
on a structure as such, and so I had a hard time with authority.
25:35
I think that if you were going to code this from a
25:37
psychological perspective, you would probably say that I had
25:40
oppositional defiance disorder. You will come up with this order
25:43
for everything. But I had youthful, youthful
25:46
arrogance. And I can tell you that for the
25:50
first five years or so, my time in federal prison was topsy
25:55
turvy. I was in and out of solitary
25:58
confinement. I was, you know, racketeering
26:03
while I was incarcerated. And it was around year six.
26:10
Brent, I never forget this. There was a guy who was doing
26:13
time where I got sentenced to about 30 years and this guy was
26:19
the resident of preacher of this sort.
26:23
He and I remember I used to be fascinated by the way that he
26:28
could articulate a message, not even from a spiritual
26:33
perspective, but just from a just from a grammatically
26:39
profound way. And I remember, you know, he,
26:45
for whatever reason, he had taken a liking to me.
26:49
And one day we were out in the yard.
26:52
And before I listen to the audience, when you're on the
26:54
yard, that is the equivalent if you are in your workplace of
27:00
congregating in the break room. Or that's a careful Yeah, it's
27:05
it's, it's a place. For those listening down the
27:06
Cayman Islands, this is, this is where you gather.
27:10
Yeah, yeah, this is, this is where you socialize and got it.
27:13
So we're on the yard and I'm socializing and fraternizing
27:17
with the Connecticut folks. And I remember the guy walked
27:20
right up to me and he said Canali, That's what they called
27:23
me. He's at Canali.
27:25
Let me talk to you. Why'd they call you that, Louis?
27:28
That was my street name. OK yeah I got named after that
27:32
by this guy who he he wore suits and he's like man you smooth he.
27:38
Takes your mind. You're like Canali.
27:40
Yeah, he's like you. Just remind me.
27:42
Like one of my suits, man. He's like you.
27:43
You. You're young, but you're sharp.
27:45
You're smooth. OK, so that's a good nickname.
27:49
That's a good prison. Yeah.
27:50
Yeah, So. So he walked up to me and he's
27:55
like, look, he's like, how long are you going to keep wasting
27:57
your potential? I said, what do you mean?
28:01
He said I'll walk by you every day.
28:03
I see you have a version of the same conversations with the same
28:06
people. We cycle in the same stories.
28:09
And he said, you're anchored in your history and you're not
28:13
focused on your destiny. And I can tell you it was almost
28:18
like a convergence of like, spirituality.
28:24
Like this intellectual door opens up in my my mind also on
28:30
or around the same time. Incidentally, I had a
28:32
conversation with John Gotti Junior while I was in car.
28:37
He and I, we happen to be walking the track.
28:40
And when we walk the track, he would always walk the track
28:46
counterclockwise. No, I'm sorry.
28:48
I would walk the track counterclockwise.
28:50
After I had that conversation with with the guy, his name was
28:53
Herb, I would walk the track counterclockwise.
28:55
And one day he walked up to me. He said, he said hey Canal, he's
28:59
like, hey, let me ask you a question.
29:00
He said, how come you walk the track counterclockwise?
29:03
And I said, I'm training myself. He said training yourself Hop,
29:08
he said. And I told him, I said I'm
29:11
training myself so that I can go against the grain when I get
29:14
home. I like that.
29:16
But then he said, What are you going against the grains doing?
29:19
What do? You do.
29:21
And he said he started, he started, he started
29:24
interrogating me. He said, what are you going to
29:26
do, right? And he said, let me ask you a
29:29
question. He said when you came in, he
29:30
said how much money did you have?
29:31
And I told him he had a few $100,000.
29:33
He said who took it? I said the feds.
29:35
He said you had any properties. I said yeah, he said that was
29:37
smart. He said who took it?
29:38
He said the feds. He said you had a few
29:40
girlfriends. I said, yeah, I had a few
29:41
girlfriends. He said took them.
29:43
I said the feds didn't take them.
29:44
He's like, ah, you got the feds, take them away.
29:47
I said, yeah, that's true. He said, you know the one thing
29:50
that the brothers never realized?
29:53
I said, what's that? He said the one thing that feds
29:55
can never take from you is an education.
30:00
And this is shortly after I had this conversation with her from
30:03
her about the time. You're getting double in this is
30:06
This is you know we're we're cooking with crystal.
30:09
Right now. And it was it was one of those
30:12
moments where the combination of that, this and the third.
30:18
Was it a switch? I mean, was it total a switch
30:21
that went on? Yeah, it was.
30:22
There was a switch. It was a recalibration.
30:24
And I remember kind of like going trying to go back out to
30:29
the yard and people having a version of the same
30:32
conversations that they were having over the last five years.
30:36
And I said no, I need, I don't need to be focused.
30:38
You're looking at it differently, right?
30:39
I started looking at it differently and that was that
30:42
was my transform. That was my.
30:43
Transformation that's so interesting, Lewis, because it's
30:45
so I've I've, I hear those stories and it's so fascinating
30:53
when that happens because in a place like the yard to think
30:59
that those two things happened. For someone who's kind of
31:05
looking out for you and sees promise in you and sees
31:09
potential in you, that's one thing.
31:13
But the other thing is, is you have to believe it, that they,
31:16
they are saying it to you and that you have to grab on to it,
31:20
Yeah. And So what do you do after
31:23
that? After that, I just It was a
31:26
quest. It was a quest for education.
31:28
It was a quest to distance myself from the monotony.
31:34
I've worked in UNICORP, UNICORP, Federal prisons, industry.
31:39
That is the most premium job that you can have when you are
31:42
incarcerated on a federal level. I work myself up from a quality
31:47
assurance inspector to being the administrative clerk for the
31:51
associate warden. There was a person who gave me
31:56
an opportunity to bet on me, who was somebody else who was
31:58
incarcerated, who was my mentor, Not only just my spiritual
32:02
mentor, but my work mentor as well, who in effect cosigned for
32:07
me to the quality assurance manager at the time.
32:11
Her name was Mary Valley, who took a gamble on me for me to be
32:14
her clerk. And then I continued to just
32:17
elevate in my in my UNICOR career.
32:20
There I worked Payroll Quality Assurance.
32:23
Unicor is a big deal. I mean, you know it, there's a
32:26
lot of people that work there. Yeah, when I came home, I came
32:29
home with Brent with almost 1010 grand.
32:31
Yeah, no, I mean, I mean it's it's a factory of, it's a
32:36
private and and government owned situation where they they bring
32:41
all this stuff in and it's all taken apart and sold off I guess
32:45
is what they eventually do to it.
32:47
But it comes out of all these federal buildings and.
32:51
From furniture to computers to CVS to everything you can
32:56
imagine even, I mean even some of the telephone cases or yeah,
33:01
the electronic cases that you may get the packaging that
33:04
that's produced in Unicor. But the other good thing about
33:07
UNICOR is is it was a good place to see first run movies because
33:11
whoever was running UNICOR could always figure out how to figure
33:15
how to beat the system and get down to Saturday night so you
33:19
can see a first run movie. And I never understood how they
33:22
could do that in UNICOR, but it was always figured out.
33:24
Yeah. Yeah, very sure.
33:27
So, so, Louis, you. You basically start building a
33:31
new life for yourself in prison. Yep.
33:37
Was it because you? You, you hang with, you know,
33:41
your car in prison and you hang with certain people in prison.
33:45
Was it hard to break away from these guys where you were with
33:49
and Oh my God, Louis, what's he doing?
33:52
Not at all, Not at all. Not at all.
33:54
I've always been one of those people where I kind of, like,
33:57
did things in my own way and I've been a leader in my own
33:59
right. And while I I enjoyed the
34:04
fraternization that I had with the people who from Connecticut,
34:08
Ultimately, when I embarked on my, you know, journey for
34:14
education and when I wanted to grow spiritually, those folks
34:19
had no compunction. Like, I still was who I was,
34:21
right? Like I my personality was still
34:23
the same. I didn't necessarily kind of
34:26
like distance myself from them speak, but they knew that I was
34:30
focused in a different way. I I just had a different I I had
34:34
a different focus. Were you connected to the
34:36
outside like were were your family, your friends?
34:39
Did you did you have that connection?
34:41
Yeah, I saw my family. I saw my children.
34:43
Every other, yeah. Every other week while I was
34:47
incarcerated, my family would come up.
34:49
Whether it was, you know, sister, cousin, children,
34:54
etcetera. I would see them every other
34:56
week, the entire time that I was incarcerated.
34:59
And Louis, I think that's one of the bigger things, because I I
35:02
too had that. I have three daughters and my
35:04
wife and she, she's the one that should wear the Cape and the
35:08
superhero outfit because she came every weekend and she one
35:14
of the other kids that she would bring because they were in
35:16
college and they were passing through and she'd pick one of
35:18
them up. Being able to I think, to stay
35:21
plugged into the outside makes it.
35:24
I don't think I I'm always going to always going to throw out the
35:27
word easier. I think it makes it more
35:30
functional for you to go out to the outside because you're not.
35:34
Because I think that what happens is, and it happens to a
35:36
lot of people and and one of the sad things that happens in a
35:39
prison, you see people who lose everything, they not only lose
35:43
what they have, but they lose their family.
35:45
And so they become further and further removed from the
35:49
outside. And in that further removal from
35:52
the outside, they become more institutionalized.
35:55
They transformed by what their environment is dictating.
35:59
And so they lose themselves. They you're not only you don't
36:04
only lose your freedom, but you lose a sense of identity the
36:09
further you get away from society.
36:11
Hence the reason why that familial contact and connection
36:16
is so integral. Well and.
36:22
And Louis, when you mention mention institutionalized, I
36:25
mean you can see something crazy happening where a guy is five
36:27
months out to the door and he puts hands on a guard.
36:32
And the reason why he does it is because he doesn't.
36:34
He's he's so comfortable in his ugly routine of being in prison
36:39
that he's afraid of freedom because he's so far removed from
36:42
it. Yeah.
36:44
You know it's it's one of those things where dysfunctional
36:46
becomes functional and functional becomes
36:47
dysfunctional. It's a version of like Stockholm
36:50
syndrome where you just kind of like want to not leave the
36:55
safety of what it is that you have been.
36:59
Yeah. Hey Brett, just as an FY of a
37:02
small a slight programming note, I don't have my charger with me
37:05
and my my computer is only on 10%.
37:08
So, you know, we probably don't have to power through this a
37:11
little bit. Faster, we'll power through.
37:14
This is one of the first times I've had to do that.
37:16
So we've got 10% to work on. All right.
37:19
So let's let's get to you getting close to the door.
37:23
What are what are you thinking, Lewis?
37:25
What are you thinking after you've been in, like, am I
37:29
thinking I'm going out there to conquer the world or good God,
37:32
how am I getting out there? Yeah, So here's the thing.
37:36
I lost my nephew six months prior to me being released from
37:39
federal prison. And so everything that I had
37:43
developed, everything that I have learned, everything that I
37:45
have worked on up to that point was a it was a test.
37:52
It was a test I went through. It was the darkest period,
37:55
arguably, of my life, if not my incarceration.
38:00
And I slipped into a depression. And it wasn't until, you know,
38:05
approximately, I don't know, three months prior to me being
38:08
released from incarceration that I was able to kind of like
38:11
recalibrate. And so, you know, I'm looking
38:14
forward to the plan, my plan of action.
38:18
What was my plan of action? I knew that I wanted to do Human
38:21
Services. I knew that I wanted to be able
38:23
to give back and help people who were transitioning out of the
38:27
the space that I was currently in.
38:28
And so I begin to think about what my plan was going to be.
38:32
Everything that I had worked on up to that moment.
38:34
I wanted to be able to execute with with with surgical
38:38
precision when I was released from incarceration.
38:41
Which is pretty amazing, because that's exactly what you did.
38:45
You you you got out and started taking action on your plan
38:50
pretty much immediately. I mean, you did some incredible.
38:54
I mean, stuff that people don't do in Connecticut immediately.
39:01
Yeah. Look, one of the things, you
39:02
know that the abridged version of it is that I was released
39:04
from a federal prison, springboarded my career in Human
39:07
Services as a case manager. I went on to be the program
39:11
manager for Connecticut's largest, largest permanent
39:14
supportive housing program. From there in my career elevated
39:17
where I convinced the largest city in the state of Connecticut
39:19
that they needed a government office for re entry affairs.
39:23
I was in that position for about 2 1/2 years.
39:25
We replicated the model throughout the country and other
39:28
major cities. Kansas City, Los Angeles,
39:31
Chicago, Detroit, LA, New York, etcetera.
39:35
Won an award by the US Conference of Mayors for best re
39:38
entry practices. And then I was re arrested in
39:40
part for child support areas that accrued while I was
39:42
incarcerated. Slipped into a clinical
39:45
depression through Glenn Martin. This is the first time I'm
39:48
talking about this publicly through Glenn Martin.
39:51
He introduced me to James Jones. Yeah, well, I was introduced to
39:57
just leadership prior to prior to conceptualizing the the
40:06
Mayor's Office for Reentry Affairs.
40:08
Actually, it was my introduction to into just leadership that
40:12
helped me. Refine that proposal.
40:14
Which is great, 'cause it's connecting the dots.
40:16
Cause for those playing the the board game at home Glenn was on
40:20
a couple of weeks ago and and here we are.
40:23
Yeah. And and and incidentally I had
40:25
been exposed to Glenn prior to my release from the federal
40:27
incarceration. The the person who ultimately
40:31
became the director of the BOP Bureau of Prisons, Director
40:34
Samuels. He came into the institution,
40:37
played a video of this guy called, you know, by the name of
40:40
Glenn Martin, who at the time was vice president at Fortune
40:43
Society. And he talked about this notion
40:46
about those closest to the problem being closest.
40:48
To the solution for the resources and power.
40:52
And I said to myself, like I need, I want to be like this
40:54
guy. This guy is going to be my North
40:56
Star. And so Glenn introduced me to
41:01
Van Jones and Jessica Jackson over at Cut 50.
41:04
I went on to be the national organizer.
41:07
We got this bill called the First Step Act across the finish
41:11
line, which the date has released more than 30,000 people
41:14
from federal prison. We went on to pass, you know, 10
41:18
to 12 other state versions of that bill.
41:20
And then when Cut 50 was folded into an outfit called dream.org.
41:25
I went over to Reform Alliance, which is Co founded by Jay-Z.
41:30
Van Jones is the founding CEO there, where I was a senior
41:36
executive at that organization as well.
41:38
Which is just incredible. And and Candia Milton's gonna be
41:42
on here next week. So it's it's it's how.
41:44
It's how all these things look at.
41:46
Look at how you're threading every.
41:47
Look at how you're threading the family together.
41:49
But it it's what what's so great about it is, is that each one of
41:53
you have been such a thread. Because you can't do it with one
41:57
person. You know, there's there's 28
41:59
million ex felons out there. And the problem with the ex
42:02
felon world is, is that they don't push themselves into one
42:05
voice. And people like you and people
42:08
like Candia and people like Glenn Martin are helping do
42:11
that. I I I wonder, 'cause I don't
42:14
want your battery to run out, Lewis.
42:16
But yeah, I'm on. I'm on.
42:17
I'm on five now. As it was happening, did you
42:22
feel like? What did you feel like?
42:27
I'll tell you this, if you watch the movie of the first step
42:29
that's on Amazon right now, you can download it on Amazon Prime,
42:34
you'll see that, yes, we were able to get that bill across the
42:38
finish line. Yes, I've been able to do a lot
42:40
of other significant things, but I had never maximized the
42:46
moment. That's that imposter syndrome.
42:49
That's that, that fear of not being measuring up.
42:53
I never took the time to maximize one thing at a time.
42:57
I went from this thing to that thing to that thing to that
42:59
thing until ultimately last year.
43:02
I had to check myself into a residential mental health
43:06
facility because I discovered in the death of my father and my My
43:13
father was assaulted and murdered in 2021.
43:17
And my sister passed a year to the day that my father passed
43:21
away from a coronavirus exacerbated by asthma.
43:26
And when I felt like everything was crashing down on me in that,
43:33
I lost even, you know, a child that I had, that father that I
43:38
stranged from. And so I can tell you, Brent, it
43:43
wasn't until all of those things came crashing down where my
43:47
heart felt like I could not lift the weight off of me that I
43:52
checked myself into a mental health facility, a residential
43:55
mental health facility, while I was there, realized that I was
43:58
not only grieving my father, I was not only grieving the loss
44:01
of my mother when I was five years old.
44:03
Wasn't just grieving the loss of innocence, having been shot when
44:07
I was. But I was also grieving the loss
44:09
of my freedom that I had never properly had a cathartic
44:14
experience through. Because I came home and it was
44:16
go, go go go. Go all the time.
44:19
All the time. And so now I'm on 3%.
44:22
But now what? Well now what I realize is that
44:25
I have to be able to maximize the moment.
44:28
Yeah, be be present and I want it.
44:30
Before you go to 3% to 2%, I want to ask you, Louis, because
44:35
you have accomplished so much and you've been through so much.
44:38
What do you think is your biggest take away from where
44:41
you've been to where you are now, Where I'm going, not just
44:45
the where I am now, where I'm going.
44:48
One thing that is replete in my life is that grace, God's grace
44:55
is sufficient. And I've realized that God's
44:59
strength has been made absolutely perfect in my
45:02
weakness. And so the times in my life
45:06
where I couldn't press through, when I couldn't press on, when I
45:08
couldn't get up and it felt like I was, I was just wanted to lay
45:11
down. It was God's strength.
45:13
It reminds me of the the poem Footprints, where this person
45:18
gets to heaven and when the the account of his life rolls.
45:23
There are two sets of footprints on the sand.
45:27
And those two sets of footprints are indicative of the highlights
45:30
in that individual's life. When they got married, when they
45:33
had their first child, when they bought their first house.
45:35
But the times in that person's life when they got divorced,
45:40
where they lost the child, where they lost the parent, where they
45:42
lost the job, there's only one set of footprints in his hand
45:45
and a person becomes incest. And he said, God, you said that
45:48
you would be there with me every step of the way.
45:51
And I only see one set of footprints during the hardest
45:54
times in my life. And God responds to him.
45:57
It's because when you didn't have strength to walk, it was me
46:01
who's carrying you. And so for me, it's that grace
46:05
that has been replete to get me from the age of five years old
46:10
to where I am now. It's powerful.
46:12
That's good stuff. That's a good place to end it
46:14
because you're only at 2%, Louis.
46:17
Yeah, one now. Hey man, you are.
46:21
And when I said you're a rock star in the movement, there's a
46:23
lot of us are here, part of this movement that look up to you and
46:28
and you just keep it going, man, because you should be proud of
46:32
what you've done, proud of what you've been and what you're
46:35
going to go do. And we're all we're with you.
46:39
And that's part of the why this is so important.
46:43
Hey, we all, we're all with each other, man.
46:45
It's not about the it's about the week.
46:47
You know, quite frankly we're all walking each other home.
46:50
And I want to be as good as to you as I can be on our way home,
46:55
on our way to the other side of life.
46:57
Appreciate you bro. Good stuff Louis man.
46:59
Appreciate it. Hey, for all of you that are
47:02
looking for a book out there, I wrote one.
47:05
It's called Nightmare Success. Check it out.
47:09
It's good reading if you like to read.
47:12
I don't have an audio book yet, but I'm going to do that.
47:14
Hey, if you want to go check me out and what's going on at
47:17
sprintcassie.com, guys, I love the follows.
47:23
Share the show. If you get anything out of it,
47:25
share, share, share the show and the reviews have been coming in.
47:32
I so much appreciate that guys. It's such a big deal because it
47:36
really helps grow the show. I used to say to my people when
47:42
I was writing my emails back and forth from Leavenworth, stay
47:45
strong. I'll do the same.
47:47
Nightmare, success. Louis Reed, thanks so much
47:50
today. Nightmare, Success.
47:52
In and out.