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Decades in prison - now 1 million TikTok followers- Jesse Crossen · 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 to set yourself free.
• 0:13
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  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
• 0:27
  help you knock down some of the prisons you built up in your own
• 0:30
  mind. All right, welcome back.
• 0:36
  Now I'm excess in and out. Listeners, this is where you
• 0:40
  come What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:43
  How do you adapt, survive. Overcome.
• 0:45
  Set yourself free. Well the thing I love about
• 0:50
  doing this show is I get to talk to all these interesting people.
• 0:54
  Hope everybody checked out Sam Patton from last week.
• 0:57
  He had a fascinating story. So I found Jesse crossing on
• 1:03
  TikTok of all places. And I I just, you know, one
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  after another after another. Jesse has 1.1 million followers
• 1:15
  on TikTok. He has 35 million likes and I
• 1:18
  was just telling him the thing that he does that I think is so
• 1:21
  powerful is this, He's just so honest, so direct.
• 1:25
  The truth is right there and I think people just are drawn to
• 1:28
  that. And you know, Jesse's got a a
• 1:31
  really interesting story because, you know, if you go to
• 1:35
  his website, he talks about his background.
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  And just to read a little bit from his background, he said.
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  In 2002, I found cocaine combined with alcohol and
• 1:45
  insecurity and I quickly went from a kid graduating high
• 1:49
  school to being strung out and barely hanging on.
• 1:53
  Just after his 18th birthday, says he committed a robbery
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  mostly to fuel and pay for his his drug addiction.
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  But it was interesting, he said. I was, I was rightly arrested
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  and remember a feeling, a huge sense of relief that someone had
• 2:11
  stopped me because I couldn't stop myself.
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  He got an unbelievable sentence. His the upper range of his
• 2:20
  sentencing guideline was 16 years and the judge doubled that
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  and gave him a 32 year sentence. The inspiring part of his story
• 2:29
  is, is that he didn't let that you know get into a fetal
• 2:32
  position and and give up. He he he got better and put his
• 2:38
  life together in prison. He mentored men.
• 2:41
  He taught GED classes. He earned A bachelor's degree.
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  He became a licensed journeyman electrician, wrote articles for
• 2:49
  publications, and he found his own way forward.
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  And he's since he's gotten out, he's done a lot.
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  I mean he's he's started the Second Chancellor Foundation
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  help people through reentry, putting the pieces together and
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  I think one of the things he says it's interesting and I
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  think it's it's deep. He his quote is I'd like to see
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  the narrative of justice move from one of punishment to one of
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  healing, healing for the survivor of the crime for the
• 3:21
  larger community and for the the person to ensure the
• 3:25
  perpetrator, to ensure that they did not reoffend.
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  We cannot punish away trauma or addiction or poverty, which are
• 3:34
  at the root of the vast majority of crimes.
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  Until we shift the narrative and look at healing.
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  We are perpetuating the violence we claim to be locking away.
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  Wow, that is big. That's powerful, That's deep.
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  And I can't wait to get into all that.
• 3:52
  Before we do, I want to recognize our sponsor, Auto
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  Tell them Brent from Nightmare Success sent you Jesse Crossing.
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  Welcome in my man. How are you doing?
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  I'm doing. All right.
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  Thank you. So you just went through a
• 4:47
  motorcycle accident, So I was able to tie you down for an
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  interview because it's about the only way you can stop this man
• 4:53
  from from staying active. How are you doing, man?
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  Okay. I'm It is.
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  You know, I I got to do a really strict routine of meditation and
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  exercise and things in prison. Then when I got out of the
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  world, it felt like I had just all this energy stuck in place,
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  and now I'm just kind of exploding to fill whatever space
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  is there. And yeah, I don't have a lot of
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  downtime. I don't spend a lot of time
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  still and all of a sudden I have an accident that forces me to.
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  And in a weird way, it was the best thing in the world because
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  it slowed me down from some big life decisions I was getting
• 5:21
  ready to make. It slowed me down from some, you
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  know, kind of things that I was wasting energy on that wasn't
• 5:25
  really the best use. And it's forced me to sit here
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  and like, sometimes be in pain and just reflect on what's
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  really important, really focus my energy in a better way.
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  So much as I'm not happy to have fractures and be stuck at home
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  and be walking around and crushes under Walker, I think in
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  some ways it was the best thing to happen.
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  So you what was the year that you got out?
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  I got in August of 2021, about two years ago or two years ago
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  tomorrow, actually two years ago tomorrow.
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  And you've been, you've been jumped in a moving car and done
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  a lot of things. Quickly, Jesse, take me back
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  because where your story starts on your website is at 18 years
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  old, but I know there's a story behind that.
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  What was your childhood like? What was going on when you were
• 6:07
  growing up as Jesse? You know, that's really hard
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  because I got a big chunks of my childhood that I just can't
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  remember playing spaces and. I think when we're growing up,
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  we assume that whatever we experience is normal.
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  And it's only been since I've grown up more and talked to
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  people both in prison and mental health professionals.
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  They were like Jesse, that's not normal.
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  Like you should probably remember more of your childhood.
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  You should probably have different things.
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  And I have some I mean some really good memories.
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  My parents both did the best they could.
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  They they were kind of from the opposite ends of the spectrum.
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  And my mom came from a good family, you know, went to law
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  school, was a lawyer, my dad was an old criminal.
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  But they found each other because they were both loved
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  drinking and they they found this love of a common activity
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  that. Thankfully, they both stopped
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  when I was about to. But you know, once they stopped
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  drinking, they realized they didn't have anything in common.
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  You had a guy who was kind of dedicating himself to turning
• 6:53
  his life around and becoming a substance abuse counselor and
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  and she was focusing on doing real estate law and things
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  because she couldn't stand actually do criminal law because
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  of, you know, the implications. And you know, like I said, they
• 7:02
  showed up for the best they could, but there was a lot that
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  was lacking. And one of the big things was,
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  you know, a healthy role model. I didn't have people showing me
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  how to live and make healthy decisions and use impulse
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  control and emotional regulation.
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  So I grew up in this kind of. Crazy space and in some cases
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  really codependent space, in some case really angry space.
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  And I was just trying to navigate the best I could and it
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  it really helped. Actually going to prison and
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  talking to mental health professionals to realize that
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  some of my childhood wasn't normal.
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  He was growing up. I was like, man, what is wrong
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  with me? Like, were you an only child?
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  Just serious. I was, yeah.
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  And as as you got into your school life and high school, was
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  it what you would consider normal?
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  I mean, I guess I went to an alternative school where people
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  spent more time smoking pot than doing school work, so it
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  probably wasn't the best option. But yeah, I mean, I I I showed
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  up, I had classmates, I wrestled like, you know, I played soccer
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  one year, did the best that I could.
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  But I I was still driven by that insecurity and that feeling of
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  somehow being, like fundamentally different and
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  broken. And so I think everybody has it
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  to some degree, but for whatever reason, that was the core of my
• 8:05
  existence and that was what everything revolved from.
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  So you say that at 18 years old you you found cocaine and was it
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  just like an immediate trigger that changed everything for you?
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  Yeah, so it was. I was about 17 1/2 when I first
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  found it. And I remember I like had these
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  one offs where I bought like a little bit.
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  And I remember the first time I did it, I was like, this is the
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  answer to all my problems. This is what I've been looking
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  for. Like all my fears, all my
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  doubts, they're all gone. I feel strong.
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  I feel capable. And then I actually, after high
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  school, after I graduated, started working construction and
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  the guy who drove me to work every day was a coke dealer.
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  So all of a sudden, not only did I have access, I had immediate
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  daily access. He would give me a deal and he
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  would hook me up. And from the day I started with
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  him, I did not stop using cocaine for a single day until I
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  went to jail. It wasn't like a gradual falling
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  in, it was every day. How am I going to get more?
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  What do I need to do? So getting to?
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  I mean that sounds like it went fast.
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  I mean it sounds like you went and and it what I was reading
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  too is you took a year off, cuz I it sounds like you were
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  planning on going to college and he took a year off to like a lot
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  of people do to, you know, be that person you want to be
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  before you enter into the college world.
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  Your parents, your friends, everybody around you, Were they
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  seeing this happen to you or was were you operating in a bubble?
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  You know, I had. My parents got divorced when I
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  was 7 and there was this rift between me and my dad when I
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  started smoking pot at 16. And he said, look, I'm a
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  recovering addict and you can't live in my home if you, if you
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  smoke pot, like you can't be around me.
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  And so I was living with my mom who was kind of overworked and
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  in her own anxious state. And I think she, she went back
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  and forth of trying to like have extreme things and trying to be
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  permissive. So I don't think they really
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  knew what was going on. I do remember I had a teacher at
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  school who wasn't even my teacher but had taken a special
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  notice to me and I remember talking to her right before I
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  got arrested. I ran into her and.
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  Like at a restaurant downtown. And then I talked to her since I
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  got out and she said, Jesse, I used to go into that school and
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  scream at the staff meetings about what are we gonna do for
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  this kid? Like, he's clearly headed to a
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  wall and nobody's paying attention and nobody cares.
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  And she's really the only one I knew that knew it was that bad.
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  I think to everybody else, they just thought, oh, he's just a
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  kid. He's making mistakes.
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  Boys will be boys. And I yeah, I really wish
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  somebody had stepped in, but I don't really know what they
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  could have done other than remove me from where I was
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  because everything about my life was, was in a negative place.
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  I was hanging out with the wrong people.
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  I was doing the wrong things. I didn't have the coping skills,
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  you know? It would have really been taking
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  me into a completely different environment to make a
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  difference. And you weren't ready for that.
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  I mean, that sounds like you were.
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  You were trying to find your way through the escape of drugs and
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  that to be able to get away from that, you'd have to make a
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  decision yourself that I'm stopping.
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  And so walk me through what, when your nightmare happened?
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  What? What happened that day?
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  That event? What?
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  What was the situation? So it was it was 2 separate
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  events. So the first was the robbery,
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  and we basically had run through every outlet.
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  We burned every bridge, we owed everybody money.
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  We didn't have anything else we could pawn, and we were trying
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  to get more cocaine and one of my codefendants.
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  Had worked at this restaurant and told us a story about how,
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  you know, these are terrible people and they only hire
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  undocumented immigrants. They only pay them $2.00 an hour
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  and they keep all the cash. And so we steal from them.
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  We're really like Robin Hood. We're like reclaiming the riches
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  from the the bad people. And I don't have any idea
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  whether it was true. And it doesn't matter if it was
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  true. It was just a story we told
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  ourselves to justify this horrible thing.
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  Sure. And so we in our minds thought,
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  OK, maybe this is, you know, not such a bad thing.
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  But I remember the day of the robbery, and it was only
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  supposed to be a breaking energy.
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  We're trying to break into this house.
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  And grab the money and leave. And so we waited until all the
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  cars were gone. We came back to the house and
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  there was a maid there. So while my codefendant and I,
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  the one who told me about it, broke in downstairs, my my other
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  codefendant went in the front door and had a gun and terrified
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  this woman and, you know, put her through hell.
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  And again, all for nothing, all for this dream of like, hey, if
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  we get this, this $50,000, it's somehow, more accurately in
• 11:59
  cash, we'll be able to keep getting high.
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  We didn't get anything. And we just we terrorized the
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  woman who was there. We terrorized the family who had
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  to come home to a home that was ransacked.
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  We did all this for nothing, for no money, for no win, for no
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  plan, and just rode off into the night.
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  And sure enough, two days later I found another coke connect.
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  I found somebody who was willing to front me five more oz.
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  So all of a sudden we were getting high again and partying
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  again. Basically had forgotten all
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  about it. And then the second event
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  happened, and that was one of the things that happened when I
• 12:24
  first started doing cocaine was initially I felt strong, but
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  pretty immediately afterwards I started being paranoid and I
• 12:29
  started feeling weak and afraid of everyone and everything.
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  So when someone offered to sell me a gun, I was like, yeah,
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  absolutely like this. I had never cared about guns.
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  I grew up in the South. It wasn't a big deal to me, but
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  I felt like I had to have it. So all of a sudden I had this
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  gun. And then once we're partying 2
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  days after the robbery, this guy who had sold me the gun, he
• 12:46
  says, man, Oh my God, my girlfriend's like, she's in
• 12:48
  trouble. So I go talk to him and these
• 12:50
  two guys are at their house and his pregnant girlfriend is there
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  and they're threatening her and saying that they're going to
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  bring him the gun back or money or cocaine or else.
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  And so now, newly high after, like, barely, you know, skating
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  by with a tiny bit of powder over the last two days and
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  feeling strong and knowing that I have a gun, I I got on the
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  phone and told them they were going to leave or else.
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  And we went back and forth and threatened each other and beat
• 13:08
  our chests. And I drove to meet them.
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  And just as there was a moment before the robbery where I had
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  this idea that, like, I need to not do this, This is a terrible
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  idea. But to me it was like, no, this
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  was cowardice. Like I I've got to back my
• 13:20
  friends up. I can't let them down.
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  I've got to be good. Not realizing that cowardice was
• 13:23
  going through with it when I knew it was wrong.
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  Like that was the true cowardice.
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  But I had that same feeling when I got to the parking lot where I
• 13:29
  was meeting them. And I was like, I need to not be
• 13:30
  here. Like, this is like, somebody's
• 13:32
  going to get hurt. Somebody's going to get killed.
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  So I drove. I drove off and they chased me.
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  And so they're chasing me down the road and swerving like
• 13:39
  they're going to run me off the road.
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  And finally the passenger, they pull up right beside me and he
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  reaches around behind him to grab something.
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  And in my mind, he was grabbing a gun.
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  Like, I couldn't think of any other reason they'd be there,
• 13:47
  what he'd be doing. So I reached down and grabbed
• 13:49
  that same gun and I shot him. And it's just luck that they
• 13:52
  lived, I mean. I very well go to kill two
• 13:55
  people and spent the rest of my life in prison.
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  And it's through no choice or action of my own that I missed.
• 14:00
  Wow, sounds like a movie. So what happens after that?
• 14:06
  So I did. I did hit them.
• 14:08
  I just killed them. So they kind of swerved off to
• 14:10
  the side of the road. They ended up going to the
• 14:12
  hospital and like, giving a statement.
• 14:13
  So then there was an APB out for me and for everybody, and they
• 14:16
  tied us together with the robbery.
• 14:17
  It was very shortly after that they came to get us.
• 14:20
  We had this kind of brief day of, oh, my codefendant and I,
• 14:22
  we're going to take off. We're going to go to Colorado
• 14:24
  when we're going to start over. And we didn't have any, any
• 14:26
  brain power. And we've gone through the five
• 14:28
  ounces of coke in just a few days, and we were completely
• 14:30
  out. And so I ended up passing out,
• 14:32
  and then when I woke up it was in yelling that the SWAT team
• 14:35
  was outside. I tried to run outside and run
• 14:37
  up to the top of the steps because there was an over under
• 14:39
  duplex thinking like, hey, I can go out the back of the top and
• 14:41
  they'll think I'm not the same guy and walked right into the
• 14:44
  barrel of a gun and the officer saying I will shoot you dead boy
• 14:48
  and just being like, all right, that's it, like I'm done.
• 14:51
  And it really was a feeling of giving up and kind of hoping he
• 14:53
  would shoot me, and kind of hoping I would slip backwards
• 14:55
  down the steps because I didn't want to deal with it anymore.
• 14:58
  But it ended up being a relief because I didn't have to die to
• 15:00
  give up. I didn't have to die to start
• 15:02
  over. I just didn't realize that was
• 15:03
  possible at the time. So they take you.
• 15:07
  What's going through your mind, cuz you're a young kid at this
• 15:09
  time. I mean, what what are you
• 15:11
  thinking driving away the SWAT teams there?
• 15:14
  They're taking you away. You're not sure exactly what
• 15:16
  happens. You've never been in this
• 15:18
  situation. What's going through your mind?
• 15:22
  How are you dealing with this moment?
• 15:25
  I don't know that I was thinking anything.
• 15:26
  I literally remember just sitting there looking out the
• 15:28
  window of the car and feeling more of a sense of peace because
• 15:31
  at least I wasn't hurting anybody.
• 15:32
  At least I wasn't hurting myself.
• 15:34
  At least I was just done. And it really was just kind of
• 15:36
  being still for the first time and since I started, you know,
• 15:39
  six months earlier. So you you get taken to the
• 15:43
  county jail that has to be. And for anybody who's ever gone
• 15:46
  through the county jail system, that's that's the bottom of the
• 15:49
  barrel. What?
• 15:50
  As a young kid being in there, were you scared?
• 15:56
  Oh, I was horrified. I mean, I think the good thing
• 15:58
  is that a lot of people go from a really nice standard of living
• 16:01
  to losing something and they feel like it's a loss.
• 16:03
  I mean, I was smoking crack and living four of us in a tiny one
• 16:06
  bedroom apartment and scrambling to get by.
• 16:08
  So it didn't feel like I was losing anything.
• 16:10
  And in fact, the first day when they just, they stuck me in an
• 16:12
  isolation cell, that kind of detox basically.
• 16:14
  And I spent three days of sleeping and I would wake up for
• 16:16
  a couple minutes and I would eat and I would just go back to
• 16:18
  sleep. And so I had this kind of period
• 16:20
  of adaptation where I was just living here and then sleeping.
• 16:23
  And then, yeah, I went to the the first cellblock and I was
• 16:25
  like, this isn't comfortable. What am I doing?
• 16:27
  But it wasn't bad. It wasn't as bad as I imagined.
• 16:31
  And it just, it was just kind of slow, like, OK, I guess this is
• 16:33
  it. I guess this is going to be
• 16:34
  life. Remember the first time I was
• 16:35
  horrified once they moved me to like a permanent housing thing.
• 16:38
  I asked him, I was like, oh, my God, did they were just lock us
• 16:40
  in the cells? And they were like, yeah, they
• 16:41
  do it for like days and weeks at a time.
• 16:42
  If they're short staffed, like, we're just stuck in there.
• 16:44
  And I was horrified at the idea they would just stick three of
• 16:47
  us in the cell and just leave us there for weeks.
• 16:50
  Then I realized, like, no, this is, this is just what I have to
• 16:52
  expect going forward. And it really was.
• 16:53
  I mean, that was my experience over the next 19 years.
• 16:56
  How long did you have to wait until you were you?
• 17:01
  You know, you get your attorney, they start throwing out all
• 17:04
  these different things. How long did that process last
• 17:06
  for you? It was.
• 17:07
  About 10 months, 10 months. So they they brought all the
• 17:11
  charges. They ended up actually bringing
• 17:13
  more charges because originally it was just a breaking and
• 17:15
  entering. They modified that to a robbery.
• 17:17
  They they just modified a bunch of charges and ended up with 12
• 17:20
  felonies. I pleaded guilty of those 12
• 17:22
  felonies and then the sentencing was, I think a month and 1/2
• 17:25
  after that. And so about 10 months after I
• 17:27
  was arrested, I actually got to go to court and and hear my
• 17:29
  sentencing. What did you think of your
• 17:31
  attorney at the time? How did you get your attorney
• 17:33
  and what it was? What was he as as part of your
• 17:37
  your defense? So, you know, I started off with
• 17:40
  a a public defender and I honestly wish I'd stayed with
• 17:43
  that. But my mom, because she was a
• 17:44
  real estate attorney, knew a lot of attorneys in town.
• 17:46
  They did the continuing legal education together.
• 17:48
  So she hired somebody that she thought was going to be kind of
• 17:50
  a hotshot. I mean, for a plea bargain or
• 17:52
  like a plea agreement, which wasn't even a written plea
• 17:54
  agreement, there wasn't really wasn't a lot he could do.
• 17:56
  Yeah, he was a smart guy. He, like, clearly knew his
• 17:59
  stuff. But he also, there were a couple
• 18:02
  things that he didn't tell me. Like, I remember when I pleaded
• 18:05
  guilty, the judge said, oh, by the way, you know, I don't have
• 18:07
  to stay within sentencing guidelines.
• 18:09
  Right. And I didn't know that.
• 18:10
  So I looked at my lawyer and I said, should I?
• 18:11
  He was like, no, no, don't say anything.
• 18:13
  I said, okay, sure. Like, yeah.
• 18:15
  And then at the time of sentencing, the original
• 18:17
  guidelines were 8 to 13 years. And he was like, hey, this,
• 18:19
  this, I appreciate. Look, you did some really bad
• 18:21
  stuff, like you got to go away. You deserve to go away.
• 18:24
  You're going to get 10 years. And like, you just have to deal
• 18:25
  with it. And that made sense to me.
• 18:27
  That seemed really fair. And then when they modified the
• 18:29
  guidelines to 10 to 16, he didn't want to object.
• 18:31
  Even though we had a case to object, he said, you know, you
• 18:33
  should just take this because the judge has seen the old
• 18:35
  guidelines. You're probably still get 10
• 18:37
  years. So when they read out the 32
• 18:39
  years, it was just it was a shock because it seemed like it
• 18:41
  was the opposite of what he said.
• 18:43
  But I also don't know that there's anything he could have
• 18:44
  done differently. I mean, he probably could have.
• 18:46
  I mean, he could have objected. And you don't know what happens
• 18:49
  with that whole scenario, but it sounded like it was a really
• 18:53
  confusing moment because the judge continued to say this is
• 18:57
  suspended. This is suspended.
• 18:58
  And and once they got through with it, the the attorney says,
• 19:02
  wait, what did you sentence him to?
• 19:04
  And and he said, well I'm going to have to go back and the court
• 19:07
  reporter had to actually go back and and basically subtract what
• 19:12
  had been off of these hundred years or whatever that he had
• 19:16
  done and it subtracted back to 32 years with two years of what
• 19:22
  was it rehab with with drug rehab or whatever.
• 19:25
  But I can't imagine that moment though because you were thinking
• 19:31
  10 and and you had kind of come to terms with that's what I'm
• 19:35
  going to have to do. And then they subtract all this
• 19:39
  out and there's only moments that happen in that and then
• 19:42
  it's 32 and you're what? Why are you 1920 years old?
• 19:49
  18 years old, 18 years old, and what's going through your mind
• 19:55
  in that moment? Yeah, you talked about your
• 19:58
  deepest fear. I think there were, there were
• 20:00
  really two parallel reactions right there.
• 20:02
  Now, my deepest fear had always been that there was something
• 20:05
  wrong with me and I was irredeemable and I was broken.
• 20:07
  And that felt like a validation of my deepest fear.
• 20:09
  Like this judge who this is, what he does for a living, who
• 20:11
  knows people, has weighed me and found me one thing like I'm, I'm
• 20:15
  just done. My life is over.
• 20:16
  I'm worthless. And there was also part of me
• 20:18
  that was really angry. Like, look, this isn't fair.
• 20:20
  This isn't, they said this isn't right.
• 20:22
  Like, my life shouldn't be over. Like F this and and those two
• 20:25
  things kind of grew. And those were really the two
• 20:26
  forces I struggled with because there were a lot of times that I
• 20:29
  gave up. I think in the introduction you
• 20:30
  said he didn't just go into a fetal position.
• 20:32
  There were a lot. Of times I went into a fetal
• 20:33
  position and gave up, but I continue to get up and I
• 20:37
  continue to find a way to believe that it didn't have to
• 20:39
  be the end of my story and that there would be another chapter.
• 20:42
  But that wasn't an easy thing, and there were a lot of times
• 20:44
  where it was a struggle to even get out of bed someday.
• 20:46
  Well, I think that's the difference though when I say.
• 20:49
  You didn't get in a field position.
• 20:51
  I think whenever all of us get down, I mean, I had a rock
• 20:54
  bottom moment and that rock bottom moment either means that
• 20:57
  you you're done or you figure out a new beginning of that.
• 21:03
  And I don't know, you know, until you hit those rock bottom
• 21:07
  moments in your life, you don't know how you're going to react
• 21:10
  to it. You, you've lived a certain way
• 21:12
  your life, you know? For me it was.
• 21:14
  Wait a minute. I was like I got hit by a bolt
• 21:16
  of lightning. Like what the hell are you
• 21:18
  doing, Brent? You're the glass half full guy.
• 21:20
  And and I shook myself out of it and and basically shaking myself
• 21:24
  out of feeling like a victim to understanding I needed to be a
• 21:27
  survivor. And it appears to me of the
• 21:31
  things I've read with you, Jesse, is that yes, you got
• 21:34
  knocked down. The question is, is how do you
• 21:36
  get back up? And, you know, I think there
• 21:38
  were periods of time, especially looking through when you got
• 21:42
  back to that jail cell, even the jail.
• 21:45
  The guards were saying, man, are you okay?
• 21:47
  I mean you you. I mean, this is a rough day,
• 21:49
  man. Jesse, you all right?
• 21:51
  And and I even think they put you away thinking that you might
• 21:54
  harm yourself to lock you away so that you didn't.
• 22:00
  It's a lot to think about. It was.
• 22:03
  It was a lot to experience. And that was, I mean, it didn't
• 22:06
  really hit me fully until I was in that isolation cell.
• 22:09
  I got back to the jail and they packed my property up and I had
• 22:11
  this little radio. And there's a I made Matthew's
• 22:13
  song called Gravedicker. And he has this line where he
• 22:15
  says, you know, when I die, bury me shallow so I can still kill
• 22:18
  the rain. And that was it.
• 22:20
  I just cracked and just started like sobbing and sobbing and
• 22:23
  sobbing. And yeah, I mean, I needed that.
• 22:26
  I think that every time I've struggled and every time I've
• 22:28
  hit a low point, I've needed to collapse in some meaningful way.
• 22:31
  And it's had to been tearful, Bower.
• 22:34
  It's had to be anger. It's had to be sadness or
• 22:35
  hopelessness. But I need to experience,
• 22:37
  because otherwise I'm still hanging on to this illusion of
• 22:39
  control. As long as I'm hanging on to the
• 22:41
  illusion of control, I'm still pushing a little further, trying
• 22:43
  to get away with a little more. We're trying to justify a little
• 22:45
  more. And it takes those total
• 22:47
  collapses for me to actually change and start doing something
• 22:49
  different. So you get taken away.
• 22:52
  How long, how long were you there in jail until you got to
• 22:56
  the prison? I was in the jail for about two
• 22:59
  more weeks, and then I got sent to a receiving prison.
• 23:01
  And I was literally only because my dad was able to pull a favor.
• 23:04
  And things are bad now. Like, back then, you would
• 23:06
  usually have to wait in the jail six months after sentencing.
• 23:08
  Now guys are waiting like four and five years.
• 23:10
  Yeah, but my dad, because he was a substitute counselor, had
• 23:14
  actually done a presentation for the head of mental health care,
• 23:17
  Department of Corrections. I got on the phone.
• 23:18
  It was like, hey, I've never asked for a favor of my life.
• 23:20
  My son's in jail. Can you get him somewhere?
• 23:22
  Can you get him somewhere where we can get help?
• 23:23
  Like, I'm worried to death about him.
• 23:25
  And so they got me to that receiving center within two
• 23:26
  weeks, which was pretty amazing. And how long were you at the
• 23:29
  receiving center? About 3 1/2 months.
• 23:32
  So when you finally make it to prison?
• 23:39
  Are you walking in thinking cuz you've been in jail so that you
• 23:42
  you've had to kind of adapt to that world?
• 23:44
  Are you walking in with any particular strategies of how I'm
• 23:47
  going to handle this unknown world or do you just walking in
• 23:50
  thinking here I am, I mean I I definitely had, I was young and
• 23:54
  I was hot headed and everybody told me if you get in a bad
• 23:57
  situation, swing 1st and ask questions later.
• 23:59
  And I put myself in a lot of bad situations by doing that.
• 24:02
  But it was, you know, I just didn't understand because
• 24:04
  everybody in the jail had told me these these parallel stories
• 24:06
  like you're gonna get down to prison and you're gonna see
• 24:08
  people get the stabbed, you're gonna see booty bandits and
• 24:10
  maybe terrible, but also Oh my God, it's so much better and
• 24:13
  you're gonna love it and the food and the freedom.
• 24:15
  And I just didn't understand what they were talking about.
• 24:17
  So I didn't know what to expect. But I came and what I saw was
• 24:21
  just a little civilization. Like, I understand how Australia
• 24:23
  happened. It's just people getting by the
• 24:25
  best they can. And a lot of them have tempers.
• 24:27
  A lot of conflicts happen and their issues over scarcity and
• 24:29
  money, and people fight over stupid stuff because there's
• 24:31
  nothing else. But it was just people getting
• 24:34
  along. And so once I got there, once I
• 24:36
  really kind of adjusted, it just took me maturing.
• 24:38
  It wasn't actually. The place that was so dangerous
• 24:39
  was me being dumb and put myself a dumb situation.
• 24:42
  Well, and you were maturing as a person from 18 years old on, so,
• 24:46
  I mean, it's it's. I've interviewed a couple of
• 24:51
  people that have grown up in prison, one that got sentenced
• 24:53
  when he was 15 years old and to life and and growing up in
• 24:57
  prison, you have to figure out in, like you said, Jesse, it's a
• 25:00
  primitive environment, but it is its own, its own social
• 25:04
  environment and you know how you handle yourself in there is.
• 25:09
  You know, for for me a lot. I found that there was a lot of
• 25:12
  people that were helpful to me and and were that was my biggest
• 25:17
  surprise in prison of people trying to help me get set up.
• 25:20
  And I wasn't expecting that. I I was told all the other
• 25:24
  things, you know, don't don't you know, don't give somebody
• 25:26
  something. You know, if they if they're
• 25:28
  giving you something, then we could have want something back
• 25:30
  and that, you know they're going to be able to blackmail and all
• 25:32
  those different things that kind of freak you out.
• 25:36
  But what I found was, is that I had, you know, like within the
• 25:38
  first hour, people help. Hey, you're going to need these
• 25:40
  shower shoes you get, you get your own, you know, commentary.
• 25:43
  I'll give you these now, you know, I'll show you how to make
• 25:46
  your bed military. So all these different things
• 25:48
  that I was like, wow, these guys, they're living in their
• 25:51
  own society and they're trying to make you comfortable enough
• 25:55
  that you can live in this society with them.
• 25:58
  And they check you out too. I mean when you walk into a
• 26:00
  prison, it's it's it is like the movies where they they check you
• 26:03
  out. What's what's this guy going to
• 26:05
  be like? Because you're entering their
• 26:07
  world now, you're there. Now you're part of their world.
• 26:11
  And I mean, it really is so funny that we have a system of
• 26:14
  people who don't want to follow the rules on the outside, Go to
• 26:16
  prison, and you have just as many, if not more rules imposed
• 26:19
  by the people that live there. Like we've said, we're rule
• 26:21
  Breakers and we're we're outlaws and we go into a place where we
• 26:24
  have this strict set of rules that you better follow or else
• 26:26
  it's pretty crazy. Yeah.
• 26:28
  No. They give you the pamphlet of
• 26:29
  the prison rules. You've got to, you've got to
• 26:31
  learn the inmate rules. And that's that's part of the
• 26:33
  setup, Okay. So how did you get, how did you
• 26:36
  start living in that world, Jesse?
• 26:38
  Because you did a lot of things once you got into that world,
• 26:40
  but you were there for a long time.
• 26:42
  When did that adjustment for you start to change that?
• 26:47
  Taking a deep breath and like, man, I'm, I'm going to, I'm
• 26:50
  going to make something of myself better.
• 26:52
  What? How how did that process work
• 26:54
  for you? It was, you know, it was pretty
• 26:58
  gradual. Like some of the things started
• 26:59
  early. You know, my mom was so freaked
• 27:01
  out about my sentence that she got me enrolled in college
• 27:02
  classes. She basically, like, took out a
• 27:04
  loan so that I could start going to college.
• 27:06
  And so from, you know, seven months in the jail, I was taking
• 27:08
  college classes. So every weekend when I was
• 27:11
  working or every, every time during the week I was, I was
• 27:13
  filling out assignments and get things ready and going over to
• 27:15
  the library to have Proctor exams.
• 27:16
  And I was focused on college. I mean, it took 15 years.
• 27:18
  It wasn't like I'm, I'm in a normal schedule, but I just had
• 27:21
  something to rely on. But, but for real, I mean, the
• 27:24
  first couple years, I think all I did was work out.
• 27:26
  I got a job in the factory. So I was working in the factory.
• 27:28
  I was working out and I was staying to myself.
• 27:29
  I was reading, you know, I wasn't doing drugs.
• 27:31
  I wasn't getting high, but I wasn't also interacting with
• 27:33
  anybody in a meaningful way. And then there was a guy who
• 27:36
  pulled me aside one time. We're actually waiting to go do
• 27:37
  an interview for a job. And he said, look, I see you and
• 27:40
  everything you're doing is positive.
• 27:41
  You're working out, you're reading, you're studying.
• 27:43
  One day you're going to wake up and you're going to realize all
• 27:45
  that isn't enough. Like life is about people.
• 27:46
  And until you figure out a way to have, like, relationship with
• 27:49
  people and have community, you're going to be miserable.
• 27:51
  And that was one of the most important things that anybody
• 27:53
  ever told me because I realized, yeah, I'm trying to set myself
• 27:55
  aside for or apart from everybody in here, but I'm not
• 27:58
  any different. We all did terrible stuff.
• 28:00
  We all, you know, caused harm. We're all trying to find our
• 28:02
  way. And it doesn't mean I have to be
• 28:04
  friends with everybody, but I have to find a way to open
• 28:06
  myself up to some sense of community.
• 28:08
  And that was where I started finding people to to call
• 28:10
  friends, but also where I finding ways to help.
• 28:12
  Like, hey, this guy needs help getting tutored, you know, for
• 28:14
  his GED. I'm going to step in and I'm
• 28:15
  going to do that. Like, I'm actually going to take
• 28:17
  a role. And in that, I found the
• 28:18
  greatest sense of meaning and satisfaction I'd ever found in
• 28:21
  my life. Yeah, that's so powerful too.
• 28:24
  I I think when you do something like that in prison, it really
• 28:28
  starts filling you up. And it's a different way to eat
• 28:31
  your time too. You know, you're you're focusing
• 28:34
  on something or somebody helping them.
• 28:36
  You're seeing results. You also, I mean, I working out
• 28:40
  in prison is a big deal because you you have time to do that.
• 28:44
  You get in the best shape of your life.
• 28:45
  You read the most books you've ever read in your life.
• 28:47
  By the way, you have quite a reading list.
• 28:49
  If you go to your website, you actually provide the books that
• 28:53
  changed your life, which I think is cool as far as being in
• 28:59
  prison. Were you connected at all the
• 29:01
  outside world? Yeah, very much so.
• 29:04
  And and I think that was the main thing that gave me a
• 29:06
  chance, because when I was sitting in that jail, I had
• 29:08
  given up like I really didn't believe in myself, but I had
• 29:11
  people showing up day after day to believe in me.
• 29:13
  To lift me up, I had my family. I had friends.
• 29:16
  I mean, this is what breaks my heart.
• 29:18
  And this is one of the reasons we're talking about doing the
• 29:20
  letter writing, mentorship thing.
• 29:22
  I was looking in jail and every night they would do a mail call
• 29:24
  and every single night they would Call My Name and usually
• 29:26
  multiple times. And I would watch these four or
• 29:28
  five guys would go down there every night and wait and never
• 29:30
  get a letter. And I remember feeling so
• 29:32
  heartbroken, like I don't deserve this anymore than they
• 29:34
  did. I am no better than they are,
• 29:36
  yet I get the support and they didn't.
• 29:37
  And that was the beginning of me realizing there's just so much
• 29:39
  inequity in the system that people don't have the same
• 29:42
  chance and they don't have the same support and we're not going
• 29:44
  to have the same experience. So true.
• 29:47
  You know, I I was lucky enough my wife came every weekend and
• 29:51
  and the kids she would pick up along the way because they were
• 29:54
  in college and and then I saw heartbreaking things where a
• 29:59
  wife would show up with divorce papers.
• 30:02
  You know somebody you know got in a really good shape was
• 30:04
  excited about his you know his visit and and his whole life was
• 30:08
  devastated by you know not only had he lost everything but now
• 30:11
  he's lost his family. So it it it does affect you
• 30:14
  really deeply when you're getting the support.
• 30:17
  And you're seeing that other people aren't and they're having
• 30:20
  to walk a different path in the same world that you're living
• 30:25
  and and you can see how much darker that can be if you don't
• 30:28
  have the support. So, so Jesse, you you started
• 30:36
  mentoring you, you got into the being a licensed electrician.
• 30:40
  How did that happen for you? I looked at everything as a
• 30:45
  matter of option. This is one of the things that
• 30:47
  somebody told me in my childhood that I I really lived by and I
• 30:50
  didn't listen to, I wish I'd listened to when I was younger.
• 30:53
  They said that every decision you make either creates more or
• 30:55
  fewer options for you. And they said, I don't care what
• 30:57
  you do, I don't care if you want to be a rocket scientist, you
• 30:59
  want to be a trash man. I just want you to have the
• 31:01
  option to do whatever it is you want.
• 31:02
  So I looked at that in prison, and I took every job I could
• 31:05
  that would open an opportunity. So, like I worked in the
• 31:07
  factory, so I could learn to do CNC machines and do CAD drawing
• 31:10
  and learn to, you know, work with my hands.
• 31:11
  And then I worked in the law library, so if I got out I could
• 31:14
  be able paralegal. And I worked in maintenance
• 31:16
  because I wanted to learn a practical skill.
• 31:18
  So I basically paid somebody to get me on the job as a
• 31:21
  maintenance worker, as an electronics worker.
• 31:23
  He taught me all the low voltage stuff, the camera stuff, the
• 31:25
  network stuff, the coax, but also made it eligible for me to
• 31:29
  work, get my hours as an electrical apprentice.
• 31:32
  So I was able to join the apprenticeship program.
• 31:33
  And again I had to kind of like live, cheat and steal through
• 31:35
  that because you're only allowed to take one trade and you're not
• 31:37
  allowed to take the apprenticeship.
• 31:38
  So you've taken the trade. They put these barriers in place
• 31:40
  of actually getting an education and the better kind of scam
• 31:43
  artist or criminal about the more chance you have to actually
• 31:45
  get an education. So by working in through that
• 31:48
  back door and ingratiating myself and paying people and
• 31:50
  doing everything, I managed to get an apprenticeship.
• 31:52
  And four years later I had enough on the job hours for my
• 31:54
  maintenance job and enough book hours from the trainings.
• 31:56
  I was doing the apprenticeship, I took my journeyman test and I
• 31:59
  became a licensed electrician. Wow.
• 32:03
  Well, that's and the other thing that's.
• 32:05
  People probably don't know when you go to prison at the place is
• 32:08
  run by prisoners. You know whether it's
• 32:11
  electricity, whether it's HVAC, whether the lawns being mowed,
• 32:15
  the food's being made, whatever's happening it's all
• 32:18
  happens with prisoners and prisoners take care of the place
• 32:22
  clean the place. And you know, I didn't, I didn't
• 32:26
  know that I I I thought that we were prisoners and you know we
• 32:30
  were locked up and. You know, everything was taken
• 32:33
  care of and once I got there, I said, Oh my God, everybody here
• 32:38
  does. For the most part.
• 32:39
  It's all taken care of by prisoners and the and the CEO's,
• 32:42
  they come around and count you to make sure you haven't left
• 32:46
  weird environment. It shocked me too because I
• 32:49
  assumed like, oh, nobody in here would be able to run things.
• 32:53
  And you realize these are the most talented, you know,
• 32:55
  maintenance people. These are the most talented
• 32:56
  folks working with, you know, didn't even give them, like, the
• 32:59
  flower they're supposed to have. So they figure something else
• 33:01
  out and the ingenuity of what people do in there, I mean, they
• 33:04
  could survive in a super society.
• 33:05
  They could just stay out of trouble when they get out.
• 33:07
  But we're really conditioned to survive in that society and not
• 33:10
  anywhere else. Like, we're conditioned to be
• 33:11
  really good prisoners and not conditioned to be good people in
• 33:13
  the world. And I was just thought that was
• 33:15
  such a broken way of doing it. It is.
• 33:17
  It's a contradiction of why you're in there.
• 33:21
  How did you? Because I know that along the
• 33:24
  way that you ended up getting your sentence commuted to 19
• 33:30
  years, you went 19 years. But was there a process that was
• 33:33
  going on when you work in the law library and and and trying
• 33:37
  to make something happen and have an impact on your sentence?
• 33:40
  Sure. So in Virginia, we abolished
• 33:43
  parole in 1995. So there was no parole and there
• 33:45
  was no chance of that. The only possibility of getting
• 33:48
  a sense of commutation was a conditional pardon from the
• 33:51
  governor. And you know, up until even when
• 33:53
  I put mine in, that was an impossibility, you would get 4
• 33:56
  commutations at the end of the governor's term because, you
• 33:59
  know, three were PR and one person had done a really big
• 34:01
  campaign donation. It just, it wasn't reasonable.
• 34:04
  So I did mine. Not even really expecting it to
• 34:06
  work, but I did it because I said, hey, I wanna do everything
• 34:09
  I can to try to get myself out of here.
• 34:11
  And then that way I know I can rest knowing that I haven't
• 34:13
  just, like, had an unexplored opportunity or I haven't given
• 34:16
  up. Like, I've tried everything I
• 34:17
  can and the rest is out of my hands.
• 34:20
  So I waited until 16 1/2 years, which was the the high point of
• 34:23
  my sentencing guidelines. And at 16 1/2 years, I started
• 34:26
  putting all the paperwork together and and organizing and
• 34:28
  writing this petition and asking people for letters to support
• 34:31
  and and including, like, articles that had published just
• 34:33
  like, including all this stuff together.
• 34:34
  And after about six months, I had it all together.
• 34:36
  I was ready to go, and I sent it off to the governor and just
• 34:39
  didn't think anything about it. It was like, OK, you know, maybe
• 34:41
  maybe this will happen, maybe not, whatever.
• 34:43
  But this weird, like, series of events started happening.
• 34:46
  This local reporter reached out to me and this was we couldn't
• 34:50
  have contact because that you're not allowed to have recording
• 34:51
  devices inside the prison. So we did it all by phone.
• 34:54
  And so we had an interview because she was talking about
• 34:56
  the abolition of parole and she had somebody who was super law
• 34:58
  and order and then saying why this was a good thing.
• 35:00
  And then she wanted me to be the counterpoint of why I thought it
• 35:02
  wasn't a good thing. And I remember like I was a
• 35:05
  prison celebrity for, I don't know, like a week.
• 35:07
  Because in that interview I didn't just talk about me.
• 35:09
  I talked about like, have you ever seen a 16 year old kid get
• 35:11
  sentenced to 50 years or get a life sentence?
• 35:13
  Have you ever seen a 16 year old kid not get 90 years for a
• 35:16
  robbery in which nobody was harmed?
• 35:17
  Like, that's what I see every day.
• 35:19
  And it was amazing because like all the gang members, all the
• 35:22
  straight people, all the everything was like coming up
• 35:24
  and give me hugs. They were like, bro, you looked
• 35:25
  out for everybody. That meant a lot.
• 35:27
  And that was part of, I think, the beginning of my dream of
• 35:29
  advocacy. But then the governor had this
• 35:31
  huge scandal where he was called a racist.
• 35:33
  And his response to that, I think very reasonably was okay,
• 35:35
  like let's look at inequity in our criminal justice system, in
• 35:38
  our schools and other places. And that governor ended up doing
• 35:41
  more for Prison Reform and more for clemency and pardons than
• 35:44
  all Virginia governors in history combined.
• 35:46
  So it ended up being kind of a perfect storm of situations that
• 35:48
  led to literally one day waking up and by 2:00 in that afternoon
• 35:52
  being told I was going home. That's fascinating because you
• 35:57
  know that governor went through his own nightmare and and being
• 36:02
  more or less shamed by the nation and maybe that's what
• 36:08
  brought him to maybe a different type of understanding, getting
• 36:11
  these letters and understand the other thing you were doing.
• 36:14
  You were writing it and and being published and
• 36:18
  publications. Did that affect how you were
• 36:22
  perceived or or the connections you were making on the outside
• 36:25
  when you were? I mean, I I think, you know,
• 36:28
  just the same thing as options with jobs.
• 36:31
  I had a buddy who told me early on, and he was just like young
• 36:33
  gangster kid, but he said, hey man, if you got a million
• 36:35
  friends, you got $1,000,000 because who wouldn't give your
• 36:37
  friend a dollar? And that was when I realized
• 36:39
  that it really is about your network and who you know and who
• 36:41
  you can count on. And so I I wrote letters every
• 36:43
  week to people I knew, to people I didn't know, to, to religious
• 36:46
  groups, to organizations. I just wrote letters to
• 36:48
  everybody and tried to develop as many relationships as
• 36:51
  possible because I knew maybe there'd be some way I could help
• 36:54
  or maybe there'd be some way they could help me.
• 36:56
  And every time I had something published in the newspaper or
• 36:58
  published in a magazine, I would get a few more letters or a few
• 37:00
  more people signing up on JPay, the like 4 pay e-mail service
• 37:03
  and. And more and more people kind of
• 37:04
  coming into my orbit. So when it came time to ask for
• 37:07
  letters of support, I had them from political leaders and
• 37:10
  business leaders and and you know, just people from all over
• 37:12
  and all walks of life. And that's why my petition was
• 37:14
  more than 300 pages long. Only a short portion of that was
• 37:17
  actually my petition. The rest was letters is for.
• 37:19
  And that was amazing because that was really as much for
• 37:21
  like, maybe getting out of prison.
• 37:23
  I needed that. Like I needed the validation
• 37:25
  that I wasn't worthless. I needed the validation these
• 37:27
  people believed in me because otherwise I wouldn't have been
• 37:29
  able to keep going. Wow, that's just listening to
• 37:35
  that, Jesse, because you and I talked before we got on here.
• 37:38
  This this podcast goes into 276 prisons and and.
• 37:44
  This gets thousands of listens a week and what you just said is a
• 37:47
  big tip for somebody not to give up and keep hope alive by just
• 37:51
  staying at it. Just stay at it.
• 37:53
  Keep trying because you've got time to keep trying to to make a
• 37:59
  difference in your life to maybe you have an outcome and you had
• 38:02
  an outcome. I can't imagine what what was
• 38:07
  your feeling? How did you get the, how did you
• 38:09
  get the news that that? You were.
• 38:13
  You'd been successful. So I I was calling the
• 38:18
  counselor's office. I was actually over on the phone
• 38:20
  because it was one of those dormitories.
• 38:21
  You only have 4 phones or 80 some people and you always have
• 38:24
  to fight over the phone. And there was always somebody
• 38:26
  would look out for me. So I had a spot and I was trying
• 38:27
  to get through to my then girlfriend and the counselor was
• 38:31
  like, hey, come here, come here, come here.
• 38:32
  This is during COVID when like you don't like, she wouldn't let
• 38:35
  people in the office without a mask.
• 38:36
  It was super serious. And she waved me in and I don't
• 38:39
  know what was going on. And that was the only reason I
• 38:40
  wasn't really off foot because as people know, he called in the
• 38:43
  counselor's office because somebody died or somebody's sick
• 38:45
  or something horrible happened. But she was so excited.
• 38:48
  I was like, man, I'm kind of scared.
• 38:49
  But like, maybe it's not a big deal.
• 38:51
  And the phone was off the hook and there was somebody on
• 38:53
  speakerphone and they just said, hey, Mr. Cross, and you're
• 38:55
  sitting down and I said no, Why? Because you're leaving coffee
• 38:58
  with a day you've been granted A pardon, I mean, and that sat me
• 39:00
  down like straight to me and like tears in my eyes, but also
• 39:04
  not really believing. Because it didn't.
• 39:06
  Seem real? Something like that could be
• 39:08
  real. Wow.
• 39:13
  So how I want to talk a little bit about COVID too, because you
• 39:17
  had been in prison for a long time, but I've talked to people
• 39:21
  who were in there that went in and didn't know anything
• 39:24
  different. With COVID, I'm interested in
• 39:26
  what you what was different. In your world, when when COVID
• 39:31
  hit in the prison world, oh, it's horrible.
• 39:34
  I mean it it was this kind of collective existential fear
• 39:37
  because we'd all seen the episode of The Walking Dead
• 39:39
  where you had the zombies in the prison and nobody knew what was
• 39:42
  happening and and so we were afraid the guards leave us in
• 39:44
  there. And I remember there's this one
• 39:46
  guy who worked maintenance. It was like the best it kind of
• 39:48
  Jerry Reagan thing. He actually built the torch.
• 39:50
  He ran 2:40 to his cell and put it in behind the light and put a
• 39:53
  plate up so you couldn't see it. And then he was, he was 240 with
• 39:55
  this wire. He had bundle under his bed to
• 39:57
  try to cut through his door. If we got locked in there, it's
• 39:59
  like planned all this out. He's like, Nope, I'm not saying
• 40:01
  suck. But for the most part, we were
• 40:04
  terrified. Like all I did was stock up on
• 40:05
  ramen noodles. I literally had like, I would
• 40:07
  get all the empty containers and fill them up with water because
• 40:09
  I was afraid, like that the the power would go out or the water
• 40:12
  would go out, or we'd just sit in there to starve and have to
• 40:14
  figure out how to get out. And that wasn't the reality.
• 40:17
  But what happened was the first time we had a case, they locked
• 40:19
  the prison down and we stayed on ourselves for months.
• 40:21
  And I was. I was really lucky because I had
• 40:23
  been moved to the Honor pod at that point.
• 40:24
  So I had a single cell, but for all those days and nights in the
• 40:28
  cell by myself was the first time I kind of wished I had a
• 40:30
  cell partner. Like I wished I had somebody to
• 40:31
  talk to or a way to interact. And then they slowly started
• 40:34
  letting things up. But it was still we wouldn't get
• 40:37
  outside regularly. We might be outside for every
• 40:40
  other day for an hour. We might get a little bit of
• 40:42
  this. But you couldn't go to class.
• 40:43
  You couldn't do a program. And again, I was just really
• 40:46
  lucky because people knew that I wanted to do things that I was.
• 40:49
  I was, at that point teaching classes in the mental health
• 40:50
  program, this leading group. So I was, I was doing everything
• 40:53
  I could. So the head psychologist had
• 40:55
  developed this program statewide to make videos.
• 40:58
  Because the idea was, hey, if we don't have GED classes, we need
• 41:00
  GED videos, We don't have mental health classes, we need mental
• 41:02
  health videos. So she recruited me to do a
• 41:04
  series of videos teaching Spanish and a series of videos
• 41:07
  teaching nonviolent communication.
• 41:09
  So I got to get called out when everybody else was just locked
• 41:11
  inside, go over to this classroom with this, this
• 41:13
  psychologist. It was great and amazing all the
• 41:15
  way around. And make videos like the
• 41:17
  beginning of my social media career, not even realizing it,
• 41:20
  that were then played in every prison across the state.
• 41:22
  And so I got to actually do something that would contribute
• 41:24
  to the benefit of everybody around.
• 41:26
  And that's again, that's where I find meaning and that's where I
• 41:28
  find purpose and that's where I find satisfaction.
• 41:30
  I love that, love that. How long was it between you
• 41:35
  getting? And from your counselor telling
• 41:38
  you that you're you won, you're going to go home to when you
• 41:44
  actually got to go home, it was an hour and a.
• 41:48
  Half. Wow.
• 41:48
  I they they told me get ready. I ran back in and I just
• 41:51
  finished working out for that phone call.
• 41:53
  So I ran in the shower and normally you, like tried to
• 41:55
  leave a shower between people and you're over respectful.
• 41:57
  I was like, bro, I'm sorry bro, I got to get in here.
• 41:59
  I washed up real quick. I got out and I called this kid
• 42:02
  over to my booth because it was this kid who was.
• 42:03
  He was a good kid. He had an anger problem, but no
• 42:05
  family, no, no connections on the outside.
• 42:07
  The he had just never had a chance in life.
• 42:09
  And so he didn't have a lot. So I called him over and I was
• 42:11
  like, hey man, I got a bunch of stuff.
• 42:13
  Here's my food, here's my shoes, here's my hygiene.
• 42:15
  I I think, I think I'm coming back, but maybe not.
• 42:18
  Like, I don't know. So if I don't come back, this is
• 42:20
  all yours. Take to your bunk.
• 42:21
  If I don't come back, enjoy it. And it's so funny because he
• 42:23
  didn't know anything about it and he thought I was going to
• 42:25
  beat somebody up. He thought I was going to get in
• 42:26
  trouble and I was just giving my stuff.
• 42:28
  And I just remember being like, no, it's going to be all right.
• 42:30
  And so I went and I had to sign all the paperwork in the front
• 42:32
  office and I had to go to medical and I had to go to
• 42:34
  property. And then it still didn't seem
• 42:36
  real. Like I said, I'm still kind of,
• 42:37
  like looking over my shoulder to find out if it's the hidden
• 42:39
  camera moment or they're going to take it back.
• 42:41
  And then finally I walked back into the dorm.
• 42:43
  If they tell me to officially pack my stuff and most of it's
• 42:45
  already gone and everybody is standing there and like,
• 42:47
  clapping and giving me hugs and shaking my hand.
• 42:49
  And I was like, holy shit, it's real like these people.
• 42:52
  Like, I'm actually going home. There's one guy in particular
• 42:55
  who I could not stand. We almost got into fighting over
• 42:57
  the phone a dozen times. And even he was like, bro, he
• 43:00
  shook my hand, he gave me a hug. He was like, I love you, bro.
• 43:02
  Take care of yourself. Do good out there.
• 43:04
  And it was one of those things. It was like even even the people
• 43:06
  we don't like something about seeing somebody succeed and get
• 43:09
  out and do good, transcends that because we do want the best for
• 43:12
  people, especially people who are doing well.
• 43:14
  Love it so you walk out of there.
• 43:17
  Who's there on the other side? So I got to the front office and
• 43:22
  about like 15 feet away, and I couldn't go over there because I
• 43:25
  had to fill out all this paperwork, the final round of
• 43:27
  paperwork. It's thing.
• 43:28
  And it was COVID. So I didn't see my mom in a year
• 43:30
  and a half, like there'd been no visits.
• 43:31
  There's no contact. And so I'm over there and I'm
• 43:33
  like, looking over and I'm and I'm looking over and I was like,
• 43:35
  I don't know what to do. Then finally, after I fill out
• 43:37
  all the paperwork at my last packet of stuff, I go over there
• 43:39
  and I pick my mom. She's a really little woman.
• 43:41
  And I pick her up and I'm just kind of standing there and she
• 43:43
  whispers my ear. She goes, Jessie, let's get the
• 43:45
  F out of here. And I was like, yeah, let's do
• 43:47
  that. Like, cool.
• 43:48
  So we went, we went out the front and I still remember the
• 43:51
  like the sights and the colors and just remember being blown
• 43:54
  away. And fundamentally there's no
• 43:55
  difference between the outside of the prison and the inside.
• 43:57
  Like, I've been outside on the rec yard, but something about it
• 44:00
  was just so overwhelming. I started kind of tearing up and
• 44:02
  I walked through the car and I was still half numb.
• 44:04
  But it was like I could feel the pressure on that numbness, like
• 44:06
  almost like draining down the sides of it.
• 44:08
  And I didn't know what to think. And then my then girlfriend, who
• 44:11
  I hadn't met at this point because again, there's been no
• 44:13
  visits, but we've been talking on the phone all the time, was
• 44:16
  she'd gotten the news that I was getting out in 30 minutes when
• 44:18
  she was 45 minutes away. So we drove down to the end of
• 44:21
  the driveway of the prison and we drove to the the little
• 44:23
  driveway next door to a farm that was blocked off.
• 44:25
  We just sat there and I remember just sitting there, like looking
• 44:27
  around. My mom was like let's get a
• 44:29
  picture. And there's this like bewildered
• 44:32
  look on my face and the picture of just.
• 44:33
  Like, I don't know where I'm at or what's going on.
• 44:36
  And then my girlfriend drove up, and she drove up and we just
• 44:39
  looked at each other and I was like, oh, you're real?
• 44:40
  Like, this is nice. Like, this is and we've done
• 44:43
  something that I think everybody should do, especially in the
• 44:45
  realm of online dating. We had reverse catfish each
• 44:47
  other. Like everybody always puts their
• 44:49
  best picture. And all the best
• 44:50
  characteristics, like, look, COVID hasn't been good.
• 44:53
  I've been out of shape. Things are rough.
• 44:55
  Like, you know, I lost my hair a while ago and I had done the
• 44:58
  same thing. I was like, oh, I'm out of
• 44:59
  shape. Like I walk like Steven Seagal.
• 45:01
  I got a bad tooth. It was perfect because when we
• 45:03
  actually saw each other, everything was better than we
• 45:05
  expected and it was the best approach I ever could have
• 45:07
  taken. Wow.
• 45:10
  You know, I heard somebody said that was on the show, the
• 45:13
  difference of being inside prison to walking out of prison
• 45:16
  is going from black and white to color.
• 45:18
  And I I think that's it. I think that's kind of a good
• 45:21
  analogy to how you feel. You feel like your world turns
• 45:25
  back into color. So it's been 19 years.
• 45:31
  You know, I there's a lot that's changed in 19 years.
• 45:35
  I mean, well, I should ask you what, what was your?
• 45:39
  Thoughts of moving back into this world 19 years later, What
• 45:42
  were the things that you saw that felt different?
• 45:45
  Well, I mean everything. And it was also that I didn't,
• 45:48
  you know, I have spent all those years or at least maybe after
• 45:51
  like the first three or four when I was messing up, you know,
• 45:53
  focused on reading like parenting books and self help
• 45:55
  books and business books and like trying to have an
• 45:57
  understanding of what was coming.
• 45:59
  And even with all that, more than a decade of preparation, I
• 46:02
  was overwhelmed by trying to shop at Costco.
• 46:04
  I was overwhelmed sitting at a CVS just trying to buy soap and
• 46:07
  body wash but not knowing which of the 30 things to select.
• 46:10
  I was overwhelmed by a public space where I'm putting my back
• 46:12
  against the wall and people were looking at me like I'm crazy
• 46:14
  because they don't understand what I'm doing.
• 46:16
  And and so it really was every part of life that overwhelmed
• 46:19
  me. And I think it was at first the
• 46:21
  thing that I remember so vividly was the technology, because the
• 46:24
  first thing I did was go buy a phone.
• 46:25
  Because like, you have to have a phone and you.
• 46:28
  But I would like, I would get up, I would, like post something
• 46:30
  on Facebook. And then I would sit down and I
• 46:32
  would notice everybody was still in their phone.
• 46:34
  And every room I walked into, people were on their phone And I
• 46:36
  would, I would go in and people would be like texting each other
• 46:38
  from different sides of the couch.
• 46:39
  And I was like, what is wrong with y'all?
• 46:41
  Once you see this world out here, it's amazing.
• 46:44
  But then the bizarre thing for me was then two weeks after I
• 46:47
  got out, I started posting on social media and all of a sudden
• 46:50
  I have like 100 comments and then 1000 comments and then and
• 46:53
  all of a sudden the phone started to become my life and I
• 46:56
  became one of those very people that I didn't understand two
• 46:58
  weeks before. Wow.
• 47:01
  Yeah, technology in 19 years would have been a gigantic
• 47:05
  change. And and that is a big change is
• 47:08
  people. Even in the three years that I
• 47:10
  was gone, I noticed that people went from using their phone to
• 47:16
  watching TV. And also being on their phone,
• 47:20
  you know that there the phone is, I realized that the phone
• 47:24
  had become such a different part of what was going on because of
• 47:29
  the notifications and everything that people are getting.
• 47:31
  I don't know if it's a good thing, but it's a definite
• 47:34
  change. You know, now that, you know,
• 47:36
  I'm six years removed from being, I'm, I'm one of those
• 47:39
  people too. So it's it's addictive.
• 47:43
  I don't know what. If there's any turning back from
• 47:46
  it, but it's clearly part of our lives that has changed it for
• 47:52
  forever, I believe. And whatever that technology
• 47:54
  evolves to be able to change it even more.
• 47:56
  So, Jesse, you get out. Do you?
• 48:00
  Where do you live? Where do you, how do you move in
• 48:02
  society? What's going on?
• 48:05
  So I I was really lucky because that was the other thing is they
• 48:08
  were telling me when I was signing my paperwork, they were
• 48:09
  like, hey, if we don't get this approval for your home plan,
• 48:11
  like, you can't go home. And it's such an unfair
• 48:14
  situation where even if they've determined, like your situation
• 48:16
  is unfair, your sentence should be commuted.
• 48:18
  If you didn't have a home plan, you couldn't go on a party.
• 48:20
  So I was lucky that my mother had a place that I could go to.
• 48:23
  She had kind of like a basement downstairs in a little separate
• 48:25
  space. And so I went to live with my
• 48:27
  mother for a month and Courtney, my then girlfriend, and I talked
• 48:30
  about it. We're like, hey, we shouldn't
• 48:31
  move in right away. We should, like, take this slow
• 48:33
  and easy. And so I was there for a month.
• 48:35
  And just the kind of dynamics of being in my childhood home, I
• 48:38
  mean, not it was a different place, but the same environment.
• 48:41
  I just, I couldn't do it. It was driving me crazy.
• 48:43
  And I was really lucky because I found somebody in town.
• 48:45
  Actually, the, the exwife of the Commonwealth Attorney, which is
• 48:47
  just convenient, was like, hey, I've got this, this, like, you
• 48:50
  know, what do you call it? Like, motherinlaw dwelling
• 48:52
  behind my house. I love your story.
• 48:54
  I want to give you a chance. Do you want to move in?
• 48:56
  And I immediately jumped on that.
• 48:57
  I was able to move into this place in town down and all of a
• 48:59
  sudden I'm not spending 45 minutes in the car every day
• 49:01
  just to get to work. I'm not dealing to the same
• 49:03
  craziness with probation because where I was at was at the very
• 49:06
  end of a probation district. Like this is a district.
• 49:08
  I was right here. But everything like the city and
• 49:10
  everywhere I worked was over here.
• 49:12
  So technically every day I went to work, I was violating the
• 49:14
  terms of my 50 mile radius probation.
• 49:16
  It was just insane. Yeah.
• 49:18
  And my PO said, oh don't worry about it.
• 49:19
  I was like, hey, with all due respect, like, no, like, I'm
• 49:22
  going to worry about it, cuz you're not violating me because
• 49:24
  you told me not to worry about it.
• 49:25
  And I had to fight with him about that and fight with him
• 49:27
  about something else. So once I got moved into the
• 49:28
  city, there was there was no trouble.
• 49:30
  My PO was great, like everything was great and life was just a
• 49:33
  whole lot easier. So did you go into?
• 49:36
  What work did you do? So.
• 49:39
  And again, there was no preparation.
• 49:41
  So the first call I got, and it was like 2 days after I got out,
• 49:44
  there was a former attorney, a civil rights attorney.
• 49:46
  He was just an absolutely amazing human being who said,
• 49:48
  hey, Jesse, I'm selling my house and I want to, you know, fix it
• 49:51
  up. I've got some things I need to
• 49:52
  do before I sell it. Would you be willing to come do
• 49:54
  some work? And I think at the time he was
• 49:56
  thinking like he could teach me a skill.
• 49:57
  He was like, hey, I'll teach you some carpentry stuff.
• 50:00
  And after about an hour, he was like, I think, you know, as much
• 50:02
  or more than I do, like, I'm just going to let you work.
• 50:04
  I'm going to go back in the house.
• 50:05
  So I spent, you know, two weeks or three weeks, like building
• 50:08
  stairs and fixing up his deck and replacing planks.
• 50:10
  And it was amazing because it was in the middle of nowhere.
• 50:12
  It was quiet. I was working by myself.
• 50:14
  So I I got this sense of peace that I really needed.
• 50:16
  I got to, like, unwind from all those years of prison in a place
• 50:19
  that felt safe. Yeah.
• 50:21
  That's cool. And there I went.
• 50:23
  I got a job with a publisher. I'd actually, I'd applied for
• 50:25
  the local university because they have an equal practice
• 50:28
  hiring program. And so I was going to go be an
• 50:30
  electrician at the university and make decent money and have
• 50:32
  good benefits. But it was going to be a really
• 50:34
  strict schedule. Like I would have had to stay on
• 50:36
  that schedule And somebody else, the local publisher said, hey,
• 50:39
  I'll give you a work from home job.
• 50:40
  It won't be quite as much money, but you'll have the freedom to
• 50:43
  do more. And as I go back to the idea of
• 50:44
  options versus plans, I was like, no, I need this thing that
• 50:47
  has more options. And that allowed me to post more
• 50:49
  on social media. It allowed me to travel.
• 50:50
  It allowed me to speak places. It gave me the flexibility to do
• 50:53
  a lot more with my life that I wouldn't have been able to do.
• 50:55
  And I'm glad that I took that path, because in the moment it
• 50:57
  looked really stupid to give up great benefits and more money.
• 51:00
  But it allowed me to be where I am today.
• 51:04
  So what do you what do you see where you're at today?
• 51:07
  I know you're talking about books, right?
• 51:10
  Maybe you've written a book. What's the future hold for you
• 51:15
  Jesse? Cuz you're just getting as I see
• 51:18
  it. You're a guy on the move.
• 51:20
  You haven't been out very long, but you've done a lot to this
• 51:22
  point. What do you see yourself?
• 51:24
  What's your future? No.
• 51:27
  And that's where I give myself a lot of pressure because it's
• 51:29
  like I said, tomorrow's gonna be two years and I'm like, why
• 51:32
  haven't I figured this out? What's going on?
• 51:34
  And I had a friend who flew in when I had my accident, flew in
• 51:37
  from Portland. And she's like Jesse, for the
• 51:39
  first two years all I did was deliver pizza.
• 51:41
  I didn't go to school and do anything like give yourself an F
• 51:44
  and break. So the problem is I love doing
• 51:47
  the work that I do, especially with, you know, incarcerated and
• 51:49
  formerly incarcerated people. At the same time, it can be
• 51:51
  really triggering and exhausting.
• 51:52
  There's some nights that I come home from that kid who just got
• 51:55
  out getting locked back up or some tragedy or some new
• 51:57
  shooting that I just, I just can't deal with it.
• 51:59
  I just give get home and I just collapse.
• 52:01
  And so there's a part of me that wants to get into a different
• 52:03
  space or do something different. I'm on the Advisory Board for
• 52:05
  tech conference this year. At the end of the month, I
• 52:08
  started a company that we haven't managed to get the
• 52:10
  patents on to try to develop some technology that would help
• 52:12
  people who are incarcerated and help transition.
• 52:14
  So I've got a bunch of things in the fire, but the reality is, I
• 52:16
  don't know. I mean part of me wants to just
• 52:18
  go to a graduate program or go to a PhD program.
• 52:20
  It's been four years focusing on something so I don't have to
• 52:22
  wonder about all what ifs. But part of me also wants to,
• 52:25
  you know, keep doing what I'm doing and saying yes to
• 52:27
  everything and taking every opportunity.
• 52:28
  Because for all those years I couldn't do any of it.
• 52:31
  And and I think that was the blessing and the curse because
• 52:33
  for all those years I told myself I will never miss out on
• 52:35
  a never opportunity. I will never say no to anything
• 52:38
  again. And that sounds great, but let.
• 52:40
  Me tell you exhausted the year of doing that.
• 52:42
  I'm exhausted. Well, and I think to be fair, it
• 52:45
  takes reentry, takes time and. I think the longer that you're
• 52:51
  in the more you feel that because there's 1000 things
• 52:55
  going on in your head when you get out.
• 52:56
  You know people are looking at you they think you're he's got
• 52:59
  to be so excited he's got and yes it's all that but but you're
• 53:02
  also all these things you know your friends and family and I
• 53:06
  want to be the same person. I want to figure out how to fit
• 53:08
  in. I want to figure out what I'm
• 53:09
  going to do, where am I going to work.
• 53:11
  All these things just are are racing through your mind and and
• 53:15
  it takes a while for that to settle.
• 53:18
  Because you've reentered the world and the world moves so
• 53:21
  much faster than prison, and you have to adjust to that.
• 53:25
  And I think you've done a fantastic job of of getting in
• 53:28
  and getting things. Very few people have been able
• 53:31
  to accomplish what you've accomplished in a short amount
• 53:33
  of time of what you've done. And I think that's also good for
• 53:37
  people to hear that are in that. You can get yourself instead of
• 53:43
  yourself and also do things, but don't put too much pressure on
• 53:47
  yourself because part of it is you're reinventing your world
• 53:52
  and also getting used to the world that has changed while you
• 53:55
  were in, so you have to give yourself a break.
• 54:01
  One thing I'd say is when I was inside, I always had an eye to
• 54:04
  the future in the sense I was thinking about options that I
• 54:06
  could create for myself or what my life like looked like.
• 54:09
  But my focus on a daily basis was, was living the most
• 54:11
  meaningful life there. And that day, yeah, because it
• 54:14
  was so easy to watch guys get lost in the future, watch me
• 54:16
  like get into some long distance relationship and start dreaming
• 54:18
  about one day maybe we'll be together.
• 54:20
  And all that did was just take energy from where I was and
• 54:22
  stuff that I could actually be doing and accomplishing and send
• 54:25
  it into some, you know, mythical realm in my mind.
• 54:27
  It was just a waste of time. Even though I read those
• 54:30
  parenting books and those self help books and those business
• 54:32
  books, I was focused on a daily basis with how could I better
• 54:34
  myself? How can I better the lives of
• 54:36
  people around me? How can I do something for my
• 54:38
  community inside? How can I make things better
• 54:40
  where I was? And that was what really allowed
• 54:42
  me to propel myself to the place I am now, where I could do the
• 54:44
  same thing out here and I just have to think about that small
• 54:47
  space. That's a big tip.
• 54:49
  Also, I think you have looking at something three years, five
• 54:54
  years in advance when you're in prison is is is overwhelming and
• 54:56
  suffocating, winning the day. Getting through the day, trying
• 55:00
  to make an impact on the day is is big.
• 55:04
  And I think transferring that to the outside world is also big.
• 55:09
  I think that's also how we should probably be living our
• 55:11
  lives. How can I impact today?
• 55:13
  How do I win today? How do I make today the most and
• 55:16
  the best it can be? And and I always say this to
• 55:21
  people who are asking me about these different things, is that
• 55:24
  there are bad days in prison and there are bad days out here.
• 55:29
  Go all the way down with it. Have yourself a horrible, very
• 55:32
  bad day. But come back up, you know,
• 55:34
  Don't get stuck, don't get, don't get on a slippery slope.
• 55:37
  So you have a bad day, a week, a month, a year.
• 55:40
  I wanted to ask you, though, Jesse and I meant to ask you
• 55:42
  this while you were having bad days in prison.
• 55:46
  How did you work through that? It depended.
• 55:51
  There were times where I I didn't get out of bed, where I
• 55:53
  just, I couldn't do it. I didn't know how to go on with
• 55:55
  it. And I kind of It's funny because
• 55:58
  it's my now exgirlfriend. Courtney shared something with
• 56:01
  me that really I think is what I was doing, but without having a
• 56:03
  name for it. And she said it was constructive
• 56:05
  wallowing. And so I would have a bad day.
• 56:07
  I would block off a period of time and I would feel sorry for
• 56:10
  myself, or I would complain, or I would just pout.
• 56:12
  I would do whatever I had to do as intensely as I possibly
• 56:15
  could. And then the time was up and it
• 56:16
  was time to get on with life. And I found that it was really
• 56:19
  valuable to not just ignore that bad feeling and try to press on,
• 56:22
  because then it would just build and build and build.
• 56:24
  But it was also important not to give into it completely.
• 56:26
  So I would give myself time to constructively wallow and feel
• 56:29
  sorry for myself. And then I would go do something
• 56:31
  nice for somebody. I'd go, you know, walk around
• 56:33
  the track or the weight pile, or I'd go do something to work, or
• 56:35
  I'd go write a letter. I'd go go say thank you to
• 56:37
  somebody. What I found is the more I did
• 56:38
  something outside of myself, the more I got outside of those
• 56:41
  feelings that I was having until I was back into kind of a
• 56:43
  balanced place where I could deal with whatever came up I.
• 56:46
  Liked that? So after all this, this roller
• 56:51
  coaster life that you've been in, Jesse, where you're at now
• 56:57
  knowing the people listening, what do you think's your
• 57:00
  greatest take away through all that you've been through?
• 57:06
  There was somebody who came back into the prison to speak.
• 57:08
  We didn't, they didn't let a lot of speakers come in.
• 57:10
  And I really was was sad about that because this guy came back
• 57:13
  in and we'd all known him and he was an outstanding guy.
• 57:15
  He worked in the school. He was always helping people.
• 57:17
  And he came back in and he said the number one thing I want to
• 57:20
  tell you is that you're not irredeemable.
• 57:22
  Like your life is not over. Whether you have a life
• 57:24
  sentence, whether you have six months left, whether you feel
• 57:26
  full of hope, whether you're strung out on dope, like your
• 57:28
  life is not over. Like it can start today.
• 57:30
  And I remember crying in that assembly and I remember pretty
• 57:33
  much everybody in there crying because he hit to the core of
• 57:35
  it. No matter how tough we were,
• 57:36
  what we thought or how we thought about ourselves, that
• 57:38
  was the fear. Like we thought our life was
• 57:40
  over. We thought we were irredeemable.
• 57:42
  And he hit that on the head and he showed us how successful he
• 57:44
  was and what he was doing on the outside.
• 57:46
  And that let me believe that maybe one day I could do that.
• 57:49
  And now I'm at a point where I can share that with other
• 57:50
  people. I can go into the jail and say,
• 57:52
  hey, I will pick you up when you get out.
• 57:53
  I will get you a job. What can I do to help?
• 57:56
  I'm in a position to help because I now I'm thankfully
• 57:58
  blessed with with enough. And I can share that with other
• 58:00
  people. And that is one of the best
• 58:01
  feelings I've ever had. I like that a lot.
• 58:04
  That's really good. People getting a hold of you,
• 58:07
  Jesse. People wanting to know more
• 58:09
  about you. Let us know how does Jesse Cross
• 58:13
  and how do you out there, these people listening.
• 58:15
  Get a hold of you. Sure.
• 58:17
  So you can see me on social media as second chancer or Jesse
• 58:21
  Cross. And for personal inquiries or
• 58:23
  speaking inquiries, you've got my website jessecrossan.com or
• 58:26
  for things related to the nonprofit, it's second hyphen
• 58:29
  chancer.org. Reach out.
• 58:30
  You know, most of our things are focused locally right now
• 58:32
  because we just don't have the staff or the resources to expand
• 58:35
  beyond that. But our goal is to create a
• 58:36
  service and a model that we can expand nationally so that we can
• 58:38
  create opportunities and services for everybody because
• 58:41
  everybody is as equally deserving of a second chance.
• 58:44
  Jesse, just keep doing what you're doing, man, and and don't
• 58:47
  put too much pressure on yourself either, because you're
• 58:49
  doing a lot. For anybody who's out there, I
• 58:52
  mean Jesse he You dropped a lot of Nuggets of wisdom today.
• 58:59
  If you like what you heard, please go leave a review on
• 59:03
  Apple Spotify. It puts the show on steroids and
• 59:07
  and I love all the back and forth we get from from social
• 59:11
  media. You can find me at
• 59:12
  brentcassie.com anywhere on my website, but at Brent Cassidy.
• 59:19
  On social media so and if anybody's looking for a book,
• 59:25
  check out Nightmare Success. That's my book.
• 59:27
  And I think probably Jesse's got a book ending that's probably
• 59:30
  going to be coming out. So be looking for that.
• 59:33
  As I used to say and follow the show, by the way, it's easy to
• 59:36
  do. Just just click on it.
• 59:37
  It's easy to follow as I used to say when I was writing my stuff
• 59:40
  back and forth communicating with the outside world.
• 59:44
  Stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 59:47
  Jesse Crossing. You are an incredible guy and I
• 59:50
  love what you're doing. Thanks for being on here today.
• 59:54
  Thanks, Sir. Nine more success in and out.