Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / From Federal Prison to Entrepreneur | Doug Feller’s Comeback Story :Reentry Truth

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From Federal Prison to Entrepreneur | Doug Feller’s Comeback Story :Reentry Truth · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:00
  Could have just said, I'm riding off into the sunset.
• 0:02
  What's my what, what's, what am I really doing to make a
• 0:05
  difference in this world? And I'm taking all these highs,
• 0:08
  all these lows that I've had. And I'm like, I want to give
• 0:10
  back and help the men and women that have been the same places
• 0:15
  that I've been that are trying to figure out how do I better
• 0:18
  myself? What about their families?
• 0:19
  How do we really make a difference, right?
• 0:21
  What's my legacy? What happens when your worst
• 0:25
  year becomes your reality? Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome
• 0:28
  to the Nightmare Success In and Out podcast where we explore how
• 0:31
  to overcome your fears and nightmares that set yourself
• 0:34
  free. We're going to be exploring this
• 0:36
  topic with guys that was in Leavenworth with and others who
• 0:39
  survived their own nightmare. These stories can be inspiring,
• 0:44
  sometimes sad. There's some humor, but
• 0:47
  hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something that'll
• 0:50
  help you knock down some of the prisons you built up in your own
• 0:53
  mind. All right, welcome back night.
• 0:56
  We're success in and out. Listeners, this is where you
• 0:58
  come from. What happens when your worst
• 1:00
  fear becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
• 1:02
  overcome, set yourself free, folks, Don't forget.
• 1:06
  I know I say this all the time, but don't forget to follow,
• 1:08
  subscribe, share this thing out, like it up, comment and it just
• 1:11
  it just really helps the show and I super appreciate it.
• 1:15
  So who are we talking to today on Nightmare success?
• 1:20
  Well, today's guest He didn't just serve 18 months in prison,
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  He walked out with something to prove.
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  Doug Feller could have. He couldn't let that chapter
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  define him. Instead, he built superior
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  asphalt to a thriving Midwest company and sold it.
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  But success wasn't enough because Doug knew something most
• 1:40
  people don't. Getting out of prison isn't the
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  end of the sentence, it's the beginning of the climb.
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  So he built the My Harvest app, creating a road map for others
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  coming home to rebuild their lives the right way.
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  From federal president to entrepreneur to impact, this is
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  a comeback story you don't want to miss.
• 1:59
  And I can't wait to jump into all this.
• 2:02
  Before we do, I want to recognize our show sponsor, Auto
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• 2:33
  Telling Brett from nightmare success suits you folks.
• 2:36
  I want to share with you a powerful and moving new book you
• 2:39
  won't want to miss. My name is Saffron Voices
• 2:43
  silence stifled and taken away by author Saffron Gustafson.
• 2:46
  This isn't just a story. It's a journey through
• 2:48
  resilience, survival and reclaiming your voice after
• 2:51
  being silenced for far too long. Saffron's story takes you inside
• 2:54
  the hidden struggles, the pain, and ultimately the triumph or
• 2:56
  refusing to be defined by circumstances.
• 2:59
  As Saffron was putting the finishing touches on her book,
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  the prison, she had just been released from Federal Dublin.
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  FCI, was permanently closed because of sexual abuse of the
• 3:07
  women prisoners. If you've ever wondered what it
• 3:10
  takes to rise from the darkness of places, to find your truth
• 3:13
  and to speak it boldly, this book will inspire you.
• 3:17
  Pick up your copy of My Name is Saffron Today, available now on
• 3:21
  Amazon or wherever books are sold.
• 3:23
  Trust me, you'll be moved, challenged and changed by her
• 3:26
  story. Doug Feller, how are you?
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  Brent, great to talk to you again.
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  Good to see you. It's.
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  Good to see you. I, I am just absolutely
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  fascinated with your story because you know, when someone
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  goes through what we went through, you know, having a
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  business and, and really being all in and, and growing
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  something and then losing it all.
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  You know, a lot of people think that going to prison is, is the
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  end of the nightmare or it's the beginning and the end of the
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  nightmare. But what a lot of people don't
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  understand and what you are in the midst of, of showing people
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  and helping people with is getting out of prison is what a
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  lot of people just don't plan for.
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  They just think it's great. I'm out.
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  I'm this is fantastic. I made it.
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  And then the hurdles and the barriers began.
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  And this, my harvest app happened because you actually
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  found success after getting out of prison, which a lot of people
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  don't. I want to go.
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  I want to go in and talk about that.
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  But before we do, Doug, just give us a little bit of
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  background. Where are you from?
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  I know you're in Springfield, MO now, which is my old hometown.
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  Where'd you grow up? Oh, mom, dad, siblings.
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  Grew up Valparaiso IN area, so Northwest Indiana, just outside
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  Chicago. Grew up on a farm, you know, had
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  two great parents, had an older brother, older sister.
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  I was almost like an only child because they were 9 and 14 years
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  older than me and. That's a big difference.
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  It's a big difference. It was, but you know, I didn't
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  nothing was handed to me. I mean, I was taught the hard
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  work of living on the farm. It's not like I had a silver
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  spoon or something in my mouth. And but that was my upbringing,
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  you know, good Christian values and just hard work and and that
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  was it, right. And I created my first company,
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  last man. I started like cutting firewood
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  and delivering it to around Chicago and Northwest Indiana
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  area and had kind of my own firewood business.
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  I mean, it's before I even had my driver's license.
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  I had a kid that, you know, would drive.
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  You had a hustle way back. Then I did I, I, I always had a
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  hustle. I mean, for sure.
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  And you know, that's how I bought my first car.
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  My parents didn't give me money to pay for it.
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  I did. So, you know, I mean, we were
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  middle class family, but I, you know, nobody just handed me
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  anything. But I, you know, look, I started
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  to create an empire from right when I was in high school.
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  I didn't go to college. I got right into business, was
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  literally working 100 hours a week.
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  And that's no exaggeration. And, you know, I had some great
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  success. And you know, with all that
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  success, I had a lot of fun, you know, And, you know, I mean, I
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  thought I was living the life of everything, so.
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  Yeah, I, I want to talk about that because you were, you would
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  have been at that time, Doug, everybody else, it would have
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  been that age, not everybody else.
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  Most people that age are in college and, and at that time
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  you are creating a company and, and, and living as you know, not
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  just as a college kid, but you're making money.
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  What was that like for you? It was a lot of fun.
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  You know, in one way I felt like I was missing some stuff of
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  college life of, you know, friends of mine that were had
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  went to college and that. But in another way, you know, I
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  was having a lot of fun and I had a lot of money.
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  And when you have cash and money, you can do a lot of
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  things, right. It was fun.
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  Just that fast-paced lifestyle. I don't need to go into it and
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  start spelling it out, but you know, but I, I lived a pretty
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  fast-paced high lifestyle because in your. 20s.
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  Yeah, and, and, and look, I, I did a lot of partying.
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  I, you know, I did things that I, you know, look back now and
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  with kids and everything else, I'm like, gosh, I don't want my
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  kids to ever do, you know, the stuff I did or experience.
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  You wonder how you survived. Right.
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  And, and I did, yeah. I mean, I don't know how I'm
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  here. I thought I I probably should
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  have died five times from all the stuff that I've done, you
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  know, so again, I'm not proud of that, but that's part of like
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  my, you know, my life. And so I know what that's like.
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  I know what, you know, addictions or the hustle and the
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  other things are, are like in your life.
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  And, you know, I was, you know, I don't know if you want to call
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  them demons or not, but it was, you know, look, there was
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  there's all these things out there in the world that kind of
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  take you away. And I'm not trying to go down
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  some, you know, religious, spiritual thing with that
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  comment initially. But you know, I mean, I knew the
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  difference between right and wrong.
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  It's not like I grew up that I had some broken household.
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  And you know, that's the thing that I can't understand with a
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  lot of other individuals. Like man, you feel like if you
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  don't have loving parents or you don't have, you know, you know,
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  you just grow up in other parts. I mean, I can't relate to that,
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  but I can definitely relate to, you know, building myself up
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  from nothing, having everything, losing everything, losing all of
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  it, no fault of but my own right and happening to start back over
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  again. And you're right, you know, when
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  you talk about nightmare it the nightmare actually started when
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  I was like, you think it's the nightmare when you're going
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  through everything of fighting a federal sentence or you know,
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  any type of of sentence that you're going through.
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  Or then while you're away, you know, and you're sitting there
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  without your family and kids loved ones or you're barely
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  getting to see them. But man, when you get back out,
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  like the the deck, the the cards, they're stacked up
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  against you completely. And that's when honestly, the
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  real nightmare starts. And I didn't realize that until
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  I had to experience. That well, you don't because
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  there's no way that, you know, you end up, you end up in a
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  place you never thought you were going to be and then you end up
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  starting on the starting blocks with something that you never
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  thought you were going to have to deal with.
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  And, and there's no real, you know, unfortunately, but
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  something like the my harvest app is other things.
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  You know, there is no book that says here's how it's going to
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  be. You just you're living it as it
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  comes. When you had that money that you
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  created, Doug, what what what was the company?
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  What what was, was it logistics? What was the?
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  What were? You doing back then?
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  I mean, I was into a lot of stuff, but my initial, you know,
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  I've been a serial entrepreneur my whole life.
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  I've had, I can't even tell you how many companies, you know,
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  before I went to prison. And honestly since I've gotten
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  out that I've started usually from scratch.
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  So I mean, I've been involved in just so many facets for me to
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  start going down everyone, it would be 3, you know, I mean, we
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  could do a show on each one. I mean, but it was.
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  Well, I think there's something, there's something interesting
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  though, about people who are able to create businesses.
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  And I think so many times over and over you read the books of
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  the people who create. There's something with the
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  mindset that a lot of people don't do something that they
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  fear because it's the unknown. With entrepreneurs, you have to
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  jump into the unknown. You have to take the risk and
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  you almost build the airplane on the way down.
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  That's a mindset thing that you can't necessarily teach someone.
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  But I've found that over and over and over again.
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  There's something where people are wired in a way that I don't
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  know, unless some, unless somebody tells me that I can't
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  do this, I'm going to do this for as long as I can go.
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  And maybe it'll become the biggest thing that could ever
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  be. And, and it takes people like
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  that to actually make change and impact.
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  So let's go to Doug. Everything's going along.
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  You're you're moving through the life, you know, from the farm to
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  making money. When does the nightmare land on
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  you? The nightmare landed on me in
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  2006 is when I got like an initial knock on the door and
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  that's when an investigation started into me for, you know,
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  tax evasion, fraud, you know, all of that stuff and money
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  laundering. And so those were my charges was
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  tax evasion, fraud and and money laundering.
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  And was the knock on the door a surprise or was this something
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  you were fearing that could happen?
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  It was a surprise actually. I had quit everything, thought
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  everything was done about a year before because, you know, I met
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  my wife said, man, I'm going to like, you know, I need to change
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  my ways. When I was, you know, more
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  single and wild and crazy, I felt like, you know, I could do
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  whatever. And, you know, and I'd had a
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  marriage before that too, But like, I didn't care at that
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  point in my life. I'd finally now been like, man,
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  I got to get my, I got settled down.
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  And so I had quit and thought everything was like straight
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  narrow for a like about a full year.
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  And then all of a sudden, no, it's like that came back to
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  haunt me after you think like, you know, you would beat it all.
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  And so the things I had done was from, you know, 2002 to 2005.
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  I had quit it for like a year and then 2006 I get that knock
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  on the door and then, you know, the wheels of justice turn slow.
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  And, you know, I've interviewed a lot of people, Doug, where
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  it's funny how these how the time's out because I've
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  interviewed so many different people that like they were
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  dealing in drugs and they quit and they went and got another
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  job and they, you know, were getting on to another life and
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  then. And then you get indicted.
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  The hammer landed on them. Yeah.
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  So for you, when you got the knock on the door, it's a
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  surprise what goes through your mind.
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  Well, should I flee? Should I go to some other
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  country? I mean, honestly, I mean, I, I
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  actually packed just a single bag and was going to like, you
• 13:54
  know, do I just flee and take off?
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  I mean, that was one thought. I knew my wife was pregnant and
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  you know, was like 6 months or so along.
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  And so no, I'm leaving my family.
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  You know, she had no idea. Nobody had any idea, to be
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  honest. I mean, very few people had any
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  idea around me. Obviously there was some other,
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  you know, couple other people that were involved in some stuff
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  with me on part of it. And so, you know, they hadn't
• 14:23
  got a knock on the door, I don't believe yet.
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  Maybe they had, I don't know the chain of events on that.
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  But yeah, so I mean, Flea was the first thing thought real
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  quick, I don't need to, you know, obviously called one of my
• 14:38
  attorneys that was. Which usually doesn't work.
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  By the way, I, I've interviewed somebody, it's not released yet,
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  but he was, he was the guy that founded, like you see Coventry
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  direct and all those, he back in the 80s, he created the whole
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  settlement insurance piece and, and he was huge and he did leave
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  and he went to Panama and it only lasted 6 months.
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  They Interpol and everybody else caught up with him and and he
• 15:08
  was taking his kids to some kind of practice or dance practice or
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  something and they got him and it was then it was worse than it
• 15:15
  would have ever been. Yeah, yeah.
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  So I. Mean, but it does cross your.
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  There's a lot of things that cross your mind when you're
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  dealing with something. That was that was first thing
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  that crossed my mind and I did pack, I mean a small bag like I
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  mean, it would like take nothing, leave every, you know
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  what I mean? Just go.
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  I didn't do it. I didn't take any step to go for
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  it. But I mean, that was an initial
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  thought and you know, but then you start that whole long
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  process and, you know, I, I didn't know if I was going to
• 15:43
  get maybe a slap on the wrist. I knew I could have got, you
• 15:46
  know, eight years. I'm a first time.
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  I have nothing on my record, no other previous thing.
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  And you know, look, the wheels of justice turn slow.
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  And it was like 4 years later before I actually like got
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  indicted. And so so you, you went through
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  four years of just The Walking Dead.
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  Yeah. Oh, man, it it was it was that
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  that was horrible. You know what I mean?
• 16:08
  OK, so the. The you said something earlier
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  that now you had had you just gotten married or you were going
• 16:15
  to get married. No, I had just gotten married.
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  I gotten married in O 5 and so I was planning on like man, I got
• 16:21
  to stop this stuff. I was thinking that in O 4, then
• 16:23
  I married in O 5 and that's when I like then did quit, you know?
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  So your wife is all in this with you?
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  Well, she is, but she isn't because we always had filed
• 16:33
  taxes separately or I shouldn't say, oh, it just got married.
• 16:35
  But like, you know, she had no involvement, not involved in any
• 16:38
  of my LLCS, none of the different, you know, businesses
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  or endeavors. You know, when I started to get
• 16:44
  investigated, all of that was very clear.
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  Even my ex, if she had had no involvement, you know, they came
• 16:49
  and questioned her and did everything.
• 16:51
  I don't even know the extent of that to be honest.
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  But I know that, you know, like they started to do all of their
• 16:57
  research and they found out, you know, look, yeah, his ex-wife
• 17:01
  doesn't know she's taken out of this.
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  My current wife had no idea the things I had done was before we
• 17:07
  were even married. And so she had no idea not.
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  But look, they still want my assets, right?
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  You know what I mean? They.
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  Right, it does change her life means.
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  You know, look, all your friends started to like scatter because
• 17:19
  people don't want to do business with you.
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  Even though I had done so much legitimate business.
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  It's not like I had and I'm not trying to knock something here,
• 17:27
  try to act like I'm better. But it, you know, it wasn't a
• 17:29
  Ponzi scheme. It wasn't like there was, you
• 17:31
  know, all this, you know, it's not like everything I did was
• 17:35
  fake. I mean, I had real.
• 17:36
  Real things going on business. That I made a lot of real money.
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  It's just like this was a part of one thing.
• 17:44
  And so, you know, but everybody, no matter if you have legitimate
• 17:48
  business and have done everything or not, scatters, you
• 17:50
  know what I mean? Like, I mean, yeah, there's a
• 17:52
  few people that stick around or. People too, you know, Doug, that
• 17:55
  that's the other thing. Part of it is that they talk to
• 17:58
  people. It scares them.
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  They think if they you know. And it's still.
• 18:02
  Wrapped up and, and some people do get wrapped up.
• 18:04
  That's the thing. It's not really just to be
• 18:06
  scared. You can get wrapped up in a
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  federal. There's so much power and so
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  much fear that goes on and and they have so much of the weight
• 18:15
  of authority to be able to do whatever.
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  It scares people to paralysis. And I get that, I understand
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  that, but it's still makes you feel like you're on an island.
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  Yeah, and I, I mean it and it still does today.
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  That's the that's the other part of that nightmare, right?
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  Is it's well, it still does today.
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  You know, there's people that like, even though it's been
• 18:38
  gosh, what now 15 ish years almost since I've been out, you
• 18:41
  know, and created lots of great things for other people, other
• 18:45
  great business, so on and so forth.
• 18:47
  And you still find people that are like, oh man, oh, you've
• 18:50
  been to you've been to prison. You, you've got to, oh, you
• 18:55
  know, I, you know, they just don't even want to touch you.
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  And so, you know, I don't know, it's, it's just that stigma
• 19:01
  stays with you. It's, it's a hell of a stigma
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  and it's a it's, it's something that, it's something that you
• 19:07
  wear around your neck for the rest of your life.
• 19:09
  And, and there's certain things that happen that, you know, it's
• 19:14
  legal to discriminate against you.
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  So it's, it's not illegal to discriminate.
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  They can discriminate you for being a fellow not to get a job
• 19:22
  or discriminate you to not get a housing.
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  So it's actually legal. They can discriminate you for
• 19:27
  not getting license to be, you know, insurance person or real
• 19:31
  estate. So four years goes by.
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  Were you ever thinking that you would go to trial or was it
• 19:39
  always just trying to figure out where this was going to go so
• 19:42
  that you could do or was offered?
• 19:44
  A plea agreement, always trying to figure out where it might go.
• 19:47
  You know, I was racking up tons of attorney bills and, you know,
• 19:52
  that cost me a fortune, but I I was honestly, I was trying to
• 19:56
  like live my life in the middle of that.
• 19:58
  So I still had lots of other businesses.
• 19:59
  I won't get into all of those, but I mean hair salon, shoe
• 20:02
  store, energy drink, you know, towing company, I don't know,
• 20:08
  did I say tanning salons, tanning salons here.
• 20:10
  I mean, just on down the line, I've had lots of different
• 20:12
  businesses and. The other thing that I did was
• 20:17
  I'd been in the entertainment business and I created a music
• 20:20
  festival. And, you know, I actually then I
• 20:23
  didn't know I was even going to like that.
• 20:26
  There was this sealed indictment coming down on me.
• 20:29
  I had no idea of knowing. And so I'm thinking, man, I'm
• 20:31
  going to create this music festival and it's going to be in
• 20:34
  June. It's on Father's Day weekend of
• 20:36
  2011. It's called Show Me Music Fest
• 20:39
  in Springfield, MO. I had, I mean a huge thing.
• 20:42
  There ended up being 30,000 people each day there.
• 20:45
  McGraw as a headliner. I had, you know, I mean you
• 20:48
  start naming all the acts there. It was a mixture of you know, I
• 20:52
  had trained, I had One Republic, I had Little Big Town.
• 20:56
  I had, you know, big and rich with Gretchen Wilson.
• 20:59
  I had REO Speedwagon, I had Sawyer Brown.
• 21:02
  I mean, so a mixture of like old country, new country, even mixed
• 21:05
  with like some, you know, more, you know, right there in the
• 21:08
  Queen. City.
• 21:10
  Yeah, yeah. And you know, there was camping,
• 21:13
  there's all this stuff. It was a first year festival,
• 21:15
  but it was a huge deal. So I was putting this whole
• 21:17
  event on and, you know, I planned it from the start and I
• 21:20
  planned it like 8 to 9 months before, you know, that that had
• 21:25
  actually happened. It's not like I planned this 2-3
• 21:27
  years. I was like, man, I'm going to
• 21:28
  put on a big music festival here in Springfield.
• 21:30
  Had no idea I'm going to go away.
• 21:32
  And so this was probably August that I thought about doing this.
• 21:36
  Well, I got indicted in like I think maybe November ish or
• 21:41
  something, if I'm not mistaken. And everybody's like, I mean,
• 21:44
  I'm trying to figure out, gosh, do I still do this?
• 21:46
  Do I don't who's going to come in and help me with this?
• 21:50
  You know, can I push back some of my sentencing or what's going
• 21:53
  to go on? And so no, I got sentenced in
• 21:55
  like, you know, because I then pleaded guilty.
• 21:57
  I didn't fight it and you know, I got sentenced in February and
• 22:03
  I went away. I had to self surrender March
• 22:05
  1st to Leavenworth and the festival was happening in June
• 22:10
  and it still went on the whole thing.
• 22:12
  So I'm sitting in federal prison in Leavenworth and I got this
• 22:16
  huge music festival with 30,000 people, you know, getting ready
• 22:20
  to take place in Springfield, MO, and I'm not even anywhere.
• 22:23
  Around so who? How did it go off?
• 22:25
  Like who had? I had, I had had a couple other
• 22:28
  people that came in to with it and.
• 22:32
  That's a crazy story, Doug. It it was a whole crazy time
• 22:36
  and, and what's there's parts of it, you know, it's awesome that
• 22:39
  it still happened. The bad thing is, you know, the
• 22:42
  people, like there was kind of a plan around it.
• 22:45
  I was like, hey, I need you guys to come visit me in Leavenworth
• 22:48
  at least every other weekend. So, you know, we could, you
• 22:51
  know, talk and figure out because I knew everything about
• 22:54
  everything. Well, nobody wanted to, right?
• 22:57
  So nobody came. Actually, all those people would
• 22:59
  not take my phone call, never came to visit me even though
• 23:02
  they said they were going to. And the festival was in one way
• 23:06
  a success, in another way it wasn't.
• 23:08
  You know, if you know anything about music festivals, the first
• 23:10
  year, they usually don't make money.
• 23:12
  They're usually don't go as big as what that one is.
• 23:14
  They don't start making money till second, third year.
• 23:16
  It's just like any other business, right?
• 23:18
  And so it was successful, but yet it was not successful
• 23:22
  financially. I think there was a loss of
• 23:23
  about $400,000 on it. You know, we had like a $4
• 23:26
  million bill of, of, you know, to put it on that first year.
• 23:30
  And so there was a loss of, of money on it.
• 23:34
  And, you know, everybody was, you know, not happy with each
• 23:39
  other and trying to blame somebody like, you know, it's
• 23:41
  your fault because you're the well, everybody knew I was going
• 23:43
  away. So it wasn't my fault.
• 23:44
  Nobody would come see me there. So, you know, I blame I blame
• 23:48
  everybody else that was I put in place to kind of make it happen
• 23:52
  for me because they thought they knew everything and could go do
• 23:55
  it. And I'm the master plan with it.
• 23:58
  And I'm the guy that had actually made everything
• 24:01
  happened to that point. But yet nobody wanted to come
• 24:03
  see me because they were scared of it, you know, and so.
• 24:07
  And it's not. Yeah.
• 24:08
  So it that's. Enough that's that is that is
• 24:10
  crazy, but the but the but the show went off had a lot of
• 24:14
  people. It was just that you happened to
• 24:15
  be in loving worth. Yeah, it was a number of people
• 24:18
  that attended and you know, all of that was a huge success.
• 24:22
  So it's not like it's like, oh, this festival didn't now happen
• 24:24
  and people are out money or something else or anything else
• 24:28
  with it. But yeah, that's, you know, I'm
• 24:30
  sitting here reading articles and finding out about stuff and
• 24:33
  hearing it even on the radio, you know, because we, I had done
• 24:36
  all. Because it would have been a big
• 24:37
  deal for Missouri. It was a big deal.
• 24:38
  I, I had, I had done over a half, $1,000,000 media trade
• 24:42
  with like Cumulus radio. And you know, I mean, I had huge
• 24:45
  sponsors. Toyota I got, you know, I got a
• 24:48
  free car out of it from Toyota. Tim McGraw gave away another
• 24:52
  truck on stage for Toyota. You know, the General Insurance
• 24:56
  was a big sponsor. I mean, you go on and on.
• 24:58
  We had tons of sponsorships and huge things.
• 25:00
  It was wild. So all that happened.
• 25:03
  And you were sitting there in Leavenworth.
• 25:05
  I'm sitting in. Leavenworth, I want to talk
• 25:07
  about how you, what you were thinking, how you were doing
• 25:12
  everything you mindset going into Leavenworth for you.
• 25:15
  I want to take a break. You know, a lot of people don't
• 25:18
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  discoverability.co itsnot.com. Its.co listeners and Nightmare
• 25:44
  Success can take $100 off with coupon code Nightmare Success.
• 25:48
  The Nightmare Success Podcast is sponsored by the White Collar
• 25:52
  Support Group, the world's first support group devoted to people
• 25:54
  navigating the white collar criminal justice system.
• 25:57
  I'm a member of the White Collar Support Group and I can tell you
• 25:59
  this is a bunch of people who help each other through the
• 26:01
  criminal justice journey. Or free.
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  Whether you're just starting your journey or you made it
• 26:06
  through to the other side, this is great space for you.
• 26:09
  You can join us on Zoom Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
• 26:12
  For more information, go to prisonist.org.
• 26:14
  It's prisonist.org. OK, Doug, all this craziness
• 26:19
  happens. You, you, you've tried to keep
• 26:22
  yourself busy before you go in. And then you got to voluntarily
• 26:26
  surrender, which is always such a strange thing to just show up.
• 26:31
  You and I voluntarily surrendered to the same prison.
• 26:34
  So what was going through your mind standing at that gate that
• 26:39
  day? I honestly don't even Remember
• 26:44
  Remember what was going through. You know, I really don't.
• 26:47
  You know, I got remember I was early in the morning when I had
• 26:49
  to self surrender and that, you know, that morning my wife was
• 26:52
  still asleep in the bed at our house and I'm like kissed her
• 26:56
  goodbye and told my dogs goodbye.
• 26:59
  Kids were too young to know anything.
• 27:01
  Obviously I didn't go wake them up or anything.
• 27:03
  They were very, very young. And yeah, you're just going, I'm
• 27:08
  going to, I mean, what else is there to do?
• 27:10
  You know, I mean, I have there's no way to really prepare for it.
• 27:14
  You know, I didn't know kind of people, you know, my attorney
• 27:17
  tried to tell me, you know, hey, this is what this is going to be
• 27:21
  like, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, yeah, I had no
• 27:25
  idea. You know, I didn't know when I'd
• 27:27
  talk to them next or when I'd see them or any of that.
• 27:30
  So I mean everything everybody else knows, it's just, you know,
• 27:32
  it's, it's I didn't. What was it like for you to go
• 27:35
  going in? What was?
• 27:37
  What was the entry in like? I've I feel like I have a lot of
• 27:42
  St. cred in my life in a way, you know, already because of
• 27:47
  just, you know, people I know circles I've ran in stuff, the
• 27:51
  lifestyle that I let in one way, you know, I had a lot of friends
• 27:54
  that I don't know, there was there was a lot of party and a
• 27:57
  lot of stuff in my life, right. There was a lot of pride.
• 27:59
  That's there's a lot of all those things as well.
• 28:01
  This is pre going in, but at the same time, I mean, you know, I
• 28:05
  was, you know, I felt like I you know, I didn't have like major
• 28:09
  St. Cred, But I mean I feel like
• 28:11
  there was. I didn't feel uncomfortable is
• 28:13
  what I'm trying. To yeah, you weren't you didn't
• 28:15
  feel out of place, but. Scared wasn't, yeah, I didn't
• 28:19
  know who I was going to meet, but immediately I started to
• 28:21
  meet, you know, look, everybody right, Doctors, lawyers, other
• 28:25
  business people. There was guys that, you know,
• 28:28
  lots of obviously, you know, drug related, you know, crimes,
• 28:31
  a lot of drug dealers stuff in there.
• 28:33
  But I knew those people, you know, So I didn't, you know, I
• 28:39
  didn't feel out of place. I didn't feel like, you know
• 28:41
  what I mean? Like anything.
• 28:42
  Well, it's, it's, it's odd, you know, to because I let's see you
• 28:47
  were, were you saying 24 months? There was nothing normal about
• 28:51
  it but. There's nothing normal about it.
• 28:53
  Yeah, Yeah. But you were, you were walking
• 28:54
  into some place you were going to spend 24 months as a
• 28:57
  sentence. Yeah.
• 28:58
  And, And the weird thing, the weird thing I think to kind of
• 29:04
  become grounded with is that I'm not going to be here for like a
• 29:08
  week or a month. I'm going to be here for a
• 29:09
  while. And and you, you just kind of
• 29:12
  have to figure out, you know, OK.
• 29:15
  The hardest part for me with prison was, you know, wife and
• 29:20
  kids, you know, that they neither one came to see me a
• 29:23
  lot. They did come and then, you
• 29:25
  know, look, my wife wanted to get a divorce at that time, you
• 29:28
  know, before that I was like, I offered her everything to want
• 29:31
  to let her get a divorce, you know, because I'm like, I'm
• 29:34
  sorry. You don't deserve this.
• 29:36
  You deserve better than this. I'll support you.
• 29:38
  I'll do whatever. No, no, she wanted to stick with
• 29:40
  me, stick with all those four years actually, then wanted to
• 29:43
  have another kid, not knowing if I'm going in.
• 29:45
  You know, I didn't lie to her about anything, that there's
• 29:48
  this unknown. We're going through the motions
• 29:50
  of life, but you're not trying to like, let it worry yourself.
• 29:53
  And yeah, I could have got maybe 8 years, don't know, you know
• 29:56
  what I mean? That would have been Max, but I
• 29:58
  also could get a slap on the wrist.
• 30:00
  I'm paying back restitution and fines.
• 30:02
  And you know, we're not fines at the time, but I'm, it wasn't
• 30:05
  even restitution, but I'm trying to pay stuff off.
• 30:07
  And you know what I mean? I'm going through that and yeah,
• 30:11
  so, you know, my whole thing was.
• 30:14
  But then when she wanted to get, you know, like a divorce in the
• 30:17
  middle of that and everything else, you know, and I'm like
• 30:20
  did. That happen?
• 30:21
  Did you get a divorce in the middle of the sentence?
• 30:22
  We did not, I actually like fought it and, you know, tried
• 30:27
  to talk her out of it and I did. But, you know, it was not easy,
• 30:32
  you know, it was not easy times, you know.
• 30:34
  But I, I, I had to fight to keep my family together, you know,
• 30:38
  and I had to fight inside prison, but then I also had to
• 30:41
  fight again once I got out just because, you know, it's like I
• 30:46
  had everything and then when I got out, I had nothing, like
• 30:50
  literally nothing, you know, I mean, you know, before that I
• 30:55
  didn't have a house payment, had multimillion dollar, you know,
• 30:58
  home or homes. You know, when I get out, I got
• 31:01
  a house payment and this, you know, I did have a house to go
• 31:05
  to but I had a payment. Didn't know what I was going to
• 31:08
  do. I'm working at a place making
• 31:10
  like $10.00 an hour selling like flooring and mattresses, you
• 31:13
  know, because that's what I had to do.
• 31:15
  Couldn't own my own business. I'm on pervert, you know, I'm on
• 31:18
  paper. You know, you're trying to put
• 31:21
  all that back together now. I had a plan.
• 31:23
  I did have a plan. That's what I was going to ask
• 31:25
  you. Like when you were, when you
• 31:26
  were. There when I was in prison, I, I
• 31:30
  immediately then was trying to figure out what what the hell am
• 31:35
  I going to do to make a living? What am I going to do?
• 31:40
  You know, You know, I'd always been self-employed.
• 31:44
  I'd always built businesses. But what am I going to start
• 31:46
  from a business? And at this time, my wife had
• 31:48
  moved from Springfield, MO to Lamar, MO, which was close to
• 31:52
  Joplin. Actually, while I was in
• 31:54
  Leavenworth, the big Joplin tornado came through, if people
• 31:57
  know of that, which was like huge killed one of the largest.
• 32:01
  Yeah. And they were very close to all
• 32:04
  of that. They weren't in it, but
• 32:05
  obviously they were very, very, you know, within 15 miles of 20
• 32:09
  miles of where it came through. But they moved over there.
• 32:12
  And the reason they moved there was to get closer to my wife's
• 32:15
  family and all of that because they were, you know, she wanted
• 32:18
  some support. And so I knew I was going to
• 32:23
  come back out, hopefully, you know, after I was trying to keep
• 32:26
  my life together with my wife and kids that I was going to get
• 32:30
  released or go back to Lamar, MO.
• 32:32
  Well, I'm thinking what is there to do in this small town?
• 32:35
  You know, there's like 5 to 7000 people that live in the town.
• 32:39
  I was trying to figure out what I was going to do.
• 32:41
  And I was, you know, construction is something I'd
• 32:43
  always had been into. I've done a lot of real estate
• 32:45
  development and construction. So I knew that world.
• 32:49
  And so I put together this business plan of that I was
• 32:53
  going to start my own asphalt repair business while I was in
• 32:56
  Leavenworth. I mean, and so I would e-mail my
• 32:58
  mom from the computer room and talk to her on the phone.
• 33:02
  And I'd ask her like, will you look this up?
• 33:05
  And she'd look stuff up and she'd print off, you know,
• 33:07
  information and pamphlets on, you know, what does this type of
• 33:11
  piece of equipment cost or where can you get it from?
• 33:13
  What is the rates here? What's the competition?
• 33:16
  How many different people in the Kansas City area, in the Tulsa
• 33:19
  area, in the Joplin area have asphalt repair businesses,
• 33:23
  right? And, you know, she would send me
• 33:24
  that stuff and put put it together, put it in and you
• 33:27
  know, big 8 1/2 by 11 envelope and I'd get mail.
• 33:31
  Like, I don't want to say daily, but I mean multiple times a week
• 33:35
  from her and, you know, not stapled together, nothing
• 33:38
  illegal. Just stuff to come in there for
• 33:40
  me to read and to educate myself.
• 33:42
  Because in prison, where do you find any stuff on there's not
• 33:46
  like there's like all these books to go read on like and
• 33:49
  can't Google it. Couldn't do that from the
• 33:51
  asphalt business. So that was my way of having her
• 33:54
  Google what I wanted to know, print off stuff, mail it to me.
• 33:57
  It'd go through the mailroom, it'd all be looked at, scanned,
• 34:00
  whatever. And then I'd get it and I would
• 34:02
  read it. And so I put together a plan to
• 34:04
  start an asphalt repair business is what I did.
• 34:07
  And because I thoughts from Sprint from there.
• 34:11
  Yeah, yeah. No, no, I think it's I I think
• 34:14
  that's a this is there's a lot of people know that.
• 34:17
  Listen to this show, this goes on the adobo platform that's in
• 34:21
  1400 prisons. And I think it's really good for
• 34:23
  people to hear, Doug, that you can start planning inside
• 34:30
  prison. You don't just have to work out.
• 34:33
  You don't have to just, you know.
• 34:35
  And I did. All actually plan I did.
• 34:37
  Those too, right? I mean, I did that also used my
• 34:40
  other time to to try to figure out what I was going to do when
• 34:44
  I got out and I looked at multiple business.
• 34:46
  I honestly don't even remember what all I looked at, but I know
• 34:49
  that pretty quickly. I really honed in on I think the
• 34:53
  asphalt repair business from Lamar, MO.
• 34:57
  I thought, man, I can get to Tulsa in an hour and a half.
• 35:00
  I can get to Joplin in 20-30 minutes.
• 35:04
  I can get down to Bentonville, AR in an hour and a half, which
• 35:07
  is Walmarts headquarters. I can get to Kansas City in
• 35:10
  about an hour. So I was looking at like this
• 35:13
  little triangle of where I could go and who I can service because
• 35:17
  I didn't want to do residential in a small area like that.
• 35:20
  You know, first of all, I don't like.
• 35:22
  Commercial. I wanted B to BI, didn't want B
• 35:25
  to CI, wanted business to business relationship.
• 35:28
  And so, you know, I, I, I did some like residential driveways
• 35:31
  and things like that, but I really wanted to focus on, you
• 35:34
  know, how can I build a business around doing apartment complexes
• 35:37
  and strip centers or working with other property management
• 35:41
  companies? How can I do hotels?
• 35:43
  What about things like McDonald's and, you know, fast
• 35:45
  food food and other restaurants, right?
• 35:47
  They need their parking lot Stripe.
• 35:49
  They need the asphalt, you know, seal coated to make sure they
• 35:53
  prolong the life. So that was the business plan
• 35:55
  that I started to put together. What are they charge?
• 35:57
  What are the margins in this business?
• 35:59
  What's it cost me to get into that business?
• 36:01
  You know, I knew nothing about it.
• 36:02
  I had never done it, period. Never done it.
• 36:05
  So you walk out. I walk out.
• 36:08
  Of Leavenworth and you've got a plan.
• 36:11
  You kind of know now, You know the margins, you know the cost,
• 36:13
  you know what the equipment might be to purchase.
• 36:18
  So what's your first move, Doug? Well, I got it.
• 36:21
  I had had to get a job because, you know, right out I, you know,
• 36:24
  I'm living at the halfway house. I'm there couple months.
• 36:28
  My dad gave me this old beater pickup truck from the farm.
• 36:34
  I didn't have a car, so I was fortunate that he gave me a car.
• 36:36
  But it was not like some great car.
• 36:39
  It was not new, it was not great.
• 36:40
  It was just like I didn't get. Me someplace.
• 36:43
  Right. Yeah.
• 36:43
  And so I got a job in working again, making, I don't remember
• 36:48
  the exact amount, but back then, you know, this would have been
• 36:50
  2012. It was like, you know, probably
• 36:54
  around $10.00 an hour ish. And I'm working for a flooring
• 36:59
  store that sells flooring and sells mattresses in Lamar.
• 37:02
  And why I had to get a job over there was I wanted to see my
• 37:05
  wife and kids almost every day. So on lunch break they could
• 37:09
  come meet me or I could have lunch with them, right?
• 37:11
  But then in the evenings, I had to drive back.
• 37:14
  And I liked the drive because the drive from Springfield, MO,
• 37:17
  at the halfway house where I was staying was about an hour, hour
• 37:20
  and 15 minutes. And I actually like that every
• 37:23
  morning, right? And I could be on my phone
• 37:25
  because I had a cell phone. So I liked that drive to and
• 37:28
  from because it actually gave me like just some downtime and some
• 37:32
  time to prepare for the morning. Right.
• 37:34
  It's kind of nice to drive when you get out of prison.
• 37:36
  It was nice to drive, it was nice to just have time and so
• 37:40
  you know, that wasn't some master plan.
• 37:42
  It just like I tried for that and that was the reason, but it
• 37:46
  just worked, you know, worked out and I didn't wasn't making
• 37:48
  any money and I knew I wasn't going to stick with that.
• 37:51
  But you know, that was what it was like for me.
• 37:54
  Until then, I could get weekend visits, be able to stay there.
• 37:57
  Still had to call in on the phone you know was only allowed
• 38:01
  you know you know the gamut of. That oh, no.
• 38:03
  And I think, I think everything you're saying is so good, Doug,
• 38:05
  just for a while there, because it's a process once you get out,
• 38:09
  you know, like I thought I was just going to immediately, you
• 38:11
  know, I had a car, I had a home, I had a job.
• 38:14
  And they said, well, you'll just pass through.
• 38:16
  All you got to do is check out the halfway house.
• 38:18
  I checked out eight weeks later and you know, and it was in the
• 38:23
  worst area of Saint Louis. There's no.
• 38:26
  Pass through. Yeah.
• 38:27
  And they, you know, at, at the Dismas house in Saint Louis,
• 38:30
  they took, I think they were allowed to take 25% of your
• 38:32
  gross pay. So there's a reason why they
• 38:35
  want to keep you there. But it's good for people to know
• 38:39
  that you just don't unless you yours, you know, have a really
• 38:42
  unique situation. You have to go to the the
• 38:45
  halfway house. The halfway house has a lot of
• 38:47
  rules, things that you try to get passes so you can go see
• 38:50
  your family, you can go to work, you know, all those different
• 38:53
  things that happen. Sometimes they show up at your
• 38:55
  job and that messes with things. It's just, you know.
• 38:58
  No, I mean everything you're saying spot on.
• 39:00
  And there's no fast way. And look, we're all trying to
• 39:03
  probably beat the system, right? Like we're all like, how the how
• 39:06
  the hell can I get out of this? How can I not?
• 39:09
  Do you know, and you know, I think it's fine to maybe try to
• 39:13
  push the envelope a little bit. When I say that, I'm not saying
• 39:15
  like go cheat, do whatever, you know, be late, right?
• 39:18
  I I dotted my IS cross my TS. You know, I didn't want go back.
• 39:23
  I wasn't trying to, you know, not be able to see my family and
• 39:26
  do this. I wasn't trying to like lie,
• 39:29
  cheat, steal, do whatever to to get ahead.
• 39:31
  I'm like, man, I got to be there, but I'm like, man, if I
• 39:34
  can get a job here and then I got this drive like so, you
• 39:38
  know, but yeah, the, The thing is like, how can I get out of
• 39:40
  being in the halfway house sooner and be able to be home?
• 39:43
  Well, there wasn't really anything magically that I could
• 39:48
  do for that. I mean, it had to run that
• 39:49
  course in that gamut. And it's like that it was, it
• 39:52
  was like 8 weeks or more that I was in.
• 39:54
  It was two. It was between two and three
• 39:56
  months that I was there before I could get released to my house,
• 39:59
  even though I had a job at a house to go to, you know, I
• 40:03
  didn't just get released so. So that was that part.
• 40:07
  And so I knew I was going to start this business or that I
• 40:10
  wanted to, but I knew I could, I had to do this other.
• 40:14
  So when I got released to my house, I'm now dealing more
• 40:16
  directly with my probation officer.
• 40:19
  And you know, I proved to her for a month or two or so that,
• 40:24
  you know, I'm working still at this at this flooring store in
• 40:27
  Lamar. But now I'm driving from home.
• 40:29
  She comes and visits a couple times at our half my house and
• 40:32
  random drug test me and you know, I passed that stuff and I
• 40:38
  I told her that I wanted to you know what I wanted to do that.
• 40:41
  I hadn't, you know, that I but I couldn't own my own business.
• 40:45
  They would not while I'm on paper, they would not let me own
• 40:47
  my own business. Right.
• 40:48
  So, which is very. Very common.
• 40:50
  I was going to start a business in but I was going to run it,
• 40:54
  but it was in my dad's name. And so I was fortunate that, you
• 40:57
  know, I'm like, I was still having problems with my wife.
• 41:00
  I, I don't want to put it in my wife's name, you know what I
• 41:04
  mean? If I'm trying to build
• 41:05
  something. So I'm like, I'm going to put it
• 41:07
  in my dad's name. He was willing to, you know, let
• 41:09
  me form an LLC that he completely owned, but I was
• 41:12
  president of it. And, you know, I, I just started
• 41:17
  that. And so how I got started was I
• 41:19
  was also fortunate that, and this is a hard thing for like
• 41:22
  technically it would take a lot more money than this to, I don't
• 41:26
  even know how I did this with this asphalt air business.
• 41:30
  But what I started with my mom and dad gave me a $30,000 loan.
• 41:34
  So they did give me an old pickup truck that was worth less
• 41:36
  than just a couple $1000 and they gave me then a $30,000
• 41:41
  loan. And So what I did with that is
• 41:44
  my, I bought an asphalt, a used asphalt truck up in Michigan for
• 41:48
  25 grand. They drove from Indiana on the
• 41:51
  farm to Michigan to go get it. My parents now are in there like
• 41:55
  later. Bless their hearts.
• 41:57
  They drove up there. My mom then drove from Michigan
• 42:00
  all the way to Missouri, following my dad, her in the
• 42:02
  car, him in, you know, the this truck, the other five grand I
• 42:06
  bought a a line striping machine for about 25 bucks, a Graco line
• 42:11
  striping. And then I spent the other 2500
• 42:14
  on some miscellaneous items, including like, you know, a
• 42:17
  thing to do crack sealing, to be able to put tar down to then
• 42:20
  seal, you know, cracks that are in the asphalt.
• 42:23
  And that's what I started with. And again, I had no employees
• 42:27
  knew nothing. There was a lady with an apart
• 42:30
  only one apartment complex in Lamar and I, my wife was cutting
• 42:36
  hair and she went and cut this lady's hair and you know, I
• 42:40
  talked to her. I was like, it was one of the
• 42:42
  places I tried to hit because I saw that they needed their
• 42:45
  asphalt done. So I was, I talked to her.
• 42:48
  I really didn't know her, but gave her a she asked me for a
• 42:50
  bid, gave her a bid. That was the first parking lot I
• 42:53
  got was this Waller apartment complex in Lamar.
• 42:57
  And you know, from there I just started to get and I put an ad
• 43:00
  out there was right down the road.
• 43:02
  There was some, some guys that that did asphalt repair for
• 43:07
  other, other people, like more gypsies traveling around doing
• 43:10
  it. I hired these three guys.
• 43:12
  They actually taught me how to do it.
• 43:14
  So they did that first job. You know, I get paid, they get
• 43:17
  paid, you know, and it just started to go from there.
• 43:21
  And you know, again, I've, I've always been a hustler.
• 43:26
  I've always known people. I know how to start a business.
• 43:31
  I'm a visionary. So I have some of those things
• 43:33
  in my, there's a lot of things I'm not, but those are a couple
• 43:35
  things that I am. And so the next step, the
• 43:39
  biggest thing that happened was like a guy that was the former
• 43:44
  COO of Walmart, his name was Don Souderquist.
• 43:48
  I knew him before I went in. I got to know him with my
• 43:52
  shopping cart sanitizing system patent that I had worked on that
• 43:55
  I told you about earlier in the show.
• 43:57
  And, and so, you know, Don knew my whole story and he knew, you
• 44:05
  know, that I was going away to prison, you know, So when I,
• 44:08
  after I was out about 6 to 8 months and I was a few months
• 44:13
  into having this asphalt business, you know, I called him
• 44:16
  and I ended up, he said, hey, come meet me down at Mimi's
• 44:19
  Cafe. And that was his favorite spot
• 44:22
  in Rogers, AR to go have breakfast.
• 44:24
  And I'd met him there many times before.
• 44:25
  And so I went and met him and he helped me get into Walmart and I
• 44:30
  started doing, you know, in a couple States and that just, it
• 44:34
  started to kind of go out and I was doing small jobs.
• 44:38
  These weren't big jobs. This was like, hey, we got a 12
• 44:41
  by 12. That's like caving in and we
• 44:44
  need the asphalt repaired here or but it started to lead to
• 44:48
  bigger jobs and and so, you know, I was fortunate that I
• 44:52
  knew him and that he knew me and the real person, but I also had
• 44:56
  to prove myself right. I mean I and.
• 44:57
  The other thing too is, yeah, you can know somebody, but you
• 45:00
  got to have the guts to call somebody you got.
• 45:02
  To have the guts to call him, I also look, I said, and you
• 45:06
  started to say this earlier. I said to myself before I went
• 45:11
  in, while I was in. And I say it to myself every day
• 45:14
  that I'm out. I really do that.
• 45:17
  I know that I have this target on my back.
• 45:19
  I know that I have to spend every day of the rest of my life
• 45:24
  to prove that I'm not the person that did these other things,
• 45:27
  right? I'm not trying to act like I'm
• 45:29
  high and mighty. I'm not trying to act like I'm
• 45:31
  haven't made other mistakes that so on and so forth.
• 45:33
  But I know that I have to prove every day that I'm not that
• 45:36
  person that did these other things because you do have that.
• 45:40
  It carries with you for the rest of your life, right?
• 45:42
  So, you know, people have to realize that too.
• 45:45
  You know, it, it's, it's never going to go away.
• 45:47
  And you know, so you got to have very honest conversations with,
• 45:53
  with people. And there was a couple other
• 45:54
  businessmen that I didn't know before that I met one big one in
• 46:01
  Lamar, MO, that owned a couple McDonald's.
• 46:03
  A handful of them had some storage units had and I owns
• 46:08
  hotels and other stuff too. He was a pretty prominent guy in
• 46:11
  that small town. And I didn't know him before I
• 46:13
  went in. But again, I went and had
• 46:15
  breakfast with him at Denny's. And that was one of the first
• 46:19
  things I said. And, you know, he believed in me
• 46:22
  and gave me a shot to do his McDonald's and a couple other
• 46:25
  things. And, you know, I mean, it takes
• 46:29
  things like that that you, that you.
• 46:32
  Got to put yourself in a position to be able to have the
• 46:34
  opportunity the, the how long, how long did it take you, Doug,
• 46:41
  from the time that you were able to get that $25,000 pieces of
• 46:45
  equipment? So when you're looking at, I
• 46:49
  think I might sell this thing. It was about a three-year
• 46:54
  process. I mean, I took that.
• 46:56
  I took that business from nothing.
• 46:58
  It did a major hockey stick. So about six months into doing
• 47:02
  Walmarts and about nine months into being in business, I sent
• 47:06
  an e-mail to Hobby Lobby. And because I knew that there
• 47:09
  was one in Joplin, I did some research and I knew that Hobby
• 47:12
  Lobby owned most of their stores.
• 47:14
  They didn't just lease like a lot of other big box stores and
• 47:17
  people in a strip center. They actually owned, they would
• 47:20
  own the whole complex and then Dick's Sporting Goods or Ulta or
• 47:23
  these other stores that you'll see in next to Hobby Lobby, they
• 47:26
  actually rent from Hobby Lobby. I didn't know this pre prior.
• 47:29
  I learned it from doing my own research and like.
• 47:32
  McDonald's. Yeah, like McDonald's, they're
• 47:35
  in the real estate business, right?
• 47:36
  They're not just renting from, you know, McDonald's is a real
• 47:39
  estate company. They're not.
• 47:41
  They're not a fast. Real estate company.
• 47:42
  Yeah, they're a huge real estate company.
• 47:44
  They're not a fast food company as everybody wants to think.
• 47:48
  And so I reached out to them through e-mail and I sent an
• 47:53
  e-mail that said, hey, you know, my name is Doug Feller, I own
• 47:56
  Superior Asphalt. And you know, I don't know if I
• 47:59
  said where I was at in Missouri. I don't remember the exact
• 48:01
  e-mail. I remember it was a couple
• 48:02
  sentences. And you know, I said I do
• 48:05
  Walmarts in like 7 states. And I was interested in talking
• 48:09
  with them about, you know, I knew their Asphalt in Joplin, MO
• 48:12
  needed redone at that particular store.
• 48:15
  And that's what I was really reaching out for.
• 48:17
  Well, the very next day I got, I think it was an e-mail back.
• 48:20
  I remember his e-mail or a phone call, but they were like, Hey,
• 48:22
  how soon could you meet with us in Oklahoma City?
• 48:25
  We'd like to talk to you. I'm like, OK, so a week after
• 48:30
  that, I'm in Oklahoma City sitting at their offices.
• 48:34
  And they're I'm telling them, you know, and I knew what to
• 48:37
  say, you know, I've been in business now about nine months
• 48:39
  or so. And they asked me for pricing.
• 48:44
  I gave them pricing and a week later I had a contract to do all
• 48:48
  the Hobby Lobby's nationwide. And so I had to scale and figure
• 48:52
  it out and I had to figure out where to get some loans from to
• 48:56
  be able to scale. How do I get asked, you know,
• 48:58
  more equipment? What can I do?
• 48:59
  I was already growing because of what I was doing with Walmart,
• 49:02
  But, and I also started to step a little bit away from some of
• 49:05
  the Walmarts because my payment terms with Walmart were not
• 49:08
  great. They, they, I knew I was going
• 49:10
  to get paid, but I wasn't paid as quickly as I wanted to,
• 49:13
  right? It was about, you know, 120 day
• 49:16
  terms, not a 30. And Hobby Lobby was 30 day
• 49:19
  terms, which was great. And they all paid for 40 days
• 49:22
  was better than 90 to 120. And so that's how I, you know, I
• 49:28
  scaled that business and honestly, that's what put me
• 49:30
  back on the map, you know? That that.
• 49:33
  Business be back on the map ended up.
• 49:35
  Having off. Multiple areas, Dallas down in
• 49:38
  Peachtree City, GA around and you know, really, really grew
• 49:43
  and I did really well with it and which it, you know, allowed
• 49:47
  me to go do other things and one has allowed me to do what I'm
• 49:50
  doing with my harvest. Right.
• 49:53
  And that's what that's what I want to talk to you about
• 49:54
  because I mean, you could have cashed out and that's that's the
• 50:00
  end of the story. What a great story.
• 50:02
  What a great comeback. I mean, everybody would give
• 50:05
  that a raw cheer. You know, Doug went through
• 50:08
  hell, went through a nightmare, figured out I pulled up his
• 50:12
  bootstraps and created an asphalt company and took on the
• 50:14
  world. But the story doesn't end there.
• 50:18
  You have a passion. And it's funny, you and I met
• 50:23
  through someone because we shared some of the same passions
• 50:27
  about this re entry piece of how do we help people the best way
• 50:31
  that they can be helped to be able to get the best start that
• 50:34
  they can get. So walk us through how did that
• 50:37
  happen for you? Because my harvest app, I've,
• 50:40
  I've been all over your app, Doug, it's fantastic.
• 50:43
  It's first rate, it's top of the line.
• 50:46
  You've really invested and you one thing I can tell you is, is
• 50:50
  that you can tell that it was made from somebody who knows and
• 50:54
  has walked the walk. That's the difference.
• 50:57
  You know, you can have somebody teach you criminal justice in
• 51:01
  college and take the course, but if you have somebody that went
• 51:04
  through the criminal justice system and they teach the course
• 51:06
  like David Carrillo does in Denver, that's a different
• 51:10
  course. Your app, I want to talk about
• 51:12
  how did it come about? How did you fall into it?
• 51:15
  Because you've you put real dollars into it.
• 51:18
  Blood, sweat and tears. Let's talk about it.
• 51:21
  Yeah, the so on top of my asphalt business, I'd created
• 51:27
  then started to be done that that allowed me the opportunity
• 51:30
  to create multiple other businesses again and things that
• 51:34
  I've always again, like I started to tell you earlier, you
• 51:36
  know, towing and real estate development and construction and
• 51:40
  car washes and storage units and strip centers.
• 51:43
  I've owned all those things, developed those things, built
• 51:45
  those things. That was all pre, but then I
• 51:48
  started to do it again even after, right.
• 51:51
  And then I started a popcorn fundraising business called
• 51:54
  Music City Popcorn and had a gourmet popcorn business and I
• 51:57
  sold it. And you know, I started doing
• 52:01
  more development in real estate down in the Atlanta area of
• 52:04
  putting in subdivisions and you know, multiple things.
• 52:08
  They're mixed-use developments and so on.
• 52:11
  Got back in the entertainment business again and did some, you
• 52:14
  know, done large sponsorship deals with, you know, CPG
• 52:18
  brands, you know, consumer good products, brands and, and, and
• 52:23
  artists that are, you know, in Nashville and the music
• 52:26
  industry. And so like big and rich and
• 52:29
  Twix, right, you know, big and rich is a duo, Twix is a duo
• 52:32
  left Twix, right, Twix. And so, you know, I've had a lot
• 52:35
  of different, you know, businesses and, and which has
• 52:39
  allowed me to see things from a lot of different lights.
• 52:43
  So back to the the My Harvest app, I realized, so I was doing
• 52:49
  a development down in Peachtree City, GA and I was looking for
• 52:54
  somebody to come help me work in that development and kind of
• 52:58
  manage the stuff. And a gentleman that I spent
• 53:01
  some time with in prison who's been on this show as well.
• 53:05
  Auggie Gillarducci. I didn't know he was on there,
• 53:07
  but I called Auggie and said checked in with him to see what
• 53:11
  he was doing. And he, you know, I said, hey,
• 53:16
  would you be interested in maybe coming to work for me down here
• 53:19
  in Peachtree City, GA? And he said, yeah, I was telling
• 53:23
  him about what I was doing with the development.
• 53:25
  And, you know, I flew him down and came to him and his wife
• 53:28
  came down for the the weekend and I learned what he was
• 53:34
  working on. He hadn't been out very long,
• 53:35
  but he had created a couple courses for re entry while he
• 53:40
  was still in prison. He was there before, excuse me,
• 53:43
  He was there before I got in and was there after I, you know,
• 53:45
  left. So he had a much longer
• 53:47
  sentence. Fantastic guy, huge passion for
• 53:52
  re entry and all of that. And when I heard what he was
• 53:56
  working on, he was teaching these three classes in four
• 53:59
  jails in the Chicagoland area. And he was physically walking in
• 54:04
  and teaching the courses. And when I heard what he was
• 54:06
  doing, he said, Doug, I'll give it all up and come work for you
• 54:09
  because I'm not making any money.
• 54:11
  And I said, Auggie, I don't want you to give it up.
• 54:14
  I mean, man, I've been there. I see it.
• 54:17
  But you can't scale this as a business the way that it's, you
• 54:21
  know, And so I was like, we need to shoot you on camera.
• 54:24
  We need to get you in studios. We need to be able to put this
• 54:27
  on DVDs on tablet inside. We need, you know, And so I saw
• 54:31
  the vision for what it really needed to be and we started to
• 54:35
  work on that. And second opportunity is the
• 54:38
  company and that thing has done great stuff still in there.
• 54:42
  I don't know everything he's doing.
• 54:43
  I'm not a part of it anymore, but I was obviously a big part
• 54:48
  in helping, you know, take what Auggie had started with that.
• 54:51
  But what I learned about a year into that business of what we
• 54:55
  were doing and we were just focused on re entry.
• 54:58
  We had now created a few more courses.
• 55:00
  We had started to sell this into jails and institutions for them
• 55:05
  to be able to have re entry programming.
• 55:07
  But what I realized was a couple different things right away.
• 55:11
  First of all, I knew that we needed a lot more courses and
• 55:16
  content because content has a shelf life.
• 55:20
  I knew we needed a lot of different voices and individuals
• 55:23
  to tell their stories, right? Not just Auggie's story, which
• 55:26
  is a great story, not just my story, not just your story, but
• 55:30
  I wanted lots of stories from lots of different people that
• 55:33
  don't look like us, have walked a different path, and come from
• 55:36
  a different upbringing. I wanted true people to share
• 55:41
  their stories that have kind of done what I've done and what
• 55:44
  Auggie's done and what you've done, but I wanted them to teach
• 55:47
  these courses on financial literacy and you know, just all
• 55:51
  different life skills, right? I mean you we, I have over on
• 55:55
  the my harvest platform over 1000 different lessons now.
• 56:00
  So we started with we have 5 over at second OP, I have over
• 56:03
  1000 a thousand. So there's like I have brought
• 56:07
  in 65 different plus thought leaders that have been lived
• 56:10
  experience, right? Not a preacher, a teacher,
• 56:13
  somebody trying to tell you something, but lived experience
• 56:16
  individuals to tell you, you know, about finance and they're
• 56:19
  experts in their field as well. You know, so dealing with
• 56:22
  trauma, we got doctors, we got, we got stuff on on health and
• 56:26
  Wellness and fitness. And we got stuff on, you know,
• 56:30
  opening bank accounts and you know what I mean, just on down
• 56:33
  the line, I mean everything, you know, how to talk to that gap in
• 56:35
  your resume and. I like all that.
• 56:38
  I mean, you, you've got, you've got a good, you've got Doug, a
• 56:41
  good blend of absolute checklist things that have to be figured
• 56:48
  out. 100% of the bank account how to?
• 56:50
  Get a Social Security how to how to do some of these things that
• 56:53
  have to be done right when you. But then it's got the blending
• 56:55
  part of it that, you know, the health and Wellness and all the
• 56:58
  different pieces that, you know, if you want to continue to grow
• 57:01
  and grow your life the way that you'd like to and the right way
• 57:04
  you can get into all that and the contents there.
• 57:07
  Yeah. And so, you know, that was the
• 57:09
  first thing that I knew I needed, right?
• 57:10
  I wanted a bunch of different voices.
• 57:12
  So I wanted lots of different individuals and always be
• 57:15
  shooting new content because it has a shelf life.
• 57:18
  I also knew that it was bigger than just individuals that were
• 57:23
  incarcerated. You know, what about veterans
• 57:25
  trying to readapt? What about people that have had
• 57:27
  substance abuse problems? What about, you know, people
• 57:31
  with trauma? What about juveniles and dealing
• 57:34
  with them? What about individuals that are
• 57:36
  on snap and, you know, trying to put their life back together,
• 57:39
  right? But a?
• 57:41
  Lot of that stuff's interconnected and that's kind
• 57:43
  of connected a lot more. That's the other part.
• 57:45
  First of all, it's very interconnected.
• 57:47
  You find a lot of overlap. The other thing that that you
• 57:51
  find is there's not a lot of difference between, you know,
• 57:55
  what it starts with is hope and confidence, right?
• 57:57
  That's the things that I say first.
• 57:59
  It's all about that hope and that confidence.
• 58:01
  If you don't have hope, if you don't have the confidence to go
• 58:04
  forward, you just don't have anything in your life.
• 58:06
  And I know that because I've been there.
• 58:08
  I've been there where I've hopeless.
• 58:10
  I've been there where I've like, I've had to really fight for
• 58:12
  that confidence to make those phone calls to Hobby Lobby or
• 58:16
  send the emails or do you know, call Don Souderquist that, you
• 58:19
  know, I'm like, man, does this guy even want to talk to me?
• 58:22
  What's he going to say? What about, you know, afraid or
• 58:25
  my ashamed? Am I not going to do this man?
• 58:27
  I know nothing about this business.
• 58:29
  Am I going to how am I going to be successful?
• 58:31
  I don't only know nothing about it.
• 58:32
  I don't have any money and you know who you know?
• 58:35
  Yes, OK. I have parents that will ended
• 58:37
  up being willing to give me $30,000, which is a lot.
• 58:40
  I'm not trying to make it or not, but like I needed millions
• 58:44
  of dollars worth of equipment, you know, no banks going to give
• 58:47
  me a loan. So it's like where the, where do
• 58:48
  you start? You know, and so, but you know,
• 58:51
  man, I, I had the, the hope and the confidence and I had to
• 58:54
  persevere and push through to do it.
• 58:56
  And you know, there's a lot, I mean, I could, you know, there's
• 58:58
  a lot of this that I could break down into smaller little pieces,
• 59:00
  but that was where it started. And the other thing that I knew
• 59:05
  that the platform that we needed to do, you know, talk and re
• 59:08
  entry is great, right? And having these courses while
• 59:11
  you're inside a facility is great.
• 59:13
  It's it's positive things you can do with your time and your
• 59:17
  mind, but it's also like it's just the star because again,
• 59:21
  like you said, the real nightmare starts in the outside.
• 59:23
  So I wanted something that not only would be there on the
• 59:26
  inside, but really trans, you know, was there on the outside
• 59:29
  and not just the individuals on the outside to be going through
• 59:32
  it, but their friends and family and the other people could take
• 59:35
  the same could, could really benefit from everything that my
• 59:38
  harvest app has. So what we have on the platform
• 59:42
  is we have the courses that we're talking about, right?
• 59:45
  And these are quick little lessons.
• 59:46
  They're not long, they're not hours and hours of stuff.
• 59:50
  They're a little 10 minute bites.
• 59:51
  And when you take them, you get quick wins.
• 59:54
  They're designed with that. I actually called the Ramsey
• 59:57
  Group because I know people in and help them.
• 1:00:00
  I hired a couple former Ramsey people to help me develop my
• 1:00:05
  content and the content strategy.
• 1:00:07
  And so our all of our courses, there's a very real structure to
• 1:00:11
  them and they're very short. They're like 10 minutes long
• 1:00:14
  each one, but they're designed with quick wins, so that's kind
• 1:00:17
  of a a main foundation of it. Well, I and you and I talked
• 1:00:21
  about this on the phone. I love the way that you've set
• 1:00:24
  this up, the 10 minute thing and with a little quick quiz at the
• 1:00:27
  just to make sure that you pay attention.
• 1:00:29
  Yep. But the, the quick wins is what
• 1:00:32
  you're talking about on hope and confidence.
• 1:00:34
  You got to give somebody a little bit of confidence with a
• 1:00:36
  win so that they start feeling like, OK, I can step into this.
• 1:00:40
  I don't know any of this, but I'm winning a little bit so I've
• 1:00:43
  got more confidence to step again.
• 1:00:46
  And it's it's that that whatever that intangible is.
• 1:00:50
  From the outside when you get back out because life moves
• 1:00:54
  fast, right? And like, so you know, look, you
• 1:00:56
  can be on your little lunch break or you can just be doing
• 1:00:59
  whatever. And you don't have to watch a
• 1:01:00
  whole hour of something. You can watch 10 minutes and get
• 1:01:03
  a quick win and get a confidence booster out of it and actually
• 1:01:07
  learn something And you can get a certificate of completion
• 1:01:09
  which you can give to your probation officer, parole off,
• 1:01:13
  you know what I mean, on down the law and it can help you with
• 1:01:15
  getting jobs. All of this.
• 1:01:17
  So the other big things that I knew that we needed, that I
• 1:01:20
  learned right away about a year into what we were doing with
• 1:01:23
  second opportunity was that first of all, we needed all this
• 1:01:26
  content. We wanted more different thought
• 1:01:28
  leaders, not just one person. I wanted a whole bunch of
• 1:01:31
  different individuals, but there was so much that was missing
• 1:01:34
  like there what about housing? What about help finding housing?
• 1:01:37
  What about help finding jobs? What about peer support and
• 1:01:40
  mental support? What about all the other
• 1:01:42
  resources like you're saying of what do you do to get your birth
• 1:01:46
  certificate to then get your Social Security card to then get
• 1:01:48
  your driver's license, right. So we have on that platform.
• 1:01:52
  What I did is where there's over 3,000,000 jobs available on the
• 1:01:56
  on the my harvest platform. So I created like a zip
• 1:02:00
  recruiter or an Indeed, but it's on the My Harvest platform and
• 1:02:03
  many of them are justice involved where if you've, you
• 1:02:05
  know, second chance opportunity employers, there is also housing
• 1:02:10
  on there and it's HUD housing that's on there right now.
• 1:02:13
  There's about a million housing units that's available.
• 1:02:16
  So if you're looking for housing when you get out, you can just
• 1:02:19
  look for it on the my on the Myharvest app.
• 1:02:21
  If you're looking for a job when you're out, you can look for it
• 1:02:24
  on the Myharvest app. If you're looking for a course
• 1:02:27
  to help you to kind of figure out what do you do with talking
• 1:02:30
  to this gap in your resume or about opening up a checking
• 1:02:32
  account or just fitness, Wellness, whatever, you can take
• 1:02:36
  quick little 10 minute courses, those things.
• 1:02:38
  Also you can give those certificate of completions to
• 1:02:41
  like I said, a probation officer or parole officer, you know,
• 1:02:44
  whatever, right? Like a job interview to show
• 1:02:47
  that's one of the things that I've been told and I'll get to
• 1:02:49
  that in a second, but remind me to come back to what I've been
• 1:02:51
  told about what what business large corporations are loving
• 1:02:55
  about the harvest platform. There's also a whole little
• 1:02:59
  social media element to it. It's all positive good news.
• 1:03:02
  There's a faith-based part we've brought in.
• 1:03:04
  It's optional. It's not in your face, but the
• 1:03:06
  full Bible is on the platform. There's a prayer board.
• 1:03:09
  There's a verse of the day. These are that changes all
• 1:03:11
  everyday. These are things just to try to
• 1:03:13
  keep you aligned right. And if, if you don't want the
• 1:03:17
  Bible thing, look, you might just want the courses.
• 1:03:19
  You might just be looking for housing or looking for a job.
• 1:03:23
  You know, there's all you don't have to, you know, but it's all
• 1:03:25
  there for you to use at any time when you need one thing.
• 1:03:28
  We wanted, I wanted the Harvest platform to be all these
• 1:03:32
  different resources are out there and available somewhere.
• 1:03:35
  You can go over here to get help finding a job, help finding
• 1:03:37
  housing, but there's not one place, one platform that has all
• 1:03:41
  of it together. I wanted to bring all that
• 1:03:43
  together. And Doug, that is, that is the
• 1:03:46
  big thing. That's the big idea.
• 1:03:49
  There's over 80 some odd people that are justice involved, 80
• 1:03:52
  million people, 80 million people.
• 1:03:54
  It's almost a third of the United States.
• 1:03:57
  The problem with justice involved people is it's all
• 1:04:02
  siloed. You know, they're all over the
• 1:04:04
  place and some are doing this and some are doing that.
• 1:04:06
  What I like and what I see what your vision is, is to put an
• 1:04:10
  umbrella across the United States, put everybody in a one
• 1:04:13
  stop shop, get everything you need and be a social community
• 1:04:17
  and be everything that that because Richard Bronson put
• 1:04:22
  together. He was from Oakland Stratma with
• 1:04:24
  the the Wolf of Wall Street staff.
• 1:04:26
  And he, he was working on a deal called 70 million jobs.
• 1:04:30
  And the three things that people need.
• 1:04:34
  This was this was a huge survey that was done of justice,
• 1:04:38
  involved people, housing and jobs.
• 1:04:41
  And I don't know which one comes first, the chicken or the egg
• 1:04:43
  and community and community and community is a big deal because
• 1:04:47
  you know, like in prison, you have community.
• 1:04:49
  Everybody's in the same shit, the same.
• 1:04:53
  They're in the same deal. You want a positive community
• 1:04:56
  too, right? And that's Harvest platform.
• 1:04:58
  Like it's no politics, you know, you know, it's not a bunch of
• 1:05:02
  religion even in your face. I mean it's there, you know,
• 1:05:05
  those, those I think a spiritual part is important for people to
• 1:05:08
  keep on track. So I'm, I'm not trying to take
• 1:05:11
  away from it, but I don't want to scare people off by it,
• 1:05:13
  right. It's it's not like no, they're
• 1:05:16
  much more. Doug, I think that I think the
• 1:05:18
  other thing that could be really big about this is that as this
• 1:05:20
  grows, this job posting thing, if people are taking the courses
• 1:05:25
  and they're getting their certificates, then, you know,
• 1:05:28
  like CMC with with Sean Stegman who connected us, you might be a
• 1:05:34
  lot more interested to hire someone who's put an invested
• 1:05:38
  time to better themselves and an eager to get to the next step.
• 1:05:42
  My harvest can be the seed that's planted for all these
• 1:05:45
  people who are looking for workers that that desperately.
• 1:05:50
  And there's been articles written about poor By and large,
• 1:05:56
  these people who are getting out of prison are good people to
• 1:05:58
  hire because they're desperately trying to look for an
• 1:06:00
  opportunity, More loyal, work harder. 100% And so when I was
• 1:06:05
  starting to create this, and you know, this has been over four
• 1:06:09
  years in the making of what I've done with my harvest.
• 1:06:12
  And you're right, I've put my money where my mouth is.
• 1:06:15
  I've put millions of dollars behind this to fund this.
• 1:06:18
  There's nobody else involved. It's just me.
• 1:06:21
  There's not a bunch of other grants or other money.
• 1:06:24
  I actually took money that I've earned and worked hard for.
• 1:06:27
  And I could have just said, I'm riding off into the sunset, but
• 1:06:31
  I'm like, what's my what, what's what am I really doing to make a
• 1:06:34
  difference in this world? And I'm taking all these highs,
• 1:06:37
  all these lows that I've had. And I'm like, I want to give
• 1:06:40
  back and help the men and women that have been the same places
• 1:06:44
  that I've been that are trying to figure out how do I better
• 1:06:47
  myself? What about their families?
• 1:06:48
  How do we really make a difference, right?
• 1:06:50
  What's my legacy? Do I do I want to give my kids
• 1:06:53
  just millions dollars? No, I really don't.
• 1:06:56
  You know, I started it with nothing.
• 1:06:57
  I want, do I want them to have that someday?
• 1:06:59
  Hopefully, Yeah. It's capitalism.
• 1:07:01
  I all want everybody to, you know, figure out how they can do
• 1:07:04
  better. But I I want them to earn it.
• 1:07:07
  I don't want to just give them like some, you know, golden
• 1:07:10
  tickets. Doesn't mean I'm not going to
• 1:07:11
  help them. Doesn't mean I will.
• 1:07:12
  I am, but you know, I, I also don't want them to just have so
• 1:07:17
  much that they do nothing with it.
• 1:07:18
  I want them to really learn and earn how it is.
• 1:07:21
  And so I decided that this is what I wanted to do.
• 1:07:23
  You know, I really, this has become a passion project for me.
• 1:07:27
  And back to your point about hiring people.
• 1:07:28
  So I when I was starting this a few years ago, I reached out to
• 1:07:33
  a gentleman named Paul Shore. He is the chief people officer
• 1:07:36
  for Bass Pro Shops. So Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's
• 1:07:39
  Johnny Morris, the founder of Bass Pro, you know, he is his
• 1:07:42
  main guy. And, you know, he's got, look,
• 1:07:45
  that guy's, I mean, they got everything right.
• 1:07:46
  They have a bunch of boat manufacturing.
• 1:07:49
  Yeah. So if people don't know they're
• 1:07:51
  huge, they're a great organization.
• 1:07:53
  But I reached out to Paul and he took a meeting with me.
• 1:07:56
  I didn't know him. You know, it's not like I was
• 1:07:58
  like best friends before or something with him.
• 1:08:01
  And I told him what all I was working on with the with
• 1:08:04
  Harvest. And I remember one of the first
• 1:08:07
  comments he said when he started to look at this, he said, you
• 1:08:10
  know what I love about your platform and hiring?
• 1:08:12
  Because I was talking to him about HR and, you know, hiring
• 1:08:17
  people and what would they look for?
• 1:08:19
  What do they want? What are they doing with others
• 1:08:21
  other So, you know, platforms like Ziprecruiter or indeed.
• 1:08:25
  And he told me, Doug, what I love about this platform of
• 1:08:28
  Harvest is that the individuals that are on this platform are
• 1:08:33
  taking an initiative to better themselves in life.
• 1:08:36
  They're learning these life skills that are learning these
• 1:08:38
  other things. And they, he said, look like
• 1:08:42
  that that means something to an employer.
• 1:08:44
  So when you take and print off a certificate of completion from
• 1:08:47
  Harvest and you've, you know, downloaded the My Harvest app,
• 1:08:51
  taken some courses about job place etiquette, about how do
• 1:08:55
  you act talk? What do you do?
• 1:08:57
  Do you know when you're, you know, getting interviewed, how
• 1:09:00
  do you talk to again that gap in your resume?
• 1:09:02
  Learning about financial literacy and about having a bank
• 1:09:05
  account or you know what I mean? Just all these things.
• 1:09:07
  Look, employers want employees that are healthy with their own
• 1:09:14
  financial situation, that are living a good life and doing
• 1:09:17
  stuff right. It makes a better employee.
• 1:09:18
  It makes somebody that's going to stick with them longer.
• 1:09:20
  They want to invest in that. And so when you prove to them
• 1:09:24
  that you're taking that initiative to better yourself,
• 1:09:26
  and one way you can do that is by taking the courses and that
• 1:09:29
  you don't have to take like all 1000 of them.
• 1:09:32
  And we're going to keep adding courses.
• 1:09:33
  You know, take some that apply to you, that you can learn
• 1:09:36
  something, get a quick win, and it's actually going to help you
• 1:09:39
  and it's going to help you get a better job.
• 1:09:40
  It's going to help you move up quicker when you're trying to
• 1:09:43
  get when you want a promotion. It's going to make your life
• 1:09:46
  better with your friends and your family and the other stuff
• 1:09:49
  you're doing, You know, and again, it's not like you got to
• 1:09:51
  go like I'm signing up for college and this is like a five
• 1:09:55
  year commitment or a Fort. You know, I'm bowling with two
• 1:09:57
  years whatever to get a thing. Like I'm not telling you not to
• 1:10:00
  do any of those things, you know, if that's what you want to
• 1:10:02
  do in the path you want to go down.
• 1:10:03
  But these are great little things for quick wins that you
• 1:10:06
  can get. And so, you know, that's I think
• 1:10:09
  a very important point that, you know, and look, this guys, yeah,
• 1:10:13
  I mean, you know, for people to say that and realize that
• 1:10:16
  initially is fantastic. Well, here's here's the thing,
• 1:10:20
  here's the thing, Doug, here's the thing about that.
• 1:10:23
  Because, you know, both you and I have, have grown companies
• 1:10:27
  and, and yes, everybody wants good, loyal employees.
• 1:10:32
  The thing is with people that are, have been through and have
• 1:10:35
  a felony record is they say, well, I'd like to take a chance
• 1:10:37
  on someone, but I don't know if I'm getting the right person or
• 1:10:40
  not. Well, you don't know if you're
• 1:10:41
  getting the right person or not if you're hiring anybody, but
• 1:10:44
  this gives a pathway for someone to see, wait a minute, this
• 1:10:48
  person's dedicated. This person's dedicated.
• 1:10:51
  They were trying to. Improve somebody.
• 1:10:52
  That's been where I've been honestly for multiple reasons.
• 1:10:56
  I mean, you know, but I'm all about like hiring, you know,
• 1:11:01
  obviously it depends on the job that you're trying to do.
• 1:11:04
  Just like as anything else. It's like me taking a chance on
• 1:11:07
  Augie, you know, I mean, look, he had big, big, huge financial
• 1:11:11
  crime. Huge.
• 1:11:12
  Was away for 15 years in his sentence.
• 1:11:15
  Yeah, I knew him. I met him there.
• 1:11:16
  But I could have been like, I don't want nothing to do with
• 1:11:18
  this guy. No, I mean, I'm like, I look for
• 1:11:21
  the good in people, right? And I and so it's too easy to
• 1:11:24
  find the bad in anybody. So I look for the good in him.
• 1:11:27
  I saw the opportunity and I'm like, I want, you know, I, I
• 1:11:30
  want to give this guy, I want to give this guy a, another chance.
• 1:11:34
  And you know, and I'm, I'm glad I did.
• 1:11:36
  He's, he's a great guy. He's done a lot of great things.
• 1:11:38
  He's given back a lot to help. And so that's proof in the
• 1:11:41
  pudding of continuing to, you know what I mean?
• 1:11:44
  Yeah, pay it forward. Individuals, yeah, pay it
• 1:11:46
  forward. So, yeah, I mean, for anybody to
• 1:11:50
  go check out my Harvest app, it's very easy.
• 1:11:52
  I I just downloaded it from the Apple store.
• 1:11:55
  It's it's it's Google. Play It's downloaded.
• 1:11:58
  It's free, it's just super easy. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:01
  Super easy. Harvest.
• 1:12:02
  Yeah, put in my harvest. All you got to do is download it
• 1:12:04
  and you're in and and away you go.
• 1:12:06
  Put. Your e-mail in, you know, you
• 1:12:07
  put your e-mail address, you got to create a password, sign in.
• 1:12:10
  Look, your friends and family should do it.
• 1:12:12
  If you're listening to this and you're, you know, currently
• 1:12:15
  sitting incarcerated behind bars, you know, tell your
• 1:12:19
  friends and family about it, you know, to download it, because
• 1:12:22
  there's things on there that can help them right now.
• 1:12:25
  You know, there's ton courses on there again, for all these how
• 1:12:29
  TOS, you know, courses they can take other stuff.
• 1:12:32
  You know, it doesn't just apply to somebody that's incarcerated.
• 1:12:36
  I mean, if you know somebody that's had a substance abuse
• 1:12:38
  problem, there's direct stuff there or dealing with trauma or,
• 1:12:42
  you know, look, it's for anyone looking for a hand up, not a
• 1:12:46
  hand out. If you're wanting to try to
• 1:12:49
  better yourself and just put in a little bit of effort to get a
• 1:12:52
  little bit back, you're going to see a reward.
• 1:12:54
  And then that's going to you're going to want to continue on and
• 1:12:56
  do more. And you know, it's a great place
• 1:12:59
  for social media to go on there. Post stuff about your day.
• 1:13:02
  If you need a prayer, post a prayer.
• 1:13:03
  You know, you can put in a prayer request real easy to do
• 1:13:06
  that. The other thing about we're on a
• 1:13:09
  Dovo as well, it's under Harvest solutions on a Dovo.
• 1:13:12
  So my harvest is the platform when you're out and but there
• 1:13:16
  are just a small amount of our courses that are on a Dovo and
• 1:13:21
  you can not near all of them. But if you wanted to start even
• 1:13:24
  taking a couple of them while you're in on the, you know,
• 1:13:27
  adobo platform, Google or not Google, but put in Harvest
• 1:13:31
  solutions. Look, when I was in, I didn't
• 1:13:33
  have tablets, right? In 2011 and 12 and all back
• 1:13:37
  then, you know, I didn't, I had a computer room to go to, but I
• 1:13:39
  didn't have the tablet. I didn't have all these courses.
• 1:13:42
  So for me to tell you what exactly to do, I don't know, you
• 1:13:45
  know, but I know we're on adobo it with a small amount of our
• 1:13:49
  courses. It's just a fraction of them.
• 1:13:52
  I think there might be 20 that's on there out of like 1000.
• 1:13:56
  So there's a very small amount. But look, you could take a
• 1:13:58
  couple of those and you can watch them while you're in all
• 1:14:02
  things and then go forward from there.
• 1:14:04
  So you get a little sneak peek at what those are like.
• 1:14:07
  Yeah. So that's how they would do it.
• 1:14:09
  And you can have all this. Have a phone you can go to?
• 1:14:12
  If you don't have a phone, you can also go to myharvest.org or
• 1:14:18
  you could go to harvestsolutions.com and it'll
• 1:14:20
  point you. Both of them point same place.
• 1:14:23
  Obviously we've bought tons of different domain names, have
• 1:14:26
  everything. But my harvest.org, you know, is
• 1:14:30
  the other place you can go if you're out and then you could be
• 1:14:32
  on it just on your computer, right?
• 1:14:34
  So if you just got a laptop and you don't have, you haven't
• 1:14:37
  downloaded the app, you can sign in that way.
• 1:14:39
  So I sign in everyday basically both ways.
• 1:14:41
  You know, I pick up my phone in the morning, look at it first
• 1:14:44
  thing I go later on and I'm mean to be on it on my laptop.
• 1:14:47
  So I'm I'm on it that way as well.
• 1:14:49
  So yeah, it's. Very easy.
• 1:14:52
  Easy daily thing that should be daily part of your life instead
• 1:14:56
  of going to like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, There's all
• 1:15:00
  kinds of DIY hacks, there's podcasts on there, there's all
• 1:15:03
  kinds of stuff. So yeah.
• 1:15:06
  So Doug, if I was going to ask you, and I'm going to ask you
• 1:15:09
  what going through all that you've gone through, I mean,
• 1:15:12
  it's been an incredible journey that you've been on and now
• 1:15:17
  you're following your passion with with what you really want
• 1:15:21
  to do to make an impact. What do you think's your biggest
• 1:15:23
  take away going through all this?
• 1:15:29
  Well, the first thing that's coming in my mind is that
• 1:15:32
  there's light at the end of the tunnel.
• 1:15:34
  And you know, look, I got to remind myself that everyday,
• 1:15:37
  even with what I'm still doing with my harvest, right?
• 1:15:40
  I mean it, it's been 4 years of creating this thing and I've put
• 1:15:43
  millions of dollars into it and I've had a great team of people
• 1:15:48
  that I've hired and, you know, we got full studios to shoot
• 1:15:50
  stuff in and that. But there's, there's a lot of
• 1:15:53
  times it's easy for even me, you know, look, some people might
• 1:15:56
  look at me and be like, man, this guy's got everything.
• 1:16:00
  This guy's got it all put together.
• 1:16:02
  I don't, I don't, you know, every day there's a struggle.
• 1:16:07
  Every day there's another obstacle and perseverance, man
• 1:16:11
  like so there's light at the end of the tunnel.
• 1:16:12
  I truly always believe that I look for the good in people.
• 1:16:16
  I don't look for the bad. And I think more people need to
• 1:16:18
  do that, whether you've been in it or you haven't.
• 1:16:20
  I think that's that this is a, this is a preaching and a lesson
• 1:16:23
  that I tell everybody. I don't care what your walk is,
• 1:16:26
  even if you don't like this is my reminders to people all the
• 1:16:29
  time. I, I think that you have to
• 1:16:34
  persevere. You, you just, you can't give
• 1:16:36
  up, you know, on yourself, on anything, on people around you,
• 1:16:41
  you know, just that perseverance and that, that you're going to
• 1:16:43
  be able to make it through and you're going to do it.
• 1:16:45
  And look, there's, there's days that you're like, I can't, I
• 1:16:48
  don't even know how I'm going to make it through today.
• 1:16:51
  But again, I, you know, lean on stuff like the my harvest app.
• 1:16:55
  Honestly, I mean it I'm not it's not just saying that to say it,
• 1:16:58
  but that's why I built it was for those types of things,
• 1:17:01
  right. And you know, it could be that
• 1:17:03
  daily verse be the other thing. But yeah, those are that that
• 1:17:07
  that's kind of I think I don't know if that's the but that's
• 1:17:10
  those are the things, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of things
• 1:17:14
  that do different. I'm not going to sit here and
• 1:17:16
  wouldn't you know? But I think Doug, you, you, but
• 1:17:19
  there is light at the end of the tunnel.
• 1:17:21
  That's the hope thing. You talked about confidence
• 1:17:24
  often is creates action and that's what gets people to
• 1:17:27
  wherever they need to be and and you got to persevere to get get
• 1:17:32
  through that stuff. You've got to swim through
• 1:17:34
  things you don't want to swim through to get to the other side
• 1:17:36
  and. You're not a failure or at
• 1:17:39
  anything until you quit trying. You know, like I failed at a lot
• 1:17:42
  of stuff. Trust, like, I mean, there's,
• 1:17:44
  there's a lot. It's not like, hey, this guy
• 1:17:48
  just hits a home run every time he steps up to the plate.
• 1:17:51
  No, it's quite the opposite, man.
• 1:17:53
  I've struck out a lot of times, but it's that I keep getting
• 1:17:56
  back up to the plate literally. And, you know, yeah, I mean, so
• 1:18:03
  yeah, there's a lot of things I do different, but at the same
• 1:18:06
  time, I'm really glad that I think I've went through
• 1:18:11
  everything I went through. I think there's a reason for.
• 1:18:13
  Every person you are. Yeah, and it, it has and, you
• 1:18:17
  know. Yeah.
• 1:18:17
  And one way, do you wish No, you wouldn't have went to prison.
• 1:18:20
  Well, yeah, like I, that's probably a statement.
• 1:18:22
  But in another way, I'm kind of glad that I went.
• 1:18:24
  Honestly, if I wouldn't have went, I'd probably be dead right
• 1:18:27
  now. I'd, I'd, I'd probably be dead
• 1:18:29
  with my lifestyle and stuff. So it's probably a good thing
• 1:18:34
  that. I would say that's a good thing,
• 1:18:36
  the alternative of being dead, I think.
• 1:18:38
  Thank you. You've done that.
• 1:18:42
  Like I do, I do like living, you know, I do like.
• 1:18:45
  Living's good. And look, I, you know, the other
• 1:18:51
  thing I want to say is that, you know, I, I, there's a lot of
• 1:18:56
  things that I could help and mentor people with, with
• 1:19:00
  business and starting a business and success.
• 1:19:02
  And that's kind of some of the next phases of what I want to
• 1:19:05
  put into my harvest is those things.
• 1:19:08
  And we're going to also be doing call insurance kind of like
• 1:19:12
  that. People could call in and you
• 1:19:15
  have to wait till you're out. But you know, I want to take
• 1:19:17
  that 10 minutes, that 15 minutes to take a phone call from
• 1:19:20
  someone in our studios and be able to give them advice on,
• 1:19:24
  hey, I'm thinking of starting this business.
• 1:19:25
  Hey, I'm going through this, whether it's something with a
• 1:19:27
  relationship, anything else, man, I've been there through all
• 1:19:32
  of those things. I mean, you can't hardly throw a
• 1:19:35
  zinger at me of something that I haven't seen been through, you
• 1:19:40
  know, have some part on my life has definitely been a bunch of
• 1:19:45
  this. But I mean, I've had some real,
• 1:19:46
  real highs. But man, I've had a lot of lows.
• 1:19:49
  And you know, I think I said this to you before.
• 1:19:51
  I don't know what's this isn't a competition, but I don't know
• 1:19:54
  what's harder. Having everything and losing it
• 1:19:58
  all and literally. Trying to start over from that
• 1:20:03
  to, you know, if you're somebody that's maybe never had anything
• 1:20:06
  ever in your life and you're trying to figure it out and it
• 1:20:08
  doesn't make one better than the other.
• 1:20:10
  I, I really wonder which is harder.
• 1:20:12
  And I don't know that neither one's easy.
• 1:20:14
  OK, But man, it's, it's been really hard to have the things
• 1:20:20
  that I've had from even friendships and other stuff and
• 1:20:23
  having this super high. I mean, this is where you get a
• 1:20:27
  lot of people that have been famous.
• 1:20:28
  I think that really fall off or even commit suicide.
• 1:20:33
  I know some of them. I have personal friends that
• 1:20:35
  have been Uber famous that are no longer with us, unfortunately
• 1:20:40
  because of that, you know, and it's a hard thing to have that
• 1:20:43
  high level of like success, fame, whatever it is, right, And
• 1:20:46
  I haven't had fame. I'm glad I haven't, you know,
• 1:20:48
  I'm thankful, but you know, to have that big success and then
• 1:20:51
  not have anything is really hard.
• 1:20:54
  And so, you know, I feel like I have a lot to share and I want
• 1:20:57
  to help others that are in that part.
• 1:20:59
  I mean, that's truly my give back is how how can I help you?
• 1:21:02
  Whoever's looking at this, watching this, do anything, you
• 1:21:06
  know, what are some guidance, some terms that I can that I can
• 1:21:09
  provide? So I want to do more of that.
• 1:21:12
  I love it, I love it. I love my harvest.
• 1:21:15
  It's something that I feel like, you know, I was working on the
• 1:21:20
  idea of Fair chance solutions. This is this is all the things
• 1:21:23
  that I was thinking about and you've actually, you know, spent
• 1:21:26
  four years on it and capsulized it.
• 1:21:28
  I love it. Talking about gratitude, I want
• 1:21:31
  to think Homestead Financial helps and lets me use these
• 1:21:34
  fancy lights and cameras here. If you've got home mortgage
• 1:21:38
  needs, Greg Afdev is your guy at Homestead.
• 1:21:43
  Hey, if you're going out, you're looking for a book, don't forget
• 1:21:46
  about my book Nightmare. Success, Loyalty, betrayal, life
• 1:21:48
  behind bars, adapting, finally breaking free.
• 1:21:53
  If you got time, leave me a review on Apple.
• 1:21:55
  Those are great. Love reading those.
• 1:21:56
  You want to know what I'm doing, go to brickcassidy.com.
• 1:21:59
  I spell it wrong. I spell it with a Ty, not a DY.
• 1:22:03
  And as I used to say to my people as I was writing my
• 1:22:06
  emails back and forth from Leavenworth, stay strong.
• 1:22:08
  I'll do the same. Doug, man, I just hope you just
• 1:22:12
  keep on going. Love everything you're doing.
• 1:22:14
  Thanks for taking the time to Share your story and just, I
• 1:22:18
  mean love it My harvest. Thanks for having me on.
• 1:22:23
  It's a pleasure to meet you and spend time with you.
• 1:22:25
  And I love what you're doing. I think what you're doing, you
• 1:22:28
  know, again, look, share this, tell other people to watch and
• 1:22:32
  listen to your podcast, your show, what you're doing, not
• 1:22:35
  just my story again, but all the other stories of everybody that
• 1:22:38
  you're bringing. You know, it's it's phenomenal.
• 1:22:41
  You have a heart and a give back and it's important for us to
• 1:22:45
  continue to carry that forward. So, you know, Brett, thank you
• 1:22:47
  for what you're doing and thanks for having me on.
• 1:22:49
  It's a pleasure. I I appreciate that, Doug,
• 1:22:52
  really, dude, Doug Feller, I'm your success in and out.