Latest / Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison / ROR 172: You Ain’t Beyond Saving

Transcript

ROR 172: You Ain’t Beyond Saving · Red Onion Randy - Life in a Supermax Prison

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello, this is a prebate call from and if the
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: present Department of Correction read an in state prison to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: accept this call crass zero.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: This is Randall bob Aka read on you, Randy. I'm
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: currently serving one thousand, two hundred and fourteen years for
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: capital murder and arm robbery now and finally at a
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: level three fucking Air Correctional Center sowa's throw from where
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I grew up. If you have any questions or comments
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: and want to leave a message or whatever, I've got
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: a voicemail line. That number is one eight eight eight
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: five Zuit four one nine three suit. You can also
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: visit my website which is new and improved and got
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: different features and whatnot at deput Debt Read on your
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Randy dot com. I hope you do. Let's get started
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: with the podcast today. I'm gonna talk about a book
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: that me and my editor has worked on and it's
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: called You Ain't Beyond Saying. It's part memoir, part mental
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: health survival. God. I take a lot of my experiences
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: growing up in the prison system for the last thirty
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: four years and we put it in the book. You
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: know some stuff, you pretty much, especially for long time listeners.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: You already know. However, this is it's a different take
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: on it. And of course you know, I hope, uh,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I hope you go and buy the book. I genuinely
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: believe that it will help you, no matter what little
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: bit of financial you know. I'll make off the back
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: end of it, which won't be as much as We're
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: self publishing on Amazon, which is where you can go
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: and purchase the book. There's log on Amazon. You ain't
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: beyond saving by Randall BYA. I'm gonna actually read one
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: of the excerpts for a chapter. I guess it's a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: little bit different. The way we did is than it
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: normally done. It's definitely because I'm different than normally done.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: So the one I've chosen is a torture chamber. When
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I got kicked off of Wallace rich Or splitting LA's throat,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: they transferred me to Red Onion. They put me straight
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  Speaker 2: into long term solitary deparment. Solitary is hard to describe
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: to anyone who hasn't been there. You're in a tiny cell.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a pretty small dude, only five foot nine, and
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I can take maybe four steps from the door to
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  Speaker 2: the bunk before I have to turn around. You've got
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  Speaker 2: your toil, a sink, a little mirror, a steel table
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: with a shelf, and either one or two bunks, depending
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: on the pod. Sometimes you're on a vent with other guys,
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  Speaker 2: sometimes not. It just depends that the neighboring cells are full.
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  Speaker 2: You spend twenty three hours a day in that cell.
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  Speaker 2: The only time you come out is for one hour
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  Speaker 2: a wreck, which is just a doll cannel cage outside,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: or to take a shower. That's hit. It's like being
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: locked in your bathroom all day every day. Eat there,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: sleep there, read and write there. That's your entire world.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Try doing that in your own bathroom for a day
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: and you'll get a taste of what I live for
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: eighteen and a half years. The light stays on from
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  Speaker 2: five forty five am until ten every single day, bright
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  Speaker 2: fluorescent lights flashing off of white pain so bright it
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: literally gives you snow blindness. I ain't joking. Guys in
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  Speaker 2: solitary for a couple of years, we all end up
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: needing glasses. Some dudes will stand in their walls with
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: coffee or smear vasoline over the light just to cut
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the glare, because after a while your eyes start to hurt.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Physically hurt. They're painfully but that's not even the worst part.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Solitary is the loneliest place on Earth. You could be
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: on a raft in the ocean or lost in the
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Sahara and it wouldn't be this bad. You hear voices
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  Speaker 2: from other cells, but eventually they just fade into background noise.
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  Speaker 2: It's like you're not even human anymore. Your whole world
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  Speaker 2: shrinks down to that cell. That's your planet, that's your universe,
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  Speaker 2: and it feels like there's no escaping, like you're buried alive.
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  Speaker 2: So you do every everything you can to stay sane,
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  Speaker 2: but most people don't. Even the ones who make it
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  Speaker 2: through it still messes them up. I made it, but
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I still deal with paranoia, even now that I'm in
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: general population. I'm still damaged from it. After I cut
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: la' stoat, they gave me five and a half years
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  Speaker 2: in solitary. Every day, year after year, trapped in that cell.
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  Speaker 2: I had no money, had no family support, I had
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  Speaker 2: no friends, I had no one to call. I didn't
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  Speaker 2: have ten piles, I had no commissary, nothing. I didn't
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  Speaker 2: even have a TV until way later when they started
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  Speaker 2: selling twenty dollar block in white televisions, and some guy
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  Speaker 2: felt sorry for me and had his people send me
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  Speaker 2: the money. I read the same book over and over,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: paced the floor, raged in my head. I was angry
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  Speaker 2: all the time, angry being in prison, angry at how
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  Speaker 2: I was treated, Angry that no one gave it. Damn.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: The food was decent back then, under kitchen Manager Wade
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  Speaker 2: and kitchen Manager Night. The trays weren't bad. Not anymore
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  Speaker 2: now with garbage, undercooked, rotten. The worst part of solitary
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: is the noise. The noise is NonStop. Every time a
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: ceo opens the door, it slams. Every time a tray
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  Speaker 2: slot opens or closes, it slams. Everything is made from
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: steel and concrete, so every sound bounces and echoes. You
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: can't get away from it. And then there's the guys
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: who's lost it. They just bang and screamed for hours,
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  Speaker 2: sometimes for days. I was on a vent with a
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  Speaker 2: guy named Carlos tor Us, sertifiably insane. He bang on
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  Speaker 2: the tool that the walls de sink anything seventy two
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  Speaker 2: hours straight. Then heat now, then he'd start up again.
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  Speaker 2: You go crazy just listening to that, and the matches
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  Speaker 2: they give you might as well be a piece of cardboard.
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  Speaker 2: You sink right through it. It's not meant to health you.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Nothing in solitary is meant to health you. It's not
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  Speaker 2: about teaching you a lesson, it's about not about rehabilitation.
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  Speaker 2: It's about breaking me. It's a torture chamber straight up. Now,
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  Speaker 2: are get you. You get guys like me, people who've
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: done violent things. You can't just say hey, no worries,
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  Speaker 2: don't do it again, and send us back to population.
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  Speaker 2: But there's got to be a better way than this.
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  Speaker 2: There has to do because one day a lot of
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: guys who spend years in solitary are going to walk
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  Speaker 2: out of those cells and go home, and they're going
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: to do horrible things because they've been turned into something else.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Their minds are gone. Solitary turns people into rabbit dogs.
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  Speaker 2: You can't reason with them, you can't reach them. All
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  Speaker 2: you can do is put them down. That's what the
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  Speaker 2: prison system is creating. That's what the prison industrial complex
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  Speaker 2: is doing on purpose. They don't care about you. They
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: don't care about your family. They don't care if a
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: god comes home and rapes your daughter or kills your husband,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: as long as the money keeps coming in. They're good.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: They feed us trash on purpose, so we're forced to
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  Speaker 2: buy commissary and commissary companies make billions off of us.
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  Speaker 2: Kitchen managers get bribes twenty thirty thousand a year to
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  Speaker 2: keep serving garbage. There's no rehabilitation, there's no teaching, no education.
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  Speaker 2: They don't want you to learn anything because if you
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: get better, you'll go home and stay home and they
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: won't make money off you anymore. So they keep building
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  Speaker 2: more and more prisons, they keep breaking people, they keep
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: breaking into profits. It's all about control, all about business,
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  Speaker 2: and we're the product. Try this, control your mind or else.
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  Speaker 2: Solitary confinement is designed to break people, not just your body,
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  Speaker 2: but your mind. You're sold your belief that you're even
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: a human being anymore. But I didn't break. I've bent,
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  Speaker 2: I bled, and I've raged, but I didn't break. And
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: that's what just try. This is about the first exercise.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Build mental muscle. Every day. When all you have is
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: a six by nine selling four steps of walking room,
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  Speaker 2: your mind becomes your entire universe. I read the same
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  Speaker 2: book over and overpacing the floor, reaching in my head.
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  Speaker 2: That's survival, that's resilience, whatever your life looks like right now,
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  Speaker 2: Even if you feel trapped or boxed in, you can
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  Speaker 2: start training your mind like it's the only thing that matters,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: because it is. So Try this. Read one page of
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  Speaker 2: something uplifting every day. Set a five minute timer and
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  Speaker 2: sit with your thoughts. No distractions, no phone, no email,
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  Speaker 2: social media, no kids. Just sit down for five minutes
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  Speaker 2: and just think about whatever you want to think, but
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: just sit and just breathe. Write down your rage the
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: last time you know. I'm not talking the last time
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: you got upset. I'm talking about the last time you
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: was kissed. Write it down, Write what happened, and then
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: write down what it taught you. What did you learn
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: from that experience? Exercise to audit the noise and solitary.
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  Speaker 2: The noise is constant, steel door slamming, men, screaming, bangs
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  Speaker 2: that echo for hours. What is the noise in your
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  Speaker 2: life right now? Is it gossip? Is it doom scrolling?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Do you have self hating thoughts on a loop? And
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: what I mean by that is I'm fat, I'm never
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: gonna lose. Is fat? I'm ugly, I'm a loser, I'm
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: not smart, I'm stupid. Nobody loves me. Nobody cares about me.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have those self hitting thoughts on a loop? Look,
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  Speaker 2: you can't escape it all, but you can decide which
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  Speaker 2: voices you listen to. So try this. The next time
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  Speaker 2: you catch yourself doing those things. Write down the five
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  Speaker 2: loudest voices in your head or life. Now ask yourself
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  Speaker 2: which ones build me up, which ones break me down?
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  Speaker 2: And then all I want you to do is cut
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  Speaker 2: out one negative voice this week. Just one voice will
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  Speaker 2: make a world of difference. Exercise number three. Remember they
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  Speaker 2: want you broken. Solitary isn't about rehabilitation. It's about breaking.
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  Speaker 2: That applies to more than person talks, systems, abusive people, addictions.
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  Speaker 2: They don't want you healed. They want you dependent, confused, controlled.
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  Speaker 2: So try this. Write this down somewhere you'll see it.
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  Speaker 2: Put it on your mirror, in the bathroom, on your
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  Speaker 2: refrigerator wherever. I am not for sale. I am not
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: your product. I am not your victim. And you say
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: that out loud every morning. You say it when it's quiet,
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  Speaker 2: you say it when it's loud. You say it over
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: and over again until it sinks in and you start
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: living it. I am not for sale, I am not
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: your product. And I am not your victim. The bottom line, people,
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  Speaker 2: you don't need four walls to feel trapped, and you
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: don't need freedom to feel powerful. If I can keep
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  Speaker 2: my mind intact in a torture chamber, and I did
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  Speaker 2: a total of eighteen and a half years not straight,
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  Speaker 2: I did six and a half and in thirteen and
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: a half, I mean excoose me five and a half
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  Speaker 2: and in thirteen and a half. That's my bad. You
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  Speaker 2: can take back control of yours. That's just one example
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  Speaker 2: of what's in you ain't beyond saving. Look, I can't
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: fix you. I can give you tools. I can point
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: you in the right direction. I can give you advice.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I can give you experience from my own life, the
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: things that I've been through, the things that I've overcome.
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  Speaker 2: I can show you these things. You have to do
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: the work, though, and you have to want it. If
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: you don't want it, not even God can fix you.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: And God can do it anything. But even before he
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: can fix you, he has to get you to desire,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: to want it, to ask for it. So ask, ask yourself,
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  Speaker 2: do I really want this? Do I really want to
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: fix some of this? It's in my life that makes
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: me feel terrible that just drags me down. It's hard,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: it absolutely is, but it's worth it. I'm going to
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: give you an example, and I'm going to use it
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: from the physical. I've seen a lot of fights in prison.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I mean I have seen a lot of fights in prison. Hell,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: I've been a part of a lot of fights in prison,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: and I've seen guys. You know that you've got this.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: You always have one kind of big guy, you know,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: he looks great taking t shirt off him, and the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: females come into part and you literally just see them
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: start from dripping salava from the corner of their mouths.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Like dudes, he's that big, looks that good. Blah blah blah,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: and he's a bull, he's a loud mouth. And you know,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: you'll have guys in there like, man, I wouldn't want
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: to fight him, Damn, he'd beat a shot out of somebody.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: And then later on the same person would just said
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: that about the guy. Well, get put in a position
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: to where he has no choice but to fight that guy.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And he goes into the fight thinking he's not going
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: to win. But like a lot of things in this life,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: the big boy, the little the little Greek god, he's
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: all showing no go and he winds up getting his
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: ass tore out the frame by the small scared guy.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I have seen that. I cannot tell you how many
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: times I literally have no reference number to put on that.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: And you see, after the guy wins, while the CEOs
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: are coming in to break it up, shackling, cuff and
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: do all those things, he stands up, man, and he
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: is grinting. He is grinted from here to hear, like
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: he gets so much confidence about himself because he just
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: beat this boy's ass who looks way, way, way way
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: way better than them. And my point for bringing this
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: up is this, a lot of the problems in your life,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: they're all show and no go. They're not as tough
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: as you think they are. And when you whoop one
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: of those problems asses that you are walking around with
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: your chest out and your head back and know, I mean, man,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: you are struggling because you just realize something important. You
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: realize that you can be saved. That's why I chose
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: the name of the book. That's why Michael has been
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: over backwards to help me with this project, to help
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: me with everything that I'm doing and stuff that y'all
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: don't even really know about yet, because like me, he
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: believes that you ain't beyond saving. It just takes a
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: little hard work. All it takes is one little victory
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: over something you've thought you would never have victory over.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So yeah, when you start fighting it, you start digging
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: into his ass, when you start realizing, hey, wait a minute,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: you know what, hell not, only can I do this?
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Come doing this? That's a game changer, and it just
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: starts with just little steps. So look, it's not about
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: me making money people, you know, because a matter of
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: fact is I'm getting ready to go into the incentive
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: prison and the food is already great here. I can
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: only imagine how much greater it's going to get. So
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I don't exactly need commissary. I'm doing this. Michael is
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: doing this because it's about helping them because we've both
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: been through the ringer of life. We've both been laying
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: on the floor of wondering if you have one minute,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: your meaning, what can we do? How can we fixed this? Like?
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Is there any hope for us? And we realized the
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: only way there was was to stand up and fight back,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to fight for who we want to be and what
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: we want to be. So please go buy the book
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: or by somebody else's book. As long as it helps,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: that's all that matters. But I'm going to leave you
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: with this. I don't care how broken you are. I
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: don't care how damnaged you are. I don't care what
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: kind of life you've had. You ain't beyond saving. All right,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: That's that's all the time we have for now. I
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: appreciate you listening to me more than you'll, uh, you'll
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: probably ever know. I just want to let you know,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: you know, don't forget to check out my website right
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: on your Randy dot com. And for those of you
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: who want to hear more or you want to listen
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: to the episode's commercial free hear me and my editor
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: discuss a little bit further into the episodes. Please go
• 20:05
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• 20:10
  Speaker 2: five bucks a month. And just a reminder, I have
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: a cookbook out you're going to eat that. You can
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: find it on our website or Amazon Kindle or Amazon Print.
• 20:52
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