Latest / Harder Than Life / 18 Years Old. One shot. 32 Years in Prison. Now He’s Free with Jesse Crosson

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18 Years Old. One shot. 32 Years in Prison. Now He’s Free with Jesse Crosson · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
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• 0:30
  I struggled with guilt and shame for a long time. I was running from this monster that I couldn't identify or couldn't describe. And I felt like if I stopped, I would die. And if I just stopped and faced the monster, what I would have found was scared her child who just desperately needed love and support. And because I didn't know how to do that, I caused harm to everybody else because I didn't have the courage to face myself. What helped me was the people who treated me as a human being. Freedom without structure does what to a man?
• 0:58
  Destroys. Redemption is not a place we get to. Redemption is action. Redemption is service. Who you are right now, flawed, imperfect, having a bad day, you are worthy of love and you are worthy of life. There's no thing you have to do to be enough.
• 1:12
  Jesse Crossan was sentenced to 32 years in prison at 18 for robbery and a non-fatal shooting. He served 19 of those. He's now the author of The Best Part of Prison and has over a million followers watching him unpack incarceration, grief, masculinity, and what freedom actually costs. Let's get into it.
• 1:37
  Those of you that are watching and you tune in every single week, please smash that subscribe button. We are focused on growing that for you to get bigger and better guests. I appreciate it. It means the world to me and our team breathing into you. If you're watching this on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, subscribe on that platform.
• 2:01
  Welcome to the Heart of the Life show to you new listeners and followers. Welcome to, welcome back. We're going to have a little fun today with our new friend, Jesse. Jesse, you've built a platform around the idea that your worst decision doesn't have to be your final definition. But someone was on the other end of that robbery and that shooting.
• 2:24
  How do you hold the weight of what you did to another person while also building a brand around your own transformation? Yeah. I mean, I struggled with guilt and shame for a long time. I didn't feel like I was worthy of a second chance. I didn't feel like I was worthy of any consideration. I felt like all I had brought into the world was kind of like harm and destruction.
• 2:42
  And what I saw was I learned to change. I essentially had to be accountable because accountability was the path to freedom for me. And that started with awareness. And then I started making different decisions and basically living in a different way. And I saw the impact that I was having on people around me. So there is nothing that I can do to undo the harm that I've done. There's nothing I can do to minimize or to in any way take away from the harm that I've done and
• 3:03
  All I do have the power to do is make change in a positive direction these days. So to the people that I've harmed, I've extended apologies and I will continue to extend apologies. I also recognize that there is nothing and no one benefited by me essentially like throwing myself to the ground and saying that I'm not deserving if I can do good in the world. If from where I'm at, I have the option of doing good or doing nothing, it makes a lot more sense to do good.
• 3:24
  You said something that's not very common. Take accountability. I mean, you can look in our government right now. And that's why I applaud the UK right now for arresting who they are. Prince Andrew. And it's like, it's good. And that's what we miss. And I don't know, Jesse, how old are you?
• 3:45
  I'm 41. 41. So you're still, you might be of the age that when I grew up in a time where there were no cameras. So you talk shit, you got punched in the face. So there was immediate consequences. So it made you very accountable. I think we should just get back to the punching people in the face thing. Maybe people will be more accountable. Yeah.
• 4:04
  I'll say that was a part of prison. I mean, there was a lot more honesty. There was a lot more respect. There was a lot more directness because if you didn't, you'd get punched in the face. Yeah. And it's what I learned. I don't necessarily think that's the Beth method. I think that is the need and there are different paths to that need. And that's one path. But ideally, we can find a path that doesn't involve somebody getting punched in the face or not for a continued extended period of time.
• 4:25
  I meant proverbial, not a lot, literally, but sometimes there are some people out there. So lack of accountability that, man, they just they need something. Some of these politicians need it.
• 4:36
  You know, they're the ones that threw us in jail. As a matter of fact, the guy that put me in jail or was one of the biggest, I saw him at the bar drinking and driving. You know, one of the times I was out, I was like, man, you hypocrites. But you called your book the best part of prison. That's a provocative title for a man whose actions put a bullet in someone. What's the honest line between gratitude for your growth and minimizing the damage you caused?
• 5:03
  Please understand, I'm not trying to be mean here. I've been where you're at, and I want to be real and raw. I appreciate the honesty and the directness. I think a lot of people steer away from it because they feel like they're protecting somebody's feelings, and that should never be the case. We need to talk about things openly and honestly. That is the whole point of accountability.
• 5:21
  Again, I don't think there is any minimizing what I've done. What I've done is out there. It's in public record. I've talked about it. The people I've harmed have talked about it. And it needs to be acknowledged. And I acknowledge it in every opportunity I have. And I'm grateful for the stop that it put to my life. I wish I hadn't had.
• 5:36
  done the things that I do. I wish there had been another way that I could have stopped in my tracks and stopped in the chaos that I was living. That was the only thing that worked. Like, I didn't want to be doing the things that I was doing. I was not happy. I was not well. I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to do things differently. And every time I tried, I failed.
• 5:52
  Getting locked up was the first thing that stopped me in my tracks and forced me to really sit with things. And sitting there in that cell, feeling all the things, feeling the shame, feeling the self-loathing, the hatred, feeling the disappointment I had caused everyone in my family, thinking about the harm I had caused the people that I harmed directly, as well as the wave that spread out from that. It's just like wave of chaos that I put into the world caused me again to kind of hate myself.
• 6:14
  Thankfully, when I reached that low point, I was able to at least start over because I knew I had nowhere to go but up. And two, I was really fortunate to find people who believed that I would not be on redemption. And finding people who believe that gave me at least the hope or the belief eventually that I could believe that myself. And people had to love me and encourage me and support me until I could love myself. Such a good answer, dude. I'm so proud of you. Thank you.
• 6:40
  So you said it, you were 18, addicted, spiraling. We've all heard that part of the story. What nobody asks is, what were you getting from that aforementioned chaos that you spoke about? And what need...
• 6:54
  Was the addiction and the crime actually serving? So, you know, there's a popular saying or some popular saying that says addiction isn't the problem. Addiction is the solution to the problem. And I was in pain. I was running from this monster that I couldn't identify or couldn't describe. And I felt like if I stopped, I would die. I felt like if I stopped, it would catch me. It would destroy me. So I had to keep running. And so every morning I woke up, I did something to numb myself or to push the pain further away. I did something to run further to somehow take myself away from that pain.
• 7:24
  And I was, I thought I was somehow making that work, but what I was doing was just sinking myself deeper and deeper into a hole. And if I just stopped and faced the monster, what I would have found was a scared hurt child, like me as a scared hurt child who just desperately needed love and support. And because I didn't know how to do that, I caused harm to everybody else because I didn't have the courage to face myself.
• 7:45
  our stories are very similar. I didn't really cause harm to other people. I caused harm to myself. And man, we recorded seven podcasts in the last two days and every single one of them came down. If these loyal listeners listen to this, it's the same thing. Just sit in your shit and let it pass.
• 8:05
  Don't go out and create havoc and chaos. That just keeps coming up. So I felt the need to say that. And you can really tell that you've owned this, and I love it. So let's get a little deeper and talk about your father leaving the country and then dying while you were locked up. Two abandonments. Oh, man. Which one broke you worse, and how much of the crime in 18 was direct consequence of that first wound?
• 8:35
  So my father left actually while I was incarcerated. So I was, I was locked up before he left, but there was, you know, my father leaving my mother, there were, there was a series of what felt like abandonments to me in the childhood. Um, and ultimately I,
• 8:49
  The objective reality has nothing to do with the experience that I had, because as a kid, I wasn't objective. I wasn't able to see the bigger picture, wasn't able to weigh all the measures. All I knew is I was a kid and my dad was gone. And I didn't know how to deal with that. I didn't know how to function with that. And I was angry at my mom. Now, it turns out my dad was having an affair, so she kicked him out. Like, that's not her fault. That's his fault. Like, ultimately, it's, I guess, everybody's fault. But at the time, all I felt was, like, anger towards my mother and abandonment from my father and not knowing how to deal with that.
• 9:15
  And I was such a scared, angry kid. And I would have these flashes. You know, my mom had some really severe anger issues. So one of the things I promised myself was I would never show anger to the world because I was never going to do the things that she had done. But what that meant was that I would just like pack it deeper and deeper and be more and more depressed. Or in that moment, it would come out in a rage and it would come out in a thing that was destructive. And so I didn't know how to manage. I didn't know how to actually experience and express the feelings that I had.
• 9:38
  So what I did was continue to compound them in the worst possible ways. But I do think that that abandonment and that anger and that fear and all the childhood stuff really combined to cause me to go in the direction that I did because I felt like it was the only option because I didn't know what else to do with that pain. Brother, how did you deal with it? Did you deal with it in prison? Because honestly, to this day, I still get abandonment issues. I get, you know, I walked into my dad shooting up.
• 10:03
  And then after that, he stopped coming to see me. And I was like, whoa, how is it? And I took it like it was my fault. So I had to do massive amounts of therapy to just even cope with it. You were in prison. How did you do it?
• 10:18
  No, I mean, and my dad was still in my life. Like he kicked me out at one point. We were kind of out of contact for a couple of years. But what I did was I had to sit with it. You know, like you said, every one of your guests has said you have to sit with it. And the more that I sat with it, the more that I saw there were lessons there. But it was that discomfort. I had to get used to being uncomfortable. I get used to the fact that things were really bad right then.
• 10:38
  And what I recognized though was that wasn't going to kill me. Like that wasn't going to destroy me. And the thing I've been running from so long was actually trying to teach me something. It was actually trying to show me something. And if I would just stop and listen, I would be okay. And so when I went inside, I saw mental health. There was this huge prejudice against or the stigma against mental health. I did not care.
• 10:55
  I was on fire. I was miserable. I didn't want to live. And I was going to find some way to work through it. So going to see counselors, meditating, going and searching as deep and dark as I can in every kind of crevice of my soul, reading every self-help book. I used all the tools at my disposal because I needed to stop hurting as bad as I was. I don't remember seeing this anywhere. You got a pardon? I got a conditional pardon. So-
• 11:18
  It's a long story involving the governor, but we had the governor, Ralph Northam, granted more pardons that led to release than all previous governors in Virginia history combined. He basically stepped in and said, hey, we've got a bunch of cases of people who were sentenced way outside the guidelines or in really irrational ways. This doesn't make sense. Let's address this. So like I was sentenced to twice the height of the sentencing guidelines in my case. They originally called for eight to 13 years. They were modified 10 to 16. I was sentenced to 32 years in prison.
• 11:41
  So because of all the work that I'd done while I was inside, the bachelor's degree, the peer support mental health program we started, basically all the work I did, as well as the fact that I'd been over-sentenced or sentenced by double, he said, hey, I'm going to step in. I don't think this is right. And we're going to grant you a release based on conditions or basically good behavior. I had to have a job, stay out of trouble, things like that. And once I completed that, I was done. Like I was free in the world. And after three years, I was off paper.
• 12:05
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• 12:34
  Thank goodness, man. Good job. That's finally the system working, probably more intended to do. I swear I was a criminal justice major, even though I went, I didn't say they went to jail. I think it's like the criminal injustice system. And they absolutely don't make it easy to get out of it. So kudos to you. I've been through it. I had to threaten to sue.
• 12:57
  for them to get off of me because they kept showing up at my house, I was years of no problem. And they just kept showing up, my probation officer kept showing up at my house. And I'm like, dude, seriously? And then they would make me wait. It just, it was way over and above, far and above the punishment. The punishment did not fit the crime.
• 13:22
  We know that punishment doesn't work, but the entire system from the incarceration to the probation of the supervision is about punishing people. Like we have probation officers who act as referees trying to throw a flag and trying to call somebody out rather than trying to encourage and build somebody up. And shifting that culture in the way we do incarceration and post-incarceration will literally change the face of what it is and how many people are successful after it. You went down that path, so go there. What are some of the things that you believe that we could change to make...
• 13:52
  incarceration and the whole system better. I needed that break. I needed to be stopped in my tracks. I needed to be taken away from the people and the behaviors and environments. I needed that. Now, what helped me was the people who treated me as a human being. Those staff that went against the rules or against the culture and treated me as a human being were the maintenance supervisors that I worked with who, because we were in a chase together for six hours, all of a sudden started seeing me as a human being rather than a number.
• 14:16
  who spoke to me and basically respected my dignity, treated me as a person. And then the people on the outside who at the same time saw the strengths in me, saw the abilities and said, hey, you did some really bad shit and you need to make up for that. But here's the way you do that. They're leaning in these strengths and leaning into the way you can help other people. And if we do that, if we have social workers and counselors and people are actually designed to help heal and hold people accountable rather than punish, all of a sudden we have a culture of accountability and change. Oh, that's beautifully said. I just dawned on me that I needed to go to jail too.
• 14:46
  I needed my freedom taken away. I remember walking into the cell and going, whoa, this, I made some really bad choices. And looking at my cellmate, and it was Bruce Jones, and he just gave me the lay of the land right off the bat. And I'm like, what did I do to get here? And I'm never gonna do this again.
• 15:13
  But honestly, I'd been arrested one other time for selling drugs. This time I got it again. And this time I paid attention. The first time was slap on the wrist. The second time I got jail. And yeah, let's just say never did that again. And I needed it. Sometimes it does work because when you take your freedom away, you and I know this and the average human doesn't. There ain't nothing like that.
• 15:39
  So that and where I said all that to say this is that you've talked about prison stripping you of your ego, but you have over a million followers telling you how courageous and transformed you are, which I just did as well. How do you know the ego didn't just find a new outfit? I think to some degree it did. I don't have the idea that the ego is the honesty.
• 16:01
  I don't think the ego is the enemy. I remember there was an interview with this Zen Roshi, and he said, I just want to get rid of my ego. And he said, well, why? He said, well, because I want to be pure. And he's like, well, your ego is you. You are pure. This is who you're supposed to be. And not that we should live from that place of ego, but that it's a part of us. And then fighting against what is or fighting against how we are or the experiences we've had is the problem in the first place. So saying, I'm going to get rid of my ego and I'm going to be without ego is just ego speaking in a different way.
• 16:28
  And so, yeah, I enjoy the interaction I have. I enjoy the opportunity I have to impact other people in a positive way. And I enjoy the fact that I have a platform where I can connect with people from all over the world that can end up on this podcast. So it is something I enjoy. It's something that I'm grateful for. But the difference is how I choose to use that energy and how I choose to basically work towards things. So rather than working towards things for my own gain or for my own benefit or at the detriment of someone else, I say, how can I help other people? How can I help people transform their lives? How can I help people find freedom? And so if that is using the ego, it's using the ego for something productive.
• 16:58
  You're using meditation to avoid pain instead of processing it. Did I read that right? If we look at this, I actually just went through a course this weekend. It was amazing, transformative. The Hoffman Institute, which I highly recommend. The idea is we have to have awareness. The Hoffman breathing. There is a breathing component, a somatic component. But then we also need to express the things that have been trapped. And then we need to build new behaviors. Or we need to find forgiveness and build new behaviors. And all meditation did was make me more and more aware of the pain.
• 17:27
  And then what that did was allow me to kind of just keep zooming out and keep zooming out and keep and have this like 10,000 foot view where I was like, yeah, there's this pain down here. But look at this big space that I'm in and look at this deep breathing in this body that I'm in. And what it felt like was that I was just ignoring the pain that I didn't know how to address. I was ignoring the things that I needed to deal with. I was ignoring the trauma that I needed to figure out a way to heal from.
• 17:48
  So in a way, it became a way it became the path that allowed me to avoid feeling those things by zooming all the way out rather than saying, OK, well, how am I going to express this and how am I going to move toward different behaviors? Walk me through your meditation. I'm always fascinated by it because everybody does it differently. I started with literally three minutes.
• 18:07
  And I did it for years and then I got the five minutes and then I got the 10 minutes and lately my meditations have been just awful like my mind is racing right now because I'm processing some things and yet the crappier I get at it or the the worse I do at it I literally do more of it because I want to get better. So talk me give me a pointer tell me the.
• 18:30
  People that aren't meditating or people that are meditating, what's your meditation look like? Because you've spoken about it a lot. I've tried a lot of different approaches. I started with the traditional Zen approach. I did the Muan Khan, the 100 Koans and a couple others. I've done non-dual approaches. But what I essentially try to do is find a space to sit and feel, essentially just sitting.
• 18:48
  And what I'm doing is not judging the thought that comes up, but just coming back to the breath, coming back to what is coming back to maybe a focal area that I have, like the 10, 10, the part below my belly button or coming back to my breath, but allowing my mind to race and not taking that as a judgment. Or when my mind says, oh, you're doing this wrong, you're doing a crappy job, just acknowledge, OK. And then I come back to the breath or I come back to the 10, 10.
• 19:09
  And what it is, is sometimes the worst meditations, the worst when they're the most chaotic, are actually the best. Because all that stuff in my brain that needs to work itself out, all that grease that just needs to come off the wheels is coming off. And it's incredibly unpleasant, but it's the exact same way I felt when I was first arrested. When I was sitting in that jail and I was miserable just being anything, just sitting in any of it, that's what I'm doing every time I sit down.
• 19:29
  And all of a sudden, what I find is on the other side of that is a little bit more peace or a little bit less chaos. And in that place, I can function from a more balanced place. Rather than taking that stuff that's going through my head and throwing it at somebody else, all of a sudden, I've cleared it out and I've made room for me to be the person that I want to be.
• 19:44
  Yeah, I didn't think about that. You're so succinct with your answers. I got no rebuttal. And it's because it's very true. And it's, you're right. Even the worst, I guess a good day of meditating or a bad day of meditating is better than a good day of chaos. So what's the longest you meditated in prison? Did you just sit there and just see how long you could go? The longest individual setting was an hour, but I would do meditation retreats every lockdown. So we would usually do week-long lockdown. So at least Monday through Friday, sometimes through the following Saturday and Sunday, I would sit for between six and eight hours a day.
• 20:13
  Um, so I would sit for an hour, get up. I would walk for five minutes or 10 minutes. I would get up and I had roommates who understood. I was like, Hey, I'm not going to talk to you all day. And if this feels weird, like I apologize. Um, I think I probably had a few days that I did like 13 or 14 hours, but generally I would try to say six to eight because I found that if I did more than that, it would just feel like it would just feel awkward in the cell and awkward in things. But I also like to push myself. So I'm sure at some point I went, you know, way over the limit or way over the set line. Um, and what I found was those were like.
• 20:41
  Imagine swimming across the ocean and you get tired. It was like finding an island where I could recollect myself. I felt like I was resourced. I felt like I was more clear and more in a good place. All of a sudden, I could swim again. I could keep swimming and I could keep going. I felt myself growing further and further, both in the depths of myself and the trauma in the past that I didn't know how to deal with, but also in the things I wanted to do outside of me, the things that took courage or were uncomfortable to stand up and lead a discussion or to teach a thing or to confront some injustice that was happening.
• 21:08
  And so every time I did that, it felt like I was resting on an island so that I could continue my journey. Is that what got you through it? I think so. Yeah. You're making me want to go meditate more.
• 21:21
  So I know what it's like to be inside, but I don't think most people do. And they're going to judge everything off of a movie. So walk me through the actual operating system, not the philosophy. What did a Tuesday look like when you were five years in with 27 years still on the clock? What was the daily discipline and kept you? We just said what was kept you from checking out. But walk us through a day in the life of being in prison.
• 21:49
  So five years in, I would have just left Nottoway and just gotten to Buckingham, I believe. And so this was a more open prison. Nottoway was a medium high security. We're locked in the cell all but a few hours a day. You know, there was not a lot of movement. So I got to Buckingham and all of a sudden we could go around. We could go outside multiple times a day. We could go take classes. There was a barbershop. It was just, it felt like, it felt like making parole. I was going to a different prison, but the prison felt so much more free than the one before it that it felt like a sense of freedom.
• 22:15
  Every day started the same way. They would blow a whistle and you hear somebody yell, Stand for count! On your feet! Stand for count! And you would wait for them to walk around and they would count you. And then the door would open and we could go wait. And once we did, we'd go to Chao, we'd go basically start our day. Once we got back from Chao, I would either go to work if I had a job. So I think five years in, I didn't have a job yet. Or if not a job, I would go and I'd go out to rec. So I'd go outside and I'd run around or I'd lift weights or I'd play soccer.
• 22:40
  be engaged in some way. And then if I could, I would go to the library or I would go to whatever program was available. Like we could go to the library once a week, but I would always work some backend deal to be able to get in there. I was like, hey, we're going to this class and I needed some reference material. So I'd be able to go over there and check out books or read books there. Basically, I just tried to fill up the day as much as I could, but mostly it was trying to fill that in space. It felt empty.
• 23:00
  So it was waiting to go to chow or waiting for a program that night or waiting, you know, for the count to clear and get out of the cell. So it was how am I going to fill each of these hours or each of these days or each of these weeks or each of these months? And I built little systems. So it was it was daily meditation. It was exercising on a regular basis. It was stretching to wind down at the end of the day. It was these things that became kind of.
• 23:20
  signs in the day that no matter where I was or what was happening, I knew they would be there. And that consistency gave myself the freedom to kind of self-regulate and freedom to kind of like ease into things and also do things that were hard because I knew the day would end and I'd be able to do it over again. Have you read Damon West's Be a Coffee Bean? I have not.
• 23:37
  So he starts off his book with general intake and a man grabbed him and said, hey, listen, you're going to get into a fight the moment you get in and imagine the worst scenario in the world. And they're going to come after you and you got to fight every day. And he just described one of the worst situations known to man. Was that your experience when you first got in?
• 24:00
  You know, I had about 10 months in the jail before I went to the prison and there were fights in the jail and I got into fights in the jail. But it was it was just like little dumb respect fights. It was like school year stuff. But people warned me when you get to prison, it's going to be different. But people didn't say it's going to happen the moment you walk in the door. They said somebody is going to step into your space or somebody is going to step into your cell or somebody is going to step into your life. And you need to set a boundary. And.
• 24:21
  And in my mind, I thought that meant I needed to swim. So I got to the first major prison after receiving. And somebody, when I came back from Shia one night, was reaching in my cell. I didn't know what was going on. So I went over there, turned into a fight. And all it was was they'd been shooting dice, and the dice went under my door. And he was wrong, though. Like, you don't stick your hand in somebody else's cell. You don't stick your hand in somebody else's face. Yeah.
• 24:40
  And he actually later came and apologized. There was an interesting conversation that came out of it. But what I realized is you do have to set boundaries. Like you do have to make an example, quote unquote. But that doesn't have to be violent. Sometimes that's literally just standing up publicly and saying, hey, this is not OK. I'll do that again. And that's it. Like you've passed the test, whatever that test is. But I was young and I was scared. I got locked up at 150 pounds.
• 24:59
  I was 18 years old. So I felt like everybody was coming after me and I need to make an example out of somebody and make an example out of anybody but myself. But I learned over time that setting boundaries doesn't have to be a physical thing. We can set boundaries that people will respect just through our words. That is a very powerful lesson. If everybody in the world would understand that and you don't have to raise your voice to do it, raise your argument, not your voice. And it sounds like you've done that.
• 25:24
  Just so I have it clear, you were 10 months in the county, then they transferred you to prison and you were in a medium to maximum security for, does this sound like three years? And then you went to this medium security prison? Basically. So I was in the receiving prison for about three months and then the medium max or level four out of six or level four out of five for about the next four years or almost four years and then went to a three, four, which technically was almost the same level, but
• 25:54
  It wasn't really a privileged prison, but so the long history, you probably didn't ask for it. So when you have a life sentence in Virginia or you have an extended sentence, you can't go down below a level four until you've completed 20 years inside. So even if you haven't gotten a charge, even if you've gotten a thousand degrees, no matter what you've done, you're stuck at these higher level prisons. So they had guys who've been in for 18 years who were model, you know...
• 26:14
  Yeah, basically it stayed out of trouble. And so they said, OK, well, let's have a place where they can go. It's technically level four. We don't run it like a level four, because otherwise you had all these guys who were just basically getting into trouble because they were surrounded by the Nuckwides and they keep it kept being drawn into it. So bucking in the place I went to was the place where if you had a lot of time and you could go to that wasn't run like a place where you have a lot of time.
• 26:33
  Yeah, you just put out another one of the system issues, like all or nothing, like the three strike rule. It just you can't do absolutes in this world. There's no absolutes except, well, death and taxes. So but there shouldn't be that. If you have 20 years, that's just dumb. Everybody should be, in my opinion, and I was a criminal justice major, and I just each different strokes, different folks. And I bet you there's a.
• 26:59
  intake form that we could have taken that would have said we're more likely to be rehabilitated and therefore send us down the rehabilitation path and not to the maximum security prison. 100%. Anyways, that was just my own thing. You mentioned that victim impact class, and most people will go to it, describe it as transformative and cool, I'm out of my cell, move on.
• 27:25
  But it sounds like it kind of actually broke you. So what did you believe about yourself before the class that you couldn't believe afterward? So the question I'd had for the longest time, I knew that I regretted the things I had done and I wanted to do something to make up for it. But I never had the opportunity to speak to the people that I hurt. So what I wanted to know is what can I do that will make this better? Like, I know it's not going to fix it. I know it's not going to go away. But what can I do that's actually going to have an impact? And I never got the chance to ask somebody that.
• 27:53
  So for the longest time, I just felt like ineffectual. I felt like I didn't have agency to make anything better. And going to this class and going through the process, especially at the end where they brought in a woman who'd been put into a wheelchair by a drunk driver. And this was my first opportunity to talk with someone who had been directly harmed by a crime and say, hey, like, as somebody who's caused harm, like, what could somebody do? What could this person who put you in a wheelchair do that would make you feel better? Yeah.
• 28:15
  And I remember we were all crying. This, this, she told her story. Her parents told the story of getting a call and going to see the, the car just mangled in the jaws of life. I mean, we're all in tears. And I remember her looking at me, just like fixing her eyes on mine. And she said, all I need is for him to not do it again.
• 28:30
  And it felt like a relief that I don't even know how to describe because I was like, okay, I'm already there. Like I've already done enough work that I know I'm not going to do it again. You're saying that's what you need. She said, yeah, all these other things would be great. But for me to feel peace in my heart is to know he's not going to do this to anyone else. And so that gave me relief. Like that's what I've been looking for was I know I can't make you go away, but I know I can at least give you that. I can know that this is not going to happen again. She gave you permission, bro. Yeah. You had to give yourself permission.
• 28:59
  So you did something about, I like this part in the book. It was, you described watching lifers reach a kind of enlightenment most people free never touch. And if you know, I'm sure that you understand that the highest emotion is enlightenment, not love. It's enlightenment. What's the operating system around these men that they were running on? And how can it be built without love?
• 29:25
  go into freaking prison. So Ram Dass did a lot of work with Death Row in California back before they abolished the death penalty. And he said, I saw people who were enlightened. I saw men who were free. And I don't know why. If you took them out of the environment, they wouldn't be free anymore. What I think it is, is complete and total powerlessness and the acceptance of that.
• 29:43
  Because ultimately, we're not in charge of any of this. Like we have to make decisions, we have to do things, and we have to make choices, but we're not in charge of any of this. That daily whistle, that daily door slamming, that daily crappy food in the shauhou is a reminder that I'm not in charge of any of this. And therefore, I'm going to accept what is and do what I can.
• 30:00
  And by doing that, it brings us down to this lower level. But what it allows us to do is have such a greater impact on the people around us. Because we're not based in some theory or some idea or some obligation. We are entirely present with the people around us. We are entirely connected. We are entirely honest. We're entirely open.
• 30:15
  And I saw that with these guys who'd been in prison for 20 and 30 and 40 years and who would spend hours buffing the floor of their cell or would spend hours building these little crafts. Or they said, you know what? I have nothing but time and I'm going to fill that time as meaningfully as I can. And generally, those people would take somebody under their wing and try to figure out a way to help them or heal them or teach them. They would find some craft or something that they could create that kind of came from their inner core. They would say, I'm going to do this thing that I've just driven to do for whatever reason. And then they would share that with other people. And they were just present in a way that people out in the world are so distracted and can't be.
• 30:45
  Oh, you just said surrender. That literally is all it is. It's that freaking simple. Being bombarded with that every freaking episode that I record. Like God telling me. Did you literally find out you were being pardoned in the middle of the day? So I wrote here, it says you woke up 10 years left on your sentence and by lunch you were free.
• 31:07
  Yeah. Is that right? So they called me into the counselor's office at two in the afternoon. This is the middle of COVID. And I was worried because, you know, I'd lost my dad while I was in prison. You get called to the counselor's office to get bad news. Like, it's not a good thing. But I remember I didn't have a mask on and she didn't have a mask on. And she was such a slick, like you weren't coming around her unless she had a mask on. You did. Instead, she was waving excitedly for me to go in the room.
• 31:30
  And I walked in and the phone was off the hook and somebody was on the speaker phone. And she said, Mr. Crossan, are you sitting down? This is two in the afternoon. And I said, no, like, uh, in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, is this bad news? What's happening? She said, because you've received a pardon. You're leaving Coffeywood today. And the world just froze because at two in the afternoon, I was told I was going home, like out of nowhere. And, you know, I, one knee hit the floor and I had some tears in my eyes and I didn't know how to talk. And then I had to go back and like...
• 31:58
  get ready and grab my ID. And, you know, the next hour was just a blur. The next hour and a half was a blur of filling out forms and grabbing property and just giving all my stuff away. Just, you know, wanting to make sure people had the things that would mean something in there, but would no longer mean something in the world. And then all of a sudden, an hour and a half later, I'm giving my mom a hug for the first time in a year and a half and walking out to fresh air without handcuffs for the first time in 20 years. That's freaking wild. How did you process that?
• 32:26
  I didn't. You thought you had 19 years to go. Walk me through, go a little deeper. Like you just glossed over it. Was it like difficult? I mean, you were eight, 19 years in.
• 32:39
  So I was on autopilot and I had this blanket of numbness on me. Like I could like, I could kind of recognize these thoughts or these feelings coming up, but I couldn't identify them. I couldn't connect with them. I was just going through the motions and walking out. I remember, and I just, I remember looking outside and if you've ever been to a place where the colors seem brighter, things seem just more real. I just was struck by like every blade of grass and every little crack in the concrete. And I just, I was overwhelmed. Yeah.
• 33:05
  And I had started a relationship with a woman while I was inside, but we had never met, which sounds insane, but she had interviewed me for a news story. She was with the local TV station and we'd done it by phone and gone back and forth. And we basically fallen in love. And so we went to the end at the driveway for the prison and we waited for her because she was on her way, but she'd been in a meeting. So she didn't know. So I just remember sitting there and like watching the corn blow in the breeze and watching cars go by and just every moment was like magical.
• 33:31
  You know when you're a little kid and you're like, oh, a dragon? That's how it felt. Everything felt magical. And at the same time, it was overwhelming. Because I went into Costco after she picked me up. And after we got into town and all of a sudden looking around at all these things and realizing I don't know how to be in a space like this. In prison, people don't bump into you. And people in Costco are bumping into me. And I don't know what to do. And how am I supposed to decide these things I need? And it just felt like I was bombarded from every possible direction by every sense and every thought and every fear all at once.
• 34:01
  And I shut down. I had a panic attack. I literally like hit the ground. I was like, I can't be here. I need to go. And it was like that off and on for months. I mean, for months, I would feel like I was getting the hang of things and things were okay. And then that day or that night, I would just find myself curled up on the floor, just not knowing what was going on and just completely in sensory overload. Did you lean on the meditation for that?
• 34:23
  I did. And you want to talk about a meditation that sucks when you already feel like you're on fire and then you sit in that and get deeper into being on fire. I remember one time actually screaming and my Zen teacher had really encouraged me to do this. This was some of the koans we worked on. But I was sitting there. I just screamed like from the bottom of my gut to the top of everything. And the person who was in the house was a little bit worried. And I was like, no, I'm OK. I just I had to I had to express that. I had to, like, let that out. Um.
• 34:48
  But also life got busier. And I noticed I leaned on the meditation less and less. And I saw the impact on my life that I was accomplishing more on the outside. But I was feeling less stable or less kind of secure on the inside. And it was one of the things that I had to address and recognize. You know, maybe it's for three minutes. I need to sit though. I need to make sure that I have this structure in my life, regardless of how long I can do it. Because yeah, it's not like prison where I have three hours a day to meditate and two hours to work out. But I need to have that structure because without it, I just kind of crumble. Like my foundation crumbles.
• 35:16
  How did you term that? You said, talk about a meditation. Did you say that you felt like you were on fire? Your mind on, say that again. I felt like I was on fire. And then when I sat to meditate, it felt like I was going deeper into those flames or deeper into the belly of the fire. And it was all the more intense. That's how I feel. That's how mine have felt lately. So you're telling me that I'm doing it right. You're doing it right.
• 35:41
  Oh boy, this is good stuff. I can't believe that they got you out of there so fast. Usually it's a couple days or a couple weeks, and that's good stuff. I wouldn't even know what to think. Let's get into the good stuff. You found Second Chancer Foundation to connect incarcerated people with mentors and opportunities. The system that locked you up for 19 years is the same system your foundation has to work within.
• 36:11
  How do you build something inside a machine you fundamentally disagree with without becoming part of it? And you can change my words a little bit. No. Because I fundamentally disagree with it.
• 36:23
  I, you know, there are a lot of things that I'm critical of. Last week, I went and had a meeting with the head of reentry for Virginia Department of Corrections. And we had a great conversation. We talked about things, what was working, what wasn't working. And she asked me, honestly, like, where are we missing things? Like, what gap do you see? Like, what can we do that's not there? And what I found is that in prison or in the prison system or in Department of Corrections, you tend to have program people and you tend to have security people. And it's really the security people whose mindset I don't necessarily connect with.
• 36:49
  I get it. They're doing their job, but they're doing a job in a way that's detrimental to the program side. But the program people are like trying to help people, trying to help people heal, trying to empower people, trying to teach, trying to learn skills like that actually is a good thing. Now, some systems are better than others. And obviously there are gaps and we're going to work to try to address those. But.
• 37:06
  I, somebody had asked me when I started first on social media, somebody was like, you should be a prison warden. Would you ever be a prison warden? And I don't, I don't know that I could do that. But at the same time, if there is going to be a prison, like I would rather somebody like me be the warden than somebody else. I just don't know that I want to do that.
• 37:22
  Because ultimately, I think that people who are closest to the problem are going to do a solution that's actually going to work rather than, you know, an academic may have all the research in the world, but if they don't understand how to apply it or actually how to deploy some program in a meaningful way, it's not going to matter. So if I was involved in the locking people apart, it would hurt me.
• 37:39
  But like I'm the program director for restorative justice program. We do a court diversion program where generally we help people stay out of jail and out of prison and step into accountability and make repair and basically do things that can make up for or make amends for the actions they've taken. And that feels really meaningful because I get to see a greater outcome for the person who's been harmed as well as for the person who's been responsible. But also I get to see people not go to jail because like going to jail doesn't help anyone except for that brief stop.
• 38:06
  I'm on a board of a charity called face addiction. Now we have this program called hope, not handcuffs. So you walk in and you are addicted and, and you need help. We exonerate you right away. I mean, and it works. It's kept, it's got thousands of people, uh, safe, clean, sober, and off the streets and on the right way. So I'm with you, man. I believe that
• 38:33
  The last resort is locking people up, even though it's literally what probably got me on the straight arrow. So I want to keep going. First of all, I'm going to connect you with Damon. He's doing the same thing. He goes and talks to these prisons and actually helps them do things better. So the two of you need to team up and he's doing great. You're doing great things. The two of you need to connect.
• 38:57
  I locked out and had this happen in 1995 or six, 96, I think. So when I got out, I lied on all of my, uh,
• 39:13
  job applications and this was pre-internet and it was a detriment to me it was every time i got called into the office when i was working now i'm lucky i am i own several companies but i thought i was going to get fired every time i got called in the office turns out i was getting promoted but i was nervous so
• 39:33
  This is something you can't get out of now. Like the internet's strong. You can see, I mean, I can look up anybody's criminal record. So what would you recommend to people that, that,
• 39:45
  are in the same situation but can't lie on the thing. How do they embrace this and go on and live a productive life of someone who gets out and has a conviction on their record? There are a couple different options. What I did was recognize that there was going to be a stigma against me based on my past, so I could run for that and I could try to hide it or I could lean into it. So I started applying for jobs where I said, hey, I'm a subject matter expert. I know about this stuff and I can talk about it from lived experience. And I got callbacks. I was able to do that.
• 40:13
  One of the other options and the other job I put in for, I became a journalist electrician while I was in prison. And so I knew in the trades, it's almost like you have to have a felony. Like they're like, hey, you don't have enough felonies. You can't work here. So I think there are places where people are more open to it. And I warn people a lot of times because if you're formally incarcerated and you go into the nonprofit world, a lot of times it's a dog and ponto show. Like it really is like we're going to trot you out and we're going to like highlight what you're doing. And basically that's it. You're performing. Yeah.
• 40:37
  But there is the opportunity to have significant impact. And like you said, like what he's doing, going around speaking to places that the opportunities I have like the in for reentry, they're gonna have me go with my book and do a fireside chat and a bunch of the prisons in Virginia where I get to talk to people about, hey, different decisions lead to different outcomes. These are the things that worked and here's a path to freedom. Like I wanna see you guys succeed. And that feels really meaningful. Like that feels powerful.
• 40:58
  But also what I've realized is you get to a place where you can show your impact. People don't care about your history. I always encourage people to start an LLC, to work in a trade, to work in an area basically where you're not getting the background check where they're looking at the company. But it just depends on each person. A lot of times what we'll do is we'll try to get people into an entry level job because, hey, I wanted to start a business and go to school and do this. And I couldn't go to Costco without a breakdown.
• 41:22
  So I tell people to start slow and start easy and then look towards paths to success. And sometimes it's higher education. Sometimes it's opening an LLC. Sometimes that's going into the nonprofit world. Sometimes that's going into the world of trades where nobody cares about your record. But for each person, it's really a matter of what their values are and what their strengths are and leaning into that. Lean into it, brother. I didn't even think about it. I lied. I lied.
• 41:45
  And you know what? It took me, I didn't even get into that. To get my conviction expunged was ridiculous. I had to jump through so many. Even, it was 20 years later. You want to know the funniest thing, Jess, is we went in front of the judge and I sat there and turned out the prosecuting attorney was the same prosecuting attorney. And he looked over at me and he's like...
• 42:12
  And they said, hey, do you have any objection to me seeing this? And we're like, why? And he's like, I was the original prosecuting attorney. And we looked and my lawyer looked up at him and went, not unless you're going to object to it. He goes, no. He's like, I'm proud of Mr. Siegel and I have no objections. We have no objections.
• 42:31
  And then I had to do the whole dog and pony show. I got in front and said, I don't take drugs. I don't sell drugs. I mean, this is 20 years later. I run a multimillion dollar company. And I'm sitting in front of them again. I don't do these. It was so silly at that point. 20 years and thousands of dollars to get expunged. And you know what? At that point, I'd already owned my company. I didn't need to get expunged, but it was principal.
• 42:55
  I wanted to do it because I wanted it on, but I wish I would have just leaned into it. That was really good advice, my brother. So we're going to wrap it up with, we're going to have one more question and then we're going to do a rapid fire and it's just something fun that we like doing. So this one is going to be all about you. You've turned your incarceration into a book, a foundation, a following, and a career. Proud of you. At what point does the redemption narrative
• 43:24
  becomes something you have to perform. And what happens to Jesse, the person, when the story becomes bigger than the man?
• 43:35
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved us a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on Lowe's.com, right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's. I would say two things.
• 44:05
  So redemption is not a place we get to. Redemption is action. Redemption is service. And I learned that inside by mentoring, by tutoring, by helping, by writing letters for guys who couldn't write, by reading letters to guys who couldn't read. And through that, I found this redemption because after causing so much harm, I was able to bring joy and goodness into the world. And I realized that that was all I could do because, again, I can't take back that harm, but I can do something good with the time that I have.
• 44:30
  And I do think there is sometimes this pressure to be the face or be the figurehead of something. But ultimately, I'm just who I am. I'm as honest and as blunt as I can be, because I think that is the best way to be of service is to say, I just recently lost a friend to suicide and I fucking lost my mind.
• 44:46
  And I think we need to do that. We need to openly grieve. We need to openly cry. We need to openly scream because hiding that is actually doing more harm to other people. So the idea of performing or the idea of like maintaining an image, all that's doing is hurting everybody involved because we're not being authentic to ourselves. And we're giving this false idea, this false image to the world. And nobody can follow that. Was there a second part of that? Or was that the second part? I don't remember what your second part was. I'm sorry. You said there's two answers to it. Yeah.
• 45:14
  I want to add something totally off the pink path that you could tell me to screw off or whatever. So in prison, there's still drugs and alcohol. Did you abstain from it immediately or did you dabble a little bit and then be like, I, I, I'm not going to rehab myself. Or did you just say, this is it. I'm done. I'm moving forward. Like when I walked into the cell, it was like, I'm never doing this again. How, what was your experience?
• 45:38
  I went back and forth. I initially, I didn't do anything. I was like, look, I've learned my lesson. I don't want to be around it. I'm done. And then over time it was just like, it is out in the world. I just kind of said, well, like you casually like this isn't a big deal. And, you know, growing up, my dad had been a big 12 stepper and he had said, you know, if you, if you smoke weed one time, you're going to be addicted. And then,
• 45:54
  I watched people smoke weed one time and like be fine. And it just, it didn't ring true. So that happened in prison. And all of a sudden I started, but just like out on the street, I found myself like start relying on it more and more and more and little things. But I finally got to the point in, I was in this long distance relationship with someone who was very emotionally unstable. I was doing drugs. I was trying to juggle a million things that I was doing inside. And I got to the point where I just wanted to kill myself. I literally woke up one day and didn't know how I was going to keep going.
• 46:20
  And in that space of just absolute hopelessness and like feeling like it was over, actually, I was meditating. I sat meditating, staring at the wall. And in this place that it was so loud and it was so full and it was so just hopeless, I suddenly just found space. I don't really know how to describe it. But in that, in that surrender to what was, I found the space to be and the space to change. And I changed a lot of things that day. Like that relationship was over. The activities that were over, like everything in my life changed because I had gotten to that point again, that breaking point where I said, you know what?
• 46:50
  What I've been doing isn't working and it is actively killing me. I don't want to keep actively killing myself. So I'm going to change all these things in my life and I'm going to find a new way. Dude, thank you for answering that. And you could have very easily taken the high road and be like, oh, no, I didn't do it. But this has been great, man. Your authenticity reminds me of me and you've played well and I appreciate it. And this has been great. We're going to just do, we're going to wrap it up with a rapid fire.
• 47:17
  whatever comes to your mind, one word, one sentence. There's no right, there's no wrong. It's just having fun. So the best part of prison in one word. Freedom, as crazy as that sounds. Wow. Accountability without an audience feels like. Authenticity.
• 47:37
  I wonder if accountability, it reminds me of like if a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody to hear it and nobody to see it, did it really happen? So if there's nobody to watch the accountability, I like your answer though. The emotion most ex-inmates perform, but don't actually feel. That's hard. Redemption or reputation? Which one are you protecting right now? The reputation that I have is for being authentic and being of service to other people.
• 48:04
  So that is my redemption path. Redemption is service and action. Like redemption is taking the steps and walking the walk. So I have the reputation for being that person, for doing those things. And that is who I am. So I think in protecting my redemption, it is protecting my reputation. Where do people hide behind the word growth? In...
• 48:25
  Fake therapy programs on the inside and out. In personal development. Yeah. Freedom without structure does what to a man? Destroys. The thing your million followers don't want to hear you say. Freedom is possible and it's hard. It's really hard some days. Everything hard is good for you, man. Grief you still haven't finished processing.
• 48:52
  The easy answer is the friend that I lost last week. The hard answer is everything that led me to the things that I did when I was 18. Forgiveness is actually? Self-love. Wow. Suicide, overdose, early death. You seem to be very...
• 49:14
  Well-spoken, well, I mean, you quoted Ram Dass, and I actually have up in my bathroom Ram Dass quote that says, love everything and tell the truth. I love Ram Dass quotes. What advice would you give to the listeners if there's anybody being destructive and or thinking of taking their life? Or give me, I had one happen this week too. So give our listeners your best advice.
• 49:44
  My friend gave everything to everyone else. That's what he did. That's who he was. And I think he did it for the same reason that I did, at least initially, is because I felt like I had to. I felt like that's what I needed to do to find redemption or to be okay or to be worthy of love. And so what I would tell people is that who you are right now, flawed, imperfect, having a bad day, you are worthy of love and you are worthy of life. That there's no thing you have to do to be enough.
• 50:12
  Choose yourself. Love that. Jesse Cross and everybody. It's harder than life. Thanks for being here, my friend. Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with. Delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit trustntm.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.