Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / The Power of One Decision: From Prison to Paychex — Allyssa Baker’s Comeback Story

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The Power of One Decision: From Prison to Paychex — Allyssa Baker’s Comeback Story · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:00
  Like, what are you doing different?
• 0:01
  And I shared with her how I reconnected with my family.
• 0:04
  I rebuilt relationships with my siblings that I never thought I
• 0:07
  would ever be able to have the chance to repair.
• 0:09
  I am thriving. I'm doing this, I'm doing that
• 0:12
  and all of these things. And she goes, you could just
• 0:15
  hear the change in the phone call and she goes, Alyssa, you
• 0:19
  have such an inspiring story. And she's like, and she's just
• 0:22
  going on and she's like, but like I said, you do have to
• 0:24
  understand. I have to deal with in the best
• 0:27
  interest of the company and all that stink going on in my head
• 0:30
  is I'm not getting this job. I'm not.
• 0:33
  It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
• 0:35
  And she goes, she goes. And so with that being said, I
• 0:40
  speak on behalf of the company when I say we want to be part of
• 0:44
  your growth journey moving forward.
• 0:46
  Wow. And I was just so like, I
• 0:51
  couldn't believe that. I was like, wait, what?
• 0:53
  She's like, yeah. What'd you say she's?
• 0:55
  Like, welcome to paycheck. What happens when your worst
• 0:59
  fear becomes your reality? Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome
• 1:03
  to the Nightmare Success In and Out podcast where we explore how
• 1:06
  to overcome your fears and nightmares to set yourself free.
• 1:10
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 1:12
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 1:17
  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
• 1:21
  humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
• 1:24
  something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
• 1:26
  built up in your own mind. All right, welcome back and our
• 1:33
  success in that. Listeners, This is where you
• 1:34
  come for what happens when your worst fear becomes your reality.
• 1:37
  How do you adapt, survive, overcome, set yourself free,
• 1:41
  folks. Hey, don't forget to follow,
• 1:43
  subscribe, like this thing up, share it out.
• 1:46
  Really helps the show and I appreciate that.
• 1:48
  So who are we talking today? Well, we're talking to Alyssa
• 1:51
  Baker. And I was just telling her that
• 1:56
  I was, I was, you know, going through LinkedIn and I ran
• 1:59
  across this article. It was, first of all, I loved
• 2:02
  the title of it. It was the power of one
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  decision, how I turn adversity into achievement.
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  I started reading it and I thought, wow, she just said
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  everything just point on. And so as I do sometimes, I just
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  reached out to her on LinkedIn. I said I you, you would be
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  perfect. You, you just said everything
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  that the nightmare success is all about.
• 2:24
  And so we connected. And so Alyssa Baker's here
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  today. I want to tell you a little bit
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  about Alyssa Baker. And the crazy thing about her
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  story is, is that she did so much when she was in prison.
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  While incarcerated, Alyssa made a decision most people never see
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  coming. She chose growth over excuses,
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  discipline over despair and belief over doubt.
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  She earned her college degree with high honors while in
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  prison, built real world business experience with
• 2:55
  Televerde while incarcerated. And it and she was just
• 2:58
  explained this to me. It's a you have to qualify.
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  You have to, you know, they're they only take a few people.
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  It's the highest paying job in prison.
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  It's it's, and I hadn't heard of it, so I want to talk to her
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  about that. And she walked out not just
• 3:12
  free, but prepared. Today, Alyssa is an account
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  executive of paychecks, A trusted advocate for business
• 3:18
  owners and Cpas, a wife, a homeowner, and living proof that
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  your past doesn't disqualify you.
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  It equips you. This just isn't a comeback
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  story. It's a master class and
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  resilience, accountability, leadership, and the quiet power
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  of doing the right thing, one decision at a time.
• 3:34
  I can't wait to jump into all this, but before we do, I want
• 3:38
  to recognize our show sponsor, Auto Plaza Direct.
• 3:40
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• 4:11
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• 4:14
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• 4:17
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• 5:00
  challenged and changed by her story.
• 5:03
  Welcome in Alyssa, how are you today?
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  I am fabulous. It's a new year, so I'm excited
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  to see what's in store. It is a new year.
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  It is a new year. And I, I, before we hit the
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  record button, we were just talking about all the different
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  things that you've done and you haven't been out that long.
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  And what I love about that is this show as people, I probably
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  sound like a broken record, but it goes into 1200 prisons, state
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  prisons. And you know, one of the biggest
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  things that people talk about or worry about while you're in
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  prison is how am I ever going to get going again on the outside?
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  And your story shows that you can get prepared on the inside
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  to be able to re enter society and and get going again.
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  Alyssa, before we get into all that, Arizona, you just told me
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  you actually are a Midwest Illinois girl.
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  Tell me a little bit about you growing up in Illinois.
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  Oh, it was fun doing all the, you know, outdoor.
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  Just, you know, growing up in the 90s, you played outdoors.
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  Your feet were dirty. You're running around barefoot
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  riding bikes with the neighborhood kids, coming home
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  at sunset. But I mean, I love the rain.
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  I love the thunderstorm. All my almost all my family's
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  back out that way. And so, you know, we would spend
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  most of the summer camping. Most of the winter we would
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  spend building snowman's or going sledding in the on the
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  hill that's right there in our my hometown.
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  But yeah. There's not many.
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  There's not too many hills in Illinois either, so you were
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  lucky to have a hill. What was it?
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  A big town? Little town.
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  Little town about 7 miles long, 4 miles wide.
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  OK, that was really little. Yeah.
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  So mom, dad, siblings, what? What all was going on there?
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  Yeah, so I was, you know, I was raised with my mom, my dad, my
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  grandma and my three younger siblings.
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  I mean, it was it. It's not like one of those,
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  like, backgrounds where it's, you know, it wasn't a terrible
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  childhood. It was perfect.
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  We know we had everyone at home, everyone worked, everyone went
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  to school. We were all playing sports.
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  Parents were involved in like, PTA meetings and, you know, Girl
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  Scouts and sports leagues. And we would go on family trips
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  to Disney World and the Wisconsin Dells and all that fun
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  stuff and, you know. This sounds this sounds great.
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  This is like the American the American story family.
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  Well, and, and I know you, you've, you're talking about
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  playing volleyball with, with either Kristen Klein or Kristen
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  Johnson. Johnson Yeah, it.
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  Was Kristen Johnson who was on this show about, oh, maybe 5-6
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  episodes ago? So you get out of high school.
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  What happens on your journey next?
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  Well, after I got out of high school, I, you know, went to the
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  local Community College. I wanted to go to ASU, but, you
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  know, I messed around my sophomore year of high school
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  and flunked out of one of the Spanish courses and that, so
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  that was a requirement on their transcripts.
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  So they're like, you're going to have to retake this out of
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  Community College. They tell me this like one week
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  before moving. So I was like, OK.
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  It's so funny, Alyssa, that you say that about Spanish because I
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  had a really good friend of mine and he there was a program that
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  you could go to Mexico and live with a family and you went to
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  some kind of school in this is summertime and and then you got
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  credits for that when you came back.
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  This is at University of Missouri.
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  And what's funny is, is that Gaither can still speak Spanish
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  basically fluently. And it just took him like two or
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  three months and all that was all he needed.
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  He was able to get back and got the credits and everything was
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  great, but. Yeah, the crazy, the craziest
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  part is that I've been taking Spanish since like middle school
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  in Chicago and then growing up, you know, my young teen years in
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  Arizona, Spanish, it was either Spanish or French was required
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  credit for high school. And I was like, well, let's do
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  the easy one. I already know a pretty good
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  amount of Spanish. And then it turns out I was
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  bored and I'm didn't pay it, didn't really care to pay
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  attention. And so I ended up flunking out
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  of it. So.
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  So that ended up getting you to a Community College that with
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  the was the Community College in Arizona cuz you were wanting to
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  get out that way. OK.
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  So so you, you picked up from Illinois and moved out to?
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  Arizona. No, no, no.
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  So we. So let's backtrack a little bit.
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  It's OK. I was probably in middle school
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  and more parents, you know, as a lot of people do, you know,
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  things fell apart. They've started going through a
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  divorce. And when it was finalized in
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  2004, my mom wanted a fresh new start.
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  She's like, I'm tired as a cold. I'm tired of the rain.
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  We're going somewhere warm. She's either going to be Florida
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  or it's going to be Arizona. And she chose Arizona.
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  So in 8th grade in 2004, we moved out here.
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  We just up and left. We didn't know anybody out here
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  and we just. So what was that like as a kid?
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  Alyssa in 8th grade, 'cause I mean that that's the time then
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  you're getting ready to go to high school.
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  Was that cause your parents have gotten a divorce?
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  You were living this, you know, great life.
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  How did you deal with all that? It was, it was rough like we,
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  when you grow up in such a small town and you everyone you know
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  is everyone you've grown up with and their siblings and just all
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  the families know each other, It felt like like everything was
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  being ripped away from me. It was, it was rough, so.
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  So were your high school years. How were your high school years
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  going into Arizona and not knowing anybody and being the
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  new kid? It was, it was a little rough
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  trying to figure out where you fit in, but I, I'm a, I'm a
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  social butterfly. And so I'm very bubbly, very
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  outgoing. And so I was able to pick up a
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  really good clique of friends. But high school was, I mean,
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  it's high school. If I could go back and do it
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  again, absolutely. It was amazing, Yeah.
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  So then we get we catch back up to where OK, now it makes sense.
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  You're out in Arizona and he wanted to go to issue.
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  So you're at the Community College.
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  What's your next step? When you when you when you're in
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  that position in your life, what are you thinking?
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  What are you wanting to do? I was trying to figure out what
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  I really wanted to do. I knew that I wanted what's
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  funny is like back then, I was dead set on going into
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  healthcare or medical. I was like, maybe I'll be a
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  nurses or a nurse practitioner. Maybe I'll be like an
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  oncologist, a pediatric pediatric oncologist.
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  Maybe I'm going to do this. Maybe I'll do that until it was
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  just, you know what, let's get my general studies out of the
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  way and then I could focus on, you know, my major courses later
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  on because they always say don't choose your major.
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  Your. First year.
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  Because you're probably going to switch it at least once or twice
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  by the time you finish. And so I mean, it was, it was OK
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  the first year there. I ended up staying a full year.
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  And then I don't know, I was just kind of, I wasn't really
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  focused. I was just and my wild child
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  right out of high school, 19 years old, like wanting to do
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  all the teen girl things, young adult, young woman things, just
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  go out, have fun, party, all this other stuff.
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  And so I really lost focus and started screwing up there too.
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  So when you're in that world of being unfocused, because
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  actually that's not very uncommon at that age, you said
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  kids are not really focused on what their next step is.
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  What do you end up doing? Well, I, I started flunking out
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  of my classes and then because I knew I was going to flunk, it
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  was going to look a lot easier if I just withdraw from my
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  classes as opposed to flunking out of them in college because
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  that's like your absolute permanent records.
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  And so at that point, that was right around the time my
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  grandmother, who she was my absolute best friend, one of the
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  main women who raised me growing up, just always there.
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  She always used to love telling everyone she's like, I'm the one
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  that taught Alyssa to feel the grass and enjoy the sunshine on
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  her face and smell the flowers. And I taught her to, you know, I
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  would swim with her in the pool and stuff.
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  So she was my idol. I loved her.
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  She started getting really sick. And so I was like, OK, OK, you
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  know what? I can focus on taking care of my
• 15:00
  grandma a little bit more. And then also around that time I
• 15:05
  started dealing with, we weren't sure if it was like a softball
• 15:09
  injury or something like that because I know that we have disk
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  disorders, like spinal disk disorders that kind of run in
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  our family. And so I started having a lot of
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  back issues. And that was around the time I
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  started going and seeing a doctor.
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  And this is also around the time when they started, you know, the
• 15:31
  prescriptions were flying out the door and they were instead
• 15:36
  of solving the problem, they were medicating the problem.
• 15:40
  It's when the whole I would say opioid, I never say right
• 15:44
  pandemics. Difference yeah, there's a whole
• 15:47
  couple of Netflix series about that whole time period of
• 15:51
  Oxycontin and you know, people kind of lost themselves.
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  So that's that's what happened to you.
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  You ended up getting into getting prescribed drugs and for
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  I mean, did you when it when it first started, Alyssa, did you
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  feel like that it was just, you know, alleviating your pain?
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  Did you feel like you were getting addicted in any way?
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  No at all. Not at all.
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  Like I literally felt like, Oh my God, I can lift a case of
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  water off the ground. I can help my grandma in and out
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  of bed, or I can help wash her up in the shower.
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  I can actually stand up because it was like my joints and my
• 16:34
  back. It was like I was 1920 and I
• 16:37
  felt like I was 90 years old. Like there were days where I was
• 16:41
  in so much pain I couldn't get out of bed.
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  And so here's this magical pill that literally was making me
• 16:50
  feel like Superwoman. And I was cooking and cleaning
• 16:53
  and doing errands and taking care of my grandma and being
• 16:56
  able to go out with friends again and all this other stuff.
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  So in my head, I was, I didn't think that it was an issue.
• 17:03
  I just was like, oh, that's the solution.
• 17:05
  It just needed a little bit of, you know, numbing or something.
• 17:11
  Well, how long did that go on before you actually realized it
• 17:14
  was an issue? So I would probably say it was,
• 17:29
  I mean, I knew it was an issue, but it didn't really like I was
• 17:33
  in denial. I mean, I was, I was taking
• 17:36
  these pain pills for probably like 4-4 or five years.
• 17:41
  And throughout that time it, it changed like my method of taking
• 17:46
  it wasn't appropriate anymore. I wasn't no longer, you know,
• 17:49
  popping a pill, taking a drink of water.
• 17:52
  I began, you know, snorting it. And that would be the only way
• 17:57
  that I took it. And I got to the point where I
• 18:00
  would get a 30 day script and he, I would be running out
• 18:06
  within two weeks. And at that point, you know, I,
• 18:11
  I was just like miserable. I was a pain in the ass to be
• 18:15
  around. I was mean, I was not, I was not
• 18:21
  good company whatsoever. Did the people around you think
• 18:24
  that something something was wrong?
• 18:27
  They they kind of figured it out.
• 18:30
  My grandma had also been taking pain pills for a lot of years
• 18:33
  with all the issues she had going on and it like my grandma
• 18:41
  loved me so much that she didn't want to see me suffer.
• 18:44
  So she would sort her own script to help me out.
• 18:47
  And when I when it got to that point I I think I was already so
• 18:52
  far into the the need for it and it wasn't like I was leaning for
• 18:58
  it. I was trying to avoid the
• 19:00
  withdrawals from it. The withdrawals were more scary
• 19:04
  than any other thing that I could think of at that time.
• 19:07
  So the only way to avoid the withdrawals was to continue
• 19:10
  taking it. And plus I'm, I have ADHD so me
• 19:15
  being hyperactivity and up and active and go go, go.
• 19:19
  That's what it did for me. And so it I I enjoyed that
• 19:24
  feeling. Sure, you had the you had the
• 19:27
  energy and you didn't have the pain.
• 19:30
  Yeah, and it got to the point where like my family, like my
• 19:33
  mom, she was like, you're, you're effing addicted to those
• 19:39
  things. You need help.
• 19:41
  But I didn't know how to get myself help.
• 19:45
  I didn't know I was addicted. I didn't.
• 19:47
  And if I did, I didn't want to believe it.
• 19:50
  And then it it, it was kind of like a, a circle, a never ending
• 19:55
  circle, like telling me I'm a piece of crap.
• 19:58
  And you know, I got to the point where I was stealing the pills
• 20:01
  from my grandma because she couldn't afford.
• 20:05
  Because she was in so much pain she couldn't afford to help me
• 20:07
  anymore so I would start stealing them from my grandma
• 20:10
  and that when I look back like that was so low.
• 20:15
  Like my grandma was so in so much pain and I cared more about
• 20:20
  not dealing with Swiss rolls then my grandma not being in
• 20:27
  pain. And that was just the you just
• 20:31
  were just kind of following down a deeper and deeper dark hole of
• 20:35
  of the addiction. Yeah, I got to the point where
• 20:40
  like I thought, like I finally got the nerve to go to my doctor
• 20:46
  because, you know, you start hopping around doctors because
• 20:50
  they do it for so long and then issues start happening and so
• 20:55
  then you have to switch. Or my grandma, I would go
• 20:57
  wherever my grandma went because I was taking helping take care
• 21:01
  of her. So it was easier for us to go to
• 21:03
  the doctor together and everything.
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  It got to the point where I ended up telling the doctor
• 21:08
  like, hey, I like I because I would go in and in order to get
• 21:13
  the prescription, you're supposed to see the doctor.
• 21:16
  But it got to the point where they would leave it up at the
• 21:18
  front desk and all I'd have to do is walk in and they'd be
• 21:21
  like, oh, hi, here you go. Like I wasn't seeing him
• 21:25
  anymore. And that irritated me because I
• 21:27
  knew I had problems and I needed help and I didn't want to be a
• 21:33
  Guinea pig anymore. Like, And so their suggestion
• 21:38
  instead of like, hey, let's run tests.
• 21:40
  Let's see what's going on with you.
• 21:42
  Why were you in pain? Why did we start prescribing
• 21:46
  these to you in the 1st place? Instead of that, they're like,
• 21:49
  well, then you can go to pain management.
• 21:52
  And that that was a nightmare because they're a lot stricter.
• 21:59
  Yeah, so let's talk about like when this nightmare landed on
• 22:02
  you, how it turned from addiction to something illegal,
• 22:09
  criminal. How did this?
• 22:11
  How did it occur? Yeah, so I was, I was to the
• 22:18
  point where I, I hated myself for, for using the pain pills
• 22:27
  and I, it was getting to the point where I couldn't just go
• 22:31
  to pain management. I think I was red flagged at the
• 22:34
  pain management because I had like ran out of the pills
• 22:41
  earlier. Whatever.
• 22:42
  I wasn't following their rules. And we, me and my grandma lived
• 22:48
  in Section 8 housing. And there was a neighbor that
• 22:53
  was like, hey, do you like to party?
• 22:57
  And it was kind of like, OK, so I bought something from him.
• 23:02
  And I was under the assumption that it was coke, which and I, I
• 23:10
  was familiar, but not familiar, you know?
• 23:12
  And so I was like, oh, OK, OK. And I tried a little bit and it
• 23:21
  started getting to the point where I was like, OK, well, this
• 23:24
  is, this is not coke. I've done, I've done coke
• 23:27
  before. It doesn't do anything for me.
• 23:30
  My ADHD, it like counteracts it and it doesn't give me that
• 23:35
  uppity high. And then it started getting to a
• 23:38
  point where it was doing that for me.
• 23:41
  And I was like, I don't, I don't think this is this is coke.
• 23:44
  And it turned out to be methamphetamines.
• 23:51
  And in my, in my head growing up, I was like, I'm never going
• 23:55
  to use drugs. I'm never going to use drugs.
• 23:57
  And then I start using pain pills.
• 24:00
  And then it's like, well, I would never do meth and heroin
• 24:03
  and then you, but it's OK to do coke because coke was considered
• 24:08
  a rich white man's. Drug.
• 24:11
  Recreational. Like Wolf of Wall Street type
• 24:14
  stuff, you know, it's like idolized.
• 24:18
  And so when it when it was meth, I was like, well, I don't have
• 24:24
  to deal with pain management. It does the same thing as the
• 24:26
  pain pills. I don't have any withdrawals and
• 24:30
  it lasts longer with a smaller amount.
• 24:33
  And in my head it was a win. Everything was.
• 24:35
  A win rationalized it all out, right?
• 24:38
  Yeah. And so that's literally the last
• 24:41
  time I messed with pain pills and that was I think in 2015.
• 24:48
  And so I I started you buying meth and it was it, it was, it
• 25:00
  was fun until it wasn't. You know, I had to this I really
• 25:04
  had to hide from people. I did it because it, you know,
• 25:09
  it's considered a dirty St. drug.
• 25:11
  You know you don't. You don't want to.
• 25:14
  You're yourself. Worth is already out the window
• 25:17
  because you feel like like crap, because you're like hiding from
• 25:20
  your friends, hiding from your family, lying to yourself.
• 25:24
  Living 2 lives basically. Yeah, it was, it was rough.
• 25:28
  And it got to the point where, you know, about two years down
• 25:35
  or like a year down the line. It was like 2016 and I was with
• 25:47
  someone and ended up losing. We ended up getting pregnant and
• 25:51
  we lost the baby to an ectopic pregnancy.
• 25:55
  And around that same time I had got arrested and my mug shot was
• 26:02
  everywhere. And included with your mug shot
• 26:05
  is your charges at the time. And that got blasted all over
• 26:11
  Facebook by someone who I thought was a friend.
• 26:15
  And so now the secret's out. And at that point, it wasn't
• 26:19
  like, how do I fix this? It was AI don't give a crap.
• 26:24
  Gloves are off. Everyone knows I don't have to
• 26:27
  hide anymore. And all while this is happening,
• 26:34
  my siblings are starting to pull away from me.
• 26:38
  And like, we were really close. Like we really, after my parents
• 26:43
  divorced, moving out here really helped raise the raise each
• 26:47
  other. You know, my mom started dealing
• 26:50
  with mental health issues, stuff like that.
• 26:52
  We really just took care of each other.
• 26:57
  Even stronger. Yeah.
• 27:00
  And so they started pulling away from me when your baby sister
• 27:05
  tells you, like, I have to protect myself and you are not a
• 27:10
  safe person to have around me. It broke.
• 27:12
  Like, it broke me. And my grandma's getting sicker
• 27:18
  and sicker and more doctor's appointments, more hospital
• 27:21
  stays. And I think it was like right
• 27:29
  around 2017, it was kind of just like full blown, like using it
• 27:41
  all the time for days and days and days at a time.
• 27:45
  And then I'd sleep for a day or two and I was becoming like
• 27:51
  really aggressive, like towards my grandma when I was coming
• 27:56
  down off of it. But then when I was like using
• 28:00
  it, I was super lovey dovey. Do everything she needs.
• 28:06
  It was probably around that time that I also, you know, started
• 28:12
  noticing more and more of the wrong crowd hanging around me
• 28:18
  and I needed to separate my life.
• 28:21
  Like, I couldn't keep my good friends separate from my using
• 28:26
  friends. And so because I'm currently in
• 28:30
  active addiction, what's easier for me is, you know what?
• 28:34
  I'm at a good place with these people.
• 28:37
  I need to protect them. So I'm just going to cut.
• 28:40
  I'm going to cut ties. That's what I thought in my
• 28:44
  head. Clean break, you know?
• 28:47
  Yeah. And so here it is, the end of
• 28:51
  2017. My grandma's been in the
• 28:54
  hospital for about like two months at this point because
• 28:58
  she's just, she's in really rough shape, which it's easier
• 29:03
  for me to get a high and take my mind off of all that.
• 29:06
  And in 2018 in February, she passed away.
• 29:11
  And at that point, like Section 8 has already cut off the
• 29:16
  ability for me to live in the house because she is now res.
• 29:20
  She at that time she was a resident of the hospital and
• 29:23
  then in Hospice. So they cut her.
• 29:26
  Section 8. Her Section 8, which means they
• 29:29
  literally came and were like, hey, you have to leave the
• 29:32
  apartment and get everything out.
• 29:34
  You have 24 hours. I'm like I have no friends, I
• 29:38
  have no family. I have nowhere to go.
• 29:44
  So I did my my grandma ended up passing away and I spiraled.
• 29:51
  I spiraled really bad and just like it was probably, you know,
• 30:00
  within 2018, I think I was arrested quite a few times.
• 30:04
  I had a failure to appear. I did 30 days in county.
• 30:09
  There was just like it was rough.
• 30:12
  I lost all of my belongings. I had all my belongings and all
• 30:16
  my grandma's belongings that were left after she passed away
• 30:21
  pretty much stolen. People say their stuff gets
• 30:25
  stolen, but in my head, I was told once that when you choose
• 30:30
  to do drugs, you're basically taking all of your stuff, your
• 30:34
  friendly, your family, your friends, your belongings, your
• 30:37
  pets, your kids, everything, putting it out on the front yard
• 30:41
  and saying free, please take because you're basically selling
• 30:46
  yourself to the drug and the addiction.
• 30:48
  Yeah. That's what you're married to.
• 30:51
  Yeah. And so the crowd of people that
• 30:56
  I was around had very good access to the drugs.
• 31:01
  I was partaking and helping sell them.
• 31:05
  And you know, of course with addiction comes crime and was
• 31:12
  crying comes need for financial sources.
• 31:15
  And one thing led to another. And within I think nine months
• 31:19
  of my grandma passing away, I'm being arrested and looking, you
• 31:26
  know, looking to go to sit down in county.
• 31:28
  And before I knew it, I was looking at, I was originally
• 31:32
  looking at 14 years. They said if I was, they said if
• 31:36
  I wanted to take it to trial, I was looking at 42 1/2 if I lost
• 31:41
  that trial. And so eventually I ended up
• 31:47
  with a six year sentence and it just goes to show like in a
• 31:51
  matter of like the one year right before going to jail and
• 31:58
  then to prison, that's that's when everything kind of just
• 32:00
  like in the blink of an eye. So I know that was a lot.
• 32:06
  No. And it's, it's, it's so real
• 32:10
  because you can almost feel that, that spiral, you know,
• 32:13
  losing your grandmother, getting kicked out, not having a place
• 32:18
  to go, not having friends. I mean, that is the, it's rock
• 32:20
  bottom. And what do you do at rock
• 32:22
  bottom? So you get, I mean, it's so much
• 32:27
  to deal with that you were look and, and getting around with the
• 32:30
  wrong crowd. I can see how you just fall into
• 32:34
  things like you said, helping to sell, helping do whatever.
• 32:38
  And all of a sudden you're, you're, you're dealing with real
• 32:40
  charges that they're going to put you away not for 30 days,
• 32:43
  but for a while. Let's take a break there 'cause
• 32:48
  when we get back, I want to talk about this stuff that starts
• 32:52
  happening for you in prison that really just changes your life,
• 32:56
  your mindset, the way that you attack things and, and how you
• 33:00
  see things. And I want to get into that so.
• 33:05
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• 33:08
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• 33:11
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• 33:13
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• 33:44
  devoted to people who navigating the white collar criminal
• 33:47
  justice system. I'm a member of the White Collar
• 33:49
  Support Group, and I can tell you this is a bunch of people
• 33:51
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• 33:54
  free. Whether you're just starting
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  your journey or you've made it through to the other side, this
• 33:58
  is great space for you. You can join us on Zoom Monday,
• 34:01
  7:00 PM Eastern Time. For more information, go to
• 34:04
  prisonist.org. It's prisonist.org.
• 34:07
  So Alyssa, you get this thing down to where, OK, they say
• 34:11
  you're doing 6 years now you go into prison.
• 34:17
  It's different than jail. Yeah, because you can do it now.
• 34:20
  You're going to be there for a while.
• 34:24
  How do you and how old are you when you walk in there?
• 34:27
  I was 28 years old. 28 So you walk in to prison, you know
• 34:36
  you're going to be doing a good amount of time.
• 34:40
  What are you thinking? I when I was in county waiting
• 34:47
  to go to prison. Yeah.
• 34:50
  It was I want to start off like it was an absolute blessing,
• 34:54
  like it was quiet, it was peaceful.
• 34:59
  It was just that that saving grace, because towards the end
• 35:05
  of my I I say towards the end of my addiction, because until I
• 35:12
  got arrested, I was an active addiction Towards the end, I
• 35:16
  didn't want, I hated myself. I hated being around people.
• 35:20
  I didn't love myself. I didn't love anybody.
• 35:23
  I I to be like very blunt. I, I was done.
• 35:27
  I I wanted to die. Yeah, Like, yeah.
• 35:31
  I just wanted it all to be over with.
• 35:33
  And I kept begging God, like, please help me.
• 35:36
  Just please help me. Just please Take Me Home.
• 35:38
  I want to see my grandma. Just please.
• 35:41
  And I think, like, it was like, almost to that point, the very
• 35:46
  next day, I got arrested. And in county, I was like, it
• 35:49
  was just easy. It was quite peaceful.
• 35:52
  And I started looking at resources, You know, I knew I
• 35:55
  was probably going to prison. And I gave these options of like
• 36:00
  different educational programs you could do in their different
• 36:03
  classes. When I was in county, I took
• 36:06
  part of every program, every class.
• 36:09
  I went to parenting classes and I don't have kids.
• 36:11
  I went to parenting classes. I took everything, everything
• 36:15
  you could. And the one thing I told myself
• 36:18
  is when I get to prison, I want to get a job and save money.
• 36:22
  I want to go back to school. I want to play softball and I
• 36:29
  want to walk out a completely different person than I went in.
• 36:34
  Yeah. And so that's what I told
• 36:36
  myself. And when I got to prison, I went
• 36:41
  straight to my counselor and to our resource clerk.
• 36:44
  And I was like, how do I do this?
• 36:46
  How do I do that? How do I get into this job or
• 36:50
  this job, OK? How do I enroll back in school?
• 36:55
  You know, I just started asking questions and was the.
• 37:00
  Counsellor. Was the counsellor helpful?
• 37:03
  Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 37:05
  Yeah, very helpful. So you start getting enrolled in
• 37:08
  these things and I know you took you know this you, you did, I
• 37:15
  think you did you graduate back to cum laude with when you took
• 37:19
  your college courses. Yeah, it's so I took, I started
• 37:25
  off by going back through Rio Salado, OK And then when I
• 37:31
  became eligible to apply for Ashland University, I
• 37:37
  transferred all my credits. You know, I met with them, did
• 37:40
  the full enrollment everything like they had an on site
• 37:44
  counselor. And so I.
• 37:48
  Was it was the just for those people listening out there that
• 37:53
  probably don't know about any of this stuff that would happen in
• 37:55
  prison when you enrolled in a college course, Was it was there
• 38:01
  anybody that ever was face to face or was it all online that
• 38:05
  you guys, how did it work? So it's real Salado.
• 38:10
  They send you a big huge packet and it's your entire, your
• 38:15
  entire course, Chapter 1 to Chapter 15, all of the reading
• 38:21
  material, all of the tests, all of the homework, all the
• 38:25
  quizzes. And let me tell you, the
• 38:28
  homework is at least a minimum 5 page essay.
• 38:34
  And so you're sitting there doing it at your little desk,
• 38:39
  flipping through and, you know, answering.
• 38:42
  And then you have to sit there, take an envelope by a stamp, put
• 38:46
  it in there and mail it out and hope that it gets there on time.
• 38:49
  Because if it doesn't get there on time, you get docked the
• 38:52
  points. Wow.
• 38:54
  OK. Well, you do really good.
• 38:57
  You did really good in that. Yeah, I mean, you did.
• 39:01
  Really good. I had to keep the schedule and
• 39:04
  if I was ever late, I would send a note with the with the
• 39:08
  homework. I'd said that hey, I know this
• 39:10
  is going to be late. This is why I understand I'm
• 39:13
  losing points. I bet that was a great way to
• 39:16
  kill time. I mean, the one, the one thing
• 39:20
  about prison is, is that it's if you don't have things to fill
• 39:24
  time with, it can be horrendously.
• 39:28
  Trouble. Yeah, yeah, all those things.
• 39:32
  And so you, you get into this Televerde and what and, and what
• 39:40
  part of your sentence in this six year sentence did you get
• 39:43
  involved with Televerde? With in, I was sentenced to
• 39:50
  prison at like September 30th or October 2nd of 2019.
• 39:59
  I started with Televerde in September of 2020, right, Right.
• 40:05
  Like in the middle of COVID. Yeah, right.
• 40:09
  Exactly. That would have.
• 40:11
  I mean, I always have talked, I've talked to people who've
• 40:14
  who've been in prison while COVID was going on and, and you
• 40:18
  know, there's only certain things that you have that you
• 40:21
  think that are privileges when you're in prison and they just
• 40:23
  get all wiped clean when you're, you know, they're just locking
• 40:26
  everybody down and making sure that, you know, that nobody
• 40:29
  dies. But tell us about Televerde,
• 40:34
  because I hadn't heard a Televerde.
• 40:35
  I, you know, I've been doing this show for five years and I
• 40:38
  why haven't I heard a Televerde? It sounds like an incredible
• 40:41
  program. How did it work?
• 40:43
  It it was amazing. So when I first started hearing
• 40:48
  about it, the way that people describe it on the art is like,
• 40:52
  you're a telemarketer basically. You're selling stuff.
• 40:56
  So it's funny, when I went into my interview with the senior
• 41:00
  call center manager, he's like, do you know what we do here?
• 41:05
  And I was like telemarketing. And he was like, that's an
• 41:09
  incorrect answer. We are much more than that.
• 41:15
  They are a business to business sales and marketing organization
• 41:19
  and their their business model is built on providing women
• 41:25
  second chance. And I think I mentioned, I
• 41:29
  believe I mentioned it in my article, like the founder, Jim
• 41:32
  Hooker built it on the saying of discarding a person for the rest
• 41:38
  of their life on based on a decision they made the worst day
• 41:41
  of their life is a complete waste of human potential.
• 41:45
  And So what we do is we bring in clients and we outsource and we
• 41:52
  out they outsource their agents to those clients.
• 41:54
  So we have like SAP, VMware and Sonos, stuff like that.
• 42:00
  And so it was an amazing opportunity, very robust
• 42:04
  training and development. You go through, of course, new
• 42:07
  hire and then if you're lucky, you get put on a campaign with a
• 42:12
  client and their new hire training.
• 42:15
  Training is not like, oh, here's a workbook, OK.
• 42:18
  Like you are sitting there six weeks doing all of these
• 42:24
  different lessons, role play, call guide, the whole shebang.
• 42:30
  Like because a lot of these people don't even have never had
• 42:33
  a job in their life. And then there's people in there
• 42:35
  that were maybe doctors previously or like I think I had
• 42:41
  one that was a banker or something like that.
• 42:45
  So all walks of life and you get put on a campaign.
• 42:51
  So with a client and now you do training all over again.
• 42:55
  You have to learn their products.
• 42:57
  They provide like a playbook of these are the sales plays that
• 43:02
  we want to do. These are the titles that we're
• 43:07
  going after. These are the business
• 43:09
  industries that you want to focus on and this is your e-mail
• 43:13
  messaging and stuff like that, so.
• 43:16
  You're doing all this while you're incarcerated and you were
• 43:20
  telling me before we got on that it's, it's a process to even be
• 43:26
  able to get into this program. Like what did you have to do to
• 43:29
  get to be in that program? You are required to have your
• 43:35
  high school diploma or your GED. If you don't, there are ways
• 43:42
  that they're able to work with you to help you get to that
• 43:46
  point. Because there are, you know,
• 43:48
  there's school and GED classes in prison.
• 43:54
  You go through an interview process with, you know, I think
• 43:58
  at one point it was our, one of our BPS of sales came in there
• 44:01
  and did some interviews. But usually this it's the
• 44:05
  different call center managers. They'll sit down and do
• 44:08
  interviews with people. And I think at one point on
• 44:12
  Carlos, there was at one point there was 1400 women and
• 44:19
  probably at least 100 people applied and they only took 15
• 44:23
  people and that was when out of over 100 applicants and wow.
• 44:32
  And that was when I did it. And then sometimes it just
• 44:35
  depends on the the need so. So I guess I should have asked
• 44:44
  you like, when you were in this time period and you're getting
• 44:47
  your life back together in prison.
• 44:49
  You're getting, you know, these great scores and doing well with
• 44:54
  your college courses. And then you get into Tele
• 44:56
  Verde. Are you reconnecting back with
• 44:59
  your siblings? So I have been in contact with
• 45:04
  my mom. My brother was laboring with my
• 45:07
  mom so I would occasionally talk to him.
• 45:10
  Once in a great while, I would talk to my baby sister, but the
• 45:15
  second oldest, she who had me completely cut off and there was
• 45:22
  no way. It's like, you know, people have
• 45:24
  to apply for phone calls or. Yeah, it's not easy to
• 45:27
  communicate with somebody in prison, right?
• 45:29
  Yeah, I didn't have her, her contact information and, and
• 45:34
  everything like that. And then there was probably one
• 45:37
  or two people from my old group of friends, you know, my good
• 45:40
  group of friends that had he actually had reached out to me
• 45:44
  while I was in county. They're like Kruger, you have a
• 45:47
  video call. And I'm like, who would who
• 45:51
  would schedule a video call with me?
• 45:53
  I don't have one. You know, I'd, I was alone and I
• 45:58
  log in and I hop on and here it is my best friend.
• 46:02
  And he was like, dude, we've been looking for you.
• 46:05
  You kind of just fell off the face of the planet and no one's
• 46:08
  heard of you. Everyone's been looking around
• 46:11
  for you and he actually wrote a letter to the judge on my
• 46:15
  behalf, showed up in my sentencing, applied for phone
• 46:19
  calls and visitations when I first got to prison, and was
• 46:22
  there for me throughout my entire prison stay, including
• 46:26
  picking me up on my release date.
• 46:28
  Wow, Yeah, wow. Good friend, it's.
• 46:32
  Very cool. So you, you get through this,
• 46:38
  you're all, you're, you're in Televerde, you're, you're,
• 46:41
  you're at the highest, payest job, you know, on, on the campus
• 46:44
  there. What do you start thinking
• 46:49
  about, Alyssa, about getting out when your, when your time gets
• 46:53
  close to the door? What what's your what's your
• 46:56
  thoughts? Well, Televerde had the option
• 47:01
  to apply, like you actually apply for their corporate
• 47:06
  office. You go through a background
• 47:09
  check, you go in which they obviously know, like it's just
• 47:12
  by law, you know, they're required.
• 47:15
  You go through different levels of the hiring process and final
• 47:19
  interview and everything. And I was like, you know what
• 47:24
  I'll do. And this is a great landing
• 47:26
  opportunity. It sets me up.
• 47:28
  I get to go home with a job. Yeah, huge.
• 47:32
  They also have the Telaverde Foundation which works with like
• 47:38
  second chance housing and they actually have a Tele Verde house
• 47:41
  where girls who are getting released from prison are able to
• 47:45
  go and try and transition there. And they also help you get re
• 47:52
  entry opportunities through their Tele Verde paths re entry
• 47:57
  which was amazing. I literally probably took every
• 48:01
  class you could think of when I was in there.
• 48:03
  So I learned to build my confidence up.
• 48:05
  I learned to, you know, handle my anger or how to be assertive,
• 48:12
  how to defuse a situation like using I statements instead of
• 48:19
  you make me feel like I feel this way when like I really
• 48:24
  learned how to flip the script and change my mindset and be a
• 48:29
  positive thinker. And I was so confident and tell
• 48:34
  the radio. I had that opportunity to go to
• 48:36
  corporate and also get into halfway house.
• 48:41
  And in my head, I'm like, OK, I'll walk out with the job.
• 48:44
  I'm going to walk out with a little bit of money from my
• 48:46
  retention job. I'm working walking out with my
• 48:49
  associate's degree and half of my bachelor's.
• 48:52
  I had to take my complete my bachelor's outside.
• 48:57
  OK, yeah, so but that you take it with them because Ashland
• 49:01
  University is an actual university in Ohio.
• 49:06
  I was like, you know what, I I'm just going to hit the ground
• 49:10
  running and I've had a lot of the girls will sit there and
• 49:14
  tell you don't get too full of yourself.
• 49:16
  Take it one step at a time. You're most people fall flat on
• 49:20
  their face, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I'm going to
• 49:24
  prove you guys wrong. I'm going to prove you guys
• 49:26
  wrong. They're like, you're just going
• 49:27
  to, if you came like that, you're going to end up back in
• 49:31
  here with the rest of us because.
• 49:34
  Well, in your article you say you shot out of there like a
• 49:36
  bullet. I did.
• 49:40
  I did. I had an apartment.
• 49:42
  I went from the halfway house to renting my own apartment with my
• 49:47
  friend. Within two weeks.
• 49:51
  I had I got released on March 23rd.
• 49:53
  I had a brand new So March 23rd, 2024.
• 49:57
  I was released from prison by April 8th or a couple weeks
• 50:06
  later. Yeah, a couple weeks later we
• 50:08
  were in our new apartment and then I think by April 11th or
• 50:12
  15th, I went and bought myself a brand new 2024 Kia Forte.
• 50:19
  So I mean they really. Did well, I mean, and this
• 50:24
  televerde thing sounds like it's just a fantastic organization
• 50:27
  because they're they're filling the gaps of what's really needed
• 50:30
  when somebody is both in prison and when they get out of prison
• 50:33
  and and all the things that are needed when somebody's trying to
• 50:36
  re enter, which it just sounds like that you took advantage,
• 50:40
  Alyssa of all of that. They teach something that no
• 50:46
  employer in the world can, and that's grit.
• 50:49
  Like you're fighting to stay on your campaign.
• 50:52
  You're fighting for a campaign you have because you have to
• 50:57
  think you're in a prison with 4000 women and they have a
• 51:02
  select number of spots available and you have to constantly prove
• 51:06
  yourself. But that the confidence, the
• 51:09
  grit and the determination is something that I don't think
• 51:12
  I've ever seen an employer be able to teach their ladies or
• 51:16
  their. Employees and the way that you
• 51:18
  write this article, I mean, it's it's like, you know, a how to
• 51:21
  thing of if, if you don't have confidence, get consistent, you
• 51:25
  know, be disappointed and you just keep going with all those
• 51:29
  things. I know that you have a really
• 51:32
  good job now with paychecks. So how, how does Alyssa go and
• 51:39
  get a job at paychecks, which is a huge organization?
• 51:43
  They obviously hire people who are just as impacted.
• 51:46
  How? How did that interview happen?
• 51:49
  Oh, gosh. So I was kind of at the point,
• 51:53
  I've been with Tele ready for 4 1/2 years, and I was kind of the
• 51:57
  point where I was like, you know what, I want to see what other
• 52:00
  opportunities are out there for growth.
• 52:02
  I really want to like move up the corporate ladder.
• 52:05
  And I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified
• 52:08
  because I was like, I looked, I was looking at places like
• 52:12
  Second Chance employer, ban the box organization.
• 52:17
  I actually didn't apply to paychecks.
• 52:20
  I was reached out to by the recruiter and they're like, hey,
• 52:25
  we have this opportunity in Phoenix, it's in office.
• 52:28
  Would you like to, you know, take a few minutes and talk with
• 52:33
  me? I was like, you know what, let's
• 52:35
  try it out. And I, I started going through
• 52:38
  the interview process and got to the point where I came to the
• 52:41
  final interview and it was absolutely amazing.
• 52:44
  And so after that the recruiter calls me and it's like, hey, I
• 52:47
  think they want to offer, send you an offer.
• 52:50
  And I was like, hey, I have, I have to share something.
• 52:52
  And so I told him he's like, well, it's like case by case.
• 52:57
  So what I would suggest is fill out your full profile through
• 53:02
  our applicant tracking system. It's going to ask you about, you
• 53:08
  know, your background and be completely honest because we're
• 53:12
  also going to run the background check and then we'll go from
• 53:16
  there. And so then, you know, I did
• 53:19
  everything and I just waited. And so then the worker to reach
• 53:22
  back out, he's like, so HR is probably going to reach out to
• 53:27
  you. It's their job.
• 53:29
  So I just wanted to give you that heads up.
• 53:31
  I was like, all right, cool. HR reached out to me and she was
• 53:37
  like very stern, very cold, very like detached.
• 53:45
  I mean, and she's like, Alyssa, you understand that I'm reaching
• 53:49
  out because we ran your background check and everything
• 53:52
  matched. So I appreciate your honesty and
• 53:54
  transparency, but the reason we're having this call today is
• 53:59
  because it is my job to screen people to protect the company.
• 54:04
  What's in the best interest of the company?
• 54:07
  And so she asked me to to share a little bit about my crimes.
• 54:11
  And I was like, can I, if you don't mind, can I share my story
• 54:15
  with you? I can talk about anyone can talk
• 54:19
  about something they did, but let me explain to you.
• 54:22
  And so I did. She goes oh OK after after I
• 54:26
  tell her my story and she goes OK.
• 54:29
  I like the way that you handle that though, because so
• 54:32
  everybody who's a justice impacted person has to at one
• 54:36
  point tell their story in a way that it's either an interview or
• 54:42
  you're at a social function or whatever it is.
• 54:44
  And you own your story. And if you if you can get
• 54:51
  comfortable telling your story, it's such a big deal to get
• 54:55
  people to relate to what is going on and how it happened.
• 54:58
  And and it was so smart of you just say, yeah, I can talk about
• 55:01
  that. But let me tell you about me and
• 55:04
  my. Story 'cause I can I can say
• 55:07
  that I, I stole I, I could sit there and tell you, hey, Brent,
• 55:12
  I stole a loaf of bread and peanut butter and you're going
• 55:18
  to be like, well, that's wrong. You know, you're, you could get
• 55:21
  that charges and all that, but if I say, hey, Brent, I lost my
• 55:25
  job, I don't have benefits, I don't have money.
• 55:28
  My daughter needs to eat. I stole this it it has a
• 55:32
  different impact. It's still wrong, but there's a
• 55:37
  it makes more of an impact. So then, but back to the
• 55:40
  interview she gets, she goes, OK, well, I need to know what
• 55:45
  are you doing today that that ensures that you're not going to
• 55:51
  do this to a company or you're not going to end up back in
• 55:55
  prison? Like, what are you doing
• 55:56
  different? And I shared with her how I
• 55:58
  reconnected with my family. I rebuilt relationships with my
• 56:02
  siblings that I never thought I would ever be able to have the
• 56:04
  chance to repair. I am thriving.
• 56:08
  I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I'm all of these things.
• 56:11
  And she goes, you could just hear the change in the phone
• 56:14
  call and she goes, Alyssa, you have such an inspiring story.
• 56:20
  And she's like, she's just going on.
• 56:22
  And she's like, but like I said, you do have to understand, I
• 56:25
  have to do what's in the best interest of the company.
• 56:28
  And all of that stink going on in my head is, oh, I'm not
• 56:32
  getting this job. I'm not, it doesn't matter.
• 56:35
  It doesn't matter. And she goes, she goes.
• 56:39
  And so with that being said, I speak on behalf of the company
• 56:44
  when I say we want to be part of your growth journey moving
• 56:48
  forward. Oh.
• 56:52
  Wow. And I was just so like, I
• 56:54
  couldn't believe that. I was like, wait, what?
• 56:56
  She's like, yeah. What'd?
• 56:57
  You say she's. Like welcome, welcome to
• 57:01
  Paycheck, she goes. It's very inspiring and it's
• 57:05
  very hard. But if we can continue to help
• 57:08
  you on the right path, then then that means that you can pay it
• 57:14
  forward and help the people that come behind you.
• 57:16
  Wow. Gosh, it's just, I mean, that
• 57:20
  just that's just such a feel good story of so many stories
• 57:23
  that you hear that that doesn't happen.
• 57:26
  Yeah. But I think, you know, when you
• 57:30
  hit somebody with raw authenticity and honesty and
• 57:35
  really do Share your story in a way that somebody can relate,
• 57:39
  like, wow, that could have been me or what would I have done in
• 57:42
  that situation? All those different things that
• 57:44
  go on like a movie starts in your mind.
• 57:48
  And I know your paychecks thing has gone really well and you've
• 57:54
  you've you've done a really good job there.
• 57:56
  And I know 15. Months.
• 57:58
  Yeah, personally, you've gotten married.
• 58:03
  Yeah, you have a home, home ownership.
• 58:08
  I mean, you've really just taken anything and everything that you
• 58:11
  told yourself when you were going into inside the walls, the
• 58:16
  prison that I'm going to change. And you just started just
• 58:21
  chipping away at everything that made that everything else became
• 58:26
  unfamiliar because of what you were doing, became everything
• 58:29
  that you were doing. And I think it's just, I was
• 58:32
  inspired, Alyssa, just by your, your writing.
• 58:36
  Thank you. You know, it's I, I come across
• 58:38
  a lot of things and hear a lot of stories, but I just think
• 58:42
  it's your story is 1, where so many people have their worst
• 58:48
  moment that is exposed to the, you know, public and, and, you
• 58:55
  know, you don't want to be known just for that worst moment.
• 58:59
  And you were able, you were able to swim through that and, and
• 59:03
  grid it out, keep the determination and not quit on
• 59:07
  yourself. And then you just laid it out to
• 59:10
  the HR person and yeah, a conversion happened.
• 59:15
  It was fantastic when I got to share.
• 59:17
  I I've, I've had the opportunity to share that with pretty much
• 59:21
  everyone in my division. Yeah.
• 59:24
  And when people hear they're like, Ally, there's no, there's
• 59:29
  no way. And then of course, you know,
• 59:30
  all the questions. Is it like Orange is the New
• 59:32
  Black? Did you meet this person in
• 59:35
  there? Yeah, then they want to know all
• 59:37
  the background. Interesting.
• 59:39
  Curiosity stuff, all the stuff. And the easiest way that I
• 59:44
  always tell people is just imagine a a summer camp.
• 59:51
  You have sports, you have classes, you get fed you, you
• 59:58
  know, you have activities, you do things and you're surrounded
• 1:00:02
  by people all the time and it's never really actually quiet.
• 1:00:08
  The only thing that sucks is that you can't go home until the
• 1:00:10
  counselors tell you could go home.
• 1:00:12
  So you're kind of stuck at summer camp until you.
• 1:00:16
  That's the, that's the one thing that I had a hard time getting
• 1:00:21
  my mind wrapped around was I, I remember the night that my wife
• 1:00:25
  Julie and I, we, we, it was the next morning, I was going to
• 1:00:28
  have to voluntarily surrender myself.
• 1:00:30
  And I remember that I was in a, in a camp that only three camps
• 1:00:36
  in the United States have fences and Leavenworth was one of them.
• 1:00:41
  And it had the double fencing and the double wiring.
• 1:00:43
  It was really intimidating looking and I saw the people
• 1:00:46
  walking around on the sidewalk next to the this double wired
• 1:00:51
  fence and, and that could kind of start seeing because it was
• 1:00:54
  starting to get dusky, could see the lights that were turning on
• 1:00:59
  and the four different blocks there.
• 1:01:02
  And what I couldn't get my mind around was, Oh my God, that is
• 1:01:08
  going to be a place I'm going to be not for a week, not for a
• 1:01:12
  month. I'm going to be there for years.
• 1:01:16
  And you know, it's, it's something that you can't really
• 1:01:21
  grasp until you're actually living it, because it's that
• 1:01:25
  idea that you're not going anywhere.
• 1:01:27
  So you've got to figure out things and things that you don't
• 1:01:30
  become part of the you know, I was, I always joke, I didn't
• 1:01:34
  want to become prison Brent. I didn't even know what prison
• 1:01:36
  Brent was. I just don't want to be him.
• 1:01:38
  So I everything I was trying to do is try to still be me.
• 1:01:42
  But and you did that inside Alyssa.
• 1:01:46
  You did all that and you got rewarded for that hard work and
• 1:01:50
  you were prepared for that HR interview and I.
• 1:01:54
  Had to do a lot of work on myself.
• 1:01:58
  Yeah. It it I ended up getting a
• 1:02:01
  sponsor while I was in prison. I did the NA steps, the a a
• 1:02:07
  steps multiple times. I did I even did my codependency
• 1:02:12
  step where I so really diving deep and addressing a lot of
• 1:02:18
  issues. Like by the time I left there,
• 1:02:21
  like when I walked in there, I was scared.
• 1:02:24
  I didn't have any confidence. I had no self worth.
• 1:02:27
  Still, I was just like, OK, well, this is my time.
• 1:02:31
  This is my time out from the world.
• 1:02:33
  This is my time. I need to make the best of it to
• 1:02:36
  the point where I was walking out of there like this is me
• 1:02:40
  like super confident. I love myself.
• 1:02:44
  I am very confident in myself. I'm confident in my abilities.
• 1:02:48
  And I think I told one of the the clients with Televerde, he
• 1:02:53
  was like, he was like, what are you going to do when you like
• 1:02:58
  hit the ceiling? And I was like, oh, for me,
• 1:03:00
  there's no, there's no glass ceiling up here.
• 1:03:03
  It's literally just how far high can I keep reaching?
• 1:03:09
  What? What do you think after
• 1:03:12
  everything that we've talked about your story, what do you
• 1:03:14
  think's your biggest take away from all of it?
• 1:03:18
  Just, I mean, there's a lot. It had to be one thing.
• 1:03:26
  Absolute just the biggest thing was I had to love myself.
• 1:03:32
  I had to be my biggest supporter because at the end of the day, I
• 1:03:36
  have me. And if I don't trust myself, I
• 1:03:40
  don't believe in my decisions. I don't have the confidence or
• 1:03:42
  the assertiveness and I let people walk all over me and I
• 1:03:45
  let people determine myself worth or what I'm capable of.
• 1:03:50
  I'm never I, I knew that I was going to that was going to be my
• 1:03:55
  home for the rest of my life. Either that or a wooden box.
• 1:04:00
  It was take one or the other. So learning to love myself and
• 1:04:06
  being confident in myself and trusting in my decisions was
• 1:04:11
  like my biggest take away and that I could not be afraid to
• 1:04:16
  ask for help. I love that because not being
• 1:04:21
  ashamed and embarrassed of what I had gotten myself into and
• 1:04:28
  afraid to ask for help and not knowing how to ask for help.
• 1:04:33
  That was really one of the biggest things that I think
• 1:04:37
  pushed me further into my problems was because I didn't
• 1:04:42
  know how to ask for help. And there was that
• 1:04:43
  stigmatization on it of, well, if you go to someone and be
• 1:04:48
  like, I'm a drug addict, the first thing a lot of people put
• 1:04:51
  that fear, oh, you're going to jail, not you're going to rehab,
• 1:04:56
  you're going to an outpatient clinic, nothing like that.
• 1:05:00
  So those are my biggest takeaways.
• 1:05:04
  Learning those are great takeaways and you know, loving
• 1:05:07
  yourself and believing in yourself and having confidence
• 1:05:10
  in yourself, trusting your decisions.
• 1:05:13
  Those are, I mean, those are huge takeaways and they they
• 1:05:17
  change. Out there, Yeah, you got.
• 1:05:20
  It take a chance, take a chance. Nothing's.
• 1:05:23
  Nothing's ever as bad as your mind makes it out to be, that's
• 1:05:26
  for sure. Oh yeah, Detastrify is so bad.
• 1:05:29
  But yeah, I you have to be able to hear the nose in order to get
• 1:05:34
  to the yes and no does not mean never, It just means next
• 1:05:40
  opportunity. Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  Yeah, that's how you have to think of it.
• 1:05:44
  So. Love that.
• 1:05:46
  Love that while we're talking about thankful things, I want to
• 1:05:50
  give a shout out to Homestead Financial Home Mortgage, letting
• 1:05:53
  me use all the equipment here and and fancy lights.
• 1:05:58
  If you got home mortgage and he's out there, Greg after you
• 1:06:00
  have is your guy. He knows all that stuff.
• 1:06:02
  If you're looking for a book out there for the new year,
• 1:06:04
  everybody's got New Year's stuff.
• 1:06:07
  Get mine. It's nightmare success, loyalty,
• 1:06:09
  betrayal, life behind bars, adapting, finally breaking free.
• 1:06:13
  Leave me a review on Apple if you got time.
• 1:06:15
  I know it's kind of a hassle, but they're great and I love
• 1:06:18
  reading them. If you want to know what I'm
• 1:06:20
  doing, go to brentcassidy.com. I've spelled it wrong.
• 1:06:23
  I spell it with ATY, not a DY. And if you want to go see all
• 1:06:28
  this stuff, I mean, get it on Spotify, Apple, whatever, but I
• 1:06:30
  got nightmare success.com where you can get to all the
• 1:06:32
  interviews and all the extra stuff about them.
• 1:06:36
  So I used to say when I was writing my emails back from
• 1:06:38
  Leavenworth, stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 1:06:42
  Alyssa Baker, thank you so much. I I just feel good about your
• 1:06:46
  story and what you're doing and I wish you the best of success.
• 1:06:50
  Thank you. Yeah, if my story helps, just at
• 1:06:53
  least one person, I go out there and I I'll take extra food over
• 1:06:57
  to the homeless or like the people that are struggling and I
• 1:07:00
  look at them and I'm like, hey, I want you to know I I was there
• 1:07:03
  when. I was there.
• 1:07:05
  I've been homeless, I've been, you know, asking for money.
• 1:07:09
  I've been where you are and I promise you it is possible.
• 1:07:13
  And I just being able to see that glimmer of hope is amazing.
• 1:07:16
  So thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:07:19
  Well, you're inspiring people to believe the second chances are
• 1:07:22
  real, and I love that. True Nightmare Success guest
• 1:07:25
  Alyssa Baker, thank you so much. Thank you.
• 1:07:29
  Nightmare success in and out.