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From Prison to Co-Founder of a College: The Karlos Harris Story · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:04
  Hi, I'm Greg Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and Out
• 0:07
  podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:11
  nightmares to set yourself free. We're going to be exploring this
• 0:14
  topic with guys that was in Leavenworth with and others who
• 0:17
  survived their own nightmare. These stories can be inspiring,
• 0:22
  sometimes sad. There's some humor, but
• 0:25
  hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something that'll
• 0:28
  help you knock down some of the prisons you built up in your own
• 0:31
  mind. All right, welcome back,
• 0:35
  nightmare success in and out. Listeners, this is where you
• 0:38
  come from. What happens when your worst
• 0:40
  fear becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
• 0:42
  overcome? Set yourself free, folks.
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  Don't forget to follow. Hit that subscribe button.
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  Share it out, like it up it all just it.
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  It just helps the show. It's a fantastic thing that
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  helps the show grow. So I appreciate it.
• 0:57
  I've have been having some great conversations with my guest,
• 1:02
  Carlos Harris. And he, I'm glad he's here
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  because of couple weeks ago he, he, he found out that he's a,
• 1:11
  you know, he's a 52 year old guy.
• 1:13
  He's in good shape. But he, he had himself a heart
• 1:15
  attack and, and he's just talking about how he's redoing
• 1:18
  his, his life with eating and, and taking the stress out
• 1:23
  because he does a lot. Carlos is the co-owner and chief
• 1:28
  operations officer for DSDT. It's a Detroit school for
• 1:32
  technology, digital technology, post secondary education in the
• 1:37
  field of digital technology. He spearheaded multiple second
• 1:41
  chance initiatives. He he co-authors technology
• 1:45
  training curriculums, establishing partnerships with
• 1:48
  the Michigan Department of Corrections city Detroit, the
• 1:51
  United States, United States Department of Labor.
• 1:55
  A lot of stuff, a lot of fascinating.
• 1:58
  The other thing that's fascinating is, is that his
• 2:00
  college is in an old jail, which for all of you, I'm just going
• 2:05
  to tell you, Carlos Harris has done all this after he did
• 2:10
  eleven years in prison. So I find that absolutely
• 2:13
  fascinating. I can't wait to unpack all this
• 2:17
  and talk about all the stuff he's doing.
• 2:19
  Before we do that, I want to recognize our show sponsor, Otto
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  Tell them Brent from Nightmare Success sent you.
• 2:57
  Welcome in Carlos Harris. How are you?
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  I am great and I'm glad to be here.
• 3:03
  Man, I'm glad you're here too. Listen, you know, I love that
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  intro. I, I guess I can be somewhat
• 3:10
  vain at times because I tell you I had a 50th birthday in which,
• 3:17
  you know, it was a big thing to do and I had over 250 guests
• 3:21
  that came out and supported me. It's a lot, you know, and I
• 3:26
  don't know, I think in this form, I just like to get in
• 3:29
  here, the roses as I'm traveling, you know, because how
• 3:34
  much greater it is for people to say and speak your accolades
• 3:39
  than for you to simply tell people what you've done.
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  You know, I think that a lot of us given our backgrounds,
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  sometimes that can over shadow the accomplishments that we have
• 3:50
  afterwards, you know, and so to hear you list them, yeah, I did
• 3:55
  that. I did do that.
• 3:56
  Yeah, I did that one too. I did.
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  That was low. Yeah, I've done a lot Carlos and
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  and what I love about it is, is that you are you're doing stuff
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  that and am I wrong? Are are you doing all this
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  without going graduating from college?
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  Absolutely. I didn't.
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  Yeah. And I think to me, all of that
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  just shows that again, that how you get into stuff and how you
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  can accomplish, if it's all about, you know, stepping into
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  it, hey, let me figure this out. You know, I don't know it all.
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  There's mentors out there. There's things I can read.
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  And and man, you and you're in the AI stuff, technology, you're
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  teaching people stuff that people are really interested in
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  because it's right on the cusp of everything that's going on.
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  Yeah. So go ahead.
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  I, I think somewhere along the line, I was just wired this way.
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  You know, I remember when the first computers came online and
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  I can remember breaking into, you know, in order to whether it
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  was swapping out a motherboard or the CPU or whatever the case
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  it was. I like to tell the students
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  around here, before there was Cisco, that was me.
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  You know we didn't have those certifications back in the 80s,
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  right? 80s.
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  You're just getting under the hood and and looking at it.
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  Right, right. And so, you know, I can remember
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  the first real computer I saw was in my high school class.
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  I was probably about ninth grade and, you know, we had the floppy
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  disk and we were learning DOS, You know, imagine how long that
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  go that's been. And so I just, I was wired this
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  way and, and one of the things that I'm also someone that
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  believes and I believe in being autodidactic.
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  It's a word that I learned along the way and it expresses who I
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  am 100% to a fault. I don't like to be told how to
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  do anything. I like to sit down with it, to
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  break it right. If it takes 10,000 times to get
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  it right, I love the process of the 999 times we're nine 9995
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  times. I love that process because I
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  learned so much throughout it, you know, and so when I do get
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  that one instance of where I succeed, it's it's good.
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  But equally was all the failures that I had.
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  That's what you that's how you learn.
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  You know, point, point, point to be stated.
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  So nowadays, you know, whether it is to set up a business and
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  build the digital presence or whatever the case may be, I can
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  normally do that in about probably at the latest three
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  days, three days, you know, build all the online content,
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  build the website, register the domain, set everything up, set
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  up the phone lines, do everything, you know, register
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  with the state registrations, you know, and we're not talking
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  just EI, NS and all that stuff. But because I've learned all
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  this over the years through trial and error and when it's
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  all said and done, I know what I'm going to need in order to go
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  get funding. I have the templates for my
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  business plans and everything. Oh, it's.
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  It's like a system. Well, absolutely.
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  I want to go back because growing up as a kid, Carlos,
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  take us back. Were you, what were you like
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  growing up as a kid? What was what was little Carlos
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  doing when he was growing up as a kid?
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  My grandmother would say I was bad as hell.
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  So good T-shirt. All.
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  Right, so I was raised by my grandmother, went to live with
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  my grandmother when I was three years old in a small town called
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  Helena, AR. My mother had me, I believe,
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  when she was 16, turning 17. And her and my grandmother used
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  to often get into arguments of sorts because of the way that
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  she was raising my sister and I. My grandmother didn't think that
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  she was doing the best for us, you know, And that was the day
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  and age of those times, you know, if your parents felt as
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  though you weren't doing something right there, they
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  would come take you and raise you, you know?
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  And so I vividly remember the day that my mother left and left
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  us with my grandmother, and she came to Michigan.
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  And so my grandmother raised my sister and I raised me till I
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  was 15 and I left at 15. But you know now that I think.
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  Back you said you left at 15. What does that mean?
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  That means she was OK. She was going to whip me one
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  day, you know. What about Whooping Southern?
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  Weapons. Yeah, I had one of those go pick
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  some limbs up off the. Yeah, go out there and get your
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  own switch and braid it that. Weeping Willow tree.
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  Yeah, right. So I was done taking weapons.
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  I just, it was over. I was 15, you know, and, and
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  also throughout the years, I had always, I don't know, I just
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  always wanted, I wanted to be with my mom, quote UN quote,
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  sure. It was just something about it,
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  you know, and I, I knew who my mom was.
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  We would often go in the summertime to spend time with my
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  mother. But you know, I just wanted to
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  be with my mom and at 15, my grandmother.
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  I'm a young man, you know, guys doing what they do.
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  And I wasn't about to take any more beatings.
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  And so it was done. I left that day and I have never
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  been home since. I've been on my own in some form
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  fashion since I was 15. So did you head to Michigan?
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  I didn't head to Michigan directly.
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  I stayed with a friend when I left my grandmother's and she
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  let me stay. And so the friend and his mother
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  allowed for me to couch surf for a while.
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  And ultimately my mother moved back to Arkansas.
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  During that time and I think when I was 16, I ended up
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  staying with my mom for a short period, but one day something
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  happened. I don't remember, but I remember
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  my mother was going to try to whip me.
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  I ain't nobody else. I can do that anymore.
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  You know, I was done with that. And so from 16 to 17, I was
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  still doing some couch surfing among friends.
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  Now, I grew up in the church. I was raised Southern Baptist,
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  so I had that church support system.
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  And so whether it was through my friends parents who would let
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  me, you know, crash at their houses or whatever, I still
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  didn't go far from the community.
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  And so ended up ultimately by the time I was 1717 1/2, I had
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  got in some trouble at school. It was my senior year, it was
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  during band camp. So I was in the band from the
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  7th grade to the 12th grade pretty much.
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  But in the as I was going into the 12th grade summer camp, I
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  got into some trouble with a friend and these two girls.
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  We we were basically doing some adult things in one of the
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  practice rooms. They didn't like that at the
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  band camp. No, definitely Mr. Alsup was his
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  name. I don't know why I still
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  remember after all these years. Right, So Mr. Alsup, of course,
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  he didn't like it. And so I'll never forget the
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  look on his face when he told me that he was going to write us up
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  for it and suspend us. So I got suspended the first
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  week of my senior year. When I went back to school,
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  everybody was calling. They would say to me, what's my
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  name? What's my name, what's my name,
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  what's my name? Because apparently somebody
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  heard us in the room. And so now, mind you, the girl
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  that I was with, her father was the wood shop teacher.
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  I don't even think they have wood shops anymore.
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  They were great though. Right.
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  And so he, I remember him calling me over and pretty much
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  asked me, you know, what was my, what was I doing with his
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  daughter? And also it just got to be too
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  much. And so I was talking to my aunt
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  one day who lived here in Michigan about what was going
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  on. And she said to me, she said,
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  well, if you can get a ticket, you can come to Michigan with
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  me. Now, mind you, this is the same
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  aunt who within the family always gave other relatives
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  chances, you know, like uncles back in the 70s would come up to
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  live with her. They would get jobs at the
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  General Motors and the hospitals and all that.
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  And so this was finally my chance to break away from
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  Arkansas. And so, of course, I didn't have
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  the funds, the money to do it. I spoke to my pastor at the
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  church, told him what I wanted to do, and he reluctantly agreed
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  to give me the bus ticket and some cash to come to Michigan.
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  I think he gave me like 60 bucks or something.
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  You know, just enough to get there.
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  Just enough. And so he asked me that.
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  There was three things that he told me that he wanted me to
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  keep in mind as I set out. One, he didn't want me to have
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  any children too young. Two, he didn't want me to get
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  into drugs and three, he wanted me to graduate.
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  OK, so I kept one of them. I'll let you guys guess which
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  one that was. I just, I'll tell you this, I
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  graduated, graduated. So I graduated ultimately when I
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  came to Michigan. I came to Michigan October 19th,
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  1990 and I pretty much have been in Michigan ever since then.
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  So you get with the aunt, does she get you set up Carlos with
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  people and places and things to work and do, or do you kind of
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  figure that out on your own? I had an uncle, my uncle.
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  My uncles were more like father figures to me as I grew up
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  because I don't know if I stayed it, but my dad died when I was 6
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  and my dad died from a heart attack.
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  Yeah, 23 he was. 23, He was 23 years old.
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  And so when I came to Michigan, I had two uncles here.
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  And so the one uncle, my Uncle Charles, which is my mother's
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  twin brother, he had served some time in the military in the
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  Navy, and he was just like it. He was man, He was something
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  different at times. But I tell you this, I come from
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  a background where, you know, you don't question adults.
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  You know, it is what they say, especially when it comes to men.
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  You know, now when I was 15 and I got to that point with my
• 14:56
  grandmother, it's because I. Had it was different.
• 14:58
  I had outgrown my grandmother, but my uncles, yeah, still to
• 15:03
  this day, if they were living, it would be the same thing.
• 15:06
  I've never had a argument. I've never had a, a, a, a fight.
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  I never, none of that stuff. I don't even know where that
• 15:13
  comes from with these children nowadays.
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  And so my uncle took me the first week I was in Michigan to
• 15:23
  get my first job here. I got a job working at what's
• 15:27
  called what was called Farmer Jack's.
• 15:30
  I got a job in a bakery and I was there for probably about, I
• 15:34
  don't know, maybe a year or so. I got a job, a second job after
• 15:38
  a while at a Honey Donuts, which was like a Dunkin' Donuts, Tim
• 15:43
  horton's. And so my first few months here
• 15:49
  I was working and I was going to school.
• 15:51
  I was going to school halftime because I had more credits in
• 15:54
  Arkansas than I did than I needed when I came to.
• 15:58
  Yeah. And so I ended up being in the
• 16:03
  band. I was became a diver on the swim
• 16:06
  team. We didn't have pools, you know,
• 16:09
  year round in Arkansas, but I learned to dive in the
• 16:12
  summertime there. And so when I came up here, I
• 16:15
  was a diving one day in the gym and the gym, the swim team coach
• 16:20
  actually saw me and asked me what I wanted my going out for
• 16:23
  the dive team. And I did.
• 16:25
  So I was on the dive team my senior year of high school and
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  and I would literally go to school at like 7730 in the
• 16:34
  morning and I would only be there for half a day.
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  The rest of the day I would be at work or whatever the case may
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  be. So were you thinking that your
• 16:45
  next step was to go to college? Or what was your, what was your
• 16:49
  like grand scheme plan when you were thinking I'm in Michigan,
• 16:53
  Uncle's got me set up with some jobs.
• 16:55
  I've got some extra credits here.
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  I'm working, I'm diving, going to school.
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  Were you thinking about the next step going into whatever?
• 17:04
  Not not completely occasionally, right?
• 17:10
  I had friends that I graduated from school with in Arkansas who
• 17:15
  were taking the college route because they came from a a
• 17:21
  family support system of college.
• 17:23
  Educated. Individuals, I didn't, I didn't
• 17:26
  have that, you know, my mother didn't have a college education.
• 17:30
  My father, I don't even know if he graduated My I mean, I really
• 17:36
  just don't have anyone that went to college and became this, you
• 17:41
  know, now with my generation of cousins.
• 17:44
  Yeah, we have, you know, I've, I have cousins that are in
• 17:48
  Homeland Security. I have one that just retired
• 17:50
  from the FAA. You know, I have cousins that
• 17:54
  are in the 20 years in the military in Texas and now doing
• 17:58
  their own school thing as well. And so, you know, we have gotten
• 18:05
  better with the next generation of the family tree.
• 18:08
  You know, whereas those prior to me, they were just domestic
• 18:12
  kids. You know, I had uncles that
• 18:13
  worked 30 years at the hospital and 30 years at GM.
• 18:18
  And, you know, it was just what they did.
• 18:20
  But again, they didn't have the college education.
• 18:24
  And so now one of the things that I always wanted to do, and
• 18:28
  I had this in mind when I first came to Michigan, when I was
• 18:31
  probably around 9, came up to visit my mother one time in the
• 18:35
  summer. And my mother lived on one side
• 18:39
  of town and my aunt lived on the other.
• 18:41
  So one day we had to walk to my mother's and we had to crossover
• 18:47
  Eastern Michigan University's College in order to get to a
• 18:50
  resident. And when we did, it was the
• 18:54
  first time in my life I had gone to a school that big.
• 18:57
  You know, it was like, I was like, I want to go to school
• 19:00
  here. So that was part of my thought
• 19:03
  process and coming to Michigan. I wanted to go to College in
• 19:06
  Michigan, you know. Now, did I make it?
• 19:09
  No, that that's just a whole nother story.
• 19:11
  That's a whole nother story. So but I did end up in the
• 19:16
  Community College for a while. I was going for business.
• 19:19
  Computer technology dropped out. I dropped out because I had
• 19:24
  responsibility. I started having kids when I was
• 19:26
  17. You know, my first was born the
• 19:31
  year after I got to Michigan And so, and he was from Arkansas.
• 19:36
  He's passed now. He passed when he was 21, in
• 19:38
  2014. And.
• 19:42
  What was your thoughts with that, having kids at that age
• 19:45
  and what like how do you wrap your mind around being a dad
• 19:51
  1718 years old? I don't, I don't think that that
• 19:57
  was my thought process back then because he was in Arkansas and I
• 20:02
  was in Michigan, you know, so he wasn't with me on a daily basis
• 20:07
  in order for me to start curtailing my life around.
• 20:11
  I got this other kid to think about, this other human to think
• 20:14
  about. That didn't happen until I had
• 20:16
  my second and I had my second in in 96.
• 20:24
  So when I had my second, it's when everything started like,
• 20:27
  wait a minute, I got this person to take care of and I got these
• 20:30
  responsibilities. I can't just go without a job.
• 20:35
  I can't just go without having, you know, some form of money to
• 20:38
  pay the rent, to pay the light bill, to pay all these things.
• 20:42
  Were you? Drawn to technology back then.
• 20:45
  I was like, I say, I, I, I always have been.
• 20:48
  I got my mind just thinks like that.
• 20:50
  You know better too. I think so often it would be for
• 20:56
  children, when you see that they're more drawn to some
• 21:00
  things than others, then you should kind of explore what it
• 21:03
  is that they're intrigued with. You know, as opposed to saying
• 21:07
  no, no, no. I want you to be a doctor, just
• 21:09
  like your dad. Right, right, right.
• 21:12
  Explore it, feed it, see what it is.
• 21:14
  Yeah. Yeah, cuz had had that probably
• 21:16
  happened, which, you know, I, I can't flop my grandmother
• 21:18
  because my grandmother had a fifth grade education.
• 21:21
  You know, that was always one of the talks of the family. 5th
• 21:24
  grade education had nine children, 2 sets of twins.
• 21:27
  My mother was a twin. And so she did the best that she
• 21:31
  could. I know now that I'm 52 with my
• 21:33
  own children and own responsibilities, I am ever so
• 21:37
  grateful for the way that she raised me.
• 21:40
  I mean, listen, I remember when I was nine years old and I had
• 21:43
  to get up and go to those laundry mats with those bags of
• 21:46
  clothes. And I used to have to go to the
• 21:48
  store for her. And she would put the money in
• 21:51
  the little beaded pocketbook and I'd have to go into the store
• 21:55
  and give it to them. And hopefully they gave me the
• 21:57
  right shade. And she always told me make sure
• 21:59
  you get a receipt. You know, I just those things.
• 22:03
  A lot of responsibility. It was a lot of responsibility,
• 22:05
  but it, it, it, it prepared me for the person I am today, you
• 22:10
  know? So, so Carlos, walk us through
• 22:15
  so you're you're, you're in this in the 90s here.
• 22:19
  Did you get, did you start getting drawn into the street
• 22:22
  life or were there people around you where you were looking at
• 22:28
  different things that you could do that might be different than
• 22:35
  working on computers? All right, so.
• 22:38
  I left shortly after high school when I graduated.
• 22:42
  I graduated June of 91 and by September ish I was in Buffalo,
• 22:49
  NY with an uncle. I went to Buffalo, NY because I
• 22:55
  wanted to be a rapper. Right, of course.
• 22:59
  So of course, right. So this is the heyday of hip
• 23:03
  hop. So I'm in Buffalo, NY.
• 23:05
  I got to work with a lot of Rick James's old crew, Val Young and
• 23:11
  the Mary Jane girls I work with. He used to have a crew called
• 23:15
  the Do Rags and so I would work in the studio with them.
• 23:20
  The guy who I came into contact with, they were running a review
• 23:26
  at the Cotton Club there on the east side of Buffalo, NY, And I
• 23:30
  would do an appearance and do this song called Cry Gangsta
• 23:33
  Cry. I don't know why I remember
• 23:35
  this, but I would do this Cry Gangsta Cry song and, you know,
• 23:41
  as part of the review. And so I got real, you know,
• 23:46
  acclimated with being there in the hip hop scene and being
• 23:50
  around those individuals. The lady who had the club where
• 23:56
  I'm sorry, had the record label, her name was Candy Newkirk, Miss
• 23:59
  Candy Newkirk. She owned a home on Grand Isle.
• 24:03
  Anyone that lives in Buffalo knows where Grand Isle is.
• 24:06
  It's kind of like one of the well to do areas of that
• 24:10
  location. And so she was also a live in
• 24:15
  nurse for a Doctor Who was credited with helping with the
• 24:20
  1st. I think it was artificial heart.
• 24:25
  Surgery. Doc as I remember him, he was
• 24:28
  older even then. It was like 91 back then, the
• 24:31
  first time I saw ACD. Now, we've come a long way since
• 24:37
  then, but she had ACD player in a Cadillac Allante Doc had
• 24:42
  bought her for her birthday in 91.
• 24:46
  You know, drop top Cadillac Allante red interior.
• 24:49
  I'll never forget it. And so I stayed there for a
• 24:53
  while with them. But I had a girlfriend back here
• 24:57
  in Michigan and the girlfriend and I were kind of on rocky
• 25:01
  terms and things weren't working out as we had planned.
• 25:05
  And so first love of my life, I'm like, you know, I got to go
• 25:10
  back home to be with her. And so I ended up coming back
• 25:14
  home to Michigan and things just didn't work out.
• 25:18
  So they didn't work out. And I've been here ever since
• 25:21
  then. And so once I got back and I had
• 25:26
  to find a job, you know, I worked little jobs like factory
• 25:31
  jobs, you know, but nothing that ever quite made me a whole lot
• 25:37
  of money. Just always living check to
• 25:39
  check to check, you know, So when you live check to check to
• 25:42
  check, you do certain things. Not everybody is responsible.
• 25:45
  Probably like you where we're at.
• 25:46
  I'm just saying, right. So I mean, if it wasn't like
• 25:50
  playing pool for money or I learned to gamble, right,
• 25:55
  shooting dice or playing poker or anything in order to try to
• 26:00
  get more money. And so that ultimately led me to
• 26:04
  having more problems than successes.
• 26:08
  And so I remember one time I was down probably about 29,000
• 26:15
  shooting pool and. My my uncle was a big pool
• 26:18
  player. I, I, I played pool just because
• 26:20
  he taught me how I was a kid. But he would go to the pool
• 26:23
  halls and then gamble and do it. But he was a hell of a pool
• 26:25
  player. But you know, even if you're
• 26:27
  held a pool player, you can get down.
• 26:29
  That's somebody else's better pool player, of course.
• 26:31
  There's only one guy in this life I've never been able to
• 26:34
  beat and his name is Howard. We used to call him Night Train
• 26:37
  and he's he's still around to this day, but I've never beat
• 26:41
  him ever. And he's the person that I owe
• 26:44
  the 29,000 to. That's you know.
• 26:47
  And so just with that being the case, I was open to anything and
• 26:53
  everything that I can make a little more money on.
• 26:56
  You know, I got to get this debt off my head.
• 26:58
  So during that time, my mom, she was in a relationship with a guy
• 27:04
  that he did some real dumb. He went out to a area bank and
• 27:10
  he sat in the car and waited for a lady to go into the bank and
• 27:14
  he jumped out and he snatched the deposit bag that she had and
• 27:20
  got away. But unluckily, someone happened
• 27:26
  to get the license plate number of the vehicle.
• 27:29
  The vehicle was registered to my mom.
• 27:32
  And so my mom, they, the officers went to see my mom.
• 27:38
  And of course, you know, she's not going to give him up, didn't
• 27:40
  want to give him up. And they asked her, you know,
• 27:44
  well, do you have any sons, any brothers, whatever?
• 27:46
  Well, I have a son now. My mom didn't know at that time.
• 27:49
  I was already on probation. I was on probation because I had
• 27:52
  broken some windows out of a vehicle because I got into it
• 27:55
  with this guy and who we're friends to this day.
• 27:59
  So my mom told them about me and the officers came to see me and
• 28:06
  you know, of course I didn't do it.
• 28:07
  I had to take a lie detectors test and everything.
• 28:10
  But when my mom called me to tell me about it, I went to her
• 28:15
  house and, you know, she brought out this satchel of deposits
• 28:21
  that he had snatched. And it was more money that I had
• 28:24
  ever seen in my life. I remember I'm working these
• 28:28
  jobs, check to check child support being taken out at that
• 28:32
  time, too. They were killing me, you know,
• 28:35
  And so I'm looking at all his money.
• 28:36
  It had to been, I don't know, maybe about $12,000 in cash.
• 28:40
  It was in cash so it looked like a lot.
• 28:42
  First thing that popped in my mind was I can do that.
• 28:49
  I can do that because first of all, I'd cover my license plate
• 28:52
  up or take the license plate off.
• 28:54
  Ding, Ding, Ding. You know, not one time did I
• 28:58
  think not to do it. It was I can do that.
• 29:01
  Yeah. You know you.
• 29:03
  Can do it better than the way he did it.
• 29:06
  I'm going to be a better criminal than him, I.
• 29:07
  Never. Thought about whether or not I
• 29:09
  was going to be a criminal. I just thought about that I
• 29:11
  could do it and I went and did it.
• 29:15
  And it was fair to say it was one of the worst experiences
• 29:21
  that I have had in my entire life as being a quote, UN quote
• 29:26
  felon. Because the confrontation I
• 29:30
  didn't like to. I always have carried with me.
• 29:33
  If someone did that to my mother, to my dad, then how
• 29:37
  would I feel? You know, that's where the
• 29:39
  Roosters really do come home to nest.
• 29:42
  So I never did that again ever. And but again, it just spiraled
• 29:49
  me to a whole nother mindset. OK, So what can you do now?
• 29:55
  At some point, the boundaries that were set in place by
• 30:01
  whether it was the church upbringing or my grandmother,
• 30:05
  they lowered, you know, and often, I like to say, I know for
• 30:09
  a fact when my grandmother died, all of it went out the window
• 30:12
  because I didn't care. For many years, I just simply
• 30:16
  did not care, you know? And for many years, my whole
• 30:19
  belief system was, well, you're not going to kill me.
• 30:22
  You're not going to kill me. I didn't care whether it was a
• 30:25
  relationship I was in or whether it was getting pulled over by
• 30:27
  the police officers. I tell you, I remember the first
• 30:30
  time I got pulled over near my the same aunt's house, and I
• 30:34
  probably was maybe 2324. So I get pulled over by the
• 30:39
  officers. I'd run a stoplight and they
• 30:44
  check my ID and everything. And they say to me, he said,
• 30:48
  have you ever been to prison? I said, no, Why?
• 30:53
  You sure? No, I have never been to prison.
• 30:57
  Why? OK.
• 31:00
  And he said it as if I would should have been or that I was
• 31:05
  destined to be in prison. And I've always thought about
• 31:10
  that. Well, you know, and so many,
• 31:16
  many, many, many, many years after that, after living the
• 31:20
  life of taking the chances that I did, I mean, I started for a
• 31:23
  while. I sold dope, you know, Again,
• 31:27
  remember, the pastor said. There's three things I want you
• 31:29
  to do. Right, He told you the three
• 31:31
  things I. Started selling dope, stopped
• 31:33
  selling dope when the house that I was supplying got raided one
• 31:39
  day. And this would have been a 95
• 31:43
  ish because and the reason I can remember these days is because
• 31:47
  it's the day that I met my son, my second son's mom and he was
• 31:51
  born in 96. And so I had gone to meet her
• 31:55
  for the first time and while I was away the house got raided.
• 31:59
  And so I stopped that day. Never have sold nothing of dope
• 32:04
  ever again. You know, because back then if
• 32:07
  you got caught with an 8 ball, you were going to do 20 years.
• 32:10
  Right, right. You know, and so it just
• 32:14
  spiraled into other things though now even throughout that
• 32:18
  time, I still was taking drop in classes at the Community
• 32:22
  College. That's interesting.
• 32:23
  You know, I took accounting. I took typing again.
• 32:28
  I mean, I'd. Be really straddling the fence
• 32:30
  really one was to rationalize I need this money and the other is
• 32:35
  is I haven't given up on myself with the education piece.
• 32:38
  Well, I don't I can't say it like that.
• 32:39
  What I will say is this, we are pre program that you need higher
• 32:46
  schools of education. We're pre programmed, right?
• 32:49
  I agree with that. In order to get a great job, you
• 32:51
  got to go to school, right? In order to be the best version
• 32:55
  of yourself, you got to go to school, you know, and I learned
• 32:58
  that that wasn't actually the truth.
• 33:01
  You just need to be educated now.
• 33:03
  Now you will be one or the other.
• 33:06
  You can go to the military and be educated or you can go to
• 33:10
  college and get your degree, or you can get out here in these
• 33:13
  streets and end up in prison and get educated, right?
• 33:16
  You take your choice. Whatever 1 you want to do.
• 33:18
  I'm, I'm, I'm good with it, you know.
• 33:20
  But one way or the other, if you live long enough, you will get
• 33:24
  educated. Yeah, just depends on what the
• 33:26
  education is. I mean, you know, you look at
• 33:29
  all these technology companies out there, Carlos, you've got
• 33:32
  Bill Gates, you've got Dell, you've got Oracle, you got all
• 33:36
  these guys that with jobs, they're, they, none of them
• 33:39
  completed college. Well, thank you for reminding
• 33:43
  me. I appreciate that.
• 33:44
  But I mean that that's you just made a really great point,
• 33:47
  though, is that that the they knew what they wanted to do.
• 33:51
  They educated themselves in a different way to make it happen
• 33:54
  for them that no one else could see how they were.
• 33:58
  Going to do it, I think. I think like them, I'm just
• 34:01
  obsessed with whatever the subject matter is.
• 34:04
  If I'm going to be a criminal, I'm going to be the best
• 34:06
  criminal, period. I don't care what it is, if it's
• 34:08
  bank robbing, if it's hijacking, whatever it is, I'm going to be
• 34:12
  the best because I'm obsessed with whatever I set my mind to.
• 34:18
  When it came to even being a partner here at the school and
• 34:21
  building it out, I was obsessed with it for many years.
• 34:25
  I mean, there were many nights that I didn't sleep because I
• 34:28
  had to figure out how do we come up with systems in order to find
• 34:32
  whether it be veterans or general students are fast for
• 34:36
  students or how do we hire people offshore to be members of
• 34:41
  the team? We had never done it before.
• 34:43
  I got to figure it out. So I'm spending time online in
• 34:46
  the wee hours of morning when when it's 4:00 in the morning
• 34:50
  here, it's 4:00 in the afternoon somewhere else.
• 34:53
  Right. Right.
• 34:53
  You know so. I'm curious, Carlos, on your all
• 34:59
  this. It was kind of you're going to
• 35:00
  schools. You were, you were what was what
• 35:04
  was the big thing? Because I think you said you
• 35:06
  went three times, but what, what was the one that caused the 11
• 35:12
  year stint? What was that one?
• 35:15
  The first it's when one time, like I said, I owe the 29,000
• 35:22
  and I went out with a guy to do a break and then entering and
• 35:28
  and going with him. It was to get liquor for a party
• 35:32
  that we were going to have. It was a liquor store right up
• 35:34
  the street. And he was like, we can break in
• 35:37
  there and get all the liquor we need.
• 35:38
  We didn't have to pay for it. All right, let's go.
• 35:43
  You know, young and dumb. And so I went with him and we
• 35:47
  get these these Gray carts, carriers, these bins and we fill
• 35:53
  them up with liquor. We had like three of them and
• 35:57
  you know, I don't know if anybody ever, ever, ever carried
• 35:59
  1/2 a gallon or anything, but I can tell you that they are
• 36:03
  heavy, you know. So, you know, we get them out,
• 36:07
  throw them in the back of the car and leave.
• 36:08
  And as we were living, there was all these cartons of cigarettes
• 36:13
  on the counter and I decided I'm taking them.
• 36:17
  So I grabbed one of the containers, took the liquors out
• 36:20
  and put the cigarettes in the bins and we left.
• 36:25
  So when we left, we got all this liquor that we're having this
• 36:28
  party for. And I got these cigarettes.
• 36:30
  And so I also had a friend at the time, he was an Indian guy
• 36:35
  and his dad, they owned this convenience store.
• 36:38
  And so I, I got in contact with him.
• 36:40
  I said, hey, I got these cigarettes, would you guys be
• 36:42
  interested in them? So I took it down to them and he
• 36:47
  went and presented it to his father.
• 36:49
  And his father said, you know, look, I'll give you half price
• 36:53
  for every carton. Can you get some more?
• 36:58
  What? So back then a pack of
• 37:02
  cigarettes was probably like 435, right?
• 37:05
  So I always give this analogy, a pack of cigarettes, 430, five,
• 37:10
  $4.35. There's ten in a carton, right?
• 37:14
  That's $43.50. If you get 100 cartoons, that's
• 37:19
  $4350. If you get 200 cartoons, that's
• 37:27
  8600 or $700.00. You start doing the math.
• 37:32
  So in the. Cigarette business.
• 37:35
  Instantly I had one of those. You had distribution.
• 37:39
  Instantly. So from that incident, whenever
• 37:44
  I would go out, I only wanted cigarettes.
• 37:47
  Cigarettes. And we're talking at a time when
• 37:49
  you didn't have on this every street corner, the camera system
• 37:52
  that they have nowadays. You didn't have the patrol cars
• 37:56
  with the AI systems that could read your license plates and all
• 38:00
  those things. You know, this was way back
• 38:02
  when. This was a time when most of the
• 38:04
  places you went to, whether it was the convenience store, the
• 38:07
  liquor store or the pharmacy, they didn't have that armor
• 38:12
  guard that they have now. You know, very seldom would you
• 38:16
  go to a place and they actually would have armor guard on the
• 38:19
  doors. Now I'm in Michigan, I'm not in
• 38:21
  South Central LA, you know, so a lot of times it was just simply
• 38:26
  smashing the front glass out, sticking your hand and open the
• 38:29
  door and going in or just walking through the glass, you
• 38:32
  know. And so, but that became my skill
• 38:35
  set. You know, I and it, I'm going to
• 38:38
  tell you it was really weird too, because I guess I can talk
• 38:41
  about it now. It's been so long ago.
• 38:43
  I mean, there were instances where I would try, I would take
• 38:47
  my team and we would literally hit, we call them hit licks.
• 38:51
  How to look it up. So we would we would do breaking
• 38:55
  inner rings into businesses that were next door to police
• 39:00
  officers. Wow.
• 39:03
  For the thrill of it, you know, we just go about the business,
• 39:09
  go about the station that was next door.
• 39:11
  Now, of course, these aren't your primary locations.
• 39:15
  A lot of these are going to be satellite police stations.
• 39:18
  And you know, our whole plan is how fast can we get in to grab
• 39:22
  them. Now we can grab upwards of maybe
• 39:25
  200 cartoons in less than two minutes, less than which I, I
• 39:30
  mean, to this day, I don't know if where you guys are located
• 39:32
  at, but to this day I still see the younger generation doing
• 39:37
  this. You know, they break into
• 39:39
  businesses and they only take the cigarettes because there's
• 39:43
  still a black market. For them or cigarettes.
• 39:46
  You know, now you got to fade. When I used to do it, it was
• 39:48
  435. Nowadays in Michigan, I think a
• 39:52
  pack of cigarette it may go for like 1335.
• 39:55
  I'm sorry, 1030 fives. And I can only imagine how much
• 39:58
  it goes for in a New York and a California.
• 40:01
  Yeah, right, right. You know, and so all it takes is
• 40:06
  for you to have the wherewithal to do it.
• 40:10
  And I've always, this is again, this was my education time, this
• 40:15
  was my learning time because I learned early on that everybody
• 40:18
  is not built for the same thing, right?
• 40:21
  Think about that. You know, I would take certain
• 40:23
  guys with me and they would get in.
• 40:26
  And as soon as that alarm went off, man, Harry, what are we
• 40:29
  going to do? Come on, man, we got to get out
• 40:30
  here. We got to go that pressure
• 40:32
  bustle and I'm like, chill out, calm down, you know, and but at
• 40:38
  the same time, if you took me out with the guy that was going
• 40:41
  to murder somebody, then I'm what are we going to do?
• 40:43
  Come on man, we got to hurry up and go because that's not my
• 40:45
  thing, you know, so. Did you ever worry about the the
• 40:48
  group of guys that you're with? Somebody would get hit and then
• 40:51
  tell, tell every, you know, tell on everybody, snitch them out.
• 40:55
  We got hit. Who told you we didn't get hit?
• 40:57
  I got hit a few times. Hello.
• 40:59
  I'm a see prefix. I'm a see prefix.
• 41:03
  We got hit. You know, I remember the last
• 41:06
  one of the last times I was standing in front of the judge
• 41:09
  and she said to me, she said, Mr. Harris, I see that you have
• 41:12
  all these felonies and you've been to prison and yet you
• 41:16
  continue to do what you're doing.
• 41:17
  Apparently you're not that good of a criminal.
• 41:19
  And I just sat back like the I was like the fat cat who ate the
• 41:23
  Canary. Yes, your honor, because I
• 41:26
  literally can count hundreds of times that I've gotten away.
• 41:30
  Right, the few times that they caught you, I want to take a
• 41:36
  break here because when we get back, I want to talk about how
• 41:39
  you handled yourself inside and, and and then how you recreated
• 41:45
  yourself when you got out, because I think it's a hell of a
• 41:48
  story. Before we do that, I want to
• 41:51
  recognize, hey, a lot of people listening to this show, maybe
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• 41:57
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  can take $100 off the DIYSEO course with coupon code
• 42:42
  Nightmare Success. And Nightmare Success is is a
• 42:45
  podcast that is sponsored by the White Collar Support Group, the
• 42:49
  world's first support group devoted to people navigating the
• 42:51
  white collar criminal justice system.
• 42:53
  I'm a member of the White Collar Support Group, and I can tell
• 42:55
  you this is a bunch of people who help each other through the
• 42:57
  criminal justice journey for free.
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  Whether you're just starting your journey or you've made it
• 43:02
  through to the other side, this is great space for you.
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  Join us on Zoom Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
• 43:09
  For information, go to prisonist.org.
• 43:11
  It's prisonist.org. Start here.
• 43:14
  So Carlos, the judge tells you, you know, you're not that, but
• 43:18
  at at some point you get this, this sentence.
• 43:22
  I can't remember where you told me you went, but did you do the
• 43:26
  whole stent of 11 years or was it a combination that took it to
• 43:29
  11? It was a combination taken to
• 43:31
  11. OK, What was your longest stent?
• 43:34
  My longest stent was five years, two months.
• 43:36
  OK, so my first time I went from December 2000, December 8th, 99.
• 43:42
  I got out July 10th, 2003. OK.
• 43:49
  The second time I went in October 6th, 2005.
• 43:54
  I got out November 30th of 2010. Then my last time I went in
• 44:06
  November 1st 2013 and I got out September 23rd 2014.
• 44:16
  So I'm curious that last time that you went, 'cause you know,
• 44:23
  like I've heard you say this on, on other podcasts, you know, you
• 44:27
  figure out how to do prison. You know, that's the one thing
• 44:30
  about prison is, is that once you've gone, it's not the scare
• 44:34
  of the unknown anymore because you know what it is, right?
• 44:38
  As you were in there that last time, were you thinking anything
• 44:41
  different because you've done so many different things this last
• 44:45
  time after you got out, were you scoping out in your world like
• 44:49
  I'm coming out and this is going to be a different me?
• 44:54
  Or what was going on with you when you were doing your last
• 44:57
  stint? We can't even get to the last
• 45:00
  stint before we even just take it for what it is.
• 45:03
  The first one, Okay. Anybody that has done time
• 45:06
  before knows how difficult it is to reacclimate yourself once you
• 45:11
  come home. One of the hardest.
• 45:12
  It's just, it is what it is. Yeah.
• 45:14
  You know, And so it's not that I wasn't transforming my thought
• 45:21
  process even from the first time.
• 45:24
  It's just that I didn't have the support and the opportunities
• 45:27
  that you have in 2025. Right.
• 45:30
  I didn't have it. Yeah.
• 45:31
  You know, the best they would tell you when you came home is
• 45:34
  that you could go down and get a bridge card and get, you know,
• 45:37
  some government assistance and maybe some Medicaid when you
• 45:41
  came home because you've been going to prison forever.
• 45:44
  Forever. How long, You know, I come home
• 45:46
  and one of the first things I had to start doing is figure out
• 45:49
  how I'm going to pay child support because I had one of
• 45:50
  those baby Mamas. Yeah.
• 45:52
  You know that She's going right down.
• 45:54
  She's reporting. She wants to know why she's not
• 45:56
  getting a check. Right.
• 45:58
  You know, and I've been out every bit of three hours.
• 46:03
  So. So it just, I already had from
• 46:07
  the first time a desire to want to do better.
• 46:11
  I just didn't know how. I didn't have a Brent that was
• 46:15
  doing, you know, the podcast to where I could consume
• 46:19
  information to tell me that there was somebody just like me
• 46:22
  and they were doing it better and different.
• 46:26
  I didn't have that. And so that's why, you know, I
• 46:29
  even agreed to even tell this portion of my story yet again,
• 46:32
  because I've gotten away from it over the years.
• 46:35
  You know, I used to go to these meetings over at the parole
• 46:38
  center here up parole office. And I did that for a number of
• 46:42
  years, and I got away from it because I felt like my story had
• 46:46
  been told enough, you know? And here recently, I've gotten
• 46:52
  thrown back into the mindset that more people still need to
• 46:57
  hear the story. You know, oh, I, I, I totally
• 47:01
  agree with that. I mean, like, you know, you and
• 47:03
  I have talked this goes into 1100 prisons and I think it's
• 47:06
  incredible for people to have the opportunity to hear a story
• 47:11
  like yours because the to to have the hope.
• 47:15
  I mean, I we're. That's hope.
• 47:17
  Is hope is a big deal? That's the word, yeah, that's
• 47:20
  the word. Because when I was in there, I
• 47:22
  didn't see anybody like me, right?
• 47:25
  I didn't see anybody in technology like me, Ma.
• 47:28
  Mark Zuckerberg doesn't look like me.
• 47:31
  Mark Cuban doesn't look like me. Bill Gates doesn't look like me.
• 47:34
  Nobody looked like me. We can talk about Myspace,
• 47:38
  whatever the case may be. They didn't look like me, you
• 47:41
  know? And so yet I was being drawn to
• 47:46
  a technology space that I kind of feel, feel, feel like, you
• 47:52
  know, a lot of it was through trial and error.
• 47:55
  But at the same time, I was already being prepared for this.
• 47:59
  I really was, you know, because I'll share it with you before.
• 48:03
  I've always thought in systems, you know, setting up a system,
• 48:07
  whether it was distribution for my illegal cigarettes, you know,
• 48:11
  or whatever the case may have been.
• 48:13
  Every good business has a system.
• 48:16
  And you know, and, and you, and you have those people in your
• 48:18
  life, whether it was that significant other or whether
• 48:21
  that family member or whatever that would tell you, oh, you
• 48:23
  can't do this forever or this is not a real job.
• 48:26
  But you're learning some of the same things that I can guarantee
• 48:31
  you I still use in my work today, same skills.
• 48:36
  If you don't know how to talk to nobody in the street, you won't
• 48:40
  know how to talk to anybody in a meeting on this side of the
• 48:42
  fence. If you don't know how to
• 48:45
  maintain your composure when you're on the yard inside of on
• 48:50
  the back 40, you won't know how to do it over here and you you
• 48:54
  won't get the type of opportunities that maybe you got
• 48:57
  on the back 40 over here because nobody wants to deal with you
• 49:01
  because you're not grounded enough.
• 49:03
  Right. So you have to learn those
• 49:07
  mindsets over on that side in order to get here.
• 49:09
  Again, I didn't come from a background where my father had a
• 49:13
  business and I wanted, I aspired to be an entrepreneur like him.
• 49:16
  I didn't. I was literally just following
• 49:19
  bumbling around in the dark throughout life and this thing
• 49:22
  found me. It literally found me.
• 49:26
  I had no idea when I was getting out those times and I would sit
• 49:31
  up and YouTube myself to death and my significant other would
• 49:35
  be in the other room slamming doors because she couldn't stand
• 49:38
  that I was on YouTube more. I've learned so much from
• 49:42
  YouTube University. You know, we were just talking
• 49:45
  about how even to this day it's nothing to find me up from 11:00
• 49:51
  at night to maybe I've done it. Last week I was up till 5:00 in
• 49:55
  the morning. I was on TikTok, but why I'm on
• 50:01
  TikTok and why you on TikTok? Maybe something totally
• 50:03
  different. I'm not just aimlessly
• 50:05
  scrolling, I'm learning. You know, I think that that's
• 50:10
  the one thing that we tend to lose with our educational
• 50:13
  systems. And again, talking to a guy who
• 50:15
  has literally we're college. Yeah, you are college.
• 50:19
  DSDT. College.
• 50:20
  Yeah. And college technology, right?
• 50:21
  Right. Technology College and we have
• 50:24
  one course in medical and that's medical assistant program.
• 50:28
  But the one thing that I've learned that life is learning is
• 50:32
  a lifelong journey. It didn't stop when you got out
• 50:36
  of high school, didn't continue when you got in college.
• 50:40
  It's a lifelong journey and the sooner you learn the best way
• 50:44
  for you to learn, the better off you're going to be.
• 50:47
  I got two daughters. I have three boys, 2 girls.
• 50:51
  So my oldest daughter now is 25. My youngest daughter is 20.
• 50:55
  My oldest daughter, she went to college to become a audiologist.
• 50:59
  She went to Rush University down in Chicago.
• 51:02
  My youngest daughter is going to school now.
• 51:04
  She's a sophomore in college and she is taking, she wants to be a
• 51:10
  orthodontist. You know, college is college is
• 51:14
  for some people. For sure, absolutely.
• 51:18
  It really is, especially when you haven't had to do it like
• 51:20
  Carlos and you got out when you was 15 and you didn't have
• 51:22
  nobody to tell you college is for you.
• 51:25
  You know, especially if I'm paying for it, it's for you go,
• 51:28
  you know, Because remember, it's only three ways.
• 51:31
  I truly believe that you're going to get your education
• 51:33
  before you realize what you're going to do.
• 51:36
  Military, a university, or those streets out there.
• 51:41
  I don't want my babies in the street.
• 51:43
  They have. I tell them all the time.
• 51:44
  I've done a lot of everything where you don't have to do it.
• 51:47
  Yeah. And the military, now if they
• 51:50
  wanted to go to the military, I don't have a problem with that.
• 51:52
  I have a lot of family members that have gone to the military.
• 51:54
  If that's what you want to do, go ahead.
• 51:56
  But I do not want you end up in the streets, thus leading to
• 52:00
  prison somewhere. You know you don't have the
• 52:03
  liberty to do what I've already done for you.
• 52:06
  Well, let's talk about what you've done, because you and I
• 52:09
  both know you brought it up just a while ago.
• 52:13
  Carlos re entry once you're a felon and then they refer you as
• 52:17
  an ex felon is it's horrific. I mean it's tough it's you never
• 52:27
  know how many barriers you have until you hit the streets after
• 52:30
  you get out of prison. Some of it's quiet and some of
• 52:33
  it's in your face, but it's real.
• 52:37
  How did you swim through that? Because you, you did things and
• 52:41
  you've been interviewed about it.
• 52:42
  You know, you know, if I look you up, you know, you're talking
• 52:45
  about, you know, people with housing and stuff and you're,
• 52:47
  you're an advocate and everything in that world.
• 52:49
  How did you how did you start stepping out of that re entry
• 52:53
  and make make your way? I stopped listening to those
• 52:57
  that were in a place to tell me this, that and the other and
• 52:59
  start just doing what I thought would be best for me right.
• 53:03
  So when I was told that I did what was called ACMT program,
• 53:07
  one of those bits I want maybe it was my second bit and the CMT
• 53:12
  program, Custodial maintenance technician.
• 53:14
  I got the certificate and they pretty much told me that when I
• 53:22
  got out that I could get a job being a janitor anywhere.
• 53:26
  Hell no, Hell no. I want to be so much more than a
• 53:30
  janitor, you know? Now, mind you, throughout the
• 53:35
  years, there were times when I couldn't get a job but for a
• 53:38
  janitor. And there's nothing wrong with
• 53:40
  being a janitor, right? Right Now, Again, let's let's
• 53:43
  let's just be pragmatic. You don't get to sit here and be
• 53:48
  Carlos day one when you get out. Right.
• 53:53
  Let's just cut all the misnomers and dispel all the myths.
• 53:57
  It's not easy. Nope.
• 53:59
  But guess what? It's not supposed to be easy.
• 54:04
  Why? Because if it was easy,
• 54:05
  everybody. Would be doing it.
• 54:08
  You know, I'm just here and I'm sure Brett is as well to give
• 54:13
  you another opportunity to look at somebody that's doing it
• 54:17
  different, right? Because perhaps before you even
• 54:21
  met me, you didn't even know of anyone that was in one.
• 54:24
  The education space 2 that's in the technology space that had an
• 54:29
  extensive background such as myself.
• 54:32
  I lost my whole 30s in prisons. Well.
• 54:34
  I'll tell you what caught my attention about you is I saw a
• 54:37
  Google round table panel and Google was interviewing people
• 54:45
  that had made the most of their second chances, mostly in the
• 54:47
  technology field, and you and a few other people around there.
• 54:50
  And I thought, wow, yeah, wow, that's interesting.
• 54:54
  Yeah, that's that's outside the box.
• 54:57
  And, and, and don't really talk about it like that anymore
• 55:01
  because, you know, it comes to the point where now so many
• 55:06
  people know me, I don't have those issues anymore.
• 55:08
  I don't even have to bring it up anymore.
• 55:10
  I get more people now want to talk to me about what's going on
• 55:13
  with their loved ones and how might I be able to assist.
• 55:16
  For instance, I have to go tomorrow with someone that's
• 55:21
  going to meet with their attorney.
• 55:24
  They took a plea agreement in federal court for an incident
• 55:27
  that happened and never been in trouble before, never been in
• 55:32
  trouble before. At 75 years old, 75, now they're
• 55:38
  in a federal case. And I got to asking some
• 55:43
  questions about the way things were turning out and she
• 55:47
  couldn't answer it. And she said, will you go with
• 55:51
  me to see my attorney? Of course I will because she
• 55:55
  don't even know what you're signing up for, you know, and
• 55:59
  the attorney don't either. He's never been in the federal
• 56:02
  lock up anywhere. You know, I've been through so
• 56:04
  many courts and the judges, they give you all these pieces of
• 56:07
  paper and when you get to MDOC or wherever you're going, they
• 56:10
  tell you, I don't care nothing about that.
• 56:12
  They do what they want to do. You know, that piece of paper is
• 56:15
  only a suggestion, meaning that the sentence, the judgement, you
• 56:19
  know, So because this person is a personal friend, I'm going to
• 56:24
  meet with her and her attorney tomorrow.
• 56:26
  And there is actually a industry out here for individuals such as
• 56:31
  that. If you, I mean, just because
• 56:32
  you've been to prison, you have an innate talent OR canning
• 56:39
  expertise that a lot of other individuals don't have, right?
• 56:44
  You can speak from personal knowledge about what goes on
• 56:48
  there and there are people who will pay you for that knowledge.
• 56:56
  Think about that. You know, attorneys only know so
• 57:00
  much of what goes on in courtroom.
• 57:02
  They, the judge, don't know what goes on once you leave the
• 57:05
  courtroom. You get on that bus and you ride
• 57:07
  out to quarantine, wherever that might be.
• 57:10
  But you weren't thinking that when you got out.
• 57:12
  Of course not. Of course not.
• 57:15
  So what were your first steps? First step, the last time.
• 57:20
  Well, first of all, let me let me let me bring you up to there
• 57:22
  a little bit. All right.
• 57:23
  So each time that I got out, I wanted to do better.
• 57:28
  So I, I would be educating myself the first time when I got
• 57:31
  out, I started writing, you know, I wrote a few novels.
• 57:35
  I happened to come out at a time when independent self-publishing
• 57:39
  was a thing. So I did that.
• 57:42
  It didn't blow up the way I mean, because everything is, oh,
• 57:44
  I'm going to be rich. That's seller.
• 57:48
  Yeah, it's not working that way, right?
• 57:50
  So within time, I find myself going back to the same skill
• 57:54
  set. I it's guaranteed.
• 57:56
  I mean, even in 52 right now, if I needed X amount of dollars
• 57:59
  tomorrow in the bank, I know, I, I know how to go get it if I
• 58:02
  chose to do it right. And so the second time got more
• 58:09
  skills than I had the 1st, but yet here I am again.
• 58:12
  I'm faced with going to prison. Got caught out in Battle Creek,
• 58:16
  MI, which is about 3 hours from here, and I got sentenced.
• 58:22
  I remember, I remember that experience.
• 58:25
  I had a public defender, his name was John Sullivan, and they
• 58:30
  were trying to give me 6 years because my previous record.
• 58:34
  And so I wasn't taking it. No, I'm not taking six years.
• 58:39
  I'm the blasphemy. And so and you know, you start
• 58:43
  to play these games with the courts and the game is, well,
• 58:47
  I'm just going to sit here and hold you guys out.
• 58:50
  Either you come with a better deal or we can just go to court.
• 58:52
  If you're going to make me do the time, I'm going to do the
• 58:54
  time anyways, right. And so I remember the day John
• 58:59
  Sullivan came to me, he said, Mr. Harris, they're offering you
• 59:02
  27 months. If I was you, I'd take it, he
• 59:06
  says. The one thing I'll always
• 59:08
  remember about you is how callous you are.
• 59:13
  I looked at it. I said, Mr. Sullivan, when you
• 59:20
  help to get someone convicted and sentenced to prison, how
• 59:24
  well do you sleep at night? You know, I mean, cause for me
• 59:30
  it's only a job. Think about that.
• 59:34
  That's the reason why I'm able to shift the morality meter in
• 59:39
  my head, the ethical meter in my head, because it becomes just a
• 59:44
  job. I don't have no personal
• 59:46
  connection to it. Now, mind you, being where I am
• 59:50
  today, I have some personal regrets.
• 59:54
  I'm a business owner, you know, I, I, I violated the sanctity.
• 1:00:01
  Of a lot of people's businesses over the years so and my wife
• 1:00:05
  kind of gets on me that about this whenever something happens
• 1:00:08
  whether it be with the business or one of my vehicles or
• 1:00:10
  whatever, I look at it as being karma.
• 1:00:14
  I look at it being karma. True to form, I've got a
• 1:00:17
  contract with Fort Cavazos. Used to be Fort Hood down in
• 1:00:21
  Killeen, Michigan. I mean, Killeen, TX.
• 1:00:24
  It's where our second campus is. And I wasn't able to go onto the
• 1:00:30
  military base because of my felony background.
• 1:00:34
  And so again, I look at it as it's part of karma.
• 1:00:39
  It's it's that, it's that, that trouble I have to carry with me
• 1:00:44
  despite having done this, this, this, this, this, this, this.
• 1:00:48
  I'm reminded that this is what you did, you know, So I've
• 1:00:54
  learned to maneuver through other vehicles and other people.
• 1:00:59
  I can't go in the military base, but my wife can.
• 1:01:02
  My team can delegate. I learned also once I began to
• 1:01:09
  get into business set up and a lot of guys always talking
• 1:01:13
  about, well I'm going to get my EIN and I'm going to get my LLC
• 1:01:16
  Easy, simple, we can do that in 5 minutes.
• 1:01:18
  You really can. How do you operate it?
• 1:01:21
  You know, so my last time of getting out of prison, I set up
• 1:01:26
  in the LLC and it was going to be for digital marketing and I
• 1:01:30
  begin to operate in it. So whenever I went to report to
• 1:01:33
  my agent and they would ask me, have you found a job?
• 1:01:36
  Yeah, I have my own business and I'd show him a check stub
• 1:01:40
  wouldn't have any problems, didn't have any problem for two
• 1:01:42
  years that I was on paper, you know, so it becomes how do I
• 1:01:48
  reinvent myself using R rated the tools that are out here now.
• 1:01:52
  The great thing about the last time I was in, I already knew at
• 1:01:56
  one, I was coming home and two, what was before me, right?
• 1:02:00
  So it gave me a one. It gave me an upper hand on the
• 1:02:06
  person who was getting out with a prefix and had never done it
• 1:02:08
  before. I already know what to expect,
• 1:02:10
  so I know what I need to have him play in order to be as
• 1:02:13
  successful as I can. And so that's what I did.
• 1:02:16
  When I was in the last time I started studying business
• 1:02:19
  essentials, I had already written my business plan based
• 1:02:23
  on one of the books that I got my hand on.
• 1:02:25
  So I already have these things in motion when I showed up.
• 1:02:28
  When I showed up, I was ready to go.
• 1:02:32
  I just needed those opportunities.
• 1:02:34
  So I shifted in my mind the last time that I'm going to chase
• 1:02:38
  opportunities and not money. That's a big nugget of wisdom
• 1:02:44
  right there. Yeah.
• 1:02:45
  You just, you just laid out there.
• 1:02:48
  It's only because of chasing the opportunities that I've got to
• 1:02:51
  where I am today. Yeah.
• 1:02:53
  You know the first opportunity that I was given.
• 1:02:55
  And I think you can couple opportunities with purpose.
• 1:02:58
  You know, if you feel that passion, purpose and it's an
• 1:03:00
  opportunity, you couple those things together that creates
• 1:03:06
  whatever that is that success for you.
• 1:03:07
  And it's a lot of times that becomes with money.
• 1:03:10
  So you just reminded me, which I hadn't thought about a long time
• 1:03:13
  purpose driven life, Rick Warner, I read that.
• 1:03:17
  I mean, come on, when we're in there, we read all these.
• 1:03:18
  Books. They're all out.
• 1:03:20
  There, rich dad, poor dad. We read all this material, you
• 1:03:24
  know, and it comes back to remembrance when you need it,
• 1:03:27
  right? You know, And so I just simply
• 1:03:31
  was following a lot of that that I'd read.
• 1:03:33
  You got to execute it. Yeah.
• 1:03:36
  It has to become, you know, to the point that it's real for
• 1:03:39
  you. If you say that when I get out,
• 1:03:41
  I want to have a custodial maintenance company.
• 1:03:43
  Don't just be a janitor for somebody.
• 1:03:46
  Own a company. Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  You know, start your. Company, there was something I
• 1:03:50
  came across, it was this week, but it was it was talking about,
• 1:03:54
  you know, people who listen and they read and they'll take in
• 1:03:59
  more education. And they said that's all
• 1:04:02
  procrastination unless you take action with it.
• 1:04:05
  True that. Yes, that's absolutely true.
• 1:04:07
  It's absolutely true. And you know, you often hear
• 1:04:10
  people. This is a great nugget as well.
• 1:04:12
  Birds of a feather flock together.
• 1:04:13
  Show me who your friends are. I tell you who you are.
• 1:04:15
  It's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:17
  It's true. You talk about mentors, Carlos.
• 1:04:23
  It's where did those come into play here?
• 1:04:27
  Well, in order for me to get to where I am now, I had one mentor
• 1:04:31
  and I met him the week after I was home.
• 1:04:36
  Ezra, I know you probably see this.
• 1:04:38
  You'll probably see this somewhere.
• 1:04:40
  I don't know what it is, I'm sorry about that.
• 1:04:43
  But Ezra, Ezra Brown is his name.
• 1:04:47
  So I met this guy after I get home the last time, and he was
• 1:04:52
  at the parole office, and he was there to teach a business
• 1:04:54
  course. And my parole agent had said to
• 1:05:00
  me the previous week, you know, well, if you're interested in
• 1:05:03
  doing your own business, then you're going to need some
• 1:05:06
  entrepreneurial guidance. And I want you to come to this
• 1:05:09
  meeting next week. And yeah, so I came back.
• 1:05:16
  First of all, I was at a homeless shelter the last time
• 1:05:18
  when I got out. I didn't go back to the same
• 1:05:20
  place, the same, you know, city. I came to Detroit, downtown
• 1:05:24
  Detroit and I went to a homeless shelter.
• 1:05:26
  Was I homeless? No, I wasn't homeless.
• 1:05:28
  I caught a case in outside of Detroit in Wayne County.
• 1:05:32
  I'm from Washtenaw County, out with Ann Arbor, Ipsy.
• 1:05:35
  Well, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan in Ipsilanti.
• 1:05:38
  And when I was being paroled, I had a choice to either go back
• 1:05:43
  to Ann Arbor, MI or to come to Detroit.
• 1:05:46
  I chose the Detroit. Why?
• 1:05:47
  Because I needed something different, you know, I can't
• 1:05:50
  give myself a chance. Every time I get out, I go to
• 1:05:52
  the same place, same people end up doing the same thing.
• 1:05:55
  I want something different. So I was willing to go to a
• 1:05:59
  homeless shelter. Never been homeless in my life.
• 1:06:01
  And in fact, you know, the last time, the last time I went to
• 1:06:04
  prison, the day I went to turn myself in, there was a guy I was
• 1:06:08
  stopped to get gas and there was a guy out there digging in the
• 1:06:12
  trash. And I asked him, gave him a
• 1:06:16
  couple dollars and I said, makes you a question.
• 1:06:19
  If you were on your way to turn yourself in for jail, would you
• 1:06:24
  much rather go to jail or stay out here digging in the trash?
• 1:06:30
  He thought about it. He looked at me and he said I'd
• 1:06:33
  stay out here and dig in the trash.
• 1:06:36
  I said, why? He says, because at least I'm
• 1:06:38
  free. And I thought, and I said to
• 1:06:41
  him, I said, that's funny because I'd rather go to jail
• 1:06:44
  than to dig in the trash. Freedom is a state of mind.
• 1:06:52
  Think about that. Even when you're in prison,
• 1:06:56
  there are more people locked up in the mind than they are
• 1:07:00
  physically. Oh, yeah, you, you.
• 1:07:02
  When you get out of prison, you see people walking around that
• 1:07:04
  are have built prisons up in their own mind.
• 1:07:07
  Come on. Throughout their whole life.
• 1:07:09
  Come on. Yeah.
• 1:07:10
  So I had learned how to get past being in prison.
• 1:07:16
  In my mind, I could be free no matter where I am, you know,
• 1:07:20
  especially once you've been in a prison environment where your
• 1:07:26
  body has been locked up. You know, I often tell people
• 1:07:29
  and my sister and I was just talking about this a few days
• 1:07:32
  ago. Prison wasn't bad for me.
• 1:07:34
  I didn't have that whole bad experience.
• 1:07:36
  Nobody tried to beat me up. And, you know, nobody left any
• 1:07:40
  candy bars on my rack and nobody did none of that stuff.
• 1:07:43
  I never had any guys trying to cut into.
• 1:07:46
  I never had guys who look like girls trying to cut into me.
• 1:07:48
  I never had none of that stuff. And I'm I'm blessed because of
• 1:07:51
  that. And I know, and I don't say that
• 1:07:53
  to boast of brag. I'm just telling what my
• 1:07:54
  experience, your experience was, you know, and I'd like to think
• 1:08:01
  so because I had purpose and that wasn't supposed to be part
• 1:08:05
  of my story, you know? So now when I come across
• 1:08:10
  individuals that either are on their way, are going through, I
• 1:08:15
  can relate more to them than I can to these pH DS that I've
• 1:08:19
  hired. You know, they always find me to
• 1:08:22
  be a little bit rough anyway. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:08:27
  Nothing wrong with being a little edgy, Carlos.
• 1:08:28
  They find me to be because again, they say the CS and DS
• 1:08:31
  will hire the A's and B's. It's true.
• 1:08:34
  I've heard that. It's true.
• 1:08:36
  I'm believe me, I'm going to live.
• 1:08:37
  Let me test them on the other hire them, you know, and So
• 1:08:43
  what, what what triggered all of this?
• 1:08:46
  And we got a real, real quick hit on this my last felony
• 1:08:55
  February 13th 2000 I'm sorry February 6th 2013 went out with
• 1:09:02
  a Co defendant to do a break and entering to get cigarettes.
• 1:09:08
  That's all we did and it led to a high speed chase.
• 1:09:15
  We got, you know, caught and we both both our legs were broken.
• 1:09:23
  So again, I was 2013. Now, I tell that because this is
• 1:09:33
  before you George Floyd's, you know, and my mindset back then,
• 1:09:42
  even as I went through the court system, the main reason I was
• 1:09:46
  able to go to Circuit Court and get out on bond was because the
• 1:09:52
  judge looked at both of us coming to the courtroom on
• 1:09:56
  crutches and said to the prosecutor, I'm letting him go
• 1:10:01
  today. I'm letting him go today.
• 1:10:03
  She said, I won't say the the Police Department, but she says
• 1:10:09
  they always do stuff like this. And so my position was that, and
• 1:10:15
  I had a paid attorney and it was that, you know, I needed to be
• 1:10:19
  released because as I had been in in jail, my bond was
• 1:10:25
  $500,000. And the only way that I could be
• 1:10:30
  released to get medical attention was if it was reduced.
• 1:10:34
  And so for the whole of almost two months, I never had medical
• 1:10:39
  attention. So here I am on these crutches
• 1:10:43
  in the jail cell and I hobbled into the courtroom and she said,
• 1:10:48
  Mr. Harris, I'm letting you go home today, you know, and
• 1:10:52
  because I needed to have Amri done on my leg, at least that's
• 1:10:55
  what they were saying at the doctors in there.
• 1:10:58
  And so she gave me a bond that day.
• 1:11:01
  She it went from 500,000 to being APR bond.
• 1:11:06
  Well, her name was Judge Margie Braxton.
• 1:11:09
  She's not even practicing anymore.
• 1:11:11
  And that day, it was as if everything that I had gone
• 1:11:16
  through up till that point came to a dead center.
• 1:11:21
  She said to me, she said, Mr. Harris, I look at your record
• 1:11:25
  and I can tell that you've only tried, you've only tried to
• 1:11:30
  survive all these years. And she was right.
• 1:11:37
  I was only trying to survive, you know, given a limit, limited
• 1:11:41
  skill set, giving that I didn't have those mentors and that I
• 1:11:46
  didn't have the resources. I was doing only what I knew how
• 1:11:49
  to do in order to take care of me and my responsibilities.
• 1:11:54
  And for a judge to sit and say that that day, man, it was as if
• 1:12:00
  the heavens had opened for me. So when you ran into Ezra Brown,
• 1:12:06
  you were open to not just surviving, but really changing.
• 1:12:11
  Changing. I was open to change, you know,
• 1:12:14
  that last time when I was in, you know, with crutch, I was on
• 1:12:18
  a cane by then because I had had the surgery.
• 1:12:22
  And when I went to prison for the last time, one day I wake up
• 1:12:28
  and there were these two guys. Because you know, anyone who's
• 1:12:32
  been in those lower level prison systems, you know, they have
• 1:12:35
  these a lot of times they have these bunking areas where you
• 1:12:39
  may have up to 4-4 bunks or five bunks in a small area, you know.
• 1:12:45
  And so I was in this eight man holding area cubicle and I wake
• 1:12:51
  up this one morning and I hear these two guys adamantly arguing
• 1:12:56
  about having OD don't heroin in the city of Detroit.
• 1:13:02
  And I for the first time in my life, I thought to myself, what
• 1:13:06
  am I doing here? I it just it was as if I was I
• 1:13:12
  never in my life questioned myself that way.
• 1:13:14
  What am I doing here? Because I didn't have to be.
• 1:13:19
  Right. I didn't do heroin, I didn't do
• 1:13:22
  crack. I didn't even smoke weed.
• 1:13:24
  I I never smoked, drank, I don't even drink anymore, you know, So
• 1:13:31
  I didn't have a lot of those vices.
• 1:13:33
  My thing was money. So that was a vice within
• 1:13:35
  itself. The only reason I kept going
• 1:13:39
  back to prison was because I kept chasing money.
• 1:13:44
  So guess what? It wasn't hard for me to figure
• 1:13:46
  out how to stay out of prison. Right.
• 1:13:49
  I don't chase money no more Look at it now.
• 1:13:52
  Let's let's just sit here and the dissect is I stopped chasing
• 1:13:56
  money in 2013. It's 2025 and I have yet to be
• 1:14:02
  back to prison. Yeah.
• 1:14:04
  And you've, you've got, tell us a little bit about what this
• 1:14:08
  'cause you know, the things that you've got, you've got a
• 1:14:10
  contract with the Department of Corrections.
• 1:14:13
  You do the college what as far like what the Department of
• 1:14:20
  Corrections what what do you do with the Department of
• 1:14:22
  Corrections? All educational, Yeah.
• 1:14:25
  So we were running, we had this agreement with the Department of
• 1:14:30
  Labor, and in 2017 they were offering a contract to MDOC to
• 1:14:38
  have 100 guys trained for a program in technology.
• 1:14:43
  It was pretty much part of a second chance grant.
• 1:14:47
  And so they had an institutional college that was servicing it
• 1:14:51
  prior to us coming along. And they had dropped the ball.
• 1:14:55
  And I like to think because I was a returning citizen, all the
• 1:14:59
  more why they wanted to work with us because I got it.
• 1:15:03
  And so they gave us a chance in order to service those 100
• 1:15:07
  individuals and complete that contract, which we completed, I
• 1:15:11
  want to say we completed in maybe 19.
• 1:15:14
  And so at that time I had AI had team members that would go down
• 1:15:21
  into Jackson, lower level Parnell and they would go, we
• 1:15:26
  have what's called vocational villages.
• 1:15:27
  And in those villages they are giving them training for CDL
• 1:15:31
  training for, you know, various trades that when they get out,
• 1:15:35
  hopefully it gives them a better opportunity to be employed.
• 1:15:38
  And so we provided the training for the technology piece there,
• 1:15:42
  as well as another institution, Adrian, that we were working
• 1:15:46
  with individuals. And so from there we've been
• 1:15:53
  able to grow into a formal college.
• 1:15:56
  Back then, we were only just a training school, you know, you
• 1:16:00
  know, only had students out of Detroit.
• 1:16:03
  They got wind of it. I remember the day Miss George
• 1:16:06
  came here to talk to us about possibly training for MDOC, you
• 1:16:10
  know, and, and so I can tell you early on, I would have those
• 1:16:15
  bouts with imposter syndrome. Sure.
• 1:16:19
  You know, I literally would feel like I'm not supposed to be
• 1:16:22
  here. I mean, hey, just a couple years
• 1:16:24
  ago I was in prison. What about you're doing?
• 1:16:25
  You're the guy in charge providing providing the service,
• 1:16:29
  yeah. You know, and so I went from
• 1:16:32
  being in prison cells and, and, and I can tell you too, I can
• 1:16:36
  remember some of those first meetings, especially with the
• 1:16:39
  parole agents. Oh, they don't believe nothing.
• 1:16:41
  You know, time will tell. Time will tell.
• 1:16:45
  No, I'm not going back to prison.
• 1:16:48
  I'm not going back. I'm not.
• 1:16:49
  I promise you I'm not going back.
• 1:16:51
  And so I even I'm, I'm good, still good friends with the last
• 1:16:56
  PO that I had. He text me a few weeks ago after
• 1:16:59
  I had the heart attack to follow up with me to see how things
• 1:17:03
  going. But that has pretty much been my
• 1:17:07
  claim to stand on this side and stand in the space that I'm in
• 1:17:12
  now. Yeah, no, it's great.
• 1:17:14
  I mean, you're in education, you're in technology, you're
• 1:17:17
  giving people a a new trade really.
• 1:17:22
  I mean, you know, used to be, you know, electricians and, and
• 1:17:26
  these different technology now and AI and all those things.
• 1:17:29
  That's where people can really get a leg up And you're giving
• 1:17:33
  this through this, these college courses, which I think is
• 1:17:37
  fascinating. I mean, is your is your ultimate
• 1:17:42
  big plan, Carlos is to have this like a nationwide approach of
• 1:17:46
  what you've got in Detroit because you can, you've got a
• 1:17:51
  system you can duplicate. Well, we already, well when you
• 1:17:55
  say a nationwide approach, we have two campuses, one again in
• 1:17:58
  Texas and 1:00 here in Detroit. We also have online training.
• 1:18:02
  So we are allowed to train in all of the 49 states with the
• 1:18:07
  exception of California. California is different.
• 1:18:10
  And so we pretty much already have a national institution.
• 1:18:13
  See. So I always tell individuals to
• 1:18:15
  dream bigger, dream bigger. You know, we started out as
• 1:18:19
  Detroit School for Digital Technology, had to drop Detroit,
• 1:18:23
  and now we're simply just DSDT. That is the name DSDT because
• 1:18:27
  we're globally. How do people how do people get
• 1:18:31
  a hold of you? What?
• 1:18:32
  What's the website they go to to check this out?
• 1:18:35
  Dsdt.edu OK, So if you go there, you you can look at all the
• 1:18:42
  college, all the courses that we have.
• 1:18:45
  And in fact, we're in the process of opening an E campus.
• 1:18:48
  That E campus will allow us to do something that's
• 1:18:52
  fundamentally next to my heart. And that because I didn't come
• 1:18:58
  from a traditional college background, most of the
• 1:19:01
  individuals who work with me, they have one and, and, and kind
• 1:19:05
  of it has to be that way depending on whether you're an
• 1:19:07
  instructor, depending on what part of the administrative staff
• 1:19:11
  is the Department of Education, you know, has regulatory
• 1:19:16
  oversight that you have to have some form of background or some
• 1:19:20
  form of higher education. Me, I'll tell you to this day, I
• 1:19:25
  have a certificate that I got in 2000 for business technology for
• 1:19:31
  pretty much it was Microsoft courses, Excel, Word, Access,
• 1:19:35
  PowerPoint. And I took that inside and to
• 1:19:39
  this day that's what I used. You've done really well, Carlos,
• 1:19:42
  with that. You should have that thing blown
• 1:19:45
  up the size of a wall, that certificate.
• 1:19:49
  And you've also got a book that's on Amazon.
• 1:19:51
  It's called AI Prompt Engineer, which is out there.
• 1:19:58
  Yeah, I'm, I'm just, it's impressive.
• 1:20:00
  And I love the fact that this is going into prisons, that they
• 1:20:03
  can hear this, Carlos, because and I should, I should ask you,
• 1:20:09
  after all this that you've been through, what do you think is
• 1:20:11
  your greatest take away through all of it?
• 1:20:15
  Hands down the impact I had on my children, the negative impact
• 1:20:20
  that I had on my children, I would not take back anything
• 1:20:24
  that I've been through, what I've experienced, the breaking
• 1:20:28
  of the leg experience, you know the in and out of prisons, you
• 1:20:33
  know the times of going without. If I could be certain that my
• 1:20:41
  kids would be in a better place, I'd go back in a hard a hard 2nd
• 1:20:48
  to make sure that they didn't have to feel the pain and
• 1:20:50
  experience some of the things that I now know that they are
• 1:20:54
  going through. I didn't realize how much my
• 1:20:58
  actions were affecting the people around me, mostly my
• 1:21:02
  children. I thought, you know, as the
• 1:21:04
  father, oh, it's protect and, you know, provide and by any
• 1:21:08
  means necessary. You get out here and you do it.
• 1:21:10
  And, and you know, if you go home and you have an eviction
• 1:21:14
  notice and if you got to go down here and rob the bank in order
• 1:21:17
  to make sure they don't get put out on the street, then you do
• 1:21:19
  what you got to do. That's how my mindset was.
• 1:21:23
  And I realized now that I did more damage in being away as
• 1:21:26
  long as I have to not only only them, but to just our
• 1:21:29
  relationship. See, the kids don't understand
• 1:21:32
  how much you sacrifice for them, right?
• 1:21:36
  They don't know. They don't.
• 1:21:37
  They don't even care. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:21:40
  They don't care. But I didn't ask you to do.
• 1:21:42
  It but if I if I'm if I'm reading this right, yes, that's
• 1:21:45
  that's that was incredibly hard for them and the time spent away
• 1:21:51
  from them. But it sounds like you're close
• 1:21:53
  in your world with them now and involved in their lives, which
• 1:21:58
  is is great. I am I am and it's still
• 1:22:02
  evolving relationship like my 25 year old daughter.
• 1:22:06
  She is the most like me. Yeah.
• 1:22:11
  She is so much like me. So you don't want.
• 1:22:13
  The DNA thing works, you know? Yeah.
• 1:22:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes you you
• 1:22:18
  think just because I'm dad and I say this and this is the way it
• 1:22:20
  is, that's the way it's going to be.
• 1:22:21
  And no, not this new generation. Somebody told them they can
• 1:22:25
  divorce you. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:22:29
  I mean, that's a better dad. That's what a thought, the
• 1:22:31
  thought process is with them nowadays, you know, So I just,
• 1:22:37
  if there was any one thing that I could change, it would be the
• 1:22:40
  impact, the negative impact that I caused my children to have as
• 1:22:45
  I was away. You know, I could have done
• 1:22:47
  better about that. But everything else, I chalk it
• 1:22:50
  up because it was part of the process for me to get here.
• 1:22:53
  Yeah, You know, to where you are now.
• 1:22:56
  That's and that's another take away.
• 1:22:58
  Everything you've been through provided the opportunity to
• 1:23:01
  follow what you're doing now because you have a confidence
• 1:23:05
  that maybe you wouldn't have had to step into it.
• 1:23:07
  Think about that. I love that word.
• 1:23:09
  I love that word confidence. I remember when I was young, I
• 1:23:13
  had an issue inside with one of the guys that went to a Bible
• 1:23:17
  study with me and he said, you just so arrogant, you so
• 1:23:20
  arrogant. And it hurt me because I really
• 1:23:24
  liked the guy. But I always thought arrogant
• 1:23:27
  meant negative, you know, because a lot of times we don't
• 1:23:30
  read dictionaries. You just arrogant.
• 1:23:33
  I'm not arrogant who you think is.
• 1:23:35
  And so I was talking to one of the elders there about him
• 1:23:38
  having called me that. And he told me and I was young,
• 1:23:41
  I was probably about 2728. And he said to me, he said,
• 1:23:44
  Carlos, you're not arrogant, you're just confident.
• 1:23:47
  And a lot of time your confidence is going to make
• 1:23:50
  people feel in confident, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:23:54
  They're not as secure about themselves because of how you
• 1:23:57
  are. I don't, people don't bother me.
• 1:23:59
  I don't care if you're president, whoever, and I don't
• 1:24:02
  care if you are a guy on the side of the street.
• 1:24:05
  I don't that I am me. I'm in my world, you know, and I
• 1:24:10
  try to help as many people as I can.
• 1:24:12
  I've always been that way. It didn't just start when I got
• 1:24:15
  to where I am today. You know, it's just a part of
• 1:24:18
  how I was created and in the way that I'm made-up.
• 1:24:21
  Yep, Carlos, man, keep doing what you're doing because I
• 1:24:26
  think, you know, helping people doing what you're doing is
• 1:24:29
  making a difference in people's lives.
• 1:24:32
  And there's no better feeling than that.
• 1:24:34
  Speaking of gratitude, I want to thank Homestead Financial here.
• 1:24:38
  That lets me use this podcast studio with all these fancy
• 1:24:42
  lights and equipment. If you've got home mortgage
• 1:24:45
  needs out there, that's that's Greg Aftiev at Homestead
• 1:24:48
  Financial. He knows it all.
• 1:24:49
  Check him out. Greg Aftiev if you're looking
• 1:24:53
  for my book out there, I've also got one on Amazon.
• 1:24:55
  Barnes and Noble nightmare success.
• 1:24:58
  Keep sending and doing the the follows likes the shares the
• 1:25:01
  show. I appreciate it.
• 1:25:02
  Leave a review on Apple if you got time.
• 1:25:04
  If you want to know anything about what I'm doing, check me
• 1:25:06
  out at brickcassie.com. I spell it wrong.
• 1:25:09
  I spell it with ATY and not a DY at least say to my people when I
• 1:25:13
  was writing my emails back and forth from Leavenworth.
• 1:25:16
  Stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 1:25:19
  Carlos Harris, I appreciate you, man.
• 1:25:21
  Thanks for being on here today. Thank you for having me, I
• 1:25:24
  appreciate it so much. I hope this helps anybody
• 1:25:27
  anywhere that they are. I know it will.
• 1:25:29
  I know it will. Carlos Nightmare success in and
• 1:25:32
  out.