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From Prison to Properties: The Inspiring Journey of Donald Hinton · Nightmare Success In and Out

• 0:01
  What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
• 0:04
  Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
• 0:07
  Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
• 0:11
  nightmares and set yourself free.
• 0:13
  We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
• 0:15
  Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
• 0:20
  These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
• 0:24
  humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
• 0:27
  something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
• 0:29
  built up in your own mind. All right, Welcome back.
• 0:34
  I'm our success In-n-out listers.
• 0:36
  This is where you come for what happens when your worst fear
• 0:38
  becomes your reality. How do you adapt, survive,
• 0:41
  overcome? Set yourself free, folks.
• 0:44
  Don't forget to follow. Subscribe, share this thing out,
• 0:48
  like it up. It helps the show really does
• 0:50
  help the show. So who we talking to today?
• 0:53
  Well, I've got Donald Hinton and I was just telling you before we
• 0:57
  got on here, I ran across a video of him talking about who's
• 1:02
  Donald Hinton and I thought, wow, this is a this is an
• 1:05
  incredible story. This is inspiring.
• 1:08
  It's not a straight line up to success.
• 1:11
  It is a, a gridded out, figured out story that I really like and
• 1:17
  I love what he's doing now. He's he's an owner, Second
• 1:22
  Chance, the LLC, he's an author of the book Prison to
• 1:25
  properties. He's a speaker and the real
• 1:29
  estate investor side of it we're going to talk about because I
• 1:31
  think it's really cool on how he's been able to do that.
• 1:34
  Just stepped right into it and just kept going.
• 1:36
  Before we get into all that, I want to recognize the show
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  Autoplaza Direct. Tell them Brent from Nightmare
• 2:19
  Success sent you. Welcome in Donald Hinton, how
• 2:22
  are you? Man, I'm good.
• 2:23
  How you doing man? I'm I'm good, I'm good.
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  We were just talking before we got on here.
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  We've we've got a, a couple of strange shared experiences here
• 2:34
  of our dads that I don't know if a lot of people would have.
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  But you know, one of the things that really caught my attention,
• 2:43
  Donald, is, you know, at five years old, your dad goes to
• 2:45
  prison and take us back a little bit into your world.
• 2:52
  Growing up as a kid, mom, dad, siblings, what was it all like?
• 2:56
  All. Right.
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  So growing up it was since I, I was about 5:00, so I never got
• 3:05
  to know him for real. And before that he had did like
• 3:08
  3 years. So when I was born, he wasn't
• 3:11
  there. He was out for a minute.
• 3:13
  And then whenever I was five, he got sentenced to 20 years in
• 3:16
  federal prison. So I've never seen him.
• 3:20
  I've never seen him like outside of the walls until I till I got
• 3:24
  outside of the wall. So I was about 32 when I, you
• 3:27
  know, see my mom and my dad together and hug them.
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  So growing up, it was just my mom got three kids, one of my
• 3:36
  brothers, he went to go live with his auntie.
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  So it was just me and my sister growing up.
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  And my mom was, you know, dabbling in drugs and stuff.
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  So we ended up getting getting into foster care.
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  My auntie took us in and my grandma took us in bouncing from
• 3:53
  home to home. So it wasn't, it wasn't a stable
• 3:56
  home. It was just.
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  What was that like for you? I don't like from bouncing from
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  home to home being a kid. I mean, being a kid is kind of
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  tough anyway. You know, you're trying to just
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  figure out your way. What?
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  How were you taking all that in as a kid?
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  It was normal where we you didn't know anything different.
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  Yeah, it was normal. So it was like everybody don't
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  have a dad. So it's like it wasn't, it
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  wasn't nothing significant. But so when you when you don't,
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  you don't know it. You don't know what you don't
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  know, right. So you don't know that everybody
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  don't got dads. They all gone.
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  So it's normal growing up around all women and things like that.
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  So there's no father figures in our lives besides our older
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  cousins and our uncles and stuff like that.
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  So it was, it was just life, you know, so.
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  What was school life like for you?
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  Were you having to bounce around to different schools?
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  Were you staying in the same school?
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  Like what would how did that all play out for you?
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  Yeah. So I think we left my mom
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  whenever we was about maybe 8 or 9.
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  That's, that's, that's kind of the age range.
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  So we left her, went with my grandma, left my grandma, went
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  with my auntie. So yeah, we were changing
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  schools like that, but it wasn't like school wasn't like a big
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  issue because you know, my grandma and my auntie, they
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  were, you know, older, older women.
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  So they'll make sure you're on the right path, you know what I
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  mean? They ain't going to let you you
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  going to school every day, even if you sick tight, you know.
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  So it wasn't school wasn't nothing like that.
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  So I was a good student. You know, I even went to college
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  for two years. So it wasn't like I was just a
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  truant the whole the whole time. Now it was after I left with my
• 5:55
  mom. So I was like 16 when I moved
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  out on my own. Me and my cousin got our own
• 6:00
  apartment out in the project. So that was it started when I
• 6:05
  was about 14, but that was whenever it.
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  Really kicked off so you get your own place, 16 years old,
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  which is not 18 years old. Is that 20 years old?
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  That's 16 years old. You're in the projects.
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  What what is your life turn into with that situation?
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  I was 16, but I was grown so, so it, it's, it's like I got to be,
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  I got to pay bills now, you know, so even though our rent is
• 6:32
  only $40 and light bills is 200, I'm 16, she 18.
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  So we still, we kids, you know what I mean?
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  So she telling me to go to school, but I'm like, you ain't
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  my Mama. So it was like I go to school
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  when I want to. And I think I started, you know,
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  smoking and drinking. I went at about 14.
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  So when I was 14, my grandpa died and we went to his funeral
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  in Little Rock, AR. So I met the other side of my
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  family down there and I was smoking already.
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  So we was down there smoking and stuff like that.
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  And I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm about to come back and get some more
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  of this. So when I turned 16, I had AI
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  had a job as a dishwasher and I took that money and went to
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  Little Rock and started doing that.
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  So I transferred straight to the streets at about 16 and just
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  went. It was a roller coaster from
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  there. Did you feel like, Donald, that
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  because you had some foundation with your aunt, your grandma,
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  mom, all the did it feel like when you got out into the street
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  life, did you kind of feel like you were straddling the fence or
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  did you just dive right into that life?
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  Yeah, I jumped straight off the porch head first jumped into the
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  street. So by by us learning that
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  lifestyle earlier like my grandma and my auntie both had
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  husbands. We had a family.
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  We sat down and ate dinner by us seeing that at a young age.
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  I think it like it like molded me, but I was still too young
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  for it to solidify. So I'm I got the mode of a a
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  good young man, but I. Think I think it's interesting
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  though that you, even though you were living that lifestyle, you
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  found yourself two years into college.
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  Like how did you step into that? So college came whenever I moved
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  away. So living down there in the
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  projects, they tore down the projects I was about.
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  Where's this at? Where were you growing up?
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  I was growing up in Alton, IL, where I'm at.
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  Yeah, Yeah. So.
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  I'm here in Saint Louis. Yeah, so it's right there by
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  you, 20 minutes from Saint Louis.
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  So it's it's not a good, a good environment for real.
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  For real. But they tore down the projects
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  and I moved up to Iowa with my auntie, with another auntie.
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  And that's where I went to try to straighten my life out.
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  And I ended up graduating high school and going to college for
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  two years. And then I ended up catching a a
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  case up in Iowa. It was for some weed.
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  And they gave me probation and I ended up messing up on
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  probation. And that right there put out a
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  warrant for my arrest. And when they put out the
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  warrant and got me, I ended up having some more stuff with me
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  and a gun with me and that was how I ended up going to going to
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  do federal and state time. OK, so that's, that's a lot.
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  You just, we, we need to unpack that, Donald.
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  So you, you kind of you, you got into a deal, you got probation
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  and then when you got the, the warrant that then they picked
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  you up. You had a gun and, and, and, but
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  you ended up getting that much time on that because was it, I
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  forget what it was, it was 90. 90 months. 90 months federal
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  time, yeah. So they give you sick if you got
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  guns and drugs. It's a bad connect.
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  It's a bad mix. They.
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  Don't like that? Right.
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  Yeah. So I'll have crack also.
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  So I had a gun, a gun carry, five years, mandatory.
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  All right, so then they'll they'll give you the extra time
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  for the amount of drugs you had. So they put it all together.
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  That was 60 months for the gun, 30 months for the dope, then I
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  had to do 2 years for a probation violation.
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  So they they did those, yeah, they did those concurrent and I
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  had to do 1 and then go do the other.
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  So that's how I ended up getting so much time.
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  What were you thinking? I mean, how old would you have
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  been? You said how old was I?
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  Yeah. How old would you would that
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  would have been happening? I was 23 whenever that happened.
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  So that's a lot to look at at 23 years old.
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  What? What was going through your mind
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  when they laid you down with that sentence?
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  I was still I was still young and dumb.
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  So the the thing that the the guy said to the police said you
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  got to go do at least five years.
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  You need to tell on somebody. And I told him I got time to
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  kill. So that was, that was my mindset
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  back then, just like, Oh well, you know, so that was I didn't
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  understand. You don't understand.
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  Where did you head off to for federal prison?
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  I did two years in the state of Iowa and then the 1st place I
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  went was Oxford, Wisconsin, OK. What was it like?
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  So coming from the state, I was in a lower security so we didn't
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  have locked doors and things like that.
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  So when I went to Oxford, WI, they had the locked doors, they
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  had the control movements and things like that.
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  I wasn't used to it. So I'm in there like man, what
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  the I don't deserve this, you know, I just got caught with a
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  gun. Why y'all got me all locked up
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  and you know, you got to get out and lay down in a, in a certain
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  group and things like that. Like man, I ain't in no gang.
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  Why? Why I got to be with y'all?
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  I don't even know y'all. So it was just politics, and to
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  this day I don't like politics for that reason, right?
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  So because I thought the thing that was, you know, you
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  everybody has a certain part of their story where if they if
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  they if they hit a rock bottom and where they come from and
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  where they they start working their way back.
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  I think yours came with a visit. Can you walk us through that?
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  Yeah. Man, so like I said, my dad did
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  20 years in a federal prison. So he was actually in Oxford, WI
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  and I went to go visit him there.
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  So one day my son came to visit me.
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  At this time I was locked up for three years already.
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  So one day my son came to visit me.
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  He's been visiting me, but this particular time it did something
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  to me because it was the same exact visiting room that I
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  visited my dad at. So that right there just, I
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  don't know if it was just like me getting older and aged three
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  years later, I'm, I'm waking up like this is not for me.
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  So by me seeing my son in that same exact visitor room, it
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  broke me down. Man, I ain't a lot.
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  That was the first time I cried while I was in prison because if
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  I, if I didn't change, he would be in the same position.
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  He would be in the same prison, you know?
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  So I ended up putting down James Patterson, getting away from the
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  TV and just educating myself on what really mattered when I got
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  home. Was that hard to do in prison?
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  Because I know that, you know, there, like you said, there's a
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  lot of politics in prison and people, you know, you run with
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  your car and the certain people that you're with.
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  You had to probably break from all that and do a whole
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  different way of doing your time.
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  Yeah, so everybody wants you to come out to the yard at a
• 14:22
  certain time and come we sitting over here and things like that.
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  But now I was in the library. I was, you know, in my room or
• 14:31
  sitting out in the day room reading something.
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  I wasn't in the TV room watching TV when love and hip hop come
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  on. So it was yeah.
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  I changed man. They, I got distant, you know,
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  because that was is real now, you know, So I got to change.
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  I, I don't know. I don't know what else to do to
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  keep him out of here. So I got to change.
• 14:53
  Change yourself so he can see that is another way.
• 14:57
  What I meant to ask you this when you were talking about your
• 15:01
  dad, but did you have a relationship with your dad while
• 15:04
  he was serving his time and did you guys as a father and son was
• 15:10
  there did was there something there between you guys as as you
• 15:14
  were getting older and he was doing his time in prison and
• 15:17
  getting older? Yeah, man, so it was, it wasn't,
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  it wasn't nothing like solid, you know, he had called once a
• 15:25
  month and we had talked and he had write write a letter every
• 15:29
  once in a while. Like I said, we went to go visit
• 15:32
  him once or twice, but it wasn't like a real connection
• 15:36
  connection, you know, like we not talking every day and stuff
• 15:39
  like that. So it really wasn't a
• 15:42
  connection. But now that we older and stuff,
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  yeah, we he's still my dad. I still love him and he's still
• 15:48
  there for me. He helped me whenever he can.
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  But it wouldn't, it wouldn't nothing like that.
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  So. Yeah, so when you start getting
• 15:59
  close to I mean, because I mean you did some time.
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  I mean, I when I got my sentence, it was five years and
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  and I thought, man, that's that's sixty months and he 90
• 16:10
  months is basically double that, almost double that.
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  Did you have any strategies and things that you did while you
• 16:21
  were in prison that because there's bad days in prison.
• 16:25
  I mean there's tough days in prisons.
• 16:27
  Did you have a way that you walked through all that?
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  So yeah, like one thing that my dad did do was when I was in a
• 16:38
  county jail, he he just, he was getting out whenever I was going
• 16:42
  in, like literally like he got out like 2 months before I went
• 16:46
  in. So they basically switched us.
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  But one thing he said while I was in a county jail was, man, I
• 16:52
  start your store And like that right there was like the, the
• 16:59
  best advice a father could give a son in this, in this position,
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  you know what I mean? So I, I did, that's what I did.
• 17:06
  I started the store and I would sit in my room and read.
• 17:10
  People would knock on the door and get honey buns and cakes.
• 17:13
  And that was that was how I did my time.
• 17:16
  So then I got transferred to Lexington, KY.
• 17:21
  So this was a lower facility where it's also.
• 17:25
  A medical isn't. It.
• 17:27
  Yeah, it's a medical facility, so it's still ran like a medium,
• 17:31
  but it's a it's still lower slower, so there's no locked
• 17:35
  doors and stuff like that, but it's a lot more going on.
• 17:40
  So anything you want in these lower camps like phones and all
• 17:44
  of this stuff, you can get there.
• 17:46
  So if whatever type of time you trying to do, you are able to
• 17:51
  do. And there I wanted to educate
• 17:54
  myself and I wanted to stack some money.
• 17:56
  So I worked unicore in the day and then when I came home.
• 18:01
  For those that don't know what Unicore is, again, for those
• 18:04
  listening down the Cayman Islands, that is a, it's, it's
• 18:08
  like a, a big factory almost, you know, they, they take and
• 18:12
  they disassemble things. A lot of things come from all
• 18:15
  the federal buildings and, and, and our government and it comes
• 18:19
  to that area and, and they take it all apart and they sell those
• 18:23
  parts and do whatever. But it's the one place where
• 18:29
  that's a job where people can get paid more.
• 18:33
  You know, I the, the, but you know, it's, it's kind of like a
• 18:36
  factory job in prison. Like my job in prison.
• 18:40
  I was, I worked at the food warehouse and and, you know, we,
• 18:43
  we've had 2200 people and, you know, we had forklifts and all
• 18:47
  that this Unicore. And I think you were an
• 18:50
  accountant or something like that at Unicore.
• 18:51
  So I mean, it's like a, it's like you're walking into a
• 18:54
  business every day kind of, Yeah, So, so.
• 18:59
  What I tell people about Unicorn is, you know, those old movies
• 19:02
  whenever they making a license plates and stuff, that's prison
• 19:06
  slavery and it's still going on. What's?
• 19:08
  Going on today that's. Right.
• 19:09
  So if you look, if you look like where do they get these clothes
• 19:13
  from the print that inmates make them, Where do they get all of
• 19:16
  this stuff from? The inmates make them the F the
• 19:19
  FBI, they order chairs and stuff like that.
• 19:22
  Like we are the ones processing this stuff.
• 19:26
  So I was playing with the government.
• 19:28
  I was just watching a thing, Donald.
• 19:30
  That was somebody sent me that. It was on CBS This Morning and
• 19:35
  it was a prison in up and around Seattle.
• 19:41
  And they make prison, let's say it's called Prison Blues.
• 19:46
  And so they make all the jeans for everybody in the state
• 19:50
  system there, but it's also a popular brand on the outside
• 19:54
  that's very popular in Japan. So this is like a, you know, a
• 19:59
  big going business and all these guys in there are making these
• 20:04
  jeans. But they, even though it's
• 20:06
  pretty much like slave labor, they love the fact that they can
• 20:09
  get out and kind of feel like they're doing something, you
• 20:13
  know, that feels productive. Yeah, man.
• 20:16
  So I did it in the state too. It's called IPI in the state.
• 20:19
  We made all of the dorm room furniture for the Iowa, Iowa
• 20:24
  colleges. So like, I learned woodwork in
• 20:29
  the state prison. But yeah, in the feds, I was an
• 20:32
  accountant. So I was selling drugs on the
• 20:35
  street, learning business. And then whenever I went to the
• 20:39
  feds, they put me at a desk where I learned Microsoft Word
• 20:44
  and PowerPoint and stuff like that.
• 20:47
  So now I'm an actual accountant where I'm doing invoices and
• 20:52
  things like that. So now not only do I know the
• 20:55
  street, the how to make the money, I know how to.
• 20:58
  Yeah. So that was software, man.
• 21:03
  So that's why. So I ended up saving like
• 21:07
  $10,000 doing that. That's a lot because that's
• 21:11
  still you don't get paid a lot of money to to earn $10,000.
• 21:15
  Yeah. That's a lot of stamps for those
• 21:22
  for those who don't know in the federal system and it's may be
• 21:26
  different in some prisons, but most prisons are stamps.
• 21:29
  And because we don't have money, the money is stamps.
• 21:34
  And so like if you go to, you know, you want a soda, you know,
• 21:38
  it's maybe a couple of stamps. If somebody's made like a
• 21:41
  cheeseburger or something, it's, you know, maybe it's four or
• 21:43
  five stamps. The, the economy in the
• 21:47
  underground economy in prison is stamps.
• 21:49
  And that's, and I'm sure if you had honey buns in a shop and a
• 21:53
  store, you you had a lot of stamps.
• 21:55
  Oh, yeah, yeah, I was. They used to say, Brian, you
• 21:58
  were prison rich. And I didn't understand it
• 22:01
  until, you know, on the till you looking in from the outside,
• 22:05
  like, Dang, you got $500 and you in prison?
• 22:08
  Absolutely. Yeah, it's only $500.00.
• 22:10
  But some people don't have $5, you know.
• 22:13
  So yeah, I was literally rich up in there.
• 22:17
  You were prison rich. Well, I, I want to talk about
• 22:21
  the time that you started thinking about after all that
• 22:25
  time, you had to think when you got closer to the door, you
• 22:30
  know, six months out. I want to get and talk about
• 22:32
  that before we do, I want to take a break here.
• 22:34
  Recognize, you know, a lot of people don't like how they show
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• 23:20
  And I also want to say that the Nightmare Success Podcast is
• 23:23
  sponsored by the White Collar Support Group, the world's first
• 23:26
  support group devoted to people navigating the white collar
• 23:29
  criminal justice system. I'm a member of the White Collar
• 23:32
  Support Group, and I can tell you this is a bunch of people
• 23:34
  who help each other through the criminal justice journey for
• 23:38
  free. Whether you're just starting
• 23:40
  your journey or you've made it through to the other side, this
• 23:42
  is a great space for you. You can join us on Zoom Monday,
• 23:46
  7:00 PM Eastern Time, 4:00 PM Pacific.
• 23:50
  For information, go to prisonist.org.
• 23:52
  That's prisonist.org. So Donald, you, you get in,
• 23:59
  you've kind of made your life in there and you know, there's a
• 24:02
  weirdness that happens when you're in prison for a while.
• 24:05
  You, you start thinking, OK, I'm in this routine here.
• 24:09
  I know everything, I'm doing everything that's part of my
• 24:12
  routine. But then it gets time to start
• 24:15
  thinking about, Oh my gosh, I've only got 6 months and how am I
• 24:19
  going to jump back into society? How?
• 24:21
  What was going through your mind when that time was approaching
• 24:25
  you? You know, we all nervous because
• 24:28
  it's new beginnings, but the thing with me was I planned it.
• 24:32
  Like I literally wrote down what I'm going to do.
• 24:37
  I'm about to get into the stock market.
• 24:39
  I'm about to get into real estate.
• 24:40
  This is what I'm about to do. I'm not going back here.
• 24:43
  I'm going here. Everything I could, like I was
• 24:47
  looking anytime I could, I would get a newspaper about Iowa, like
• 24:53
  about Davenport, IA. I never been here before.
• 24:56
  I didn't, I didn't know nobody here.
• 24:58
  So I'm I'm in the newspaper and asking these guys on the
• 25:02
  compound, where should I go? What should I stay away from?
• 25:05
  They like, yeah, just stay away from 14th St. and things like
• 25:09
  that. So it's just things like that.
• 25:11
  That's how I prepared myself for a new beginning.
• 25:14
  I did. I was going to get dropped off
• 25:16
  and I was going to sink or swim. It's interesting too.
• 25:19
  You, you didn't go back to Alton, you went, you went to
• 25:22
  Davenport, IA. How did you make that or I mean,
• 25:24
  that's really starting new what? How did you make that happen?
• 25:28
  So what happened was I caught my case in Iowa, so I had to go
• 25:32
  back to the state if I didn't have a residence.
• 25:35
  So I didn't have I didn't have a residence and I wasn't going
• 25:38
  back to Alden or the town I got caught in.
• 25:42
  So Davenport was the closest place to my kids that had a
• 25:46
  federal halfway house. So I could have went here or I
• 25:49
  could have went to the Iowa City, and that's more of a
• 25:52
  college town, but I didn't want to go that far, so I went here,
• 25:59
  so. What was it like getting out the
• 26:02
  whole stepping out into the new world?
• 26:05
  It was exciting because you know, like I'm, I'm adventurous.
• 26:14
  Like I like I said, I used to go down to Little Rock when I was
• 26:17
  like 16. I used to just hop on the train
• 26:20
  and go to this big old city. I'm from Alton.
• 26:22
  That's 30,000 people going to a 500,000 people city.
• 26:29
  That was exciting for me going into the unknown.
• 26:32
  I used to get in cars where people I didn't know, like
• 26:35
  danger, like like stupid. But coming to the Davenport, it
• 26:40
  was the same thing. Like I'm about to get dropped
• 26:42
  off in this city. I'm about to thrive, you know
• 26:45
  what I mean? That was my mindset.
• 26:47
  So I got around to people that had the same mindset as me.
• 26:52
  You know, I couldn't get drugs if I wanted to because I don't
• 26:56
  know nobody here. So I went to the first person I
• 27:00
  knew and. I you found a landlord that you
• 27:04
  had a conversation with, can you share how that all happened?
• 27:08
  Yeah, man, so in the halfway house, you know, I had to go
• 27:11
  four months in a halfway house. So in there it was a list of
• 27:16
  landlord friendly, I mean felon friendly landlords.
• 27:20
  And dude's name was on the list. So it was just a random.
• 27:25
  By the way, that's hard to find felon friendly landlords.
• 27:28
  Yeah, So I just called him and he was, I was like, you got to,
• 27:33
  I'm about to get out the halfway house.
• 27:34
  You got property? It's like, yeah, I need first,
• 27:38
  last and a deposit. He, I think he charged me like a
• 27:42
  lot, but it was a one bedroom apartment and he came to the
• 27:47
  halfway house to get the money. Like he, he bought money though.
• 27:50
  But we just got to talk and like, I think I was meeting him.
• 27:57
  I met him at the library to sign the lease and I was excited
• 28:01
  because I was in the stock. This was back in 2019, twenty,
• 28:06
  whenever Donald Trump was first in the office and he would say
• 28:10
  something about tariffs in the stock market to go and then go
• 28:13
  right back down. I was making so much money
• 28:16
  whenever that was happening. So I was, I was at the library
• 28:20
  and I was just talking to him like, man, you in the stock
• 28:23
  market? Man, look, I just made $500
• 28:25
  today. And he's like, what?
• 28:27
  And he couldn't believe it. So I'm like, yeah.
• 28:30
  So he I asked him, hey, you got a property you want to sell?
• 28:35
  And he was like, it was during it was during COVID.
• 28:39
  So I think that's how I got lucky.
• 28:41
  I don't know. But it was a lady.
• 28:43
  She wasn't paying. He wanted her out.
• 28:46
  I think he was just tired of it. So he was just like, I'm just
• 28:50
  about to sell the building and here I come.
• 28:53
  I'm like, I got $10,000. You got a bill that you want to
• 28:55
  sell. So that was Chit Chain.
• 28:58
  Donald, I don't want to, I don't want to gloss over what you just
• 29:00
  talked about there because that the fact that you went and asked
• 29:05
  him, you know, a lot of people think I want to get, I would
• 29:07
  love to own something or I'd love to get into, you know, own
• 29:10
  a duplex or own a bill. But you got to find the
• 29:14
  opportunity and and you kind of felt around that and you just
• 29:18
  ask him and the opportunity was there.
• 29:21
  Yeah. And you had some dollars.
• 29:24
  Yeah. That's that's the thing, like I
• 29:27
  actually got a course where I teach this stuff and that's the
• 29:29
  first step, finding the deal. Like I said, do you got a
• 29:33
  property? Like most people don't have a
• 29:35
  property because they never asked somebody to sell a
• 29:37
  property or they heard somebody saying my grandma trying to sell
• 29:41
  her house and it it was Chinese to him.
• 29:44
  So they didn't hear the opportunity.
• 29:47
  So yeah, man, I asked him he he had one and it it all went
• 29:53
  through like it was supposed to. So getting a property, what how
• 29:57
  did you work that into, you know, because I think I remember
• 30:03
  right, Donald, you got that property and I think you got
• 30:07
  into a, did you get another property within that time?
• 30:10
  A couple of properties and then another nightmare falls on you.
• 30:15
  Oh yeah. So I got this property.
• 30:18
  So now it's a duplex. So I'm living in one and my
• 30:22
  tenant is paying most of the mortgage.
• 30:24
  I got a nice paying job it it was one of the highest paying
• 30:29
  jobs in this city. So I'm making good money and I'm
• 30:33
  living for what? Kind of job, were you?
• 30:35
  Doing a factory job called Sterilite.
• 30:37
  Sterilite, they make those plastic totes that you put your
• 30:41
  your underwear and clothes in. Oh yeah, yeah, we were making
• 30:46
  those. So I was making like $20.00 an
• 30:48
  hour coming out of prison, coming off of a $2.00 two dollar
• 30:53
  hour job. So.
• 30:54
  Big, big price increase our our income increase.
• 30:57
  I was, I was rich on the streets now you know, so, so I was
• 31:04
  saving all of my money, 4O1K and all of this stuff.
• 31:08
  And like I said, it's Chinese whenever you're following eight
• 31:11
  years. We was giving a lady a ride home
• 31:13
  from work one day and she was like, I'm trying to sell my
• 31:15
  house. So it wasn't Chinese to me.
• 31:18
  I said, what you trying to sell it for?
• 31:19
  She said 25,000. At this time, I had been
• 31:23
  studying real estate so long, I knew how to analyze a property.
• 31:28
  So you just go online, see where the property at, what is worth
• 31:32
  and all of these things. And I, I told she said 25,000.
• 31:37
  I knew it was worth more than 25,000.
• 31:40
  So I, I said, yeah, let me buy it.
• 31:43
  And at this time I was like a year out, so I didn't have
• 31:47
  everything a bank would require. So backtrack a little bit.
• 31:52
  My landlord sold me this property on contract.
• 31:56
  So a contract is basically an agreement that, hey man, I'll
• 32:01
  give you the 80,000. It was 95,000 basically.
• 32:04
  I'll give you the rest of the 85,000, but I need it back in
• 32:08
  two years. That's all the contract is and
• 32:12
  he sold it to me like that, so that's how I got.
• 32:14
  It basically he becomes the bank.
• 32:16
  He's the bank. He's the bank, but he won his
• 32:18
  money in two or three years. Yeah, a balloon payment is what
• 32:23
  they call it. So that's how I got the
• 32:26
  property, four months out of prison.
• 32:28
  So now I'm a year out of prison. And this lady, she says that
• 32:32
  she, she want to sell it. So now I don't have the job
• 32:37
  history. I got a good credit and I got
• 32:39
  the money but a bank still won't lend on that.
• 32:42
  So my girlfriend and I, we cosigned on it and then we ended
• 32:46
  up getting the other property. So now I got another property
• 32:49
  right? And then I'm celebrating having
• 32:54
  a good time and I catch a DUI. So it was my son's birthday, my
• 33:00
  sister come in town and we just out there having fun and I just
• 33:05
  was, you know, too comfortable. And yeah, I ended up catching
• 33:10
  ADUI. It was my fourth DUI because I
• 33:12
  used to drink a lot back before I got went to prison.
• 33:17
  So it was my fourth. So they ended up giving me like
• 33:20
  30 days in jail for it. Man, that that just had to be
• 33:26
  and and for a lot of people that that would could be a thing that
• 33:29
  just sends you into a spin and you don't get out of it.
• 33:33
  And you didn't do that. You got in and thought, man, I'm
• 33:38
  going to get myself so right. I'm going to even start writing
• 33:41
  a book. So yeah, man, whenever that that
• 33:45
  happened, it could have sent me into a spiral, but it it just
• 33:49
  opened my eyes. Like, man, you not doing what
• 33:52
  you're supposed to be doing. Like I feel like it's a purpose.
• 33:56
  Like God put me here for a purpose.
• 33:58
  I got AI got a purpose that I'm supposed to be fulfilling that.
• 34:01
  Now you out here drinking and having fun.
• 34:04
  We're going to sit you down for a minute.
• 34:06
  So during that 30 days, I ended up coming up with a book.
• 34:11
  I wrote a book called From Prison to Properties.
• 34:14
  For those for those who can't see that because anybody who's
• 34:18
  watching on Spotify, YouTube, you can and you can get it on
• 34:22
  Amazon because I just looked it up.
• 34:24
  Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I put it on Amazon and
• 34:29
  basically I had three properties at the time.
• 34:32
  So I'm like, yeah, I know something that I could I could
• 34:35
  sell. You know, it's a it's a product.
• 34:38
  I was selling products before I went to prison.
• 34:40
  It was just the wrong one. Kill my community.
• 34:44
  So now I'm like, let me create a product that actually helped my
• 34:48
  community. So I made this book and just
• 34:54
  started educating people, just telling them what I know.
• 34:57
  Like man, I'm living for free man.
• 34:59
  The only thing you got to do is. I hate when people say the only
• 35:02
  thing you got to do, but it's literally the only thing you got
• 35:04
  to do. Well, and I, you know, you and I
• 35:09
  were talking a little bit about you've, you've connected with
• 35:14
  Cardell Sims and, and Aaron Smith, both nightmare success
• 35:18
  alums that that have been on here.
• 35:20
  They do a lot of, you know, I, I call Cardell Sims the vision
• 35:24
  board man. You know, he, he's all about the
• 35:27
  vision board. And he started doing that when
• 35:29
  he was at Leavenworth and, and just that became he, he had, he
• 35:33
  had the vision and he went out and created it.
• 35:36
  And, and Aaron much the same way, you know, they, they think
• 35:41
  the same way. And I, I think the fact that you
• 35:43
  guys all have met up is really cool because the mindset, the
• 35:48
  beliefs, the goal setting, all those things that you guys and
• 35:52
  you're talking to kids and, and talking to them about this,
• 35:56
  right? Yeah, I thought I go into the
• 35:59
  juvenile center. So The thing is I was on
• 36:04
  probation. So when I launched this book
• 36:07
  like 2 years ago, my PO, she was happy for me but she didn't want
• 36:12
  me dealing with felons. So it was like a hurdle, like
• 36:17
  like I got this great idea, like these guys, we can help these
• 36:21
  guys, you know? And I think, I think, Donald,
• 36:23
  that's like one of the craziest rules in all of.
• 36:27
  I mean, you and I are sitting here talking and, and people
• 36:30
  who've gone through the experience can help other people
• 36:33
  that have gone that are getting out or, or getting ready to go
• 36:36
  in all those different things. It's crazy that that it's, and
• 36:39
  it's one of those things where some people enforce that and
• 36:42
  some people don't do anything with that as far as probation
• 36:45
  and, and the system. It's, it's, it's one of those
• 36:48
  things that just needs to be wided out, just be done with.
• 36:52
  Yeah, like. I understand why they throw it
• 36:55
  in there so they can enhance you if you do something stupid.
• 36:58
  But if they know like we're not doing nothing stupid, like we on
• 37:02
  a podcast together, why can't we be, you know, talking, You know
• 37:06
  what I mean? So, yeah, she was, she was
• 37:10
  against it. So they, Cardell and Aaron was
• 37:13
  going into prisons back then and they invited me to come with
• 37:17
  them to teach this real estate stuff.
• 37:19
  And she was like, Nah, I don't want it.
• 37:23
  So yeah, that led me down to the juvenile center, talking to kids
• 37:27
  and going into the high schools and stuff like that.
• 37:29
  So that was the route I took because it was the only route I
• 37:33
  could take. But and I love the kids and they
• 37:37
  do need to hear this success stories and what what they can
• 37:41
  do right now. But it's the the way I'm
• 37:43
  teaching it is more geared towards actionable steps.
• 37:47
  So I can't tell a kid about going into a bank right now
• 37:52
  getting getting a mortgage because they they not old
• 37:55
  enough. So they should know it.
• 37:57
  But it was this is more geared towards the people that can do
• 38:01
  it right now, like sit down right now, go on this, feel this
• 38:05
  out. You know what I mean?
• 38:07
  Actionable steps. Absolutely.
• 38:11
  Second Second Chance LLC, what's all involved with that?
• 38:15
  OK, so I created a second chance.
• 38:21
  It was it was about two, two, 2 1/2 years ago.
• 38:26
  So what the vision was was to when it was real estate, right?
• 38:34
  So now I got all of these OK, So over time I actually ended up
• 38:39
  acquiring more properties. So I have 15 now.
• 38:44
  So over time I was like, man, I can help these guys.
• 38:47
  I can give them a place to live. You know, I got a book where I
• 38:51
  can teach these guys this stuff and my, all my properties need
• 38:55
  work and lawns cut and things like that so I can get these
• 38:59
  guys a job. So it's like a trifecta of, of
• 39:02
  helping these guys, you know? So, yeah.
• 39:06
  So I haven't been able to, you know, promote it and actually do
• 39:10
  it like I want to because I was still on probation, but now I'm
• 39:14
  off probation. Now I can put these guys in
• 39:16
  these crib. Like I had a couple of them
• 39:19
  living there, but I just didn't tell her.
• 39:22
  But now as they start turning over, now I know who my targets
• 39:26
  is that I want to put in these places and then give them jobs
• 39:30
  like cutting grass or helping me out whenever I need, Yeah,
• 39:34
  painting done or something like that.
• 39:36
  Yeah, absolutely. I I love it.
• 39:38
  And and that's the only thing. That's the only way change
• 39:42
  happens. You know, Donald is people see
• 39:45
  something that's a problem and, and they go take actual steps.
• 39:51
  And now you're providing an opportunity for guys that can
• 39:56
  get into a place and with somebody that can actually teach
• 40:00
  them things and they can earn a little bit of money.
• 40:02
  I, I love it. It's it's those are the things
• 40:06
  that make a difference. Yeah.
• 40:08
  Man, I really do. So what are you going to do with
• 40:13
  now that you're off probation? You went down to Little Rock
• 40:17
  with Cardell and and Aaron. Is that what you see yourself
• 40:21
  doing more of? Oh yeah.
• 40:23
  So like I said, they wanted me to go into prisons with them
• 40:27
  back then. So now it's all locked in.
• 40:30
  Like I already got the deal signed with the prisons I'm
• 40:33
  about to. They just bought a whole bunch
• 40:35
  of my books and seated them in their prisons.
• 40:38
  So now I'm about to start going into these prisons teaching this
• 40:42
  stuff. So that's what's in the works
• 40:44
  right now. But yeah, overall, eventually
• 40:47
  I'm about to travel like I didn't.
• 40:48
  I never traveled for fun, for business.
• 40:51
  I I never traveled when I was doing dumb stuff, you know?
• 40:55
  So now I get to. So yeah, that's what I'm about
• 40:58
  to do. Well, the the good thing is
• 41:00
  this, this show goes into 1100 prisons.
• 41:02
  So they're going to hear about Donald.
• 41:04
  Head right here. Here we are.
• 41:06
  That's OK. A Dovo platform.
• 41:08
  They they, when I first got started with them, I think it
• 41:11
  was 250 prisons and now they're in 1100 prisons across the
• 41:14
  United States. So welcome back Donald Hinton to
• 41:18
  the population of where you're going to go and what you're
• 41:20
  going to do. I'm.
• 41:22
  Saying yeah, the goal was to get the books in there.
• 41:24
  Now I'm in there too. So yeah, that's fantastic.
• 41:26
  I'll work like it's supposed to. That's right.
• 41:29
  So, so Donald, what do you think after where, where you are right
• 41:34
  now and all the different things that you've gone through, what
• 41:38
  do you think's your biggest take away through all of it?
• 41:41
  Keep going, keep going because I didn't went through it business
• 41:45
  like legit business man, this stuff is hard, you know, so
• 41:50
  people don't people don't understand like ups and downs
• 41:57
  like broken promises. People like real estate, for
• 42:01
  example, people is not going to pay you, they're going to not
• 42:04
  pay you. You know what I mean?
• 42:05
  So you got to do evictions and stuff like that.
• 42:09
  Real estate is is not easy. It's not easy at all.
• 42:14
  I'm glad I did it and I wouldn't have changed nothing that I did,
• 42:19
  but it I would have did it a little bit.
• 42:21
  Now I know whenever I'm teaching these guys to do it a little bit
• 42:25
  different, you know? You got two sons, 16 and 14.
• 42:29
  What do they think of Dad? Man, they not like, they love it
• 42:34
  like I can I call him right now and be like, hey man, what's the
• 42:39
  price of silver? He going $32.
• 42:43
  So how they, how they bought him some silver, bought it for gold.
• 42:46
  And I, I teach him like, man, you see how your money is
• 42:49
  increasing and decreasing, like just showing him, you know,
• 42:53
  giving, giving him some, some tangible assets that he can, you
• 42:57
  know, watch and play with and understand.
• 43:00
  So that was something we was never taught.
• 43:03
  So I'll be showing him that, showing him like, like going
• 43:07
  into these houses, we go into the houses and we do work.
• 43:10
  So he's seeing that and. Role model stuff.
• 43:15
  Yeah, man, yeah. I couldn't be there.
• 43:18
  I, I messed up and I, I apologize to and for it, but now
• 43:22
  I can make up for it and what I like, you know?
• 43:26
  Well, and I think it, I think it means a lot to kids to see
• 43:29
  because, you know, I've talk to a lot of people that have kids
• 43:34
  and they see their parents go through what we've gone through.
• 43:38
  And, you know, I, I've always say this kind of like a broken
• 43:43
  record, but there's two ways to go with it, Donald.
• 43:45
  You can be a victim or you can be a survivor.
• 43:48
  And I think kids, if they see their parents step up, step out
• 43:53
  and, and survive and grid it through, there's a certain thing
• 43:57
  they learned from that, the victimhood thing.
• 43:59
  They learned that too. And I think what I love about
• 44:04
  your story is, is that man, it hadn't been easy at all.
• 44:08
  None of it was easy, but you gridded it out.
• 44:11
  You when you got to a certain point, you didn't quit you, you
• 44:14
  kept stepping in through it and that's surviving.
• 44:19
  And you keep learning, you keep getting better at it.
• 44:22
  And man, that's that's what life's about.
• 44:26
  That's what it's about. It's about that journey, not the
• 44:28
  destination. Right, Exactly.
• 44:32
  Well, I'll tell you that's I, I've, I was looking forward to
• 44:35
  this interview because I just, I love stories where somebody
• 44:40
  doesn't have a Direct Line to anything.
• 44:43
  It's a roller coaster ride, but you never stop, never give up.
• 44:47
  And Donald, I think you're going to go on and do some things,
• 44:49
  man. I really do.
• 44:50
  I think you, you've got, you're all about not just ideas, but
• 44:54
  action. And you put those two things
• 44:56
  together and you don't lose hope that that that can put fuel in
• 45:00
  the tank for a long time. Oh, yeah.
• 45:03
  Well, I want to thank Homestead Financial Home Mortgage.
• 45:06
  You know, they, they let me use all this fancy stuff here in the
• 45:08
  studio. If you've got home mortgage
• 45:11
  needs out there, Greg Aftiev is your guy.
• 45:14
  He, he knows all of his stuff. And we're talking about books.
• 45:18
  Go out and get the from prison to properties on Amazon.
• 45:23
  And while you're there, go ahead and get Nightmare Success is my
• 45:26
  book. And and it's on Barnes and Noble
• 45:30
  2. If you got time, leave a review
• 45:33
  on Apple. It's a great thing to help show.
• 45:35
  If you want to know more about what I'm doing, go to
• 45:37
  brentcassidy.com. That's spelled wrong.
• 45:41
  I spell it with ATY, not a DY, as I used to say when I was
• 45:45
  writing my emails and letters back and forth from Leavenworth.
• 45:48
  Stay strong. I'll do the same.
• 45:51
  Donald Hinton, man, thanks so much for being a guest here
• 45:54
  today. No problem man.
• 45:57
  Your success in and out.