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Damon West: From A Loving Home To Lifetime In Prison | E51 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Damon West: He said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water. He said, anything we put into this pot of boiling water, it's going to be changed by the heat and the pressure inside this pot. He said, I'm gonna put three things in that pot of boiling water that we call prison and watch how they change. A carrot, an egg, and a coffee meet. He said, if I put a carrot in a pot of boiling water, we call Chris and he said, What happened to the carrot? And I'm like, Mr.
• 0:25
  Damon West: Jackson. The carrot is gonna turn soft. You don't want to be the character of the prison. He said, What about the egg West? I was like, well, the egg is gonna turn hard, Mr. Jackson, like a hard boiled egg. Then he asked me the question. He said, What about the coffee bean West? What happened to the coffee bean in the pot of warm water that we call prison. He said if I put a coffee bean in the same pot of boiling water we call prison. He said now you got to change the name of the water to coffee.
• 0:53
  Damon West: Because he said the Coffee Bean was the smallest of the three things. He said small like you has the power to change the entire atmosphere inside that pot. Because the power is inside the coffee bean he said just like the powers inside you. He said everything else in life is going to be changed by the water west. The eggs are changed by the water the carrots change by the water. He says not the coffee beans. The coffee beans is the only thing that can change the water because they are the change agent. He said West be a coffee
• 1:27
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to a Search of Excellence which is about our quest for greatness in our desire to be the very best we can be to learn, educate and motivate ourselves to live up to our highest potential. It's about planning for excellence and how we achieve excellence through incredibly hard work, dedication and perseverance.
• 1:40
  Randall Kaplan: It's about believing in ourselves and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face on our way there.
• 1:46
  Randall Kaplan: Achieving Excellence is our goal and it's never easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities and surroundings and we all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is Damon West, Damon has one of the most incredible and inspirational stories I have ever heard. Damon is a former meth addict and head of an organized crime Marine who was sentenced to life in prison, who is now a college professor at the University of Houston, and one of the most sought after motivational speakers in the world. He is the author of four best selling books that have collectively sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages. His books are the change agent how a former college quarterback sentenced to life in prison transformed his world. The coffee being a simple lesson to create positive change, how to be a coffee being 111 life changing ways to create positive change and the locker room how great teams he'll hurt, overcome adversity and build unity. Damon is also a dedicated philanthropist he started the coffee bean Foundation to help him provide for children of incarcerated parents. One of the reasons of which is because a child of an incarcerated parent is almost 50% more likely to go to prison themselves one day, Damon it's incredible pleasure to have you on my show. Welcome to a Search of Excellence.
• 3:04
  Randall Kaplan: Randall thanks a lot, man. I appreciate the opportunity, man.
• 3:06
  Randall Kaplan: Look, your your technical crew.
• 3:06
  Randall Kaplan: We went through it and we find trying to find the opportunity and adversity but here we are.
• 3:12
  Randall Kaplan: That's the message for today.
• 3:12
  Randall Kaplan: We're going to talk about a lot of amazing things. Let's start with your family. I always start with our family. Because from the moment we're born, our family helped shape our personalities, our values and in preparation for our future. You were born in Port Arthur, Texas and grew up in a family with incredibly supportive parents who have been married for 54 years and have said you hit the parents lottery. Your mother was a nurse and your dad was a sports writer. In 1971. He became the first sports writer and that part of Texas to put black athletes on the front page of a sports page. Can you tell us about Joe Washington Jr? What happened when he did this? The box of hate mail he made you read and the influence that had on your future? Yeah, so Port Arthur, Texas is downward, Louisiana, Texas touch on the Gulf Coast, a little blue collar town a little refinery town, predominately black town. And I you know, I tell people all the time I grew up being one of the only white kids summer parties birthday party sports, you name it. In other words, this was a giant melting pot of a city. But in 1971 in Port Arthur, Texas, Southeast Texas, the region of Texas where I live in sports writers were not allowed to put black athletes on the front page of the sports page. There was a news there was a new publisher the paper in town in 1971, a guy named Bill Maddox, who, when I went on to be born in 1975, would become my godfather. But Bill mags came from the Lyndon Johnson administration in Washington where he worked previously. And Bill walked into my dad's office in 1971 and said, Hey, Bob, no, my dad was about a 26 year old guy at this point from Missouri. He had moved down to Texas to go to Lamar University. But he went into my dad's office and said, Hey, Bob, listen, we've got the best
• 5:00
  Damon West: sportswriter, I mean, at the best running back in America in our own backyard, APL American, Joe Washington Jr.
• 5:06
  Damon West: Goes to the all black school across town called Port Arthur Lincoln High School, this guy is going to earn the right to be on our front page. And we're going to put him on there. And I don't care what the policy said about, you know, black athletes can't be in the front page. He said, the policy has just been changed. And he said, Are you me? And my dad said, Yeah, I'm in. And so Bill told my father, he said, I do want you to understand and when we do this, that so much of what you know is going to turn on you. He said, But just know that we're going to be in this, this boat together, paddling together and both of our families and man, it was like Bill had a crystal ball. Because minute my dad, the first week of the football season, Joe, Joe Washington is on the front page of sports page. And immediately the hate mail starts coming in from other areas around Southeast Texas somewhat from within Port Arthur as well. They're broke my dad's windows out sometimes he was slit his tires. I didn't remember my dad told me a brick came to the window where my older brother was actually in its, you know, baby crib at one point in 1972. So my dad, in the middle of all this stuff stood his ground, and he had Bill the publisher standing behind him, he stood his ground. And later on in life, whenever I was a little boy, this is probably in the early 80s, my dad goes up in the attic, one day, he comes down with this box. It's got all these envelopes and letters in it. This is the hate mail, Randall. And he sat me down on the couch that day. And he had me read every one of those letters of hate mail, every nasty negative word that people said about my father and my mother, because my dad put a black guy on the cover of Sports page, but my dad, my dad told me back then he said, Damon, I want you to see what it looks like to take a stand and do the right thing. He said sometimes taking a stand doing the right thing.
• 6:48
  Damon West: What means you're gonna have to stand alone. But he said, it's always okay to stand alone, as long as you're standing on the right side of history. So I had a tremendous influence from afar, you know, 25 years later, random when I go to prison. This is one of the bedrock principles I build this new life one, that it's okay to stand alone as long as you're standing on the right side of history. And that I think that's a lesson that so many of us need to be reminded about, especially with how everything's going on right now in this country and in this world, that you've got to take a stand for what's right. And if you're right, then it's okay to be alone. I want to talk about something difficult for most people to talk about this problem is a lot more common than most people think people don't talk about it. But I think people should talk about it. And it's very important to get it out in the open. Can you tell us? What happened to you? Or can you tell us what happened to you when you were nine years old?
• 7:40
  Damon West: And how that influenced your future? Yeah, so you know, I was, I was molested by a female babysitter when I was nine years old and cannot tell my parents about it. My parents did everything they could they sent me to talk to family counselor, family priest, we prayed about it. We prayed a lot. My mom was one of those moms that has perfect and crosses over the house. You can't you can't escape God in my mom's house.
• 8:00
  Damon West: But but something aside, that little nine year old boy went to a place where a nine year old shouldn't go and I tell people all the time rail. The molestation thing when I was nine by a female babysitter, it wasn't one of those molestation things. It's so many people experience when they're molested at a young age where it's just devastating and breaks them.
• 8:19
  Damon West: What happened to me when I was nine years old, is that it's like this, there's a big giant door that kids aren't allowed to go on the other side, that's the adult door. And on the other side of the adult door, or all these other doors, but the adult door, the big doors lock, it's got bolts on his chains on it, you can't get into it as a kid, it's made to keep you out. But if you get on the other side of that door as an adult, there's all these other doors to different kinds of behaviors, drinking, doing drugs, sex, all the different things adults can choose to do, because they have free will. But those doors aren't locked on the other side of the big bolted up door. And as a nine year old, I got into that big door where only adults are supposed to go. And I started walking into all the other rooms because I was introduced to adult behaviors at a very young age. Does that make sense? Random chair that makes sense as descriptions so in my life with the molestation thing I tell people that it wasn't one of those things that just put me on this alternate course in life because I was a broke me. It put me on a different course in life in the sense that I was introduced to adult behaviors and I started indulging in some of those adult behaviors at 910 1112 years old things that adult things that kids are not supposed to be doing. You know, now I'm drinking my dad's beer out of the fridge because I see my dad drink beer on the fridge and once I do it, the chemicals.
• 9:44
  Damon West: I like the way it feels inside me the chemicals. And so I started drinking more beer at 10 years old. My mom smoked cigarettes at the time, so I would steal my mom's cigarettes and smoke or cigarettes. 1011 12 years old. 12 years old. I smoked my first joint you know, hang You know, some kids in the sixth grade, we smoke our first joint.
• 10:02
  Damon West: And and I start doing that habitually. I've got a lot of adult behavior. So I've got a lot of bad behaviors. And here's what I tell people all the time about this is I've got bad belief systems, your belief systems are so important, right?
• 10:15
  Damon West: Because your belief systems tell you how to behave, how to respond, how to react in any given situation. And when you have bad belief systems, you act in a bad way, you act accordingly to those belief systems. And I tell people all the time that my belief systems at 910 1112 years old, said, you know, damn, and all you're doing is drink a little beer smoke, well, pot, you're not hurting anybody. You're not even really hurting yourself. But I couldn't be more wrong, random because as I got older in life, and when I, you know, got into more difficult situations, and I couldn't deal with life on life's terms. I'd already been accustomed to putting chemicals to change the way I felt. And these chemicals would gradually change to something stronger and stronger as I went through life.
• 10:53
  Damon West: So that's what happened when I was nine years old, I got introduced to a world of adult behaviors. And it changed my way so that I saw other things in life like relationships, you know, I mean, when you're, you know, 1011 12 years old, you're experimenting with sexual activity. You start. You start basing all relationships on that. So yeah, that was how it affected me.
• 12:07
  Randall Kaplan: You could throw the football very, very well star athlete at Thomas Jefferson High School. He became a star in Division One quarterback at the University of North Texas.
• 12:17
  Randall Kaplan: football in Texas high school football is a religion. I had Kliff Kingsbury on my show, I don't know if you know, Cliff or who he is, but he was a star athlete.
• 12:25
  Unknown: Yes. I spoke to his team one time at Texas Tech.
• 12:28
  Unknown: Yeah, yeah,
• 12:29
  Randall Kaplan: Cliff is amazing. And he told me walk me through what it was like you're, you are the star of stars down there. You played three years on a D one, scholarship and college. You had a big hand at the time, as do a lot of athletes who get a lot of things handed to them. What goes up sometimes sometimes comes down.
• 12:47
  Randall Kaplan: Can you talk about how difficult it was to get injured and not play football? No, you're not going to make it again? And can you tell everybody what was going on in your life at that point and what you were thinking before you graduated?
• 13:06
  Unknown: Yeah, you know, so cliff is exactly right. High school football in Texas is a religion. I mean, people go on Friday nights to worship at the Cathedral is that we call these high school football stadiums.
• 13:16
  Unknown: And by the way, in Texas, some high school stadiums are bigger than some college stadiums in America, it would blow your mind how serious we take football, the game of football in the state of Texas, but that's what it is. And as a little boy, that was intoxicating for me and to play to be the quarterback, no less of a high school football team of five a school, the highest classification of the time in the 90s to be a three year starting quarterback, man, I was the man, I was the guy that everybody knew what was it also kept me out of a lot of trouble. You know, because it was very difficult for the quarterback of the team to get into any serious trouble because we need this guy on the field, we need him to win. And, and you know, I don't blame any of my behaviors on the treatment that I got. But obviously, it did not teach me any good lessons about life than if you could throw a football really well. There's certain other things can be bent towards your will. And look, addicts and addicts are known for being manipulative. And when I got a hold of this, I mean, I can manipulate that as well. Not just in high school. But in college. I mean, look, I went on the side of division one college football scholarship to the University of North Texas. And when I got to college, the behaviors show there. Because wherever you go, there you are, you know, none of the behaviors have changed. Just because I left Port Arthur and went to Denton, Texas, doesn't mean I've got this sudden case of act right in my life, got to college, and I was still the same person and got into some trouble but also got out of trouble. But my world changed September 21 1996 This is the day that I call it a fork in the road in life and Randall, we have fork in the roads in life.
• 14:53
  Unknown: These are big days days, that life is gonna change, you're gonna get knocked down really hard. And when you get back up and dust yourself off at the fork in the road, things are gonna look a little different.
• 15:03
  Unknown: You got hit really hard things you're in different places. But you've got a choice to make in every fork in the road, you can make the right choice to go the right way or the wrong choice to go the wrong direction.
• 15:10
  Unknown: September 21 96, we took the field against Texas a&m beautiful Saturday and College Station Texas. I'm 20 I'm starting quarterback for division one team in America driving my team down the field against the Aggies man that Aggies I mean, what little boy doesn't want to grow up playing against these guys are playing for those guys in the state of Texas. There I am from the 1000s on Kyle Field. Third play this game I go down career in an injury never played college football again. And when I get up to this fork in the road in life and football is gone. My identity went with it. Because I've made the mistake Randall of wrapping my identity up into something external. We can't do that in life. You know, I didn't understand that at 20 but your identity can't come
• 15:52
  Damon West: on something you attach yourself to, and tell people it can't come from social media, the car, you drive the house, you live in the job, you have your bank account. That's not you, those are things attached to you. Your identity has to come from within. But inside me, I had never developed an identity because my identity was being a quarterback being a star quarterback, September 21 1996, at 20 years old, that was gone. And I didn't know who I was. And like so many other addicts that have come before me when I get up to this forker voting life and football was gone. I made a lot of wrong turns, because I could not deal with life on life's terms. This is a reoccurring theme for addicts, and certainly in my life is the inability to deal with life on life's terms. So what do I do? I fall back on my belief systems, my belief system, remember said, hey Damon, you just drink a little beer. smokeable pot, you're not, you're not hurting anybody. You don't even hurt yourself. Now it's cocaine. It's ecstasy, it's pills. It's whatever I can put in to change the way I feel whatever Kimble because I can put in. But you know, Randall, I graduated college in 1999 was very functional attic, move off to Washington, DC. Job work in the United States Congress work for guy running for president united states in 2004 and moved back to Dallas, Texas to train to be a stockbroker for one of the biggest Wall Street banks of world UBS United Bank of Switzerland. And that was another fork in the road.
• 17:12
  Damon West: Randall. You went down at some point, I think one of your colleagues UPS gave you something to and you went down in the parking garage with him.
• 17:19
  Damon West: And then from there, it really spiraled even more downward. Can you talk to us for a second I grew up after college, I worked in a white collar environment. I went to law school I graduated.
• 17:30
  Damon West: I did some investment banking for large company. It was very white white collar. And really, it really doesn't matter between white collar or blue collar. But I think a lot of these people, I think most of the people listening to this podcast, are going on to professional careers, white collar careers.
• 17:47
  Damon West: It's unbelievable to me how many people I know who are still doing drugs in their adult life.
• 17:56
  Damon West: They've got kids, they're snorting cocaine. They're doing it at work. They're doing it at home. They're doing it recreationally. What's your, what's your message to all of them? I've seen marriages explode. I've seen people lose all their money. In one case.
• 18:05
  Damon West: This is really sad. I had a friend who was the CFO of several public companies. He was 60 years old, who was a marathoner. He did triathlons, and he started doing drugs. He got depressed, he was homeless.
• 18:18
  Damon West: And he died about six months ago, leaving two teenage kids and a wife in a very precarious, incredibly sad situation.
• 18:27
  Damon West: Did he die? Let me ask you this.
• 18:27
  Damon West: I'll answer your question. But I'm curious about this. Because today I'm in a program recovering Randall, I'm in AAA, and I'd love to talk about that the program recover and how it works. Yeah, but I hear hear stories about this all the time, you know, somebody that went their entire life. And once they retired, they had a lot of time on their hands. And, and one day, they fill it up with some chemicals, and they get hooked on that. And it doesn't take long before they're dead, because they've they've succumbed to the addiction.
• 18:55
  Damon West: But yeah, so I mean, how long after he started using Did he die? Well, like a lot of people who used to hide it, and they hide it from their wives, the wives don't know, the kids don't know. And at some point, it was too late. I guess at some point deep beneath he had bipolar. And that affected somehow his drug use, but he ended up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.
• 19:15
  Damon West: People tried to interview him and help him he didn't want it.
• 19:18
  Damon West: And it was really sad. He was living in a tent he hadn't showered in months. And finally they got the call, he died. He did not want to be helped and he could not be helped. I think,
• 19:27
  Randall Kaplan: you know, this, I've been to AAA meetings. I've been to 30 I dated someone probably 3035. I dated a girlfriend for two and a half years. I've been to many meetings. And I think the message there from what I learned, I'd love your perspective on this. You can't be helped unless you want to be helped. A lot of people have Masters of the Universe syndrome. We're successful, we can fix anything. And what was amazing to me is a lot of people don't know who are in those meetings is extremely confidential. Alright, colleagues in that meetings, investment bankers making $10 million a year and shockingly, my next door neighbor, you just never know. Yeah, you never know. I tell people all the time. You know, Randall, this is addiction 101 for anybody that's listening and wondering what the mind of it and the mindset of an addict is. Addicts give up their goals to meet their behaviors.
• 20:10
  Randall Kaplan: Addicts give up goals to meet behaviors, normal people focus people driven, successful people. They give up their behaviors to meet their goals, but not an addict. Addicts give things away. And when I talk about addiction there, I'm not just talking about drugs and alcohol random I'm talking about anything you can be addicted to drugs, alcohol, food, money, clothing, shopping, sec, pornography, the internet, Instagram, social media.
• 20:38
  Randall Kaplan: Anything that can take you away from the most important things in life can be an addiction, and you'll give up your goals to meet your behaviors. And your friend. Your friend was no different than me. I got into a program recovery. I got into that 12 Step Program recovery where I started getting tools and
• 20:52
  Damon West: The answer is to deal with my addiction. But before I was in a program recovery 2004 When I tried meth for the first time this other broker comes up, he sees me sleeping, he wakes me up. He's visibly shaken. And he's telling me, you know, right there by the train for Hey Damon, you can't sleep on this job. The markets are open, you're messing with people's money. He said, they'll they'll fire you if they catch you sleeping here. He said, come on down the parking garage. I got something that'll pick you up. So we go to the parking garage that day we get into his nice little sports car. He hands me a glass pipe with crystal rocks in it.
• 21:25
  Damon West: I've never seen that glass plate before ran. Oh my man. What is that? He said, Damon, just relax. He said it's crystal meth. He said you're gonna love this stuff. And I mean, Truer words have never been spoken Randall I fell in love with crystal meth that day because meth is the most evil, most destructive, most addictive drug ever created by man. It's made in a lab. It's made to get you hooked. I smoked at one time, and I was instantly hooked just like dagger because meth. Meth is powerful man. And, and I started giving everything away for that drug Randle. I thought it was a wonder drug at first. I mean, I was up for days. I could study for my series seven licensing exam. I thought this is great. I'm getting more work done than ever. But man, what goes up must come down. And man, I started coming down hard. I would miss work. I ended up failing my licensing exam. And once that happened, family friend at UBS had hired me.
• 22:11
  Damon West: After that presidential campaign that I worked on. Charles Omar calls me in his office asked me what's wrong? Anything you want to talk about? Now? Good.
• 22:21
  Damon West: Charles. Everything's great, you know, the delusional thinking of addicts where they hide everything like your friend did.
• 22:26
  Damon West: And he said, Man, I just don't I don't understand what's going on with you. I wish you were something to do to help but you're fired. You're fired. You failed your license exam. And I remember telling Charles man All right, well, that's okay. It's alright, appreciate you try and got in my car that day and drove straight to the dope man's house, caught him up on the phone and said, Hey, I just got off work early today I'm gonna come by and pick up the score.
• 22:47
  Damon West: That is exactly what my mind took me that day. 2004 Whenever I got fired from a job because math
• 22:58
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• 23:57
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• 24:09
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• 24:17
  Randall Kaplan: I want to hear about this story.
• 24:17
  Randall Kaplan: I read it I want you to share it with people. Walk us through the whole thing. Walk us through where you were when the flashbang came through the window. Walk us through what it was like from that point on in, including the very moment that you heard the steel of the prison door sliding in and locking the first second you got in there. Yeah, so let's let's take that day we'll go from the day I you know, got fired from work in 2004. It took me about 18 months to lose everything to give everything away because remember, addicts give things away. My job, my home, my car, my savings account, my family, my Tesla and to God. Much like your friend. I went from working up here to I went from living up here to living out here I went from working on Wall Street to living on the streets of Dallas, Texas. And I started living in dope houses slipping people's cars. I became a criminal to fund my addiction like most addicts will do anything we have to do to get what we want. I broke into cars broke into storage units didn't want to shop with and then eventually my crimes escalated to the crime of burglary and burglaries a very serious crime ran when I broke into people's houses. Even though I never physically hurt anybody because none of my victims were ever home. I stole something way more valuable from victims than their property. I stole their sense of security.
• 25:40
  Randall Kaplan: And I don't know if they'll ever get that back. They'll live with that for the rest of their lives. But after three years company property crimes against people in Dallas, Texas, the Dallas SWAT team on July 30 2008. Put an end to the September
• 25:52
  Damon West: erase the day that they arrested me. I'll never forget that day July 30 2008 rental. I'm in this little rundown apartment where I live I've got my dope dealer sitting next to me in this ratty old couch, you know passing the pipe back and forth to his name his texts. And I'm telling text man texts you don't want to be here right now. The cops are closing in on me the end is near 10 days before this this guy that I was doing all these burglaries with in Dallas, this guy named Dustin, Dustin had been picked up by the Dallas Police Department in a stolen car. So they got my partner in crime in custody. I know it's just a matter of time before they get to me. And just as I pass the pipe back to text, the window my right bulls out shatters and then tumbling across the living floors. This little canister going to end over in and it's smoking on one side.
• 26:38
  Damon West: Randall I've seen this movie before and I know what that canister is going to do in that labor room. And I tried to get out of there as fast as I could.
• 26:43
  Damon West: Too late.
• 26:46
  Damon West: The flashbang grenade goes off right my face bright white light, loud noise blows me back on the couch. And when I came to when I can see and hear again, there's a cop standing over me full SWAT riot gear boot on my chest barrel when assault rifles digging in my sock and his fingers on the trigger and he is screaming at the top of his lungs. Don't move, don't move, and may not scream back at this guy. Don't worry, don't worry.
• 27:08
  Damon West: And these cops start flooding my apartment and one of these cops screams out loud. We got it. We got the Uptown burger. The Uptown burger. That's a name I live with the rest of my life.
• 27:20
  Damon West: About a dozen other meth addicts and myself young and old, male or female, black and white. And everything in between because drugs and addiction do not discriminate just as you know with your friend. But we we indiscriminately and without reservation broke into the homes of dozens and dozens of people in the Uptown neighborhood of Dallas to feed our insatiable meth habits. But on July 30 2008, the Uptown burglaries came to an end because they had their man they had the mastermind of the entire thing zip tied to the floor of that dirty little apartment. They took me down to Dallas County jail that day. They processed me his fingerprints, mugshot. They throw me in a holding cell. They said my bond at $1.4 million Randall $1.4 million for bond on on crimes where no one was hurt.
• 28:08
  Damon West: These are property crimes around net. There's 9000 People in Dallas County Jail, Randall, not one other person. Murderers, child molesters, rapist had a bond of 1.4 million. Dallas County sent me the clearest signal they could send me you're not getting out of this one day Midwest, you're going to a very public trial. And it was what to my trial. 10 months later, May 18 2009. I'm standing in front of a jury in Dallas and his jury, these 12 men and women in the jury box. They've just listened to a six day criminal trial. Six days random six days is on trial for crimes, again that were not aggravated. No one was ever home. I never saw my victims. They never saw me. No one got physically hurt. No one No weapons were even used. These are property crimes are all met.
• 28:52
  Damon West: But at the end of this six day trial, the evidence of my guilt was so overwhelming that the jury went to deliberate for 10 minutes on my punishment. 10 minutes. I don't know how much law and order you watch. But if a jury has gone for 10 minutes, it means they smoked you. I came back into the courtroom. The judge reads my sentence out. Bam and Joseph Wesker hereby sentence to 65 years and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice 65 years Randall that's a life sentence in prison. The jury gave me life that day. Now, right after the trial was over, they handcuffed me to drag him out of the courtroom. I like cars my mom my dad on the way out I'm like Mom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was me out of their equipments. Little side rooms got a bulletproof glass. They told me to wait. A few minutes later, my mom and dad were escorted into the other side of the glass. They've decided to give my parents one last visit with me before I go to prison.
• 29:48
  Damon West: They feel sorry for my parents.
• 29:48
  Damon West: Because I just got life. My dad can't talk he is in stunned disbelief that his son with all this promise in life, just got a license in prison so my mom It's Sean will Christian woman that nurse she does all the talking today random. And she says baby she said she said debts in life demand to be paid. And you just got hit with one hell of a bill from the state of Texas. She said but you did the things they said you did that trolled me so you're gonna have to go and pay that debt to society. She said you owe Texas that debt. But you owe your father not debt to them. She said we gave you all the opportunities, love and support to be anything you want to be in life and that's how you just repay us what we saw in that courtroom. She says not going to work. We raised you in Port Arthur, Texas, a giant multi potamus city. We gave you a great moral compass which you chose to not you She said so here's the debt you're gonna pay to us. When you go to prison, you will not get in one of these white hate groups one of these Aryan Brotherhood type of gangs because you're scared because you're the minority in there.
• 30:52
  Damon West: She's just not going to work them and you were never raised to be racist. You're not going to start now. She said, You will not get any tattoos. While you're inside that prison. She said no gangs, no tattoos. She said, You come back as the man we raised, or don't come back at all.
• 31:10
  Damon West: When I was floored, she said, do you understand this debt you're gonna pay to us? It's like, Yeah, Mom, I got it. But I mean, what do I know about prison?
• 31:17
  Damon West: Rando? I'm a white middle class guy in America. I don't know anybody's been to prison before I get back to my pod, Dallas County Jail. I'm asking all the guys that had been to prison before. How am I gonna survive?
• 31:27
  Damon West: What am I going to do? And I mean, every guy I've talked to to rattle, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, they all tell me the same exact thing. You got to get into a gay, they said you can't survive with your gun without a gang. They said you're going to the worst part of prison where everybody's got life, the life since build and get into a game.
• 31:41
  Damon West: But there was just one guy in there that was so different.
• 31:46
  Damon West: This older black man named Mr.
• 31:49
  Damon West: Jackson and Mr. Jackson. He's what you call a career criminal.
• 31:52
  Damon West: This dude has been in and out of prison, all of his life. But he's the most positive guy you've ever met mother. This guy had a smile on his face everywhere he went, you couldn't. You could knock the smile but Jackson's face and every morning, every single morning, he came up to my cell to my block and picked me up like a ray of sunshine in that dark place with his positive energy. So one morning, one morning, Jackson comes up to my boss, he's got a cup of coffee in his hands and a smile on his face. He says West, I've been watching. I've been watching how you're dealing with these knuckleheads these dummies talking about you got to get into a gang. He said mentalistic fools. You want to keep that promise you made to your mom and your dad, that let me tell you what prison is really going to be like. So I said the first thing you need to understand about prison. He said prison is all about race. He said race runs the entire institution because the inmates in there wanted to be about race. He said when you walk in the door and the license is built, the white gangs get the first dibs on you because you are white. They are in brotherhood, the Aryan circle, the white knights, the woods, his name and all the white prison gangs. He said you had to fight them all if you want to be independent from them. He said if you don't give in to their ideology of hate, out of fear, and he's telling me, fear is not real. He said danger is real fears and emotions of feeling you get in the situation. And he said, Don't get into this thing called fear. Because he said Fear can make you see things that aren't there. Fear can make you believe things that aren't real. And he's telling me get ready.
• 33:17
  Damon West: Because if you get down with the white gangs, there's more danger around the corner, because now the black gangs are coming out to you. And the white gangs are going to send the black gangs after you and the Crips and the Bloods, the Gangster Disciples, the Mandingo warriors, they're going to be happy to tee off on this independent white guy that won't deal with his own race in his own kind. He said, But if you survive all that you can survive all that you'll earn the right to walk alone. He said the strongest man in prison always walks alone does not join a game. He told me the truth about fighting random. It's the truth I've shared with everybody I've ever spoken to. He said you don't have to win all your fights. But you do have to fight all your fights. You don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight our fights. It means that some days you're going to win and some days you are going to lose losing as a part of life. And he said it's okay to lose. Just get back up to keep fight.
• 34:11
  Damon West: But when he's telling them this back in 2009, man, I'm looking back at this guy like a deer in headlights all those violence and terror I'm about to walk into.
• 34:19
  Damon West: That's when he's like, Well, let me break it down for you a different way. He said I want you to imagine prison is a pot of boiling water. He said anything we put into this pot of boiling water. It's going to be changed by the heat and the pressure inside this pot. He said I'm gonna put three things in that pot of boiling water that we call prison and watch how they change. A carrot, an egg and a coffee.
• 34:42
  Damon West: So this is where I first hear the story of the coffee bean Randall the summer of 2009 in Dallas County Jail. He's telling me he said go see. So first things first. He said if I put a carrot, no pot of boiling water we call a prison. He said what happened to the carrot. And I went Mr. Jackson, the carrot is going to turn soft. He said this right West. He said the carrot goes in the water hard though.
• 35:01
  Damon West: But the water and the prison turned the hard carrot, soft, mushy weak. The carrot gets beat he gets robbed. He may get killed. You don't want to be the character of the prison. He said what about the egg West? What happened to the egg in the pot of boiling water we call prison.
• 35:18
  Damon West: I was like well the egg is gonna turn hard Mr. Jackson, like a hard boiled egg. He's like this right West. He said the egg has a shell that protects it physically. But he said inside that shell, that soft liquid core.
• 35:30
  Damon West: The eggs heart became hardened.
• 35:30
  Damon West: He said Now if your heart becomes hardened, you're incapable of giving or receiving love. He said if you're incapable of giving and receiving love, you'd become institutionalized. And you will not come back as someone your parents recognize because your eggshell will have swastikas tattooed all over it. Then he asked me the question He said, What about the coffee bean West? What happened to the coffee bean in the pot of warm water that we call prison?
• 35:59
  Damon West: Randall? I didn't have an answer for Jackson. I didn't know what happened to a coffee bean and a pot of warm water. And that is when Mr. Jackson a man who looked nothing like me, a man who didn't come from the same America, I came from a man who did not believe the same things I believed in life. Randall, this is a black Muslim man from the streets of Dallas, Texas.
• 36:22
  Damon West: I'm this white middle class Catholic guy from a little bitty town called Port Arthur, Texas.
• 36:25
  Damon West: But this man who was so different than me, he shared with me one of the most important and transformational messages I've ever received in my entire life. And, and the moral to that is really this, Randall, if you ever shut yourself off to people, because of their differences, different race, different gender, ethnicity, different religion, different political beliefs and your own. If you close yourself off to people because of their differences, you're going to miss some of the most important lessons and some of the best friendships in this life.
• 36:58
  Damon West: Because Mr. Jackson told me that day. He said, if I put a coffee bean, in the same pot of boiling water, we call prison. He said, Now, you got to change the name of the water to coffee. Because he said the Coffee Bean was the smallest of the three things. He said small like you has the power to change the entire atmosphere inside that pot.
• 37:16
  Damon West: Because the power is inside the coffee bean. He said just like the powers inside you. He said everything else in life is going to be changed by the water west, the eggs are changed by the water, the carrots are changed by the water. He said not the coffee beans. The coffee beans are the only thing that can change the water because they are the change agent. He told me what the first day in prison was gonna look like.
• 37:39
  Damon West: He said West. When you walk into the lights in this building, they're gonna give you your cell assignment. Do not run to your bunk. I think guys are scared.
• 37:46
  Damon West: He said you put your bags on that day room, put your back against the wall and just let it happen.
• 37:53
  Damon West: And I'm like, look at what happens checks what he talked about. He said your heart check West. He said your heart check is the most important fight you're ever going to get into.
• 38:02
  Damon West: He said you are a new face on the block. That is those guys don't know who you are. You're going to be challenged immediately when you walk in the door. And it's going to be a white guy that approached you first because you are white. He said the first guy is going to approach you is not a threat to you. He's an information gatherer he's a scout, The Scout is going to ask you one relevant question. What game do you want to be a part of? You submit get to scouting your face as fast as you can West and get ready.
• 38:24
  Damon West: Because the second guy that comes up to you, he is not coming to talk to you. He's coming to hurt you. He's an enforcer. He said when the second guy gets within range, put your fist in his mouth. He said hitting as hard as you can.
• 38:35
  Damon West: And the last thing Mr. Jackson told me the last words he ever spoke to me in Dallas County Jail in the summer of 2009. He said West be a coffee.
• 38:48
  Damon West: The coffee me random. Four words that changed my entire life.
• 38:52
  Damon West: Because if this old man would shoot me straight, that changed the entire game that put the power back inside me. And if the power was inside me, Randall, it's not in the hands of criminal justice system, the guards, the other inmates, it's in me. And I go around telling people the story, the coffee message, because I want them to know that the power is inside them too. It's not what's going on around you and in the state you live in, in this country right now in the crazy political scene that's going on the social, the social wars that are going on and the stuff that goes on in social media. That's not where the power is. The power is inside you. And if you can keep the power inside you, you won't just survive your pot of warm water you'll thrive in it too. I know that I know that because I took the coffee bean message to the biggest part of warm water is a maximum security level five prison in Texas. Rando I talked to people all the time all over the world now. And almost universally people tell me their biggest fear in life is to go to prison because prison is a very scary and very dangerous place.
• 39:49
  Damon West: Let me tell you what the first day of prison was like they give me my cell assignment. On the the marks die I go to the mark Stiles units a maximum security penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas.
• 39:59
  Damon West: It's a maximum security level five prison. Level five is the highest security level there is in Texas where people like me the life sentence people go, they take me to seven building which is the life sentence Bill 432 people and seven bill all lifers that's it. It's an island. And you can't leave seven building to you've done five years of real time because they want people to get to the fence and escape of their mind.
• 40:23
  Damon West: They want people to get institutionalized acclimated to prison. So if you have a life sentence, it's like an island they send you to in this island.
• 40:29
  Damon West: You can't get a job. You can't go to school, you can't do any of the other stuff that other people get to do. Because you're stuck on this island. And there's nothing but craziness and violence that goes on every day on this island you're on is likely in the world every day.
• 40:43
  Damon West: First day I walk in. They give me my cell assignment seven building G pod to section and I'm going to be in 45 So I got the bottom Bob, I walk into seven buildings up to six. I mean, there's giant room. three tiers of sales.
• 40:56
  Damon West: There's inmates hanging over all the railings. It's loud man, prison was a loud loud place, Randall. But as soon as that big door closed behind me, they locked me into that pod. The volume in that pod dropped to zero. I mean, every single, every single person that day room was quiet, and they're all staring at a new guy that just walked in. I'm standing there, man, I'm holding the mattress.
• 41:17
  Damon West: I'm holding my bags, and I look up and look around for myself.
• 41:20
  Damon West: Because I'm really thinking about making a run for it. You know, I forget what Jackson said, man. I'm I'm running for him and I'm going for myself.
• 41:24
  Damon West: I'm gonna hide the man 45 steps up on the third tier rather. But a third tear on the showers and it's a further sell for the door. I'd never make it. So I'll put my bags down and put my mattress down. Put my back against the wall and a waiting.
• 41:37
  Damon West: Didn't take five minutes.
• 41:40
  Damon West: Randall here EECOM little bitty white dude. Just like Jackson said it would be this little dude is he's tatted up bullheaded. Do tatted up from head to toe. Even his eyelids are tattered up Randall and he gets up in my face. He says hey, white boy. He says what family you ride with white boy? They call gangs families randomly a gang and a family aren't the same thing. But am I Hey, man, get out of my face and dude, I'm ride with God. Please just let me go home. I'm Ryan was God. He laughed at me random. He said, man, God isn't here. Why boy. He said we kicked him out a long time ago. He said we're here and we're coming to get you. You need to get ready. It shoots up the stairwell on the right side A few minutes later. coming in third tier, biggest white dude I've ever seen in my life. Huge muscle of guys jacked up muscles coming out of his arms. He's coming down the stairwell on the right side coming down the stairs and I've seen huge ogre type guy bald head with a swastika on the top of the school. Man. All I see is a swastika to bat eyeballs muscles coming to me, Randall. I remembered everything Jackson said in the moment. Jackson said hit the guy in the mouth as hard as you can. We get he gets within range. And then I reached up and I'll pop to Scott's I gave everything I had. I mean, I hit him as hard as I could. And 20 seconds ran on my first fight in prison was over. Because that big dude had been on the ground.
• 42:54
  Damon West: He beat me from one side of the day route to the other and Randall that is what prison looked like me for me for the next two months. I probably gotten three dozen facials first two months, and I lost 75% of the choice physically lost 75% of those fights. But I want 100% of my fights in those first two months because I showed up.
• 43:12
  Damon West: Jackson said you don't have to win those fights. You just have to fight those fights. And that's what I did Randall I got up in one of the most extreme environments every day. And I faced my fears every single day whenever that day room and I thought and I thought and I thought I lost and I lost I lost but eventually after two months in prison, the violence finally over and the threat to my physical safety was gone and I get a chance to start working on myself because inside