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"Dad what were you thinking?" Bill Carlson's Journey from American Dream to Prison · 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
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Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
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nightmares that set yourself free.
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We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
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Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
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These stories can be inspiring, sometimes sad, there's some
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humor, but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of
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something that'll help you knock down some of the prisons you
0:29
built up in your own mind. Welcome back nightmare success
0:35
In-n-out listeners. This is where you come for what
0:37
happens when your worst fear becomes your reality.
0:39
How do you adapt, survive, overcome, set yourself free?
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Hey, don't forget out there to hit that follow button.
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Subscribe, share, like comment. I appreciate all that, very
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grateful for that. So folks, I've got, I've got
0:53
another great guest. If you guys have been following
0:56
along, we've had a string of them here.
0:58
So, you know, I, I always think it's interesting because I, I,
1:01
some of these guests, I've so identified with how they went
1:06
through things. And you know, one of them is, is
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what happens when you work your way through and get to the
1:13
American dream and, and then it, it just completely crumbles
1:18
around you and you have to figure out how to, how to
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survive it. And my, my guest, Bill Carlson,
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he, he was, he started out, started as a stockbroker in
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1986, did really well, did so well that he was able to
1:34
establish his own investment firm in 2004.
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He was even able to name, name that firm after his grandfather
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Victor. And he, you know, he, he had
1:45
gotten to where he wanted to be. He he was in the American dream
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genre of of, you know, the children going to private
1:53
schools, living in an affluent neighborhood, having a vacation
1:57
home. And he says that, you know,
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However, the the allure of the recognition of the material
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possessions clouded the true essence of his achievements,
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leading him to a series of ill justified decisions that set off
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a chain reaction of consequences.
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This journey serves as a narrative highlighting the
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pitfalls of equating success with external validation.
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Which I think that's so true. I mean, I think that success can
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cause blind spots in in our lives.
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I think that you can get to a certain point and you can just
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be blinded by things. And when you look back on it and
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you think, wow, what happened? Well, in 2017, everything caught
2:38
up to Bill and he was sentenced to federal prison for mail
2:41
fraud. During his time behind bars, he
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embarked on a profound journey of self discovery and he was
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driven by a fundamental question posed by his daughter.
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Dad, what were you thinking? And it really caused him to
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reflect on everything that happened and how he made the
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choices and made the motivation behind the choices that he made.
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But he had to figure a path forward.
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And Bill today, he channels his his experiences into empowering
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audiences of all ages with invaluable insights clean from
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his personal odyssey. Through a blend of blend of
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lived experiences, research, back knowledge, and candid
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storytelling, Bill inspires individuals to navigate ethical
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dilemmas, cultivate gratitude, and embrace a holistic approach
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to life's challenges. So I, I think it's so great when
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people can take their journey, take their experiences of what
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they've lived through, what they've, what they're, they're
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living through and, and give it to other people to help them.
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I can't wait to unpack all of this with Bill.
3:50
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Auto Plaza Direct telling Brent from Nightmare Success sent you
4:31
OK Bill, welcome. Thank you for being here.
4:35
Thank you for having me, right? We probably should have hit the
4:38
record button about 15 minutes ago.
4:40
We, we had, we had a good talk. Sometimes I think, you know,
4:44
when we do that, I think that I should probably hit the record
4:47
button so I can go back and edit and do.
4:48
But Bill, you have been, you know, and I, I, I do identify
4:53
with your journey and, and it's always interesting to sit in my
4:57
seat when I interview and, and I can identify with so many things
5:00
that you went through. But walk us back a little bit.
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What growing up the Bill Carlson growing up as a kid, what, what
5:09
was going on in your world? I mean, I grew up in the city of
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Chicago, and for those of you that are familiar with the city,
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I grew up about a mile from Kaminsky Park, which, yeah, I
5:21
think they'd be Raider, whatever I still call it.
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And we lived in a three flat that's a three story building
5:29
with three apartments. My grandparents own building and
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they had three daughters. My one aunt who never married
5:35
lived with them. My mother and our family lived
5:38
on the 2nd floor and then their third daughter and their one
5:41
child lived on the 3rd floor. So the drawback to that was
5:45
there was always family around. So it's really hard to get in
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trouble because there was always a babysitter.
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But it was, you know, it was a lower middle class, middle class
5:55
neighborhood, but I had parents that were always there.
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I went to a Catholic grade school, Catholic High School,
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got to go to, you know, go away for college.
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So it was, you know, I grew up with every blessing you could
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have as a child. We, it's not that we didn't have
6:13
a lot of money, but we didn't know we didn't have a lot,
6:16
right? Right.
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You ate. You didn't.
6:19
You know your parents loved you. We had a small summer house in
6:22
Wisconsin that my grandmother, my my dad's mother had given
6:26
him. Didn't have didn't have running
6:29
water go up there and go to the park and fill up buckets of
6:33
water, but it was awesome. Right.
6:35
Yeah. So yeah, you know.
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Was your school like like high school?
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Was that pretty normal? Did you play sports?
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Did you, did you hang it? Was was it all?
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Kind of. Just everybody in the team
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hundred with 1600 boys, 1600 boys, yeah and I played ice
6:50
hockey and fortunately an all girls school right next door.
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So you got you got the you got you had to wear a tie the months
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of September through April. So honest didn't they didn't
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have to wear a tie, but you had to wear a collar.
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Hair couldn't touch the ears. We had brothers and lay laymen
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and they would tune you up if she got out of light.
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I I know that world. I went to Desmet here in the
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Saint Louis. So it was, it was all boys
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school. And yeah, in the 80s.
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A few times, a few times I should have I did.
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But wow. So when when I look back at
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this, Brent, I wish there was something in my background that
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I can say, well, that was kind of a Cavendish for this.
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But and and you and I, as we've talked in our conversations,
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we've met so many guys that were born with two strikes against
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it, right? You know, and they had to say a
7:49
Sandy Colfax to on the mouth and you and I had every opportunity
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and we ended up wearing the same crappy green uniforms that they.
8:02
So with a number, yeah. So when you got out of, when you
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got out of high school, went to college, did you have a plan?
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I mean, were you one of, did your parents go to college or
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were you one of the So you were the, you were kind of the lead.
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You had siblings siblings at the time.
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Younger, younger brother. So you were the oldest?
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Yes, Sir. Yeah.
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So I was the first actually, in a large part, most of our family
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members are extended family, cousins and so forth, were
8:32
tradesmen or landlords. So I, I was going to go to the
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University of Illinois and senior year in high school, I
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went with a buddy of mine to his aunt's house in Scottsdale.
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He went over to the campus at ASUI.
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Got to say I saw things that I I never seen.
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The Midwest. From the Midwest.
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So I actually went over to the admissions office and applied
9:00
and I went for her. Some stink just because I wasn't
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going to play hockey in high school.
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I wasn't like, I wasn't a Rhodes Scholar candidate, but I knew
9:10
going where it's warm and all the pretty women that would be.
9:14
Good choice. Yeah.
9:15
So I went out to Arizona State, which at the time I, I remember
9:20
being out there and being homesick the second or third
9:23
week and calling my father and saying, hey, I'm going to come
9:26
home. He says, no, you're going to gut
9:28
it out for the first semester and if after the first semester
9:33
you're unhappy, then come home. And I was upset.
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What does he know? And as in many times in my life
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Brent, he end up being right the time I I didn't know it so I
9:43
stayed and when I graduated I went as you mentioned they went
9:48
to be started as a stockbroker. Now, did you going into that
9:53
bill, did you? Because the stockbroker, you
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know, you got to be pretty good with numbers.
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You got to know something a little bit about the finance.
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You also got to have a kind of a sales piece to you.
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What was that something you were drawn to of somebody that you
10:08
knew or was it just something you thought I like?
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I got all those boxes checked. That's what I should be.
10:16
Well, the, the truth is, at least back in the day, you had
10:19
to be about 30% finance, 70% sales because five to six days a
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week, my day until making about 200 cold calls a day.
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That was the day you could, you're not in your head, you're
10:32
about the age. And if you were in anything back
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then, you could cold call. And I didn't have money to buy
10:38
lists. So I'd go down to the ASG
10:40
library and photocopy pages are from Scottsdale.
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Nice to me, said 10 P. Some of the nicer areas and just
10:47
start pounding the phone and 200 calls or so a day.
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You hoped 7 to 10 people said yeah.
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I'll be interested to hear from you when you have something.
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It's a good education though, and a bill to to take rejection
11:02
I. Mean.
11:02
Oh man. I, I, I did that when I, I think
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it was 16 years old and I was helping out my dad who had a
11:07
company and, and I was making sales calls to set up
11:11
appointments for his salespeople.
11:13
And it's funny how you really do learn a certain rhythm and flow
11:18
to like one of the things that I learned was that I, I continue
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to use as a, as an adult as we were building the company was as
11:27
I found out that if I called somebody on the phone and I
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apologize to them first, just apologize.
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Bill, Hey, I'm sorry, I was supposed to get to yesterday and
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drop this information off. I ran out of time.
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What would be a good time to come by and bring that to you?
11:43
The morning of the afternoon? And it confused them because,
11:48
like, you're late, you should have.
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And it was my, my percentages went way up.
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But the only way that I ever knew that any of that was was
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workable was just that I was on the phone getting rejected.
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And I just kept trying out different speech patterns that,
12:02
you know, you just kind of fall through the doorway on one of
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them. Yeah, no, that's, that was yeah.
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You become resilient and you learn.
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You have to learn early on that they're not rejecting you.
12:14
Right, that's not personal. Many of them, if they saw you on
12:18
the side of the road, would stop and help, right?
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Darn it, it's I know some of these nice old retired
12:23
grandmothers say stuff to me that, you know, she wouldn't
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think my old hockey coach would say so, right?
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So, so you get along on this way, but you actually, you know,
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as I read your bio, you you did well, you started progressing in
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this world. That was one that.
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I didn't want. The reason I say that, Bill, is
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it's one of those worlds where a lot of people don't.
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And, and that told me a lot about your resilience in your
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in, in your personality, because there's a big failure rate in
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that world. Yeah.
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And you know, and as I explained to people later on, it's like a
13:01
funnel. the IT has a very low entry barrier to entry, right.
13:07
You get hired, you can start making phone calls, and you have
13:10
to pass a series different securities tests.
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So you have to have a basic comprehension ability.
13:17
But as long as you could make phone calls or make sales calls,
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you can make it. But, you know, it's a funnel.
13:23
So a lot of people are in. But after 5 or 10 years, there's
13:27
fewer and fewer people on the bottom.
13:30
That's why you tend to be such a lucrative career because you're
13:32
such a high failure rate. Yeah.
13:35
And you just just keep going. And my father wanted me to
13:39
become an engineer, was in the school of engineering at ASU for
13:44
two semesters and the university and I came to an agreement that
13:48
that wasn't the best place for me.
13:52
I, I actually transferred over to the Business School without
13:54
telling my my dad. And that first semester back,
13:58
which was a Christmas semester, sophomore year, he's looking at
14:02
the report card. And he said, boy, there's a lot
14:05
of business clipses in the School of Engineering.
14:07
I said, you know what you're probably talking about, and we
14:11
didn't. And luckily I had good grades.
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And he said, well, I hope you're making the right decision.
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So that was really one of the motivators that if I failed,
14:20
Brent, you would have said why I told you you shouldn't have
14:22
done. I told you so.
14:24
And you know, from our conversations, you saw your
14:26
father was a very driven person as well.
14:29
So they're made in those types of situations where you you
14:32
wanted to succeed not only for yourself, but just show him
14:36
that. That's right, you belong.
14:38
Yeah, you belong so. So as you went along, when when
14:42
did you the the the family life come around as you were growing
14:47
this, did you did you get married?
14:50
Yeah, I'll, I'll try to keep this and I I can get
14:52
sidetracked. So if you need to bring me back,
14:53
please, please don't, don't hesitate.
14:55
I'll try the best I can vote. I give the War and Peace
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version, not the reader's. SO I ended up moving back to
15:03
Chicago in 1990 and I become homesick.
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I was dating a woman when we were serious.
15:10
I didn't want to. I didn't see myself raising
15:12
people in Phoenix at the time, although there was good boys
15:16
school, Brophy and I can't remember the all girls school.
15:18
But so I had a job opportunity through a family friend to come
15:22
back and look at Harris Bank. Actually, it was to work for a
15:26
company back in the early 90s, banks couldn't sell annuities or
15:31
mutual funds. They had to go through a third
15:33
party firm. So I had the opportunity, they
15:35
had the Harris account down at downtown Chicago.
15:38
Right on with Alan Monroe. So we moved back in 90.
15:43
My, my, my wife at the time, she wasn't my wife.
15:45
My girlfriend was from Texas and she didn't have a much of a
15:50
family connection there. So anyway, we moved back in 90,
15:53
worked at Harrah's for a while and then another bank.
15:56
And then actually in 1998, I became the 11th salesperson
16:02
hired by Fisher Investments. So now it's a huge jump because
16:07
at the time Fisher isn't what it is today.
16:10
And they did whole junk mail to richer people, as they'd say,
16:15
and you'd get leads faxed to you and your home.
16:17
So it was a But my father's very entrepreneur and the thing to
16:20
take away from yours. I've always tried something,
16:24
said what the hell, let's give it a try, right?
16:27
Did that and young kids. And then in 2000, I decided I
16:31
wanted to go on my own. I wanted to use a lower cost
16:34
approach to investing, similar to the firm that's in Saint
16:38
Louis and it's escaping me right now.
16:41
Buckingham. Yeah, where's Buckingham?
16:43
We're similar to the approach that Buckingham uses.
16:46
So in 2004, my kids were 10 and 8.
16:52
I said let's do this, let's give it a try.
16:54
If it doesn't work, I can. I can always go work back in a
16:56
bank. Sure, I mean no disrespect to
16:58
people that work in banks, but I could.
17:01
I could do that if I. Jump back into that role.
17:03
If I had to pay mortgage and feed everybody, I could do that
17:07
so. So you jump in that world, Bill,
17:12
and as I can tell, things went well.
17:15
I mean, you grew. Yeah.
17:17
It looked like you merged and life began to be good.
17:22
You, you moved into affluent neighborhoods.
17:25
You, your kids were, you know, in, in the, the right schools.
17:30
You, you got yourself a vacation home.
17:33
What happened? Well, you know, it's interesting
17:37
you asked that question. What happened and and you read
17:40
part of a bio the question from my daughter.
17:43
Dad, what were you thinking? I started to tear up again when
17:47
you mentioned it because I remember specifically, and I'll
17:51
go back to your question. They were both away in college
17:54
when this all came to fruition. It was February of 2017.
18:00
He was a senior, she was a junior away at school.
18:03
And I didn't tell him at first what was going on and hoping
18:07
that there wouldn't go away, right.
18:11
You got a full otherwise. So I called them and I remember
18:16
like it was yesterday, Brent, I was in a the local grocery store
18:20
chains in the parking lot. It was February snowing and I
18:23
get them both on the line. And I said, you know, here's
18:28
what I've been doing. I've been taking money from one
18:30
of my client accounts. I've been indicted.
18:32
I'm most likely to go to prison. My son swore at me and hung up.
18:37
My daughter just started crying and hung up and the next day she
18:42
sent a text and it simply read dad what the hell were you
18:45
thinking? And that was that life changing
18:48
moment. But so when let me go back?
18:51
And Bill, I know a little bit about your story too, so I don't
18:54
want to jump ahead of you, but I, I, I think it's interesting
18:57
too, though, when you were in that world of being in around
19:02
the rich and, and everything is moving and things are good.
19:08
I also think that there's a way to that.
19:09
There's a like a, you can justify certain movements and,
19:13
and I think one, one of the things that you were talking
19:15
about was is, well, I could just take this money here.
19:18
This is a good investment over here.
19:20
I can get this business going. I'll put that right back.
19:22
And as things move and grow and do you start to rationalize
19:28
things that aren't what they should?
19:31
Ration right, you rationalize, yeah.
19:33
And that's, that's how it started as I had a business
19:37
opportunity and I, I was confident was going and make it.
19:41
And I, I've been a little, don't say souring on the investment
19:46
business, but it wasn't as fun as it had been.
19:48
You know, there's such a, there was a pressure on pricing.
19:51
And the, so my plan was if I could get this business venture
19:56
off and it does well, I could sell some of my book to my
20:01
existing partners, keep a handful of the clients who I
20:04
really had a just a wonderful relationship with.
20:07
That was the plan. So I, I knew taking money from
20:11
the client, if it took off, I would make more money than I
20:16
could probably spend. And it didn't take off.
20:21
And I kept and I, I knew when I took the money, it was wrong.
20:24
It wasn't the way I was raised. It wasn't the way I raised my
20:27
children. But as you just said, kind of
20:30
justify as messed up as that is. As my daughter said, what were
20:34
you thinking? What were you thinking?
20:36
But you justify and then then the business started to fail.
20:42
So I put some more money in and I put some more money in and
20:45
then the business fail. And one of the many mistakes I
20:51
made along the way, Brent, I didn't have the courage to go to
20:56
the family and say, well, we, we can't live this way anymore.
21:00
We got to stop the lifestyle. And as you referenced, knowing
21:04
the things I learned afterward about myself, I put in money and
21:10
possessions to happiness. And as you and I have learned.
21:15
Very common. Yeah, and, and, and, and so I, I
21:21
put if I can, if I can, then you get so far you're like, I know
21:27
how this is going to end, but I'm just going to ride this a
21:29
little bit longer and when it ends, it ends, you know, so I.
21:36
When did you know? You know, because everybody's
21:40
got a different way of how it happens.
21:43
When did you know that things were getting to the point where
21:47
this could turn into a criminal investigation?
21:50
They were looking at you. Was it a knock on the door or
21:53
how did it? How did it come to you?
21:56
So if, if there were any, if I made any good decisions along
21:59
the way, it's that I only did this only shouldn't say only,
22:05
but it was one client account and it was the client account
22:10
was getting low. Now, another thing that I'll
22:13
have to regret for forever. The client trusted me to the
22:15
extent that she never even owned her statement.
22:20
Whatever she'd questioned me on something she got from the
22:23
custodian as to why I would I would give her an excuse and
22:26
she'd listen. So the fact that I prayed on
22:28
that trust is, is is regret that I carry forever because again,
22:33
that's, that's, that wasn't part of my DNA.
22:37
So I got to the point where her account was low.
22:40
I, I either had to take from another client or we had to end.
22:45
So I went to the partners and said, here's what I'm doing.
22:49
I had I resigned and they wanted to go.
22:53
They went to her with the hopes that they could settle with how
22:58
much I had taken and it not become a public issue because it
23:03
was not only bad for me, but it's bad for the firm, right?
23:07
But she did the right thing and she went to the custodian and
23:10
said, here's what's been going on.
23:12
And the custodian then opened up an investigation.
23:15
And then the FBI got involved. And they got involved fairly
23:19
quickly. And I was meeting with two of my
23:23
my ex partners one afternoon about two weeks after I had
23:27
resigned. And I met them in a parking lot
23:29
at a strip small strip mall. As I'm walking back to my car, a
23:33
man and woman approached me and said, you know where with the
23:37
FBI, I would like to ask you some questions.
23:40
And OK. And so they were going to take
23:44
me into this restaurant and said, I really don't want to go
23:46
in, go in there and talk. It was like A7.
23:47
I said, if you have a vehicle, let's go in the car.
23:50
And I just opened up. I just said, here's what I've
23:54
been doing. I've been doing it.
23:57
I, I was crying not because I felt bad for myself, because it
24:01
was just so embarrassed. And you knew the shoe was going
24:05
to drop and it was dropped. So we had about a 1 1/2 hour
24:11
conversation in the car and I basically laid out the mechanics
24:15
of what I was doing and how I was doing it and that it was
24:19
only, you know, that this the one person and that was a
24:24
Thursday or Friday. The following Tuesday I got a
24:29
call from the the one agent and he said we'd like you to come
24:31
for some more questions. He said, am I going to be
24:34
arrested? He said, no, that's not how this
24:37
works. I said, because if you go, oh, I
24:38
got the dog, I got to make plans for him.
24:40
I mean, I can't leave him. And he says no, no, no, come in.
24:44
So I did and they asked more questions and they had some of
24:47
the people, you know, had some hard data.
24:50
I said, yeah, that's my signature.
24:51
I did that. I forged that.
24:53
That's my signature. I was there about an hour or two
24:55
and then went home. So you didn't have an attorney
24:57
or anybody involved in that for? Not at the side for you, maybe I
25:01
should have, but one of the things I learned along the way
25:05
talking to other guys had gone through the process there.
25:10
There's no training for. This no.
25:13
No, I know of it. This is chapter 3.
25:17
Yeah. You you think, I think I
25:19
thought, OK, if I if I cooperate fully, then whatever the
25:23
punishment's going to be will be less because he cooperate,
25:27
right, right. And as we both, as we both know,
25:31
or in the scoring system, there is a, you get a few points for
25:34
that. But I thought of.
25:35
Yeah, a couple of points to give you which which can make a
25:38
difference in some cases. Yeah.
25:40
So did I. Did I answer that or did I get
25:42
off? Yeah.
25:42
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28:01
So Bill, you, you go down there, you talk to them, you basically
28:07
pour your soul out. What's what do they do?
28:12
You just walk out, say OK guys, I'll see you later.
28:15
Well, yeah, I mean, it's not that I was going to get
28:18
arrested, right? I thought I was lying because if
28:20
he says that I'm going to. But I walk up, go home.
28:25
And I don't recall how I got noticed that I had to appear in
28:31
court, that I was being indicted, but.
28:35
How does your wife take all this?
28:36
It was a surprise. We we've been separated for a
28:41
while, yeah. You know, her natural reaction
28:45
was how's it going to affect her and I and I can understand that.
28:48
Sure. So.
28:51
And your kids, they were. They were supportive but
28:53
couldn't. Believe that they were they were
28:55
very upset, yeah. So no, they, no, there was.
29:01
They couldn't figure out why. Right.
29:03
Yeah, it's not. Again, it's not how we were
29:06
raised. Loved you but couldn't figure
29:07
out why. Exactly right.
29:10
So I, I got Diane went down to the I was supposed to have a, an
29:17
attorney with it. So I knew I was guilty.
29:19
Here's another mistake I made. I knew I was guilty and I knew I
29:22
was guilty and I knew I was going to most likely be going to
29:24
prison. So I figured I'm not going to
29:26
spend money on an attorney because I'm just throwing money
29:30
and. Are you going to plea anyway?
29:32
I'm going to plea. So I went with the public
29:35
defender and fortunately I was able to qualify for a public
29:39
defender, which was, which was fries, but I did.
29:43
So I first went down when I went for the indictment and they
29:46
said, you know, you're indicted and the charge is 1 count of
29:49
mail fraud and it serves up to could be up to 20 years.
29:53
Yeah. Oh my God.
29:55
Yeah, take your breath away. Yeah, it did.
29:58
So I got an appointed, I went the appointment, went through
30:03
the process, got a public defender and went through.
30:07
This was so this was February, March.
30:10
I first pled not guilty because that's what he said to do.
30:14
That was April, March, April and then we went through the summer.
30:20
We had he actually pled guilty in August of 27th.
30:26
OK, so it went pretty quick. Yeah, well, like I wanted not to
30:29
because I just wanted let's get this over.
30:32
You know, it's kind of like when you were a kid and you're going
30:34
to get punished. Let's just get it over thinking
30:37
or if it's grounding, let's just let's.
30:39
Do it. Let's get going on this.
30:41
And you know, like a lot of us do that had never been in
30:45
prison. We start searching and looking
30:47
at all what what prisons do you go to?
30:50
What do you and I was relieved to find out I'd been going to a
30:55
camp and then we did our pre Sr. pre sentence report and the way
31:02
he prepared me for it. He said this is your time to
31:04
tell your story. Well as we learn afterwards,
31:07
that's probably not the best advice going into the PSR.
31:14
So went through it. She came out and her
31:17
recommendation was not to vary off for just good or bad, just
31:22
so I was in for sentencing on the day before my birthday in
31:27
December and my range was 51 to 65 months. 60 months, I forget
31:35
what it was about. Five years.
31:37
Yes. And the attorney said they do.
31:39
It in months. So it's it's always, it's, it's
31:45
confusing when you get sentenced because you have to back out.
31:48
OK, let's see. It's 36.
31:49
No, that's 60. And then 120, that's 10.
31:52
Yeah, especially when you hear the guys that get big numbers,
31:55
Triple H. Yeah, no, it's scary.
31:57
They don't do it in years. No months.
32:00
Yeah, they do it in months. So I got before I went in, we
32:06
had the meeting with the attorney, my dad, he was
32:08
supportive. He was a parent.
32:09
He was supportive for the whole way.
32:11
Yeah, she was my mother and he said we think you're going to
32:16
get a year to two years just even though I knew what my range
32:19
was. He kept saying the judge can
32:20
vary from that, you don't have records, he's cooperating, blah.
32:24
Well the judge says you got 55 months, that's a little bit more
32:29
maths. I wasn't at Maths Wiz but that's
32:31
more than one to two years that's.
32:33
More than one to two years. So I was that was I was
32:39
scheduled to self surrender on January 22nd of 20 so.
32:45
So what was going through your mind, Bill, the day before
32:49
you're getting ready because it's everybody's kind of got a
32:51
different story about that. But what?
32:54
What? What was going on inside your
32:57
head? That's a good question.
33:01
Maybe you're so afraid of the unknown.
33:06
I was pretty confident there wasn't going to be violence
33:10
because there as you can get moved to a low the stuff you
33:14
think about the sexual, you know, there wasn't going to be
33:17
that. Yeah, you, you just don't know.
33:20
No, it's the unknowns. I mean, I, I, I often talk to
33:23
people because of this show. I, I talk to people that'll call
33:27
me and ask me questions that are, get, they're getting ready
33:29
to go in and I see, you know, it's, it's really something in
33:36
my, in my experience, even if it was really bad news, it was
33:41
better than the unknown because I could start working through
33:44
that. You know, the, the unknown is
33:46
the scary part. The unknown is the thing that's
33:48
the most fearful because your mind can make it out so much
33:51
worse than it can ever be. And you know, I'd just rather
33:56
know what it is so I can start biting that off and dealing with
33:59
it, even if it's really bad, because whatever the unknown is
34:03
is worse. We, we, we tend to as humans, a
34:07
lot of time we will go through and make it worse, I guess,
34:11
yeah. Why we do that, I don't know.
34:14
Nothing as bad as your mind makes it out to be, not even
34:16
prison. One interest, so my father drove
34:19
me up to Duluth, which is a six hour line from Chicago.
34:23
So that was a Tuesday. I had a self surrender.
34:25
We went, it drove that Monday. I may have mentioned this to you
34:28
whenever talks. We ended up driving through one
34:30
of the worst snowstorms in central Wisconsin in like 10
34:34
years. We're doing 20 miles an hour at
34:37
some point, and you just couldn't see.
34:38
And I, I said, I said, what? Isn't that the irony?
34:41
If we get an accident? I died driving to prison.
34:43
Yeah. What if we could?
34:44
Can't get there. You don't show up.
34:48
You're not there at. What's your designated time?
34:50
Yeah. We got through it.
34:52
Fortunately I went out and had a nice dinner and got up the next
34:57
day and I actually had steak left them, sat down.
35:00
I couldn't eat, I was so nervous.
35:04
What was your dad talking to you about?
35:07
He was, he wasn't talking much, which is unusual because he's
35:09
he's a talker. He was just kind of.
35:12
Quiet well, it's probably tough for him.
35:14
I'm sure he looked at you as his oldest kid and had done so well
35:19
and probably just he was sad that you were having to go
35:23
through it well, like. Two interesting points on that
35:26
one is when I when I got out to get out of the car and give him
35:29
a hug goodbye. He kept his sunglasses out and I
35:32
I'm believing he was terrier crying.
35:35
I only have proof, but I think he there was some sadness and he
35:39
he a few times when we would talk when I was away, he would
35:43
say how he blamed himself. I said, stop, I'm a 57 year old
35:48
man. Don't, don't do that.
35:50
I mean, so so yeah, you know, you you know what the theory is
35:56
when you go through them, they door slams and say OK, strip
35:59
them, spread your cheeks squad to cum.
36:02
You're like, that's when you know that you're.
36:03
Getting. Right.
36:05
You're you're getting prisonized.
36:08
Yeah. So tell us about that Bill you
36:11
walk through you, you stripped down your first day.
36:14
What? What's How do you walk through
36:16
it? Well, they go through the
36:19
processing and it's pretty, you know, not.
36:24
I'm sure you've never been in a situation like this.
36:26
I've never been handcuffed to my right.
36:28
I still hadn't been hand through the whole thing, right?
36:34
Maybe maybe a speeding ticket or two along the way.
36:36
But so they I sat with my counselor, which was really a
36:41
misnomer as we learn, right? And he walked through and he
36:49
asked a bunch of questions and he'd go over to medical and go
36:51
through that. I realized I was in a different
36:54
place when I sat down with the dentist and one of the first
36:58
things he said is he's got all his teeth, is he's taking notes.
37:01
I'm like, OK, right, I'll sit there.
37:05
Most people maybe if you lost one or two anyway, so their
37:09
first room they. Just pull teeth when you get
37:11
there. They do that they they the tooth
37:14
probably came back without a tooth.
37:16
Yeah, yeah, there there is that story.
37:19
The first room they put me in was the 6th man room.
37:22
I was the 6th man and I'm pretty sure not one of those other guys
37:27
were white collar offenders. So over time the the guy that I
37:35
was on top of him, I was bunk on top of him.
37:39
Great guy from Chicago. Started in the in the USP and
37:42
worked his way down over over the years.
37:45
He the first couple days he kept me from doing really stupid
37:48
stuff. You just don't know.
37:51
Like when I went to the why'd you get my clothes?
37:55
When I came back, I had the bag and I set it on its bed, right?
37:59
Billy never cooks. Don't do that.
38:00
You find another man's bed. Respect.
38:03
So. He works.
38:05
Those are the inmate rules. They give you the prison rule
38:07
handbook. The inmate rules are what you
38:08
have to live by, right? You know, I tell people it's,
38:12
it's akin to being a newborn on a new planet.
38:15
Yeah. Because all the norms that you
38:18
and I and most of us that haven't been incarcerated are
38:21
familiar with are thrown out, right.
38:24
And things that make don't make any sense at all are the
38:27
unwritten rule. Yeah.
38:29
And but you know, we talked about this.
38:32
You find people that are very kind and it's surprising you get
38:37
there. They give you that, those
38:38
slippers, the blue slippers. And I'm in, I'm in Duluth, MN.
38:44
I'm in, it's January, so it's probably 0 or worse outside and
38:47
snow. And you've got the SO in the
38:49
Super lightweight close and you've got guys giving you
38:52
shoes, giving you sweatpants, a sweatshirt before you can get
38:56
the commissary and buy things, you know, and I have some good
39:04
friends that I met up there and we meet and you talk not
39:06
regularly about the experience, but we talked in.
39:10
It's almost like it's a different life at some time, a
39:13
different, you know, it's almost because you can think back to
39:16
those days and how scared or how unsure you were, but you got
39:20
through it and. Well, you and I were talking
39:23
about that before we got on, Bill, that where we were in
39:28
life, you know, you kind of thought you were at the top of
39:31
the heap. And then you end up sitting
39:34
there that first day and you realize that you realize that
39:39
you have a bunk bed, a locker and a plastic chair.
39:45
But I think that's what you really learn about yourself is
39:48
that you can adapt and you figure it out, but it's it's
39:53
quite a dramatic change. Yes.
39:56
And you know, part of the when I when I talk is what I learned is
40:01
I was happier having less net locker than when I had all the
40:06
stuff that I could have. And that's when it really dawned
40:12
on me and as I started to do that.
40:15
Introspection and research that wasn't, I mean, it wasn't coming
40:18
from things, it was coming from within.
40:21
So you learned to be very early on.
40:24
I started a gratitude journal and it wasn't my idea that
40:29
gratitude journalists have been around for a long time, but I
40:31
look for three things every day I was grateful for.
40:34
I count them and I go back to it once in a while and look at
40:37
things that I was grateful for. Now you, you saw it.
40:40
Bird shirt, which the lowest is something unusual because
40:44
October through April. So cold.
40:46
Cold. You know, we had my first April
40:48
up there. We had 14 inches on April 15th,
40:50
14 inches. Wow.
40:53
So yeah, I mean. So what did you get?
40:56
How did you get involved with you find your way around that
41:00
kind of give you the inmate rules?
41:01
How did you do your time? Busy you have to.
41:06
I could never understand the guys that would sleep all day or
41:08
work as little as they could. I agree.
41:11
So I I mentioned to you I taught GED for 16 months and outside of
41:16
raising my children, it's really some of the most.
41:19
Rewarding work I've had in. My life.
41:22
I bet that did fill you up. You know that that would be
41:24
something. Knowing that you were helping
41:27
people get something that they were not able to attain and
41:31
you're helping them attain that in prison has to be a good
41:34
feeling. Yeah, you get guys that most of
41:37
the guys that we had in the classroom from the West side of
41:39
Chicago, South side of Chicago, or for some of the, you know,
41:43
like rural areas, Minnesota or the Dakotans.
41:46
So people I would have never run across in my life.
41:51
And when you get a guy that been trying to pass his GED for years
41:54
and he helps you pass and he hugs you and there's tears in
41:56
his eyes, it's now he's going to send that diploma home to his
41:59
mother or to his daughter. I still get, I still get shells.
42:03
What I think about. And I told the story the other
42:08
day, almost every guy had in classes had been shot at least
42:12
once. I mean, that's when it really
42:15
hits you how different our worlds were, right?
42:18
And like, I didn't know anybody had been shot.
42:21
No, you're living side by. Side and I didn't handle Dick
42:24
Cheney, so I, you know, flipped my my Cheney.
42:28
So so to answer your question, did you get up early, go to go
42:33
breakfast or chow? I'd go to work between lunch.
42:38
We'd get out early, I'd go before lunch, I'd work out, go
42:40
to lunch, go back to work and back and work out.
42:43
And then you taught classes at night that better or better I've
42:46
mentioned and or you attend a class or you like floor hockey.
42:50
To answer your question, I tried to stay out of that dorm room as
42:54
long as I could. If I could crawl back in at the
42:57
end of the day, shower and then they have final count, that's
43:01
the only way I can get through. Yeah, no, you and I were exactly
43:03
the same way on that, staying busy.
43:07
You know, I, I, I guess some of it was, I was institutionalized
43:11
because I was so much on a routine.
43:12
But, you know, I worked, I worked out, I read, I sent my
43:17
emails and I did my phone calls and, and I went to bed and I was
43:23
usually pretty tired because the stuff I was doing would make me
43:27
tired. And you know, it's funny you say
43:29
that about the journal. I, I didn't do a journal.
43:31
I did, I, my daughter sent me a calendar every year that had our
43:34
family pictures on it. And part of my routine at night
43:38
would be that I would try to write in my little box and that
43:41
for the day, my win for the day. And, you know, and if I didn't
43:47
have a win for the day, which it happens because prison's not
43:50
anywhere you can have a bad day, but I just let myself have a
43:52
very, very bad day. No good, very bad day.
43:54
And I'd write that in there. But one thing I wouldn't let
43:56
myself do is fill in two boxes of bad because I was scared of
44:00
falling into that world of prison, Brent, whatever that was
44:05
going to be. And I didn't want that to
44:08
because it, you know, a bad week to turn into a bad month to a
44:12
bad year, and then you kind of lose yourself.
44:13
So I had kind of a mind hack thing that I was doing to myself
44:17
daily to make sure that I kept myself feeling like me not, not
44:23
part of where I was, which is it's some, some of those things,
44:27
whether it's the gratitude journal or, or what I was doing.
44:31
It's really trying to, I think, continue to want to be feeling
44:35
like yourself, not feeling like you're falling into something
44:38
that you're you don't want to be.
44:40
Well, and one of the unwritten dangers in prison is the
44:45
negativity and it starts to moment you're.
44:48
Negativity lost with hope. Yes, and it's with what what
44:53
inmates instead and to the point if you're if you're not attuned
44:58
to that, it is so easy. Easy to fall into.
45:01
Call it institutionalized or what, but it's everywhere.
45:04
It starts people complaining at breakfast in the morning at
45:07
6:15. Mm hmm staff and then lunch
45:11
wherever you're at and and. But you know what I think's
45:14
interesting about that though, Bill, is when you get out, you
45:16
realize that there's a whole bunch of people
45:17
institutionalized on the outside.
45:19
They. Start talking about.
45:20
How negative it is, you know, their job, their marriage, their
45:24
childhood, their whatever their health crisis, whatever that is.
45:29
It just so happens that you become so much more aware of it
45:31
when you're in prison because there's nowhere else to go.
45:33
You're caps, you're capped into that situation.
45:36
Yeah, so that's how I got. Through it, so you got through
45:40
it. Just staying busy, teaching the
45:42
GED, kind of fulfilling yourself in that way that you were giving
45:45
something back, being of service, which I think is such a
45:49
big deal if you can do that while you were in prison to do
45:52
something that you feel like you're giving back.
45:54
So when you get close to the door, that's a prison term, I
45:57
guess, when you're getting close to getting out.
46:02
What are you thinking? Well, this, this was a little
46:05
different. Mine was the because I was there
46:09
during COVID. So I believe in one of our, our
46:12
past conversations, I mentioned I put in for France for when I
46:15
was at Duluth, you'd get closer to Chicago.
46:18
Well, Oxford, we had a camp in Oxford, Wisconsin, which was
46:22
much closer. So I put as my two choices
46:25
Oxford #1 Terra haute #2. So as the BOP does, they send me
46:30
to Terra Haute closer than than Duluth, but still not.
46:36
And I know that sounds like I'm complaining in prison.
46:38
So it's not you know, it's not it's not Plumb men or so anyway,
46:44
I'm down in Terre Haute completely different
46:48
experiences. We talked about presently at the
46:52
time signs the CARES Act because of COVID and then you know it
46:55
was to get reduce some of the population in the prisons part
46:59
of the stipulation to the CARES Act 50% of your time no sex
47:05
crime in the past, no violence, no major disciplinary you could
47:10
serve the remaining portion of your time on home confinement.
47:14
So May of 2020 I had hit my 50% one paperwork in that's not.
47:22
Kind of right where COVID was, wasn't it March?
47:25
Yeah, was when COVID started. Yeah.
47:27
So what they did, and I'm getting getting a long point to
47:29
answer your question, is they, what they did is you had to go 3
47:33
weeks in confinement before you went home and they'd test you a
47:37
few times. Well, this is how confinement
47:39
worked. It was one of the wings and guys
47:42
would come in and stay there and they'd bring more guys in.
47:46
So let's say I was going out in three weeks and you were already
47:49
in for a week and a half. I'd still come in and they'd mix
47:52
this together. And so it was three weeks.
47:56
I got to work out two or three times a day, but you knew you
48:00
were going home, so it was, you kind of heard it was bad on the
48:07
outside, but however bad it was at home, it wasn't as bad as
48:10
being yet. Sure, I had a room to myself
48:12
because there's maybe 15 guys on the wing or 20 guys just waiting
48:18
to get home and excited, nervous.
48:22
But you really didn't have any idea though, did you, Bill?
48:24
What like they they would just call your name, say you're
48:26
you're up. Well, you knew what day it was.
48:29
Or you They did tell you what day it was.
48:30
Oh, yeah, yeah, they had to. So what they had to do was they
48:33
had to do the day you were going to be released.
48:35
They had to get you in there three weeks before.
48:39
So you knew when you were being called to that dorm confinement
48:43
that you had a basically a three-week span.
48:46
Well. So you're you're sick.
48:48
There's a little interesting sign in it.
48:50
They had the Dent house or they deal with Terre Haute, so they
48:54
execute federal prison. The day before I was to go into
49:01
find it, they scheduled an execution and they hadn't.
49:06
So it took all of us and put us in a garage because they were
49:09
afraid we were going to take pictures of.
49:12
So we're in a garage. We end up being in there almost
49:14
24 hours. I get out in the morning, that's
49:18
the day I'm supposed to go over to sign in.
49:22
And so my case man, who was actually a really good guy, I
49:25
said, hey, I need to get over there today.
49:28
If I don't, is that going to screw up my is that my three
49:31
weeks? He says yes, fortunately he
49:32
pushed it through. So he called me and got all my
49:35
stuff and went over and started my three-week in confinement
49:39
with other guys that have been in for weeks.
49:42
Yeah. So, so you find you get out, but
49:46
you get out released through basically the world is shut
49:49
down. Yeah, What was that like?
49:53
Well, I, I was, it was a lot better because I wasn't
49:59
imprisoned. So, you know, I was, I was,
50:04
didn't have to wear shoes in the shower.
50:07
I didn't have to get up at 9 for talent.
50:09
I had an ankle bracelet. So I served the last 16 months.
50:16
I'm home, fine, but I was able to work.
50:18
Yeah. Any of us that have been on own
50:20
confinement know that. It's confining.
50:22
Pardon, It is confining. It is confining.
50:25
I was on for six months and and you know, there there's certain
50:29
things that you know, it's a mental thing too.
50:31
But my thing was, we just got an ankle bracelet program at the
50:36
halfway house, but they still made the three calls a night.
50:40
And you had to have a, a home line, which nobody had.
50:46
So you had to have it installed in your house.
50:48
And then they hardline and then they would call three times into
50:52
the night. And if you didn't answer, then
50:54
that'd send you back to the halfway house.
50:56
But a whole time I had an ankle monitor on.
50:59
So they knew. Exactly where I was, but it was
51:02
very confining. And then you had, you know, you
51:04
had to be in at 9:00 and you had to report, you know, if you're
51:06
going somewhere and all those things, it's it's home
51:09
Confinement definitely is better than prison for sure.
51:11
Way, way, way. But they're it's pretty
51:15
constraining too, because you, you're really straddling the
51:18
fence, you know, halfway houses that way.
51:20
And home confinement is that way.
51:21
You you're seeing freedom, but you're not feeling totally free.
51:24
Right. Yeah.
51:25
You couldn't visit. You couldn't.
51:27
Sorry. You couldn't visit other houses.
51:30
So I had actually had a family member that passed away and they
51:35
wouldn't let me go to the funeral and interest in my case
51:38
manager asked to speak. They wouldn't let you go to the
51:40
funeral while you were on home confinement, correct?
51:43
Wow. I think it was because of COVID
51:45
at the time, not so the but so you had those stipulations that
51:50
but again. Stipulations on top of
51:53
stipulations, yeah. But again, it was wasn't prison.
51:56
So I I when I became frustrated, I thought about the alternative.
52:02
And the alternative is I would have been.
52:04
Right. Yeah, great way to balance that
52:07
out. Sorry about deadline.
52:09
That's OK, I've got dogs at home.
52:11
It's. Yeah, but there's but the thing
52:14
about it is, Bill, what, what did you, what did you do as
52:23
because they tell you get a job that you know, you, you get out.
52:26
How did how did you start working your way back into
52:28
society? Well, I've been very blessed in
52:32
my life and my family has an an engineering and construction
52:38
business. So in the seven months when I
52:43
was in pretrial services, I went to work for them sales and I
52:47
it's a very specialized niche that I won't bore your viewers
52:50
with, but one of the things that you can sell investment
52:54
services, you can sell practically anything.
52:56
That's right. You're selling inanimate.
52:58
Sales, sales. It is.
53:00
And so I got in, did really well with them.
53:04
When I got home, I they weren't, there was a job there for me.
53:08
That's fantastic. Yeah.
53:10
So again, I I've been blessed along the way so many times and
53:15
so. How long have you been home?
53:20
August of 20 OK the Walmart 4 years.
53:24
Yeah, four years and you're doing it sounds like you're
53:28
doing some things where you're you're speaking and trying to
53:31
get out, kind of doing a side hustle of what you like as a
53:34
passion. Yeah, the, the passion is
53:36
speaking and so far Brent, I've been as I mentioned that Clemson
53:39
University, the relevant Institute for Ethics, both
53:43
school here at the University of Chicago, Fordham University and
53:48
through a connection Northern Illinois University.
53:53
And this January I'll be speaking at Yale, which is kind
53:56
of exciting. That's awesome.
53:59
I love doing that. I love getting in front of the
54:01
students. Yeah, I love.
54:02
I like that too. Working, trying to work that
54:05
more into the commercial market because my I love doing it.
54:09
Why not make a living doing it? Sure.
54:11
I I know it's a different way of offering ethics training.
54:15
Most training is built around this is unethical behavior.
54:21
This is why you feel do it. This is the penalties and what I
54:24
learned in my journey for myself is that if you need to
54:29
understand, I hate the phrase root cause.
54:32
I've been in an investment business for almost 30 years and
54:35
that went through ethics training and and compliance
54:41
training. You never talked about why do
54:43
you make why? Why, why?
54:44
What's the pressure? Why do you do that?
54:46
Yeah. What makes you do that?
54:48
Yeah, and and I full if I would have recognized all that I had,
54:54
and I said this, if I would have recognized all that I had to be
54:56
grateful for in my life, none of which had to do with
55:00
possessions, healthy children, very supportive mother, spouse,
55:05
parents, family, my health, nothing had to do with size of
55:09
house, summer house, car. I would have recognized that was
55:13
very well and the pressure to do what I did.
55:17
And it isn't an excuse, right. It was an, you know, an internal
55:22
pressure that more is better and it isn't.
55:25
And we we developed a course. This gentleman and I met early
55:28
on. He's actually a guy from Chicago
55:31
originally, but lived up north very parallel lives.
55:35
And we were on the same journey to better ourselves.
55:39
So through research, through challenging each other, we
55:42
developed a course that we talked to other inmates.
55:45
We entitled it better or better of finding happiness and
55:49
gratitude in prison and beyond, and I'll tell you what that was.
55:53
I like I like the phrasing of that.
55:55
That course aired up being like a laboratory, if you will,
55:58
because the population, the Democratic athletics was about
56:01
20% white collar, 15%. The other was, I like to call
56:05
them nine non white collar. I don't like to use the term
56:08
drug, right. And what we found was regardless
56:13
of what got you there, what got you there was what you knew,
56:16
right? White collar or the, the drug
56:19
distribution they're selling that many of us were trying.
56:22
We're doing what we're doing, looking for that happiness
56:26
outside of us. Sometimes it was money,
56:28
sometimes it was power, sometimes it was status.
56:31
And you find then, regardless of what your crime was, a lot of us
56:37
were chasing the same thing. And that was the happiness
56:40
outside. And they felt, if you ever see
56:42
on my e-mail or some of my blogs, I had a little butterfly
56:46
as my symbol or as my logo. And one of the things I
56:51
routinely say is it's, you know, happiness is like chasing a
56:54
butterfly. If you ever try to chase a
56:56
butterfly when you're little, no matter how hard you chase that
56:58
little butterfly, that little butterfly gets away.
57:01
That's why they make butterfly nights, right?
57:04
But if you've ever been outside on a nice sunny day and just
57:07
relaxing and not moving around, you may have a butterfly land.
57:10
And that's, you know, that's a proxy for happy Chase it.
57:15
You're never going to catch, but you let it come to you, you have
57:19
a much better chance. And So what we talked about is
57:21
gratitude. You mentioned willful blindness
57:23
early on, learning to be happy. There's a course in material we
57:28
put together built around trying to develop and not become that
57:33
awareness. So.
57:35
That that could be something very, very useful inside the
57:38
precision. And one of the things you know,
57:39
this, this show goes into 800 prisons across the United
57:44
States, not in federal prisons, but in state prisons.
57:48
And that's a good, that's a good message right there.
57:51
Bill really is. Thank you.
57:54
So what do you think Bill, after all this that you've been
57:57
through, what, what do you think's your greatest take away
57:59
through it all? No, no religious person, but I'm
58:08
a spiritual person and my actions landed me in prison.
58:14
But I do believe that there was a purpose for that and the
58:20
purpose is what I get out and do today.
58:23
First of all, it made me a better person if I didn't go out
58:25
and speak or I think, you know, I, I do some work down at Cook
58:28
County Prison doing training this training with one of your
58:32
past guests. Augie just a few episodes ago,
58:37
yeah. So.
58:40
Second opportunity. Yep, second.
58:41
Opportunity doing great things if I didn't do and I just
58:47
focused on myself. It made me I needed that break.
58:51
Now the regret is the baggage that it took along with it
58:54
hurting my family, my children, my client business partner.
58:58
I wish I could separate those two.
59:00
Yeah. But the take away on this is it
59:03
made me a better person and it I needed an adult time out.
59:08
I don't know. If I needed time all the time I
59:13
shouldn't. If I didn't want to do the time,
59:14
I shouldn't. But you're saying it gave you
59:15
time to reflect and re and recharge your mind into what you
59:20
wanted to be, the person you wanted to be?
59:23
Yeah. And the person that my family
59:25
deserved, the person that society deserved.
59:28
And. And I also let them speak.
59:31
So I wouldn't have been doing that.
59:33
I wouldn't have been going down speaking in front of students.
59:35
And, you know, as you speak, you hope if you can affect one
59:40
person in that room. Yeah, just one then was well
59:44
worth, yeah. I, I think and I, I hope there's
59:48
more of us out there that take our journey and, and, and share
59:54
with others because I think it can, I think it does a couple of
59:56
different things. One, we have a, a story and
1:00:00
experience to share that can help others, I think.
1:00:04
And two, I think the more that people understand.
1:00:07
What this ex felon life is that there's maybe a chance that
1:00:12
they'll give more people second opportunities, second chances
1:00:16
because they understand the experience better.
1:00:18
Because the re entry world is really tough.
1:00:20
And you know, I probably am closer to it than most because I
1:00:24
get to talk to so many people that are going through it that
1:00:29
are coming out. But it's for most people, I
1:00:33
think the biggest surprise nightmare of being taken down,
1:00:38
nightmare of going to prison. But the UN kind of unfocused
1:00:43
thing about it or unknown thing is the re entry part, because
1:00:46
that's the part you got to figure out.
1:00:48
No matter what, you're going to live with it the rest of your
1:00:51
life. That's just the way that we are
1:00:53
in the United States. You will be an ex felon.
1:00:55
You will wear it around your neck.
1:00:57
But that doesn't mean your life stops.
1:00:58
It just means that you got to figure that out, know your story
1:01:02
and trudge forward and, and you can make it work.
1:01:05
I mean, what you're making it work, Bill.
1:01:06
And you're, you're also finding time to do things that you're
1:01:09
passionate about, to help other people and make a living.
1:01:14
And it's not easy, but you're, you're figuring it out.
1:01:17
And, and I think that's one of the things about this show is
1:01:19
whether you've gone to prison or you haven't gone to prison, life
1:01:22
can be tough, but you can figure it out as long as you step
1:01:26
forward, you step through the unknowns, the scary stuff, and
1:01:31
usually that gives you more confidence to keep stepping.
1:01:35
Yeah, very well say. Well, Bill, man, I really
1:01:39
appreciate this conversation. Since we got on the phone and
1:01:44
talked and before we got on today, it's just you.
1:01:47
You and I have share a lot of different things and and the way
1:01:51
you tell your story and the honesty, authenticity that you
1:01:54
come at it. I think a lot of people would
1:01:55
get a lot from how you are living and and how you're
1:01:59
telling it. Appreciate it.
1:02:01
You just mentioned, you know, if you can get out there and help
1:02:04
somebody that watches this, then it was worth the.
1:02:07
Absolutely. If somebody wants to get a hold
1:02:10
of you, Bill, for speaking, what, how would they do that?
1:02:14
The easiest way to do it is through my website,
1:02:17
whichis.billcarlson.com and an e-mail on there.
1:02:21
You can go and see my keynote address I did at Clemson.
1:02:25
I have probably 30 or 35 blogs I've written on all sorts of
1:02:30
topics around living in ethical excellence, port of gratitude,
1:02:35
happiness, ways to practice that.
1:02:38
And you can follow my get a hold of me through there and be happy
1:02:42
to chat. Perfect where it goes.
1:02:44
Or if you just want to talk, I mean, that's I love connecting
1:02:48
with people. Connecting is great and talking
1:02:51
about gratitude. I, I, I want to thank Homestead
1:02:54
financial here. They, they have all the fancy
1:02:56
equipment here that that allows me to do my podcast.
1:02:59
And if anybody's got home mortgage needs, Greg FDF is your
1:03:04
guy. He knows it backwards and
1:03:06
forwards. If you're looking for a book out
1:03:08
there, I've got one nightmare success you can get on Amazon,
1:03:11
Barnes and Noble if you got time.
1:03:14
I know it's a hassle, but the the reviews on Apple, they they
1:03:18
help grow the show. Check out my new website,
1:03:21
bretcassidy.com. I spell it wrong, spell it with
1:03:23
AT out of D. And as I used to say to my
1:03:28
people when I was writing my emails back from Leavenworth,
1:03:31
stay strong. I'll do the same.
1:03:33
Bill Carlson, thank you so much for today.
1:03:35
I appreciate it man. Thank you, Brian.
1:03:37
Appreciate it. Nightmare success in and out.