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"Alive Again: The Andreea Parc Redemption Story" · Nightmare Success In and Out

0:01
What happens when your worst fear becomes your reality?
0:03
Hi, I'm Brent Cassidy, welcome to the Nightmare Success In and
0:07
Out podcast where we explore how to overcome your fears and
0:10
nightmares that set yourself free.
0:13
We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
0:15
Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
0:19
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
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built up in your own mind. All right.
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Welcome back, nightmare success in and out, listeners.
0:37
This is where you come from. What happens when your worst
0:39
fear becomes your reality? How do you adapt, survive,
0:41
overcome? Set yourself free, folks.
0:44
Don't forget to follow. Subscribe, share it, share it
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out, share it out to whomever, like it up, comment.
0:52
It all helps. So who are we talking to today
0:55
on Nightmare Success? I'm talking to Andrea Park, and
1:00
she has an incredibly interesting story.
1:03
She's she can't run for president because she's not from
1:06
this country, but she might be smart enough to.
1:10
She was a former attorney in New York and was once the CFO of the
1:15
New York Taxi King. And if anybody ever followed
1:17
that, that was kind of a big case.
1:21
And it involved Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael
1:25
Cohen. And she says that one day, her
1:29
world was turned upside down when she was suddenly taken from
1:32
her office as part of a New York State case involving the unpaid
1:36
taxes on the NYC Yellow Cab medallions.
1:40
Days later, a federal case followed.
1:42
This time, it was for immigration fraud stemming from
1:45
her general practice. She chose to go to trial.
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She chose to go to trial in a federal case that doesn't happen
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very often. 97% of the people who are indicted plea.
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The decision led to a five year sentence and she she got out of
2:05
prison. She's written her memoir.
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It's called Alive again my my journey from attorney to
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redemption in prison. She interestingly developed a
2:17
personal development technique called Apple awareness,
2:20
perspective, presence, Letting go and empowerment.
2:24
And she uses this to help and supporting attorneys and other
2:29
high achievers on not getting in the wrong lane, staying in the
2:33
right lane and and using this technique.
2:36
I I can't wait to unpack all this with Andrea.
2:39
Before we do, I want to recognize our show sponsor, Auto
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from nightmare Success Since you welcome in Andrea Park, how are
3:23
you? I'm very good.
3:25
Thank you so much for having me. So you have such an interesting
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story and I always love to talk to people, Andrea, who come from
3:32
another country. And I think where you came from
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was Romania. And how you and what?
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What age were you when you came from Romania to the United
3:46
States? I was 22 years old. 23 years old
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and how did you decide to make that happen?
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Because that's a big thing to have happen is to change
3:58
countries. Yes.
4:00
So that's a question that I've been asked so many times since I
4:06
ever remember. So I grew up in Romania being a
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communist country. Yes.
4:13
And since I've remember, I wanted to live in New York City
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and be a New Yorker. And how did you hear, like in
4:23
Romania, in a communist country? How did you get your information
4:29
about New York and the United States?
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I don't remember, I believe it was from the the American
4:38
movies, but we didn't have that many American movies.
4:43
But I think it was that idea that America is the country of
4:48
all possibilities where anything it's possible.
4:53
And knowing that in Romania I had very limited chances to go
5:01
wild, I believe that that was the where my idea of being a New
5:07
Yorker stemmed from. And and.
5:09
What was that? So after I, Yeah.
5:11
What? Was life like for you with your
5:13
family growing up in Romania? We don't get to talk to many
5:17
people from Romania. Like what, as a as a kid in your
5:21
family, how was it? So my parents were
5:30
intellectuals, so they had higher education, they had very
5:37
good positions in Romania, and for them everything was power
5:47
and money and to get to be somebody.
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And probably that's the reason why when I graduated law school
5:58
in Romania, I left, changed the continent completely and came to
6:06
the United States with the hope that I will become successful
6:12
and make my parents proud. What did your parents think
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about you wanting to leave your homeland to come to the United
6:21
States? Happy.
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They were happy that for me. Of course it was hard for them
6:30
to know that the 22 I'm I'm literally leaving everything
6:35
behind and and changing the continent.
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But they were happy for me and they trusted me that I can
6:43
handle it myself. And siblings.
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Did you have brothers? Sisters.
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You were the. Only child I'm a sick yes so.
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The SO the only child was leaving them to come to a new
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country. So tell us, what was it like
6:58
getting to the United States? I felt home the first time I
7:04
stepped foot in New York, and it's been almost 28 years.
7:13
So when you came, did you have people that you knew that you
7:17
could stay with or how did that? How does that work?
7:21
I had. So I was invited, and I came
7:26
with a tourist visa. I was invited by a distant
7:31
relative for a vacation to celebrate graduating law school,
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but the next day I arrived in the USI met my future husband.
7:46
Wow. I guess it was meant to be.
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So we we got together. He told me that if I stay with
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him, he will help me. And yeah, that's what happened.
8:03
Then we got married and I got the green card and the
8:06
citizenship. So you already had been to law
8:10
school in Romania, so did you know that that's what you were
8:15
wanting to do in the United States?
8:19
Yes. So I wanted to continue with
8:22
law, but definitely it's a difference in law from, from
8:29
the, the European law system to the American.
8:33
So plus my, I thought I know English, but I didn't.
8:38
So then I took a paralegal course for a year and a half and
8:47
that helped me a lot with the, with the legal terminology and
8:53
with English. And after that I registered for
8:57
the LLM program, which is the equivalency for foreign
9:01
attorneys. And I was able to sit for the
9:03
bar. So it's been a process for a few
9:07
good years while I built my I built a business and my family,
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I had, we had the daughter and it was, yeah, it, it, it was
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hard. It was.
9:22
I'm sure it was hard. So you you, you pass the bar.
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What's the next step with that? So when I passed the bar, I was
9:34
already working with the taxi king.
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And how did that come about because I mean for those there
9:44
was, there was a whole show about this whole thing with the
9:46
taxi king and and you were high up in the deal as the CFO.
9:50
How in the world did that come about?
9:54
So. For those who don't know, for
9:57
those who don't know for a long time, and this is before Uber
10:00
and all that, you couldn't drive a taxi anywhere in New York
10:04
unless you had this medallion and you had to pay so much money
10:08
for the medallion. And then that was your, you
10:10
know, your roadway, your pathway to be, you know, to have a taxi
10:14
in New York, which is a pretty good job.
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I don't know what it is now with, with Uber and everything,
10:18
but it was a big deal. And then there was this huge
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story that came about about what was going on with these
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medallions. But going back, Andrea, how in
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the world did you get involved with this company?
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So I started my business and I was doing all kinds of
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translations and legal documents for the Romanian community, and
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I was working with the council, the Romanian consulate in New
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York. But then I've learned that you
10:55
can make very good money by being a bookkeeper.
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So a good friend of our family knew an accountant and here they
11:08
recommended me and the accountant indeed needed a
11:11
bookkeeper and I started to work for the accountant as a
11:16
bookkeeper. So for few good years, I was
11:21
going to his office, getting boxes and boxes of statements
11:26
and and little books of checks and coming home and working at
11:33
night to input the information into QuickBooks and to do the
11:39
reconciliations for those companies that the accountant
11:46
handled as a bookkeeper. And after so many years,
11:51
probably 5-6 years, this accountant told me that this
11:56
person, not knowing that all of these companies that I was
12:01
working for all were owned by the same person.
12:05
And this person was Gene Friedman, which was later become
12:12
the Taxi King. And he said he needs somebody in
12:16
his office to set up the accounting department because
12:21
he's all over the place. He doesn't have anything on
12:24
paper and on the computer, everything, it's on paper.
12:28
And he wants to settle down and to have a an accounting
12:33
department. So this is How I Met Jim
12:39
Friedman. And indeed, I was the one who
12:44
actually started his accounting department and in the same time,
12:51
so I didn't work for him. Everything was consulting.
12:56
I was going to the I, I trained people in the accounting
13:00
department that were hired by him.
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So they work directly for him. But I was there to oversee the
13:08
accounting department because remember I knew everything for
13:11
the past years because I was doing the the bookkeeping.
13:16
And at that point a medallion was about 250,000.
13:25
And he started to appear in at the TLC Taxi and Limousine
13:33
Commission auctions and started buying all of the medallions
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that were on the market and that raised the price.
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And soon enough the price of 1 medallion reached over a million
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and 1/4. But it was very short lived
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because we all know that Uber and Lyft appeared on the market
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and that was when everything collapsed.
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Wow, So all this is going on, are you, are you as a personally
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or is this a good, are you making good income from this?
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It's funny that at, at the sentencing, the judge was made a
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comment I, I wouldn't say was laughing about me, but made a
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comment that it's too bad that you didn't even make any money
14:47
out of this. So I was making a good income,
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but I can't say that I was making money because remember I
14:56
had my law firm. Right.
14:59
I mean it's. Almost like a side hustle for
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you. The, the, the, because you had a
15:05
whole other world with your general practice of, of and, and
15:10
all mostly from what I've read, because you never know what you
15:14
read is really what it is. A lot of it had to do with your
15:18
community, immigration, asylum, all those different things.
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So I'm sure you were very busy with that.
15:23
And then you're doing this whole thing with the taxi king.
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But what's strange about it all? And I it's, it's just like
15:34
fascinating, Andrea, how it all came kind of at once.
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You're it all converged. You know, you're, you're taken
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first of all, was that a surprise that you were taken
15:45
from your office by whomever this was from the state that
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that does a surprise deal at your office?
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Was that something that was a surprise or were you expecting
15:56
them coming to you and and this was all coming to a head?
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No, it was a complete surprise because by that time I wasn't
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working with Jim Friedman anymore, so I knew that he had
16:15
the issues of not paying the taxes because he didn't have the
16:22
money to pay anything. He didn't have the money to pay
16:25
the mortgages. He didn't pay basically
16:28
anything, employees. A lot of people left and I
16:36
basically closed all the relationships with him in March.
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And now this is June, I'm working in my office, and two
16:48
people come in and they just tell me you're coming with us,
16:54
handcuff me and shove me in a car.
16:57
Wow. So I literally thought that I
17:00
was kidnapped. So where did you think you were
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going? I don't know, but let me because
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I know it's fascinating for a lot of people and think she's an
17:17
attorney. How come she didn't see things
17:21
coming? I was in such a denial of
17:29
everything that happened, that was happening.
17:34
I thought that nothing would touch me.
17:39
And I was there as ACFO, you know, like that you were.
17:48
Just very confident that whatever you.
17:50
Had, yeah, that child that that has the sparkly things all
17:56
around and that image of success.
18:02
That title gave me such a confidence that nothing is going
18:07
to happen to me. And how old would you have been,
18:11
Andrea, when all this took place?
18:14
43. OK, so you had built yourself
18:17
from 22 to 43 into a professional.
18:21
You has your law practice, You're doing this with the taxi
18:24
king. You've stepped away from it, and
18:27
then you're handcuffed. What?
18:29
What goes through your mind when you realize that because this
18:34
case actually got dismissed because Friedman actually ended
18:39
up testifying against Michael Cohen.
18:41
And then but days later, as this is all going down, there's a
18:47
federal indictment. How does that come about?
18:55
So for the state case, I was in Albany for three days until my
19:04
family was able to put down the bail, the bail and I was coming,
19:15
driving home and I was calling the office to let them know that
19:22
I'm on my way and I'll be in the office and beef before 5.
19:29
Nobody's answering the call, which is weird.
19:34
And finally, probably an hour later, one of my assistants
19:40
picks up the phone, cell phone, not office phone, cell phone,
19:46
and tells me that the other assistant was visited 6:00 in
19:53
the morning by federal agents. And it was a massive
19:59
investigation on my immigration practice.
20:05
So that's why they left the office.
20:08
They locked the office. And all of the keys of everybody
20:13
that worked for me were dropped in the mailbox and I've haven't
20:18
seen or heard from them ever since.
20:22
Wow. You were literally driving back
20:26
from Albany after being arrested.
20:29
You're calling the office and now you find that there is a
20:32
large federal investigation going into your practice of
20:36
immigration asylum. Now what are you thinking?
20:44
That was the point where I completely blocked my I, I
21:00
paralyzed emotionally. I was so afraid of what could
21:07
happen that I, I can't think, I can't take any decisions,
21:19
rational decisions, because I took a lot of decisions that
21:23
were one worse than the other because of the fear of what's
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going to happen and the worst happened.
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So that's the reason why now I'm working with attorneys and high
21:42
achieving professionals to unblock them, to help them
21:48
unblock and unlock them out of that fear.
21:53
Because in fear, you can't make any straight decisions or good
21:59
decisions for yourself and for your family.
22:03
Yeah, fear causes a lot of problems.
22:06
Yeah. With all this going on, you've
22:10
got a whole personal life. Are you still married to your
22:14
husband and and kids? What all happens in your
22:19
personal life as this is going on over here with the federal
22:24
situation? No, I was divorced, but I have.
22:30
I had a daughter, she was 15 at the time and a partner.
22:35
And The thing is that I told everyone not to tell my daughter
22:41
what happened and not to tell my mother what happened.
22:46
Mother's still in Romania. Mother is still in Romania, yes.
22:51
And, you know, when you're trying to hide things, that's
22:57
when everything comes to light, you know, and my daughter was
23:02
having breakfast at home before going to school, and she knowing
23:09
that I'm in Romania because my mother had some emergencies when
23:15
she sees my picture on the television in front of the
23:21
entire America so. How did you talk that through
23:27
with her? Again, I was so paralyzed with
23:35
emotional. I was numb.
23:38
Yeah, trauma. I didn't talk to my daughter at
23:43
that point at all. I came home like nothing
23:48
happened. But then when the federal case
23:58
started to unfold, then I sat down with her and I told her
24:05
that I'm going to trial. That is another thing that
24:14
because of that fear and not being rational in my decisions,
24:24
I didn't educate myself with the choices that I might have if I
24:31
go to trial. I had two sets of attorneys, but
24:38
probably because I was so sure of myself, none of them told me,
24:43
hey, lady, why don't you sit down and actually look at the
24:51
the reality of the criminal system in this country.
25:00
I knew that I wasn't guilty, and that's the reason why I chose to
25:06
go to trial. And I trusted the judicial
25:11
system and I trusted that truth will come to light.
25:17
And I was wrong because that didn't happen.
25:20
So as everybody who listens to this show knows, not very many
25:25
people go to trial. What was that experience like
25:32
for you? It was unreal, heartbreaking,
25:49
but somehow I needed that experience to wake me up.
26:04
Interesting. Did you feel like, because I
26:07
always interestedly people go to trial, did you feel like that as
26:12
the trial and I'm not sure how long the trial lasted.
26:16
Two weeks. Two weeks.
26:18
Did you feel like in that time period that you had a good shot
26:23
with this jury and and the the case or was it from the jump you
26:29
felt like, oh, no, I've done the wrong thing.
26:32
I shouldn't be here. I probably should have figured
26:34
something else that or did you think there was a shot that
26:38
you're going to win this thing? At that point in my 200% denial,
26:50
I thought that I have a great job.
26:56
Now looking back, it was a disaster.
27:04
But again, because you can't, you can't see the reality when
27:11
you're with horse glasses. Yeah.
27:18
Or with pink glasses. And, and Andrea, you, you're
27:21
talking about something that is such a hot subject right now
27:25
with immigration and asylum and all those different things.
27:29
And I'm sure it within your community, being a Romanian, you
27:33
had a passion for getting people through the immigration process
27:38
and the asylum process and all those different things that
27:40
happened. Did you feel like that you were
27:43
doing something wrong when you were doing the things that you
27:49
were doing? So there is no smoke without
27:59
fire. Definitely I made mistakes, but
28:07
So what happened was I helped a certain ethnicity from Romania
28:23
to get asylum in the US because they were persecuted both in
28:31
Romania and in Europe. And I started with two families
28:38
which were really hardworking and nice people.
28:42
And they had they, they had really, really great cases.
28:48
And when those two cases were approved, then it's when a lot
28:54
of the same ethnicity came to me and having so many because
29:03
immigration, I wasn't an immigration attorney.
29:06
I had the general practice. Immigration was about 30% of my
29:10
practice, but I had my practice. I had these cases, I had the
29:16
taxi king. So it was absolutely crazy.
29:21
A day in my office was insane. And what happened was they were
29:29
coming to my office and we were filing the initial filings with
29:36
the immigration court. At some point in time, these
29:43
people started to disappear. So how they immigrate the the
29:49
asylum works is people enter the country illegally and they're
30:00
allowed to file for asylum one year of their entry to for
30:11
people who are persecuted in their home countries and if they
30:18
go back, they suffer even more persecution.
30:22
Now there are two steps. The first step when you apply
30:28
the the initial application and then when after that they get
30:33
work permit, Social Security, and then they get driver's
30:38
license in the US. And then the second part of the
30:43
application is where you show up with the client in front of the
30:47
judge and the government and they tell their story with
30:54
documents, paperworks and things like that and their entire
30:58
family. So I apply the initial portion
31:07
and a lot of these people after they got their work permits, I
31:12
couldn't get hold of them. And why I'm saying that I was
31:20
paralyzed because as an attorney.
31:25
All right, let me finish the story.
31:27
And then I go back. Turns out why I couldn't get
31:33
hold of them because they obtained their driver's licenses
31:39
and they left New York. They weren't in New York
31:42
anymore. I didn't know that.
31:44
And then they, some of them were caught with ATM fraud everywhere
31:55
in the US and they were arrested by the feds.
32:00
Now, as you said, everything came in the same time.
32:05
And the feds, of course, they looked at their background.
32:09
How are these people, why are these people in this country?
32:13
And how are these people having a driver's license?
32:19
How did they get the driver's license?
32:23
And of course, going back, everything came to me.
32:28
She is their immigration attorney.
32:30
So they thought that I was the ringleader of the ATM fraud, so
32:38
they thought that I was bringing them in the US to do the fraud.
32:44
Now, that's clearly not the case, the mistakes that I've
32:49
made, because then the prosecutors asked me, so why
32:53
didn't you withdraw the cases or amend the applications?
33:00
First of all, as an attorney, I have the right to protect the
33:06
client. I didn't know which ones, which
33:12
clients did the ATM fraud. I couldn't just withdraw all the
33:18
cases. I couldn't just, I needed the
33:23
people to come in and sign the forms so I can file the
33:28
amendments. I can't just tell the court,
33:32
listen, this is the story because then I was not ethical
33:39
towards my clients. So I simply didn't know I was
33:44
parallel. I didn't know how to handle to
33:47
protect myself and protect the clients.
33:51
I went and I spoke with an attorney that handles this type
33:57
of ethical cases for attorneys and he told me, well, you don't
34:03
know how the court would act or react to this, so maybe why
34:08
don't you wait to see what happens.
34:12
And I was relieved because I didn't want to deal with this
34:20
anyway because I was afraid put. It in a box and forget about it.
34:23
Right, right. You know that thing when if you
34:26
don't think about it, maybe it just disappears It, it yeah, it
34:32
didn't it didn't. So they came after me and of
34:37
course they couldn't find anything on the ATM fraud, but
34:43
they had to Take Me Out of the equation anyway.
34:50
And they created this they, they thought that all of the
34:54
applications that I've made which were over 100 were
34:59
fraudulent. So this is how I was indicted
35:05
with immigration fraud, false statements and then when I went
35:13
to try, when I chose to go to trial, they added as a penalty
35:18
trial the identity theft which carries A mandatory 2 year.
35:27
So you get through this whole trial, it comes down with the
35:31
guilty verdict, you get sentenced to A5 year sentence.
35:41
What's after all of this? What's where's your mind?
35:45
What? What are you thinking at this
35:47
point? So because I have dual
35:57
citizenship, a under a normal circumstances I would have just
36:05
go home, process the information with my family and receive a
36:14
letter in the mail the on off the date to surrender directly
36:19
at the camp. But because I have dual
36:22
citizenship and the judge that doesn't trust me, I'm taken
36:29
directly to MCC. Wow.
36:33
So I got to process what happened by myself in a cell
36:40
without the window on a top bunk and then open toilet next to my
36:46
bed. Well, Andrea, that's a lot.
36:50
That's a lot. Well, I want to, I want to take
36:53
a break there because when we get back, I want to discuss how
36:57
you handled all that and how you adapted to that new world that
37:00
you never thought that you would be in.
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37:53
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For more information, go to prisoners.org.
38:14
That's prisoners.org. So Andrea, you get immediately
38:18
remanded to one of the worst places to get remanded to.
38:22
And you're in a cell thinking about, Oh my gosh, what all just
38:27
happened. And I'm not just going to be
38:28
here for a day or two. I've got A5 year sentence.
38:32
So how do you start downloading this and making this into your
38:40
next step into the world of the unknown?
38:45
The first week was unbearable, and I described that first week
38:56
in my book at length. I didn't have any money because
39:04
of my complicated name. They couldn't get it right and I
39:11
couldn't. My name wouldn't show up and my
39:15
family couldn't put money on my books.
39:21
I couldn't eat anything and I was in shock.
39:28
The first week I couldn't concentrate.
39:31
I was trying to read the Bible but I couldn't concentrate and
39:34
it was really, really, really tough.
39:41
But my bunkie was a girl also from Queens like me and we were
39:58
talking at night after they locked the cell and every night
40:05
she was telling me stories of her life.
40:09
She was 28 and she told me that prison saved her life because
40:18
she overdosed twice and 30 of her friends and family passed
40:25
away because of drugs. And I realized at that moment
40:34
that I'm fine, I'm alive, my daughter is alive, my parents
40:42
are good, and that everything is temporary, that this terrible
40:52
situation will end at some point.
41:01
That's a good mindset, especially from where you were
41:03
sitting. How long did you stay where you
41:06
were before you went to the federal prison?
41:11
I was in MCC for eight months until I was transferred to
41:16
Danbury. Eight months and I'm assuming
41:19
that's no outside all inside cell. 8 months is a long time in
41:25
a place like that MCC. So you get transferred to
41:29
Danbury. Walk us through that.
41:34
How does Andrea get into that world after she spent eight
41:39
months in a horrible, horrible place?
41:44
I felt. So the first message I sent, the
41:48
first e-mail I sent my family from Danbury was that I'm in a
41:56
all inclusive resort. The outside was absolutely
42:04
amazing and that saved my soul. The track, the greenery, the
42:10
trees, the birds. Absolutely incredible.
42:17
Incredible. Especially since you've been
42:19
locked in for eight months, being outside had to be an
42:22
incredible experience, yeah. So I remember the first day I
42:27
was a plus. Remember that we were locked for
42:31
so many hours and the transfer happened in a van with
42:38
handcuffs, shackles and tied together around the waist with a
42:44
chain and the lock and we get to Danbury and they take everything
42:53
off. We were three girls that were
42:58
sent to Danbury and we were given the bedroll and literally
43:04
left in the middle of the street and the officer said you just
43:09
walk up the hill. He left us there in the middle
43:13
of the street. I said how is that even
43:17
possible? He said no, you're campers.
43:20
I mean, you don't have locked doors, you don't have anything.
43:24
Literally you can walk home, but it's another five year charge,
43:30
escape charge. But that's besides the point.
43:32
There is no locked doors in a camp.
43:36
So the, the transition was incredible for me and I was
43:43
looking at my skin. I was transparent because I, you
43:49
know, I wasn't in, I haven't seen the sun in eight months.
43:53
I mean, we were allowed to go outside on the roof, but
43:58
probably 3 hours a week, something like that.
44:03
Wow. And when I arrived at Danbury,
44:05
everything happened outside. I I stayed outside as much as
44:10
possible. So what was because you know
44:14
you're doing a five year sentence, Did you at that point
44:17
walking into a different situation but a better living
44:22
environment? Did you have any particular
44:25
strategies, Andrea, on how you were going to walk through the
44:30
next few years? How did you evolve?
44:35
Yes. So my strategy starting early in
44:40
MCC was how to keep my mind straight because I understood at
44:47
that point that the mind is everything, right?
44:52
I can handle anything if I can handle my mind.
44:58
Don't. Lose your.
45:01
Mind don't, because don't become.
45:04
Prison, Andrea, stay your stay yourself, right?
45:08
Yeah, yeah, because the the body can be imprisoned, but the mind
45:13
can't. We only imprison ourselves.
45:16
True. And I've learned that the hard
45:20
way because I could have made different choices before.
45:26
But you know, we can make better choices because we don't know
45:30
better. Nobody does things to harm
45:32
themselves knowingly. So that was the strategy.
45:37
And that's when I came with Apple and I worked one by one
45:44
from awareness to changing the perspective to being present to
45:51
letting go, which letting go is acceptance and forgiveness.
45:58
And that was a lot and and it took me a while to accept what
46:06
happened, accept myself, accept and forgive people and forgive
46:14
myself. And you talked before we got on,
46:20
before we started filming, talked about you had a lot of
46:24
support visitors that would come see you while you were there.
46:28
I'm sure that was helpful. Yeah, yeah.
46:33
My daughter, my partner and two good friends were visiting every
46:39
week. Every week makes a difference.
46:42
But then the pandemic came and I haven't seen my daughter for 18
46:50
months. What a terrible set of
46:55
circumstances that would have been.
46:59
And you know, we talked about this a little bit before we
47:02
started and I wasn't in when the pandemic was, you know that
47:07
that, but I knew what it was like when they lock you down,
47:10
take away privileges and those type of things.
47:12
I'm assuming that that just happened in the pandemic because
47:15
it was easier to keep everybody in one place or out of place or
47:21
whatever they wanted to do to make sure that they were doing
47:25
this because of the pandemic made everybody's job easier.
47:29
How did you handle that time? It was tough.
47:36
It was tough for everybody. And it's one thing when you are
47:42
alone and somehow you can handle yourself.
47:47
But then when you have 180 women around you that are all over the
47:56
place and and terrified with the unknown because literally we
48:01
didn't know anything with what's happening outside, right?
48:06
It was even tougher. But again, I realized that I can
48:15
only help myself. You know, salvation is
48:17
individual and I cannot rely on anybody from the outside to help
48:24
me. So I had to help myself.
48:28
And the only thing that I could have helped myself in there was
48:32
to keep my mind sane. And I was meditating a lot,
48:38
reading a lot, trying to exercise as much as I could in
48:44
my bunk. Yeah, because we were for a
48:49
month. We were literally inside the.
48:54
Yeah, locked down all the dorm, Yeah, All the things that you
48:57
liked on the outside you weren't able to get.
49:00
To no for a month. We were 50 people in one dorm.
49:06
I can't imagine, can't imagine. So you start, everybody has this
49:13
thing that happens, Andrea, when you start getting close to your
49:16
out date. You know, some people it's a
49:19
year, some people it's six months, some people it's three
49:21
months. But there's this some kind of
49:24
anxiety that happens that you've, whether you wanted to or
49:29
not, you've gotten used to your routine in prison and now you're
49:33
stepping out to the new unknown, which is you being who you are
49:39
now, stepping back into freedom. What was how were you planning
49:44
to step back out and what were your plans?
49:49
So I started, I knew what I'm going to do.
49:55
So I was working on my coaching programs, I was working on my
50:00
book or books, 'cause I still have three books that are in in
50:06
the works that I started back then.
50:11
I worked on the Apple. I I knew exactly what I'm going
50:18
to do and I was so eager to be home and start doing things.
50:26
But I got home and the situation wasn't that good.
50:34
I wasn't allowed to go out, of course, because I was still in
50:37
home confinement. But, and I only was in less than
50:44
three years and everything changed.
50:47
I had to learn how to walk on the street.
50:52
I was afraid. Not necessarily afraid of
50:55
people, but it was weird to see people in the street, to see
51:00
people in normal clothes, to see cars.
51:03
Although I was the the town driver for Danbury, so I went
51:09
out so many times, but it was a a parallel reality somehow.
51:15
It was me in a uniform with a government car and the rest of
51:20
the world right now at home, I was part of the world, but I
51:27
wasn't, I didn't feel part of the world.
51:32
I still felt an outsider. So it took me a while to get
51:41
accustomed to the new to to the life, back to life.
51:48
And I can only imagine people that were in for longer.
51:53
I think it's one of the most shocking or surprising things
51:58
about going into prison, thinking everybody like you were
52:03
talking like I was thinking the, the excitement of getting out,
52:07
exciting to have your freedom back.
52:10
But re enter's really, really tough and, and it, there's a,
52:13
there's a, it's kind of a weird dynamic too, because you've got
52:17
1000 things going on in your head and people are looking at
52:21
you and you're hoping that they're looking at you as, Hey,
52:23
I'm the same person. I'm the same person I always
52:25
was. But you really have 1000 things
52:28
going on and they're looking at you also.
52:29
You got to be really happy. You got to be really.
52:31
Oh, absolutely I am. But I think you could think I'm
52:35
crazy of all these thousand things I've got going on that
52:37
I'm hoping everybody thinks I'm the same person, but I'm hoping
52:42
that I'm fitting back in. So there's so many things and it
52:47
takes a while to get yourself grounded again and feeling
52:52
normal. It's it's not something that
52:54
happens day one. You're happy day one to get out
52:57
and then reality sets in. But you did go to work, Andrea.
53:01
You did start doing stuff. How did that all start happening
53:04
for you? Slowly, very slowly.
53:11
So the first thing I started was going to school for coaching.
53:18
So that was because I know a lot of things, but I can't do what I
53:24
know. So I couldn't do taxes, I
53:27
couldn't do law. So the only thing that I I could
53:32
have done was translations. But then I wanted to be a coach,
53:40
but I didn't know much of how to do that.
53:45
So I went to school for coaching.
53:48
And slowly but surely I started writing.
53:53
Finishing my book, writing on blogs, talking to people because
54:03
was very weird at the beginning when everybody was calling me to
54:09
share in my experience and I was sharing it from my now self, but
54:16
they were expecting me to share it from my then self and somehow
54:23
we weren't on the same page and writing A blog.
54:29
That's why I started the blog and writing A blog was my
54:35
venting somehow. So writing, I found writing as
54:41
as a way of releasing a lot of and, and my book actually is
54:47
it's releasing the the pain now I the pain that it was in me,
54:54
it's in the book and I'm letting the book speak for itself.
54:59
Alive again, by the way. On Yeah, Alive Again.
55:03
I'm assuming people can get that at Amazon and other places.
55:06
Yeah, yes. So you, it slowly start
55:11
happening. You start slowly start getting
55:13
clients to help high achievers, professionals, attorneys.
55:17
Attorneys. Yeah.
55:19
And that has to feel good, right?
55:21
To to use your experience, your life experience, to be able to
55:25
give back and help. Yes, it does.
55:29
It does especially that I know because I was there.
55:35
I know how attorneys feel, the pressure, the stress, the the
55:44
environment, Yeah. But it's a lot of, you know, the
55:50
the worst thing that that people can change, but the worst is
56:02
their image. Because for me, I lived with
56:08
that image of a successful attorney and from that image.
56:13
I believe is your identity. I am this.
56:15
Successful attorney. People see me as this successful
56:18
attorney, Yeah. Yes, and from that image I made
56:22
all the mistakes. Yeah, exactly.
56:26
And and. And that's the worst part to
56:29
change for. I, I think that is, that's,
56:31
that's so tough because I, I, I, we were having this discussion
56:34
the other night and I was talking about the time that I
56:38
had gotten back and I was with a couple of friends that I'd known
56:41
forever. And I felt so disconnected
56:45
because I was thinking, Oh my gosh, they're, they've gotten so
56:47
far ahead of me. They're talking about, you know,
56:50
vacations and doing stuff to their homes and getting another
56:53
home. And I'm like, gosh, I was so far
56:55
ahead of, of my peers. At one point.
56:59
I was like, how in the world am I ever going to fit back in?
57:02
And it didn't happen all at once.
57:05
And I, I left. I was kind of grieving myself
57:08
from before my life, my, my world of what I was.
57:12
And I started thinking as I was grieving and really depressed
57:18
kind of after I left that, that lunch.
57:20
And this is like, you know, maybe a month or so after I got
57:22
out of prison. And I found that the way that
57:28
what got me out was was finding something that I felt like I was
57:33
making a difference, that I, I felt like I, because what was it
57:37
that made me feel like that when I was the king of the world?
57:41
I felt like I was making a difference.
57:43
It's finding that thing again, whatever that thing is that
57:46
makes you feel like you're able to make an impact.
57:50
You're able to make a difference.
57:50
You're able to do something that that giving back or whatever
57:53
that is. Yeah.
57:55
I. Hold that the why?
57:57
Yes, the why and it doesn't have anything to do with the money.
58:01
It has to do with your mindset of how you feel about yourself
58:07
and what you're doing and your why.
58:09
Yeah, yeah. So, Andrea, if you think about
58:18
this whole story, 'cause I, I find your whole story
58:20
fascinating for Romania, all the way through this to where you
58:23
are now and, and putting your life back together and making a
58:26
difference in what you're doing. What do you think's your biggest
58:30
take away from all this that you've been through?
58:36
That we are exactly where to we need to be in life.
58:46
Because if I would have known better at that point now I would
58:54
have been in a different place. But I didn't.
58:57
So I needed to learn the lesson and this lesson was the best for
59:05
me because I'm a very resourceful person.
59:09
So if I would not have been stuck in prison and forced to
59:17
work with myself and on myself, I for sure could have find a
59:25
different way to escape somehow. So my higher power God universe
59:33
knew that this was the only way for me to learn the lesson.
59:40
And because of that, I'm grateful that I'm, you know,
59:44
because if it wouldn't have been prison, could have been a car
59:49
accident or a stroke or something, because the craziness
59:54
of my life was so out of hand that literally anything would
59:59
have happened. So I take this as a blessing and
1:00:05
the the thing that needed to happen in my life to put me on
1:00:13
the right track. Wow, that's a deep thought.
1:00:17
That's a good take away. Everything that's happened to
1:00:20
you, you've been able to recalibrate and now readjust to
1:00:26
this is you, you still have your great brain.
1:00:30
You know, they haven't taken your mind and, and brain away
1:00:33
from you. The intelligence.
1:00:34
And that's the thing. If as long as you don't lose
1:00:36
that, you can make everything else happen.
1:00:39
And I, I love and I, I love, I just want to go through the
1:00:43
apple again because I, I think each and everything that you
1:00:45
have on that is awareness, perspective, presence, letting
1:00:51
go, forgiving yourself moving forward, empowerment, you got to
1:00:55
take the action to get back out there.
1:00:57
And, and I love that. I I think it's, it's good stuff,
1:01:01
good stuff. And and I tell everybody, my
1:01:06
clients, my friends, my daughter, everybody, we're human
1:01:12
and everybody in this life got lost in the bushes at some point
1:01:18
in time. Absolutely.
1:01:20
It just doesn't. Become.
1:01:21
It just doesn't. Become public for everybody,
1:01:23
right? Yeah, no, but but if we know how
1:01:27
to pull ourselves out of the ditch, yes, back on the road,
1:01:32
that's all that matters. And you got to have a reason to
1:01:35
get out of the ditch. And so that's where we get to
1:01:37
your why and your reason and how do you get out?
1:01:39
Otherwise you just stay in the ditch.
1:01:42
Yeah, you stay imprisoned in your own mind and that's you
1:01:44
don't want to get institutionalized and there's a
1:01:46
lot of people that get institutionalized on the outside
1:01:48
to get stuck in a bad job, bad marriage, bad whatever.
1:01:52
And you got to get out of that. There's got to be a way.
1:01:55
And that's define that. Why?
1:01:59
OK to get a hold of you because you also have we we need to
1:02:03
recognize the book again that's alive again that that's that's
1:02:09
what something to check out your podcast, the name of your
1:02:12
podcast, Andrea. Same alive again.
1:02:16
So the book is in English, Spanish and Romanian.
1:02:20
The podcast is alive again and it's on YouTube and Spotify and
1:02:26
Apple. OK, yes, I have the Apple Book
1:02:31
and Predict Your Outcomes guidebook which is also on
1:02:36
Amazon and my everything comes together in my website
1:02:40
whichisandreapark.com. Perfect.
1:02:43
That was a good, that was a good pitch, Andrea.
1:02:45
I love it. You made that easy.
1:02:48
And for all of you talking about gratitude and everything else, I
1:02:52
want to thank Homestead Financial Home Mortgage lets me
1:02:54
use this podcast room and all the fancy stuff.
1:02:57
And I want to say, hey, there's another book out there too.
1:03:00
If you're checking out Andrea's book, check out my book,
1:03:03
Nightmare Success. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes
1:03:06
and Noble. If you got time.
1:03:09
Leave me a review on Spotify, Apple, wherever.
1:03:14
And if you want to know anything about more of what I'm doing, go
1:03:16
to my website, brentcassidy.com. I spell it wrong.
1:03:19
I spell it with ATY, not a DY as I used to say to my people when
1:03:23
I was writing my emails back and forth from 11 where stay strong.
1:03:26
I'll do the same. Andrea, thanks so much for
1:03:28
stuff. I.
1:03:29
I think you're just a fascinating person.
1:03:31
I'm so glad that we got to connect.
1:03:34
Thank you. Thank you.
1:03:35
Same here. Nightmare success in and out.