Evaristo Salas Jr.

But this is the way I was in prison too.

But I was locked in a box so I could only go so far.

So when I studied, when I read things, I did it with a drive as if, you know, there was something big going to come for me.

When I did classes, I just...

Focus, you know, it was a blind focus on getting that stuff done and read books and all that stuff.

And so I just applied those kind of those kind of habits that I had in prison to college life and everything I did out here.

It's just there's no barrier.

So you just speed through everything.

Prison, you hit balls everywhere you go and it takes so long.

And here, you know, it's just like you're just zooming past it and you're just like, this ain't hard at all to everybody else.

Like, that's kind of difficult.

Not really.

And we just keep pushing and pushing.

And so to my family, it was, it's been kind of a shock to them, see how, you know, fast I'm moving.

And they were worried in the beginning because they, I think they were expecting a broken man to come out of that place.

They were expecting someone that was going to be shocked by everything where he couldn't function, you know?

And rightly so, because most individuals do that.

But I had prepared myself 10 years prior mentally, emotionally to, to deal with this moment when it came, because I knew it would, I just didn't know how and when.

And so I had a plan, you know, and that plan, you know, consisted of me thinking about everything and visualizing everything.

And that seemed to help because I visualized, you know, being in the shopping malls, being surrounded by people.