Reginald

You know, I was buying those books in prison.

She sent me the money for it.

So I'll credit that.

And I will also credit, you know, like every time somebody was honest with me.

The judge was honest with me.

He told me, I'm under no illusion that sending you to prison will help.

But you can get something out of it.

And it was it was a challenge as well as just being a statement that like you 16 and everybody else is going to tell you how little power you have, how small you are, how violent prison is.

I'm going to tell you, you can get something out of it if you want.

And I think that I've always had this attitude once I went to prison and felt like I was I have sink to rock bottom.

that I could be who I say I am.

And I have just sort of committed myself and dedicated myself in a singular way to doing that.

And then I also say the last thing is that because I spent so much time in prison, I was able to become an autodidact.

I was able to pursue and chase my interests.

And I was able to learn a lot about things that I thought were completely unrelated until they became related.

Like who would have known me maneuvering

around the Department of Corrections and around COs and around wardens will be the skill set that I needed 20 years later when I'm starting an organization that demands that I not look at COs and wardens as my enemies.

I had to choose in prison that they weren't my enemy.

And that's why it's easy for me to do it now.

I had to choose in prison that I had a story that needed to be bigger than me being a felon so that the CEOs had to have a story that was bigger than them being a CEO.