Chapter 1: What led Damon West to receive a 65-year prison sentence?
Back in the courtroom and they read my sentence out loud. Damon Joseph West, you are hereby sentenced to 65 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Mick, 65 years in the state of Texas is a life sentence in the state of Texas.
welcome to mick unplugged the number one podcast for self-improvement leadership and relentless growth no fluff no filters just hard-hitting truths unstoppable strategies and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest ready to break limits let's go
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mic Unplugged, and today we've got a story that is going to change your life. He went from maximum security to maximum impact. Once a felon, now he's a force of good. His message is transformational. It electrifies NFL locker rooms, corporate boardrooms, and universities across the globe.
He's the proof that rock bottom can be a solid foundation for greatness. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me in joining the resilient, the visionary, the unstoppable Mr. Damon West. How are you doing today, brother?
Mick, I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for your time today. I love that introduction. We got to go on the road together, brother. That was good.
Literally everyone says that, man. We make sure that our platform, we celebrate our guests, man. This isn't about controversy. This isn't about bringing people down. Everything we do is about uplifting. And of many of the stories that I've sat behind the mic on, your story, man, might be the most transformative that I've ever been a part of, brother.
So one, I just wanted to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. And number two, man, like just... The admiration that I have for you, I wanted to tell you that to your face, brother. I love you so much, man.
Brother, I appreciate you. I love you too, man. I appreciate that. Yeah, I think that human beings are capable of way more than they think they are. And I think a lot of times we allow overthinking to get in the way of overcoming. But as we're going to hear from this story, I put myself in a situation, because I did. I put myself in the situation I was in
where I had my back against the wall and the pressure was so high on me and I had to figure it out. There's a question I ran across recently and that's actually the first question, it's actually the first sentence of my new book. The question is this, if someone took control of your life tomorrow, what's the first thing they would change?
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Chapter 2: How did Damon West's mindset shift during his time in prison?
And the crime that I'm standing trial for is engaging in organized criminal activity. It's a RICO case. I'm the boss of the entire RICO ring. Bunch of meth addicts breaking into houses. I was a meth addict myself. But the jury heard the story of a guy named Damon West, this guy that had it all. Mick, I came from this wonderful town called Port Arthur, Texas. I had two parents in my home.
My parents were married for 55 years, you know. Great high school quarterback, Division I starting quarterback at North Texas. Got injured, career got cut short, got into drugs, but I had some of the best jobs you can imagine. I worked in the United States Congress. I worked for a guy running for president.
Then I became a Wall Street stockbroker, and it was at that job as a broker in Dallas in 2004 that I was introduced to meth. And once I was introduced to meth, the wheels came off. I was homeless after 18 months, living on the streets. And I put together a burglary crew and we started breaking into homes all over Dallas.
And Mick, when I broke into people's homes, I didn't just steal their property. I stole their sense of security. And I know I took it from them. They can't get that back. But on July 30th, 2008, the Dallas SWAT team takes me down. Dramatic SWAT team raid. They arrest me that day. Or as I tell people all the time, Dallas SWAT didn't just arrest me in 2008. They rescued me.
They pulled me out of a situation I couldn't get myself out of. The angels in my story don't have wings. They have assault rifles and shields and helmets. And they're coming through the doors. They bust the windows. They bust the door off the hinges. But Dallas SWAT saves my life that day. I don't see it as that at the time.
Less than a year later, we're standing in that courtroom on May 18th, 2009. The case is over. Six days of trial. They're property crimes, so no one ever got physically hurt. The jury goes to deliberate for 10 minutes. And man, that's a terrible sign.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the 'Coffee Bean' story?
Because if a jury's gone for 10 minutes, it means they smoked you. They brought me back in the courtroom and they read my sentence out loud. Damon Joseph West, you are hereby sentenced to 65 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Mick, 65 years in the state of Texas is a life sentence in the state of Texas.
The jury gave me life that day, or as they say in prison terms, six dimes and a nickel. So it's a good place to start this story, though, Mick.
Man, so I want to unpack and unplug a lot in that story, man. So you are a stockbroker, right? And a lot of people around the country, around the world assume that meth is a low-class type of drug, right? And it can't find its way to a stockbroker. Yeah. Right? And I hate almost asking this question of like, why? But like, what were you missing that you felt like meth was going to give you?
Yeah, here's where I would say what the answer to that question was. At this point in my life, I'm an addict in my addiction. And I believe I'll always be an addict. I think that because I have a program recovery now, I know how to live with my addictions. That helps me keep control of this addiction thing. I've been sober since SWAT got me. But I couldn't live life on life's terms, mate.
That's the definition of being an addict. And when you can't live life on life's terms, you put in chemicals to change the way you feel. The chemicals were what I always turned to. First, it was alcohol when I was younger. Then it was drugs. It was cocaine and ecstasy. But when I was introduced to meth for the first time, meth took a hold of me like nothing else did.
And look, you hit the nail on the head. The other stockbroker that gives me meth for the first time... I look at him like, man, what is that white trash stuff you're trying to give me? And he kind of laughed at me. He said, yeah. He said, you try this one time, you won't be doing that cocaine anymore. And he was right, babe.
I had a cocaine problem in 2004, but that was fixed whenever I tried meth for the first time because I never touched cocaine again. Meth is the most evil, most destructive, most addictive drug. And addiction, addiction doesn't care who you are or where you come from. Addiction does not discriminate. Because addiction doesn't care who you are, where you come from, who your parents are.
When addiction's got a hold of you, it's got you. And I believe, Mick, wholeheartedly, every person in America is affected by addiction. Whether you're an addict, the victim of an addict, the friend of an addict, the family member of an addict, or you're just a taxpayer. You're paying into an overburdened criminal justice system that has no idea how to handle the disease of addiction.
Addiction touches every one of us, Mick.
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Chapter 4: How did Damon West transform his life after prison?
Right. You've got friends. You have other people that not only depend on you, but look up to you. Right. Colleagues as well. What was that moment like of having to look people in the eye and saying this is who I really am?
Yeah, it was humbling. I mean, and I think humility is when we are right-sized because humility removes the ego and everything else or what our imaginations make the giants of our dreams. It was extremely humbling. And look, I'll be honest with you. Until that day in court, I wasn't ready to accept the responsibility for my behaviors.
I wasn't just this guy that came into the trial and said, hey, I did it all. I pled not guilty. I didn't take the stand. I was a very cocky, arrogant person. And that's one of the reasons I think the jury hated me so much because I was, you know, I didn't have any remorse. I didn't show any humility, but humility found me. And it found me on that day in my trial.
And I tell you this, when you go through some big situation like that in life, and you don't have to go get sentenced to life in prison to have an upside down situation in life or a life altering event. But when you go through a life altering event, you will find out who is in your corner and who is not.
And you will probably find out if you were like a guy, a guy like me, that you ran a lot of good people off and getting some of those people to believe in you again. That is a long process. That takes a lot of time. My dad would tell me things like, you know, you earn trust by the spoonful and you lose it by the bucket full. And on May 18, 2009, I dumped the whole bucket of trust out, man.
It was out there. Damon West was a fraud. He was a criminal. He's a drug addict. And Damon West got sentenced to life in prison.
Man. So let's talk about that part now. So let's unplug that. You were sentenced to 65 years. It's 2025 right now, so that tells me, obviously, the 65 years you didn't do, right? What was that first initial mindset shift for you while you were behind bars, right? Because the person that you were then obviously is not the person that you are now, thank God, right? Correct.
What was that mindset shift like? And then I'm gonna ask you about coffee beans in a second.
Yeah. And so, but just to answer the audience's like question that's on their mind right now, they're like, how is this guy sitting? I mean, is he in a prison cell? Did he escape? No, they actually walked me out the gate one day in 2015. I made parole. And so what that means when you make parole is that you're not done with your sentence.
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Chapter 5: What lessons did Damon learn about addiction and redemption?
They give my parents five minutes with me. This is one last visit before I go to prison. They feel sorry for my parents because I just got life. My dad can't talk. He's in stunned disbelief. So my mom does all the talking. And she tells me, Mick, she said, baby, she said, debts in life demand to be paid. And you just got hit with one hell of a bill from the state of Texas.
But you did the things they said you did. So you're going to go and pay the debt to society. But you owe Texas that debt. Now you owe your father and I debt, too, because we gave you all the opportunity, love and support to be anything in life. And that's how you repay this. That's not going to work. So here's the debt you're going to pay to us.
when you go to prison, you will not get in one of these white hate groups, one of these Aryan Brotherhood type of gangs, because you're scared because you're the minority there. She said, that's not going to work. You were never raised to be a racist. You're not starting that stuff now. And she said, you will not get any tattoos while you're inside that prison.
And I always show the audience my arms, man. I got no ink on my skin. None. I spent almost 10 years in a level five maximum security prison. And these guys want to tattoo every inch of body in the joint. But I would tell them all the time, man, I just can't get any tats because my mom said no. My mom told me that day, though, she said, Damon, no gangs, no tattoos.
You come back as the man that we raised or don't come back to us at all. And man, I was stunned. I was floored, right? How am I going to deliver on this promise? But she didn't leave on that. She said, Damon, do you understand the debt you're going to pay to your father and I? I said, yeah, mom, I got it. Mick, what do I know about prison, man? I've never been to prison.
I'm a white, middle-class guy in America. I don't know why it's been to prison at this point, man. Yeah, yeah. Brother, I get back to my pod in Dallas County Jail. I got two months before the prison bus comes to get me, man, and I'm frantically asking every guy that's been to prison before, how am I going to survive? What am I going to do?
And every guy I'm talking to, Mick, black, white, Asian, Hispanic... they all say the same thing, that you got to get into a gang. They said, you won't survive where you're going, physically survive without a gang. But there was this one guy that was so different, Mick, this older black man named Muhammad. Now Muhammad is what you would call a career criminal.
In and out of prison his entire life. But he was the most positive guy I've ever met in my life. Had a smile on his face everywhere he went, Mick. Wow. So one morning, Muhammad comes up to my bunk. He's got a cup of coffee in his hands. He had a smile on his face. He said, West, man, I've been watching you.
I've been watching how you're dealing with these knuckleheads and these dummies talking about you got to get into a gang. He said, do not listen to these fools. He said, do you want to keep that promise you made to your mom and your dad? I was like, yeah. He said, then let me tell you what prison is really going to be like. And that's when he laced me up, Mick.
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Chapter 6: How did sports play a role in Damon West's transformation?
And that's what he's telling me. Get back up. But Mick, when he's telling me this back in 2009, I'm looking back at this guy like a deer in headlights. All this violence and terror I'm about to walk into. That's when he said, hey, West, let me break this down for you a different way. He said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water.
He said, now anything we put into a pot of boiling water will be changed by the heat and the pressure inside that pot. He said, I'm going to put three things in this pot of boiling water and watch how they change. A carrot. An egg and a coffee bean. So here's where I first heard the story of the coffee bean. Mick, it was the summer of 2009 in a jail cell in Dallas County Jail.
10 years before John Gordon and I write that bestselling book in 2019 called The Coffee Bean. So he said, first things first, West. If I put a carrot in that pot of boiling water, he said, what happened to the carrot? I'm like, the carrot's going to turn soft, Muhammad. He said this right, Wes.
He said the carrot goes in the water really hard and firm, but the water, the prison, turned the hard carrot soft and mushy and weak. You don't want to be a carrot. What about the egg, Wes? What happens to the egg in the pot of warm water? I'm like, the egg is going to turn hard, Muhammad, like a hard-boiled egg. He said, that's right, Wes.
He said, the egg has a shell that can protect it physically on the outside, but inside that shell, that soft liquid core, the yolk, the heart becomes hardened. He said, now, if your heart becomes hardened, you become incapable of giving or receiving love. He said, if you're incapable of giving or receiving love in the world you're going into, you don't come back as someone your parents recognize.
You've become institutionalized and your eggshell has swastikas all over it. Then he asked me the question, Mick. He said, what about the coffee bean, West? He said, what happened to the coffee bean in the pot of boiling water? And Mick, I didn't have an answer for him on that one. I didn't know what happened to a coffee bean in a pot of boiling water.
And that is when Muhammad, this man who looks nothing like me, this man who doesn't come from the same America that I came from, this man who doesn't believe the same things I believe in my life, This is a black Muslim man from the streets of Dallas. I'm a white middle-class Christian from a little town called Port Arthur.
But this man who is so different than me, he's going to share with me one of the most important and transformational messages I've ever received in my entire life. And the message there is this.
If you ever shut yourself off to people because of their differences, different race, different gender, different ethnicity, different religion, opinions, different political views, if you close yourself off to people because of their differences, you could miss some of the most important lessons and some of the best friendships in this life. Because Muhammad told me that day.
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Chapter 7: What impact did Damon West have on others after his release?
You know, Mick, that's a big thing, man. Because at that time, the power was inside the criminal justice system, the guards, the inmates. They had all the power in my mind. But he put the power back inside me. And if the power was inside me, I don't survive prison. I thrive in that prison. And that's what I want your audience to take away from this thing.
The power is inside each and every one of you. It's not what goes on in the cities you come from, the states you're from, the crazy politics and social problems this country has right now. It's in you. It's not what goes on in the workplace, the schools you go to, whatever you're going through right now, the power is always going to be inside you, man.
Man, I love that, brother. I love that. You know, and I know being a former athlete, right? You do spend a lot of time talking to professional teams, to colleges. And I want to talk about your good friend, right? And how he inspired you, right?
And everybody that knows this, the viewers and listeners, you know I'm from the upstate of South Carolina, and there's a little college in my backyard that I hated growing up. That college is Clemson University, right? I had an uncle that played football at the University of Georgia in the early 80s. Georgia and Clemson was a huge rivalry, so by default, I was a Georgia guy, right?
I graduated high school, and Clemson was the first school that I told no because I'm a UNC Tar Heel. However, and I know he's probably listening to this, Dabo Sweeney is one of my most respected human beings on planet Earth. The man that he is, the character that he has, but more importantly, you know, you talked about Maya Angelou's quote. How you feel...
When you are in Dabo's presence, you never forget, right? Oh, man. The words that he gives, the character that he has, the spirit that he embodies, you never forget. And so, while I might not be a Clemson University fan, I'm not a Tiger. I freaking love Dabo Sweeney. So, Dabo, I want you to know that. But, Damon, man, talk to us about...
That first interaction you had with Dabo and how that was a real big catapult for you and the things that you wanted to do in life.
Yeah. So the Dabo story, and here's what we got to tell them before I get to that. It's the fact that. I did go to prison. I did become a coffee bean inside there. Prison was the hardest thing I've ever been through. It was the best training ground for me too. I tell people all the time, I had a spiritual awakening inside the prison.
I was able to transform myself from that low life guy that got sentenced to life in prison to being a man of purpose and a man that saw himself as the voice of this coffee bean message that Muhammad gave me. And it was hard, man. Prison was hard. The first two weeks of fighting the white gangs, after that it's the black gangs. But sports, it's back to sports.
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Chapter 8: What is Damon West's message to those facing adversity?
When I got out of prison, I found out there were other men waiting to serve me. Servant leadership, right? You know, Mick, when I got out, I knew I was sitting on a credible story and a great message. But the problem was there just weren't a lot of places for me to share that story. And I found out really quick, you can't go knock on the door of a high school and say, I just got out of prison.
I want to talk to your kids. I mean, they will chase you down the street. I didn't have a lot of places to go speak in the very beginning. And I lived in my parents' spare bedroom for the first two years I was out of prison. I lived with my parents. I was grateful to have a spare bedroom. But what I did have is a little vanity mirror. My mom had in the spare bedroom when I moved in.
And Mick, I think you either find an excuse or you find a way in life. And my position I was in right there, I was like, hey man, I wanna go share my story, but I don't have an audience. But I found that mirror to be my audience. Every day for two years, I practice this presentation that I do now. I practice that presentation in front of that mirror. I got in my reps.
Anything you want to be good at in life, you got to practice that in life. Because there's no such thing as an overnight success. It doesn't exist. It's not real. You got to get in your reps. For two years, I'm doing this presentation in front of this mirror, getting my timing down, getting good. I'm getting myself ready for the right opportunity.
And I believe the right opportunity is going to be the world of college football because I played Division I college football. I was a quarterback at University of North Texas. About the same time you were at UNC, actually. I was there from 94 to 99 playing college football. We're both playing D1 at the same time. The problem is it's been 20 years since I took a snap.
College coaches don't know me. I don't know any of them. January 11th, 2017. I've been out of prison 14 months at this point. A buddy of mine in Houston, which is 90 miles from Beaumont, where I live, he calls me up. He works for the media. He said, hey, Damon, get to Houston right now. It's the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Award. They're going to name the best college football coach in America.
He said the eight best coaches in the country in this room right now. I've got an extra press pass. I'll sneak you in. Mick, man, I drove the 90 miles from Vermont to Houston. Yeah, man, I got there, brother. And he sneaks me in the back door of the Toyota Center, hands me a press pass, and so I'm in the room. And all these coaches there, USC, Wisconsin, Penn State, P.J. Fleck, they're all there.
So I run to these coaches, and I shake their hands, and I give them my pitch of why they should bring me in to talk to their team. And every single coach I met that night, Mick, slammed the door in my face. They all said no. In one hour, I got seven no's from eight coaches. That's a no every eight minutes, man. I'm standing in the corner of Toyota Center, man. I'm licking my wounds.
I'm feeling sorry for myself. And I am 10 feet from that door to leave. The voice in my head is screaming at me, go home. The voice in my head is telling me I don't belong there. The voice in my head calls me an imposter that night. I bet everybody listening to this show right now, you know the imposter voice. We all know it.
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