From Life Sentence to Life’s Purpose with Damon West

22:47It's just an unreal story. So, hey, guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And, you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you've got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love Growth Day.

23:13Write this down for a second. GrowthDay.com forward slash ed. My friend Brendon Brouchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability, journaling, courses, thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays where I contribute, as do a whole bunch of other influencers, like the Avengers of influencers and business minds in there. It's the Netflix for high achievers or people that want to be high achievers. So go check it out. My friend Brennan's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved.

23:45Go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies. So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode at Progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates not available in all states or situations prices vary based on how you buy i want to ask you this because i did not know anybody called you this i just want to understand they're calling you now like a modern day shawshank redemption no but like legitimately like this is what people in the media are saying about this man who by the way i think damon probably asked to come on the show you guys i don't know so many times that i literally stopped checking the messages because I wasn't going to have him on.

24:55And then we had a cancellation and I said, if you can get your butt to Los Angeles somehow, not knowing he had to get permission from a parole officer, he got there, got on the show. And I'm telling you of all the shows we've done, it's in a handful. I'm not going to rank shows of people went, oh my gosh, did you hear the Damon Westhead, my lead episode? What's the Shawshank thing though? What does that mean? So here's the deal, Ed. One of the things my dad and I, when I got out of prison, my dad recorded every prison movie while I was locked up. He wanted me to watch them with him too. He's like, tell me who got it right, Damien.

25:26So we watch it. We watch a movie at night. This is another story I didn't tell the last time on your show. So we watch all these prison movies. We started with his favorite, Cool Hand Luke. And so we watched every single prison movie. And the one movie about prison, I've seen them all that got it right, was Shawshank Redemption. Shawshank is about hope. And actually the movie Shawshank, it's not even about Andy, the guy that went to prison, that was the innocent guy. You know, for 19 years, Andy tunneled through a wall. He swims through 500 yards of sewage to escape prison. But the movie's not even about Andy because Andy didn't need redeeming.

25:56Andy didn't need escaping. The movie's about Red, Morgan Freeman's character. Here's why it's about Red. Red has no hope. Red's a dead man walking. He gets denied parole, the first scene you meet him in the movie Shawshank. All the men he hangs out with, they're dead on the inside. They wager on who's going to break on the prison bus first. Brooks, the guy that made parole after 50 years. He lasted two weeks in the free world. Couldn't take it. He wrote a letter back to the boys in Shawshank. Told him he was going to kill himself and why he did it. And as Andy read that letter out to the men in Shawshank prison.

26:22Every man in Shawshank understood why Brooks did what he did because they had the same hopeless mindset as Brooks. Red is our narrator in the movie though. He tells us, he said, Andy, I wouldn't make it out there either. I'm an institutional man now. Red said the words out loud, Andy, for you to truly understand. Red said hope is a dangerous thing. Remember when he says it in Shawshank? But Andy tells Red, no man, you get busy living or you get busy dying. And when Red finally walks out of Shawshank prison towards the into the movie 40 years later. We don't know if Red's going to make it right.

26:49He walks by the pawn shop. The guns are in the window. He stays in the same room that Brooks hung himself in. But Red makes it. He makes it to that rock wall that Andy told him to go to. And that rock wall was that letter Andy left behind. And that letter had the words that Red needed to hear. Andy said, Red, hope is a good thing. Maybe the greatest of things. And no good thing ever dies. I always tell my audiences, go back and watch the last scene of Shawshank. Remember that last scene on the beach in Mexico? Yes. Zihuataneo, Mexico. go, Ed, that's what kept Andy Dufresne alive for 19 years in Shawshank prison.

27:19That's what kept me alive for seven years in a maximum security prison. I could always see myself in a better place. Andy always saw himself on that beach in Mexico working on his boat. In the darkest of times, in the worst of life, he saw himself in a better place, winning and thriving. That's what we all have the power to do, but we get so caught up in the moment, we forget to do it. Let me ask you a question about that. Stay in this moment. When you're talking right there, I never thought about this the first time we talked or the 100 times we've talked as friends at dinners and stuff. Man, I think a lot of people live in prison that aren't behind bars.

27:54I meet more people out here in the free world that are locked up than I ever did when I started time in real prison. More people are in prison by their thoughts, their things, their prejudices than by steel bars and barbara and concrete combined. Limiting thoughts, negative thoughts about themselves, a lack of hope in their life. Is that what you mean? Everyone's losing close to a man who's actually lived in a maximum security prison. You're saying more people out here in the free world are locked up by their thoughts, by their things, their prejudices, whatever it is, their iPhone, whatever it is.

28:25More people out here are walking around locked up than in a real prison. And you can be physically free, but spiritually and emotionally just caged. And that's the worst kind of prisoner is the spiritual, the emotional, the mental prison, hardest prison to get out of tough to get parole out of there ed wow okay that just shifted right there for me that might be my favorite thing you've ever said on the show what about being in maximum security prison would surprise someone who's never been there before what about being in there is there i have to imagine it's a very hopeless place for most people it is the most violent yeah it's it's the most hopeless and violent place i've ever walked into and that was the thing about the Shawshank reference is Ed, Red got his hope back.

29:10And if you listen to the last scene of Shawshank on that beach in Mexico, Red's whole dialogue starts off with two words. He says, I hope. I hope I make it across the border. I hope I see my friend again so I can shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it was in my dreams. I hope. Last two words of the movie. I have been in a position in life to become a modern day Shawshank because Andy Dufresne was about hope. My life has become about hope and it's set inside of a prison just like Shawshank. Now, listen, when the reporter that said that from USA Today said, hey, this is the modern day Shawshank and he's a modern day Andy Dufresne, I pushed back a little bit.

29:43I said, listen, man, I get where you're going with that, but Andy was an innocent guy and I was guilty of everything I did. And I want you to honestly know that because Andy was innocent, I was guilty, but I understand the Shawshank reference. I walked into prison, it was the most hopeless world I've ever been into. That's why prisons are so dangerous, Ed, because when there's a lack of hope, a void of hope, negativity, evil, darkness fills the void every single time. That's why prisons get so dangerous because when you have no hope, you have a dangerous world where evil thrives. I walk into prison for the first two months, I'm fighting every gang in there, man.

30:17It's like Muhammad said, you're going to fight the white gangs first. Then if you survive that, you're going to fight the black gangs. And if you survive all that, you'll earn the right to walk alone. And he's telling me the strongest man in prison always walks alone, doesn't join a gang. And that's what your mom had made you commit to. So you had to go through all these fights. Basically, you probably otherwise joined the Pecker Woods or something. 100 % I cave. Yeah. 100 % I cave. And most people do. And Ed, I cannot tell you enough about how grateful I am for my mom for telling me I couldn't get into one of these.

30:45She's like, you weren't raised to be a racist. I mean, you're not going to start that stuff because you're going to prison. Don't become something you weren't. I can't tell you how grateful I am for my mom for that. When I was getting ready to leave prison, fast forward to when I'm walking out, I'm walking up to a table with these Aryan Brotherhood guys that are also getting ready to leave prison. They look miserable. I walk up to these ABs. I'm like, hey, man, what's wrong, man? What's everybody look so down for? And one of the guys, man, he said, oh, man, we got to report when we get out. I said, well, I got to report to my PO, too, man.

31:10I got 48 hours to do it. He's like, no, idiot. We got to report to the gang when we get out. And I'm like, report to the gang? You mean this stuff y 'all were playing in here, this gang stuff's not over with? He said, this is for life. You got two weeks to report. If you don't report in the two weeks, they come up to your family, they come up to you. And I said, then you're going to come to prison for the rest of your life if you don't die young because it's a criminal organization you're going to be a part of. My mom standing on her ground telling me I couldn't join a gang was a life-changing moment, a fork in the road, Ed.

31:40Because if I go down that other fork, which I promise you, I just told you I would have because prison is hard. Even if you got out, you'd be committed to a life. You'd be committed to a life, and you'd have all these tattoos all over you and stuff like that. Damon, how did you, though, we've talked about this over glass. This isn't in any of our notes, and it may not even be in the book. They're going to get the book, right? They could tell, like, they should get the book. But they should really book you to speak. But I want to just picture this. You're a young dude. You've got a drug problem that's severe, okay?

32:11Because this is the after. You're way after the after, so you've got to go back there for me for a minute, okay? Because there's a lot of people in their own way, they are in prison, but they're also down or addicted to thoughts that don't serve them. So you're young. You were a promising college football player, a really good one, right? You piss that away. You get into the drugs. You've now disappointed your family. You're publicly shamed. You're addicted to drugs. You're now convicted. The truth is you're being great, but your sentence was severe for what you did. It was an over-sentencing, in my opinion, from what I've read and what you did.

32:45We both, you probably, yeah, okay, he agrees. okay so now you've been kind of like justice probably wasn't necessarily served even though you did some bad things now you're locked now you're in life now you're around these guys you don't know you're going to get out you think you're never going to get out and now every day you're taking an ass beating or giving one to somebody daily in your life and then going back to your cell with your thoughts how did you not I mean I'm being serious did you have moments where You're like, F it. My life is over, like days down. Or did you somehow have some mental fortitude that came from this coffee bean story or other things during that time?

33:24Great question, Ed. I can tell you the day it happened. This is six weeks into prison. All right. I'm in there for six weeks at this point in this maximum security level five called the Mark Stiles Unit. You can look this place up, man. It's one of the toughest prisons in Texas. It's one of the toughest prisons in America. And Ed, I can tell you a lot about tough prisons, man. And one of the things I did when I got out of prison, I went back to school, got that master's degree in criminal justice. It became a criminal justice professor at the University of Houston. Amazing. Teaching a class called Prisons in America.

33:50I'm the only professor on the planet to teach a prisons class who lived in prison, right? Gosh. So I'm in the styles unit six weeks in. Two weeks is what it took me to get through the white gangs. After that, they tapped out. And then they sent the black gangs. So Muhammad told me the black gangs are coming because the white gang is going to send them. And everybody's going to work in concert to get you going with your own race. Because everybody wants everybody belonging to their own race. That's how it is in prison. Race runs everything. That's just the way prison works. Six weeks in, I get up on a Monday morning.

34:17I'm this close, and I'm holding my fingers up an inch apart for the people listening to this. I am this close to being that broken man from Shawshank, the man with no hope. The violence, the terror is just too much. Ed, I made a decision that Monday morning, and I'm still fighting the black gangs at this point. I made a decision that Monday morning to use the only thing I haven't used to earn my respect in there, and it's my athletic ability. God blessed me to be a tremendous athlete in life. you and i was a starting quarterback in division one college football 20 years old man i can ball i'm a baller but man the rec yard where you play sports it's the most intimidating place i've ever seen because it was the most segregated place i've ever seen every sport on the rec yard is segregated by the color of your skin it's like going back in time and i want to go the sand volleyball court for the whites and hispanics handball everybody can play handball but if you want to play doubles and handball your doubles partner has to be the same skin color as you the weight stack just like you've seen all those prison movies everybody wants to push out iron in prison and all the races can lift weights but if you want someone to spot you or work out with you your partner your spotter has to be the same skin color as you you can't mix the race the chow hall ed in that chow hall you cannot sit down eat your meal at a table with people from a different race race is everything every race wanted that way too it it's not like one race said we're gonna do this and everybody can do it every race wants it that way everybody separates and so uh that monday morning six weeks in i make the decision i'm going all in i'm going to play sports and if this doesn't work for me, I'm going to die anyway, but I got to go do this.

35:39I can't become that version of me that I promised my mama wouldn't. So I go out to the rec yard that Monday morning. I face my fears and I pass up all those other sports I just told you about. And I went straight to the basketball court. Ed, the blacks are on the basketball court in prison. No white boys allowed in that basketball court. But here's what I'm thinking as I go to the basketball court that Monday morning. Before there was Martin Luther King Jr., there was Jackie Robinson. before you integrated lunch counters in the American South, you integrated locker rooms. My dad, my dad was a sports writer in the South.

36:11He was the first sports writer to put black athletes on the front page of sports pages in Southeast Texas in 1971. Ed, sports is the great uniter. Sports is the one thing that brings us Americans together like nothing else can. Think about it, man. Not even religion brings people together like sports. You can self-segregate religions in America, and we do, but you cannot self-segregate the sport. sports or the melting pot i knew sports would do it for me and i go out there then monday morning i got myself in a game of basketball and man i i got in way over my head those guys let me play some basketball but it wasn't five on five it was nine on one head i don't belong out there but i show up every day i take a beating i give it back when i can i get a little bit better i get a little stronger i get a little more confident because i'm keeping the prompt like you say confidence is keeping the promise you make to yourself i make that promise every day after i walk off the rec yard i'm coming back tomorrow and i tell those guys i'm coming back just so they can hold me to my promise.

37:03Our white boy will see you tomorrow. You know, I learned two things about adversity that week. I'll never forget. And I tell this to every audience I speak to adversity is never as bad as you think it's going to be. And you're always capable of more than you think you are because your thinking matters. And sometimes we allow overthinking to get in the way of overcoming when we see adversity and you can't do that. Sometimes you just got to shut the thinking off. Chapter 11 of the book, by the way, Six Dimes and Nickels, Do Things You're Afraid of So You Can Do Things You're... What does that say?

37:34Do things you're afraid of so you can do things you're afraid of. Yeah. That's really good. That's what my dad used to tell me, man. It is so wild. Like, so much knowledge my dad passed on to me about, you know, doing things you're afraid of is so you can do things you're afraid of. That means the more you do the things that you're afraid of, the more you'll be able to do other things you're afraid of, you know? You say it in a different way. I mean, voluntary adversity is another way of saying this thing. Put yourself out there, man. Find out what you're made of.

38:26privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way. You wanna sell those wheels. You wanna get a CarMax instant offer. So fast. Wanna take a sec to think about it. Or like a month. Wanna keep tabs on that instant offer. With OfferWatch. Wanna have CarMax pick it up from your driveway. You wanna get it done to it. You wanna do it. So, wanna drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply. Well, what's crazy is what comes back to you. So you're on my buddy Andy's show, and you're talking about... Well, you tell him.

39:10I want you to tell it. I don't want to get... Who really you think has some credit for saving your life. Oh, man. This is really insightful of you, though. It says so much about your character that you would credit these guys with saving your life because that's not what most people would say to the SWAT team that arrested them. No, man. And this is another thing to, this is like coming back on your show. We're unpacking stuff that has happened in the last three years, man. And this is you, man. You got me on Andy's show. You called up Andy, said you had him on the show. So I get on Andy's show and I know that Andy's got a lot of listeners that are in law enforcement.

39:39And so I just throw out there in the, in the podcast, Hey man, if anybody's from Dallas SWAT, I'd love to come talk to y 'all, man. Y 'all saved my life in 2008. Are you hearing what he's saying? He's telling Dallas SWAT who arrested him in a SWAT raid that they saved his life. You didn't just arrest me that day you rescued me that day that's what i'm saying man they're my angels my angels they don't have wings they have assault rifles and shields and helmets and i want to meet these angels that's what i told him i said i want to meet y 'all somebody from swat was listening hits me up on instagram messenger man and uh man we set it up i go talk to the dallas swat team and and you know the body language was tough that day man there's a lot of a lot of those swat guys got their arm men and women got their arms crossed and it's kind of like almost like this thing that the cops call hug a thug man yeah like we don't want to be there for this hug a thug session so they came in some of them came in you know closed off body and i didn't care man the only thing my job was that day was to to pour into them and thank them for what they did to me and i and i told him i said look man i was a bad guy here's where i was in life when you met me when you pulled me out of that dope house that day and you probably don't remember it but i remember it And you saved my life.

40:47And if you don't do that, I don't get out of that situation alive. And I want to thank y 'all. And I told him, I said, man, as a criminal justice professor, one of the first things I always told my class is that this slogan that you heard going around of defund the police was one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Right. I mean, because I lived in a world where there's no police. It's prison. You don't want to live in a prison. And I said, I just I'm the opposite of that, man. I'm a very law and order kind of guy. I just got off on the wrong path. I think you can see that. but I want to fund the police.

41:16And in this case, let me fund y 'all. Give me a list of all the equipment you need to get right now that you, you can't get your hands on. I'll buy all your equipment for you. Let me be your guy. And they sent me a list of about$20 ,000. They took you seriously. And I brought you something today from that list. So come on. Here it is. All right. I'm going to hide this one. So they, they asked me to get them breacher bags and plate bags and stuff like breacher bags. What's cool about this is a breacher bag is something that carries explosives. They carry flashbang grenades. Ed, my entire life changes from a flashbang grenade going off in my face on July 30, 2008.

41:51This flashbang grenade, boom, and life changed. It was God sending that flashbang in. And so I said, guys, send me the list. I'll get it for you. But, Ed, I wanted to bring you one of the backpacks, one of their plate bags. Wow. This is what we have. I'll carry this one. I'll show it. Yeah, I'll show it to them. This has got to be a coffee bean patch that SWAT team guys, yeah, put a patch on there. They put the patch on there. They told me to get the patches, man. We'll see how many of them wear them. But even if one SWAT team guy wears a Bia Coffee Bean patch, imagine. How cool is that? Right there.

42:20Yeah, let me see. I got you. I got it. I'm sorry. Got it right there. Yeah, you got it? We got it. So imagine, you know, get them going on raids. If anybody's wearing the Bia Coffee Bean patch, how cool that would be. Like, the former Uptown burglar gets to work with Dallas SWAT. And my thing is this. Send me a list of things that you need to come home to your family alive so you can save other people. A couple things happened, Ed. They got thanked for a job they did that no one's ever come back and thanked them for. They also got to see the example of someone who got it right. And I speak to a lot of law enforcement groups.

42:54And if you're law enforcement, listen to what I'm telling you right here is that you need to see the example that someone can't get it right. You need to see that there's another Damon West out there maybe because you need to know your job matters. Because if all you do is just take out the trash and sometimes the same trash keeps blowing back on the road you start feeling pretty nag you start feeling like an egg and i wanted him to see the example that someone got it right so it's been really incredible ed i mean you're in you don't ever you always give all the credit you're incredible like what you've done and how you've turned your life around by the way and he's given you the lessons he's told you what you had to do you got to be a coffee bean you you got to ask the question you got to get in the room you got to follow up with this stuff you got to do that extra mile thing like leaving the coffee being keychain you got to be able to work for nothing in the very beginning let me tell you the bottom line with this dude okay let me give you the real the real deal this dude's a hustler and i bet you were a hell of a criminal because this dude is a hustler he busts his tail he's always after it he outworks everybody in this space he also gives back which we should probably talk about now this man's given back he's created great experiences for me he's had john and i to Dallas football games because he's doing a thing with Dak Prescott.

44:05We've been down on the sidelines. He invited me to go play Cypress Point golf with Jim Nance from CBS, which I couldn't go play. So he ends up taking my son, Max, on what is... Dude, we had an incredible time with Max, man. He's such a good golfer, but an even better human being, man. Thank you. Well, you're the great... I agree with you on both those things, but this man took my son on a dream trip. Those of you that don't know golf, that's like literally saying, I'm going to take your son to heaven for a day. And he played heaven with the most famous golf commentator of all time. And he commentated holes for us.

44:37Commentated. Oh, by the way, I actually have some. Mentioning that, I want to ask you about one of your swings. So I want to play a video for you here. I want your commentary on this. But this is you. I think Max is filming. And you're in Jim Nance's backyard. I'm allowed to show this clip. I can't show clips from the golf course. But this will give you an idea of how Damon played. Jim's got that famous hole from Pebble Beach, number seven, in his backyard. It's half the distance. And let's see if you hit the hole. What did you hit here? Let's just watch this video. We're showing it on the YouTube, everybody.

45:06Here he goes. Here's Damon. There's Jim Nance right there commentating.

45:17So just so you all know, the YouTubers know, but he didn't hit the hole. He hit Jim Nance's house. Did you play that bad on the golf course? Man, I did not play well on the golf course. Ed, when you're on the road a couple hundred days a year, you don't get a lot of time to play golf. I probably play six times a year. But I tell you, man, my dad used to say, a bad day at the golf course is better than a good day at the office. So I had a great time. If you don't have a good time at the golf course, and at Cypress Point, it's your own fault. You went from, you guys, by the way, is that not hilarious?

45:48Everyone on YouTube. I hit his house, man. They're going to hear the audio. And Jim is narrating it with the master's music in the background. Oh, I know, brother. They're going to hear it on the audio, too. They're going to hear it. But think about this, everybody. He went, this is just incredible. He went from being life in prison to being one of the most book speakers to playing Cypress Point with gymnasts to going into the SWAT team that arrested him and bringing them gifts and speaking to them, going into the very prison type environments that he was in. It's unbelievable. What other lesson, Damon, help us here, man?

46:20There's someone listening that's going, I'm down too, I got self-doubt too, I'm living in the prison of my own mind. What other lesson in the book or out of the book would you give to somebody who's like, man, I'm running out of time. I've got to change my life right now. I'm living my own life sentence, so to speak, and it's not the script I want. Like yours wasn't. What would you say to them? There's a principle I try to live my life by, and it's a principle in the book. It's about integrity. And I believe integrity is who you are when no one else is watching you. Integrity is that little voice in your ear that says, we're going to do the right thing, even though we could get away with the wrong thing right now, this situation, that's integrity.

46:58It whispers to you. And hopefully it's louder than the other voice that tells you, man, do it, just do it. You know, one of the biggest thing that's happened in my life since we came on the show and it, it applies to the question you just asked about someone really in a rut trying to figure it out. One of the biggest questions that's ever been asked to me is, have you found Muhammad yet? You know, people want to know, man, where's this Muhammad guy, what's he doing now? And the truth is, Ed, I couldn't find Muhammad right at first because Muhammad's not his real name. It's his Muslim name. You know, a person converts to Islam, they get rid of the real name, they take on a Muslim.

47:30They're kind of like Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali. And so I go back to Dallas County Jail, right? When I get out of prison and I ask him, I say, I'm trying to find my friend Muhammad. Dallas County Jail's like, hey man, listen, we don't have a record of this guy. We need a real name or a birthday. We can't find him with a Muslim name. So I don't have any of that. So I have to hope he finds me. And three years ago, Ed, he finds me. And here's how he finds me. I get a letter from an inmate, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Y 'all, I get a lot of inmate mail. Ed, men and women all over the American prison systems write me letters all the time because to every man and woman in prison, I am hope.

48:07I am Andy Dufresne. I'm the real life Andy Dufresne to them. And I'm the dream. And that's one of the reasons why, Ed, I make myself available every month to voluntarily walk into a prison somewhere in America is this phrase that I heard on your show, I have to make myself available for them to touch the dream. You told a story about going to the Ritz Carlton when you had no money with your wife, remember? And you went because you wanted to touch your dream. I was in all your stuff, Ed, and that is the reason which pushed me into doing this thing every single month, man. I don't have a lot of time in my schedule, but I make time for them to touch the dream.

48:39This inmate writes me, there's no return address, has one sentence. The one sentence says, find James Lynn Baker, and you find Mohammed. Oh, boy. Seven years of waiting on this clue, Ed. I go back to Dallas. I get with my lawyer. We get a private investigator. The first thing the PI finds is his criminal record, and it matched everything he told me. In and out of prison his entire life. Had him in county jail in 09 when I was there. So this is my friend. I know it's my friend. All we have to do is find my friend's current address, right? But we couldn't find his current address, Ed, because James Landbecker II, Muhammad, he died of an opiate overdose in Dallas on May 9, 2017.

49:14Muhammad has been dead for eight years now. He was a drug addict just like me, Ed, but he never got to a program recovery, and he died in his addiction. There's a big lesson there, Ed. This man sat on the coffee message his entire life, but he couldn't apply it in his own life. You can sit on all the knowledge and information in the world. You can read all the best self-help books. You can listen to all the best podcasts. You can quote your Bible. your religious book, whatever it is, scripture and verse. But if you can't apply the knowledge, the knowledge does you no good. You have to apply knowledge.

49:44So now that I know who this guy is, I mean, I know that I owe my life to this guy. The world has a new message because of this guy. I told my lawyer, I said, well, if he's dead, then let's go find his family. Because I need to find his family. I need to tell him about what he did in my life. I need them to understand who he was. You know, lawyers are very risky first people. My lawyer is like, I don't know, Damon. I mean, I don't think this is the best idea in the world. Look what part of Dallas he came from. Are you sure you want to go find this guy's family? I'm like, man, I don't think God brought it this far just to bring it this far.

50:15Go find his family. I need to find him so I can tell him about my friend. He came from a dynamic family, Ed. His little sister is a woman named Von Seal Baker. Von Seal Baker lives in Dallas right now. She's in her 70s. Look at you. Von Seal Baker is the first Dallas cowboy cheerleader ever. Look at that. First woman to ever wear that uniform, Ed. his mother is a pioneer of civil rights in Dallas. She's a historical figure. In 1948, Bertha Baker, his mother, opens up the first licensed black daycare in Dallas. This man came from an incredible family, just like I did. Substance abuse, addiction, right?

50:47So I reached out to his family. He's got three living sisters, Visha, Von Sil, and Vanessa. I called these ladies up one night. I tell them the story about the time I met their brother in the county jail, the message he gave me, and what I've been able to do, that message both in prison, out of prison. And I told his sisters, I said, listen, your brother saved my life. He met me at the most vulnerable time in my life. And he'd share with me the message that helped me change my life. And I'm changing the lives of others. And I'm going to impact the entire world with the message you gave me, but I need to impact your world.

51:15I said, here's what I want to do. I want to start a scholarship in your brother's name. We'll call it the James Landbecker II Be a Coffee Bean Scholarship. And I said, every year I'll fund it. I'll put$10 ,000 into a trust. You tell me where to put it. I'll put the money in, but I want your family to pick that winner every year. So that every year, one little boy or one little girl that grows up in his old neighborhood that goes to his old school. They get a better chance at life doing education because these two guys met up in county jail in 2009. Ed, the sisters took me up on it, man. I've got a new family.

51:40I mean, the Baker family is like my family now. They're incredible people. They picked these winners. One of the winners is this little girl named Megan. Ed, this little girl named Megan, her mother's a schoolteacher. Her dad's a disabled veteran. Right now, Megan's sitting in class at Texas A &M. She's going to be an engineer one day, Ed. I finally found Muhammad that's what I'm saying did anybody struggle out there it took me seven years to find my friend it took seven no's at night in Houston to get the one yes I needed with Dabo Sweeney it took seven years to walk out of a maximum security prison some of your goals in life take longer than others but you don't quit you don't give up before the miracle happens Damon you're doing it again this is like an all-timer look at Stephen this is an all-timer by the way you're a movie well by the way He actually literally is a movie.

52:27I can't give you all the details on that. But like, bro, I'm just listening to you. I'm absolutely overwhelmingly proud. Proud almost sounds like I'm judging. I'm proud of you, but I'm really, I can actually say this over the last, I'm really honored with friends. I'm really fortunate you're my friend. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at GoodToKnowFacts.org.

53:06No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. You're such a good person. You're doing so good with your life. You know what I mean? Like you're doing so good with your life and you weren't. No. And that's what I love. The other thing that, you know, you have in chapter 10, which is, you know, you credit me in the book for saying, but is that you're most qualified in life to help those you used to be. And I quote you. I know you do. And, but you're doing that. And the used to be isn't just prisoners or people that have messed up.

53:43It's people that live in the prison of their minds. Oh yeah. And that's what you're doing today. That's where this has gone to a new level. Well, that's why you said to write the book because you said, Damon, the stuff, I never forgot. You said the stuff that's happened in your life since prison is bigger than the stuff that happened in prison. Well, listen to you. It is. You're right, Ed. But you gave me the formula. You're like, man, tell stories. You said stories sell. That's what you always have said. Facts tell, stories sell. That's what you always say, man. The thing about your stories is they're overwhelmingly real and mind-blowing.

54:11I want to share something with you today. You asked me your question, but I want to share something with you that I've never shared with an audience. No, share it. It's in the book, but you have to get the book to understand the context of what this is going to be. Give it to us. It's one of the chapters in the book called The Healing Power of Forgiveness. Yep. All right. Chapter 8, which is my number. Yeah, that's your number? Mine's 7, man. We're close to each other. We're right next to each other. In Texas, they have a law. If you have a victim of a crime that you go to prison for, you get convicted.

54:40You cannot apologize to the victim of your crimes. That's why you sat through an entire podcast today, and you sat through the last one. If you remember, when I was on three years ago, I never made an apology to anybody I did any harm to because I can't. The state of Texas says it's a felony to apologize to the victim of your crimes. They'll send you back to prison in Texas if you make an apology. I believe the law has got good purpose. I think it's really made for victims of violent crimes, people that have survived rapes, murders, assaults with the family members, whatever. But they just lump every criminal in.

55:07They just say, hey, man, if you committed a crime, you can't reach out to your victims. So I'll never be able to apologize to my victims. I work a 12-step program recovery, Ed. The eighth step says you make a list of all the people you harmed. The ninth step says you go out and make the apologies, except when to do so would cause you or them harm. So in that case, they have what's called a living amends. Living amends in the program recovery means that you go out and do good deeds, you expect nothing in return. You've seen the theme throughout my life. I'm just doing these deeds because that's my living amends to the world.

55:35I've got to do this to stay sober and to pay back the debt that I owe. So for the victims I can't ever apologize to, I go out and do living amends. And I did this news story in Dallas back in 2020. And I didn't want to do a story in Dallas, Ed, because my victims were all there. And I thought, man, I just don't want to be in their faces. But this reporter, this guy named Kevin Reese, great storyteller, he said, we're not here to tell the story of the Uptown burglar that's been told. He said, we're here to tell what the Uptown burglar is doing now. And he said, that's a great story. This is five years ago, you know.

56:06And so he does this story, a really good story. And even in the story, I was like, man, you got to let me say in there I'm a bad guy. And I do. I say I'm a scumbag. I was a bad guy. So I got it out. And I felt good about the story. and I went home that night and then I opened up my email and there were two emails and uh the first email is from one of the detectives that took me down and uh it was not a good email he's basically saying the email I don't think you're a good guy I thought you were I think you were a bad guy then and I think you're probably a bad guy now and and basically he says that I don't believe any of this stuff and I sat with that for a second I thought to myself you know what he's entitled his opinion and this is another lesson in life Ed other people's opinions of you or none of your business.

56:47He's entitled to his opinion. And he represented society. Whenever I was breaking the law of society, I broke the social contract. He represented society. He brought justice to me. He can feel that way if he wants to. It's none of my business. Besides, I'm not a criminal. He has no power over me. The other email was from a name I didn't recognize. And I opened it up and it said, Damon, I forgive you. The biggest victim of any of my crimes. I won't go into the details about this victim. I do in the book. but I want to share this with your audience. She writes me an email. And, Ed, this is the person that I think about every day I'm in prison.

57:24And I didn't ever physically hurt anybody. Remember that. I didn't ever physically hurt anybody, but it's what was stolen from her. And, man, the negative role that I played in her life. And I thought about her every single day that I was in prison. It was like a toxic friend that brought with me. And I thought, I'm supposed to carry this around because I was a bad guy. And I deserve to carry this around. and she writes me this email and she's telling me about what she thought about when she walked into her apartment and this item was gone. And man, I'm struggling reading through it and she gets to the very end and this is what she says to me, and I don't know if I'm going to get through this.

58:04With that, I'd like to say, I forgive you. I'm moving on in the hopes that you're a genuine person with a good heart and the hope that you put others before money or fame as you share your story and the hope that you and your family never experienced great loss or violation most importantly and the hope that you feel peace in knowing that we are saved from the mistakes we make in this world thanks to the unfailing love of christ life is such a gift may you live it to the fullest daemon oh that's awesome i don't know if i was gonna make it i'm glad you did oh my god but i've never shared that with anybody and it's gonna come out it's in the book um thank you but i can't apologize to my victims and i can't i can't i can't reach out to them when they reach out to me but i can share with you what they say to me and this is the one victim that i never thought i'd hear that from that's awesome and the message is this to your audience said, if that person can forgive me for what I did to her, why can't you forgive someone else that you're holding a grudge against?

59:12Because resentments are the most poisonous thing in our lives. They're like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. And the people, the places, the things that we resent usually don't know we have this resentment. And if they find out they don't care, let go of your resentments. Why are you holding on to them? And forgive yourself. Yeah. You can forgive yourself for mistakes you've made or failures you've had as well. man thank you for doing that i didn't know that you were gonna do it either i felt it in the moment we're yeah brother i love you by the way what i was going to ask you about was recovery and the most important step and you've clearly said it's amends so you answered my question uh i don't know man i guess it's probably i don't know i don't know how you could have a better podcast than this but i said that to you i said that to you last time we did better than the first time yeah we did but well i just said i just literally got to be here i just feel like honored that I was here.

1:00:00I'm really proud of you. And so, uh, so happy for you. And I hope that what you gave everybody today, some of the lessons for sure, but is hope is hope. If this man can change his life, so can you from the darkest of the dark spaces of his life to bring in light to literally millions of people. So thank you, brother Damon West for being here today, man. Thank you. And my mom told me to tell you, thanks to tell mom. I said hello. because max told me to tell you thank you oh and he actually sent me that video that we played so you got to ask him about this video it's so great man i'm glad he sent you that video and like my mom ed i want to share this with you real quick because without the influence that you've had in my life we came on i came on the show it changed the it changed my space in the speaking world i mean it literally took me from doing really well to like just crushing it and then still crushing it but because of that my dad died is another uh my dad passed away your father passed away so and I remember we talked right after my dad died.

1:00:55Thank you for the condolences. And my dad told me before he passed away, he said, you got to take care of your mom. And I didn't really know what that meant, Ed. My mom was about 10 or 15 minutes away from me, you know. And my wife and I just built this house on this piece of property we got. It's beautiful. About four acres. Yeah, thanks, man. And I realized what it was I was supposed to do to take care of my mom. My mom was very lonely after my dad died. And even though she's just 10 or 15 minutes away, when you're gone, you know, when you're home 36 hours a week from a road trip 10 minutes might as well be no 10 miles so or 100 miles yeah i didn't see her as much but when i saw her i could see that she was lonely and ed this uh this summer i told her i said kennel and i are going to build you a house on our property and we're going to put you at the front of our property and you'll be able to watch your granddaughter clara grow up and you'll be able to hang out with your daughter-in-law when i'm home i'll stop in every time say hello and i'll stop out on the way out ed december 23rd she moved into her new home I built my mom a home, man.

1:01:50I mean, what boy doesn't want to build a home for their mom? That's just freaking awesome, bro. That's you, brother. And by the way, you've climbed in the speaking ranks, not because you're on my show. You climbed through the speaking ranks because you're an unbelievably great speaker and people are moved after you speak. And those of you that want someone to come speak to your organization, you know who to call now after listening to this today. So, and by the way, go get Six Dimes and a Nickel, pre-order that book. and where do they find you to speak or just follow you on social? You want them to come to Instagram?

1:02:21Find me to speak at my website, DamonWest.org, D-A-M-O-N-W-S-T.org. Last time I was on your show, I said the www. You're like, don't do that. I told you, you don't have to say that. Instagram and X and everything else is at DamonWest7. But my website is where people find me to speak all the time. I don't have an agent. It's just my wife and I that run it. Thanks for this experience. Ed, thanks for letting me come back. And I got to meet your wife today, which is great. Awesome. on your private jet. Hey, everybody, share today's episode. If you're not on my email list, by the way, I've been pushing this lately because we get the show out to you earlier if you do it.

1:02:54Just go to edmylet.com, put your email, and we'll get you the shows quick. All right, Max out. God bless you.

1:03:01This is the Ed Mylan Show.