Catherine Hoke — The Master of Second Chances

Catherine Hoke (@catherine_hoke https://twitter.com/catherine_hoke) is the founder of Defy Ventures https://defyventures.org/, a non-profit organization that "transforms the hustle" of currently and formerly incarcerated people. Defy's vision is to end mass incarceration by using entrepreneurship as a tool to transform legacies and human potential. Cat was named a #MakeTechHuman Agent of Change http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/10/transforming-the-incarcerated-into-entrepreneurs/ by WIRED and Nokia for being one of 17 Global Influencers Expanding Human Possibility Through Technology. https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/10/meet-the-mth-agents-of-change/ She has received the MDC Partners Humanitarian Award http://library.fora.tv/2015/05/11/Second_Chances_MDC_Humanitarian_Award_Recipient on behalf of Defy Ventures, and was included in Forbes' 40 Women to Watch over 40 http://fortyover40.com/2017-honorees/catherine-hoke/. She was also named by Fast Company as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business http://www.fastcompany.com/3029526/most-creative-people-2014/catherine-hoke and is an Ashoka Fellow https://www.ashoka.org/en/fellow/catherine-hoke. Cat is the author of A Second Chance: For You, For Me, and For the Rest of Us http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B078KMXXY8/offsitoftimfe-20. She is amazing on many levels — personal, athletic, and professional — and we'll dig into the many facets of her life and lessons learned. Enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. https://us.foursigmatic.com/pages/timferriss?discount=ferriss#utm_source=partnership&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=timferrissreishi You might remember Four Sigmatic for their mushroom coffee, which was created by their clever Finnish founders. Recently, I've been testing a new product — their reishi mushroom elixir — to help me get to sleep. As you might know, I struggled with insomnia for years. So, I asked the guys at Four Sigmatic to make a special, custom version of their reishi product. They did, and now it's become a part of my nightly routine. If you'd like to naturally improve sleep quality naturally, I think you'll enjoy the reishi elixir. Go tofoursigmatic.com/ferriss http://foursigmatic.com/ferriss and get 20% off just for listeners of the podcast. Just use the code "FERRISS" to receive your discount. This podcast is also brought to you by Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. I get asked all the time, "If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?" My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body and did not get paid to do so. As a listener of The Tim Ferriss Show, you'll get 30 percent off your first order at AthleticGreens.com/Tim https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Tim Ferriss?

  Now would seem an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

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• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:04Tim Ferriss?

  subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out, go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A G one, the number one, drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 1:24Tim Ferriss?

  Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to explore the stories, tactics, strategies, habits, et cetera, of people who are the best at what they do. And this episode is a very, very special episode. It delivers a lot of the hard tactics, book recommendations, and so on, that you would expect from one of these conversations. But it's also very, very unique. And I say very unique to bother all of my friends who say that you cannot have a modifier in front of unique. My guest today is Catherine, otherwise known as Kat Hoek. After being given a second chance of her own, which we'll get into, Catherine

• 2:06Tim Ferriss?

  founded Defy Ventures, a national nonprofit organization that, in quotations, transforms the hustle. Of currently and formerly incarcerated people. Defy has produced groundbreaking results, including a recidivism rate, that means being readmitted to prison, of less than 5%, and an employment rate of 95%. Defy's vision is to end mass incarceration as we know it by using entrepreneurship as a tool to transform legacies and human potential. Kat is amazing on many, many different levels, personal, athletic, and otherwise. And we're going to dig into the many facets of her life and lessons learned from her father, among many others.

• 2:48Tim Ferriss?

  Catherine has also been named a Make Tech Human, agent of change by Wired, and one of the 17 global influencers expanding human possibility through technology by Nokia. Kat also received the MDC Partners Humanitarian Award and was included in Forbes 40 Women to Watch Over 40. She has been named by Fast Company one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business and is an Ashoka, I think I'm getting that right, Ashoka Fellow, among many, many other things. She is the author of the brand-new book, and this is how I was introduced to her, via Seth Godin, called A Second Chance. And I recommend that everybody check that out. And you can certainly find her and Defy on all of the socials.

• 3:32Tim Ferriss?

  But we are going to get into every aspect of that and much more. So without further ado, please enjoy one of my favorite conversations I've had in a very long time with Catherine Kat Hoak.

• 3:48Tim Ferriss?

  Kat, welcome to the show.

• 3:51Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks, Tim. I have been excited to connect with you because I received a barrage of texts from a mutual friend of ours, Mr. Seth Godin. And I thought we'd start this with something I've been wondering that I actually don't know the answer to, which is, how did you first meet Seth?

• 4:13Speaker 00

  I sent Seth a cold email and he responded. I invited him to FIVE Ventures, the organization that I run. He used to have a brick and mortar classroom-style teaching model where we would have formerly incarcerated people come to a classroom in New York City and then we'd invite world-class faculty to come. And Seth was someone I really, really wanted to meet. I couldn't believe when he said yes. And then he came and taught, we call them EITs, or Entrepreneurs in Training. He came and met them. And the way that he treated me was like I was such an important person and I couldn't believe it. And then he became my mentor.

• 4:55Tim Ferriss?

  Just like that. Seth Goode was a mentor. That's a very productive afternoon.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  I feel like a spoiled brat. Yeah, I'm really proud to say that he's not just my mentor, but my friend and has encouraged me to shoot for the moon. I've done far greater things than I would have expected that I could have done had it not been for Seth. He has believed in me when I even have not believed in myself.

• 5:23Tim Ferriss?

  Well, he's an incredible man and we may circle back to Seth, but I want to talk about this cold email because you seem to be good at cold emails and cold letters. And I have to be careful about what I believe on the internet, but I'm going to circle this back to something that took place much further back than your meeting with Seth. But what did the email say? What did the pitch look like?

• 5:49Speaker 00

  I should look. I should look. So I cold emailed him and one of our volunteers kind of simultaneously cold emailed him, which always helps. But typically when I cold email people, because I've gotten amazing people to respond through a cold email, a lot of times I just say, "I'm going to change the world and I would like to meet with you to pick your smart brain for 15 minutes." And then I'm persistent as hell and I sent it back to them like six times. And sometimes I leave them voicemails as well. And I befriend their assistant. So that's how I got in to meet with Duncan Niederhauser, who was the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, and many people who you would think would not say yes

• 6:33Speaker 00

  to a cold email. But when I ask for 15 minutes to pick their smart brain, and I tell them... Exactly what I want to learn from them too. It's not like a random, you know, I tell them, you're an expert in this and I need to learn X. And I, and I also tell them I can talk really fast and you can kick me out of your office as quickly as you want if you think it's a waste of time. So I always give them an out, not like I need to do that, but um, and then I just don't stop. And I was trained in Cutco knife sales, like door to door stuff, you know? And I've been a shameless cold caller. I used to work for Summit Partners, a venture capital firm slash private equity where I would cold call CEOs wanting to get a piece of their pie.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  And I don't get hurt or reject, I don't get hurt by rejection. I'm able to take it. And, but when I've studied sales, like most salespeople stop after two or three and I keep going to six. And it's amazing how many people end up saying yes. And then I always like, typical sales trick, I'll throw in like another five seconds of information of something that makes them go, what? Like I'll tell them something about myself. So I try to find something about their background that we have in common. So Tim, I know that you were a wrestler. So I would say, and by the way, I was also a high school wrestler. Something makes you go, what? Like, and then gets your attention.

• 7:59Tim Ferriss?

  So, all right, we have so much, so much that we can cover and so many different rabbit holes we can go down. So a few things I want to, I want to flesh out a little bit. So number one, the Cutco knives, I was going to ask you about the Cutco knives and I'm, I'm going to try not to lose my train of thought here, but there's so many ways I want to go with this.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Thank you for doing such great research.

• 8:19Tim Ferriss?

  Of course. Just correct me if I'm wrong. Started with selling hamsters at age seven?

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. You really went way back. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I ran a hamster selling empire. I would breed them and I had multiple cages and then I sold them back to the pet shop for a buck apiece. My sister took after me and she was breeding rabbits. So we had quite the household.

• 8:42Tim Ferriss?

  And then selling golf balls.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would go, you know, take off my shoes and socks and go walk through the disgusting duck muck and get the golf balls, but then I would also one up the golfers with donuts and all types of other things as well to increase my profits. Yes.

• 9:05Tim Ferriss?

  What is the key to a successful, and people listening are like, what the fuck is going on right now? This is all, this is all going somewhere. The Cutco knives. So this is door to door we're talking about? Like knock, knock, wipe the feet?

• 9:18Speaker 00

  Well, so Cutco, if they were listening, might cringe if I say door to door because you're supposed to have a developed network and then you, every person that you go meet with, you ask them for three references. You know, did you have a good experience with me today? Would you recommend me to your friends? And then send me to three other people. So it's not totally door to door, but kind of.

• 9:39Tim Ferriss?

  But it's in-person selling.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  It's that same style. Yeah. So my biggest problem with selling Cutco is that I was raised by a Hungarian Yugoslav immigrant who came over with $200 in his pocket and thought that buying us a Happy Meal was too expensive. So I was selling at Cutco $1,400 knife sets and I was really good at it. And at Cutco, they taught me how to nod my head and smile to get that reciprocal behavior and say, will you buy my $1,400 knife set? And people were saying yes to me all the time. And I was enjoying the fact that I was so good at it, but I totally felt like I was scamming people. And little did I realize that rich people don't mind paying $1,400 or more for an amazing set of cutlery, which by the way, I still

• 10:25Speaker 00

  own myself and completely believe in. But because I felt like I was maybe scamming people, I had to stop selling Cutco knives. And I reduced my own profits because I felt like I was ripping people's faces off. So then you, you get these free products that you can give them like, oh, here, I'll give you my free cake slicer or this or that. Like, and you're supposed to use those to like, help get them to a bigger knife set. But I would get them to say yes to the biggest, most expensive set. And then I would feel guilty for like, selling them on something so big. So I'd be like, I'm going to give you these five free products as well.

• 11:03Tim Ferriss?

  And by the way, can you tell me the names of three of your friends you would recommend I also?

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. And then I would get like economies of scale on this stuff because when I was on the wrestling team as the only girl, we had to raise money for that. So then I would literally go door to door. And after I'd win a match and my, um, my wrestling photo was in the Sunday paper, I would walk around door to door and be like, hi. And I'd be in a dress and I'd be like, I'm on the Davis High School Wrestling Team and I'm raising money and we're pushing cars around the track. So will you give us money? And then I would do that and sell cutco knives at the same time. So.

• 11:41Tim Ferriss?

  So wait a second. Now, by at the same time, do you mean, hey, thanks for the $50 to support the wrestling team? By the way, I noticed that you have a cutting board. No.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  No, no, I would ask for a separate appointment. I didn't want to totally overwhelm my customer.

• 11:57Tim Ferriss?

  I was like, that's a hell of a cross sell. Now, the, the, the, the promise I made earlier to kind of wind this back, of course, I went all the way back to seven, but is it true that you were originally turned down by UC Berkeley, it was, right? Is this, is this accurate that you wrote them a letter?

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Well, uh, I was, so I was admitted to UC Berkeley. I tried to get rejected because my dad wanted me to go to UC Berkeley and I wanted to get so far away from home. I had wrestled and gone to high school in Davis. And I looked up the hardest, the hardest major to get into, which was bioengineering at Cal. I had a 4% chance of admission. Well, I got in and I didn't really want to be an engineer and I was flunking out of my engineering courses. And then I supported myself through school and I, um, I looked up a summer job that was for a management consulting firm, which I had no clue what that was. And I remember reading the posting aloud

• 13:00Speaker 00

  to someone and saying, this requires an entrepreneurial spirit. And I didn't know how to pronounce the word. And I was like, what the hell is that? What does that mean? Well, I got the job at the management consulting firm and I discovered what business is and decided I loved it. So I applied to the undergraduate class program at UC Berkeley and I got rejected. And I'm not surprised. I mean, I was failing literally out of my engineering courses because my brain is not really that of an engineer. And so that's when I wrote them a seven-page appeal letter and I was like, look, I'm a student athlete. I work forty hours a week on top of it. If you let me in, I promise I'll make you proud. And they let me in.

• 13:43Tim Ferriss?

  So where does this come from? This sort of aggressive drive, right? I mean, you're you're spanning wrestling, right? Which is certainly even now, but at the time, I mean, Margolis has really, I think, raised the perception of women's wrestling in the US tremendously. But certainly back then, as a wrestler myself throughout high school and then the very beginning portions of college, unusual that that that not very common, I should say, that that women would go to wrestling. You have this entrepreneurial drive really, really early. Where does that come from?

• 14:24Speaker 00

  So I feel like I was raised in a mini shark tank at my house. My dad is an inventor still. He's seventy-three years old and he patents all types of stuff. He's an electrical engineer. And he taught me to see the world through quite a different lens. So when I was as young as age six or seven, he would have me stand up in front of the family and I never knew when he was going to do it. But he's like, you have one minute to invent something and talk about the market and how you're going to price it and the demand and your strategy for getting it out there. And I would come up with ridiculous things. I can't even remember. I remember that one of my favorite inventions was shoes that could

• 15:06Speaker 00

  fly. And what I remember about doing that with my father is that he never told me that one of my ideas was stupid or not feasible. And so he could have just raised a very delusional child who thought that she could do anything. And I guess he kind of did. But I whenever I saw problems and I saw things that I didn't like about the world and I would complain about them, my dad would say to me, instead of complaining about it, why don't you figure out how you can fix it? And he, for example, I was raised super weird, immigrant home. I was not allowed to watch television, like, almost never. We never were allowed to watch sports.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  He said, "Why would you watch somebody else going out there and getting it when you could invest that same time in doing it yourself?" So he told me to get my butt out there and work out, you know, and learn how to become the best at something. He said, "If you're gonna become a chimney sweeper, just become the best chimney sweeper." So I didn't really know that there was another way. And I really believed I could do anything. And so I thought, um, I was, I was born in Canada, and French was my first language, and we came over to the US when I was seven. And when my dad got invited to come and teach at Stanford, and he told me that we were

• 16:31Speaker 00

  moving to the US, I said, I said, "No, I don't want to because I can't become the president of the United States." And I have zero political aspirations today, by the way. But, um, but when, when I told him I couldn't become the president, he said, "I'm gonna give you a little time to think about that, about how you could turn that, come up with a solution for that problem." So I came back to him, I don't know, a week later or something, and I said, "I've got it. We can move to the United States, I will become a lawyer, I will change the Constitution of the United States so that someone who's not born in the United States can become the president, and then I will become the president." And then after we moved to the US, he introduced me to everybody as the future president of the United States. And when he said it, I thought he was serious.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  So he believed in me, so I believed in me, and I guess that's why I run something called Defy now. I actually believe I can do it. Like I'm, like Jerry Colonna says, I am pathologically optimistic about my goals.

• 17:31Tim Ferriss?

  So, all right. That is a very thorough and extremely helpful answer. What was your dad invited to teach at Stanford?

• 17:41Speaker 00

  Electrical engineering.

• 17:43Tim Ferriss?

  Electrical engineering. And what, when, and the reason you moved to the US was because of the faculty invitation?

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:52Tim Ferriss?

  From Stanford?

• 17:53Speaker 00

  Yep. So you got like a one-year invitation and then it turned into two years and then he could have stayed at Stanford, but my dad is like a ski freak and he just wanted to be closer to the mountains. So that's why we moved to Davis and he taught at UC Davis. But I'm a lot like my dad in that he loves to like invent stuff. And so he left university life and now is still like, he works till five in the morning just inventing new stuff.

• 18:20Tim Ferriss?

  Sounds like, sounds like a cool, cool gig. Would he call himself an inventor or a product developer? Or neither? He would say inventor?

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:29Tim Ferriss?

  What was your home like outside of, of your father? Was your, was your mom around? Do you have siblings? Paint, paint a picture for people.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I'm the oldest of four kids. I was like a mini mom. My mother would literally want to bring homeless people back to our house. Like my mom's like really compassionate and caring. And my mom used to be a nurse and I stayed at home to take care of the kids. And I developed a lot of my compassion and heart for serving others from my mom. And I remember, you know, my mom would tell me, eat all the food on your plate because there are starving kids in Africa. And I was like, okay, if I don't eat the food on my plate, how are the starving kids in Africa gonna get my food? So I think I was seven, this is like from my dad, right?

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Like find a solution to the problem. So I found some like sponsorship program to sponsor a kid in Africa and the little golf ball money is hamsters selling money that I thought I was balling when I was seven years old. But I would send that money overseas to sponsor orphans. So I developed a heart for.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Other people and not just making a buck. I'm very competitive if you can't tell. And I love money because I love what money can do to create the world that I want to live in.

• 19:59Tim Ferriss?

  You are competitive. I'm going to add some more color to that. See if you can fact check. Tell me if any of this is incorrect. California State Women's Wrestling Champ, three-time marathon runner, college rugby player, varsity rower. And you still enjoy, although we talked about this a little bit, the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which has deprived me of my structural integrity, my ankle as of last week with some snapped ligaments. But you are certainly very competitive and I want to also note something that we discussed very briefly, or you mentioned when we were doing a sound check before hitting record. Because I asked you what your breakfast was and you said coffee. And I said, okay, I need a few more seconds to just talk about your coffee for sound check.

• 20:43Tim Ferriss?

  And you said medium-warm coffee. I put in ice cubes and then you kept on going. And I thought you were making it-

• 20:49Speaker 00

  You told me to talk for 15 seconds.

• 20:50Tim Ferriss?

  No, I know. And then I thought maybe you were making it up. And I was like, wait, what's the story on the medium-warm coffee? Can you tell people what the story is?

• 20:57Speaker 00

  Well, I like to be very efficient and fast. And I like to eat fast and drink fast. And so I put ice cubes in my coffee so I can pound it. Because I actually think things tend to taste better when I eat them or drink them really fast. I don't understand people who like to chew on their food for two hours. It annoys me. I mean, it's fine for them, but not for me.

• 21:22Tim Ferriss?

  So you and I have a number of overlapping circles. So I'm also of the fast-

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, we said we're going to roll, right? After this interview.

• 21:33Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, God. Yeah, well-

• 21:35Speaker 00

  I'm going to meet you and Austin and we're going to roll.

• 21:37Tim Ferriss?

  You know what? I'll just let you triangle choke me because I don't think, I don't think, given your credentials, that I'm going to give you much of a fight.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  I can talk a bit game, you know? I'll be gentle.

• 21:52Tim Ferriss?

  We talked about Seth. There seem to be a number of other people. We don't have to spend too much time on this, but I do know, first, I've spent some time with Jerry, Jeri Colonna, who you mentioned.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  He's one of our faculty members, too.

• 22:05Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, Jerry's amazing. There's another, also, of course, these two know each other, Brad Feld, who's just an incredible guy and incredible investor also. Where did the entrepreneurs in training enter the picture? How did that become part of your life?

• 22:26Speaker 00

  So, when I was 26, I was working for a New York City private equity firm, and I got invited to prison for the first time in my life. And that changed everything in my life, because I used to think that people who were incarcerated were like the scum of the earth. When I was 12, a good friend of mine was brutally murdered by two 16-year-old boys. And so, from that experience of one, I extrapolated to think that anyone in prison could rot and die in that place. And it was that first prison visit, I'm 40 years old now, we're like, three months apart, Tim. And when I was 26, that visit opened my eyes

• 23:08Speaker 00

  and my heart, and it ended up, I didn't know it, ended up becoming my life calling. But it ended up changing my wallet and my priorities and my time. And it's what I've devoted my everything to now, is the second chance field, and working with people with criminal histories, who, you know, the world caused them all types of things, like ex-offenders or criminals. And I say, we don't work with criminals. We work with people who committed criminal acts in their past. And there's a really big difference. So, at Defi, I believe we're

• 23:49Speaker 00

  all ex-somethings. And we call them EITs, or entrepreneurs in training. And then they become full-fledged entrepreneurs.

• 24:00Tim Ferriss?

  A few notes, just because I've had sufficient caffeine to want to talk a lot. The first is a really important distinction that you made. And also, as some backstory, before we hit record, you were like, you asked me, do I have the right to call you out if they call them criminals? And I said, yes, you do. Because the language we use is so important in this context and many other contexts. For instance, I have tried very hard for myself to not call myself an anxious, I am anxious, to use that language, or to say, I am an anxious person, but rather to say, you know,

• 24:45Tim Ferriss?

  I feel anxiety, sort of depersonalize it in that way. So think also, people with a criminal past is very different from ex-criminals or criminals. I mean, they're very, very distinct labels that create an entirely distinct way of relating to somebody with one versus the other. So I just want to underscore how important that is, not just for how you label other people, but also for how you label yourself.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Absolutely. We're big on that, really, really big on how we label ourselves.

• 25:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, really, really important. And the question then I have is, why did this stick? Why did this become what appears to be a lifelong passion and commitment? Whereas you had tried so many things in the past, and you're no longer selling hamsters, you're no longer doing private equity. Why did this stick? Like, was there a specific conversation? Was there a specific moment? What was it that made this stick for you?

• 25:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I didn't think it would stick. And when I went to prison that very first time in Texas, what I saw there shocked my heart. And I have made so many bad decisions and mistakes in my own life, and I'm really grateful for the grace and second chances that I've received. Yet I was so quick to write off and label people who had been caught for something criminal. And so I was just convicted by the ugliness of my own heart. Because I, when I went and visited in prison,

• 26:32Speaker 00

  I realized, and this might sound stupid, but I realized that they were actually human beings. Not a rap sheet, not a number. And the first guy that I met in prison that weekend, his name is Johnny. And when I heard Johnny's story, when Johnny was eight years old, he watched as his grandfather murdered his father right in front of him. And then when Johnny was eleven or twelve, he was given drugs and he was jumped into a gang and by the age of eighteen, he was incarcerated. And empathy for the people that I serve is what made it stick. Because I was like, wow, had I been raised in those circumstances,

• 27:15Speaker 00

  I am certain that I would have ended up in that path as well. And when I, to this day, when I hear the stories of the people that I serve. You know, I was just in a prison last week. And I do this exercise called Step to the Line. And we have all of our CEOs and venture capitalists and executive volunteers on one side of the line. And then we have our EITs, our entrepreneurs in training, the incarcerated, on the other side of the line. And you step to the line if this statement is true. So it says, step to the line if you've ever been arrested. And about a third of our volunteers are at the line. Um, step to the line if you've ever done something for which you could have been arrested, but you have not been arrested.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  A hundred percent of our volunteers are at the line. Step to the line if you're arrested the first time before the age of sixteen. Like maybe seventy-five percent of our, of our EITs are at the line. And then I count backwards. Step to the line if you were incarcerated before the age of fourteen, twelve, ten. And I get to age eight. If you're in, if you are first incarcerated at the age of eight, there are four guys remaining at the line. Seven, there's one guy remaining at the line. And I'm trying to picture a seven-year-old or an eight-year-old in handcuffs. And normally, a prison cell seems pretty small and stifling. But imagine a little seven or eight-year-old there.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  My empathy for the people that I serve. Is what made this stick for me. And I don't have pity for them. I have a deep compassion. I also have mad respect for their skills. I work with natural born entrepreneurs. Who started off selling gum balls out of their lockers, not hamsters. And gum balls proceeded into drugs, which, you know, kept going and then they got arrested. But I have a love of underdogs and a love of entrepreneurs and I hate injustice. Like when I grew up as a little kid and I saw somebody else get bullied, I would always stand up for them. And defend the victim.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  And here I was in the midst of people who have been thrown away by society. Who are not just aspiring entrepreneurs, but who are proven entrepreneurs with amazing talents. I believe that people I serve represent America's most overlooked talent pool. And that first weekend, when I was 26 years old and naivest could be in Texas. At the last prison I went to, I went to four prisons and the last one, the guys are like, will you please come back? And I said, yes. And my dad also taught me to be a person of my word. And I had no idea what it meant to come back. I had never talked to a warden before.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  But after I said, yes, I was coming back and I did.

• 30:18Tim Ferriss?

  I'm gonna get this pronunciation wrong, most likely, but can you tell us?

• 30:23Speaker 00

  I'm all about second chances, Tim.

• 30:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, well.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  I've never used that one before either.

• 30:33Tim Ferriss?

  I can tell you've been working on your material. Uh, all right, Cos Marti, is this, is this correct?

• 30:39Speaker 00

  Pretty good, yeah, Cos Marte, yeah.

• 30:41Tim Ferriss?

  Marte, can you tell us who Cos Marte is?

• 30:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's one of our best known success stories. He's a graduate of Defy Ventures. He did five years in prison in the New York State prison system. And he went to prison at age 19, so he grew up in poverty. Heroin needles all around him and he said that the one thing he wanted to become when he was older was rich. He didn't know how to get out of the system, but he saw his mother working. Over time to put food on the table and um. So when he was a young teenager, he got introduced to the world of selling drugs and he got incarcerated. Uh, his first time, I think at twelve or thirteen and bounced in and out. And by the time that he was nineteen and got arrested on a kingpin case.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  He was running a drug empire in New York where he was doing two million dollars a year. In drug sales and he had an army of people working for him and he was a young, natural entrepreneur. And when he was incarcerated, he realized that. He was in fact very entrepreneurial, but that his entrepreneurial skill sets were being used to destroy communities rather than build them up. He had a wake up call in prison when he was sent to the shoe to solitary confinement. After having an altercation with an officer. He um, he was also so overweight and unhealthy when he got sent to prison. That doctors told him that he would die in prison, even though he was only doing five years and he was like, I'm not dying in prison.

• 32:13Speaker 00

  So he, while he was locked up in solitary confinement in a box that is the size of a parking spot. He came up with a body weight bearing workout. And he lost seventy pounds and then when he got out of the shoe. He taught other incarcerated men at that prison. About twenty of them had to lose a collective one thousand pounds. So he was on to something with his prison style fitness workout. And he got out of prison and he had always wanted to become a legal entrepreneur. So with Defy's help. He turned that into Conbody and Conbody. Is a prison style fitness bootcamp that in less than three years has more than fourteen thousand customers. He says that he follows around.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  Women wearing yoga pants and he asks them where they work out and he gives them his business card. And he's hired nearly twenty people with criminal histories. So he's hired other to five entries graduates who have not started their own business. And we've helped cost to raise more than two hundred fifty thousand dollars. In funding for his business, because we run like these Shark Tank style pitch competitions, and he killed it in all of our competitions, and then we introduced him to other angel investors. And what I love about Koss is that he's not just about his financial bottom line, but whenever I ask him to give back and to serve, he always does. So we work with DeFi in the most notorious prison in America called Pelican Bay,

• 33:41Speaker 00

  where they have a solitary confinement facility. We run a program in solitary confinement. Koss came to Pelican Bay with me and led a workout for the incarcerated guys who are currently in the SHU. And I can't tell you how awesome it was to have him. And he was able to tell his story of going from the SHU to being a CEO. And his business continues to thrive and boom. And Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City needed more foot traffic, so they literally opened up a con body gym inside Saks. And now, men and women, but mostly women, are flocking through Saks to get to con body, where they go to these workouts, and if you go to a con body workout,

• 34:27Speaker 00

  you'll be paired up with your quote "sully", and you'll have formerly incarcerated trainers that Koss has hired yelling at you to bring out the best in you and your physical fitness. And he also has conbodylive.com, and he now has customers from 24 different countries that sign up for, I think, five bucks a month. And it's amazing to watch his hustling skills combined with his heart and the way that he uses his voice for prison reform and advocacy. I couldn't be more proud for us to be early incubators of con body and for us to be behind Koss Marte.

• 35:09Tim Ferriss?

  And as I understand it, more than 150 businesses? The number may be outdated now.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Yes, it's nearly 200 businesses now that we have incubated and funded through our post-release incubator.

• 35:23Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm going to, I'm going to play devil's advocate a little bit because I'm sure there are people listening who have different emotional responses to the subject of the incarcerated or let's just talk, let's talk about the currently, say incarcerated. How do you decide or vet those people who should be given second chances versus those who should remain incarcerated because they are genuinely threats to society and are not fit to be in any way reintegrated? And the reason I ask that is that I know people who are incarcerated, who are, have

• 36:06Tim Ferriss?

  been repeat offenders, violent offenders, who are, I mean, I hate to say it, but it's, they, they, at this point at least, should not be re-released in the short term, based on my firsthand experience, I mean, watching what, what some of these people have done. How do you, how do you vet and sort of filter and train in such a way that you ensure? Because your numbers are very, very impressive, right? I mean, the, and I will have already read this in the introduction that I record separately, but let's, let's, let's reread the bio because I think we're going to dig into a bunch of different facets of it.

• 36:48Tim Ferriss?

  So if you could bear with me boring you by reading your own bio, here we go. "After being given a second chance of her own," which we're going to come back to, "Catherine founded Defy Ventures, a national nonprofit organization that transforms the hustle," in quotation marks, "of currently and formerly incarcerated people. Defy has produced groundbreaking, groundbreaking, groundbreaking could be something else, groundbreaking results, including," this is the key here, "recidivism rate of less than 5% and an employment rate of 95%. Defy's vision is to end mass incarceration by using entrepreneurship as a tool to transform legacy and, and human potential." And then you have many, many, many different accolades, 100 Most Creative People in Business, According to Fast Company, a Ashoka Fellow, 2013, and so on, but I won't get into all of those.

• 37:35Tim Ferriss?

  How do you, how do you, how do you filter cultivate the right people versus the wrong people?

• 37:40Speaker 00

  All right. So although I speak with great passion about DeFi's EITs, I never take away from the fact that they have made grave mistakes, that they have hurt society, that they have hurt individuals, and that nothing about that is okay. So I'm not one of these like, oh, no one should go to prison and let the prison doors fly open so everyone can just get out.

• 38:15Speaker 00

  When people hurt people and they're a threat to society, they are sent to prison, and that's not a bad thing. In fact, I believe that an adult timeout is often a very important element of people's transformation. So I know that people having a consequence is really important, and sometimes that consequence really needs to be prison. Sometimes people need to be taken out of society. I think we're way too liberal with the way that we hand out time, and I can get into, into my opinions about how we sentence people and racial and economic disparities.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  I can get into that all day long because there's major injustice in that. But let's just go with this, that when hurt people hurt other people, there needs to be a consequence, and prison is often, I believe, a solid consequence for that. It's called the field of corrections. And unfortunately, when people are sent to prison, they're usually thrown away, and it's pure punishment. What many people in society don't realize is that 95% of incarcerated people are coming back out to become our neighbors. So yes, the people I've served have done some terrible things,

• 39:44Speaker 00

  sometimes things that make my own stomach turn, even though I'm around these people and the crimes that they've, I know their rap sheets intimately.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  So what kind of neighbor do you want coming back to live next to you? Do you want someone who has not been rehabilitated? Or do you want someone who has been rehabilitated? And at DeFi, we actually work with people who have committed tougher crimes than most. We work at a lot of maximum security facilities. And when I say we work in solitary confinement, you don't go to solitary confinement unless you've done some, some, made some really, really bad decisions. And 90% of the people that we serve have committed violent crimes. People who commit murder, nearly all of them still get out of prison. I think people don't realize that.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  And so if we lock them up like they're an animal and give them no resources, and then when they get out, offer them no opportunities to make it legally, what are they going to go back to?

• 40:50Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  We as society decide. So the other thing is, I'm not the one who decides if they serve time or how much time they do. Our American judges and juries and prosecutors determine that. And according to the way our laws are set up, when you get sentenced to a term, you supposedly pay your debt to society.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  And unfortunately, when people get out of prison, they're often treated like they're wearing invisible handcuffs for the rest of their lives. And especially if you've been a victim of a crime, you might be like, good, I want them to permanently suffer. Well, I've been a victim of multiple crimes myself, some of the worst crimes myself. And vengeance can be a really ugly thing. And when I get into a healthy place in my own head, I realize that

• 42:02Speaker 00

  If, if I had my vengeance on every human who has hurt me and just tortured them, I think it might bring out even worse things in them. But if they could get healing for the ways that they have hurt me, and then live the fullest life that they could, like live up to their fullest potential, who would we be as a country? If they had healing and forgiveness and then didn't make other victims? That's what I want for myself, for the people I serve. We're all offenders. We all hurt people. And I think that when it comes to people who are in prison, there's this real us versus them mentality.

• 42:45Speaker 00

  Like, they're in prison, they should rot in there. But when, when our volunteers come to prison with us, I ask them through that step to the line exercise, some pretty challenging questions. Like, step to the line if you have ever been in a fight to prove yourself. Go all the way back to your childhood. Like, if you, even with a sibling, pulled their hair or punched a boy who was picking on you at the park, or something like that. As a little kid, as a seven or eight-year-old, step to the line. And I would say that 70 or 80% of our volunteers are at the line on that.

• 43:24Speaker 00

  And then I say, step to the line if you've ever been, if you've ever committed a violent crime. And none of our volunteers are at the line, but, well, close to 100% of our EITs are at the line. And I tell the volunteers, I must not be making myself clear. I did not say step to the line if you've been convicted of a violent crime. Step to the line if you've committed a violent crime. And earlier, 70 or 80% of you were at the line. When I asked if you've ever been in a childhood fight, step to the line. Almost all of you were there. Well, the volunteers roll their eyes at me because they're like, "Come on." You know, the little fight that I got in at the playground, that's not a violent crime.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  And I'm like, "Actually, if you looked at the backstories of the people that I serve, about half of them were arrested the first time before they were 10 or 11." And when I ask them for what, they say, "Oh, my mom was strung out and I broke into my neighbor's house to steal food because I was hungry." Or, "I was 10 and a 13-year-old was picking on me at the park, so I punched him in the face." You know, stuff like that. And so, it's very easy for us to turn the other person into a villain, into a wild caged animal, to dehumanize the offender. But I can see myself in that offender, and I think that if we all look deep enough,

• 44:53Speaker 00

  many of us could see ourselves. And if you can't see yourself in that, I bet you could see your brother, or your sister, or your best friend. And if we were all known permanently for the worst thing that we've ever done, we might think a little bit differently about the labels that we attach to people. And unfortunately, once people go to prison or jail the first time, a lot of times officers will tell them on their way out, "See you back here." And in our country, 76.6% of people are rearrested. Nearly everybody. If you go in once, it's a revolving door. And that is such a sad statistic. And another statistic that kills

• 45:38Speaker 00

  me is that 70% of the children of incarcerated people follow in their parents' footsteps. Quite a legacy to inherit. And the good news is that we can break this legacy, and we can break that revolving door, and we're called DeFi. And yeah, we have a less than 5% return to prison rate. And so, this is a totally solvable problem. But if we, as Americans and society, continue to write people off as being less than human and saying, "It's gross that you even give them a chance," well, you're gonna get a different kind of neighbor back. The kind of neighbor that is gonna scare you. The kind of neighbor that none of us want.

• 46:26Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you.

• 46:29Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned something earlier that I think is worth underscoring, which is the question. And I'd be curious to know how people respond if you actually posed this to them, whether they're volunteers or otherwise. But what if you were only known for the worst thing you've ever done? Do you actually pose that, or is it more of a rhetorical question?

• 46:51Speaker 00

  I do a lot of speaking engagements, and I open with that nearly every single time. And I ask people, "Think back to the action that you regret the most in your life. Think about the labels that would be attached to that, like drunk, cheater, adulterer, I don't know what it is, you know? And now imagine if for the rest of your life, like say it's 20 years later, say you've paid the consequences in full for whatever mistake you made, but now you are permanently known as ex-drunk, ex-cheater, ex-embezzler, ex- liar, ex-shitty dad, ex-whatever it is.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  And you go fill out a job application, and at the top of your job application, it's the first thing that you have to check the box on, even though it's 20 years later. And next time that you want to rent an apartment or get a mortgage, it's the first thing you have to write your ex-label there. The people that I serve have paid their debt to society, but for the rest of their lives, they are known as an ex-drug dealer, or an ex-fill-in-the-blank.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  What would your life be like if you were handcuffed by your most shameful moment?"

• 48:16Tim Ferriss?

  Well, this is, I suppose, as good a place as any to segue into forgiveness, but the way we're going to get there, because I remember when I was chatting with Seth, I wanted to know how openly we could talk about different parts of your biography. And your bio on the website begins with "after being given a second chance of her own." Can you explain what that refers to?

• 48:48Speaker 00

  Sure. It should probably say, after being given so many second chances of her own and third and fourth chances. But I will share the mistake, the bad decisions that I am most known for, since I ask other people what it'd be like for them if they were known for that worst thing. So the, the short version of it is that after devoting my life to working with people with criminal histories, I moved to Texas. I started what became known as Prison Entrepreneurship Program, PEP, and I'm still going there today. And I poured my everything into it. I had fifty thousand dollars in my bank account. It wasn't enough.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  I cashed out my 401K because working with these people and making sure that they had a bright future was more important than my own financial stability. I, I went all in on this. And for five years, I built up PEP to be a very successful prison rehabilitation program that was equipping men in the Texas prison system to become successful legal entrepreneurs, but more than that, also employees and fathers and voices in their communities. And then I tanked. I made decisions that I thought ruined my everything and my entire future.

• 50:12Speaker 00

  So I had been married, I was married the first time for nine years. I got married when I was twenty-two. At the age of thirty-one, I was served divorce papers. And I was living in Texas in a very Christian community where God hates divorce and divorce is sin. And I was so ashamed. I said the one thing I would never be was a divorced woman. And here I was, a divorced woman. And following my divorce, I also went through a lot of hard times. I was sick with pneumonia. I was hospitalized. I had to move out of my house. And instead of reaching out to Friends or a community that would have been supportive of me and my own shame over

• 50:54Speaker 00

  my divorce, I put my head in the sand and I felt so alone. And like when I was in the hospital and didn't know who to call to come pick me up, that was one of the loneliest, worst moments that I can remember. Well, the people that I felt comfortable confiding in over my personal failure were released graduates from the Texas prison system. And so the people who picked me up from the hospital, graduates, people packed up my boxes and moved me out of my house, like, you know, I had been taking care of people for a long time and now I was at my bottom and needed to be taken care of. In a moment of weakness, I crossed boundaries and I had some relationships with people

• 51:38Speaker 00

  who had been released from the Texas prison system. What I did was not illegal, but I knew better. I absolutely shouldn't have done it. I regretted it right after. Um, I've always taught my graduates a model of full disclosure. Own your mistakes and, and share it, don't get caught. And so I, I followed my own advice and I was honest about my poor decisions and it cost me my everything at the time. It cost me everything.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  I, um, the Texas prison system, when they learned about my decisions, they forced my resignation and they forced it, this was eight years ago now, they forced it in the media too, because up until that moment, I had been known, people called me the prison angel who ministered to the dark side. That was absolutely not true, but, um, uh, people had a...

• 52:45Speaker 00

  Like Mother Teresa image of me and um because I was not known for big mistakes yet. And then my news came crashing in the media and I became known for a sex scandal instead of the good work that I had poured my life into. And I I was already suffering from so much shame. So now to be known for this and to get the ejector seat from my own organization, to lose my identity as a passionate young founder and CEO, to lose my identity as a wife. I felt like I had ruined God's calling for my life. I saw no reason to live anymore. I didn't want to live anymore.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  And what saved my life was that shortly before my scandal went out across national media, I sent out a full disclosure letter. And at the time, we had seven thousand five hundred supporters, top CEOs and investors and people I respected more than anyone in the world. And I said, I screwed up. I made these bad decisions. I'm a divorced woman. I don't know what's next in my life. Sending that letter was super painful for me. But within about twenty-four hours of sending it, my inbox filled up with nearly a thousand emails of love and support. And you've always preached grace and second chances and what are you doing next with your life?

• 54:11Speaker 00

  And if you can't tell, I'm an all-in person and I had no plan B. But it was people, other human beings saw potential in me when I saw no potential in me. I used to think like, what happens to leaders like me who screw up? Is there like some island for castaways? Like, do we all go surf Starbucks somewhere? Or like, what are we? I had no vision for a better future. All I could see was dark clouds and no reason to live anymore. And the fact that people saw potential and a future in me. And more than that, I would say the fact that people, and I took a year off after my

• 54:54Speaker 00

  resignation to just, I went through massive therapy. I'd already been through massive therapy. And I went to like these leadership blow-up camps where like other CEOs and even pastors go. I guess I wasn't the only person to screw up my life. And when I went there.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  And other people had the opportunity to care for me. Like, I have these people I call my adopted parents. And they said, "Just come stay with us for a while." I hardly knew these people at the time. And they said, "We will love you back to life." I had nothing to offer people. I learned for the first time.

• 55:32Tim Ferriss?

  Sorry to interrupt. How did you meet these adoptive parents?

• 55:35Speaker 00

  Um, so their names are Bill and Andrea Townsend. And Bill had, Bill is a serial entrepreneur who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. And he had, um, sent PEP, my Texas organization, a big fat check. And I couldn't tell it was from him. I had to, like, do a lot of due diligence to track down who it was from, which was weird, because usually I know where the money's coming from. And then when I finally found out it was from him, I requested to meet with him. And the logistics, as, as it turned out, I had, like, a super short meeting with him in an airport for, like, thirty minutes.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  And when I met with him, he was like, "Thank you for the work you do." I was like, "Thank you for the big fat check that you wrote me." And he's like, "No, thank you for the work that you do." His whole, like, demeanor was really different. He was just thankful that I was serving the world. And not everybody's like that about it. And then what really struck me about that meeting with Bill is like, so Bill loves God and grace. And he said, "Do you serve people with sexual criminal histories?" And I said, "No, uh, the Texas prison system won't allow us to serve that. I believe all things can be redeemed." And look, I'm gonna say this right now, Tim. Nobody likes sexual crime, especially not me.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  Having been a victim of that myself. Nobody likes that. But if people with even ugly crimes don't have an opportunity to rebuild it. Those are the crimes that we don't want repeated in society, right? So, anyway, Bill said to me, do you serve people who have committed those crimes? And I said, no, because the Texas prison system won't let me. And he said, well, what if we started a different organization? Like a separate umbrella that served those people? And I said, well, you know, maybe that'd be a nice thing to think about in the future. Because a lot of my Texas donors, when they find out that I don't serve people with a certain crime category, they're relieved and they're so glad. And they sometimes tell me they wouldn't fund me if I served those people, which always like surprises me.

• 57:49Speaker 00

  Because I'm like, why wouldn't you want those people rehabilitated? Anyway, I'm kind of deviating right now. But, um, you know, Bill had a really different heart. And Bill had no reason to care about those people. But I think Bill, Bill cares about people who have been written off and stigmatized. And Bill and Andrea have this ability to see potential in anybody. It's like they see the world through these rosy colored glasses. And they're by no means like naive human beings. Um, so they're the first ones who called me after I sent out my resignation letter to 7,500 people. And I was drowning in shame and self hate and disgust.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  And my phone rang, Bill calls me like half an hour later or something. And he said, sweetie, we love you. Come stay with us. And I was like, who are you? You know, who are you? I'm like a scandalous divorced woman with nothing to offer. I hardly know you. I've never met your wife. And he's like, come stay with us and we'll love you back to life. Well, I had nothing to lose. I was at the bottom of myself and I was willing to do anything. And I thought I was so gross that I said yes. And there was a small group of amazing people who poured into me in that year and made me think that I still had potential.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  And I don't, I tell my story all the time. So I don't know why I feel emotional right now. But, um, it's because people.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  Saw something in me when I had, I thought I had nothing left. That I am such a believer in second chances, or what I believe is actually legitimate first chances now. And much of the world thinks that the people that I serve are so rotten, or that they have no value. And I know better. I know that hope is a cure for violence. And I know that they've done such horrible, hurtful things. I know that, for the most part, horrible, hurtful things have been done to them. And I know that unless there's some intervention, and many people don't want to get their hands dirty and do this kind of work.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Unless there's some kind of intervention, this will be a generational legacy of incarceration, and violence, and crime, and drug abuse. And it's a big fat waste of taxpayer dollars, and it hurts more people. And the solution that I've come up with, that is not just business, but it's also about love, and healing, and redemption. It works all day long. And it works with, when I start a new, a new prison system, I tell the commissioner, the prison system, and the wardens, "Send me to your hellhole. Send me to the worst of the worst, the guys who refuse to program." And what I see, time and time again, is that

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  no one is beyond redemption. Some people don't want to change, okay? And those guys, I have nothing to talk to them about. If they don't, if they want to be criminals, I tell them, "Get out." Because I don't cut for criminals. Nobody likes criminals. I hate criminals. I don't work with criminals. I work with people who take ownership of their past, and who want a better future.

• 1:01:22Tim Ferriss?

  Thank you for that.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  You're welcome.

• 1:01:30Tim Ferriss?

  I'm just chewing on all that.

• 1:01:34Speaker 00

  Take your time.

• 1:01:39Tim Ferriss?

  Well, there are many questions and I will ask them all, but I'll start with one which is not related directly to the population you work with. It's much broader than that, but when you talk to someone who is very unforgiving of themselves, and let's just say there is some catalyzing event that they are ashamed of, or that they find unbearable in themselves, and the reason that this comes to mind is, A, historically I've been absolutely F minus student at forgiving myself for anything, and I find that that is very often paired

• 1:02:21Tim Ferriss?

  with hyper competitiveness, in the sense that if you look at people who are successful athletes and highly competitive throughout school, high school, college, whatever it might be, it seems to very often be part and parcel of a package that includes a low level of forgiveness. I mean, you have very, very high standards for yourself, and that in excess can be very damaging. So when you interact with someone who has very difficult time forgiving themselves, or just for people listening for that matter, like what are

• 1:03:05Tim Ferriss?

  the recommendations that you make? What are the things you say? What are the books you recommend? I mean, it could go in any number of directions, but I'll leave it open-ended, because that's all that comes to mind at the moment. But what do you say to those people?

• 1:03:20Speaker 00

  You are not your past. As hard as it might be to believe, especially if you're currently suffering the consequences of your past decision. You are not your past. You are not one decision or five decisions that you've made in your life. And I don't just believe, I know that every one of us is capable of having a better future than we've had in our past. But there's some steps that we need to take to live a better future. So first of all, recognize that you are not your past and you're not that label. Because if you keep calling yourself that, whatever it is, you're gonna keep probably

• 1:04:05Speaker 00

  acting that way. That belief expectation cycle, when we have a belief about ourselves and we expect that that's gonna be true about ourselves and then we end up acting that way and we have more experiences which just confirms that belief that we have about ourselves. So in prison, when our volunteers, including our CEOs, come in, I say,

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  "Talk to, share with your partner what your voice of shame is in your head. The tape of shame that keeps playing in your head, what does it say? Say it out loud." And people regularly say the same thing, whether they're incarcerated or whether the CEO of a billion dollar company. And that voice is often, "You are not good enough. You are a failure. You are a sucky dad. You're a loser. You'll be just like your father." Like, these are the same messages of shame. So I don't know what your message of shame is, but start by identifying that. And then I say, "Can you believe that you talk to yourself this way? It's so ugly. Would you allow anyone else to walk up to you and be like, 'You're a loser.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  You will never amount to anything.'" And I don't know anyone who has any ounce of dignity, or even who doesn't, who would allow another human being to walk up and get in their face and say that. But many of us are not only tolerant of that voice of shame that we feed ourselves all day long, it's almost like we encourage it, like we say, "Yeah, you are a loser." And we keep pounding that into our own brains. And so at Defy, we do something called affirmations, and it's cheesy. And I tell our EITs, "Fake it till you make it. Pick your head up, and I want you belting this out at the top of your lungs like you're a proud army."

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  And they say things like, "I am worthy of the love I am receiving." "I am an entrepreneur." "I forgive me." "I am forgiven." And we have a whole list of affirmations. And we also go through this exercise where they identify what is called self-limiting beliefs, like lies that we tell ourselves. And the problem with this exercise is that sometimes it's really hard to identify the log that is in our own eye. So sometimes our friends can hear it come out in our... Like if I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna fail in this podcast with Tim." Like if I say that aloud, maybe a friend of mine can pick up on that and be like, "That's one of your self-limiting beliefs."

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  And then we have them write out their self-framed beliefs. And then we tell them to meditate on it every day, every morning, for a minimum of 30 days, and then read it aloud to somebody else. But a lot of reversing the message of shame is what we say is a choice to forgive. And what we teach at Defy is that forgiveness is not a feeling. You're not gonna feel like forgiving yourself. And forgiveness is not something that we earn. There's no amount of good deeds that you can make up for your victims' pain or loss. And if you're waiting for that to happen, you're never gonna get there.

• 1:07:18Speaker 00

  And I ask questions like, "Who would you be if you chose to forgive yourself?"

• 1:07:25Speaker 00

  And why aren't you forgiving yourself? Or why aren't you forgiving somebody else? And, and I ask, think back to the most painful thing that has ever been done to you. The person who's offended you the most, the person that you cannot forgive or refuse to forgive. When you think back to that incident, what are the feelings that brew in your heart?

• 1:07:50Speaker 00

  And the answers are usually like revenge, or vengeance, or hate, depression, pain. You know, I've never heard of a good thing. And I'm like, alright, well, so you have a choice here. You wanna keep that big ball of hate all to yourself? You know, when, think back to the last time that your hate decided for you. When we don't forgive ourselves or others, we live in the past. And at Defy, our program is called CEO of Your New Life. We're all here, and I bet every one of your listeners, Tim, is here because they want a better future.

• 1:08:33Speaker 00

  So if you choose unforgiveness, you're choosing to be shackled by your past.

• 1:08:42Speaker 00

  Your own past decisions, or your past feelings of negativity about somebody else. And the people I serve are physically incarcerated, their bodies are locked up. But we're the only ones who can incarcerate our mind and our heart. And I know so many people on this side of the fences, who are not incarcerated, who live like they're locked up because you pound your brain with hateful messages that keep you from living your best. So what I say is if you want forgiveness, it's actually quite simple. People say, oh, it's easier, it sounds easier than it is. Actually, it's really simple.

• 1:09:26Speaker 00

  Say, I forgive me, or I forgive him. And then, I'm a super stubborn person, and so I say, get stubborn about forgiveness. Because if I say, oh, I forgive me, like, I forgive me for my scandal, then two seconds later, my brain's gonna shoot back, no, you don't, you loser, you suck, la da da da, like that whole negative message. So then, if I get stubborn about forgiveness, I say, no, brain, I forgive me. I forgive me, I forgive me, and I say it over and over again. And then the next morning, I guarantee you, my stubborn brain's gonna wake up and tell me how much I suck again. And then I overpower it. And then, it's not just me, but if I can find a friend who believes in grace and second

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

  chances, I can tell them, hey, I'm struggling with this. My brain is telling me how much I suck.

• 1:10:15Speaker 00

  Do you forgive me, even if I didn't offend you? And if that person washes the dirty water in my own brain, it's pretty helpful. And at Defy, I think a reason why our amazing CEOs, we have 4,400 volunteers, and I think people keep coming back to us because when they're there in prison with us, and we have events outside of prison too, people are part of a community that rallies around shared values of forgiveness and second chances. And I don't care how fancy your credentials are when you're in prison, you're just a human who has made mistakes.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  And even though you've made those mistakes, you are lovable, and you are acceptable, and you are worthy, and you are good enough. And if you come with us, you're gonna feel that in your bones. So get stubborn about forgiveness. If there's one message I could share with the world, if there's one impact I could have, I don't think it'd even be about prison. It would be choose forgiveness for yourself and for others who have hurt you. And if you forgive them, maybe one day your feelings will catch up, but it might help you to reshape a whole new future.

• 1:11:39Tim Ferriss?

  So you mentioned a few things I'd love to repeat for myself as much as anyone else, and maybe explore a bit. The first was, hope is a cure for violence. And I think that that's true.

• 1:11:54Tim Ferriss?

  Certainly true in many different senses, whether that is violence towards others or violence towards yourself.

• 1:12:02Tim Ferriss?

  And that violence towards yourself can just be the incessant berating and self-loathing and self-flagellating, which is something that I've vastly improved in the last six to 12 months for a host of reasons that we don't have the bandwidth to get into right now. But that was the constant companion that I had for 20, 30, five years, whatever the total span of time was. And I'd also say that affirmations, as cheesy as they might sound, and people who are old enough to remember, what was it, Stuart Smalley in the mirrors? I don't know if you remember that name at all, but you know, I am good enough.

• 1:12:47Tim Ferriss?

  I am dash guard of people like me. This is Saturday, I think it was Saturday Night Live. I think it was Al Franken, now a senator, right? Crazy. In any case, the fact of the matter is that many of the people I've had on this podcast use affirmations in different forms. And Scott Adams is one example, the creator of Dilbert. So he has used affirmations in many different ways over time and credits many of his biggest career successes to affirmations. So it's not just for entrepreneurs in training who you work with. So there is a place for that.

• 1:13:28Tim Ferriss?

  And the next is something you didn't say, but that I've been, it's been suggested by our mutual friend Seth that I ask you about it, which is a quote, and I don't know the context or the background, so maybe you can give it to me. You can't be angry and curious at the same time.

• 1:13:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I learned that from a friend of mine named Dan Tocchini, who does some of our character development courses for Defy. But I've seen that in my life. Like, when I'm angry, my brain seems to think it's really right about whatever I'm angry about. And so if I realize that my brain can't be angry and furious at the same time, if I choose to set aside my own judgments or need to be right, then I can ask questions. And a lot of what we do at Defy is working on creating empathy and understanding where the other side is coming from.

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  And it's amazing what a case I can build in my own brain. But then, when I start to understand the other person's pain or point of view, how wrong I can be.

• 1:14:46Tim Ferriss?

  What would be an example of a situation or a concrete example of an other side? Just so we have conjuring image for people of what this looks like in action.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  Boy, anytime that I'm in a fight or an argument with anybody, right? I'm like, my side is right because I believe this, and you're wrong. And my decision is the right way to go. And especially when I am making a decision that I think is based on a lot of experience or data, it's so easy for my brain to just jump to that conclusion. And that's arrogance. I mean, sometimes it's experience or whatever you can call it. But maybe I'm completely missing something new about the situation. Or maybe I'm actually right about my conclusion or decision about a certain business situation, for example. But maybe I'm completely missing the way that I'm making someone feel

• 1:15:44Speaker 00

  through my decision. And if the way that I'm making that person feel is important to me, then maybe I should reconsider my course of action as well. Does that make sense?

• 1:15:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that does make sense. And I wanted to clarify one other thing you said earlier, which was the, I think it was morning meditation on beliefs. Can you walk us through what your entrepreneurs in training are actually doing each morning? What does a session look like?

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  So...

• 1:16:15Speaker 00

  There's self-limiting beliefs, which is the negative tape that is playing in our brain, whether we realize that that tape is playing or not. And then the exercise is to replace the self-freeing beliefs, or sorry, to replace the self-limiting beliefs with self-freeing beliefs. Now, according to our course in self-limiting beliefs, these can be lies that sometimes we don't even realize that we're telling them to ourselves because we just adopted them through experiences that we might have had when we were three years old. And we can have self-limiting beliefs about ourselves,

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  about other people, about God, really about anything. So I'll give you an example. One of our EITs was telling me that when he was three years old, he was found by CPS in a dumpster. Child Protective Services? Child Protective Services literally found him in a dumpster, and that was in his file. So the self-limiting beliefs, if you're found in a dumpster, that could form out of that, whether you're aware of them or not, might be, "Nobody loves me, I can never trust authorities, I do not belong, I was not wanted in the world,

• 1:17:45Speaker 00

  I am trash," right? Like, there's so many self-limiting beliefs that could come out of that. And if we never take a moment to realize the values that have shaped us and where they came from, because values are often just handed to us through our parents or our lack of parents, or through religion, or culture. So if that guy never stops to think about that, then he's now an adult man, he's 30 years old, thinking, "I am a piece of trash." Well...

• 1:18:20Speaker 00

  If we think that we're a piece of trash, and this relates to like, hope is a cure for violence. If I think I'm a piece of trash who will never amount to anything, why not just go do destructive things? Because sometimes if I do destructive things, I get attention for it. And sometimes hurting myself feels good. Sometimes it makes me feel alive when I feel like I'm not worthy of living anyway. So I'll continue to hurt other people and throw myself away because, you know what, my dad was in prison too, from what I learned, and I belong in this place. Well, if that guy is able to replace these values with positive ones, that he can find from a program like Defy,

• 1:19:04Speaker 00

  that he can find from positive friends, that he can find from most religions universally, like, um, my life matters. I can have a purpose. Um, what we tell people when they're writing their self-freeting beliefs is if you go from a self-limiting belief to an unrealistic self-freeting belief, then you're feeding yourself, uh, you know, something that your brain is never gonna believe. And so, for example, say you're not a very good-looking human being, and so your self-limiting belief is, "I am ugly, therefore I will never get a date."

• 1:19:47Speaker 00

  Well, if you replace that with a self-freeting belief of, "I'm a supermodel and I can date anyone I want," your brain will know that you're trying to trick yourself, and it's not gonna be effective. But if you replace that with a self-freeting belief that it says, "I have some really nice features, and I know that some people will appreciate me for who I am, and I have a great personality, therefore I will, I, I am capable of finding love in my life." So that's a more, I just made that up on the spot, but like, that's a more realistic version than "I'm a supermodel." Um, so the person who was found in a dumpster, if he replaces his self-limiting belief with...

• 1:20:32Speaker 00

  I know that I matter to some people in life. And I don't matter to everybody, but I'm okay even when some people don't see my value because I do have a community of people who see value in me. And for example, then their defy mentors and their fellow EITs reinforce that message for them. That's a reality that can change your life and your future because if you think that you matter in the world and that you're not a piece of trash. And if you say, "I have the ability to develop skills and an education that will lend me a job. I have the ability to not only stay out of prison, but to start a legal business that will thrive.

• 1:21:16Speaker 00

  I know that I am in a program that supports me toward my goals." Then you're actually going to start working that way. And, and when you meditate on that every single morning, and 30 days is not enough to reverse a lifetime of negative brain trash and experiences that, that back up the brain trash. Um, but if you meditate that on that, you might actually see that to become true for you. So I've done this in my own life and I've seen so many of my own lives in my head turn. Or for example, some of our EITs, um, like our male EITs were say abandoned by their mother who is a drug addict and, or they were cheated on by their, their girlfriends or their wives. So they're like, "I will never trust another woman." Okay, that's a self limiting belief.

• 1:22:00Speaker 00

  And I say, "How's that been serving you in your life?" You know, so a self freeing belief that might replace that is, I have developed judgment and discernment to know that there are some people who will not have my best interests at heart, but that there are other people that I can trust and I'm willing to trust. So that's a more mature self freeing belief that might lead to more opportunities in our lives.

• 1:22:28Tim Ferriss?

  And is the meditate, when you say meditate on it in the morning, is that reading a list over and over again for a set period of time? Is it?

• 1:22:35Speaker 00

  Yep. Great question.

• 1:22:37Tim Ferriss?

  Reading them out loud? Is it?

• 1:22:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:22:39Tim Ferriss?

  Memorizing them?

• 1:22:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:22:41Tim Ferriss?

  What is it?

• 1:22:42Speaker 00

  Um, read it to yourself, which is great. Reading it quietly is nice. Reading it aloud is better. And then we have them partner up and we have a partner pound it into their brain. So have someone say it to you with conviction. And one of our EITs, I love this, he said, "Now, every morning when I wake up, I look in the mirror and I say, 'I love you.'"

• 1:23:09Speaker 00

  What would all of us in this world,

• 1:23:14Speaker 00

  who would we be if we woke up every morning and we said with conviction in the mirror, "I love you. I believe in you. You can do it. Today will be awesome." Because if we actually believe that about ourselves, we have no idea how much we're capable of, how many good and beautiful acts we're capable of.

• 1:23:39Tim Ferriss?

  You're here.

• 1:23:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Tim Ferriss?

  What are some of the ingredients that make, defy uniquely, not necessarily uniquely, because that implies that all of the rest are not, but uniquely effective or effective? And I'll give you an example, not that you need the time, but I'll buy some time anyway.

• 1:24:02Tim Ferriss?

  And I'll use it's a different environment. I went to an event, my first Tony Robbins event, I want to say three or four years ago, "Unleash the Power Within." And

• 1:24:17Tim Ferriss?

  there are many things that you do during this event. There's the fire walk, there are many different practices, exercises, partner drills, jumping up and down, you name it, right? It's kind of like rave plus Pentecostal Church plus like Tony Robbins, who I have extremely high degree of respect and admiration for, I've gotten to know over the last couple of years. All of that said, you have many different tools in the toolkit that are presented, and one of them is something called the Dickens Process, which I won't get into right now, but that exercise is the reason one of my friends, who's a very successful CEO, has gone to unleash the power within 10 or 11 times. It's primarily on an annual basis to have Tony lead

• 1:25:01Tim Ferriss?

  this exercise called the Dickens Process. To identify specifically self-limiting beliefs, actually, now that I think about it, and replace them. What are some of the tools in the toolkit or the ingredients that make Defy effective?

• 1:25:18Speaker 00

  Our volunteers regularly say that our Step to the Line exercise is one of the most eye-opening, profound experiences, not just of Defy, but of their lives. We build empathy through it. Some of our volunteers have said that it's like free therapy. We talk about forgiveness at the line, like Step to the Line if you haven't forgiven yourself, Step to the Line if you haven't forgiven someone else. I issue a challenge, like, Step to the Line if not forgiving yourself or others is still hurting you to this day. And then everyone who's at the line, I'm like, you know what time it is now, you know, choose, I forgive me.

• 1:26:03Speaker 00

  So Step to the Line is a really powerful exercise, and it's not just for our volunteers. For our entrepreneurs in training, we create a safe and incredibly emotionally and physically safe place in prison, even in a maximum-security prison, where people can let their tough guy or girl guards down and just be human and be seen and loved and accepted for who they are. And I think that's something that all of us want in life, is to be seen and known and to not have to put up a facade.

• 1:26:45Speaker 00

  It's so relaxing when we can actually realize that we can just be us and I am good enough. So Step to the Line is a really special, unique ingredient of what we do that is empathy-inducing and grace-inducing. And then we do a lot of other things. So I say that at Defi Men's, we do the worm, where we go up and down, we get high, legally high in prison. We actually, we use a lot of fun. Um, we do something called the innovative dance, which is you have to get from one side of the sweaty gym to the other using an innovative move. And a lot of our volunteers are like forty and fifty year old white dudes who have no dance moves.

• 1:27:26Tim Ferriss?

  Must be an amazing scene to behold.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  It is. It is really wonderful. Um, we tell the guys in a men's prison, twerk at your own risk, ladies, keep below the waist, um, immobile. Um, it's not totally equal opportunity in a guys' prison. But no, we use, so they don't have to be good dance moves. We say, keep them G, rated G, which is G is for goofy, but we use a lot of fun, emotion, and intensity. And then we use our love of the entrepreneurial journey to bring out the best in people. So everything that we do at Defi, not everything, but almost everything is super competitive. And our EITs are delivering these Shark Tank pitches and the volunteers are giving feedback. And it brings out the best in people. And then we turn the tables.

• 1:28:12Speaker 00

  So I'm big on leveling the playing field all the time. So sometimes these fancy CEOs and VCs come to prison and they're, you know, they're going to be the Shark Tank judges. That's great. Well, then at one point in the, in the day, uh, the EITs all get voting tickets. And I'm like, all right, the, the judges have been voting on your business ideas all day long. Um, now it's the EIT's turn. So volunteers, get your toes at the line. So they all line up at this stretchy line of duct tape through the gym. And, and I tell them, put your hands up with your best beggars body language with puppy dog eyes, language that says, choose me. And the EITs go and they have ten tickets. And there are sometimes seventy volunteers in the gym.

• 1:28:53Speaker 00

  And they walk up to the volunteer and they look them in the eyeballs and they say, Tim? I choose you. And that's all they're allowed to say is I choose you. And then the volunteers compete for who gets the most tickets. And so we see who the top volunteer is. And if the volunteers don't get as many tickets, because we tell the EITs, pick the ones who are the best judges, who give the best feedback. So when the volunteers don't get as many tickets, I'm like, look, you can say the system is rigged, and you can suck your thumb the whole bus ride home and say you hate Defy. Or, just like we say at Defy, you know, you can use the feedback to up your game and come back and be a better judge the next time around. And so, a big thing that we do at Defy, we are a nonprofit organization.

• 1:29:37Speaker 00

  We work with people who have been through a lot of things, who have done a lot of things. But we say, one of our driving values is partner, not pity. And if you come to prison with us, Tim, or anybody else, you will see, I instruct people when I'm leading an event, you are not to feel sorry for anyone here. This is not some like hug a thug, come feel sorry for these guys. Look at them in the eye with respect and empathy. And that is so empowering and awesome and fun and magical. And people leave prison, and I think it leaves for our volunteers, it leaves a real mark on them and gives them a lot to think about for their own lives.

• 1:30:22Speaker 00

  And many of our volunteers leave going, wow, I can be doing so much more. They feel inspired by the drive of our amazing EIT. So our events are super high energy. I like to think we're a little Tony Robbins-esque.

• 1:30:36Tim Ferriss?

  Well, that's part of the reason I brought him up. I mean, there's some shared DNA, certainly.

• 1:30:42Speaker 00

  I'm a big fan.

• 1:30:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, he's, he's an impressive, very, very effective guy.

• 1:30:52Tim Ferriss?

  So I did want to revisit one thing you mentioned because it caught my eye when I was reading the About Us page on defyventures.org and it is the following, "Defi offers a suite of services that includes," this is in the middle of a paragraph, "that includes intensive personal and leadership development, competition-based entrepreneurship training, executive mentoring, financial investment and business incubation." Could you talk a little bit more, we don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but the "competition-based" is very interesting to me. Why competition-based and how do you do it right versus not do it right?

• 1:31:30Speaker 00

  Well, so I'm a competitor and I believe that competition done the right way can bring out the best in all of us. And so when we have 100 EITs in prison, and by the way, we run these competitions also outside of prison, so for real business ideas. Like inside prison, it's an ideation competition and then outside prison, they're actually incorporated businesses that are competing for real capital. And inside prison, when we have 100 guys who are competing and the night before, we ask them, "Who's going to win?" And all these guys raise their hands. So first of all, the people that we work with are very competitive, they're tough guys

• 1:32:14Speaker 00

  and they like to win. And many of the people that we work with, if I tell them, "Bet you can't do it," they'll puff their chests out and they will do it. And they'll defy a lot of odds. And so we make sure that we have the affirmation, so we tell, "I know you can do it." And sometimes there are people who are lacking in confidence and we certainly, we go a long way to reassure them and to tell them that they can do it. And we also tell them, you know, "When you're competing tomorrow in our pitch competition, this is not just about you." This is about what we're doing in our country. Other people wish that they could be you right now, participating in Defy. So, we get stacks of jail mail at Defy from all over the country with people who are saying,

• 1:32:59Speaker 00

  "Please, all I want is a second chance." So, they all want to win the competition and we have like quarterfinals and then semifinals and then we have finals and then the top five finalists get like these IOU checks from the stage that they get to cash out when they're admitted into our post-release incubator when they want to start their actual business, if they want to. I don't care if they want to start their business. We get them into jobs when they get out of prison and that's why we have a 95% employment rate. But the night before, when we're at a pitch practice and the guys are so nervous about the competition and some of them, the first time we ever had a competition in prison for Defy, the warden called the night before and he's like, "Can you come in here? Because these guys are like having anxiety attacks and they're crying."

• 1:33:44Speaker 00

  And at this particular prison, more than half of the guys had committed the crime of murder. So, these are, you know, tough guys. And I walk in and I was like, "What? You guys are crying and thinking about dropping out? Like, don't tell me you're a bunch of chickens now. Like, when you robbed that banker, when you did this or that, like, you know, you didn't let your fear stop you from doing what you wanted to do." And I'm playing with them and they laugh. But then I tell them, "I believe in you. I know you can do this. And I know that for the past year, Defy takes about a year to complete inside."

• 1:34:26Speaker 00

  And they take 100 courses and some of these courses are taught by Harvard and Stanford MBA professors and then they're taking a lot of like courses taught by therapists that are doing deep like inner work and it's this whole journey. And when they finish it, they earn, our curriculum has been vetted by Baylor University's MBA program. So, the next day, they're about to receive a Baylor University MBA program certificate. And our men and women and youth that we serve average in eighth grade education. So, I tell them the day before, I'm like, You are about, for many of you, this is the biggest accomplishment of their lives. And in fact, I say, raise your hand if this represents the biggest accomplishment of your life. Ninety percent of them raising their hand.

• 1:35:09Speaker 00

  Raise your hand if this is going to be your first time in a cap and gown. Half of them, first time in a cap and gown. Raise your hand if your family is coming tomorrow to witness your proudest moment. Half of them, not all of our families can make it. And then I tell them, so guess what? I know for the past year, you have been working on your pitch, but only about twenty or thirty percent of Defy's program is around entrepreneurship in their pitch. Like, the other seventy percent is around employment readiness, and shame reduction, and forgiveness, and technology skills, and parenting courses, and all that. So I tell them, although you've been working for the past year on your pitch, and this pitch, you feel like your life is on the line. Guess what? Your life is not on the line.

• 1:35:51Speaker 00

  And tomorrow, if you fail in your pitch, you are not a failure. And more than that, I do not care about your pitch. And they all kind of like, look at me, and they feel offended when I say that. So I really don't care about your pitch. I care about you, and I care about your future. And I have given so many pitches in my life. And sometimes I give a great one, and sometimes I'm like, man, I bombed that. And your pitch doesn't matter. Your future, you and your future matters. And you're arriving to this moment of graduation, and you're crossing this stage, and earning this MBA certificate, and making your families proud, and making yourself proud. You have defied the odds.

• 1:36:36Speaker 00

  How many of you have thought about quitting at some point in Defy? And every hand goes up. And I'm like, see? You know, and sometimes you guys say that quitting is not an option. Well, guess what? Quitting is always an option. You just chose not to take that option. I am proud of you. I am proud of what we are accomplishing together. Our country needs to see more success stories like yours, of people who have made grave mistakes, and who are getting back on their feet, and who are trying again. Because you could have given up on yourselves. You could have given up on your future. You could give up on being a father going forward. So I, I'll tell you what, I care about your pitch because I care about you.

• 1:37:20Speaker 00

  I really don't care about your pitch, but because you want to win and you're competitive tough guys. Alright, fine, I care about your pitch. So when you stand up tomorrow, there's gonna be a panel of five to 10 of these sharks. First of all, these sharks want you to win. They're coming here because they believe in second chances and underdogs. When you stand up in front of the panel and then we say, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" And they're pretty funny. They're like, "Oh, I pass out," or "I forget my words," or "I freeze up," or "I look stupid." And I'm like, "What's worse than that? What's worse than that?" One of them once said, "I defecate myself." And I'm like, "Yeah, that would suck. Okay, that would suck." But the worst thing that will probably happen is that maybe you freeze up and you forget some of your words.

• 1:38:02Speaker 00

  I say, "If you stand up in front of the panel and you just go, 'Ooh,' and you can't think of a single word, you still win. You graduate. You cross the stage. You make yourself proud. You make our country proud." And then they graduate. And they deliver their pitches in an amazing way. Every time, they surprise themselves at what they're able to do.

• 1:38:31Tim Ferriss?

  What, is there a place where people can learn more about the curriculum that you use?

• 1:38:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Our website, defyventures.org, we're a nonprofit, has a lot of information about defy. So we have 100 courses inside, 100 courses outside. And with our donors, we even share some of our online courses that are amazing. So in prison, people don't usually have online access, and so our courses are DVD-based. Outside, they're on an online platform, and so for our donors, we are even able to share them. Because I tell our volunteers, "I don't want just our guys to forgive themselves and to be the CEOs of their new lives. I want you to live your fullest life too." So we're happy. Sharing is caring.

• 1:39:22Tim Ferriss?

  What about, I'm looking at the resources section on DefyEntrance.org right now. What about the actual classes themselves, those that have been vetted by Baylor and so on, the actual content of what you are teaching, is that available anywhere?

• 1:39:41Speaker 00

  So, we don't just make it available to anybody. So, for example, some of our courses that are taught by Henry Cloud, a top therapist, or the Harvard and Stanford MBA courses, Harvard and Stanford don't want us just like making that available to anybody. So, it's available to people who are in our program. So, I guess you have to go commit a felony first. But, most of our courses actually don't have those kinds of restrictions on them. And so, we're happy to make those available to people. But I would say, my little hook is, I want you doing something for second chances in our country. So, don't just come and take a course.

• 1:40:22Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:40:23Speaker 00

  Become a contributor too. If you become a contributor to Defy, we would be glad to make our, we make our courses available on our online platform where you have to have the secret code. But we make our online courses available because I want our volunteers having access to this amazing stuff too. For example, we have eight courses in etiquette training taught by an Emily Post instructor. And many of our volunteers have told me, is there any way that my husband can get access to those courses? And I say, sure, if y'all make him watch them. So, yes, we'd be glad to share the resources.

• 1:41:03Tim Ferriss?

  Cool. Yeah, no, and just to come back to something you mentioned in passing as we were chatting, you know, if I were to ever join you at a prison, I'm happy to do that. So, we can figure out the specifics of that visit at some point. But I think it'd be very helpful also-

• 1:41:19Speaker 00

  Is that a commitment, Tim? Did I just hear that? That's I'm gonna get cut out?

• 1:41:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's a commitment, sure.

• 1:41:24Speaker 00

  Tim Ferriss comes to prison with your 100 closest friends who sign up from this podcast.

• 1:41:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yes, we'll figure out the specifics of that. I do think the, I want people to note what Kat just did there. That's a very, very seasoned pitch artist at work, closing the deal.

• 1:41:43Speaker 00

  Tech co-sales skills.

• 1:41:44Tim Ferriss?

  Is the, I do think even just having the names of the courses that you're incorporating from, say, Stanford, GSB and elsewhere would be a very useful way to drive traffic to your site also.

• 1:41:57Speaker 00

  I will make sure that we update our website before this podcast is launched.

• 1:42:03Tim Ferriss?

  Perfect, so people can check it out.

• 1:42:04Speaker 00

  Seth Godin has taught a course, multiple courses for us on ideation strategies. Jerry Colonna has taught a course on the fear of the entrepreneur and how to get to the other side of that. Union Square Ventures, venture capitalists have, we've recorded live pitches of our released men and women pitching in their offices and then the feedback that they're giving to entrepreneurs. Tim Draper has taught a course for us. Kleiner Perkins, one of the partners from there, has recorded a course. So we have amazing courses in entrepreneurship that range from how to come up with a smart business idea to how to scale it.

• 1:42:46Speaker 00

  We have courses in how to market your business and hiring and hiring and firing and creating culture. But the other 70% of our courses that are on parenting and, for example, how to answer tough questions when your kid asks you, Daddy, have you ever used drugs? What to say about that? So the parenting courses and the forming a new identity courses are really valuable. And then I also like to think that our employment series is pretty sweet. Like, I teach a course called How to Write a Resume When You've Done 19 Years in Prison.

• 1:43:31Speaker 00

  And the creative things that you can come up with to put on a resume and not lie about it.

• 1:43:36Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:39Tim Ferriss?

  The, uh, what is it? Additional skills or special skills section could be very improvised, I would imagine. What, uh, well, let me, let me jump into just with the time that we have remaining,

• 1:43:55Tim Ferriss?

  a number of the questions that I like to, to ask towards the tail end of a conversation like this. And the fir-

• 1:44:04Speaker 00

  Okay, good.

• 1:44:05Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna get there. Yeah, I'm gonna get there. This is, so the, the first question I was going to ask you, uh, which is gonna lead naturally there is, what book or books have you gifted the most to other people?

• 1:44:20Tim Ferriss?

  Or do you, or do you-

• 1:44:20Speaker 00

  I regularly gift books to other people. And up until recently, the book that I have most regularly gifted is Sheryl Sandberg's book, Option B, because it's closely related to the work that I do. And Sheryl is the most inspiring woman that I know, and I, I really respect her. She's on my executive council. And, and, um, so I love her book, Option B, on healing and building a new future. And, uh, Sheryl, I feel very spoiled about this, Sheryl wrote the foreword to my own book called A Second Chance. And so now the book that I'm gifting even more than Option B is my own book, A Second Chance. And-

• 1:45:06Tim Ferriss?

  And where can people find it?

• 1:45:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and Seth Godin has been working as my pro bono publisher. Every dollar from the book goes directly to creating life-changing opportunities for people through scholarships for Defy. And so it's not going into a publisher's pocket. And speaking of gifting, like Seth is buying and has donated 20,000 copies of the book back to Defy. He's so generous to us, and I'm really inspired by his generosity and Sheryl Sandberg's generosity and, and the way that they have supported our Second Chance work. I hope that this book, yes, it will-

• 1:45:51Speaker 00

  Open the eyes of people about topics that we've been talking about for the incarcerated. But my, my other even greater purpose for our readers of this book, A Second Chance, is that you will decide to give yourself a second chance. I talk a lot about forgiveness, like we've talked about, Tim, that you will choose to forgive or give a second chance to other people in your life, or if you know other people who have made big mistakes who are down on themselves, that you'll use this book as a resource for them to achieve freedom as well.

• 1:46:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, Seth, and that was the context with which Seth first reached out to me, was related to, related to the book. So I encourage everybody to check it out for sure. Uh, A Second Chance.

• 1:46:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, the idea is if people who have royally screwed up their lives and the lives of other people, if they can forgive themselves and gain forgiveness from other people, get back on their feet, start legal businesses and build an incredibly successful new future, you can do it too. And many of us suffer from this shame of mine is worse than yours. Like, oh, if you really knew what I did, it's so much worse, or mine is not recoverable. And that's a message that plays inside our heads. And I don't think it's true. Yours isn't worse. You're human and you can bounce back too.

• 1:47:26Tim Ferriss?

  It's also not helpful. I mean, I think that if that makes sense, even if it is worse, it's, it's the, the replaying of that story, using that as your defining narrative is not going to help create the future that you want to have.

• 1:47:42Speaker 00

  Right. You have a choice. You can keep yourself locked up in your head over a past decision forever, or we can help you to get out of your own prison. Your choice.

• 1:47:55Tim Ferriss?

  If you could have a message on a billboard, metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions of people. So it could be one line, can't be an advertisement, but just a word, an expression, a quote from someone else, anything. What would you put on that billboard?

• 1:48:13Speaker 00

  Can't be an advertisement, so I can't say, "Give me all your money. Show me the money." I would say, I would say, "Forgive yourself." And I would, maybe I would put it in Vegas, but I think a better place in Vegas would be, I have a big heart for people who live in a culture of judgment and oppression. And sometimes, well-meaning religions, for example, can create this environment where we can say that, yes, we've sinned in the past, or we've made a mistake in the past.

• 1:48:58Speaker 00

  But now, when we show up at church on Sunday, we're all wearing a perfect outfit. How's your wife? Blessed. How's your job? Great. How are you? Happy? And this, there's a culture of oppression. And then, I believe that sin thrives in secrecy. And so if there's like, an audience, especially, I could say, "Forgive yourself. You're just human too." It's especially in environments where people are forced to act more perfect than others. And that might be, for example, in the deep south, where there's religion. It might be a Stanford Business School, where everyone has to be the A-plus student too, and has to be the very best.

• 1:49:43Tim Ferriss?

  What do you do when you're feeling overwhelmed or temporarily unfocused, or that you've lost your focus? When you've lost your mooring, so to speak? And any of the, any of the above, what do you do? Just in a very kind of practical, tactical sense?

• 1:50:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, it depends on how overwhelmed I'm feeling. So if I'm feeling like, sort of overwhelmed, then I'll make a list of my priorities, and I will bounce them off of... Staff member that I really trust to help me to get my priorities straight. Because when I have like clear marching orders and priorities, it helps me to become less overwhelmed.

• 1:50:21Tim Ferriss?

  When you say bounce them off of them, what are you asking them to do? What's, what does that look like?

• 1:50:26Speaker 00

  I'll show them the list and be like, can you help me decide what is really important? And what I can say no to, because sometimes the more overwhelmed I get, the less good of a decision maker I also become. And things can get cloudy. So I recently read the book Essentialism and I love the whole framework for making decisions. And I shared that with some staff that helps me to control my calendar and opportunities and what to say yes to or no. And so if I get overwhelmed, I'll be like, all right, let's take a step back. I also have a one sheet with my priorities right in front of me and I look at it every day. And it says, for example, as my favorite place to be is in prison. But because I love the journey of transformation and the amazing, I feel like I see miracles every day.

• 1:51:11Speaker 00

  But my sheet says, if I really love REITs, my strict number one responsibility will be fundraising. So that I can make sure that I'm creating more opportunities for people who are incarcerated, who have been praying for a shot at a second chance. So I keep my priorities, not just top of mind, but physically in front of me. I like need to be able to see it. And then I'll ask other people for help. I'll say timeout. When I get super overwhelmed, I'll actually take a timeout and cancel stuff. And just, I need to, I need to have some space. I take like, I take a monthly monk day is what I call it. No phone, no email. It's one of the best things I do. I recommend it to everybody.

• 1:51:52Tim Ferriss?

  Is that, is, does that typically fall on a certain day of the week?

• 1:51:57Speaker 00

  Um, no, it can be any day, but it's during the week. I don't do it during the weekend. And it's a time for me to reflect on my leadership, my priorities, new initiatives. It's when I get creative. And my whole life is so extroverted. I travel all the time. I'm speaking on a stage, um, in prison. And my life is like a flurry. And so quiet, reflective time.

• 1:52:25Speaker 00

  is deeply important to me and it's usually when I scheme up good, exciting ideas too and get perspective.

• 1:52:32Tim Ferriss?

  When you wake up on monk day, what does it look like? I mean, what does reflecting actually look like? What does the monk schedule look like?

• 1:52:41Speaker 00

  So for me, monk day is just like working out. The process leading up to it is really painful. It's because I know that for a full day, this sounds silly, but for a full day, I'm not going to be able to email or talk to people. So the day before, I'm like trying to squeeze in every last thing. And it's just like with a workout, I'm usually like procrastinating and trying to put it off until I start working out and then I feel really good about it. I try to make excuses for why I need to cancel it, but I, it's very important to me to say discipline. So I come into my monk day already with a list of things that I'm going to do on that monk day, which might include go for a long walk, or read this book, or think about this

• 1:53:19Speaker 00

  issue. And so my email's off, my phone's off, my staff knows they can't reach me. And I usually do something that is really nice to me to start off the day.

• 1:53:32Tim Ferriss?

  Like what?

• 1:53:33Speaker 00

  Eat my favorite food, or

• 1:53:36Tim Ferriss?

  What's, what's one of your favorite foods? I'm gonna keep doing this.

• 1:53:39Speaker 00

  Sure. I don't eat it in the morning, but like an awesome medium rare steak is my favorite food. Steak, oysters, red wine. I'm a happy camper. So I don't eat that for breakfast usually. So I love eggs. I love poached eggs. How's that?

• 1:53:57Tim Ferriss?

  Perfect.

• 1:53:58Speaker 00

  But when I, when I do something that's kind to myself, sometimes on a monk day, I'll even go and get a massage, for example, because it chills me out and I'm super hyper normally. I wake up and I'm like a crazy hunting badger first thing in the morning. Or like if I take a bubble bath, that calms my spirit too, you know? And I play like sweet violin music. And I actually have like baby lullabies on my playlist. That probably sounds really creepy, but I, I do things to quiet myself.

• 1:54:30Tim Ferriss?

  I'm just imagining you eating a medium rare steak, drinking red wine while the lullabies are playing.

• 1:54:36Speaker 00

  There's nothing wrong with that. Stop judging me.

• 1:54:41Tim Ferriss?

  While doing a bicep, like a concentration crawl with one arm.

• 1:54:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I also, I have a walking treadmill desk and I absolutely love it because I feel like when I'm on it, I'm being kind to myself, like I'm burning free calories and I like to be fit and work out. So sometimes, first thing in the monk day, I'll get on my walking treadmill desk with a book that I love to read. And I just start reading it and I start taking notes and I have these awesome headphones and I'm sound like blaring, yeah, my little nerdy violin or piano music and it calms me and it takes me out of the world. And then I start taking notes, like right before I turned 40, I had a series of really amazing monk days.

• 1:55:26Speaker 00

  And I spent the last six months of monk days before I turned 40, doing an in-depth like evaluation, like a review of my first 40 years. And then thinking about my impact on the world and thinking about what I wanted my voice and impact to be for the next 40 years. And I didn't make like really turbo plans for like my 80th birthday or anything. But I have it, I have a pretty strong plan until I'm 53 and that's far enough for me. But I felt like so good about taking that time out to evaluate and to say, what do I really want? And then reading a lot of books that helped to guide me in that direction. So I like to have a good plan because I'm like a freight train.

• 1:56:11Speaker 00

  And if I have the right direction, I, I hit it in that direction. And then I bounce my plans after my monk day off of mentors and people who look out for me to make sure that I'm making good plans.

• 1:56:26Tim Ferriss?

  Do you have any suggested artist or album or track for either the violin or piano music for people who want to?

• 1:56:35Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:56:36Tim Ferriss?

  Get a taste?

• 1:56:38Speaker 00

  Um.

• 1:56:39Tim Ferriss?

  If not.

• 1:56:39Speaker 00

  Looking at it right now.

• 1:56:40Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, while you're looking for it, I can keep going. The.

• 1:56:47Speaker 00

  Look up baby lullaby piano on like Spotify or something like that.

• 1:56:52Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, perfect.

• 1:56:54Speaker 00

  And I love the Vitamin String Quartet as well.

• 1:56:58Tim Ferriss?

  Vitamin?

• 1:56:59Speaker 00

  Vitamin String Quartet.

• 1:57:01Tim Ferriss?

  Vitamin like vitamin C?

• 1:57:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I want to go to their concerts.

• 1:57:06Tim Ferriss?

  Huh, trippy. All right, and then. Uh, any.

• 1:57:10Speaker 00

  Sometimes their songs are not all the most relaxing. Like they play a lot of um pop songs in vitamin form, but sometimes I listen to that like while I'm cooking. I like to sew a lot too. So when I'm sewing and stuff, I jam out to Vitamin String Quartet.

• 1:57:28Tim Ferriss?

  And how often do you do monk days? So and they'll say the monk days leading up to your 40th birthday, how often, what was the interval on the monk days?

• 1:57:37Speaker 00

  So I have a personal monk day once a month. And I've done this for like, I don't know, 12 years or 15 years or something, a long time in my life. It's been a longstanding habit. And then I separately have business monk day. So personal monk day is no email, no phone. Business monk day is I can have email and I can work on work stuff with some of my closest colleagues, but I have no scheduled appointments, which is freedom for me because my calendar is usually scheduled too insanely. But on a business monk day, it's like time for me to just work and get work done with stuff. Answer emails too.

• 1:58:19Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. And what is.

• 1:58:20Speaker 00

  And I have one to three of those per month.

• 1:58:23Tim Ferriss?

  One to three of those per month?

• 1:58:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, sometimes I go away like in an ideal world, and I say ideally because I haven't executed perfectly on this, but sometimes I, every quarter, I'll take a three day business monk day. And sometimes I've even gone away for a one week business monk day, meaning no scheduled appointments. And what I have found to be most effective for me, this might sound silly, but like when I get out of the country, so I go to Mexico. And I sit my butt like a cool resort. I go by myself. And for some reason, when I'm out of the country, I'm not going to schedule phone calls or other appointments with people. So then I just work and and like at Defy, we have we're working currently on 2,400 pages of new curriculum. So it's a time for me to

• 1:59:09Speaker 00

  get away, but it's a dedicated work time. But away from the daily scramble.

• 1:59:16Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm. What what books helped you when you were leading up to your 40th birthday in the assessing or reassessing and planning and so on? And and closely related to that, why did the planning take you to exactly 53 years old?

• 1:59:33Speaker 00

  Boy, um, so I'm terrible at recalling names of the books that I love. Like just randomly like this. Um, I will say that the book Essentialism really had a big

• 1:59:46Tim Ferriss?

  It's a good book.

• 1:59:46Speaker 00

  impact on me. Yeah. Um. So

• 1:59:50Tim Ferriss?

  I tell you what, we can work backwards. 53 years. Why 53?

• 1:59:55Speaker 00

  Okay. Well, so for Defy, my vision is that I would like Defy to be able to serve in every major prison in America, defined as having more than 500 incarcerated people there in every major city within my lifetime. So I started modeling kind of back of the envelope. Well, a little Excel involved on a reasonable growth rate for what we can accomplish. And according to my projections, if we keep going, right now, Defy, as of 2017, we're in five states, five state prison systems. And so by the time we're 53, I think we can serve in every

• 2:00:37Speaker 00

  major prison and have corresponding post-release employment and mentoring and incubator. So, um, so, you know, if I miss a mark and I'm 58, that's fine. But right now, I actually believe that we'll make it by the time I'm 53.

• 2:00:53Tim Ferriss?

  Awesome.

• 2:00:53Speaker 00

  My my vision, I would love to put Defy out of business by ending mass incarceration. I know that there will always be incarceration in the world. There doesn't always need to be mass incarceration, the way that we do that in America.

• 2:01:13Tim Ferriss?

  What would be the defining characteristics of?

• 2:01:18Tim Ferriss?

  Getting rid of mass incarceration as you're using it.

• 2:01:23Speaker 00

  So, America has 5% of the world's population and 22% of the world's prison population. We love to lock people up and throw away the key. We are the only country in the world that routinely sentences children to life in prison. So, we have a 14-year-old who makes a bad decision and then they're going to die in prison. And according to everything I've seen, five years in prison is a turning point for many people. After they've served five years, that's long enough to take ownership and then to not recidivate. And there are other countries that are far more progressive about rehabilitation efforts

• 2:02:08Speaker 00

  and about not just making it be about punishment, but about being correction. So, I am looking forward to the day when 76.6% of people in prison don't recidivate. But beyond preventing recidivism and also preventing generational incarcerations and 70% of the children of incarcerated people go to prison, the other piece of this that I want to tackle is the way that we sentence people, the way that we even arrest people. So, in our country, some people look more arrestable than others

• 2:02:48Speaker 00

  because of the color of their skin or their economic status, how beat above a car they drive. And a lot of studies show that white people and black people use and sell drugs at same rates. But in some states, if you're a person of color, you'll be sentenced at 20x the amount that a white person might be sentenced. Or like the Brock Turner case, the cute little Stanford swimmer boy who raped a girl and got six months for that. I mean, if he were not so cute or so white or such a fast swimmer, he would have gotten life in prison. And so, I look forward to working on sentencing reform efforts

• 2:03:29Speaker 00

  and bail and bond reform efforts because right now, if you're picked up by the police... You haven't been given due process and your bail is 500 bucks and you're sitting in jail and you can't prove your innocence because you don't have an attorney. You're gonna sit there maybe for six months until they wear you out and then they convince you to plead guilty to a charge. And if you don't have economic resources to get a good attorney, you're probably going to plead guilty. And they'll tell you, "Oh, if you plead guilty to this lesser felony or this misdemeanor, it won't be a big deal."

• 2:04:09Speaker 00

  In six months, maybe your girlfriend has left you, your employer has dropped you, like the world has changed. Oh, by the way, now you have a criminal history too. Good luck getting a job. And you're super down on yourself because you've just spent six months waiting in a cell, getting dehumanized every single day. That's the kind of stuff. The way that people of color in particular and the harshness and the disparities of sentencing is something that I really want to be able to use my voice and not just my voice or opinions, but Defy's results and Defy's amazing community of supporters. I want to fix it.

• 2:04:50Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I've been very impressed with Defy, End the Story, and certainly the results, which is the first thing that I look at. So I do encourage people to check out A Second Chance, and that'll be linked to in the show notes, which I'll remind people of shortly. I want to come back for a second to ask you a question. What questions do you ask yourself to help you get centered or focused or anything else? And I'll buy time by bringing up one that is a paraphrase from Jerry Colonna. So I've spent a good amount of time with Jerry on the phone.

• 2:05:31Tim Ferriss?

  And one of the questions that I found very helpful and insightful, which I'm sure I'm going to be mangling a little bit, that he asks is, "How are you complicit in the conditions you say you don't want?" Right? So how are you contributing to the things you say you don't want? Whether those are conflicting goals, whether those are conflicting priorities, whether those are...

• 2:05:56Tim Ferriss?

  Goals you have without any accountability, whatever it might be, but that question, how are you complicit in the conditions you say you don't want, I've found very helpful over the last few years. Are there any questions or exercises that you use for yourself on a regular basis?

• 2:06:14Speaker 00

  Yes. So when I was going through my resignation, I've had a lot of opportunity to study what leads to people bombing out and failing. And I read a book called Leading on Empty by Wayne Cordero. It has sort of like a Christian spin to it, as a disclaimer for your audience. But I mean, a lot of us leaders or people who have big goals will lead on empty or drive ourselves to empty. And this book, similar to essentialism or a lot of other good business books, asks the question, like, what is the 5% that only I can do, that no one else can do? And why am I spending all this time doing other things

• 2:06:59Speaker 00

  that so many other people can do, even if I can maybe do them better in my own arrogance, right? So, asking myself, what's my 5%? Like, what's my secret sauce? What is my gift that I bring into this world? Is something I ask myself nearly every day. And I've really been honing in on this lately. I just hired a president for Defy Ventures, and his name is Roger Gordon, and I'm so excited to partner with this guy. He will run the day-to-day operations of Defy, because that's not me. It's not what I like to do. I don't love managing people. I don't pretend that I'm the best in the world at it. But I do know that I'm highly innovative, and I can see problems and come up with solutions. I know

• 2:07:40Speaker 00

  that I'm a strong external representative for Defy, so doing more speaking engagements. Although I don't love raising money, I'm good at it, so I'm going to keep doing that. But I also, I know that I have the ability to earn the trust of the people that we work with. And so, for example, lately, I've been working within some pretty intense gang cultures, at some reconciliation efforts. And for some reason, this white girl here is...

• 2:08:15Speaker 00

  Trusted enough by, by these people to talk about some, some big transformation efforts. So that's what I'm focusing on. And then I'm working very hard and swiftly to get other things off of my plate. So I don't have responsibility for them. Scary to me to lose control over them too. But I have such amazing staff at Defy now nationally. Then I'm glad to give away that responsibility so I can focus on my top, top five percent. Like if I died in a year, what would I spend my time doing? I ask myself that all the time and I know that that might sound like a little bit, um. What's the word?

• 2:08:56Tim Ferriss?

  Morbid.

• 2:08:57Speaker 00

  Morbid, yeah, I don't care how morbid it sounds. At Defy, we have our EITs write their eulogies and, and I've done that. And in fact, we have them write two eulogies and this is a pretty good exercise that other people could try too. One of them is your current trajectory eulogy. Like if you died now, doing your same old, same old, and you didn't make major changes in your life, what would your eulogy say? And how do you feel about it? Most people wouldn't be too, super satisfied with it. And then we have them write their ideal, but realistic eulogy. Like if you lived your best life, that is realistic for you also, what would that look like? And then the most important part is write out the 10 changes that you need to make

• 2:09:42Speaker 00

  to get from A to B and then prioritize them and pick your top three things that you can start doing today to live a better life. And so I apply all these little Defy exercises to my own life and yeah, I guess I live in a sort of morbid thing, morbid sense, but like time is limited for all of us and I want to have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time. So how do I use the gifts that I have been given to? This is my generous hustle. This is my ability to share something with the world that only I can create.

• 2:10:21Tim Ferriss?

  Well Kat, thank you for developing, sharing, and communicating your gifts with the world. You're doing really important work. And thank you for taking the time to hang out. Maybe someday I will give you a chance to heel hook me in person. Maybe we can coordinate that with the prison visit that I did commit to. So you have me on the hook for that.

• 2:10:47Speaker 00

  Hey!

• 2:10:48Tim Ferriss?

  And I really appreciate you doing what you do, number one, but number two also, taking the time to share today and to have this conversation.

• 2:10:58Speaker 00

  Well, Tim, getting to speak with you is one of the greatest honors that I've had. I was really excited about this because I know how influential your audience is. And am I allowed to share my email address, Tim?

• 2:11:13Tim Ferriss?

  We talked a little bit about this. Yes, if you're willing to get the hug of death with mass numbers of people emailing, you're welcome to share your email address.

• 2:11:22Speaker 00

  Well, here's what I will say to anyone who's listening, is if you email me, I'm in prison all the time. So please keep it really short and sweet and to the point. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but if you want to get involved with Defy, first of all, you can go to defyventures.org. But if you want to email me, my email address is [email protected]. C-A-T at defyventures.org. And tell me if you would like to come to prison, or if you'd like to have us come speak at your organization, or how you would like to get involved. If you want to provide a scholarship to one of our EITs, we would

• 2:12:04Speaker 00

  be really grateful if you would become even more of an advocate of second chances and share this message with other people. Because I always say, who would our country be? Who would we all be if we lived up? To being the land of second chances that we claim to be. So Tim, thank you for the opportunity to share our mission and my story. And I see it as a big responsibility and a huge privilege to be a voice on behalf of people who are incarcerated, who become voiceless and often written off and voteless. And so it's my honor to get to share some of our story with all of you. Thank you.

• 2:12:48Tim Ferriss?

  My pleasure. So everybody, check it out, A Second Chance. And for those long-term listeners, you know this part already, but as always, you can find links to everything we talked about. The books, A Second Chance, the Defy website, and much, much more in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast, where you can find the show notes for all episodes, this one included. So tim.blog/podcast. So Kat, thank you once again for the time and lovely conversation that has given me a lot of food for thought and also things to look forward to, including that visit that we're going to take together. And to everyone listening,

• 2:13:31Tim Ferriss?

  as always, thank you for listening. And until next time, keep experimenting, keep testing assumptions, and give yourself a second chance. Take a moment for forgiveness, and that will in turn affect how you are better able to forgive others. So, thanks, everybody. Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share

• 2:14:15Tim Ferriss?

  the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. The world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

• 2:15:00Tim Ferriss?

  Every year, of course, people look for new ways to become healthier, to take their fitness and so on to the next level. For me, step number one is having some form of nutritional insurance. That's how I would look at it. And the nutritional insurance needs to make sure all of my basic needs are met, all the boxes checked, regardless of travel, schedule, missed meals, and so on. There are going to be times in the new year when your diet and exercise will get interrupted. Life will interrupt it. And during those times, you want a safety net. I get asked all the time, if you could only use one supplement, what would it be? My answer is inevitably Athletic Greens. It is your all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The Four Hour Body, did not get paid for that, and I travel with

• 2:15:44Tim Ferriss?

  it to avoid getting sick. I take it in the mornings to ensure optimal performance. It just covers all my bases if I can't get what I need through whole food meals throughout the rest of the day. As listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show, you can receive 30% off of your first order by visiting athleticgreens.com/tim. That is a great deal on one of my favorite products. And it covers my bases each day. It is part of my routine and it leaves me with less to worry about if, for instance, I have to skip a meal or just can't get a high-quality meal. So check it out. Go to athleticgreens.com/tim and learn all about it.

• 2:16:23Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. You might remember Four Sigmatic for their mushroom coffee, which was created by those clever Finnish founders. And when I first mentioned that coffee on this podcast, the product sold out in less than a week. It lights you up like a Christmas tree, which can be really useful. However, recently I've been testing the opposite side of the spectrum, a new product, and that is their Reishi Mushroom Elixir to help me end my day, to get to sleep. As you guys may know, longtime listeners at least, I struggled with insomnia for decades. I've largely fixed that, but still shutting off my monkey brain has never been easy, still isn't easy very often. And I've found Reishi, which I've been fascinated by for a few years now, has been very, very effective and calming.

• 2:17:07Tim Ferriss?

  Their old formula, however, Four Sigmatic's old formula, included stevia, and I like to avoid sweeteners, all sweeteners, for a host of reasons. And I then just pinged them and asked, "Hey, guys, I would love to experiment with this and maybe actually suggest it, but I'd like a version without sweeteners. If you'd be open to it. If you have too much of a headache, don't worry." And they are always game for experimentation. And so they created a special, custom version without the stevia, without sweeteners. Now it is part of my nightly routine. Their Reishi Elixir comes in single-serving packets, which are perfect for travel. And in fact, I'm about to leave the country right now, and I have a packet in front of me that's just going to sit in the end of my carry-on bag.

• 2:17:51Tim Ferriss?

  You only need hot water, and it mixes very, very easily. Here's some recommended copy that they put in the read. So I'm going to read it, and I'll give you my take. Quote, "A warning for those in the experimental mindset. Reishi is strong and bitter," in parentheses, "like any great medicine. So if the bitterness is too much, I recommend trying it with honey and/or nut milk, such as almond milk," end quote. So I'm going to say, no, you should suck it up, and you should drink the tea, because it's not that bitter. And maybe you should take the advice of all Chinese people when they're criticizing youngins when they say, "不能吃苦," which means you're not able to eat bitterness. Bitter is, in many cases, an indication of things that help liver detoxification and so on.

• 2:18:36Tim Ferriss?

  I'm not saying that's the case here, but... I've tested this reishi elixir on family members, on friends. Everybody has liked it. It's a little bit earthy. It's not that hard. So I would just say suck it up and no, don't put in honey or nut milk or any of that shit. Just drink the goddamn tea. It's delicious. I think, right? If you like pu erh, that kind of stuff, that type of tea, you're going to dig it. So just try it. Okay, back to then my read. If you'd like to naturally improve your sleep, both onset and quality, I think naturally, you might just enjoy this reishi elixir without any sweeteners. It has organic reishi extract, organic field mint extract, organic rose hips extract, organic tulsi extract, and that's it.

• 2:19:20Tim Ferriss?

  No fancy stuff, no artificial whatchamacallit, anything. So check it out. Go to foursigmatic.com/ferris and get 20% off this special batch. I don't know if they're going to be making much more of this since it was made specifically for you guys. So do me a favor and try it out so that they continue to be open to experimenting with me to create products for you guys specifically. Check it out. Four Sigmatic, that's F O U R S I G M A T I C dot com forward slash Ferris, F E R R I S S. And get 20% off the special batch and you must use the code Ferris to receive your discount. F E R R I S S.

• 2:19:58Tim Ferriss?

  So again, go to foursigmatic.com/ferris and then use code Ferris for 20% off of this rare exclusive limited run of reishi mushroom elixir for nighttime routines without any sweeteners. Enjoy.