Greatest Life Transformation Behind Bars w/ Damon West

This week's show is quite possibly the most incredible story I’ve ever heard. You are going to be riveted and you will never forget this conversation!13 years ago to the day that we recorded this interview, my guest was sentenced to life in prison! Yes, life in prison for my guest Damon West. Damon’s story will make you uncomfortable at times. But ultimately, his story is all about OVERCOMING EXTREME ADVERSITY, TRANSFORMATION, and REDEMPTION. Do you want to learn how to turn your life around? This interview Is a master class! At 20, Damon was the starting quarterback at the University of North Texas when he suffered a career-ending injury. A few years later while training to be a stockbroker, Damon got hooked on methamphetamines, and he became the mastermind of a burglary ring to support his addiction. Eventually, he was arrested and sentenced to 65 years in a Texas maximum security prison. In prison, Damon got SOBER, went through a SPIRITUAL AWAKENING, and started down his true life’s calling which he continued to build on after his parole more than 7 years later. Today he is a much sought-after speaker and best-selling author including co-writing “The Coffee Bean: A Simple Lesson to Create Positive Change.” with JON GORDON. Damon pulls no punches in a series of brutally HONEST stories when sharing his life and the mistakes he’s made. You’ll hear first-hand exactly what it feels like to be found guilty of major crimes, how he fought to survive and eventually THRIVE in prison, and how Damon turned his time in prison into an OPPORTUNITY. Be sure to listen to how he used the analogy of being like a COFFEE BEAN (yes, a coffee bean) as a critical part in changing his victim mindset to one of HOPE and redemption. In one of my favorite parts of this episode, Damon reveals his thoughts about GRATITUDE, his mission to HELP OTHERS, and why RESILIENCE is essential to living your best life. This week, pay attention to a man who has lived life on the edge in many ways, good and bad. Damon’s past and present are filled with LESSONS that will make you STOP, THINK, and help you FIGURE OUT how you can lead a better life, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

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  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

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  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

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  With great power comes great deniability.

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  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  This is The Ed Mileage Show.

• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  All right, everybody. My guest today, 13 years ago today, was sentenced to essentially life in prison. 13 years ago today. And then he finds himself sitting across from me 13 years later, having completely transformed his life and has become one of the great speakers on planet Earth, one of the great influencers on planet Earth, and has become dear friends with many of my best friends. And it's one of the most remarkable stories you are ever gonna hear in your damn life. So get ready. Strap in and here is Damon West. Damon, welcome to the show, brother.

• 2:17Damon West?

  Ed, man, thank you for having me. I gotta tell you, brother, I'm in a long-term program recovery. And that's how I got turned on your podcast about a year and a half ago, man. People in recovery, you're real big in the recovery circles because, because of that, that key tenet that we have of service-oriented work, you know, service work is how we stay sober. And you live it, you speak it, you pass it on to your listeners. I'm one of them.

• 2:38Ed Mylett?

  Thank you.

• 2:39Damon West?

  And it's that, um, that's what attracted me to you and your story. Then you started talking about your dad, man. So I'm so happy to be here. I hope you'll let me hit you with questions about your father today.

• 2:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 2:48Damon West?

  Cause I got questions, man.

• 2:49Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, well, I got a lot for you. I mean, I've never introduced somebody and said 13 years ago today, they got sentenced to life in prison. 65 years of basically a life sentence in Texas. And, um, the fact that you're sitting here, man, and what you've accomplished since you've been out is remarkable. I, I think everyone's one who knows me, one of the most riveting stories you've ever heard. By, by the way, one of the best communicators you will have ever heard from in your life. So let's go back first. And let's just go to 13 years ago today first. We can go back from there, but let's just go to that. What, what does that feel like when you hear the words that you are guilty and going away? What is the emotional feeling that someone like you, only you can experience? What is that moment like in someone's life? I've always wondered, I've never been able to ask somebody that question before.

• 3:32Damon West?

  Right. No, it's like looking down the barrel of a gun and someone pulled the trigger and that's it. I mean, they unloaded on me and what does it feel like? It feels like rock bottom. That was my rock bottom moment. And it feels like, I felt like I got punched in the stomach really hard. When you know, the wind has knocked out of you.

• 3:46Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Damon West?

  When the judge read the sentence out 65 years and it was like, man, they just hit me with life. And I knew it was gonna be bad, Ed, because I walked back in the courtroom. First of all, the trial lasted six days. Six days is a long criminal trial for crimes that were non-aggravated. No one was ever home during the burgers I committed. They're all meth-related burgers, property crimes around meth. Now, it doesn't mean I didn't do the crime. I did the crimes and I was a bad guy. Because when, when I broke into people's houses, my victims, I didn't just steal their property, man. I stole their sense of security.

• 4:16Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 4:17Damon West?

  And so I deserved to go to prison. But the trial lasted six days and over those six days, the jury heard the story of Damon West. And as they heard the story more and more, they began to resent and hate Damon West. And I could see it in their eyes. I could feel it coming out of them. And they had every right to, because here's a guy in front of them that had everything going in life, every advantage, every privilege, every opportunity. And Ed, at the end of that six-day trial, they went to deliberate for 10 minutes. Oh my gosh. 10 minutes, bro. 10 minutes on your life. 10 minutes on my life, man. I came back in the courtroom. What? They give you a bologna sandwich whenever you're in the breaks back there. People don't see this, but in the back they have a holding cell and they bring you lunch because your lunch is a bologna sandwich when you're in jail. And I'm sitting there taking a couple bites of the bologna sandwich and the bailiff comes in and says, "They're ready."

• 5:01Damon West?

  And I'm like, I couldn't even chew the sandwich. My throat knotted up. I spit it out in the toilet. Are you freaking kidding me? Yeah, man, because it's like, oh dude, that's not good. So I walked back in the courtroom and, and I have two paid attorneys, Ed. I'm, I'm a white, middle-class guy in America. I've got two paid attorneys. I've never had a felony conviction. I thought I was going to get probation that day and I thought I'd be out getting high because I'm still an addict in my addiction, right? And so I come back into the courtroom and my second chair counsel, the woman named Karen Lambert, she said, "Brace yourself. It's going to be bad." And I'm like, "How bad, Karen?" She said, "Well, you were gone for that brief 10 minutes. The jury sent a note into the judge from the jury room. They wanted to know if they could give you life without parole." Ed, life without parole is a capital punishment. These aren't capital crimes. I'm like, Karen, that's crazy. She said, "Get ready."

• 5:46Damon West?

  And the judge came back in.

• 5:50Damon West?

  Damon Joseph West, you are hereby sentenced to 65 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The first thing I heard, yeah, the first thing I heard was my mother gasp out loud. She's behind me in the courtroom and, you know, the sound only a mother can make when she hears her son get a life sentence in prison. And Ed, that day, there was so much going on and after the, the moment's over, the sheriffs are on me, the bailiffs are on me, they handcuffed me, they're dragging me out of the courtroom and I lock eyes with my mom on the way out the door and all I could think to say to my mom, Ed, is, "I'm sorry, mom." And I don't, I don't even know that I fully understood it at a minute or anything like that, but it's the only thing I could think to say to my poor mother. My, my father's there too. But Ed, right after that trial was over, my mother and my dad are brought into this, they put me in a little room, it's got a bulletproof glass and they

• 6:35Damon West?

  told me to wait on the other side of the glass. And my mom and my dad were escorted and they feel sorry for my parents because I just got life. And so my mom has a conversation with me. It's a five-minute little one-off deal and, and she's just on it, man. And she's telling me, she's like, you know, Damon, debts and life demand to be paid. You just got hit with one heck of a bill from the state of Texas. Because she said, "You did the things they said you did. So you're going to have to go to prison. You're going to pay that debt. You owe Texas that debt." She said, "But you owe your father and I debt too." She said, "We gave you all the opportunity, love and support to be anything you want to be in life." And she said, "That's how you just repaid us, Damon?" She said, "That's not going to work." She's reminding me, she said, "We raised you in Port Arthur, Texas, a giant melty pot of a city, gave you a great moral compass, what you chose to not use," she said, "so here's the debt you're gonna pay to us."

• 7:19Damon West?

  Now, Ed, here it is, man, this is the direction of my life. This is those moments that you come to and you say, "This is where it changed." She said, "When you go to prison, you will not get in one of these white hate groups, one of these Aryan Brotherhood type of gangs, because you're scared because you're the minority in there." She said, "That's not gonna work, you were never raised to be a racist, you're not gonna start now." She said, "You will not get..."

• 7:37Ed Mylett?

  Your mom's awesome.

• 7:38Damon West?

  Yeah, she said, "You will not get any tattoos while you're inside that prison."

• 7:42Ed Mylett?

  You don't have any.

• 7:43Damon West?

  No, I don't have any tats, man, I mean, and I was in the joint for almost 10 years, man. These guys, they want a tattoo every inch of your body in a joint. Man, every time these guys would come up to me in prison, "Les, let me put a tattoo on you, man." I'd be like, "Man, dude, I can't do it, man, my mom said no." Because she did. Because listen to what she said next on May 18th, 2009, 13 years ago today, she says, "Damon, no gangs, no tattoos." She said, "You come back as the man we raised, or don't come back at all."

• 8:10Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh, brother.

• 8:11Damon West?

  I was floored, Ed.

• 8:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, your mom rose to the occasion, really, right there, too.

• 8:15Damon West?

  Rose, and she's a nurse, man, she's used to traumatic situations, right? She compartmentalized all the pain and got to work. And I asked my mom since then, I said, "Mom, what was it like for you?" Because I'm very, like I said, I want to ask you questions today, I want to ask questions, I want to understand people in the moment. She said, "Damon, what I envisioned was my son is on a gurney dying, and I'm doing triage to save my son's life."

• 8:34Ed Mylett?

  That's a hurt.

• 8:35Damon West?

  And I stepped up, and that was what came to me from the Holy Spirit. She said, "And my mom's a very devout Christian woman." So she said, "That's what came to me, but it was like you were on a gurney dying, and I've got to stem the flow of blood, or you're gonna die."

• 8:46Ed Mylett?

  My gosh, so everyone, I want you to step back for a second. First thing is, you're hearing this unbelievable story, right? And we're gonna go deeper on it. But I want you to know, as we go through this story, you're gonna begin to hear some of the turnarounds and the strategies and the tactics that have produced this guy sitting in front of me, because some of the people that I admire and respect most in the world have been recommending Damon to me for some time. And God's just so amazing, man. We've been, you know, kind of trying to put something together for a while, and I send you a message on Instagram, I go, "Hey, May 18th, get there."

• 9:14Damon West?

  Yeah, that's it, man.

• 9:15Ed Mylett?

  You're like, "I'll come," right? And little do I know that that'd be the 13-year-to-the-day anniversary of you getting In prison, I had no idea what the date, I didn't even know what the significance meant at all. So God is just absolutely amazing that he sends you to me on that day.

• 9:27Damon West?

  I call it God thanks, man. That's why I text you, dude, you're never gonna believe this. Not only is it the 13 year anniversary, it's my three year anniversary of being married. My wife and I, Kendall and I got married 10 years to the day that I got sentenced to life in prison.

• 9:40Ed Mylett?

  You came to see me on your anniversary. Now I really love you. Thank you. And your wife probably hates me, but thank you.

• 9:44Damon West?

  No, we were in Mexico a couple, when I sent you that video, we were in Mexico. And so we went for our anniversary trip a week early, a couple of weeks early, because I have so many speaking engagements going on.

• 9:53Ed Mylett?

  Isn't this good to hear, by the way? Because now you guys know there's like a happily ever after at some point, but let's stay in this thing here. So, okay, you get sentenced, but let's go back. They were meth, it sounds pretty severe from what I understand happened. You had nonviolent robberies, basically, in your history, and you were a meth addict. Is that accurate?

• 10:10Damon West?

  Absolutely.

• 10:11Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so that's the, that's a long time. Life in prison was 65 years for nonviolent, you know, robberies. But let's just, you did the crime and you did time for it. It just seems excessive to me, and I think it is excessive. But let's go back. You get raised by, obviously, these beautiful parents. You're an unbelievable athlete, right? What, was it one decision that altered the direction of your life? Is it one time you just decided to use drugs once and you just bam, you were hooked? Or what took place, what took you down the road that led you 13 years ago to this day to sitting in that room?

• 10:41Damon West?

  Yeah, you know, whenever I was younger, I got into substance abuse at a young age. My gateway drug was alcohol. It's the first thing I ever did. I got into my dad's beer when I was 10, you know, and after that, I smoked pot when I was 12. And I had a lot of character issues, man. But I could throw a football. And this is Texas, man. Texas high school football. It's like a religion in my home state. These people are very serious about their football. And I was the man. I was the three year starting quarterback for a 5A school. So my behaviors never were, I was never held accountable for my behaviors. And I'm not blaming anybody else for that. I mean, but I didn't, I didn't get held accountable. I was a good student. I made grades, got a scholarship to play football at the University of Texas. But I think the one decision that I made is that I got into substance abuse at a young age. I had no idea that I was an addict, you know? You don't, there's not

• 11:26Damon West?

  a genetic test for this yet. I mean, maybe there will be one day. I was an addict and once I put in those chemicals for the first time, I liked the way it felt. I liked the buzz I got from drinking. Then I wanted to try something different and it wasn't until I got to college that I got into more hardcore drugs. I was playing football and I got injured, a career ended injury in 1996 against Texas A&M. I'm 20, man. I was a starting quarterback. You played, you played sports, man. You know how big it is till, when your career ends prematurely, you're not ready for this.

• 11:52Ed Mylett?

  It's your whole dream. It's your whole world.

• 11:54Damon West?

  It was my identity. That's the problem, man. I wrapped my identity up into something external. And I see people all the time in the world, we see people that wrap their identities up into something external. Their money, their job, whatever. That's not you, man. What's you is inside you. I didn't get that back then though, Ed. I didn't get that, I didn't get the memo, right? So I got into hardcore drugs in 96. Cocaine, ecstasy pills. Graduated college, went off to work and worked in the United States Congress. Worked for God running for president. Worked on Wall Street, Ed. I was a Wall Street. I was training to be a stockbroker in Dallas when I was introduced to meth for the first time. But now we're back to the one decision of substance abuse, man. Once I put the chemicals in at a young age, I liked the way it felt and I chased that.

• 12:35Ed Mylett?

  You also, if you don't mind saying it, we're gonna go a little bit more personal. But I don't know if it was at the time or later, you sort of uncovered that there's probably a not very fair incident that happened to you when you were a young man as well, that you're maybe, maybe you're masking it a little bit, right?

• 12:48Damon West?

  Oh yeah, no. When I was nine, I was, I was molested by a babysitter, female babysitter. And this is, so, but I'm careful, when I, when I talk about it, I'm careful not to say that, hey, you know, this is what happened to me and this is the road I went down because of that. Because some people are really, some people have very traumatic experiences with that. This was a female babysitter that we were doing things, I was nine years old when this happened. No nine-year-old should be doing the stuff I was doing. But it didn't affect me in the sense, Ed, that it's like, oh my God, my world was turned upside down. I can't believe this happened to me. What happened to me with that is I got introduced to adult behaviors at a very young age. It's like someone lets you inside that big door. And once you got on the other side of that door at nine, which you're not supposed to be on the side of that door at nine,

• 13:32Damon West?

  there's all these other doors, but those doors aren't locked. Those doors are for adults. You can just open doors to adults because you make choices and. But I got on the other side of that door at nine years old. And now there's drinking, there's smoking, there's smoking dope, there's skipping school, cutting classes, you know, chasing girls, all that stuff. I got introduced to that at a very young age, so.

• 13:49Ed Mylett?

  Very well said, very well said. I love how you just said that.

• 13:52Damon West?

  I don't want to use it as a crutch because I know that some people are very dramatically affected by that. And I'm not trying to minimize the fact that it did affect me. But what it did to me is it introduced me to adult behaviors at a very young age. And when I touched that live wire of substances, I liked it.

• 14:08Ed Mylett?

  What about this idea that when you are someone addicted to substances, you're an alcoholic or a drug addict?

• 14:16Ed Mylett?

  You learn to manipulate people, you learn to put a, you learn to put a presentation of yourself to people that is not real. And you do this repetitiously all of your life, right? So at some point you lose yourself, don't you, when you're sort of faking who you are to everybody else? Isn't there a point where you sort of just lose self completely when you're in that type of behavior pattern for so long?

• 14:40Damon West?

  Absolutely. You have delusional thinking, you know, delusions of grandeur. But eventually, I mean, you, which you're into substance abuse and you get into addiction really hard, you even have delusions of adequacy. I mean, it's like, you know, you become delusional. You live in a world where you have this fallacy, this idea of control. You think you have control over all these other things around you. You think you're a master manipulator, you're the wizard behind the curtain, you're pulling levers and pushing buttons and people do what you want them to do. But yeah, you lose yourself along the way. You get wrapped up in this external world because you don't focus on self. You're living in a world where you're selfish, self-seeking, self-want, self-desires, self-delusion. These are, this is the world of an addict, right there.

• 15:20Ed Mylett?

  It's pretty amazing that you, you grew up with this unbelievable gift of your talent. Your Texas football is religion, you're a quarterback, you're unbelievable, you're going to the best place to go play. You come from a good family, then you have even all these other upsides that happen. So that happens, it's 13 years ago today, and now you've made this commitment to your mom. Well, there's commitments and then there's commitments. So I know very little about prison, but I have had some good friends go. And so I want you to walk us through this. Now you've made a. Commitment to your mom that you're not going to get involved in one of these racial groups, which is where most 99.9% of the guys go to hide at some point. And even those groups, sometimes you have to fight your way in. So what's that like? You're in prison now, and I'm sure the Aryan Brotherhood are trying to get you into their good graces,

• 16:05Ed Mylett?

  and everybody else is coming after you. Would you just start fighting?

• 16:07Damon West?

  Yeah, well, I mean, to answer the question, I've got about two months here while I'm in Dallas County Jail, waiting to be transported to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. They sent a prison bus to come pick you up with guards that are armed. But in that two-month period,

• 16:21Ed Mylett?

  This is awesome.

• 16:21Damon West?

  I'm running around Dallas County Jail, and I'm asking all these guys that have been in prison before, how am I going to survive? What am I going to do? I'm in game mode now. I'm like, oh, man, this is really happening. And every guy I talk to, man, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, they say the same thing. You've got to get into a gang. You will not survive without a gang. They told me the lie that so many people here in the streets of America, the gang will be your family, the gang is going to love you, the gang is going to protect you. All lies, Ed. Now, what wasn't a lie is they said you're going to the worst part of the prison system, where everybody in the building you live on has life. They call this the life sentence building. Wes, get into a gang. Save your life, get into a gang. But there was this one guy that was so different in Dallas County, this old black man named Mr. Jackson. And Mr. Jackson's what you call a career criminal. Dude's been in our prison office like four or five times, right? But he's the most positive guy I've ever met, Ed. This guy had a smile on his face everywhere he went.

• 17:06Damon West?

  You couldn't knock the smile off of Jackson's face. And every morning, man, every morning, this man would come up to my cell, to my bunk, and he'd pick me up like a ray of sunshine in that dark place with his positive energy, right? So one morning, Mr. Jackson comes up, he's got a cup of coffee in his hands.

• 17:20Ed Mylett?

  This is awesome.

• 17:20Damon West?

  And a smile on his face. He said, Wes, he said, I've been watching how you're dealing with those knuckleheads and those dummies. Talk about you've got to get into a gang. He said, do not let these fools. He said, you want to keep that promise you made to your mom and your dad? Then let me tell you what prison's going to be like. So he tells me, he said, the first thing you need to understand about prison, he said, prison's all about race. And he said, race is the big dynamic in there, because all the inmates want it to be about race. And he was right, Ed. I mean, that's the whole overriding dynamic of prison. He said, because it's about race, when you walk in the door of the life sentence building, he said, you're going to see a TV set in that day room. And in front of the TV set, they have rows of benches. He said, the first row of benches, you can't sit on that row. That's for the blacks. You're going to get your head smashed in. You sit on that row. The second row, you can't sit on that one either. That's for the Hispanics. They'll smash your head in two. He said, the third row, if there's a third row, is where the white folks sit.

• 18:04Damon West?

  He said, if there's no third row, white folks sit on the floor. That's the way the numbers work in prison. He said, it's the opposite of the free world. You don't have the numbers in there like you have out here. So don't get into a wreck over race. He said, but because it's about race, when you walk in the door, the white gangs get the first dibs on you. He said, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Aryan Circle, the White Knights, the Woods. He's naming all the white prison gangs. He said, you have to fight all of them if you want to be independent from them. He said, you don't have a choice in this. You have to fight if you want to be independent. He said, if you don't give in to their ideology, hate out of fear. And let me tell you what I learned about fear. I learned that fear is a liar. Fear makes you see things that aren't there. It makes you believe things that are not real. In fact, I would argue fears aren't even real. Fear's in your head. Fear's how you perceive a situation. Danger is real. You have to respect danger.

• 18:49Damon West?

  But fear's not real. And Jackson's telling me, don't give into this artificial thing called fear. But get ready, because once you get done with the white gangs, the black gangs are coming next. The Crips, the Bloods, the Gangster Disciples, Mendingo Warriors. He's naming all the black prisons. Yeah, he said, you have to fight all of them. He said, if you survive all this, Wes, and he said, and you can survive all this. He said, you're going to earn the right to walk alone. He said, the strongest man in prison always walks alone. Wow. He told me about fighting. And this is the truth that I've shared. I've spoken to hundreds of audiences the last six years since I've been out of prison. And this is something I always leave them with. He said, you don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. What a huge lesson in life, right? Because that tells you that some days you're going to win and some days you're going to lose. I'm not saying losing is a great thing you should aspire to, but you're going to lose sometimes. And you're not going to win all your fights. But when you lose, get up.

• 19:34Damon West?

  And that's what he's saying. Don't stay down, get up. But when he's telling me this back in 2009, man, 13 years ago, I'm looking back at this guy, I get deer in headlights, man. Oh, there's violence and terror I'm about to walk into? So he says, Wes, let me break it down for you another way. He said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of warm water. This is the best thing I've ever heard. He said, oh, man, this is, it's wild. And this is something that everybody can grab onto this thing. This is the whole crux of the presentation. He said, imagine prison as a pot of warm water. He said, anything we put into this pot of warm water is going to be changed by the heat and the pressure inside that pot. He said, I'm going to put three things in this pot of warm water and watch how they change. A carrot? An egg and a coffee bean. So he walks me through it. He said, so first things first. He said, if I put a carrot in the pot of boiling water we call prison.

• 20:18Damon West?

  He said, what happens to the carrot? And I'm like, Mr. Jackson, the carrot's gonna turn soft. And he said, that's right, Wes. He said, but the carrot went in the water hard. But the water, the prison, turned that hard carrot soft and mushy and weak. Didn't take long. He said, the carrot got beat. He got robbed. May got raped. May got killed. You don't want to be this carrot, Wes. He said, what about the egg? What happened to the egg in the pot of boiling water we call prison? And I'm like, well, Mr. Jackson, the egg is gonna turn hard, man, like a hard-boiled egg. He said, that's right, Wes. He said, the egg has a shell that protects it physically, but inside that shell, that soft liquid core, the egg's heart became hardened. He said, if your heart becomes hardened, you're incapable of giving or receiving love. And he said, if you're incapable of giving and receiving love in that place, you've become institutionalized and you will not come back as someone your parents recognize.

• 21:01Damon West?

  He said, because your eggshell's gonna have swastika tattooed all over it. Then he asked me, he said, what about the coffee bean, Wes? And Ed, I didn't have an answer for this dude. I didn't know what happened to a coffee bean in a pot of boiling water. And that's when this man, this man that looked nothing like me, he didn't come from the same America I came from, Ed, didn't believe the same things I believe, fundamentally or spiritually. This is a black Muslim man from the streets of Dallas, Texas, y'all. I'm a, I'm a white Catholic guy from a little bitty town called Port Arthur. But this man is so different than me, sharing with me the most important and transformational messages I've ever received. I tell people all the time, man, if you ever shut yourself off to people because of their differences, different race, different gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, man, if you close yourself off to people because of their differences, you're going to miss some of the most important lessons and some of the best friendships in this

• 21:46Damon West?

  life. Because this man told me that day, he said, if I put a coffee bean in the same pot of boiling water we call prison, he said, now you have to change the name of the water to coffee. Because he said, the coffee bean, Ed. He said, the coffee bean had the power to change the entirety of inside that pot because the power was inside that coffee bean. And he said, just like the power's inside you. And he told me, the coffee beans is the only thing that'll change the water. The carrot is changed by the water. The eggs are changed by the water. Coffee beans are the only thing that change the water. And the last thing he tells me, the last thing I hear from Mr. Jackson, he says, Wes, go out there and go be a coffee bean. Now, Ed, I walk into prison and it is a baptism by fire, man. Inside the first 10 minutes, man, I'm in a fight with a big, huge Aryan Brotherhood

• 22:30Damon West?

  guy. Dude beats me from one side of the dayroom to the other. First 10 minutes. First 10 minutes, man. And it's on. And Jackson told me what to expect. He said, man, the first guy that comes up to you when you walk in the door, he's not a threat. He's an information gatherer. He's a scout. He's gonna, he's gonna be a white guy, because you're white. He's gonna ask you this question. What gang do you want to be a part of? What family? They call gangs families. Get him out of your face as fast as you can and get ready. He said, because the second guy that comes up, he's not coming to talk to you. He's coming to fight you. He said, he's coming to hurt you. He said, when this guy gets within range, put your fist in his mouth. Hit him as hard as you can. Don't even let him get a word in. And Ed, when I walk in the door, man, I'm there. I got my bags and my property. I set him on the ground. I put my back against the wall, stumbling up in a couple of minutes. A little bitty white dude, a little bald headed white dude, tatted up from head to toe. Even his eyelids are tatted up, right? And he comes up, he gets in my face. Hey, white boy, what family you riding with?

• 23:15Damon West?

  Look at your face change. Man, I'm like, dude, I'm riding with God. Please, just let me on. I'm riding with God. He'd laugh to me, Ed. He said, God isn't here, white boy, because we kicked him out. He said, but we're here and we're coming to get you. Get ready. Stumbles up the stairs. Few minutes later, biggest corn-fed white dude I've ever seen in my life. He's coming down. He points at me from third row. Huge dude, muscled up, man. He's coming down the stairwell, bald headed with a swastika around the top. Swastika on the dome of his head, man. All I see is a swastika, two beady eyeballs and muscles coming at me. Dude, Ed, I played sports all my life, man. When that guy got within range, I can be coached. Bam! I hit the dude as hard as I could. Didn't even face him. This dude beat me down. But Ed, that was what life was like in prison. For the first two months, I spent fighting there,

• 23:56Damon West?

  fighting for my life. But, but I had the, I had Mr. Jackson telling me that you don't have to win those fights, but you have to fight those fights. And I lost most of my fights in there, Ed. I tell people all the time, man, I probably got three dozen fights the whole time I was there and lost 75% of those fights. That's what I wanted to ask you. Physically lost, Ed. Imagine waking up every day, knowing that you're gonna get your butt handed to you. But that's your day, and you have to face your day. And it, it was a training ground. It was a massive, if you want it to be, it's a massive training ground. It's finding that opportunity and adversity. It's what you talk about, Ed. The other side of your adversity, the other side of your fears is the best version of you. But I had to go through all that to get to where I wanted to be. I want to talk about this some more, by the way.

• 24:37Ed Mylett?

  Now everyone knows what the heck I was talking about when I introduced you.

• 24:39Damon West?

  First 10 minutes, man, we're rolling.

• 24:41Ed Mylett?

  We're rolling. There's a lesson in there I want to share with you that I got from my dad's sobriety. And I know we'll talk a little bit about this as we go today too, but so about three weeks ago, man, I wrote this whole book about, you know, the one mores and I woke up, I woke my wife up. I was really emotional and I said, babe, wake up, wake up, wake up. And I said, hey, I said, um, someone help daddy. She said, what? I said, someone helped my dad. The most important decision of my entire life is my dad's decision to get sober. You and I probably aren't talking if he doesn't. I've reached millions of people because my dad made this decision. My kids, my, my dad's grandkids, our whole lives are changed. It never occurred to me, man, someone helped my dad.

• 25:16Damon West?

  Yeah.

• 25:17Ed Mylett?

  I didn't think about it. And she goes, my gosh, I said, that precious soul who met my father in the darkest moment of his life, the most dark ashamed place of his life, completely changed my father's life forever and changed mine and millions of other people's lives.

• 25:29Damon West?

  Yes.

• 25:29Ed Mylett?

  They didn't even know it. I said, babe, that's crazy. One human being in their humanity reached out and helped my dad in some dark room or a coffee shop or a bar somewhere. I said, that's not the most amazing part, even though that's amazing. What qualified this person to help my dad?

• 25:42Damon West?

  Give you chills, dude.

• 25:43Ed Mylett?

  Dude, what qualified them to help my dad was the things they were the most ashamed of.

• 25:47Damon West?

  Yes.

• 25:47Ed Mylett?

  Was their drunkenness, was their drug addiction, was the things they did. They're the most embarrassed and ashamed of that they think disqualified them from ever doing anything great in their life, or maybe their average, ordinary existence, was the very thing that prepared them, God was preparing them to intervene in my dad's life and change my family forever.

• 26:03Damon West?

  Absolutely.

• 26:04Ed Mylett?

  And then I could see it in your eyes. That's the same thing with Mr. Jackson. This guy's, you're, you're talking to him at the jail because he'd been in that system and was still there. The things that he probably made the biggest mistakes of his life are what prepared him to serve you and help you in the most scared, dark moment of your life. His things he's most ashamed of and embarrassed by is what his preparation was to change your life.

• 26:24Damon West?

  Absolutely. It was his knowledge. That was what he had to pass on. That was his great contribution to humanity was, was passing this on to somebody he felt was worthy of the knowledge that he had gained the hardest way possible, man.

• 26:37Ed Mylett?

  Come on, man. This is, this is what people need to get.

• 26:39Damon West?

  That's what your dad got from his sponsor, man.

• 26:40Ed Mylett?

  And that's what millions are getting from you. Here we go. So here's the thing, this is what people need to get about life.

• 26:46Damon West?

  Yes.

• 26:47Ed Mylett?

  Things that you think disqualify you are actually the great qualifiers for you to help change other people's lives, including your own.

• 26:54Damon West?

  They're not liabilities, man, they're assets.

• 26:56Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 26:57Damon West?

  Yes.

• 26:57Ed Mylett?

  People, I don't know if there's ever been a more magic moment in a podcast in the history of podcasts than this, because it's a freaking fact that that person changed my dad's life. Jackson saves your life, probably, right?

• 27:09Damon West?

  Well, yeah.

• 27:10Ed Mylett?

  And now you're now telling the story of The Coffee Bean, which by the way is a book that you and John Gordon wrote that people can get, is about the coffee bean, which is an incredible book. That's a story no one will ever forget in the history of their life. But it's the fact that you had this drug addiction and meth addiction and committed these crimes that qualifies you to sit in this seat today, that qualified Jackson to be with you, that qualified this person to help my dad, that qualifies me to share this stuff with people. It's insane how this stuff works.

• 27:35Damon West?

  It's mind-boggling, man, because it's like everything is connected. We are all connected, man, and if we're willing to turn our mess into a message, and that's the thing, man, it's like everybody, that's one of the things I wanted to come on your show for, Ed, is because I know, I know you got a lot of listeners out there that struggle, because everybody's struggling.

• 27:53Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 27:53Damon West?

  Everybody you meet in life struggles in life, man. But it's tapping into each other, that's how we're gonna get through. We have to serve each other. This is my way of serving by passing on this message that Jack, not only passing on the message that Jackson gave me, but to share an amazing story that goes with it, because you can't deny what you can see. People say, okay, well, The Coffee Bean, but then they see that this thing happened, this biggest part of my, people's biggest fear, Ed, that they tell me, is going to prison. That's like everybody's biggest fear in the world. And I not only went in there, I didn't just survive, I thrived inside of a maximum security prison. But the real magic isn't just The Coffee Bean by itself, it was the spiritual awakening that had to happen to make The Coffee Bean into what it is today.

• 28:34Damon West?

  Because inside that prison, I grew more over the next seven years to three months spiritually than I ever did anywhere else in my life. Imagine that, man, you go into a dungeon and you become the best version of yourself, like a cocoon, like a caterpillar goes in and comes out a butterfly. This is what happened to me inside that prison. I had a spiritual awakening. And I truly believe, Ed, that For us, like you said, to meet the best version of yourself on the other side of the diversity, this has to be a spiritual thing. You can't do this by, it has to be a spiritual thing. That's what I believe. Now, and I'm not, and I'm not saying it's a religious thing. You can believe whatever religion you want. I'm like you, I listen to your stuff and you do a great job of delineating the fact that you're a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm not telling anybody they have to be a Christian to pursue this.

• 29:17Damon West?

  But find whatever it is you feel like is your higher power and go after that and let that higher power surrender to the higher power. And this is the spiritual part that happened when I got into a program recovery inside that prison. I wouldn't be here without the program recovery.

• 29:30Ed Mylett?

  We're gonna talk about that. I wanna, I wanna stay on this because what you just said is like, bro,

• 29:35Ed Mylett?

  this was just supposed to happen right now. It's supposed to happen on this day.

• 29:38Damon West?

  Yeah.

• 29:38Ed Mylett?

  And I'm so grateful that it's happening, but I wanna, I want, man, I'm so excited for everyone listening to this right now. I just, cause I love the, I love my family that's the audience of the show.

• 29:47Damon West?

  Can I say I love your energy level, dude?

• 29:49Ed Mylett?

  Thank you, man.

• 29:50Damon West?

  And I figured, man, like, I'm like, I'm gonna go into this thing and, and I try to read, prison helps you read people, man. I can read rooms, right? Because I had to do it to survive. But I've, I've, I've followed you and listened to you and watched, I watch your stories on Instagram and all that. And you seem like the kinda guy that matches the energy of the people in your room with. And that's exactly, you didn't, I mean, you lived up to it, man. This is great.

• 30:09Ed Mylett?

  But it's real. Like, you're firing me up and it inspires me, right? And like, I'm thinking about the metaphor, like ironically, probably that worst day of your life 13 years ago. I think the Lord was like, hey, I'm gonna pluck you out of society, bro, cause you're gonna die.

• 30:22Damon West?

  Dude, that's exactly the term I use.

• 30:23Ed Mylett?

  It's really, okay, I want you, I want you to speak to it. And then the other thing is like, you literally physically got beaten down. And life is beating people down metaphorically oftentimes in life. You literally went in and took physical beatings forever. Do you feel like that's part of what had to happen for you?

• 30:38Damon West?

  Ed, it's crazy. And, and y'all, listen, when, we didn't even have, we didn't rehearse this or anything, man. But you said pluck. I use that term all the time when I'm speaking to people. That I feel like God, what I believe is God, I'm a Christian. So that's, when I talk about God, that's what I'm saying. So I believe that God sent angels down to me that were in the form of SWAT team in Dallas. This Dallas SWAT team, those were my saviors, man. They plucked me out of this world that I wasn't gonna get out of, man. I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't leaving the Uptown Burgery crime spree alive or a version of myself that was worth living, right? I truly believe God sent his angels down and they're armed. They're, they're look like they're just in the massive body armor and everything. There's guns in my faces. They're screaming,

• 31:21Damon West?

  "Don't move, don't move." And I mean, it's chaos. I didn't see it like at the time, but Ed, July 30th, 2008, when that SWAT team came to get me, they didn't arrest me that day. They rescued me that day, brother. I got rescued by a SWAT team that God sent down and said, "Hey, you know what? You're not living up to what I, what I, what I need you to be doing, or I've got a plan for you. I've got a plan for you, and let me put you on this path because I gotta break you down first to make you that person." Because I tell people all the time, Ed, man, God doesn't set bushes on fire anymore. He sets people on fire, man. You know, and that's, you know, I'm just like, I get to be one of those people, but everybody gets to be one of those if they choose to be. But that's a spiritual awakening that you have to have.

• 32:06Ed Mylett?

  Brother, I think there's the, the SWAT teams of life are coming all the time for people. And if they'd see them for what they really are, that'd be true. Sometimes that SWAT team is you just had a bankruptcy. You're, you just lost your job. It's the SWAT team coming to rescue you. You know, you just had a relationship end, you know, you're struggling as an entrepreneur. You've got a bunch of adversity. Someone just quit on you. You just lost a big account. That could literally be the SWAT team for you. And when you're listening to shows like this, when you get inspired by these stories, you need to think about how it applies to your own life. That's what moves you. It's not just Damon's story. It's how it applies for you. The different, how it transcends just the story, but the principles, right? So you're in there getting your butt whooped regularly. Why and how does it stop? And then what happens? Didn't you have an experience with like, was your

• 32:50Ed Mylett?

  first someone like a really short Latino dude?

• 32:52Damon West?

  Yeah.

• 32:52Ed Mylett?

  Right? And he, he also imparted some wisdom on to you to some extent as well. So just go for all of that at one time.

• 32:58Damon West?

  And so what, the way it stopped is like, six weeks into prison, man, I get up on a Monday morning. I'm like, you know what? I'm tired of living in fear, man. Ed, there's some days I don't even leave my cell because I know someone's gonna say, "Hey, Wes, I wanna look at you in the shower." There's nothing gay about what they're saying. They don't wanna look at you in the shower, like in a, in a homosexual sense. They're, they're saying, "I wanna look at you in the shower." They wanna look at your boxing game. Cause that's where you go fight. You go boxing in the showers. There's no cameras. There's no guards. And all the blood you spill comes out of the shower real easy when you wash it off, right? So there's days I don't leave my cell. So, but this Monday morning, I'm like, you know what? I'm done. And I'm fighting the black gangs at this point. I'm like, you know, the only thing I'm leaving on the table is I'm an athlete. I haven't used my athleticism. The rec yard is very intimidating to me. The rec yard's the most segregated place I've ever seen. On that life sense building?

• 33:40Damon West?

  Every sport's segregated by race. So I go that Monday morning and get myself into a basketball game and that, and I go every day after, and I'm, it is brutal, man. It's nine on one out there. It isn't even five on five. It's nine on one when I'm playing basketball. But I keep showing up and I keep showing up. I learned two things about adversity that week. Adversity is never as bad as I think it's gonna be, and I'm always capable of way more than I think I am. You see, because I've always let overthinking get in the way of overcoming. I still do it this day. I'm a human being. But after that week on the rec yard, six days of playing basketball, these guys, they finally said, hey, the blacks are like, hey, you know what? You don't have to worry about the blacks the rest of the time in your prison. You're good with us. And there was one more fight that I had to have about two weeks after that when I was coming off the rec yard and Carlos, my cellmate, the guy you're referring to, tells me that this guy's gonna come rape me in the shower that day and he gives me a weapon. He gives me a fan motor inside of this bag to beat

• 34:25Damon West?

  the guy with. And that's the last fight I ever got into when I was in prison. And once everybody saw that fight go down, I almost killed this guy. I tried to kill him, but I didn't succeed. Thank God I didn't succeed. But once everybody saw that, they never messed with me again because they saw that I spoke the only language that everybody speaks in prison. That's violence. Violence. Violence is the only thing. You, either you speak violence or someone speaks to you, but you're gonna be fluent in the language of violence in prison.

• 34:52Ed Mylett?

  Did Carlos also say damage something to you like, hey, man, this would be an opportunity to grow or something like that? Well, how did he word that to you?

• 34:58Damon West?

  That was whenever I came to Carlos, man. So after this is all over, I'm in, I'm in the cell one night with Carlos, man. And I'm like, Carlos, and I'm telling him, I'm like, man, this dude in county told me this story about the coffee bean and I can't figure it out, man. I came to him like in desperate, I was vulnerable. I was vulnerable with Carlos. I got comfortable enough with him. So I told him the story of the coffee bean, just like Jackson told it to me. And Carlos comes flying down from the top bunk. He's a real animated little dude. We live in this little 10 by 12 cell and he's like, oh my God. He said, West, I love this coffee bean story. He said, but you're no coffee bean and you're never gonna be a coffee bean. Man, I got in Carlos's face. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm not gonna be a coffee. Who are you? The coffee bean man? Why can't I be a coffee bean? You know? So I never forget, man, this little dude looks at me, starts laughing. He goes, cuz you got stinking thinking, West. He said, your thinking is all off. He said, your thoughts control your actions. But

• 35:41Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 35:42Damon West?

  Yes. And that's what he's telling, he's telling me about your, how your thoughts are so important. What we think is what we do, you know? And he said, Your problem right now is you look at prison as a punishment. Prison's not a punishment, man. Prison's an opportunity. And I'm like, what do you mean opportunity? I said, Carl, we're serving life in one of the toughest prisons in Texas. I don't know if I'm gonna survive this. How is this an opportunity? And he told me, he said, this is your opportunity, Wes, to work on yourself 24 hours a day, seven days a week, become the best version of yourself possible. And it lights out that night when the guards get done counting. He peeked his head down from the top bunk. He said, "Psst, Wes, what are you prepared to do tomorrow with your opportunity?" This dude refused to call prison a punishment, Ed. This is my cellmate, man. Twice. I'm blessed with these people. But this is what God does in my life.

• 36:25Damon West?

  God has never just reached his hand down and said, "Hey, Damon, you're healed." No, God has put people in my life. And these people, when I was younger, they were coaches, they were teachers, they were parents. There were people in my community, right? They helped raise me. And when I got older, they came in the forms of different people. One of them was a black Muslim man in Dallas County Jail. Another one was this little Hispanic bank robber from San Antonio. But if we're receptive to the messengers that are on the path of life, they become guides to us, man. And that's what he was, man. This guy would remind me every day, "This is your opportunity, man." He was like Mickey and the trainer for Rocky, man. "This is your opportunity." He would encourage me, man. And I got up every day and I looked at prison differently from the next day on. My feet hit the cold concrete floor of the prison cell the next day. And I'm like, "All right, God, thanks for this opportunity."

• 37:08Damon West?

  And I didn't believe it, Ed. I said it, but I didn't believe it. But I did what is so necessary in life to change the situation I was in. I took one small step of action into a new life. One small step, like you talked, the power one more. Every day I took one small step. And that's what people tell me all the time, "Damon, I just don't have the best plan to get from A to B to C to D." Don't worry about a plan. Go, man. Go. Because growth takes place outside your comfort zone. Get uncomfortable and grow. And I did, man. I got so uncomfortable in that place, but I grew, Ed. I grew more in there than I did anywhere else in my life.

• 37:41Ed Mylett?

  Really? You grew more in there than anywhere else? And then you're in there 10 years, correct?

• 37:45Damon West?

  It was seven years and three months. Almost 10, yeah.

• 37:47Ed Mylett?

  Okay, seven years, three months. And at what point did you get... Well, you were sober in there, right? Because there... Well, you can get drugs in there, so that's not true.

• 37:53Damon West?

  You get anything you want in there, man.

• 37:55Ed Mylett?

  So, did your sobriety begin when you got in there? And did you... Make a decision to get sober or was it like I just don't have access to the stuff yet? So I'm just not going to do it anymore.

• 38:02Damon West?

  Dude, I love it, man. You grew up with a father who was saying, hey, you know the questions. So yeah, my sobriety day just July 30th, 2008, the SWAT team comes in and I'm hitting a bong of meth. When the SWAT team comes in, that's the last day I ever do a drug or drink or anything in my life. I got sober that day, but I didn't get into recovery that day. Sobriety and recovery, as your dad, I'm sure, God, I've got something to question for you, Ed. As your dad told you, I'm sure are two different things, man.

• 38:27Ed Mylett?

  Yes, yes.

• 38:27Damon West?

  So I got into recovery and it was in 2011 when I was in prison. Yeah. So I'm, I'm in prison. Yeah, I'm in prison for a couple of years and I don't get into the AA group or anything like that. I'm working on myself. I'm becoming that coffee bean and I'm positive. Everybody wants to be, and it's, you know, your energy attracts the other kind of energy. So I'm putting out positive energy, attracted positivity. But I had a cellmate and one night he was up, he was a cocaine dealer. And so he, one night he's jacked up on cocaine. He's bouncing around this little 10 by 12. He's cleaning our cell with a little toothbrush. I mean, dude, I mean, this is not the place you want to do blow. I mean, this is like you're trapped in a cage.

• 39:01Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 39:02Damon West?

  So he's tweaking out and I look over there at the table. He's got this, this bowl of coke over there and I'm thinking to myself, you know, I used to love to do coke. You know, I bet I could do some coke again. And I'm like, man, where did this all come? I'm serving life and, and I've ruined my, my family. I've, I've destroyed my family. I've destroyed my life and, and now I'm having thoughts about using again. And I'm looking at it and I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about doing it and I knew I needed something else. I'm reading my Bible when this is going on, Ed. Yeah, I'm right. And I could quote you Bible scripture and verse of, but I, I needed something more. And I realized that Bible wasn't going to be enough to keep me sober. So I dropped what they call in Texas prison, an I-60, which is a request form. And then I got a lay-in to go to my first AA and NA meeting.

• 39:44Damon West?

  Now, and I want to give this disclaimer for all the people out there that I don't speak for AA. It's, it's just a program recovery that I'm in. It's a 12 step program I am in for the rest of my life. So I get my first lay-in to go to this meeting and it says, "Report to the chapel, 7:30 in the morning for AA and A." This is July of 2011 when I go to my first meeting. And Ed, I'm an addict. And one of the things about being an addict is we have crazy thinking, man. We have just, we just, so I'm looking at this lay-in and it says, "Be at the chapel at 7:30." And look, I know the numbers. I know that 80% of the people that are locked up have substance abuse issues. There's 3,000 men on my unit. It's a big unit. So I'm like, "Man, that's 2,400 people that are gonna be at this meeting. How are we gonna fit them all in the chapel? We're gonna have to go out to the rec yard. They're gonna bring guards from another unit." It's like a Rolling Stones concert, this AA meeting, right?

• 40:28Damon West?

  Wrong, man. I got to the chapel, hope. That Wednesday morning, there were 50 guys in there. 50 out of 2,400 that need to be at that meeting are in there. And that's when I knew I found my home. That's when I knew I found the right room.

• 40:41Ed Mylett?

  Do you still go to meetings now?

• 40:42Damon West?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I do. Man, I've got, I try to go to two or three meetings a week. I talk to my sponsor almost daily. I mean, we stay on the phone. I'm on the road a lot. I go to meetings the road. I mean, I find, you know, you get online, you Google your AA, whatever, wherever you are, and they'll tell you where the meetings are.

• 40:55Ed Mylett?

  Friends of Bill W. somewhere.

• 40:56Damon West?

  Friends of Bill W. And so I go to my, I go to my meetings. I have to. And I'm gonna do it for the rest of my life, Ed. But it's not just about going to meetings. It's getting involved, working the steps. It's living those tenants of recovery. I asked you a question. Now, can I ask you a question now?

• 41:09Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, sure.

• 41:10Damon West?

  So I asked you a question when I'm messaging with you about, "Does your dad ever go over the four spiritual principles?" And you're like, "Yeah, you know, unselfish, honest, pure, and loving." These are, that's the formula for recovery, man. Because if I plug-

• 41:24Ed Mylett?

  Say them again. Please say them again.

• 41:25Damon West?

  Unselfish, honest, pure, and loving. And I see this stuff in your messaging that you put out. It's all in there, man. That's why I had to ask. Like, "All right, dude, his dad told..." So you did, and you confirmed, your dad told you. But on the opposite side of unselfish, honest, pure, and loving are things like selfish, self-seeking, self-want, self-desire, self-delusion. You see, we have to die to self to become useful again instead of being useless. And that's what the power of recovery is. I get up to a decision like that, and I've gotta ask myself, "Damon, is what you're about to do, is it unselfish? Is it honest? Is it pure? Is it loving? And if it's not, Ed, I've gotta walk away."

• 42:02Ed Mylett?

  I love that.

• 42:03Damon West?

  I've got to walk away, Ed.

• 42:04Ed Mylett?

  I love that.

• 42:05Damon West?

  People have asked me, "What is the mindset of an addict?" And I tell them, "This isn't my answer for that, the mindset of an addict." An addict, when I was in my, I'll use an I statement, when I was in my addiction- I gave up my goals to meet my behaviors. You know, a person that's not an addict gives up behaviors to meet their goals. Addicts, we don't do that. We can't control it. We just, we'll give up all of our goals. We'll give up our families. We'll give up our freedoms just to get high, just to get drunk, just to get whatever. And it don't, you don't have to be an addict to alcohol or drugs. There's a lot of things to be addicted to that you're going to give up your goals to meet that behavior. And that's what a program recovery does.

• 42:43Ed Mylett?

  Brother, you just said something genius. I'm going to say something to you guys. You don't have to be addicted to drugs or alcohol to be an addict. You could be addicted to stuff you shouldn't be watching on the internet. You could be addicted to, you could even literally just be addicted to negative thoughts. You could be addicted to your smartphone. You could be addicted to Instagram. These addictions actually will cause you to give up your goals. They really will. And these addictive behaviors steal them from you. And this is like such a profound freaking thing you just said. Now you're understanding, by the way, why Damon is recognized as one. I'll just be, I'm just going to say this upfront. We're going to talk about when you get out in a minute. Okay. But, you know, people that I admire, I want, a lot of you know that my daughter's going to go to Clemson and Dabo Sweeney, I think is the greatest college football coach in the world.

• 43:23Ed Mylett?

  And, um, so I meet Dabo and, and, and we're talking for a few minutes and somehow your name came up. I might've brought it up or he did. Actually, he did. And here's how he brought it up. He said, Hey, I think I want you to maybe come talk to the football program. And I said, I would love to do that. And he goes, well, there's a high bar to set. And one of my good friends, John Gordon's been there to speak and John's one of his best friends. So he didn't mean this disrespectfully to John at all. Cause John's absolutely incredible and John's listening to this right now. So I want to say this the right way, but he said to me, he goes, let me just tell you something. The greatest speaker we've ever have come talk to this football team is Damon West.

• 43:53Damon West?

  Whoa.

• 43:54Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. So the greatest speaker we've ever had.

• 43:55Damon West?

  Dabo said that?

• 43:56Ed Mylett?

  He did. That's John Gordon aside, right? But, but he literally told me that. And I said, my gosh, I really need to get to know more about this dude. And now I'm experiencing exactly why he said that. So I want you all to think about something. One of the greatest coaches in the history of college football, college sports in general, by the way, let me amend that. One of the great leaders currently existing in America is, is Coach Sweeney, regardless of whatever the business is. And he tells me, you're the best guy to come in. And this is the same dude who 13 years ago gets sentenced to life in prison and is fighting every dude in the prison for the first six weeks he's in there, however long it was, is a remarkable turnaround story. So let's, because of the interest of time, because we could go three hours, but we can't. Let's fast forward to you getting out. So I assume you got out. How did, why did you get out when you got out?

• 44:40Ed Mylett?

  And then what's the first day? Cause a lot of people in a metaphorical sense have been living in some kind of mind prison or some sort of situation that they're in. And maybe you're releasing them right now, right? Maybe you're releasing their thinking. And now they're going to be out. Now they're like, all right, I'm open now to changing my life. I'm open, but man, I've been in this other way of thinking for a while, this other world. And now you want me to get into this success, happiness, bliss world? So how did, why did you get out when you got out? And then what is it like now that you're outside of that environment again? And in one you haven't been in in seven years, right? Cause it was a seven year window.

• 45:15Damon West?

  Right. So, so seven years into prison, so I'm working in the chapel one day as a chapel clerk. And the chaplain came in, he's real excited. He's like, hey, West. He said, security's looking for you. They're calling your name on the radio. He said, the parole board's here to see you. Now I had to look at him and I know I'm up for parole, but I don't think I'm gonna make parole. And I don't want to even get my hopes up, my family's hopes up. But I do want to make parole, but I just don't think there's a chance you're gonna, not in seven years, man. I know I'm up for parole, but I'll probably do a dime, maybe 15 on this life sentence, right? But I go down to parole office anyway. I got a smile on my face. That's what coffee beans do. We smile everywhere we go. We change the energy with our smiling. The lady for parole sees me, she says, have a seat, Mr. West. And she's flipping through my parole file. She, for about 20 seconds, and she closes the file up. She pushes it away. And she said, Mr. West, I came here today to ask you a question.

• 45:57Damon West?

  And she said, the answer to my question's not in that file of the guy I'm reading about. And she's telling me, you had, we don't see a lot of people like Damon West come through the state prison system. You had it all. You had everything going for your life, every advantage, every privilege, every opportunity. But she blew through that. You became a drug addict. You became a criminal. You became a thief. A jury in Dallas gives you life in prison. She said, but instead of letting the life sentence define you, she said, you changed yourself inside this prison. She said, you changed this prison actually around you.

• 46:24Ed Mylett?

  Coffee bean.

• 46:25Damon West?

  Yeah, the coffee bean. She said, so if you, she said, my question for you is this. She said, if you could be remembered for being anything in life, anything at all. She said, I want you to tell me what that would be in just one word. Go. Man, I breathe out and relax because that's an easy question for Coffee Bean. And Ed, I told her, I said, ma'am, I just want to be useful. And I can be useful in this prison, or I can be useful out in the free world. And on November 16th, 2015, I walked out of a Texas prison. Now, I'm not necessarily free, Ed, because I'm on-

• 46:53Ed Mylett?

  You still have to check in when you travel, don't you?

• 46:55Damon West?

  Man, I'm on parole till 2073.

• 46:57Ed Mylett?

  Right, you checked in to come here.

• 46:58Damon West?

  Yeah, I sent your, I sent David, and by the way, your people were great, man. Dave and all them were so good. But I sent them a copy of my parole travel permit. Because when you told me six days ago, this is your opening. First thing I did, I went and bought tickets and I made my hotel registry. Then I called my parole officer and said, hey, I got a travel permit. I gotta, I gotta jam through. Please help me with this. And so she's great. Ms. Braggs got the travel permit approved, but I've got to get permission to leave Texas. Anytime I leave Texas for the rest of my life. I've got to pee in a cup every month for the rest of my life. I'm not worried about parole, boy. The only way, the only way this Coffee Bean goes to prisons, when I go to prisons and walk in the front door and I share this story with the men and women in there to bring them hope on their journey, and I walk back out the front gate, you know? But I walk out, different world, Ed. And I hadn't seen the free world a long time.

• 47:41Damon West?

  Man, phones had buttons whenever I went in, you know? So, I mean, and so I walk, and I get in the car with my parents and I'm like, my dad, man, he's like, hey, you ready to go eat that Whataburger? You know, because I've been dreaming about Whataburger. You ever had a Whataburger?

• 47:52Ed Mylett?

  Yes, I know exactly why you're dreaming about it.

• 47:55Damon West?

  They're so good, man. So, I'm like, yeah, man, let's go, Dad. And my mom's like, hang on, Damon, wait. She said, I've got three tools that you're gonna need to get through this life.

• 48:02Ed Mylett?

  I love your mom.

• 48:03Damon West?

  Oh, she's great, man. She's great. So, the first tool she gives me is an iPhone. Now, look, Ed, I told you, phones had buttons when I went. I can't even get the thing light up, right? I don't even know how, I don't even know how, it's a screen. She sees me, she's like, I'm gonna teach you how to use the phone. She said, but the phones are amazing, they can do everything. She's telling me, FaceTime, you've got a video conference in your pocket. Man, when I went to prison, where all was a broker and all this stuff, a video conference happening in a big room like this, had a triangle speaker in the middle, there's a TV screen. Now, it's in your pocket, right? So, she's telling me about the phone. You can stay in touch with the world. Next thing she gives me is my driver's license. I found a way when I was in prison to renew my driver's license. I haven't even driven a golf cart, dude, but Texas is like, yeah, we'll give you a license. So, she hands me my driver's license. She said, Damon- You've got a phone, you can stay in touch with the world.

• 48:47Damon West?

  She said, "You've got a driver's license and you can use my truck until you can afford to buy your own car." She said, "What are you missing?" Now, my mom, Ed, when she says, "What are you missing?" My mom is a very spiritual person. She's a very devout Christian woman. And I know it's gonna be something spiritual because that's my mom. I said, "Mom, just relax." I said, "Look, this is great." I tell her about my program recovery. I said, "Man, I've got all the tools I need. I hold my Bible, my rosary." I said, "Mom, I'm great. I'm good to go. God's driving the car and I'm just a passenger now. I'm good, Mom." And she said, "Damon, you always did talk too much." And she says, "Stick out your wrist." So I stuck out my wrist, Ed, and she put this bracelet on my wrist. It was a bunch of fishing hooks on the bracelet, and it's called a Fisher of Men bracelet. These retreats that I went to in prison, they called them Acts, Adoration, Community, Theology, and Service.

• 49:30Damon West?

  A bunch of Catholic guys, a bunch of Christian guys would come in and they would spend four days with us. The cursed, the wicked, the sinners, the incarcerated, the dregs of society. These men would come in there and love on us. I mean, and love on... Ed, I saw a man that hadn't had a hug in 22 years break down into a heap of tears and start crying when these men just reached around him and started hugging on him because he hadn't had human affection 22 years, man. So I go to these retreats when I'm in prison and I get on the phone and I call my mom when I was in prison. And I told my mom, I said, "Mom, when I get out of prison, I gotta find these guys. These guys are amazing. I wanna be one of these guys' brothers. I wanna be the Acts brother." So she's putting this bracelet on my wrist and she said, "Damon, back in our community at home, every Acts brother and sister wears one of these bracelets on their wrist to identify themselves in public. When they see one, they can spot one, right?"

• 50:15Damon West?

  And she said, "You said you wanted to find these guys." She said, "So I'm helping you out." She said, "In two months, you're gonna go to your first Acts retreat on the, in the outside, in the free world." She said, "Go find your friends." And I mean, Ed, man, that was the greatest gift in the world. I went to this retreat. These men, it's a men's retreat. These men, I mean, they, they, they told me about their successes in life, but more importantly, they shared with me their failures, man. Failed marriages, lost jobs, families that had been torn apart by the decisions they made. They shared with me their failures so I didn't have to fail on my own. You know, it gets, it's like Nick Saban told me once. He said, "The, the best teams, good players learn from their, their own mistakes, but a great player learns from mistakes of other people."

• 50:55Damon West?

  They were setting me up to be a great human being by sharing with me their struggles and where they failed. They were being vulnerable. Vulnerability is the strength. I learned that from Dabo. And so I've got these guides in life, these men that'll help me through it. And so I get out, Ed, and it's hard, man. Prison was difficult, and I had all the advantages in life. But the very first day I get out, I go to my first AA meeting. I go to my first recovery meeting. And in there is the man that brought the meetings into the prison. I'm gonna use a different name to protect his anonymity. I call him Ray in my book. So Ray, whenever I was in prison, I used to tell Ray, "Hey Ray, you live in the same area that I'm gonna parole to one day. I'm gonna get out of here one day. And when I get out, I'm coming to find your home group, and you're gonna be my sponsor." And he would just, he would kinda laugh it

• 51:38Damon West?

  off. He's bringing an AA meeting to a maximum security prison. He gets lied to more than the police, man. So he's like, "Yeah, okay, whatever, man." But I walk into that meeting, and there he is, man. His jaw drops to the floor. He said, "You made it." I said, "Yeah, Ray, I made it. And I need a sponsor. I don't wanna go back." And he said, "Damon, I'll do it. I'll be your sponsor." He said, "If you'll promise me you'll go to any lengths to stay sober, and if you ever have a thought of drinking again or doing drugs, you'll call me first." And he said, "You've gotta work this program to the fullest if I'm gonna be your sponsor." And I'm in. You know, Ed, whenever I first got out, this stuff that's happening in my life wasn't happening back then. I couldn't even go into a school without a judge or a cop with me. I mean, that's how I had to go. I had to be escorted in

• 52:18Damon West?

  'cause I just got out of prison. I'm an unknown quantity. But, you know, the first couple of months I was out, I couldn't go into school, and I was down. And Ray comes up to me, we're meeting, having a sponsor meeting, and he said, "You're about to go back to prison, Damon." It got my attention. And I'm like, "Man, what do you mean?" He said, "Because you're living in self." He said, "You're not living outside yourself. You can't work this. You're not working your program recovery." And I said, "What?" I would go to my meetings, I'm answering, I'm working the steps, I'm on the fourth step, you know, where we're trying to put down with our fears and our resentments, things that hold us back. He said, "No one can work a program recovery if they're living in their self. You have to be outside of it." I said, "I know your dad told you this stuff, too." And I said, he said, you need to find volunteer work to do. And I'm like, Ray, no one will let me come in and volunteer.

• 53:03Damon West?

  I'm like, ex-con, no one wants me. He said, that's not true. That's that fear and self pity talking. He said, you want to go somewhere? He said, go to a senior citizens home, any one of them around the area. Go to the front desk, ask them for a list of people that don't ever get visits. They're going to give you this big, long list of people that have been forgotten. He said, spend your weekends visiting with them and come back and tell me. This is like what your dad did with you. This is I connected. The first thing I heard from you that connected was your dad telling you to go work with those, those boys, those orphans, right?

• 53:31Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 53:32Damon West?

  Ray's telling me, go spend your time with people that have been forgotten. It'll change your worldview. And it did it. I spent.

• 53:38Ed Mylett?

  You did that.

• 53:38Damon West?

  Yeah, I went into the senior citizen home and down in Southeast Texas. And I, I went in there. I spent time with people that hadn't had a visitor in 10 years. No one to sit there and listen to them. Man, everybody wants to feel like they've been hurt. Everybody wants a visitor. And I know, and that's what he said. He said, you know what it's like to be in a prison. And you hit on a while ago, there's a lot of different ways to be in prison. You don't have to be in a physical prison to be in prison. But these people have been forgotten about with their families. And that's how I got where I was.

• 54:04Ed Mylett?

  You're making me emotional just because I see so much of my dad in you, even though your personalities are very different. Man, the fact that you did that's unbelievable. The fact that you went and actually did that is incredible.

• 54:18Damon West?

  I promised I would go to any lengths to stay sober, Ed. I had to do it.

• 54:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, brother, but like, that's special. And, and I must say to you, people ask me all the time, why do you believe so much in mentors? I've had a bunch of sponsors, even though I'm not an alcoholic. So like, what I mean by that is like, in the program, you have a sponsor that you can be accountable to, that's kind of like a mentor, you know, but someone that you can, you know, share your deepest things with. And I learned that from watching my dad and my dad sponsored so many different people.

• 54:47Damon West?

  Did he really? So that's what I wanted to ask you. Did he, was he, was he, will he sponsor a lot of people?

• 54:51Ed Mylett?

  Bro, when my dad passed away, I'll share this with you. And I want to make sure.

• 54:54Damon West?

  Get back to your thought, but I don't.

• 54:55Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, no, my dad, when my dad passed away, I didn't know how many he sponsored. I knew that he had sponsored several. But when my dad passed away, the day that he passed away, my mother asked me to go upstairs and just get this stuff together. She's just too emotional to go do it. And all over my dad's kitchen sink, all over were these index cards, like tons of them, bro, like a hundred. And on these index cards were initials with dates. And what they were, were the sobriety birthdays of the people that my dad helped sponsor and get sober. And so he would call all of them on, you know, obviously regularly, but on those dates, friends of mine in town would say,

• 55:26Damon West?

  On their birthday?

• 55:28Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, people around town where I lived, and I didn't know what they were meaning at the time, would say to me, "Hey dude, I heard from your dad on my birthday." I'm like, "You know my dad?" They're like, "Oh yeah, I know your dad." And I had no idea what they meant. So there's hundreds of these names on there that my dad would call and say, "Hey man, one more day, one more day at a time, congratulations." And so there were all these people that my dad had helped. But when I would watch him, and sometimes when I was young and just knew that he was helping somebody, I'd hear him on the phone, you know. I remember thinking, "That's what I need in my life. I need kind of a, like in the business world, I need a mentor." I need a, and that mentor's like a sponsor. A mentor is that, like, "Hey man, stay on the process. Here's the program. This is what we're doing. I'm further down the road than you. Here's how it works." And so, in our lives, you know, when you hear these things about recovery, there's so many lessons in it about having a strategy, having a program.

• 56:13Ed Mylett?

  I know people who are sober that aren't in AA, they have a different program and a different strategy. But that program with the sponsors and the program and the steps are things that I've used in my own life. And the more that you really understand the work that I teach, the kind of, a lot of people don't know where this stuff comes from. So, I just want to acknowledge the fact that you did that. I was just, it's the first time I've ever done an interview where I was kind of like, "My dad's in here really shining right now. Like, he's just proud of you."

• 56:37Damon West?

  No bigger compliment, brother.

• 56:38Ed Mylett?

  Brother, isn't any bigger compliment. Now, let's go-

• 56:40Damon West?

  Your dad is, dude, just hearing this-

• 56:41Ed Mylett?

  The most important person-

• 56:43Damon West?

  You're dropping nuggets about your dad throughout the past year and a half that I've followed you, man.

• 56:46Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the big one, by the way, is that you are taking those steps. And I want to just, I want to, I want to make sure we have time to get this in because, so you start out, you get out, and you're going to see these precious older folks who no one's gone to see. It's just a beautiful moment of service. Who'd have thought those times where you were running around robbing people's houses, that within a decade or less, you're now doing that. What an amazing turn. My belief that human beings can change because I watched my father change, right? I watched him live one way my first 15 years, and then magnificently the next 35. You're doing the same thing. You lived one way those years, college, post, and then you get out, man, and you find yourself with this precious older man somewhere that hadn't seen anybody in eight years.

• 57:29Ed Mylett?

  But that then leads to some of the most influential people in the world, people that I admire the most, trusting you- With the precious resources, which are these young people to which they lead. How in the world did that actually first happen? Like, how do you go from you're out, you're now in recovery, you're at the old folks home, seeing people at the nursing home to, okay, Nick Saban's asked me to come in here and speak. Dabo Sweeney wants me to come here. This big arena wants me to come here and speak. I'm on my let's show. Like, how the, what happened?

• 58:01Damon West?

  Dude, I can break it down to one day. We all, yeah, this is a one more story for you, Ed. This is like, your book, which by the way, is about to come out and I cannot wait. And that event that you're about to have is, I mean, I've never seen anybody do something like they do, Bravo.

• 58:14Ed Mylett?

  Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

• 58:19Damon West?

  So I can break this down to one day, the one more day. January 12th, 2017, I'm out of prison for 14 months. I walked out of prison and I had a job waiting for me at a law firm because I did some legal work of my own in prison. The lawyers took notice of it. If you ever get out, come see us, we got a job for you. They honored that, they gave me a job. I'm working at the most prestigious law firm in Southeast Texas. But I've got this dream of sharing this story. And first I thought my story needed to be in the world of college football. This is way before it becomes in corporate America and Fortune 100s and stuff. But I don't have any access to college football coaches, Ed. I don't know any, it's 20 years since I took a snap in college, right? They don't know me, I don't know them. A buddy of mine calls me up, his name was Mike Orde, and he worked for KHOU, the big media station in Houston. He said, hey, look, tonight in Houston is the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Award.

• 59:03Damon West?

  They're gonna name the best college football coach in America. He said, the best coaches in America, eight best coaches in America are gonna be in this room. I've got an extra press pass, do you wanna go? And I'm like, man, you better wanna go. I told my, I told my boss, Chris Kirchner, the lawyer I work for, Chris has made me my shot, he said, get going. So Beaumont, where I live, is 90 miles from Houston. It's all I-10. I burn up the road between I-10, between Beaumont and Houston. I get to the Toyota Center in Houston that night. He hands me a press pass and I hit the ground running. And all the best coaches are there, Ed. I mean, USC, Wisconsin, Penn State, PJ Fleck, they're all in the room. And I'm get to meet all these guys and shake their hand and give them my elevator pitch. I've been practicing for an hour and a half, like if this day came, kinda like, hey, be here at this time, go.

• 59:41Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 59:42Damon West?

  And my pitch is terrible and I'm there and I feel like I've got sweaty hands, everything else. Every coach I meet that night basically tells me no. And they're not rude about it, but it's just like, nah, don't call us, we'll call you. In one hour, I'm done with seven coaches, they're done with me more like.

• 59:57Ed Mylett?

  You pissed through the room.

• 59:58Damon West?

  Pissed through the room in one hour, man. I came in there on fire, my personality, man. I'm like, in one hour, I've been told no seven times, man. Seven of the eight coaches have told me no, and I'm in the corner of Toyota Center and I'm licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself, and the voice in my head says, go home. Go home, man, you failed. That last coach is gonna tell you no. The last coach is the hardest guy to get to in the room, man. His team just beat Alabama two nights before for the national championship. Everybody wants this guy's time. But Ed, a long time ago, I quit listening to myself. And I started talking to myself a long time ago. That voice in your head will tell you some crazy stuff.

• 1:00:34Ed Mylett?

  You don't have to believe everything you think.

• 1:00:35Damon West?

  No, man. So I'm like, no, and I'm in the corner, I'm like, no, man, you survived prison, you survived way worse than this, he's gonna tell you no, and that's it, that's good, but you're gonna go home and you're gonna get told no eight times before you walk out that door. One more, I got one more coach. So I stalk Dabo Swinney around that room, and I look like a crazy person, Ed. I'm hiding behind fake plants, I'm hiding behind people. Every conversation Dabo has, I'm there somewhere, I know he sees me. And I finally get Dabo on, and I give him my best stuff for about a minute, and then Dabo really tells a story, and he'll tell you, I was speaking 90 miles an hour, man, I'm in his face, and man, at the end of this one minute pitch, he's like, you got a card on you or something, dude? So I give him my card, he says, he takes it, he says, I'll check you out, and he takes off. He can't get away from me fast enough. I mean, I've occupied this guy for longer than anybody in the room. And I'm like, ah, man, I breathe out, and I'm like, okay.

• 1:01:19Damon West?

  I went 0 for 8. But Ed, I felt okay by that last no because I left it all on the field. And that's what we tell people when they're younger, when they're playing sports, when the stuff we forget when we're children, that we leave it all on the field, we give it our best effort, and sometimes, we're gonna come up short, but it's okay if you tried your hardest. You don't have to win all your fights, but you gotta fight all your fights. Fought all my fights, went home, slept like a baby. Forgot about that night. Forgot about it entirely. Four months later, I got an email from the Director of Football Operations at Clemson, and this is a guy named Mike Dooley. And this is a story I share with sales organizations all over the place, man, because sales is so much about that one more, you know?

• 1:01:54Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Damon West?

  Mike Dooley's email says, "Hey, Damon, Coach Sweeney met you at awards show in Houston. He would love to have you come talk to the team. Do you have August 1st open?" Dude, Ed.

• 1:02:02Ed Mylett?

  Do I have August 1st open?

• 1:02:04Damon West?

  I've got every 1st open, man. I've got nothing going on in my life, dude. So, August 1st, 2017, I go speak to the Clemson Tigers, the defending national champions of college football. And when I got done with my presentation that night, Dabo was up in my face. You know, you've been around Dabo. He's a high-energy guy, too. He's like, "Damon, I've never seen my players respond like that to us. I've never heard a story like that before." He said, "Have you been to Alabama yet?" And I'm like, "No, Dabo, I've been to Clemson, dude. I haven't been anywhere, man." So, he said, "Well..." He said, "I just text Nick Saban from the back of the room. We'll see what happens." And Dabo shot a little video for me, a little 46-second video that changed my life. Because when I landed in Houston the next morning, I had a voicemail or text message from the Director of Football Operations at Alabama, University of Alabama.

• 1:02:48Ed Mylett?

  Come on, man.

• 1:02:49Damon West?

  Says, "August 21st, 7:30 PM, you're on."

• 1:02:51Ed Mylett?

  And now we're going.

• 1:02:53Damon West?

  Just like that. Now, all these coaches in America are calling my phone because Dabo's giving myself one number out, saying, "You gotta bring this guy in."

• 1:02:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay, I gotta tell you, dude, I met Dabo Sweeney. I've known this man like six minutes. And he tells me the exact story you just told me. I just want you all to know. I mean, exactly. He's like, "This dude wouldn't leave me alone. He was relentless. He's following me around the room. He's hiding behind fake plants."

• 1:03:12Damon West?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:03:13Ed Mylett?

  He's just standing and staring at me.

• 1:03:14Damon West?

  Kind of like I did you, man. I'm like, "Ed."

• 1:03:16Ed Mylett?

  He did. He told me. And he said, then he comes in, and he said, "It's the greatest talk that's ever been given to our team." Bam. 20 days later, you're with now Nick Saban.

• 1:03:23Damon West?

  Nick Saban. And then I'm with Kirby Smart, and then it's Lincoln Riley, and then it's all these, Chip Kelly and Lane Kiffin, all these guys.

• 1:03:30Ed Mylett?

  Which has led to this prolific career.

• 1:03:31Damon West?

  But the real magic, Ed, happened. It was one year after my presentation to Clemson. I'm at my desk at work at that law firm again, which I don't work for the law firm. I'm an entrepreneur now. I've got several companies now, you know? So, I worked for myself, but back then, I was still working the law firm. And it's August 2018. I'll never forget, man. I get this phone call, and on the other end of the phone is a guy named John Gordon. Now, look, man, I follow John Gordon, man. I know, John Gordon's the energy bust guy. He's sold 5 million books. He's a huge motivator. I follow John. I actually follow John on Twitter. Every morning, I get my inspiration from this guy's tweets.

• 1:04:02Ed Mylett?

  Amazing, man.

• 1:04:03Damon West?

  And he's on my phone, and I'm like, "John, man..." Well, how do you know who I am? And he said, Dabo Swinney. He said, Damon, I just got done talking to the Clemson football team. Dabo brought up in the office and he was telling me your story. And he said, Damon, you know, he was telling me that the motto at Clemson is be a coffee bean. They got these little shirts that say be a coffee with a paw print on it, Ed. I mean, they're really, I mean, it just like, and this is what you're talking about. The best culture that you could find in corporate America or sports or anywhere. They've got shirts that say be a coffee bean with a little paw print on it, man. I mean, so John tells me, and John tells me, this is before the pandemic. This is 2018. John said, Damon, the world needs the coffee bean message, Damon. Let's deliver this message to the world where you write a book with me. You know what I told John? You're John Gordon, man. You go write the book yourself. You don't need me. But John is such an amazing man, John, and I love John Gordon.

• 1:04:48Damon West?

  John Gordon is, he is my biggest champion and mentor and friend in the world, man. John, John told me, no, Damon. He said, God gave me this vision that we're going to write this book together. So let's write this, let's just go ahead and do what God wants us to do. So we write the book, becomes a bestseller overnight, Ed. July of 2019, it comes out. It hits the world on fire. It's in every language in the world. It's got a global publishing deal and we've got the same publisher, Wiley.

• 1:05:08Ed Mylett?

  I know.

• 1:05:08Damon West?

  And so, I mean, it's in Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, French, Italian. All of these different countries in the world have a copy of the coffee bean, but it all goes back to January 12th, 2017. One more. I've got to get one more guy, I've got to get one more no before I can go home. Ends up being the biggest yes in the world.

• 1:05:25Ed Mylett?

  And by the way, and it goes all the way back to Jackson, which goes all the way back to, I mean, it's unreal. And I got to say this to everybody. I want you to just to get the whole thing because this has led to this incredible speaking career. It's led to what I know about is probably a movie. It's led to stuff with professional teams and all kinds of, you guys, the life that you can have changed is just unbelievable. If you do that one more, and just to think, man, like, and by the way, that book sold like just bazillions of copies, by the way.

• 1:05:50Damon West?

  The coffee bean.

• 1:05:51Ed Mylett?

  The coffee bean. And it's how I actually know John Gordon because I wanted him to come on the show because I heard about the book. And then bam, you and I are connected. So then that led to this, which led to the movie. It's like, it's unbelievable, the ripple effects of life when you make one decision, one change, one anything. And Damon West, you guys is, I told you today would be like something you've never heard before from someone who can deliver it like no one you've heard of before. So I want to say a couple of things and I'm going to ask you one last question. Number one, if you ever need a guy to come in and speak and move your team or your organization, this is your guy, okay? If you ever want to have, need inspiration again in your life, you need to replay this episode. If you love somebody or care about somebody in any way, shape or form, share this episode with them. It will change their flipping life.

• 1:06:36Ed Mylett?

  Cause I knew the story and now we've met and I'm ready to run through the frickin' wall. Plus, I'm just seeing my dad in the room and I'm seeing you and I've always known about your intensity and your persistence because you've done it with me, but now I love you, brother. I'm like, I love this man. I really love this man. I'm so inspired by him. You're such a good man. You're, everything you were billed up to me by these other people I respect and a lot more than that, bro. There's something extremely powerful and special about you. So I want to leave them with one more, if you just serve help, one more person here.

• 1:07:06Damon West?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:07Ed Mylett?

  And I just, a basic question, it's not an easy one, but I wanted to end with the hardest one. Someone's listening to this, they're like, hey man, I've been living in my own little prison. Maybe I'm carrying some stuff I'm ashamed of, or I'm embarrassed by, or I've just ever, always been invisible, you know? You got me inspired right now, Damon West, Ned Mylett. I want to do something. I want to leave this prison of my mind and I want to do something great with my life. And this may be a very basic question, but I think it's an important one. Where do I begin? What would your advice be if I met you at a Starbucks right now and I said, hey, I heard you on my let's show, oh my gosh, I wish you would have asked you at the end though. What do I do next? What would your answer be to that?

• 1:07:44Damon West?

  I'm gonna give you a story with this answer.

• 1:07:46Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:07:47Damon West?

  And the answer is you have to surrender this idea of control in your life. You don't control the things you think you control. To illustrate this, I'm gonna tell you one last prison story. People love prison stories.

• 1:07:59Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:00Damon West?

  So when I first got into my program recovery, I go to a meeting, Ray is in there and we start these meetings off with this beautiful prayer called the Serenity Prayer. You've talked about it many times, Ed. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And so Ray says to me, he says to the group, we're gonna diagram the Serenity Prayer today. Alright, alright, so he's got a chalkboard behind him. He draws a line from one side of the chalkboard to the other. And he says the first part of the prayer. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change." He said, "Damon, the things you cannot change are on God's line." He said, "And God's line is represented on that chalkboard, but it's bigger than the chalkboard. It goes from one horizon, universe to next. That's how big God's line is." And he said, "Every time you try to touch something on God's line,

• 1:08:44Damon West?

  you've hurt yourself and you've hurt other people because you are not God and God doesn't need your help to do His job." He said, "Stay off of God's line." Then he goes up to the board. He erases an inch off the big line on the board. And he holds his fingers up to the room about an inch apart for everybody to see. He says the second part of the prayer. "The courage to change the things I can." He said, "The things you can change, Damon, are on your line. You get one inch of that big line. That's it. That's the scale, too." He said, "That one inch line is called humility." Because he said humility is being right-sized. And then when we're right-sized, then we can be useful to other people, which is the secret to life, to serve other people. He said, "And on your little one-inch humble line that God gives you are the four things you control in life."

• 1:09:28Damon West?

  He said, "God gives you four things on your little line. These are the four things you have control over." He said, "They are exactly what you think, what you say, what you feel, and most importantly, everybody's gonna see what you do, your actions, what you think, what you say, what you feel, and what you do." He said, "And what I'm telling you is the world around you, you have no control over the world around you. You control the world within you, between your ears." And he said, "The last part of the line was the most, the last part of the prayer was the most important for us addicts and everybody else." Now, you don't have to be an addict for this to be important to you, is the wisdom to know the difference between the big line and the little line. Ed, there's a chapter in my book called "Not on My Line." Do you know how many times a day I tell myself, "That's not on my line"?

• 1:10:11Damon West?

  And I've been sober and I've been out of prison for years, but I remind myself every day, "That's not on my line." Now, that's what I would tell people. When you want, you want to have the serenity, you've gotta give up this thing, you think, this control of these things you don't have control over, and then turn your life over to service. And Ed, every single morning I wake up and I say the same prayer. Whatever religion you are, you can apply this to your faith. I get in the morning and I say, "Hey God," I ask God for two things. I say, "Hey God, put in front of me what you need me to do today for you, and let me recognize that when I see it, because I don't wanna miss that." Amen, bro. That's it.

• 1:10:45Ed Mylett?

  I just want you to know that you met the moment today, brother. In a way that I'm so happy for you. Dude, give me some, man. I'm so happy for you. Like, I'm just sitting here going, God is so good. Like, how he's using you. Guys, like, this is exactly why I started this show, is what we just did right now. Actually, what you just did right now, and what God just did through you.

• 1:11:10Damon West?

  I've got a question for you. Before you finish, I've got a question for you. I've been dying to ask you, man, about your dad. All right, because you promised me I could ask some questions about your dad. All right. When he passed away, did you find his big book?

• 1:11:21Ed Mylett?

  I did.

• 1:11:22Damon West?

  You did?

• 1:11:22Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Damon West?

  Oh, that's awesome. I bet there's so much good stuff inside that big book, Ed.

• 1:11:26Ed Mylett?

  There's a lot in that book, bro. Oh, my gosh! There's a lot in that book. Off-camera, I'll tell you about that. But, yeah, I did.

• 1:11:32Damon West?

  Please do, man.

• 1:11:32Ed Mylett?

  I did, man. And I'm being honest with you, brother. I'm incredibly inspired by you. And I learned a lot today. I learned a little bit more about my dad today, too, so I'm really, really grateful. I just see some things in you that I saw in my dad that you explained. And you changed millions of people's lives today. And I think it's maybe multiple millions, because I think everyone's hitting the share button right now. And so, everyone, I just want to tell you that I love you. And this is why I bring people like Damon on the show, because I know your life's different than when this hour began. And that's because of the great work you've done in your story. And by the way, ironically, the things you could have been the most ashamed of, most embarrassed by, the biggest mistakes of your life, is what qualified you to change everybody's life today. And it's what qualifies each of you to change other people's lives. Where do they find you? How do they go get you? Where do they get all your stuff?

• 1:12:16Damon West?

  www.damonwest.org. That's where people find me for speaking. I don't have an agent. You just come straight to me. Instagram and Twitter is @damonwest7. And Ed, I think there's one more thing we've got to talk about, what's about to happen out there that has been saved for this episode, specifically because I was coming on here, and the people I'm working with on this project wanted me to talk about something here today.

• 1:12:39Ed Mylett?

  Okay, give it to us.

• 1:12:40Damon West?

  Are you cool with that?

• 1:12:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, do it. Let's do it. We're limited, so do it.

• 1:12:43Damon West?

  So...

• 1:12:43Ed Mylett?

  I want to hear it.

• 1:12:44Damon West?

  There's gonna be a limited series made about my life, about from my book, The Change Agent. And it took getting the right partners in place, but right now we've got Dak Prescott is my partner in this thing. Man, Dak, the quarterback from Dallas Cowboys, he's been an amazing partner. This is such a good servant, man.

• 1:13:01Damon West?

  Dak Prescott, Lionsgate, Eric Tannenbaum is the producer on it. And next month, we start taking this thing out to all the, all the, the, all the streaming services, Netflix, Hulu, HBO. We're gonna take it out and try to sell to them. It's gonna have two main characters. They have Damon West and Mr. Jackson. The guy you were talking, and I mean, I would like for like Jamie Foxx to play Mr. Jackson. And he's a main character. Whoever plays Mr. Jackson is a main character next to Damon West. We don't know who that's gonna be yet, but we start taking this thing out, but the world now knows about it on your show.

• 1:13:30Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome, man.

• 1:13:30Damon West?

  Yeah, that's it, man.

• 1:13:31Ed Mylett?

  I knew, but I'm glad you were willing to say it.

• 1:13:32Damon West?

  Lionsgate said, hey, you're going on Ed Mylett. Tell the world about it on his show. They watch your show.

• 1:13:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, they do. And by the way, and everybody who knows Jamie, let's get this in front of him. Right? Cause we need, we need him to play Mr. Jackson in this movie. I'm really glad you said that. I was, it's in, you know, I knew, but I didn't know everybody was allowed to know. So thank you for breaking the news.

• 1:13:50Damon West?

  Yeah, man. That's, I, thanks for letting me do it on your show. Lionsgate was happy.

• 1:13:54Ed Mylett?

  And when you read your website, you have to say WWW. Everybody knows about that. You can just say the name of the website.

• 1:13:58Damon West?

  Damon West.

• 1:14:00Ed Mylett?

  How you showing your age?

• 1:14:02Damon West?

  Damon West dot O R G. There you go.

• 1:14:04Ed Mylett?

  WWW. I love you, brother. All right. Hey, man. I, I had a great time today. I just want to tell you all that I love you. Continue to max out your lives and please share today's show. God bless you. This is the Ed Mylett Show.