Tell us a little bit about this story and even the profound lesson that you had to learn about other people in this institution.

This was at my first major prison.

I managed to get a job in the woodshop, which was a sought after job because you get paid better than anybody else.

You got moved to a woodshop pod.

And I remember moving in the cell with this little old man.

And I was thinking, thank God it's not some young man who's going to be loud and crazy all the time.

This is good.

How... difficult is it to see like the things working for you is it easy to to get those to others to buy in how much of this is because they don't have that hope that you had what are the things that are that were that you saw that were hindering people from taking the same kind of journey that you took

Mm-hmm

... which was weird.

Um, and we got along, and we ended up being on different shifts, and it worked great.

He ran the, the quality control department.

Um, and then at one point, you know, he never got letters, he never got phone call, or he never made phone calls.

He never got visits, and felt bad.

He had-- He was a highly, highly decorated veteran, like multiple tours in Vietnam, like more medals than anybody I've ever seen.

Yeah.

Jesse, can you give the audience a little bit of backstory about yourself?

Sure.

So basically, I committed crimes just after my 18th birthday.

I went from what I thought was a college track.

I was in high school, I was getting good grades.

I found cocaine, and what was some minor misbehavior just was like falling off a cliff.

And in three months I went from, you know, all the, the positive things ahead of me to committing a robbery, committing an unrelated non-fatal shooting, and going away and being sentenced to twice the high point of the guidelines, just sentenced to 32 years at 18 years old, thinking that, uh, my life was over.

How did that happen?

Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and where you grew up?

Sure.

And the answer about my childhood has changed over the years, and it's not that the experience itself changed, it's just the perspective I have on it changed.

Growing up, I had parents who were both dealing with addiction, you know, both met for a love of kind of drugs and alcohol.

Got clean when I was young, but didn't necessarily address the underlying issues or the patterns that led to that drug use or that drinking in the first place.

So there was some unhealthy behavior, and they both loved me and they both showed up and did the best they could.

Also, they had not necessarily gotten the kind of love or support or guidance they needed growing up, so they didn't necessarily have the tools they needed to show up for me.

Wow.

Set the scene of the stick up, the hold up, the shooting, everything.

Sure.

So one of the guys that I was running with grabbed us all a beer and sat us all down in Daniel's house and said, hey, you know, I know this family and I used to work for them and they're just terrible people.

Like imagine Cinderella's family.

They just they abuse all their immigrant workers.

They don't give them their tip money.

They don't give them cash like they just keep it all.

Fill those blanks in for me.