101. Discover Insights From Federal Prison Camp: Memorializing a Journey to Prison Camp with James Catlidge #2 Innocent from the Inside

 

In Victor Frankls book "Man's Search for Meaning" (written while in a German concentration camp) he contends.... "EVERYTHING can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms- to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."......lots of meetings with new friends have yielded so much knowledge about my upcoming vacation, I was referred to a new friend Michael Santos (amazing story) who spent 23 years in Federal Prison for a crime he did commit and decided early on that he would emerge a new man. I can tell you having spent 4 electric hours with him that he is unlike any man I have EVER met with. I realized during our visit That I have spent 30 years working on me, reading every book on self-improvement I could get my hands on and ultimately making my career a 30 year focus on team building, lifting, encouraging, mentoring.....Michael Santos was doing the exact same thing behind bars! He studied read and mastered the content from the exact same books I had read and mentored fellow inmates and received his Doctorate, Masters and undergraduate degrees all from behind bars! He published 20 books several best sellers and from behind bars made millions in book sales and trading stocks through his sisters brokerage account. He today, 5 years on the outside has thrived, Married to a great woman who followed him to every prison he was serving at, Michael is networked across the USA with great people from all walks of life  because he DECIDED, his time away would be dedicated to building a great life. I will share more as it develops but let this post give fair warning, many among us are living lives in a prison they built called their life and will never serve time behind any physical bars and there a few are in actual prison who are free in almost every sense of the word. Freedom is a state of mind, The day Michael Santos was released from Taft camp (his final stop) he was invited to be a Professor at San Francisco state university in the criminal justice department. Michael had NEVER been on any college campus, EVER until that invitation came. He had the most attended class on campus, kids sitting on the floor to hear him teach lessons on life and liberty. Liberty, as I'm sure you've considered is not a physical thing but a mental state. I am most grateful for the new friend I have met on this most circuitous journey toward my destiny!

 

The link for more on Michael Santos can be clicked here: michaelsantos.com

 

 

It was early on in the legal battle, My lawsuit against the Developer had been dismissed by the Judge, all my company's clients were now at risk of losing the condos they bought. New lawyers were swirling, at least 10 new lawsuits had been filed naming me as a defendant. The Government was now finally interested in investigating the case I had reported 4 years previously. I was getting calls from friends letting me know the FBI had just been to their home, I also learned I needed to hire a NEW, additional legal team that specialized in "criminal defense" just in case I was a "Target" of the FBI investigation. I am not a fearful person, nor do I spend much energy playing the "what if"  game but the heaviness was palpable. All of these circumstances combined seemed to be eroding my power to cope. I had begun playing racquetball with a dear friend Leon just months before, we would meet at 9pm and play til they threw us out at 11pm. We talked and beat each others brains out several times a week and on this particular night around 11:20pm I arrived at my driveway and as I made the 100 yard push up the hill I took note all the lights were off and all 6 babies and Momma were sound asleep. I pulled into my stall nearest the outer edge of the house and I did not want to get out of the car, I thought about each of my kids, I went room to room in my head thinking about their lives, their total lack of awareness that ANYTHING was wrong, at least that's what I had hoped. I clicked the overhead garage door button and just sat there as it came down, eventually the overhead light in the garage went off, a few minutes passed and I thought to myself .....One day I will pull into this garage and it will all be over, what will that feel like? my mind went further down this trail, no more news articles misrepresenting the truth, no more parents approaching me or my wife with that suspicious look, no more rumors at church that weaken the strongest of us.....one day, one day this will all be over! So i decided to stay into this exploratory thought stream and in total darkness I said to myself  what will be different if it all ended tomorrow? I began answering my own questions 1. Friends will say I'm glad its over for your sake  2.strangers will say nothing 3. bad friends will already have faded away, cause they did. It was so clear as though Heaven was literally directing my thoughts, the only thing that matters is my mindset, my internal confident spirit, I decided in that garage on that night in 2010 that I would face this cascading legal tidal wave as an event in my calendar ONLY and I would face life with my head high and my shoulders back and talk with anyone and everyone who needed questions answered. I would face this dragon head on and not be twisted or eroded by the nastiness of litigation. I exited my car, I went room to room looking in on each child as they slept and assured them in my mind they were going to be OK because dad decided tonight that this is OVER! I sat with the older kids that next day with Tiffany in tears as I explained at a high level that dad had been accused of something he did not do and that it was probably going to be in the newspaper and We would be fighting the false charges. Later that week we met with the kids elementary school principal in our home and gave her clarity about the accusations and how we were handling it.I can honestly say, since that day in 2010 in my garage in total darkness I won the battle, the weight was lifted, the energy returned and my optimism has never left. There was obviously a foggy long road still ahead but my mind would be my asset through every twist and turn. The lesson for me was, friends are friends forever and great friends pull in closer, nurturing in tough times. The waiting for the drama to end in order to feel good again was a myth created by my mind. If I created the myth, I could destroy it. That night, I learned a life lesson, deal with every challenge head on but don't imagine challenges that are not real, don't add to the drama. Life is tough enough, why allow my attitude, my imagination to work against me. I decided to handle every lawyer call, lawyer meeting, every court appearance as an other item in my calendar. I would live my life and enjoy every moment in between, no more fretting, fearing, imagining the worst. I now only deal with real issues, that life presents in real-time. You can learn a lot in the darkness of your garage.