I have a lot of wonderful childhood memories of my dad. When we lived in Santa Rosa, California, he’d drive us to a small country store several times a week. I’d play outside the store, under the shade of a big oak tree, while my dad sat in his van. He slowly drank his beer Read More
Photo by Alex Green on Pexels How many times have you said you weren’t going to settle — and then you settled? If I had $10 for every time I said I wouldn’t settle and then settled, I’d have enough money for a car. A nice car. Not an “ok” car I’m just settling for. I’ve settled Read More
“In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom.” — Buddha On a scorching hot day in Folsom state prison, a guard passed me a note thru the bars of my cell. It said “Your mom is in the hospital.” Read More
Cheryl was a beautiful and friendly prostitute who regularly stayed at The Crest Motel, a seedy, oftentimes violent establishment that my mom managed for seven long years in Vallejo, California. Cheryl liked me because I was a harmless 11-year-old boy who would never hurt her, unlike other males in her life. I sometimes saw her Read More
In 1997, I found myself in “Old Folsom,” a violent maximum-security prison in northern California. Even though I’d been a drug dealer and grew up in violent environments, I still had to endure the learning curve of prison. Being in prison for the first time is like being thrown into a swimming pool that has Read More
You can learn a lot from past relationships if you’re willing to look beyond the pain. 1996 was one of the craziest, most turbulent years of my life. I’d recently learned I was adopted. I was facing a prison sentence for my illegal drug manufacturing-related crimes. And for the first time in my life, I Read More
Care about peoples’ approval, and you will always be their prisoner. – Lao Tzu There’s a lot of valuable advice that we should listen to. There are also a lot of comments that we should ignore because they senselessly bring us down instead of lift us up. That social media post got 185 positive reactions, Read More
When I was 11-years-old, Carlos was my best friend. We were inseparable. We rode bikes, played video games, watched movies and listened to music. Our favorite activity was shooting BB guns, which led to some occasional broken windows and disciplinary challenges, at least on my end. We never even thought about the fact that I Read More
Our brains are powerful human hardware devices that have enabled us to learn, love, grow, create and make the world a better place for ourselves and other people. But they can also cause a lot of problems if we aren’t able to understand how they work and how to control them. One of the biggest Read More
Our values are among the most valuable things we have. Our core values represent our most deeply-held beliefs and what’s most important to us. Think of them as compass points that point us in the direction we need to travel to be our true, authentic selves—not who other people want us to be or who Read More
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