Success After Prison with Michael Santos

I’m Michael Santos and I’m typing this manuscript on an awesome Mac Pro computer. When I served my sentence, I had to write all of my manuscripts by hand. Now I’m addicted to Apple products and word processors. These tools allow me to write much more efficiently, but I no longer have the time that was available to me while I was in prison. Again, that’s why I won’t devote hundreds of hours to editing this manuscript. At least for this draft, what you see is what you get.

I started typing this manuscript on Saturday morning, December 4, 2015. I don’t know how long it will take for me to finish, but I’m going to do my best to finish a solid draft before the end of this year. Why? Well, it may seem strange, but I’m scheduled to visit the United States Penitentiary in Atwater on January 8, 2016.

After speaking at a judicial conference in Sacramento that I wrote about in the introduction, I had a conversation with Warden Andre Matevousian. He extended an open invitation for me to return to Atwater—the prison that released me in 2013—so I could meet his team and make an address to the prisoners inside. I welcomed the opportunity.

Twenty-eight months have passed since I concluded my 9,500-day journey as a federal prisoner. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, which I’ll explain in the chapters that follow. But in order to help readers understand more about how I opened opportunities that few would expect for a man who served so much time in prison, I need to provide some context—at least an abbreviated background.

If you’ve read my earlier books, particularly Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term, you won’t be learning anything new in this chapter. I won’t take the time to provide the same level of detail as I wrote in that book. Those who want a more comprehensive glimpse of my prison journey will find value in Earning Freedom. After this initial chapter, the remainder will show how decisions in prison related to opportunities and success I’ve been building since my release. We’ll start with the backstory.

Background: In 1982, I graduated from Shorecrest High School in Seattle as a mediocre student. Then I started working with my father in a contracting company he established when I was a young boy. My father escaped from Cuba and worked hard to build his company, hoping he would pass the business along to me after I matured. Unfortunately, I disappointed both my father and mother.

When I was 20, in 1984, I saw the movie Scarface, with Al Pacino. Pacino played the character Tony Montana, a super cool Cuban immigrant who built a fortune trafficking in cocaine. Rather than wanting to follow in my father’s footsteps, I made the bad decision to follow guidance from Tony Montana. “In this country, first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the woman.”

I admired Tony’s philosophy.

His outlook on life didn’t work out so well. After seeing the film, I coordinated a scheme to earn quick money by distributing cocaine. Foolishly, I believed that I could shield myself from prosecution. By limiting my role to negotiating transactions and hiring other people to transport the cocaine, or storing the cocaine, I convinced myself that I could avoid the criminal justice system.

On August 11, 1987, I learned how badly I had misinterpreted the criminal justice system. In the late afternoon, I saw three DEA agents pointing guns at my head. They told me I was under arrest. Soon I felt an officer pulling my wrists behind my back and locking them in steel cuffs. My journey began. Over subsequent decades, I’d go through:

Federal holding centers Court proceedings Jails: Pierce County Jail, Kent Jail, Puyallup Jail, USP Atlanta, FCI McKean, Federal correctional Institution, Fairton, United States Penitentiary Lewisburg, Fort Dix, Federal Prison Camp in Florence, Federal prison camp in Lompoc, Federal prison camp, Taft, Federal Prison Camp Atwater. Residential Drug Abuse Program Prisons Halfway house Supervised Release Parole, and Special parole

The pages that follow will show how decisions I made inside influenced my life outside.

It’s my hope that this message will inspire you to begin preparing for your successful outcome.

Transformation after Trial: Wanting nothing more than to get out of jail, I welcomed my attorney’s optimism. When he told me that a big difference existed between an indictment and a conviction, I put my future in his hands. Then I proceeded to make every bad decision a defendant could make.

I refused to accept responsibility. I didn’t contemplate expressing remorse. While in custody, I stayed involved with the criminal enterprise that I had begun. I took the witness stand to testify during my trial and I lied to the jury.

Members of the jury saw through my perjury and convicted me of every count.

A New Philosophy:

After the jury convicted me, the U.S. Marshals retu...

Date I read the book:

Why did I choose to read this book?

What did I learn from reading this book?

How will this book contribute to my prospects for success upon release?

By adhering to that strategy, I read with a deliberate purpose. Every decision had a direct connection to the success that I was determined to become. There were opportunity costs and risks associated with every decision. Since I knew that many people placed a high value on where they positioned their seat in the movie room, or whether they had the authority to change a channel, I avoided television rooms. In fact, every decision I made in prison began with a question.

If I choose to watch television, will that decision advance or hinder my prospects for success upon release?

If I play organized sports, will that decision advance or hinder my prospects for success upon release?

If I play table games, will that decision advance or hinder my prospects for success upon release?

If I associate with one person or another, will that decision advance or hinder my prospects for success upon release?

If I participate in this program, will that decision advance or hinder my prospects for success upon release?

If I express my opinion in a given group, will that decision advance or hinder my prospects for success upon release?

Each question had a purpose. Rather than making decisions that would ease my journey through prison, enhance my reputation in prison, or advance my standing with others in prison, I considered the avatars. I didn’t know the avatars, but each of those avatars existed in my mind and they were real. I considered the people with whom I wanted to associate in the future. Then I contemplated whether a decision would make their support more likely or less likely. As long as my decisions followed that “principled” pathway, I felt as if I were empowering myself. When I empowered myself, I didn’t feel like I was serving multiple decades in prison. Instead, I felt as if each decision advanced my prospects for success, as if each decision represented a new investment that would bring success.

I wasn’t perfect, of course. I made some bad decisions along the way. Yet this strategy I describe above always helped me get back on track.

Can you see how the strategy can help you?

End Game:

During my final years of imprisonment, I knew that I wanted to build a career around my journey. I needed to build products that would communicate a message. Specifically, I wanted to document the journey so that others could see how to sustain energy and discipline over a long period of time and how they could focus in the short term. I wanted to create my own tools to teach others.

Some readers may be familiar with self-help literature. From my perspective, self-help literature reveals a similar recipe. People who succeed follow a pattern.

Stories of Socrates began revealing that pattern more than 2,500 years ago.

The Bible told those same stories more than 2,000 years ago.

Ever since the printed word began conveying ideas, we’ve read those patterns.

We’ve seen over time that the journey of life is a struggle. It doesn’t matter whether someone is in prison or someone struggles through life in society. The one constant is struggle, always struggle. And there is always a pathway through struggle. Authors have written about that pathway in self-help literature since the beginning of the printed word.

We read that message through the work of many masterminds. They include Mahatma Gandhi, Viktor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. We see the same message in people who haven’t personally struggled, but they’ve studied struggle and figured out ways to overcome. Work that makes this truism self evident includes the writing of Stephen Covey, Joel Olsteen, and Anthony Robbins. We see the same message in the work of Jack Welch, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs. What is that message?

Leaders begin by clearly defining success.

They contemplate the pain or challenge they’re experiencing at a given time.

They contemplate steps they can take to build a better outcome.

They create a plan that will lead them to success.

Then they execute the plan.

The first step would be to write a book proposal.

Then I would need to write sample chapters.

Next, I would need to write a cover letter and begin sending self-addressed-stamped envelopes to literary agents.

My research showed that if I could persuade a literary agent to represent me, the literary agent would connect with publishing houses. If editors who worked at the publishing house liked my book, the editor would issue a contract to bring my book to market. It wouldn’t be easy. But prison had conditioned me to deal with rejection.

The book proposal itself required about 30 pages of writing. Sample chapters added another 30 pages. Postage and copy costs would be too high if I were to send the entire package to scores of publishers. I needed a more economical way.

Instead of sending the full book-proposal package, I leveraged off of my earlier work. First, I identified 100 literary agents. Then I wrote a query letter that described my background, my educational credentials, my publishing credentials, and a few sentences about the type of book that I wanted to write. I sent that one-page letter, along with a self-addressed-stamped envelope to the agents. With postage costs and copying, I’d say the total cash outlay was less than $2 an envelope—or $200.

Was the investment in my future worth $200? You be the judge.

That mailing resulted in my securing a relationship with a literary agent. I sent him the full proposal. Within two weeks he secured a publishing contract with St. Martin’s Press. The contract came with compensation that brought more than 1,000 times the initial investment I made in postage. More importantly, libraries and book stores across the country carried my book Inside: Life Behind Bars in America.

St. Martin’s Press published Inside in 2006. The investment of time and energy continues to bear fruit and pay dividends. Many opportunities opened through books I wrote. The books persuaded people to believe that I didn’t just “talk” about wanting to live a life of meaning, relevance, and contribution. Those people had tangible proof. They wanted to invest in me, help me, believe in me.

You too can begin creating credentials that will lead to your success. It’s never too late and it’s never too early to begin preparing for a life of success.

Remember I wrote that my adjustment plan had three components.

My avatars would expect me to educate myself.

They would expect me to contribute to society.

They would expect me to build a support network.

But see how each of those components work together? By educating myself I could create more opportunities to contribute to society. By contributing to society, more people became aware of my work. The more people who became aware of my work, the more people came into my life and offered support. The cycle of success was awesome and empowering. It feeds on itself.

Carole:

As a consequence of the strategy, I met Carole. We married in 2003. At the time I was locked in a low-security prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey and we married inside the visiting room. Carole became my liaison to the world. I’d write by hand and send my manuscripts to her. She’d interact with publishers or work to bring my projects to life. If I hadn’t sown seeds early in my journey, Carole never would’ve come into my life. Yet together, we created a quasi business. My writing generated revenues that supported my wife. We paid taxes. As a consequence of revenues generated by my writing projects, Carole could return to school and earn a nursing degree. All of our efforts were part of a strategic plan, a plan that would allow Carole to live a sustainable life while I prepared for a meaningful career upon release.

In addition to writing books under my own name, I began writing books for other people. Every effort I made began with a single question:

Would this decision advance my prospects for success upon release?

That strategy empowered me through the journey. It dictated the books that I read while I was inside. It dictated the people with whom I associated. It dictated the jobs I tried to secure in prison. It dictated efforts I made to be assigned to the right bunk.

In later chapters, you’ll see how that strategy led to my income opportunities upon release. And you’ll see how those income opportunities allowed me to build an asset portfolio that would contribute to my financial security. Within 28 months of my release from prison, I controlled more than $1 million worth of assets and had equity of more than $500,000. I’d like others to experience even more success. They can do it by learning to ask the right questions.

By asking Socratic questions throughout the journey, I could stay focused on the end result. I wanted to emerge successfully more than anything. So every decision had to relate to success. When reading a bo...

Sentenced to 45-Years:

My judge chose not to impose a life sentence. Instead, he sentenced me to 45 years. I was sentenced under a different set of laws than the sentencing laws that exist today. Under the laws that existed for crimes committed in 1987, I could earn 19-years worth of good-time credits. For readers who don’t know about good time, they’re rewards for avoiding disciplinary infractions. A prisoner didn’t need to do anything particularly good to earn good time. He simply needed to avoid being convicted of violating disciplinary infractions. So long as I didn’t lose any good time during my journey through prison, I would satisfy my sentence after 26 years of imprisonment.

Since I was 23-years-old when authorities took me into custody, I didn’t quite know how to process the concept of serving 26 years. Thankfully, by reading Socrates I had a vision and a strategy. By thinking about my avatars, I could craft a strategy that would allow me emerge successfully. I would focus on that three-pronged goal of working to educate myself, to contribute to society, and to building a support network.

I began serving my sentence in the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, thousands of miles away from where I grew up, in Seattle. While locked inside those high walls, I embarked upon the first prong of my plan. Although I’d been a lousy student in high school, I was determined to become a good student in prison. Why? Because I believed that if I could earn a university degree while incarcerated, people in society would respect me. And if more people respected me, I believed that more opportunities would open.

Since I didn’t have any financial resources, I began writing letters to universities. I wrote to hundreds of universities, not knowing whether anyone would read the letters. Still, I knew that if I didn’t write letters, I wouldn’t stand a chance of connecting with my avatars who lived on the other side of prison walls. Each letter expressed the same message:

I made bad decisions as a young man. As a consequence of those decisions, I served a lengthy term in prison. I wrote that I wanted to educate myself while inside and I asked for help. In time, I found universities to work with me. Those relationships I opened from inside prison walls resulted in my earning an undergraduate in 1992, and a master’s degree in 1995.

After Hofstra University awarded my master’s degree, I began studying toward a Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. Then a warden determined that my education had gone far enough. He put a stop to my formal studies by prohibiting the prison’s mailroom from receiving books that the University of Connecticut’s library would send for my coursework. Fortunately, by then I had eight years of imprisonment behind me. That experience conditioned me to cope well with obstacles.

When my formal studies came to an end, I shifted focus. As I wrote in Earning Freedom and other books, I went through a phase where the stock market consumed all of my time. By studying how investors valued stocks I learned about business. I became fluent with “technical analysis,” learning how to assess a stock’s value in accordance with various trading patterns. By reading financial newspapers and magazines and books, I also learned about “fundamental analysis,” learning the importance of more objective metrics like growth rates, profit margins, return on equity, and other factors.

Studying the stock market, I knew, would be a poor substitute for real business experience. But serving a lengthy term in prison required that I look for “unorthodox” ways to prepare myself for success upon release. And the more I could learn about business, the more I would arm myself for the challenges I anticipated upon release.

What lessons could you learn with the resources you have around you? In the pages and chapters that follow, you’ll see how asking questions inspired me to learn as much as possible. It’s crucial that we use resources around us to prepare for success in our future. Without a deliberate plan, however, we sometimes fail to see the resources. Later, I’ll show the strategy that worked so well for me.

As we approached the turn of the century I crossed over into the second half of my sentence. I had 13 years of prison behind me and 13 years of prison ahead of me. I shifted attention to writing, wanting to advance purposely toward the other two prongs of my adjustment strategy. First I wrote articles and I submitted them for publication. Then I began writing chapters for academic books. In time, one of my mentors offered to introduce me to his publisher. Professor George Cole, from the University of Connecticut, presided over my Ph.D. program and he authored the leading textbook on corrections. George suggested that I write a book for an academic audience that his publisher could package as a supplemental text for university students who were...

California:

As we approached the end of my term, we had to figure out where we wanted to live. When a man served longer than a quarter century, he didn’t really have roots anywhere. We chose California because I’d built a strong support network that would be easier to leverage from a large state. Further, California was a big market and the state had some significant problems with its prison system. Since we wanted to live in a place that offered the best opportunity, California seemed perfect. Besides the opportunity, I liked the weather.

I had another reason to choose California as the place where Carole and I would begin our life together. Toward the end of my sentence I met Justin Paperny, a former stockbroker who served a relatively brief sentence for violating securities laws. We became friends. Justin’s conviction meant that he would need to create a new career for himself upon release. At the time, in 2008, the nation’s economy was sinking. I used Socratic questioning to help Justin see the challenges that awaited him.

“How do you plan on earning a living when you get out?”

“How will the market respond to your conviction?”

“Why would a manager hire you when so many people without felony convictions are looking for employment?”

“In what ways could you turn your experience of going through the criminal justice system as a strength?”

Those questions helped Justin and I figure out a problem. Once we identified the problem, we could figure out solutions. Millions of formerly incarcerated individuals would face the same challenges that were about to complicate Justin’s life. Prison isn’t the only problem. We saw a massive problem with all that transpired after prison. People would need to transition into the job market. I suggested that Justin join efforts I’d been making to create programs and services that improve outcomes for the formerly incarcerated.

When Justin completed his prison term, he established a nonprofit that he named The Michael G. Santos Foundation. We wrote a plan, then began writing proposals for grants to fund our work. Those efforts led to us receiving a two-year grant from The California Wellness Foundation for $140,000. The foundation agreed to provide resources that would pay Justin a salary to manage the foundation, and pay me to write literature and programs we could use to teach strategies for overcoming struggle. Through our work, we anticipated that we could improve outcomes of our nation’s criminal justice system.

Had I not learned to ask the write types of questions early on during my prison journey, I would not have been able to figure out a plan to guide me through the decades. Without a plan, I wouldn’t have been able to educate myself or build credentials. And if I hadn’t earned credentials, I wouldn’t have been able to persuade The California Wellness Foundation to believe in the vision expressed through our grant requests. I’d need to continue that same strategy upon release.

Setting clear goals characterized my entire journey through prison. When I came to the end of my sentence, I knew I had to set goals that would ease my transition into society. At a minimum, I wanted:

Sufficient savings to sustain me for the first year of my transition into society.

A job waiting.

A clear plan to guide me through the first year.

I’m hopeful that readers in custody will see the relationship between decisions and success. Those who make principled, values-based, goal-oriented decisions have a far greater chance of success than those who simply allow the calendar pages to turn.

As a consequence of skills I developed during the first decade of imprisonment, I found ways to add value in society. Although prison rules prevented me from “running a business,” there were other rules that allowed me to write for publication. By understanding how the system operated, I could create strategies that I knew would ease my transition upon release. Executing that strategy every day allowed me to return to society strong. Carole and I had more than $85,000 in the bank on the day of my release. More importantly, we had a plan to guide our future.

Final Takeaways:

I’d like to say the I originated the patterns of success I wrote about in my books. In truth, I learned from masterminds. Lessons from masterminds empowered me through the journey and they can empower you. In writing my books, all I did was rewrite the importance of applying lessons from the world’s leaders. Even in the context of a prison experience, those lessons advanced prospects for success. Through those books, I showed the result of living in accordance with values-based, goal-oriented decisions.

The remainder of this book will show how you can do the same. Regardless of where you are today, regardless of what decisions you’ve made in the past, regardless of what conditions you’re living at present, y...